The Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues (Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia) 9789042939110, 9789042939127, 9042939117

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The Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues

Edited by

Reimund Bieringer, Peter De Mey, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, and Didier Pollefeyt PEETERS

THE SPIRIT, HERMENEUTICS, AND DIALOGUES

ANNUA NUNTIA LOVANIENSIA

LXXVI

The Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues

Edited by

Reimund Bieringer, Peter De Mey, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, and Didier Pollefeyt

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2019

Cover illustration: Mathias Bieringer, 1989 (with permission of the artist). A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher © Uitgeverij Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium) ISBN 978-90-429-3911-0 eISBN 978-90-429-3912-7 D/2019/0602/52

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Introduction Reimund Bieringer, Peter De Mey, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, and Didier Pollefeyt Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues: Exploring Their Interconnectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1. Pneumatology and Hermeneutics Anthony Godzieba The Question, “To What Question Is Biblical Hermeneutics the Answer?” (Time + Identity = Interpretation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Wolfgang Vondey God Is Spirit: Pneumatology as a Challenge to Judeo-Christian Hermeneutics of the Divine Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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John R. Levison Scripture, Spirit, and the Future of Pneumatology . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Ma. Marilou S. Ibita ‘The Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues’ and the Promotion of the Dialogue School in Flanders, Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2. The Spirit and Jewish-Christian Relations John T. Pawlikowski The Holy Spirit: A Possible Foundation for a Catholic Theology of Religious Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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CONTENTS

Laura Tack Christ as the Way and the Spirit as the Guide: Stumbling Blocks and Points of Inspiration in John 14:6 for Jewish-Christian Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 3. The Spirit and Orthodox Theology Ekaterini Tsalampouni The Spirit as a Hermeneutic Lens of Israel’s Past and the Church’s Present and Future: 2 Cor 3:16-17 and Its Reception in Patristic Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Pantelis Kalaitzidis Eschatology and Future-oriented Hermeneutics in Contemporary Orthodox Theology: The Case of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Viorel Coman Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology in the Debates Surrounding the Issue of the Filioque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Epilogue Amy-Jill Levine Four Questions on the Trinity, Pneumatology, and Jewish-Christian Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Select Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Preface On May 25-27, 2016, the international and interdisciplinary conference entitled “The Spirit, Hermeneutics and Dialogues” was held at the Maria Theresia College and the Rector’s Salons in Leuven. This conference was the climax and conclusion of a four-year research project which was made possible by a grant from the Research Council of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. This research project (2013-2016) is the fruit of an interdisciplinary cooperation between three Leuven professors from three different research units of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies: Prof. Reimund Bieringer from the research unit Biblical Studies, Prof. Didier Pollefeyt from the research unit Pastoral and Empirical Theology and Prof. Peter De Mey from the research unit Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions. The project proposal submitted in 2012 was entitled New Hermeneutics for Renewed Dialogues. A Catholic Perspective on Crucial Theological Issues in Jewish-Christian and Ecumenical Dialogues in the Perspective of a Future-Oriented Interpretation of Key Johannine Texts. As the title indicates, the goal of this project was to start from an interpretation of texts of the Gospel of John that played a key role in Jewish-Christian and ecumenical dialogues and to examine a future-oriented hermeneutics that could provide new perspectives on the key issues of the dialogues, and notably from a Catholic perspective. Three researchers were hired to work in this project. Viorel Coman finished a 2017 doctoral dissertation on the issue of the filioque, including its postulated Johannine background, from an Eastern OrthodoxRoman Catholic perspective (supervisor: Peter De Mey, co-supervisor: Reimund Bieringer). The second person in our project team, Laura Tack, completed her doctorate in December 2016 with a dissertation entitled Weg van de waarheid. Een historisch-kritisch en hermeneutisch onderzoek van Joh. 14,6 in het licht van de joods-christelijke dialoog, freely translated: (A)Way from/A Way of the Truth: An Historical-Critical and Hermeneutical Study of John 14:6 in Light of Jewish-Christian Dialogue. This dissertation covered the dimension of the Gospel of John and JewishChristian dialogue (supervisor: Reimund Bieringer, co-supervisor: Didier

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Pollefeyt). A post-doctoral researcher, Dr. Ma. Marilou S. Ibita worked on Jewish-Christian dialogue, education and exegesis. She had completed her doctorate at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Leuven in 2012 with a dissertation entitled: “If anyone hungers, he/she must eat in the house” (1 Cor 11:34): A Narrative-Critical, Socio-Historical and Grammatical-Philological Analysis of the Story of the Lord’s Supper in Corinth (1 Cor 11:17-34). Dr. Ibita joined the team to cover the dimension New Testament, Jewish-Christian dialogue and practical theology. In many conference papers at SBL, EABS and CBL she presented the results of her research and authored a series of articles which have been or are about to be published. The overview of the starting point and the goals of this research project can be summarized in three points. First, one of the main issues in Jewish-Christian dialogues centres on the question of how salvation is realized for both Jews and Christians. The central question ‘after Auschwitz’ (1933-1945) and ‘after Nostra Aetate’ (1965) is, if and how Christians can positively accept that the covenant of God with Abraham and Moses is still being honoured by God after the coming of Christ, and that through it God has provided Jews with unfailing access to truth and life.1 In the attempts of developing such a consistent Christian theology of the ‘never revoked covenant’ (John Paul II, 1980) biblical texts often continue to be stumbling blocks. The most pertinent Scripture text in this discussion is: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NRSV).2 In the era of Pope Benedict XVI within official Catholic thinking about the relation between Judaism and Christianity we noted a reaffirmation of a Christocentric exclusivism, focusing on Christ as God’s exclusive salvific mediator for all people, including the Jewish people. The document Dominus Iesus (2000) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and more recently Benedict XVI’s reformulation of the Good Friday Prayer (for the conversion of the Jews) (2008) are regarded as major crises in Jewish-Christian dialogue and demonstrate that Christian theology did not succeed to enter into a deeper post-supersessionist

1  See John Pawlikowski, Nostra Aetate Today: Reflections 40 Years After Its Call for a New Era of Interreligious Relations (plenary address, Rome, Pontifical Gregorian University, September 25, 2005). 2  Cf. Laura Tack, “Weg van de waarheid? Een historisch-kritisch en hermeneutisch onderzoek van Joh 14,6 in het licht van de joods-christelijke dialoog.” PhD. Diss., Catholic University of Leuven, 2015.

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understanding of the paradoxical nature of the relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church.3 Second, the main areas of divergence among the Christian churches are related to the understanding and implementation of authority in the Church. Still, many scholars are of the opinion that these ecclesiological differences find their root cause in denominational differences involved in explaining the interplay of unity and diversity within the Trinity. In its ecumenical part, this publication contributes to the contemporary debate on the link between Church and Trinity, with particular attention to the issue of the filioque. The decision in the Latin Church to add this word to the Latin translation of one of the major creeds, approved by an ecumenical council, thereby indicating that the Spirit proceeds not only from the Father but also from the Son, was one of the reasons for the great schism between East and West in 1054. For the interpretation of the filioque, for better or for worse, the following text has been crucial in the theological debate: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (John 15:26 NRSV). Undoubtedly relations between Orthodox and Catholic Christians have improved in recent decades, including on this point.4 Important steps in this direction are the occasional omission of the filioque in official liturgies, a decision taken by Pope John Paul II, and his request of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to clarify the current Catholic position in the debate in the document The Greek and the Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit (1995), even if the reception of the latter text was not unambiguously positive.5 Thanks to the Vatican document the theological dialogue between Orthodox and Catholics in the U.S.A. was able to issue an agreed 3  See Mary C. Boys, Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2000) and Mary C. Boys and Sara S. Lee, eds., Christians & Jews in Dialogue: Learning in the Presence of the Other (Nashville, TN: Skylight Paths, 2006). 4  Cf. Reinhard Flogaus, “Wurzel allen theologischen Übels oder soteriologische Notwendigkeit? Zum Verständnis des Filioque in der orthodoxen, römisch-katholischen und evangelischen Theologie des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Die Filioque-Kontroverse: Historische, ökumenische und dogmatische Perspektiven 1200 Jahre nach der Aachener Synode, ed. Michael Böhnke, Assaad Elias Kattan and Bernd Oberdorfer, Quaestiones Disputatae 245 (Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 2011), 134-179 and Johannes Oeldemann, “Das Filioque im ökumenischen Dialog: Die Ergebnisse der bisherigen Dialoge im Überblick,” ibid., 180200. 5  See Alfred Stirnemann and Gerhard Wilfinger, eds., Vom Heiligen Geist: Der gemeinsame trinitarische Glaube und das Problem des Filioque (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1998).

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statement on The Filioque: A Church-dividing Issue (2003). Yet, there is still no ecumenical convergence on the filioque at the level of international dialogue. Third, at the heart of the obstacles in the Jewish-Christian dialogue, there is the role of Jesus Christ for salvation. Reflection on the relationship between Christ, the Spirit and the Father occurs in many ecumenical dialogues. The different and frequently opposing views of the participants in Jewish-Christian and ecumenical dialogues are in many cases based on certain established and mostly unquestioned interpretations of key texts in the New Testament. For this reason we are convinced that the divisive problems cannot be overcome without fundamentally new approaches to these texts. Therefore, it is one of the goals of this research project to investigate the role which specific interpretations of John 14:6 and 15:26 have played in the respective dialogues. Moreover, this project proposed a new hermeneutic which focuses on the dimensions of the Scripture text which project a vision of the (eschatological) future. A future-oriented hermeneutics represents ‘what may be’. It projects a biblically inspired real and possible future from which a critique may be carried out regarding the status quo and a reversal towards exclusivism. This future-oriented hermeneutics fulfills the important role of rupture and transformation and is closely related to liberation-oriented approaches, which are concerned with giving a voice to the voiceless other, as well as to critically engage texts which express an eschatological and prophetic vision of solidarity, relationality and inclusion.6 On the basis of this the project has worked on new interpretations of John 14:6 and 15:26. These new interpretations will substantially contribute to the Catholic position in the dialogues. They will also be a challenge to partners who participate in the dialogue from other faith convictions. This conference was designed to foster interdisciplinary dialogue between the international guests and the international Leuven project team members as well as other researchers from our Faculty, as the list of contributors demonstrates. It is our hope that this scholarly dialogue will be fruitful for the continued ecumenical and Jewish-Christian dialogues on all levels. We are grateful for an exciting and challenging

6  See Reimund Bieringer, “The ‘Normativity of the Future Approach’: The Authority of the Bible for Theology,” in Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 27-45.

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conference with creative papers, unsettling responses and fearless debates which are now made available to a greater public in this book. We express our deep gratitude to all our contributors in this book as well as the Research Council of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for the grant which made this project and this book possible. We thank Prof. Leo Kenis who as editor of Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia accepted the book and helped prepare it for publication. We also thank Prof. Anthony Dupont, the new editor of Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia, for his continued support and interest in this publication. We express our gratitude to Mrs. Rita Corstjens for her efficient and supportive work as well as Mr. Paul Peeters of Peeters Publishers for the pleasant cooperation. The Editors Shavuot/Pentecost 2018 Leuven

Introduction

Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues Exploring Their Interconnectedness Reimund Bieringer, Peter De Mey, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, and Didier Pollefeyt The contributions to the international and interdisciplinary conference entitled “The Spirit, Hermeneutics and Dialogues” held in Leuven on May 25-27, 2016 are presented in this book. The three foci of the conference, the Spirit, hermeneutics and interreligious dialogues are discussed in the papers at varying levels of depth and in various combinations. The contributions are arranged in three parts entitled “Pneumatology and Hermeneutics,” “The Spirit and Jewish-Christian Relations,” and “The Spirit and Orthodox Theology.” It ends with an Epilogue. The first part, Pneumatology and Hermeneutics, consists of four papers. Anthony J. Godzieba’s piece, The Question, “To What Question Is Biblical Hermeneutics the Answer?” (Time + Identity = Interpretation), borrows from and modifies Odo Marquard’s essay title. Marquard previously argued that hermeneutics is a form of compensation, thereby providing answers to the questions of identity (our relation to our pasts) and of the allowable range of interpretation of texts that contribute to the constitution of our identities. Both issues – identity and differences – are central to any dialogue, and hermeneutics is duty-bound to provide principles to address both. In this paper, Godzieba acknowledges Marquard’s point and suggests three principles for biblical interpretation. These three principles are the following: (1) the need to sketch a performance hermeneutics (interpreting a religious tradition is like musical performance), (2) the need to address the temporally truncated context in which our interpretations occur, and (3) the need to address the role that the Trinity plays for the Christian interpreter. Continuing the focus on hermeneutics, Wolfgang Vondey discusses God Is Spirit: Pneumatology as a Challenge to Judeo-Christian Hermeneutics of the Divine Nature. He observes that the pneumatological interpretation of the divine nature has been neglected as a unifying theme by both Jewish theology, which understands the notion of ‘spirit’ in terms of the presence of God but bypasses the question of the ‘Spirit’ as

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distinct hypostasis, and Christian theology, which emphasizes the personhood of the Holy Spirit without accounting also with the term ‘spirit’ for the divine nature. Vondey posits that there is an opportunity to reconcile the two approaches which lies in the joining of pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit with a pneumatology from the perspective of spirit. His essay confirms that the former is an entirely Christian enterprise with its emphasis on divine personhood, while the latter is inspired by Judeo-Christian origins that have since been replaced. Vondey points out that the theological characterizations of the Spirit on both sides have never fully reconciled the realm of substance and nature with the reality of personhood and relationality. Thus, he posits a solution that will necessitate a turn of Christian trinitarian thought to the definitions of divine plurality in terms of the singularity of the divine nature, while Jewish monotheistic theology may seek entrance from the perspective of corporate personality in its ancient history. Vondey is convinced that the charismatic dimension of the spirit may also prove fruitful in further clarifying the pneumatological trajectory. He argues that as a mandate for the future, the reconciliation of both sides demands a pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit as person that is also a pneumatology from the perspective of spirit as designation of the divine nature. Next, John R. Levison’s paper delves into the topic of Scripture, Spirit, and the Future of Pneumatology. For Levison, inspiration and intellect, study and spontaneity, ecstasy and restraint are pairings that lie at the heart of his essay. His article proposes a particular model of inspiration geared toward the future of Christianity, where Pentecostalism continues to emerge unabated alongside the thread of historic Christianity. Rooted in writings from Tanakh, Early Judaism, and the New Testament, Levison discusses the foundation for this unfolding church by demonstrating the thesis that Israelite, early Jewish, and early Christian authors embraced a conception of inspiration, in which ecstasy and intellectual acuity meet. Of the many ancient texts that communicate an appreciation for this form of inspiration, Levison explores three: the story of Jahaziel in 2 Chron 20:14-17, Philo’s reflections on inspiration in three autobiographical texts, and the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. For him, each of these texts offers an ancient model of inspiration that addresses the burgeoning Christian church with a dual set of cautions: in pneumatologies for the twenty-first century, ecstasy must not be allowed to overshadow inspired intellectual acuity, nor must a penchant for intellectual acuity overshadow the essential ingredient of ecstasy.

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In her paper entitled ‘The Spirit, Hermeneutics and Dialogues’ and the Promotion of the Dialogue School in Flanders, Belgium, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita contributes to the focus of the conference by exploring the challenges in religious education. Ibita describes the Catholic religious education in Belgium, particularly in the Dutch-speaking Community in the Region of Flanders as surrounded by factors that further influence the decreasing support for the Catholic identity features of the schools, both at the primary and secondary levels. The combined factors of globalization, multi-causal migration leading to increasing pluralism and religious diversity, growing individualisation, rising secularism, and de-traditionalization prompt the Catholic schools to change their approach of religious education from a Christian Values Education model into a Dialogue School model. In the first section of her paper, Ibita analyzes the 2008-2015 empirical results on the Catholic identity of the Catholic Schools in Flanders. Secondly, she proposes some ways to enhance the Dialogue School pedagogy, the hermeneutical-communicative model and interreligious learning already advocated in Flanders. Ibita also advances the discussion by using a future-oriented or eschatologicallyoriented hermeneutical approach in reading and interpreting biblical stories. She argues that employing this approach in engaging the stories of the Spirit-empowered Jesus in his ministry (Spirit Christology, or better still, Shekinah Christology) and the early church in connection to its Jewish context will help teachers explore ways of recontextualizing biblical texts in forms that can strengthen the Dialogue School model and the school’s Catholic identity. At the same time, this interpretative reading approach help prepare students to become people of dialogue in ethnically and religiously plural contexts such as Flanders, Belgium. Part 2 deals with The Spirit and Jewish-Christian Relations with contributions from John Pawlikowski and Laura Tack. Pawlikowski’s The Holy Spirit: A Possible Foundation for a Catholic Theology of Religious Pluralism points out that biblical scholars have shown the frequent interchangeability of the terms ‘Christ’ and ‘Spirit’ in the New Testament as well as the connection between Christian notions of the Spirit and Jewish notions. He underlines that some of the scholars have termed the narrative on the Spirit in the New Testament as a kind of ‘pescher’ on the book of Joel. Thus, building on this reality, Pawlikowski advances what he calls an ‘Incarnational Christology’ coming from his longstanding effort to reflect on the role of Christology in the Jewish-Christian Dialogue. Incarnational Christology is rooted in pneumatology that

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might lead to a constructive Catholic theology of religious pluralism in a way that neither ‘fulfillment of messianic prophecies’ Christology or ‘blood’ Christology cannot. From a biblical scholar’s perspective, Laura Tack zeroes in on a contested Johannine text. Entitled Christ as the Way and the Spirit as the Guide: Stumbling Blocks and Points of Inspiration in John 14:6 for JewishChristian Dialogue, Tack’s paper recognizes the key Christological expressions in the Fourth Gospel, particularly John 14:6. This text has often been read as the ultimate expression of Jesus’ unique role in revelation and salvation. Tack notes that this interpretation has frequently aggravated Jewish-Christian relations, as is evident from the reception history of the verse. She, however, points out that a positive appraisal of John 14:6 for Jewish-Christian dialogue has not yet been developed. Her paper has a twofold objective. First, it reviews the obstacles for JewishChristian dialogue that are inherent in this verse. Second, it looks for points of inspiration in John 14:6 that could invite Christian readers to participate in a respectful dialogue with Judaism. Tack notes that this double objective calls for a particular methodological approach. Thus, on the basis of a future-oriented hermeneutics, she discusses the difficulties and the possibilities of John 14:6 for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Part 3 expounds on the rich topic of The Spirit and Orthodox Theology. It contains contributions from Ekaterini Tsalampouni and Pantelis Kalaitzidis from a Greek Orthodox perspective and Viorel Coman from a Romanian Orthodox perspective. Tsalampouni, a biblical scholar, contributes with an article that tackles a particular Pauline text and is entitled, The Spirit as a Hermeneutic Lens of Israel’s Past and the Church’s Present and Future: 2 Cor 3:16-17 and Its Reception in Patristic Tradition. 2 Corinthians 3 is undoubtedly one of those Pauline passages that has caused much discussion among biblical scholars. Tsalampouni interprets 2 Cor 3:17 from the perspective of a Spirit-oriented hermeneutic. The first part of her paper offers an exegetical analysis of vv. 16 and 17, and the limits of the prevalent Christological interpretation. In the second part the patristic reception of the verses is presented including Athanasius of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, Didymus of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea, and John Chrysostom. Finally, she draws some conclusions regarding the re-reading of the passage within the context of the contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as regarding the potentiality and the limits of the various hermeneutical traditions.

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From a systematic theologian’s view point, Pantelis Kalaitzidis discusses a contemporary theologian in his article entitled Eschatology and Future-oriented Hermeneutics in Contemporary Orthodox Theology: The Case of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas. Kalaitzidis sees an opening for future-oriented or eschatologically-oriented hermeneutics in the 20th century from the perspective of ecumenical dialogue, especially in worship and liturgical praxis. Kalaitzidis’ article expounds on the history behind this development. His main focus though is found in his exposition of the development and centrality of the future-oriented theology of John D. Zizioulas as the most characteristic example from an Orthodox viewpoint. For him, the Orthodox history of eschatology can be divided into a pre- and post-Zizioulas timeframe. Nonetheless, he also presents two pending issues and critical remarks regarding Zizioulas’ eschatological orientation: a fixation to the Patristic paradigm of the relationship of theology with its contemporary Hellenistic context and the need to articulate the potential social implications of the claim that the Eucharist is a remembrance of the future and an icon of the eschatological kingdom. Also from the lens of a systematic theology, Viorel Coman contributes to the debate with his article Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology in the Debates Surrounding the Issue of the ‘Filioque’. He notes that the ecclesiological synthesis between Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology has been one of the dominant themes in 20th-century Christian theology and an important topic of reflection in the ecumenical debates on the filioque. Coman focuses on four theologians: Dumitru Stăniloae (Romanian Orthodox), John Zizioulas (Greek Orthodox), Yves Congar (French Roman Catholic) and Walter Kasper (German Roman Catholic). Coman argues that, apart from Stăniloae and Kasper, the models proposed by theologians (Congar and Zizioulas, to synthesize SpiritChristology (Christology is conditioned by pneumatology) and LogosChristology (pneumatology is conditioned by Christology) in ecclesiology have failed to correlate the roles of the Son and the Spirit within the sphere of the inner Trinity with their functions in the economy of salvation as well as in the life of the Church. Coman emphasizes that the ecclesiological synthesis between Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology, or between Christology and pneumatology, needs to be anchored into the doctrine of the inner Trinity. Otherwise, the Trinity and the Church do not intersect with each other (ecclesia de Trinitate) but remain two separate or parallel realities (Trinitas et ecclesia). In addition, when the doctrine of the Trinity does not integrate the intuitions of both

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Logos-Christology and Spirit-Christology, the theology of the Trinity, either the Western filioquist or the Eastern monopatrist model, might impact negatively upon ecclesiology. The book closes with an Epilogue contributed by Amy-Jill Levine, Four Questions on the Trinity, Pneumatology, and Jewish-Christian Relations. Levine provides a critical synthetic discussion of the contributions from the starting point of Godzieba’s paper using the metaphor of musical performance. Levine originally only responded to Godzieba’s opening paper during the conference. In the context of the conference discussion, she agreed to expand her response and engage the works of the rest of the participants from her Jewish perspective and from her expertise as a New Testament scholar. Levine expounds on these four questions: (1) What are the songs we are singing? (2) What does a hermeneutics of performance look like? (3) What is the baseline, the heartbeat, of our study? and (4) What new songs might we Jews and Christians sing, whether as a chorus, or antiphonally, or in our own choirs? Her paper shows that although initially doubtful, Levine found important points for Jewish-Christian dialogue from a conference on the Trinity with a particular focus on the Spirit/Shekinah. Overall, the papers in this book address the three interconnected foci (Spirit, Hermeneutic, Dialogues) of the Research Project New Hermeneutics for Renewed Dialogues: A Catholic Perspective on Crucial Theological Issues in Jewish-Christian and Ecumenical Dialogues in the Perspective of a Future-Oriented Interpretation of Key Johannine Texts. They demonstrate a variety of topics and approaches that engage critically the various areas of contentions as well as the exploration of spaces for different levels and ways of dialogues and conversations that move forward the efforts toward a more respectful encounter of Christians with each other and with their Jewish sisters and brothers.

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The Question, “To What Question Is Biblical Hermeneutics the Answer?” (Time + Identity = Interpretation) Anthony J. Godzieba 1. The Art of Compensation Dealing with this topic as a systematic theologian (and thus from outside the field of biblical studies), my contribution to this symposium is more programmatic. My two-fold thesis is already hinted at in my title: a claim that there is one big question that biblical hermeneutics answers, and that identity and temporality are fundamental components of the answer. My title is borrowed, with a slight modification, from a brilliant and skeptical essay by the late philosopher Odo Marquard: “The Question, To What Question Is Hermeneutics the Answer?”.1 Hermeneutics, he argues, is the human reply to finitude and indeed to death itself. Our finitude is marked by two opposing characteristics. On the one hand there is what he calls our “derivativeness”: we carry with us the unavoidable facticity of our past, a “fate,” he says, “that can be escaped only with difficulty or hardly at all.” We are unable, due to the shortness of our lives, to outrun it, to shake free from “the past that is the history of my derivation, as the nonchoice that I am.”2 On the other hand is the problem of “transitoriness”: change always happens too quickly, others around us die before we get a chance to really know them, history rolls on, the meanings of life evaporate before we have a chance to become comfortable with them. “With every death,” he says, “some of the intelligibility of past things, for those who remain alive, dies.”3 We have to deal not only with ever-shifting cultural framings of meaning but with the fact that the past, where these intentions originate and which helps 1  Odo Marquard, “The Question, To What Question Is Hermeneutics the Answer?,” in Farewell to Matters of Principle: Philosophical Studies, trans. Robert M. Wallace (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 111-137. 2  Ibid., 116. 3  Ibid., 118.

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constitute both the present and our identities in the present, inexorably slips away. In the face of this dialectical puzzle that death imposes on us, we must do something. What we do, Marquard says, is interpret. Hermeneutics is the answer to our derivativeness, “a way of changing where no change is possible.” At the same time, hermeneutics is our answer to the world’s transitoriness, “a way of holding fast where one cannot hold fast.”4 This is a strategy of compensation on two fronts. We compensate for derivativeness with what he calls a “distancing” hermeneutics, an act of “unmasking” which seeks to get free from “the historical derivation that … confines us and sustains us,” with the goal of “putting things into a bearable relation to oneself.”5 To compensate for the inevitable transitoriness – our loss of familiarity due to reality’s accelerating changes – we practice an “adapting” hermeneutics (which Marquard also calls an “antiquarianizing hermeneutics”), the attempt to “save the intelligibility of things and of texts in new situations … to which it adapts them.”6 Both hermeneutical strategies compensate for human finitude which copes badly with the simultaneous presence of our evident facticity and the inevitable flux of life. Marquard constantly reminds us that ars longa, vita brevis, and this brevity forces us to deal with the past as both weighty inertia and as fleeting and fleeing meaning. We must do something, so we interpret. Marquard’s insight came into my mind as I read about the contentious disputes that circulated before, during, and after the 2015 Roman Catholic Synod of Bishops on marriage and the family, specifically regarding the New Testament basis for the Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage. How are we to take Jesus’ words on a central human relationship, especially the sayings attributed to him by Matthew which prohibit divorce (Matt 5:31-32 and 19:3-9)?7 In a “distancing” way that views our vastly changed situation as calling for a different approach that nevertheless would retain Jesus’ emphasis on the true meaning of the unity represented by marriage?8 In a more unsubtle “antiquarianizing” 4

 Marquard, “The Question,” 117, 119.  Ibid., 117. 6  Ibid., 119. 7  For an earlier analysis of these texts, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s classic essay, “The Matthean Divorce Texts and Some New Palestinian Evidence,” Theological Studies 37 (1976): 197-226. 8  Cardinal Walter Kasper’s suggestion seems to be of this type. See his The Gospel of the Family, trans. William Madges (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2014). 5

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way by insisting that there can be no change to Jesus’ absolute prohibition, thus conflating the distant past with the present?9 We have here only the latest in a long series of interpretational dilemmas (e.g., the status of gender roles in Genesis; the role of Hellenistic household codes in Paul) that provoke questions about the intentionality of biblical hermeneutics. The answer to my question, I want to argue, is this: biblical hermeneutics most fundamentally answers the question of the identity of one’s self and one’s fellow believers before God, an identity that is constituted over time. The question raised at the synod regarding the meaning of Jesus’ words in Matthew proves the first part of this statement: what has been at stake in that particular discussion, we have been told, is nothing less than Catholic identity and its integrity. I take for granted here that when believers and others come to the sacred scriptures of a religious tradition and treat them indeed as “sacred,” they never approach them merely for historical information but most especially in order to establish, heal, or deepen their personal relationship with the divine reality revealed in and by those scriptures. They thereby actualize the possibilities that they believe constitute their identities, possibilities that have developed over time and that are realized over time. That hermeneutics is about identity is not news. In the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer argued for human identity as “historically effected consciousness” which guides us in realizing our possibilities for being.10 And Paul Ricoeur, in arguing for the three “worlds” of any text – the historically-situated intention from which the text arises (the world behind the text), the narrative world created by the text (the world of the text), and the proposed new possibilities for existence revealed by the text (the world in front of the text) – made the point that, since the self is never immediately transparent, it needs interpretation to arrive at any identity. “To understand oneself,” he says, “is to understand oneself in front of the text.”11 Pointing out that 9  See, e.g., Robert Dodaro, ed., Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2014). 10  Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 301. 11  Paul Ricoeur, “Phenomenology and Hermeneutics,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. and trans. John B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 101-128, at 113 (Ricoeur’s emphasis). See also, in the same volume, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,” 131-144, at 143: “Ultimately, what I appropriate is a proposed world. The latter is not behind the text, as a hidden intention would be, but in front of it, as that which the work unfolds, discovers, reveals. Henceforth, to

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understanding “the self” (a modern invention) and “the self with others” are not specifically ancient biblical notions is not the issue here, since biblical hermeneutics as practiced today, despite its ancient roots, is itself a modern invention. What is the point is precisely how we craft that identity in the present through interaction with the long religious tradition of which the Bible is a part, and what kinds of openings and constraints influence interpreted identity. So how is this all done? My main focus here is Marquard’s fundamental point, expressed in terms of my own biblically-rooted Roman Catholicism: how do we come to a bearable relation with the originating past, in the most positive sense, while constituting our identities before God, both as individuals and as members of the church? Using my own religious tradition – an ensemble of practices, reflections, and expressed faith-claims – as an example, and I will show how that relational identity of self and others with the triune God can be accounted for in two ways: first, by demonstrating that it develops out of the unity and diversity inherent in the scriptural texts; second, by understanding the basic framework of interpretation as performative over time – i.e., a performance hermeneutic is essential to the constitution of religious identity. My suggestion is that these two intertwining aspects function as the fundamental pattern for all biblical hermeneutical endeavors. 2. The New Testament Clue: Unity, Diversity, Performance The New Testament’s christological confessions provide an important clue regarding part of the answer to our question, that clue being the necessary balance between unity and diversity that forms the basis of one’s faith identity.12 First there is, as James Dunn puts it, “the integrating centre for the diverse expressions of Christianity,” namely Jesus himself and “the affirmation of the identity of the man Jesus with the risen Lord, the conviction that the heavenly reality known in kerygma and scripture, understand is to understand oneself in front of the text. It is not a question of imposing upon the text our finite capacity of understanding, but of exposing ourselves to the text and receiving from it an enlarged self…” 12  This section and the following one borrow material from my essay “‘…And Followed Him on the Way’ (Mark 10:52): Unity, Diversity, Discipleship,” in Beyond Dogmatism and Innocence: Hermeneutics, Critique, and Catholic Theology, ed. Anthony Godzieba and Bradford E. Hinze (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 228-254.

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in community, worship and religious experience generally is one and the same Jesus of whom the Jesus-tradition speaks.”13 That affirmation was not read back into the Jesus-tradition from later insights, but rather “was rooted in Jesus’ own understanding of his relationship with God, with his disciples and with God’s kingdom.”14 To use Edward Schillebeeckx’s pithy formulation, “We must view him in this way, because this is how he is.”15 The recent work of Dunn and others on the oral traditioning of early communities’ memories of Jesus provides an extended demonstration of this.16 This christological center is at the foundation of the unifying roles played by Easter faith, the experience of God’s sending of the Spirit throughout the early Christian communities, and what Larry Hurtado has shown to be the binitarian confession that eventually developed into a trinitarian one.17 But at the same time this unifying conviction was lived out in different situations and expressed in diverse formulations. Most obviously, besides the four canonical gospel portraits there are many others besides, each with a particular narrative frame and a distinctive view of Jesus. Paul’s identification of God’s Son “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3) with the risen Lord who “was raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25) differs from Mark’s identification of the Son of God (1:1) with the suffering Son of Man. The Acts of the Apostles presents the very different exhortations to belief in Jesus by Peter in Jerusalem and Paul in the Areopagus (Acts 2:14-40; 17:22-31). The author of John’s gospel “presents the earthly Jesus already in terms of his exalted glory.”18 And diversity extends far beyond language patterns into practices. As Dunn notes, “there was no single normative form of Christianity in the first  James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, 3rd ed. (London: SCM, 2006), 403 (integrating centre), 245 (affirmation of identity). Here and elsewhere, the emphases are Dunn’s. 14  Ibid., 403. 15  Edward Schillebeeckx, Interim Report on the Books Jesus and Christ, The Collected Works of Edward Schillebeeckx, vol. VIII, trans. John Bowden (London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 3-16, at 10 (= 3-19, at 11 of the 1981 translation). 16  See, e.g., James D. G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making. Volume 1: Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). 17  Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 437-442 (sending of the Spirit); Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2003) (binitarianism, trinitarianism). See also Anthony J. Godzieba, “The Trinitarian Mystery of God: A ‘Theological Theology’,” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, ed. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011), 131-199, at 144-153. 18  Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 245. 13

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century,” but varied types, “each of which viewed others as too extreme in one respect or other – too conservatively Jewish or too influenced by antinomian or gnostic thought and practice, too enthusiastic or tending towards too much institutionalization.”19 The metaphor employed by James Robinson and Helmut Koester in the 1970s to explain the relationships among early Christian writings, “trajectories,” is helpful here, and can be combined with Walter Kasper’s characterization of the Easter event as the “initial ignition” of Christianity in order to describe its dynamic development in various directions of communities of believers (and not just the literary after-effects).20 Certain confessional trajectories had the power to emerge from this origin and become dominant (e.g., Pauline ecclesial organization, Johannine high christology), while others lost effectiveness by failing to express adequately what the wider church considered to be the essence of Jesus’ identity and soteriological significance (e.g., the communities behind Q or the Gospel of Thomas). None of this ongoing development would happen without the active reception of Jesus’ person, praxis, and message. In Christianity, this active reception takes the form of embodied, historically situated, and temporally extended performance; that performance is called “discipleship” – following Jesus, living a Jesus-like life. “Christian identity,” as the moral theologian William Spohn remarks, “comes from identifying with the person, cause, and community of Jesus Christ, which are inseparable.”21 And so alongside Dunn’s integrating christological center we must consider this other unifying element, the performative one that includes the possibilities of its own diversity. My argument about performance is a relatively simple one. In making it, I follow two of Gadamer’s cardinal rules of hermeneutical understanding. First, the moment of understanding is the moment of interpretation is the moment of application.22 Understanding and interpretation are ontological; they pertain to the actualization of the interpreter’s temporally-situated possibilities-for-being. The truth of any text, work of art, or musical work – and, for our purposes here, the biblical text – can only be grasped when applied to the interpreter’s own lived experience and  Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 407.  James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1971); Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, new ed. [trans. V. Green] (London/New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2011), 112. 21  William C. Spohn, Go and Do Likewise: Jesus and Ethics (New York, NY: Continuum, 2000), 164. 22  Gadamer, Truth and Method, 307-341, esp. 308. 19

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possibilities, when there is a fusion of the horizon of the historicallysituated catalyst with the horizon of the historically-situated interpreter. This fusion of horizons does not erase the temporal distance between them, the “pastness” of the past. Rather, the temporal distance remains and is productive. It reveals both difference and continuity, allowing the interpreter to see where the past’s presence in the present has shaped to some degree the pre-judgments, interests, and questions of the interpreter.23 The second rule is that any tradition is a “history of effects” (Wirkungsgeschichte) and that all understanding is a consciousness effected by history.24 To be part of a tradition means that one is, so to speak, standing in a stream with its origins far upstream, a stream that includes the contributions of others and is shared with others. What constitutes the stream and flows past one’s ankles – that is, what influences the interpreter’s pursuit of understanding and identity – is all the material that had originally entered at points upstream in time. One can accept, reject, or vary that material, but one is always already formed and influenced by it. Thus a double hermeneutic ensues: not only is it necessary to interpret works against the background of their own historical horizons of expectations, but the interpreter has her/his own horizon of expectations against which she/he needs to be interpreted as well.25 Discipleship is the Christian applicative moment – embodied, traditionsituated and temporally-saturated. There is no understanding of how God’s salvation is revealed to us in Christ without the applicative moment of living a Jesus-like life and imagining one’s possibilities in light of the values of the Kingdom of God. The New Testament expresses it in many ways: following Jesus, living in Christ, remaining in Jesus, being members of the body of Christ, and so forth.26 Mark’s gospel 23  Gadamer, Truth and Method, 306: “… the horizon of the present cannot be formed without the past. There is no more an isolated horizon of the present in itself than there are historical horizons which have to be acquired. Rather, understanding is always the fusion of these horizons supposedly existing by themselves” [emphasis original]. 24  Ibid., 341-379. 25  On the “double hermeneutic” and its inevitability in theology, see Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1984), 291-292. This can be extended mutatis mutandis to all understanding. 26  For variants of expression, see Fernando F. Segovia, ed., Discipleship in the New Testament (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985); Richard N. Longenecker, ed., Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), esp. 1-5; Joel B. Green et al., eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), s.v. “Disciples and Discipleship” (M. J. Wilkins), 202-212; Spohn, Go and Do Likewise, 164-165.

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presents a paradigmatic case. Along with Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem as the suffering messiah, the entire second half of the gospel foregrounds authentic discipleship, seeing it pointed squarely in the direction of the cross. The episode where the blind Bartimaeus is healed (Mark 10:46-52) leaves us in no doubt about this. Mark’s narrative quickly eliminates the Twelve (who in the previous pericope [10:35-45] have abjectly failed to understand the meaning of discipleship) as well as the vacillating crowd, leaving only Jesus and Bartimaeus. The question-answer ping-pong effect of their concluding dialogue (10:51-52) directly equates “faith” with “sight,” with spiritual insight. It is with both physical sight and spiritual insight, then, that Bartimaeus, at the close of the episode, “followed him on the way” (10:52) – the way that leads to Jerusalem, suffering, the cross, and to resurrection. Authentic discipleship for Mark and his community, then, is embodied in Bartimaeus and in his faith that following in the steps of Jesus, who earlier defined his mission in terms of service rather than power (10:42-45), is the way to experience God’s saving presence. The key in Mark is praxis, living a Jesus-like life, and the responsibility of the gospel’s audience as faithful disciples is to spread the good news of salvation.27 The diversity of forms used by the New Testament books to express particular ways of “following” share this fundamental insight. “Christ also suffered for you,” says the First Letter of Peter, “leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps” (2:21). Or we can apply Rowan Williams’ more contemporary idiom: “Christianity is a contact before it is a message. … If the risen Jesus is not an idea or an image but a living person, we meet him in the persons he has touched, the persons who, whatever their individual failings and fears, have been equipped to take responsibility for his tangible presence in the world.”28 Discipleship shares with Dunn’s integrating christological center the same dialectic of unity-and-diversity. In both instances we are confronted with an identity marker as well as the reality of multiple authentic ecclesial variations; the obvious historical variability and even 27  Mark’s critique of the Twelve’s failure to understand Jesus and his message has been a staple of Markan scholarship since Theodore J. Weeden’s Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1971). For a convincing reading of Mark’s rhetorical ability to invest his audiences with the responsibility of discipleship, see Paul Danove, “The Narrative Rhetoric of Mark’s Ambiguous Characterization of the Disciples,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 70 (1998): 21-38. 28  Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 92-93.

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improvisation do not leave identity behind, and in fact are the only ways identity can be experienced. What kind of an explanatory scheme or metaphor can we use to explain how this happens? How do we present this unifying truth of Christian ecclesial life that is not some ahistorical essence but rather a truth that can only be experienced in the midst of shifting historical incarnations? Already in the 1980s Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza argued for the advantages of treating the biblical witness as an historical prototype allowing variation rather than as an invariant archetype to be applied strictly and ahistorically in differing cultural settings. She recognized that one needs to account for the differing historical manifestations of Christian liberative praxis revealed by historical-critical and social-cultural studies of the bible and its world.29 But in my view her insightful suggestion suffers from the same inadequacy that metaphors of “framework,” “foundation,” and even Dunn’s “center” have: they are grounded in either a literary understanding or a visual or mechanical metaphor, and thus are too static. They work against what the Tübingen philosopher Manfred Frank has called “the unforseeability of interpretation” that arises from the encounter between a guiding structural form and personal freedom. The result of this encounter is a particular “style” that is determined by neither form nor subjectivity alone, and could never be coerced or rigidly codified in a system of rules or discourse.30 If anything, the diversity of historical responses to the risen Lord demand an explanation that allows more flexibility, more flow, more temporally-saturated elements. It must be one that counts difference not as a problem to be solved but as a necessary precondition for any understanding whatsoever of Jesus, his praxis, his preaching, and his death and resurrection. 3. A Performance Hermeneutic There is a close analogy between the musical work and its performance and a deeper understanding of the truth of interpreted biblical identity and its reception. A performance hermeneutic is the most 29  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Women-Church: The Hermeneutical Center of Feminist Biblical Interpretation,” in Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984), 1-22, esp. 9-15. 30  Manfred Frank, “Toward a Philosophy of Style,” trans. Richard E. Palmer, Common Knowledge 1 (1992): 54-77, at 54-56, 76; Frank, Stil in der Philosophie (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1992), 49-53, 83-85.

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adequate way to discern the truth and the underlying logic of the biblical tradition, which is an ensemble of practices, beliefs, and reflections. The Christian reception of this tradition, our example, is like music because (a) following the claims of its incarnational logic and the New Testament’s logic of discipleship, it needs to be performed/interpreted in space and time in order for the salvific truth of the scriptures to be fulfilled, and (b) each performance carries with it the history that has preceded it. The comparison works because the “intentional object” that is the musical work is already both a multi-layered interpretation of a previously sedimented tradition and an improvisation within a historicallyconstituted genre, both of which require duration over time.31 The intended truth of the musical work occurs in its authentic fulfillment only when realized in particular, varied performances in space and time. The identity-difference dialectic should be readily apparent. Any written score is an historically-situated schematic identity (either more or less detailed) that needs to be filled in and concretized by uniquely varied moments of performance.32 Experiencing the truth of the biblical tradition is a similar process: as a three-dimensional temporal truth, it unites a past (that is always already interpretive) with future possibilities, all at the moment of their incipient realization in the always different present. The key here is temporality. In its various guises and various construals of reality, the Christian reception of the biblical tradition brings its past – i.e., its origins, the lived experiences of discipleship which effectively and affectively respond to those origins, and the effects of those effects – into a relationship with an ever-changing present by means of temporally-projected participative acts. With one’s performative interpretation of the elements of that tradition – performance in the present – one discloses the past’s future possibilities to be discerned, actualized, made effective, and savored.  For “improvisation” in this context, see Bruce Ellis Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Benson, “The Improvisation of Hermeneutics: Jazz Lessons for Interpreters,” in Hermeneutics at the Crossroads, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James A. K. Smith, and Bruce Ellis Benson (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 193-210. For the difference between the “intentional” and “real” existence of musical works, see Roman Ingarden, Ontology of the Work of Art, trans. Raymond Meyer and John T. Goldthwait (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1989), 27-46, 90-94. 32  Performances are never identical, even when performers aim for rote repetition (“just like the recording”). They are varied by many factors, such as the acoustic of the space, the mood of the performers and the audience, the physical state of instruments and voices, etc. 31

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How might we illustrate this thesis and the principle of variation that is clearly built into the biblical witness? A good example comes from Western art music, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988.33 This keyboard work consists of an “aria,” thirty variations of thirty-two bars each (16+16, with each half repeated), and then a repeat (da capo) of the aria at the end. The key point is that the movements that follow the aria are not thirty variations on the aria’s melody, but rather thirty different melodies built on the aria’s fundamental bass line:

Bach probes this 32-bar harmonic sequence for every possibility it offers and creates “thirty distinct essays exploring the language and genres of music as its composer understood them.”34 The collection is richly diverse; there are, among other genres, a two-part invention (variation 1), various canons and fugues (e.g., variation 10), a French overture (variation 16), a heart-breaking lamento (variation 25), and a virtuoso showpiece (variation 29). Thus, thirty different melodies built on the same foundational bass line (and Bach sketched even more possibilities on a blank page of his personal copy of the print).35 What is more remarkable is the fact that the bass line never appears in its hypothetical original 33  Original title: Clavier-Übung: Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen (Keyboard Exercise: Aria with Diverse Variations). For the critical edition, see Johann Sebastian Bach, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke [NBA], Serie V, Band 2: Zweiter Teil der Klavierübung/Vierter Teil der Klavierübung [Goldberg Variations]/Vierzehn Kanons, ed. Walter Emery and Christoph Wolff, BA 5048-01 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1977). I rely on the following analyses: Johann Sebastian Bach, The “Goldberg” Variations, ed. Ralph Kirkpatrick (New York, NY: G. Schirmer, 1938), vii-xxviii (Kirkpatrick’s preface); David Schulenberg, The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006), 369-388; Peter Williams, Bach: The Goldberg Variations, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 34  Williams, Bach, 35. The extracted bass line is taken from Schulenberg, Keyboard Music, 377. 35  Fourteen Canons, BWV 1087. Bach envisioned even more possibilities: in the bottom right corner, he wrote “Et c.” For the critical edition, NBA V/2, see above, n. 33. See also Christoph Wolff, “The Handexemplar of the Goldberg Variations,” Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 162-177.

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form, but only within each number as altered with passing notes, chromatic inflections, and embellishments. Any “pure” form of the bass (as seen above) has to be extracted from the thirty-one examples. The fundamental bass and its implied harmonies are always in the background, guiding the unfolding logic of the piece while allowing freedom in the creation of the upper melodies. The Goldbergs are not the only example of such unity-in-diversity; it can also be seen, for instance, in any jazz riff on a standard melody that eventually forsakes the melody while following its unfolding harmonic framework. The main point is that musical performance in general is the most adequate metaphor for explaining the lived application of the biblical tradition. This is so because like any musical performance, biblical interpretation plays out in time; it needs actualization in time and in sound to reveal its identity and meaning.36 In the Goldbergs, the harmonic sequencing that unfolds in time determines the fundamental flow of the variation’s composition, but does not predict what the completed form of the variation will be. Bach’s teeming creative imagination – his ability to take the germ of a musical idea and exhaust its possibilities while at the same time transcending its original limits – is always guided by the underlying harmonic framework but is not scripted by it. In the midst of composition, almost anything goes, as long as it adheres to the rule of the harmonic sequencing of the bass line. The almost wild diversity of genres attests to this. The various pieces have little in common but the harmonic logic of the bass line that structures them and takes time to unfold through a series of dissonances and consonances, tensions and releases, to a satisfying close or cadence. The identity of each piece is established over time. The resulting work is an exemplar of the “unforseeability of interpretation.” Performances in real time of the Goldbergs mirror this: even based on what might appear to be a fixed printed “piece,” the performance itself – for oneself or for an audience – is different each time due to the changing affects of performer and listeners, the ambience of the room, the state of the instrument, etc. The identity of the piece is activated anew and differently in performance over time.

36  This applies to non-tonal pieces as well. In John Cage’s famous 4’33”, the pianist, with minimal gestures, sits silently at the instrument for precisely that length of time and thereby “reveals” the ambient sounds around the performer and the audience as music. The subtly shifting (and mesmerizing) percussive and melodic effects of Steve Reich’s four-movement Drumming need around an hour and a half to unfold.

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When biblical interpretation articulates the New Testament’s christological claim and its call to discipleship, those elements have the same function as the Goldbergs’ bass line: they provide the unifying background shaping impetus to the varied lived experiences of Christian life throughout the centuries. The truth of Christian life is grounded in the continual incarnational impetus which is never isolatable “as is” but is available only in particular embodiments. Christians experience the love of God through the incarnated grace of Christ offered to us in living a Jesus-like life in light of the Paschal Mystery. That grace perdures in us and in the world through the power of the Spirit who offers us fellowship, a participation in that divine love (2 Cor 13:13). Discipleshipas-application is thus a necessity, as Jesus tells the lawyer at the close of the Good Samaritan pericope: “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). It is also fundamentally trinitarian. The sole reason for the Christian tradition is to incarnate this participation, and it does so by a series of provocations and receptions: a history of effects constituted over time. One’s identity as a Christian is therefore best viewed as the embodied performance of discipleship over time, built on the fundamental logic of the Incarnation and its sacramentalizing of particularity, and applied in diverse historical and cultural contexts and as an ensemble of practices, beliefs, and reflections. Time plus the pursuit of one’s religious identity (and indeed one’s fully human identity) equals the acts of interpretation necessary to apply the truth of the tradition. The tradition never loses sight of its origins in the practices of Jesus of Nazareth and his followers, and indeed presents them through the means of effective performative receptions that occur further “downstream.” This means that Christian applicative practice is both “what would Jesus do?” and always more than this, since every present receptive performance responds to all of its pasts, Jewish and Christian, whether overtly or covertly. At the same time, the performers of the tradition also can never ignore the current context in which discipleship is being lived and where the truth of the salvific tradition is being applied. What is crucial here is the aspect of temporality. That is why music and its interpretation, in my view, offer the most adequate analogy for understanding the biblical text and its trajectories. Only musical composition and performance convey the combination of unity, variety, and duration that helps explain the authentic diversity of the truths of the text and its ecclesial expressions. A musical work is temporally saturated in two ways: always historically situated, coming out of a particular epoch and interacting with that epoch’s genres, but also inherently an

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arrangement of time: it takes time to perform its unique configuration and sequencing of tonal and rhythmic events.37 We could use words like “concretized” and “articulated” to express the historical particularity of Christian lives and to make the necessary connection between those lives and divine revelation’s incarnated particularity that is central to Christian belief.38 But those valid descriptions bypass any acknowledgment that embodied discipleship is constituted and developed individually and communally only over real time in the following sequence: the moment of understanding (of the divine truth disclosed in the historically-situated biblical books) is the moment of interpretation (of how these truth claims affect the lives of self and others) is the moment of application (of the possibilities of fulfillment that the truth claims mediate to us). The believing community is simultaneously its past, the appropriation of this past through performances in the present, and its eschatological liberative praxis. The ensemble of temporally-saturated practices and reflections that constitute the tradition as a history of effects guided by the Spirit unfolds and accumulates receptions both in time and over time. The synthesis that we make of these practices and reflections – seeing them as an “ensemble” – can be experienced only from particular points in the temporal horizon. Of necessity it is a limited synthesis, much like our experience of any piece of music: we grasp its identity without being able to synthesize all of its performances. So by its very nature Christianity’s incarnational logic and exhortation to follow Jesus are expressed in a dialectic of unity and diversity. Difference and its counterpart temporality are not problems to be solved and dismissed, but rather the necessary ways we have access to revelation, its plenteous grace, and the ongoing epiphanies of the Spirit that confirm our participation in it. Seen from the angle of the believer, the entire process of unity-indifference/difference-in-unity takes on a trinitarian appearance, grounded in the economic Trinity: the Father sending the Son to proclaim the saving acts of the Kingdom of God which unfold in particular instantiations over time guided by the Spirit. If we follow Walter Kasper and jettison a “substance metaphysics” approach to God in favor of one 37  This holds true for any musical work, from chant to “Happy Birthday” to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the latest pop or rock hit played in heavy rotation. 38  “Incarnated particularity” is fundamental to all Christian faith claims. See Anthony J. Godzieba, Lieven Boeve, and Michele Saracino, “Resurrection – Interruption – Transformation: Incarnation as Hermeneutical Strategy,” Theological Studies 67 (2006): 777-815.

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grounded in the metaphor of “person” and thus come closer to the scriptural relational understanding of God (especially 1 John 4:16, “God is love”),39 it is no surprise to discover the triune God engaged in revelatory performances over time in which we are invited to participate. 4. The Eclipse of Time My analysis, though, has omitted one thing: the disturbing eclipse of time and narrative in contemporary culture. The temporal duration necessary for discipleship’s implications to unfold and be discerned is becoming literally inconceivable. The applicative moment of biblical hermeneutics is already positioned by cultural, economic, and technological factors that threaten to overwhelm our narrative imaginations. Recent cultural studies have shown that the accelerated pace of contemporary life leads paradoxically to its “de-temporalization.” We complain about “having no time” to get things done, despite the promise of digital technologies to help us control the constant onslaught of fragmentary waves of information. But, as media theorist Douglas Rushkoff argues, it is a false hope: “For not only have our devices outpaced us, they don’t even reflect a here and now that may constitute any legitimate sort of present tense. They are reports from the periphery, of things that happened moments ago.”40 Postmodern culture, he says, suffers from “narrative collapse,” due to the loss of optimism about the future and brought on by overwhelming events like terrorism and the implosion of the economy. That collapse is mirrored in the “presentist” popular culture that shapes much of our everyday experience: goal-directed narrative arcs once used by television dramas have been replaced by shows “characterized by frozenness in time, as well as by the utter lack of traditional narrative goals.”41 Without a telos, the popular search for meaning looks instead to drama generated by disconnected spectacles of attentiongrabbing behavior, such as reality TV’s stock-in-trade of humiliation and 39  See Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, new ed., trans. [Matthew J. O’Connell and] Dinah Livingstone (London/New York, NY: Continuum, 2012), 152-157. See also Anthony J. Godzieba, “The Promise and the Burden of Natural Theology,” in The Theology of Cardinal Walter Kasper: Speaking Truth in Love, ed. Kristin M. Colberg and Robert A. Krieg (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 42-58; id., A Theology of the Presence and Absence of God (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018), 158-168. 40  Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (New York, NY: Current/Penguin, 2013), 74. 41  Ibid., 31.

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personal tragedy.42 The loss of narrative is also mirrored in contemporary politics, with its hair-on-fire chaotic decision-making and inability to construct or even envision long-term goals.43 The social theorist Hartmut Rosa has a name for such “now-ism”: social acceleration. It has, he says, three elements: technical acceleration (“the intentional … acceleration of goal-directed processes”), the acceleration of social change (where past experiences no longer meet present expectations, causing the present as a time-span of social stability to “contract”), and acceleration of the pace of life (where we experience the contraction of the present as “the scarcity of time resources” and the anxious compulsion to “keep up”).44 The way we conceive of both individual and social life thereby changes: “life is no longer planned along a line that stretches from the past into the future” but rather is governed by short-term decisions in response to constant waves of “unforeseeable contingencies” and the overwhelming needs and desires of the moment. The result, Rosa argues, is an “incapacity to engage in long-term commitments,” which in turn leads to “a paradoxical backlash in which the experience of frantic change and ‘temporalized time’ give way to the perception of ‘frozen time’ without (a meaningful) past and future and consequently of depressing inertia.”45 Rosa argues that this “de-temporalization of time” affects not only individual identities; social identities and political decisions are also pervaded by directionless inertia masquerading as frantic change, resulting in the “disappearance of politics.”46 We are left with an apparent unsolvable dilemma: social acceleration reveals a range of human possibilities that is wider than ever, but our abilities to survey these possibilities and decide among them remains as truncated  Rushkoff, Present Shock, 37: “Without the traditional narrative abc at their disposal, producers of reality TV must generate pathos directly, in the moment. … What images and ideas can stop the channel surfer in his tracks?” 43  Ibid., 47: “Policy, as such, is no longer measured against a larger plan or narrative; it is simply a response to changing circumstances on the ground, or on the tube. … What used to be called statecraft devolves into a constant struggle with crisis management. Leaders cannot get on top of issues, much less ahead of them, as they instead seek merely to respond to the emerging chaos in a way that makes them look authoritative.” 44  Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, trans. Jonathan Trejo-Mathys (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2013), 71-80, at 71 (goaldirected), 76 (contraction of the present), 79 (scarcity); Rosa, “Social Acceleration: Ethical and Political Consequences of a Desynchronized High-Speed Society,” Constellations 10/1 (2003): 3-33, at 6-10. 45  Rosa, “Social Acceleration,” 19-20; see also 25: “The inability to control social change has brought an overwhelming sense of directionless change in an ‘iron cage’ that itself has become fundamentally inert.” 46  Ibid., 20-22. 42

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as before. We are overwhelmed and can’t keep up. The result is ominous: the pace of everything around us (“increasingly contingent and revisable”) accelerates, while our own “loss of direction, priorities, and narratable ‘progress’” causes us to decelerate into inertia.47 It is this squeezed, truncated contemporary situation in which biblical hermeneutics operates, where its analyses of an almost inconceivable past are announced, and in which Christian discipleship is embedded, at least where consumer capitalism and its technologies prevail. For example, various forms of biblical fundamentalism and of contemporary Catholic dogmatism – in other words, attempts to reduce Christianity to a single identity-marker or a “brand” – are capitulations to this inertia even while claiming to resist the cultural changes that provoke it. They are exemplars of the cultural framework they claim to be critiquing, anxietyprone reactions to the accelerated speed of social change and overwhelming difference. They are also ways of minimizing the lived performance of discipleship and the basic need for these applicative moments to play out over time in order to clarify their meaning. Dogmatist construals of religious identity which make a show of resisting a “culture of relativism” are implicated in postmodern inertia when they equate a temporally contingent synthesis with the “essence” of the Christian tradition, and then go on to claim that synthesis as perennial (a temporal claim) or absolute (a metaphysical claim). In doing so, the temporally unfolding “harmonic logic” of doxology, soteriology, liberative praxis, and discipleship – the identity-difference dialectic of the scriptures and the ongoing Christian tradition – is betrayed. 5. Time + Identity = Interpretation Let’s return to the beginning: the question that biblical hermeneutics answers is the question of the identity of one’s self and one’s fellow believers before God, an identity that is constituted over time. In other words, time plus the pursuit of one’s religious identity equals what we do in order to constitute that identity, namely interpret and apply the truth of the tradition. As we’ve seen, this one-sentence summary hides a complex interplay of unity, diversity, temporality, and contemporary cultural constraints. What, then, is the role of biblical hermeneutics in an unavoidable situation of social acceleration? How can we have  Rosa, “Social Acceleration,” 27. See also Social Acceleration, 80-93.

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productive access to the scriptures that ground the responses to the most fundamental question of our identity before God? How does biblical hermeneutics deal with the eclipse of time and narrative that affects our experience of discipleship, and the temptation to detemporalize Christian faith? If Christianity is indeed like music, biblical hermeneutics has a crucial role to play. Here we need to recall the temporal structure of the musical work as an intentional object: it contains elements that succeed each other in a determined order and are qualitatively modified by some or all of the preceding and following elements. A religious tradition is a Wirkungsgeschichte, a history of diverse effects and receptions that succeed each other over time, and it functions in a way similar to music, following a fundamental “harmonic” logic while allowing for particular improvisations. It is important to emphasize that I am not downplaying the valid and necessary exercise of expressing the truths of the Christian tradition as “ecclesial benchmarks” (the creeds, for example) that memorialize the insights the church has gained over a period of time; this is a task deeply embedded in Christian history. But to express the fundamental truths of Christianity’s biblical sources only as a set of infinitelyrepeatable identity markers or propositions, or to conflate the past and the present and stop at “what would Jesus do?,” are attempts to take an immovable stand within the temporal flow of applications and articulate a complete synthesis of temporally-situated practices and reflections. The gospel injunction to “go and do likewise” always renders such stasis inadequate. In order to push back against this tendency, biblical hermeneutics needs to be true to its calling by activating the compensatory temporal strategies that Marquard highlighted. It answers our question in both an “adapting” and a “distancing” way. If an adapting hermeneutics holds on to meanings that are slipping away over time, then biblical hermeneutics has long been adept at retrieving meaning even while revealing the strange and even exotic pastness of the past that biblical texts mediate. If distancing hermeneutics is an exercise in our achieving some degree of freedom from a past that could become suffocating, then by focusing on new possibilities for existence that are grounded in the biblical texts, biblical hermeneutics has discovered a future “in front of the text” that is legitimated by the text itself but can be discerned as “true” only when it is applied – that is, lived out in practice. At times, biblical hermeneutics has been successful at performing both at once. Take, for example, the study of Jesus’ parables: from Jeremias to Crossan to

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Levine, there has been an ongoing effort to retrieve Jesus’ central message about the mystery of the Kingdom of God by situating his narrative metaphors squarely in his own first-century CE Jewish context. The result is that his teaching about God’s Kingdom and the reversal that it provokes in our lives become less domesticatable, less amenable to liberal moralizing, and more challenging of our deeply held assumptions about God’s actions when we attempt to live out those values and experience the reversal.48 The key is to allow the plurality that is inherent in the scriptures – that is, the unity-and-difference dialectic – to be revealed in an honest interpretation, and to allow temporality full play as a positive, productive factor in interpretation. Only in different particular performances of discipleship over time is the “bass line” logic of scriptural revelation ever revealed. For example, the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification agreed upon by both Catholics and Lutherans is an instance where widely varied interpretations of Paul and dissonant theological anthropologies (i.e., diverse performances of the meaning of the Paschal Mystery) could be brought into harmony after almost six centuries of divergent applications of the notions of faith and grace.49 Another example brings us full circle. In his classic article on the Matthean divorce texts, Joseph Fitzmyer argues that the exegesis shows that “the most primitive form of the prohibition” announced by Jesus is the one “that is absolute or unqualified.” What, then, about the clearly stated exceptions in Matthew and Paul – introduced, as Fitzmyer says, “under inspiration”? If so, “then why cannot the Spirit-guided institutional Church of a later generation make a similar exception in view of problems confronting Christian married life of its day … as it has done in some situations? The question here is whether one looks solely at the absolute prohibition, traceable to Jesus, or at ‘the process of understanding and  Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, rev. ed., trans. S. H. Hooke (New York: Scribner, 1963 [Ger. orig., 1947]); John Dominic Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York: Harper and Row, 1973); Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2014). Levine describes her results thus: “The point is less that [the parables] reveal something new than that they tap into our memories, our values, and our deepest longings, and so they resurrect what is very old, and very wise, and very precious. And often, very unsettling” (22-23). 49  Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church (31 October 1999), accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.vatican. va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/ rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_ cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html. 48

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adaptation’ which is in the New Testament itself and ‘with which the modern Church can identify only by entering into the process and furthering it’.”50 Thus, “time plus identity equals interpretation” applies even when the Church’s identity is the point. These divergent applications all claim to be ultimately rooted in Jesus’ teaching, and the discernment into the overall practices of Jesus and their continued reception among varied ecclesial communities always needs performative application in time to come to fruition. As the New Testament emphasis on discipleship acknowledges, a performance hermeneutic is needed, a way of articulating the active imitation of Christ and all of its authentic receptions. We thereby can recognize how God’s saving grace is revealed in manifold variations over time, and why the central Christian performances of the truths of the tradition which disclose God’s rich mercy and the ongoing life of the Spirit – such as liturgical ritual, contemplation leading to action, moral choices leading to actualized participation in divine life – are the fundamental starting points for thinking theologically about the richness, diversity, and temporally-saturated character of the biblical tradition and its relation to the world. Discerning the salvific truth of the scriptures occurs not merely from the force of rational argument, but also from the lived experiences of Christians attempting to follow Jesus, and the unscripted harmonies of grace underpinning those experiences. This is why Christian performance, the play of discipleship, must be at the heart of any discussion of biblical hermeneutics, the ecclesial life that it nourishes, and the effects of that ecclesial life in the world. We cannot leave the active grace of God in Christ to be swept up in any sort of anxious and reactive inertia. Temporality and difference are positive values: they give us access to the unfolding and unifying harmonic rhythm of the Spirit that guides our ongoing and developing participation in divine life.

50  Fitzmyer, “The Matthean Divorce Texts,” 224-225. He cites G. W. MacRae, “New Testament Perspective on Marriage and Divorce,” Divorce and Remarriage in the Catholic Church, ed. L. G. Wrenn (New York, NY: Newman, 1973), 1-15, at 3.

God Is Spirit Pneumatology as a Challenge to Judeo-Christian Hermeneutics of the Divine Nature Wolfgang Vondey An inquiry into Jewish theology analogous to that of Christian efforts is arguably foreign to the essence of Judaism, including the associated problems of considering “theology” itself “talk about God,” a Christian technical vocabulary that developed largely outside of Judaism, and equivalent theological problems in Jewish thought.1 Nonetheless, the center of Judeo-Christian controversy is theological, and the core problem of theological reconciliation is undoubtedly the personhood of God – a difficult matter with regard to both the person of Jesus Christ and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Traditional Christology has been reformulated to complement Jewish-Christian relations at least since Vatican II’s Nostra aetate.2 At the same time, the Trinity remains a largely neglected topic in Jewish Christian dialogue, sometimes debated polemically, but never a central point of theological conversations.3 In these contexts, it is the idea of personhood – even before Christological concerns – that presents a primary theological impasse to JudeoChristian hermeneutics of the doctrine of God: (1) the influence of medieval Islamic scholasticism highlighted the impasse of technical

1  Cf. David Novak, “Jewish Theology,” Modern Judaism 10, no. 3 (1990): 311-323; Samuel Sandmel, “Reflections on the Problem of Theology for Jews,” Journal of Bible and Religion 33, no. 2 (1965): 101-112. 2  Cf. John Pawlikowski, “Christology and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Personal Theological Journey,” Irish Theological Quarterly 72, no. 2 (2007): 147-167; Robert Schreiter, “Christology in the Jewish-Christian Encounter: An Essay-Review of Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesuz [sic], het verhaal van een Levende,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44, no. 4 (1976): 693-703; Jacoba Hendrica Kuikman, “Christology in the Context of Jewish-Christian Relations: The Contribution of Edward Schillebeeckx,” PhD diss., University of St. Michaels College, 1993. 3  See Ellen T. Charry, “The Doctrine of God in Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in Oxford Handbook on the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 559-572; Celia Deutsch, “God: Christian View,” in A Dictionary of the Jewish Christian Dialogue, ed. Leon Klenicki and Jeoffrey Wigoder (New York, NY: Paulist, 1995), 82-85.

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vocabulary regarding the essential Trinity;4 (2) discussion of the personhood of God originated within a uniquely Christian philosophical debate and is notably absent from Jewish theologies;5 (3) the definition of person and its theological meaning remain contested even in Christian thought;6 and (4) a dialogue on the basis of divine personhood accepts the presupposition of the theological differences it attempts to resolve (especially with regard to the so-called ‘Christological impasse’).7 In this paper I propose instead that a way forward for a joint understanding of God lies in a discussion of the divine nature, in general, and a pneumatological approach to the divine nature from the perspective of God as spirit, in particular, in part because it seems to overcome the personological impasse in interreligious conversations.8 Pneumatology in Jewish thought is little pronounced and almost exclusively limited to a discussion of God’s presence in the world and in the human being. The notion of the Spirit of God (ruach Elohim or ruach YHWH) is cast in the wide interpretive field of spirit, breath, and wind.9 The Jewish theological tradition has no need to explain clearly the relationship between God and the Spirit of God.10 Although socalled late Jewish-Hellenistic texts can speak of the Spirit as the substance and transcendence of God, Jewish pneumatology is widely concerned with the human being and not the divine nature.11 Jewish-Hellenistic 4  Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007), 13-20, 45-105. 5  See Kaufmann Kohler, Jewish Theology: Systematically and Historically Considered (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1918); Michael A. Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2008). 6  Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Der Personbegriff der Trinitätstheologie in Rückfrage von Karl Rahner zu Tertullians “Adversus Praxean,” Innsbrucker Theologische Studien 17 (Innsbruck/Vienna: Tyrolia, 1986). 7  Cf. Gavin D’Costa, “The Trinity in Interreligious Dialogues,” in The Oxford Handbook on the Trinity, 573-585. 8  Cf. ibid. For a pneumatological approach to interreligious dialogue see Michael E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion, Studies in Judaism and Christianity (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1992); Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 20 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). 9  See John Peter Stehelin, Rabbinical Literature: Or, The Traditions of the Jews (London: G. Smith, 1742), vol. 1, 244-249, 267-281. 10  Cf. Andreas Schuele, “The Spirit of YHWH and the Aura of Divine Presence,” Interpretation 66, no. 1 (2012): 16-28. 11  Cf. Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Gottes Geist und der Mensch: Studien zur frühchristlichen Pneumatologie, Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie 63 (Munich: Kaiser, 1972), 224-256.

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literature sometimes blurs the distinctions between the Spirit of God and the human spirit.12 Nonetheless, spirit is a manifestation of the divine presence and action and not described as identical with God. Nowhere is there a strict personification of the divine spirit as in early Christian thought.13 In contrast, pneumatology in Christian thought today has experienced an undeniable renaissance that has alerted Christian theology to the importance of the Spirit across the theological spectrum. Christian pneumatology is a theological discipline concerned fundamentally with the nature and person of the Spirit of God, named in the New Testament as the “Holy Spirit” and identified by the creedal tradition as God. A concurrent renaissance of the doctrine of the Trinity and the rise of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity has further contributed to increasing interests in pneumatology during the 20th century. However, while the perspective of the Spirit has come to define Christian theology in significant ways, the same cannot be said for the study of the Spirit proper, the person and nature of the Holy Spirit as spirit. Theological and metaphysical “perspectives,” that is, the definitions, concepts, and presuppositions that inform our perceptions of “spirit” and “the Spirit” have hardly shaped a shared pneumatology. At the heart of the discipline, pneumatology itself is still carried out largely within the domain of other theological perspectives, that is, not from the perspective of spirit. Pneumatology from the perspective of spirit is initially confronted with the theological notion of “spirit” itself. A noteworthy Christian application of this perspective is offered by Jesus’ statement that “God is spirit” (John 4:24). A metaphysical reading of this affirmation, which would suggest that God by nature is spirit, has been neglected as a theological theme in its own right in the articulation of pneumatology. Christian articulations of the doctrine have tended instead to favor a theologically oriented hermeneutic, which emphasizes a trinitarian perspective on the divine person of the Holy Spirit without accounting also with the term “spirit” for the divine nature. Jewish approaches to an understanding of the Holy Spirit tend to bypass Jesus’ statement and designate “spirit” as “God’s own personal presence”14 but not as a hypostasis 12  Ernest Burton, “Spirit, Soul, and Flesh. IV: Pneuma, psyche, and sarx in Greek Writers of the Early Christian Period and in Jewish-Greek Literature,” The American Journal of Theology 20, no. 3 (1916): 390-413. 13  Ibid., 403. 14  See Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit, 41.

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distinct in God.15 In the contemporary renaissance of pneumatology, the foundational Johannine testimony that “God is spirit” has played no significant role for an understanding of the nature and personhood of God. As a foundational pneumatological statement, the metaphysical hermeneutic of saying, God is spirit, finds historical expression in efforts to reconcile the tension between identifying the Spirit either with the divine nature or with a divine person. The first option leads to a pneumatology based on a metaphysical concept of spirit, the second to a pneumatology from the theological perspective of the Spirit. I suggest that the two positions, when reconciled, hold great potential for a Jewish-Christian hermeneutic of the divine nature. In order to illuminate these concerns, I will trace the roots of the distinction between spirit and the Spirit in early Judeo-Christian theology. I then examine the continuing conversation in the Christian theology of personhood and conclude with a contemporary theological appropriation of this historical conversation.16 1. The Beginning of Pneumatology in Patristic Judeo-Christian Theology Arguably, the first centuries of the Judeo-Christian movement did not emphasize pneumatology as a doctrine in its own right. 17 When approaches to a theology of the Holy Spirit emerged, they focused generally on the central questions of Christian pneumatology during these early years: what exactly is meant by “spirit” and how this designation could be applied to God.18 Moreover, the notion of “spirit” was widely 15

 The Jewish Annotated New Testament omits comments on v. 24 altogether. See Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 166. 16  The discussion on the development of pneumatology is a revision of the more detailed account in Wolfgang Vondey, “Pneumatology from the Perspective of the Spirit: A Historical and Theological Assessment,” in Third Article Theology: A Pneumatological Dogmatics, ed. Myk Habets (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2016), 77-96. 17  Cf. See Michel René Barnes, “The Beginning and the End of Early Christian Pneumatology,” Augustinian Studies 39, no. 2 (2008): 169-186; R. P. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 (London: T&T Clark, 1988), 741. 18  See Wolf-Dieter Hauschild and Volker Henning Drecoll, Pneumatologie in der Alten Kirche, Traditio Christiana 12 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004); Franz Dünzl, Pneuma: Funktion des Theologischen Begriffs in Frühchristlicher Literatur (Münster: Aschendorff, 2000); Henry Barclay Swete, On the Early History of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit with Especial Reference to the Controversies of the Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1873).

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understood as an indication of the divine presence, a metaphysical conceptualization of the divine nature, typically expressed in contrast to the material and corporeal world. In early Christian patristic pneumatology, the determination that God by nature is spirit and that “spirit” is equally shared by the divine persons eventually met the demand to identify with the term “spirit” primarily, if not exclusively, the person of the Holy Spirit. The works of Irenaeus and Tertullian illustrate this challenge in both its conceptual demands and historical origins in East and West. In the East, the thought of Irenaeus of Lyon is widely acknowledged as one of the earliest developed approaches to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.19 Perhaps in his most well-known contribution, Irenaeus identified the Spirit as one of the two hands of God. This metaphor expressed Irenaeus’ dual conviction that the Spirit is divine, and thus distinct from humanity by virtue of the divine nature identified in John 4:24 as “spirit,” and that the Spirit is co-creator, and thus distinct from the Son (as the other hand of God).20 It is in these ontological distinctions that we can see how early Christian pneumatology distinguishes itself from its Jewish heritage. The Jewish and Christian paths diverge initially with a distinction of the Spirit from creation made on the basis of ontological difference: all created beings, Irenaeus states, “are inferior to, and later in existence than, the Word of God and His Spirit”21 because God produced “the substance of matter,”22 and as created matter the human being “is a compound being” while “God is … all active spirit … and always exists one and the same.”23 Yet, not only “all material things, such as the heaven, and the whole world which exists below it”24 but also all “spiritual things” and “spiritual creatures … were produced by a spiritual process of birth”25 attributed to the work of God. For Irenaeus, this creation of spiritual things could only be attributed to a spiritual being:  See Anthony Briggman, Irenaeus of Lyon and the Theology of the Holy Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Hans-Jochen Jaschke, Der Heilige Geist im Bekenntnis der Kirche: Eine Studie zur Pneumatologie des Irenäus von Lyon im Ausgang vom altchristlichen Glaubensbekenntnis (Münster: Aschendorff, 1976). 20  Cf. Briggman, Irenaeus of Lyon, 38. 21  Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 2.28.2, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, A. Cleveland Coxe (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 399. 22  Ibid., 401. 23  Ibid., 400. 24  Ibid., 405. 25  Ibid., 405. 19

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“This Being, therefore, also made spiritual things …; and He is truly the Spirit of God … otherwise He should never have created spiritual things.”26 In this conclusion, Irenaeus goes far beyond any existing pneumatology of the time.27 With the reference to the “Spirit of God,” he did not refer to the Holy Spirit as one of the hands of God but to God as spirit in a metaphysical sense.28 As creator, the God who produces material and spiritual beings must by nature be a spiritual being; God produces as spirit all that is spiritual and material. The identification of God with spirit allowed Irenaeus to affirm that all things are created by one God.29 The careful ontological distinction is then further enhanced by a functional view of God’s creative being visible in God’s creative activity. At the heart of a functional view of God’s being, Irenaeus is able to distinguish the Spirit from the Son. More precisely, by identifying the Spirit as one hand of God, Irenaeus attributes to the Holy Spirit a particular function in the creative activity of God different from the Son. However, that means, for Irenaeus, “spirit” designates both the divine nature and one of the hands of God.30 This overlap of the dimensions of the Spirit may be considered a foundation for Irenaeus’ theology of the Spirit as wisdom and as the anointing of Christ and the church – typically considered central aspects of his pneumatology – and yet they are abandoned in the subsequent history of Christian pneumatology.31 While Irenaeus did not explicitly state this dual interpretation, the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit as one hand of God is the result of the essential property of the Holy Spirit as spirit, which in Irenaeus’ thought represents at once the essence of God’s nature and thus source of divine activity and the actualization of that activity in Word and Wisdom. The tension between these two dimensions has remained unresolved in Irenaeus and in early Christian pneumatology. Irenaeus’ ideas found parallel expression in the writings of Tertullian in the West. Confronted by the challenges of modalism and monarchianism, Tertuallian indicated that the dominant problem of trinitarian thought was the tension of reconciling the monarchy of God with God’s  Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 405-406.  Cf. Briggman, Irenaeus of Lyon, 44-45. 28  Cf. Contre les hérésies, Livre V, Tome I, Texte et traduction, ed. A. Rousseau, L. Doutreleau, and C. Mercier, Sources chrétiennes 152 (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 317, 332. 29  Briggman, Irenaeus of Lyon, 38. 30  See ibid., 126-147. 31  Cf. ibid., 204-215. 26 27

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manifestation in the economy of salvation.32 He argued that a comprehensive understanding of the divine monarchy required its redefinition through an economic model of the divine nature itself.33 The unique dimension of this perspective is the interpretation of the divine “economy” ontologically through the notion of the divine substance.34 Tertullian’s work is generally identified as the first systematic use of the term “person” in the development of the doctrine of the Trinity.35 Yet, his approach to divine personhood through the notion of divine substance “was apparently ignored and forgotten; it never reappeared in the whole course of subsequent theological development.”36 What does this “forgetfulness” of the ontology of divine personhood mean for the Jewish-Christian conversation on the nature of God? Most visibly, Tertullian’s reinterpretation of the divine monarchy in terms of the divine substance illustrates the difficulties of reconciling the doctrine of God with the emerging doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Theologically, Tertullian wished to attribute the divine substance in unity to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit while distinguishing in this unity an order of origin and distribution.37 Hence, the Son and the Spirit “are so closely joined with the Father in His substance” that they “are naturally members of the Father’s own substance.”38 Nonetheless, the exact substance of the Father is not identified.39 Tertullian placed the origin of the divine nature in the Father, yet equated that divine nature with the notion of spirit: “By His [the Father’s] word were the heavens established, and all the powers thereof by His Spirit – that is to say, by the Spirit (or Divine Nature) which was in the Word.”40 While the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit differ in degree, form, and aspect as to their substance, God is one

32  Cf. Th. Verhoeven, “Monarchia dans Tertullien. Adversus Praxean,” Vigiliae Christianae 5, no. 1 (1951): 43-48. 33  Cf. Kevin B. McCruden, “Monarchy and Economy in Tertullian’s Adversus Praxeam,” Scottish Journal of Theology 55, no. 3 (2002): 325-337. 34  Cf. R. A. Markus, “Trinitarian Theology and the Economy,” Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1958): 89-102. 35  Cf. Hilberath, Der Personbegriff. 36  G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952), 111. 37  Cf. Wolfgang Bender, Die Lehre über den heiligen Geist bei Tertullian (Munich: Max Hueber, 1961), 56-100. 38  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 3, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 599-632, at 599. 39  Ibid., 598. 40  Ibid., 602.

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in substance because “God is spirit.”41 Tertullian could say at the same time “that the Word is a certain substance, constructed by the Spirit” and that “Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form.”42 On the one hand, spirit as the unity of the divine substance protects the oneness of God, while on the other, the Spirit “guards”43 the distinction of the divine persons. For Tertullian this unity-in-distinction by means of the distribution of the divine substance explained how “the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These three are one essence, not one Person … in respect of unity of substance.”44 The Spirit of God is therefore “Declarer of the One Monarchy of God” (in substance), “but at the same time the Interpreter of the Economy”45 (as person). Tertullian clearly distinguished the concept of divine nature from the notion of substance,46 albeit without clarifying how the two concepts relate to the notion of person, in general, and to the subsistence of the three divine persons, in particular. With the neglect of this aspect of Tertullian’s thought in subsequent theology, the notion of substance ceased to become of central importance to the articulation of pneumatology. The hindsight, that the pneumatological advances of both Irenaeus and Tertullian with regard to the identification of God as spirit were neglected in Christian thought, may offer an explanation for the subsequent difficulties associated with the term “spirit” in trinitarian theology. Here, Christian pneumatology departs most visibly from Jewish concepts of monotheism, if by that is understood the theological dictum that God is a single essence who exist as a single person. Even though the concept of personhood was developed in the Ancient Near East and formed an important basis of Jewish anthropology, Jewish theology hesitantly speaks of the notion of divine personhood. In contrast to Christian history, where the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation enforced development of the idea of the divine persons, the Jewish discussion of personhood is almost exclusively focused on the human 41  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 3, 602. See Bender, Die Lehre über den heiligen Geist, 56, note 5. 42  Tertullian, Against Praxeas 3, 602. 43  Ibid., 603. 44  Ibid., 620. 45  Ibid., 627. 46  Cf. J. F. Bethune-Baker, “Tertullian’s Use of Substantia, Natura, and Persona,” Journal of Theological Studies 4 (1903): 440-442.

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being.47 The notion of “spirit” serves as animating principle of God but plays no significant role for understanding God as person.48 2. Personhood and Essence of the Spirit in Early Trinitarian Theology The councils and creeds of the church are generally regarded as significant milestones in the search for identifying the Christian doctrine of God.49 Yet, little is known about any pneumatological conversations at the eve of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan creeds, which echo the difficulties to distinguish with the term “spirit” a metaphysical affirmation from other uses of the term.50 Select examples must suffice as evidence that the distinctions of Irenaeus and Tertullian are not taken to their theological conclusions but that pneumatology in the context of trinitarian thought returned to the primary conceptual emphasis on the divinity of the Spirit. Athanasius consequently insisted that the Holy Spirit is never “called ‘spirit’ without qualification”51 in relation to creation, since the Spirit is immutable, unchangeable, and omnipresent. Especially in his trinitarian arguments, Athanasius understood the Spirit’s divinity as an expression of God’s omnipresence, which must be distinguished from creation itself. Hilary of Poitiers argued succinctly that the uncreated quality of spirit expresses negatively that “God is invisible, incomprehensible, immeasurable” and positively that God “is omnipresent in space and time,” because “the Spirit cannot be shut up.”52 John Chrysostom concluded that with the statement in John 4:24,

47  See Alan L. Mittleman, Human Nature and Jewish Thought: Judaism’s Case for Why Persons Matter (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). 48  See Yochanan Muffs, The Personhood of God: Biblical Theology, Human Faith and the Divine Image (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Light Publishing, 2005). 49  See R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1988), 318-381. 50  Cf. Gérard Verbeke, L’évolution de la doctrine du pneuma, du stoicisme à s. Augustin: Étude philosophique (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945). 51  Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit, Letter 1, in Works on the Spirit: Athanasius and Dydimus, trans. Mark DelCogliano, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres, ed. John Behr, Popular Patristics Series 43 (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 53-105, at 57. 52  Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 9, Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 60 (2.31); see also ibid., 73.

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Jesus declared “nothing else than His incorporeal Nature.”53 Theodore of Mopsuestia stated that as spirit, “God is incorporeal in nature and cannot be circumscribed into any place” but that God “is everywhere.”54 Ambrose distinguishes in his books on the Holy Spirit seemingly two uses of “spirit” by emphasizing that “the Holy Spirit is also the Author of the grace of the Spirit.”55 Nonetheless, he interprets John 4:24 elsewhere first as reference to the Father,56 and then to both the Father and the Son.57 As a metaphysical notion, “spirit” was applied to “God” as a synonym for the divine nature and with the implication that a theology of divine omnipresence accounts at the same time also for a theology of the person of the Holy Spirit. The metaphysical notion of “spirit” served as an analogy of the visible and material world to the invisible and immaterial both to ascertain that God by nature is present in this world and to distinguish that God by nature differs from creation. This difference, however, is manifested not in the divine nature as such but in the manifestation of spirit in the divine persons. The identification of the divine essence as spirit with the person of the Holy Spirit has presented an unresolved impasse. Crucial in the development of trinitarian thought through the lens of pneumatology in the East are the Cappadocian fathers. The well-known treatise of Basil of Caesarea on the Holy Spirit states succinctly that the title “Holy Spirit” designates “everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial, and indivisible”58 and that the Spirit is by nature equal and inseparable from the Father and the Son. Yet, Basil’s exposition of the Holy Spirit as a third hypostasis, addressing objections to the divinity of the Spirit, does not reconcile the personhood of the Spirit with the divine nature. The unity of divine nature is established by the procession of the Spirit as person and not by the substance of the divine nature as 53  John Chrysostom, Homily 33, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 14, Homilies on the Gospel of John, ed. Philip Schaff (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 116. 54  Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Marco Conti, Ancient Christian Texts, Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2010), 42. 55  Ambrose of Milan, Three Books of St. Ambrose on the Holy Spirit, trans. H. de Romestin, E. de Romestin, and H. T. F. Duckworth, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 10, Ambrose: On the Holy Spirit, Letters, Hymns, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 122. 56  Ibid., 145. 57  Ibid., 107. 58  Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 8, Letters and Select Works, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 15.

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spirit.59 Gregory of Nyssa, similarly, advocated that in the oneness of the divine nature “the power of the Spirit [is] … included with the Father and the Son in the life-giving power” so that the Spirit “has an inseparable association with them in all the attributes ascribed in a sense of a special excellence.”60 He provides no explanation as to the nature of that distinctive. Elsewhere, Gregory speaks in the same breath of the “peculiar attributes” of the Holy Spirit who is “to be regarded separately in certain distinctive properties” and of “an exact identity” with the Father and the Son.61 Yet, in his subsequent elaboration on the identity of the divine nature, the Spirit is again distinguished from the divine essence.62 The advocacy of the Spirit’s divinity shifts the conversation continually between the property of the Holy Spirit as person and the identity of the divine nature as spirit. Other contemporary works show that, effectively, “spirit” is a designation for both the divine nature and the person of the Holy Spirit (albeit without being a distinctive property of the Holy Spirit as person). Little distinction is made between the nature of God as spirit and the property of the divine persons conceptualized by the term “spirit” or the particular person of the Holy Spirit. While the early construct of the doctrine of the Trinity alerted the patristic writers to the need to develop a technical vocabulary for the doctrine of God, this demand did not immediately force the articulation of a pneumatological perspective. As a result, the monarchian notion of God, particularly in its Sabellian expression, confounded the use of the term “spirit” by designating both the divine nature and the person of the Father, who extends himself by virtue of being spirit into the Son and the Holy Spirit.63 The formula “three persons – one substance” tended to introduce a distinction precisely between the two dimensions it was intended to join: the unity of substance and the relation of the divine persons.64

 Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, 29.  Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 5, Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, etc., ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 327. 61  Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Holy Spirit,” ibid., 315-316. 62  Ibid., 317. Emphasis mine. 63  Athanasius, Against the Arians, Discourse 4, 25, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 4, Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 443. 64  Cf. Ludwig Hermann, “Ambrosius von Mailand als Trinitätstheologe,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 69 (1958): 197-218. 59

60

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Conversation about the Holy Spirit remained in a state of in-between the notions of personhood and divine substance. The dominant idea of designating by “spirit” the divine nature met with the recognition of the distinct personhood of the Holy Spirit without articulating how the divine nature relates to the divine persons in a way that protects the term “spirit” for both entities. Pneumatology in subsequent centuries did not clarify the distinction of person and nature with regard to the Holy Spirit. In this context, pneumatology from the perspective of spirit became identified with pneumatology from the perspective of the Holy Spirit. This equation, however, is responsible not only for the neglect of the notion of “spirit” in the historical unfolding of the doctrine of God but also for a flattening of pneumatology to a theology of the third article of the creed – seemingly affirming Jewish concerns about protecting the oneness of God by discussion of the person of the Spirit from conversations on the unity of the divine essence. A closer look at the history of Christian thought shows a surprising neglect of pneumatology in the discussion of divine personhood. 3. The Personhood of God: Impasse of Jewish-Christian Pneumatology The personhood of God is undoubtedly the crucial difference of Jewish and Christian concepts of the divine nature. The monadic monotheism of the Jews is not maintained strictly by the trinitarian monotheism of Christian theology.65 The problem is exacerbated in the history of the terminology of person by the attempt to reconcile the Holy Spirit as person with the designation of the divine nature as spirit. Generally considered a milestone in this development is the definition by Boethius. Taken as a basis for the continuing theological conversations of the Middle Ages, Boethius’ identification of person as “the individual substance of a rational nature”66 connected personhood explicitly with the notion 65  See Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 473-477; Daniel F. Stramara, Jr. “Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Graecos: ‘How It Is That We Say There Are Three Persons in the Divinity but Do Not Say There Are Three Gods’,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41, no. 4 (1996): 375-391. 66  Boethius, A Treatise against Eutyches and Nestorius, in Boethius: The Theological Tractates, trans. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, S. J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library 74 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 85.

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of substance. Significantly, Boethius linked substance with subsistence and defined the ontological reality of person as “subsistences which acquired substance … which supplies to other things … a substrate enabling them to be.”67 He thus connected a possible identification of divine persons not merely with the particularity of substance in its own right but with the subsistence (of substance) that forms its ontological ground of being.68 However, Boethius did not show how this definition accounts for divine personhood: (1) what exactly is the divine substance; (2) whether the divine substance is identical with rational nature; and (3) if divine personhood is necessarily defined by that identity.69 The difficulty of attaching Boethius’ definition to the two natures in the one person of Christ is well established.70 The pneumatological consequences drawn from the definition are typically subsumed under a trinitarian perspective and not made explicit. If spirit is the divine substance and thus identical with the rational nature (which Boethius did not claim!), then the Holy Spirit would in subsistence (as person) be identical with the divine substance (as spirit). In other words, while the divine substance in the strict sense of the definition must be applied to each of the divine persons individually (that is, in their subsistence), it is only the Holy Spirit to whom the individual substance of spirit can be applied as property of person (lest the three divine persons are equally spirit as person). That means, if all three divine persons are spirit in substance, this would sufficiently define the singular divine substance as only one person unless that substance subsists differently in each person and in a particular way in the Holy Spirit. Boethius consequently reinterpreted the divine persons as subsistences of the one divine substance (effectively identical with the rational nature), yet without clarifying how the single divine nature can be present differently in each person and thereby define the persons as individual substances of the same nature. What exactly Boethius means by “individual” and how this individuality can be applied to each divine person remained undefined. Attempts to resolve this problem in subsequent history have abandoned the notion of substance in favor of the mode of existence. A pneumatology from the perspective of spirit was thus effectively transferred to a discussion

 Boethius, A Treatise against Eutyches and Nestorius, 89.  Cf. Michael Elsässer, Das Person-Verständnis des Boethius (D. Phil. Diss., University of Würzburg, 1973), 76-78. 69  Ibid., 78. 70  See Hilberath, Der Personbegriff, 110-112. 67 68

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of personhood without an ontological foundation in the divine substance. In the 12th century, Boethius’ definition was corrected by Richard of St. Victor, who questioned its applicability to the divine persons. The fact that the triune God is of one substance denied the possibility that an individual substance could be the basis for divine personhood, since that would either divide God into three substances or attribute to the single substance only a singular personhood.71 Richard, in turn, identified divine personhood by existence rather than substance, that is, by “what is the principal thing in a substance” or more precisely “what has being in itself and what possesses being from another source.”72 Significant to his definition is not the mode of being but the mode of origin.73 Hence, the notion of “individuality” was understood in terms of the “incommunicable existence of a divine nature,”74 which defines the property of each divine person. With view of the three persons, there exists for Richard “in the divine nature both an existence common to plural persons and an existence appropriate for one person alone.”75 Nonetheless, he excluded the common existence of the divine persons from the definition, since it is communicable, and elevated in its place the notion of the divine processions, which indicate the origin of each person and hence identify their incommunicable existence. The distinction of divine persons is attributed to the mode of procession (in the West): the Holy Spirit is the only person who proceeds from two persons.76 The Spirit is thus identified as person by the relation to the other divine persons (who in turn are identified by their relations to each other). The notion of substance is here important only for the attribution of divinity but no longer for the identity as person, since “the Spirit of God is certainly consubstantial and wholly equal” and thus the nature of spirit “refers to some similitude of his own property.”77 Hence Richard can state that 71  Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, 5.21, in Trinity and Creation, ed. Boyd Taylor Coolman and Dale M. Coulter, Victorine Texts in Translation 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 286-287. 72  Ibid., 288. 73  Cf. Heinz Robert Schlette, “Das unterschiedliche Personverständnis im theologischen Denken Hugos und Richards v. St. Viktor,” in Miscellanea, ed. Martin Grabmann and Ludwig Hödl (Munich: Hueber, 1959), 55-72. 74  Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, 4.22. 75  Ibid. 76  Ibid., 304. The mode of procession is different in the East, yet the principle of relation (and origin) remains the same whether we acknowledge the procession of the Spirit from one or two persons. 77  Ibid., 327.

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“the Father is a spirit, and the Son is a spirit, just as we have learned from the Gospel: God is Spirit.”78 Investigating how the term “spirit” is a designation for all three divine persons but is the proper name of only one person leads Richard to suggest that the Spirit as person “has a much greater resemblance to the divine property.”79 With this indication he referred to the divine nature, so that spirit proceeds as spirit, yet with regard to the person of the Holy Spirit, Richard is clear that the divine property as spirit exists differently in the three divine persons: possessing and giving the divine plenitude is the property of the Father and the Son, whereas “possessing and not giving it to another is the particular property of the Holy Spirit.”80 The notion of “spirit” now identifies the property of the divine substance and the possession of that property in an incommunicable way by each person. For the identification of the Holy Spirit, however, the identity of the divine substance as spirit is of no consequence to the property of the Spirit as person. In a further modification of the definition, Thomas Aquinas approved the definition by Boethius but sought to explain the individuality of the divine persons by distinguishing between two definitions of substance: “In one sense it is the ultimate subject which is not predicated of another: and this is the individual in the genus of substance: while in another sense it is the form or nature of a subject.”81 The divine persons thus share a common substance and each person possesses that divine essence by the principle of individuation lest that person be identical with the divine nature. The designation of the divine nature as “spirit” is therefore shared by the three persons, yet it does not indicate sufficiently in their designation as persons “the mode of subsistence which belongs to particular substances.”82 Person is defined as “a substistent individual of a rational nature,”83 and the mode of subsistence, as for Richard, can be defined in God “only by relation of origin”84 and is therefore incommunicable.85 Each divine person signifies a relation as subsisting by way  Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, 328.  Ibid. 80  Ibid., 329. 81  Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia Dei 9, 1c, in On the Power of God, trans. English Dominican Fathers (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1952), 98-99. 82  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 29, 1 ad 3, in Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros, 1947), 351. 83  Ibid., 354. 84  Ibid., 357. 85  Cf. Thomas von Aquino, Das Geheimnis der Person (Summa Theologica 29, 1, 1-3), ed. and trans. Alfons Hufnagel (Stuttgart: Klett, 1949), 35-38. 78

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of the divine substance, and this relation is a subsistence in the divine nature, “although in truth that which subsists in the divine nature is the divine nature itself.”86 As his predecessors, Thomas thus struggled with the identity as persons in common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by way of the unity of the divine essence, and their subsistence as persons by way of their opposite relations. As for Richard, the Holy Spirit is person by his procession “from another, or from others.”87 Whereas paternity constitutes the Father as person, and filiation constitutes the Son, procession is the personal notion attributed only to the Holy Spirit.88 Procession, however, is a designation of the relation of persons, not of person to substance. Although he insists that “in God relation is really the same as the essence,”89 Thomas does not explain how each divine person subsists distinctly in the divine nature by virtue of the relation, in general, and in the particular case where the name for the divine substance and the person are identical. He indicates vaguely that “spirit” as a name for the divine person indicates “something in common with the other Persons … for the Father also is a spirit, and the Son is a spirit.”90 At the same time, echoing the history of pneumatology, the designation “Holy Spirit … is applicable to the whole Trinity: because by ‘spirit’ the immateriality of the divine substance is signified.”91 Thomas does not attempt to reconcile these inconsistencies except to reference “that the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as … person”92 even though relation does not differ from essence but only by the opposition as persons. The theology of the Holy Spirit distinguishes the Spirit as person from the other divine persons on the basis of procession, since the divine substance offers in his perspective no information on the particular mode of existence. The name “Spirit” is consequently absent from Thomas’ discussion of the essential names of God. Although it is consistent with his thought to argue that spirit “sometimes stands for the essence,” as when we say “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and “sometimes it stands for the person,”93 as in the name for the Holy Spirit, pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit proceeds  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 357.  Ibid., 385. 88  Ibid. 89  Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, 114-116. 90  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 412. 91  Ibid., 412. 92  Ibid., 434. 93  Ibid., 440. 86 87

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in principle exclusively on the basis of personhood. The focus of pneumatology thus shifts from the divine essence as the principle of union to the divine relations as “the principle of distinction”94 for each divine person. Pneumatology on the basis of personhood, however, has no need of pneumatology of the divine essence insofar as substance constitutes personhood, in general, but not the individual persons in the case of the divine Trinity.95 The Spirit is constituted as person by way of procession, although it is entirely unclear how the Spirit participates in this procession as person in a manner that is constitutive of the Spirit’s own personhood so that this personhood can be distinguished from the divine nature as spirit. 4. Spirit as Person: Overcoming the Impasse in Contemporary Christian Thought The Christian tradition is silent on the personhood of the Spirit until renewed interest in trinitarian theology and a renaissance of pneumatology in the twentieth century. Here we find the first explicit study of the personhood of the Holy Spirit in the work of the Roman Catholic theologian, Heribert Mühlen.96 From Mühlen’s perspective, Thomas had expanded the definition of Boethius to a new form of thought on the person by referring to the singularity of the individual, or the principle of individuation, as that which distinguishes a person as a self-existent being.97 This emphasis suggested with regard to the Trinity that the term “person” could not be universally applied to all three divine persons, since they are persons in different modes of existence. Following the further modification of Thomas’ definition by John Duns Scotus, Mühlen concluded that a divine person had to be identified not merely by subsistence in itself but also by a relative subsistence over against  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 457.  See Gilles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 219-297. 96  Heribert Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person: Beitrag zur Frage nach der dem Heiligen Geiste eigentümlichen Funktion in der Trinität, bei der Inkarnation und im Gnadenbund (Münster: Aschendorff, 1963). See Wolfgang Vondey, Heribert Mühlen: His Theology and Praxis. A New Profile of the Church (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004), 49-98. 97  Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person, 35-36; Heribert Mühlen, Das Vorverständnis von Person und die evangelisch-katholische Differenz: Zum Problem der theologischen Denkform (Münster: Aschendorff, 1965), 42. 94 95

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another.98 Four essential requirements were posited by Mühlen for the identification of the Spirit as person: pneumatology had to express the intellectual nature of the Spirit, the incommunicable existence of the Spirit, the Spirit’s relation of origin, and the person-to-person relations of the Spirit in the Trinity. He concluded that “in place of the univocally used word ‘person’ one should properly have three different words at one’s disposal, in which is expressed both the personhood of each person as well as its distinction from the other two persons.”99 Mühlen’s search for potential vocabulary found in Scripture the particular use of the personal pronouns “I,” “thou” and “we” as expressions of a proper distinction of each divine person as well as of their relation to one another. His reading of Scripture suggested that it was possible to designate the Father as the inner-trinitarian “I” and the Son as the “Thou.” Furthermore, their relations take the form of two fundamental modes: the I-thou encounter and the we-union; the former exists in the mode of reciprocity, the latter as a consequence of a common act of two persons. The relationship of the Father and the Son could thus be understood analogously as an I-thou relation and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as a we-union.100 The Holy Spirit, Mühlen concluded, could be called the “we in person” between the Father and Son. In my own study of Mühlen’s work, this designation presents a potential bridge to an ontology of the divine nature, which, however, Mühlen did not pursue in his subsequent work.101 The designation of the Spirit as the divine “we” is based on the Augustinian notion on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the reciprocal love between the Father and the Son and the traditional declaration that the Spirit proceeds from the two persons in only one common act of spiration.102 The first emphasis accentuates that the Spirit proceeds from two persons, while the other underscores that the Father and the Son are not two principles of the Holy Spirit but numerically identical with the one divine nature. From the perspective of persons, the Father and the Son are two necessary and independent partial principles of the 98  Heribert Mühlen, Sein und Person nach Johannes Duns Scotus: Beitrag zur Grundlegung einer Metaphysik der Person (Werl: Dietrich-Coelde-Verlag, 1954), 78-94. 99  Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person, 105. 100  Cf. Vondey, Heribert Mühlen, 72-79. 101  See ibid., 99-160. 102  See Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridium symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, edited, revised and translated by Peter Hünermann and Helmut Hoping (Herder: Freiburg, 1999; 38th edition) 527, 850, 1300.

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one spiration.103 From the perspective of the divine nature, although the Father and the Son are two spirating persons, they together possess only one spirative power. Active spiration could therefore be understood as the we-union between the Father and the Son, who bring forth the Holy Spirit in a common we-act. Arguably, this concept would need substantive revision in the trinitarian theology of the East if the Son is excluded entirely from the procession of the Spirit from the Father.104 From Mühlen’s (western) perspective, the one divine nature appears as a relation, that is, the common relation of the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and the natural aspect of spiration embraces in this respect the plurality of divine persons.105 The divine nature, consequently, should from the beginning be conceived as a relational structure, the form of a we, which then “develops” through the divine processions into a Trinity of persons.106 How do we reconcile a designation of the Spirit as the divine “we” with the relational we-structure of the divine nature? A starting point for Mühlen was the emphasis that active spiration in the theological tradition does not constitute a person, and, instead, the Holy Spirit is said to be in the Father and the Son by virtue of the Spirit’s relation to both in the act of passive spiration.107 It is this relation to two persons, not the relational structure of the divine nature, that constitutes the Holy Spirit as person. In other words, the Holy Spirit is “one person in two persons” or “the subsisting we-act between the Father and the Son” and thus “the “WE” IN PERSON, that is, the inner-trinitarian we-relation.”108 The we-ness of the one divine nature is for Mühlen the foundation for the perichoresis of the divine persons begun in the generation of the Son and completed by the Holy Spirit: the union of the Father and the Son “becomes” person in the Holy Spirit.109 The Father and the Son are united in the person of the Holy Spirit as the bond between them. The Holy Spirit, in turn, is the persona media out of and in the two persons of the Father and the Son by virtue of the relational divine nature.110 We could say that the designation of the divine “we”  Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person, 149-151.  While Mühlen’s work was hailed as seminal in Western theology of the twentieth century, I am not aware of any substantive engagement with his work from the Christian East. 105  Ibid., 152-156. 106  Cf. Vondey, Heribert Mühlen, 77. 107  Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person, 157-158, 164. 108  Ibid., 157. 109  Ibid., 166. 110  Ibid., 157-158. 103

104

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serves to indicate both the unity of the divine nature and the relations of the divine persons. However, Mühlen explored the relational nature of being-in-we in his later work without developing concrete implications for the divine personhood.111 He acknowledged that the word “we” does not actually stand for a person in the proper sense.112 The difference of the Spirit as “we” in person to the “I” of the Father and the “Thou” of the Son is in Mühlen’s view not ontological but hemeisal, that is, it is designated by a belonging of persons.113 This belonging to we is not mere intersubjectivity but originates from an already existing we-order. Nothing is prior to the facticity of being-in-we.114 The Holy Spirit as we in person is in this sense factually prior to the identity of the Father and the Son, to use Mühlen’s terminology, unless by the existing we-order he meant the relational divine nature in logical distinction from the we as person. For a hemeisal construction of person, however, Mühlen rejected any ontological approach from the concept of nature (and hence a metaphysical approach from the notion of being) as inadequate for the articulation of personhood in communion.115 Consequently, the procession of the Spirit is an act of persons in which the divine substance is not articulated. This rejection does not deny the possibility to designate both the divine nature and a divine person as “spirit.” It is possible to designate in Mühlen’s terms the Spirit as person as the coming to person of the divine nature. Yet, Mühlen’s discussion of the divine nature consistently avoids the notion of substance. The reinterpretation of the divine nature in relational terms does not also identify the divine substance as spirit in this regard. Hence, despite the potential openness of the idea of a divine “we” to a shared ontology of person and nature with regard to the Holy Spirit, Mühlen’s seminal definition of the Spirit as person avoids entirely the metaphysical interpretation of the saying that God by nature is spirit. Subsequent theological works have not offered a solution to this impasse, and it remains impossible to say how the Spirit (as the divine we in person) originates from or relates in existence to the divine  See Vondey, Heribert Mühlen, 263-296.  Heribert Mühlen, “Die Wir-Philosophie als dritte Thematisierungsstufe in der abendländischen Denkgeschichte,” Theologie und Glaube 84 (1994): 1-36. 113  Heribert Mühlen, “Der direkte Zugang zum Wir-Geschehen: Hemeislogische Grundlegung der Wir-Philosophie,” Theologie und Glaube 85 (1995): 433-457. 114  See Heribert Mühlen, Im-Wir-Sein: Grundlegung der Wir-Wissenschaft: Beitrag zu einer wirgemäßen Lebens- und Weltordnung, ed. Wilhelm Maas (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2008). 115  Ibid., 314-315. 111

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substance as spirit.116 Hence, in his subsequent work Mühlen identified the Spirit in the church from the perspective of person(s) without thereby drawing significant consequences for the human participation in the divine nature.117 The theological perspective of the Spirit has effectively closed the door to a metaphysics of spirit. The impasse between the designations of the divine nature as spirit remains unresolved. Conclusion The argument in the preceding narrative requires more nuances in the articulation of the history of the theological traditions than permissible in the confines of a brief essay. If the basic direction indicated above is correct, however, then pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit has come to disqualify pneumatology from the perspective of spirit. The former is an entirely Christian enterprise with its emphasis on divine personhood; the latter is inspired by Judeo-Christian origins that have since been replaced. While pneumatology makes of necessity reference to both the divine nature and personhood, the characterization of the Spirit has never fully reconciled the realm of substance and nature with the reality of personhood and relationality. Since substance and existence are intricately linked, the postulate of contemporary theology that the definition of person has to overcome a substance metaphysics needs to be replaced with a mediating ontology of relationality.118 This revision would suggest that pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit can be carried out only from the perspective of spirit. Spirit is then not ontic union without relations nor divine relationality without divine substance. The perspective of the Spirit as the divine “we” designates the Spirit both as person and as divine substance albeit in differences of perspective that have not yet been articulated theologically. If the notion of a divine “we” has theological traction in both the Jewish and Christian communities, this will necessitate a turn of Christian trinitarian thought 116  The influential Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992), 304, simply states that “personal concepts are more appropriate than concepts drawn from the metaphysics of substance.” Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 1994), 279, suggests that we need to “overcome the predominant metaphysical concepts of Spirit.” But Welker does not relate the metaphysics of spirit in Aristotle and Hegel to a substance metaphysics of the early Christian tradition. 117  See Vondey, Heribert Mühlen, 99-229. 118  See Hilberath, Der Personbegriff, 312-327.

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to the definitions of divine plurality in terms of the singularity of the divine nature, while Jewish monotheistic theology may seek entrance from the perspective of corporate personality in its ancient history.119 The charismatic dimension of spirit may also prove fruitful in further clarifying this articulation.120 For Christian theology, pneumatology will have to answer how the spirit as a designation of the divine substance is present in the Father and the Son in a manner different from the Spirit as person. Put differently, the personhood of the Holy Spirit stands in immediate correlation to the presence and power of God as spirit.121 For Jewish theology, the presence and power of God, although manifested only in a single person, could be designated as spirit yet not as the Spirit. As a mandate for the future, the reconciliation of both sides demands a pneumatology from the perspective of the Spirit that is also pneumatology from the perspective of spirit.

119  See H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981). 120  See Wolfgang Vondey, “Spirit and Nature: Pentecostal Pneumatology in Dialogue with Tillich’s Pneumatological Ontology,” in Spiritual Presence and Spiritual Power: Pentecostal Readings of and Engagement with the Legacy of Paul Tillich, ed. Nimi Wariboko and Amos Yong (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015), 30-44. 121  Cf. Ralph Del Colle, “The Holy Spirit: Presence, Power, Person,” Theological Studies 62 (2001): 322-340.

Scripture, Spirit, and the Future of Pneumatology John R. Levison On January 24th 1885, the front page of The New York Times carried an unlikely story about a little known evangelist who held sway in an unknown town in red-barn farmland, roughly mid-way between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Born in 1844 as the fourth daughter in a family of eight children in rural Ohio, Maria Woodworth-Etter entered the fray of evangelism at the age of thirty-five.1 What drew crowds – and reporters – to Hartford City, Indiana, were the mystery and magic of her trances.2 Maria refused to prepare her sermons in advance. She determined rather to “take a text and trust God to lead me in his own way.”3 Sometimes she stood to preach without even having a biblical text in mind, but just in time, she recalled, God revealed a text to her, as well as the place to find it. “I opened the meeting and repeated the text. As I did so the power came, and it seemed that all I had to do was to open my mouth.”4 On one occasion, she preached in this way for seventy-five minutes. Maria, the trance evangelist, as she was known, believed that this sort of speaking – utterly spontaneous preaching – was as much a sign of the holy spirit as her trances, her healing, and her ability to perform miracles. 1

 For an excellent introduction to Maria Woodworth-Etter, including extensive excerpts from her autobiography, see P. Pope-Levison, Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 96-109. For further detail, see W. E. Warner, The Woman Evangelist: The Life and Times of Charismatic Evangelist Maria B. Woodworth-Etter (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1986); L. Payne, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 95-121 (chapter five, “‘Thunder’ and ‘Sweetness’: Authority and Gender in Pentecostal Performance”), especially pages 100-102. 2  By 1912, Woodworth-Etter had made her way into Pentecostal circles, when F. F. Bosworth, a prominent Pentecostal evangelist, invited her to hold evangelistic meetings for six months in his Dallas church. From then on, she was a regularly featured evangelist on Pentecostal platforms across the country. See Pope-Levison, Turn the Pulpit Loose, 103-104. 3  Maria B. Woodworth, The Life and Experience of Maria B. Woodworth (Dayton, OH: United Brethren Publishing House, 1885), 45. 4  Woodworth, Life and Experience, 46.

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While Maria Woodworth-Etter toiled in the vineyards – or, better yet, the cornfields – of rural Indiana, a twenty-six-year-old Privatdozent labored in obscurity in the hallowed libraries of Göttingen on a Habilitation he would complete on November 23, 1887. A year later, Hermann Gunkel would publish this Habilitation as a slender volume titled Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschauung der apostolischen Zeit und der Lehre des Apostels Paulus.5 In this short book, which he would refer to merely as a Werkchen or Büchlein, Gunkel inaugurated the modern era in the study of early Christian pneumatology. Among several significant theses lay Gunkel’s utter rejection of the notion of spirit, in the German idealist sense, as the substance of human potential, or the force of ordinary human life – an understanding that such luminaries as Albrecht Ritschl and F. C. Baur had championed. Gunkel would discern instead in early Christianity a very different form of Geist, a pneuma that represented “das geheimnisvoll-Mächtige im menschlichen Leben.”6 “Hienach ist klar, was die apostolische Zeit sich unter dem ‘Geiste’ dachte: Die übernatürliche Kraft Gottes, welche im Menschen und durch den Menschen Wunder wirkt.”7 “Das Verhältnis beider, göttlichen und menschlichen Wirkens,” he wrote, “ist das des einander ausschließenden (conträren) Gegensatzes. Die Wirkung des Geistes ist also nicht etwa eine Steigerung des in allen Menschen befindlichen Natürlichen, sondern das schlechthin Übernatürliche und daher Göttliche.”8 5  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1888). In his preface to his Wirkungen, 3rd ed. (1909), iii, viii. Ninety-one years after its appearance, the book was translated into English by R. A. Harrisville and P. A. Quanbeck II, with the title, The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View of the Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1979). Translations of Gunkel’s Wirkungen are from this translation, denoted as ET, unless otherwise indicated. 6  English, “the mysterious and overwhelming in human life.” Gunkel, Wirkungen, 20 (ET, 32). 7  “It is clear what the apostolic age had in mind by the term Spirit. It is the supernatural power of God which works miracles in and through the person.” Gunkel, Wirkungen, 23 (ET, 35). 8  English, “The relationship between divine and human activity is that of mutually exclusive opposition. The activity of the Spirit is thus not an intensifying of what is native to all. It is rather the absolutely supernatural and hence divine.” Gunkel, Wirkungen, 21-22 (ET, 34). Gunkel took J. Gloël to task for supposing that in the book of Acts the moral and religious life of the early Christians was an effect of the spirit. Even faith, he argued, is not attributed to the spirit in Acts. Believers do not receive faith through a work of the spirit; they receive the spirit because they already have faith – though there are exceptions, including: Acts 6:5 and 11:24, in which faith and spirit are intimately aligned; also Acts 9:31 and 13:52, where persistence in faith is an act of the spirit. If the spirit were associated with the moral and religious sphere, Gunkel asked (Gunkel,

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What is the quintessential symptom of this mysterious spirit’s presence? The experience of glossolalia.9 Speaking in tongues was, in the apostolic age, the “auffallendsten und charakteristischsten” effect of the spirit.10 What would appear to irreverent spectators as madness and drunkenness on the Day of Pentecost and in the Corinthian communities, believers in the apostolic age would identify as the indisputable effect of God’s spirit.11 Gunkel and Woodworth-Etter are strange bedfellows, with their similar emphases upon the ecstatic effects of the holy spirit. Students of pneumatology in the twenty-first century must take into serious account the impact of both a scholar such as Hermann Gunkel and practitioners like Maria Woodworth-Etter, who comprise an increasing segment of Christianity. Both underscore the element of ecstasy, which has not gone away among large swaths of Christianity in the years since they lived. On the contrary. Therefore, it is simply injudicious to disparage or to ignore them. That is why I will outline in this essay a pneumatology that embraces ecstasy but joins it at the hip to restraint.12 I begin with this working proposal: Though ecstasy was important in Antiquity and continues to be essential to the growth of the contemporary church, it should not be allowed to overshadow inspired intellectual acuity, which also played a crucial role in early Judaism and Christianity. The genius of early Judaism and Christianity is the ability to embrace and to communicate the symbiosis of ecstasy and intellectual acuity. In a remarkable way, ecstasy and restraint, spontaneity and study, coalesce in early Judaism and Christianity. Wirkungen, 8 [ET, 18]), then why would Simon, the magician of Acts 8:18, have imagined that he could purchase the power to transmit the spirit? Gunkel also argued that there is little in the Hebrew scriptures or Judaism to support the claim that the spirit inspires the moral-religious sphere, though he cites (Gunkel, Wirkungen, 9 [ET, 19]) as exceptions: Isa 11:1, 2; 28:6; 32:15ff., Ezek 36:27; perhaps Zech 12:10; Pss 51:13 and 143:10. On the Hebrew scriptures and Judaism, see Gunkel, Wirkungen, 6-10 (ET, 16-21). With respect to Judaism, Gunkel fails to take into consideration Philo Judaeus, for whom the spirit, when it is inbreathed, imparts the capacity for virtue (e.g., On the Account of the World’s Creation 134; Allegorical Interpretation 1.33-38; Who Is the Heir 55-57). 9  Gunkel, Wirkungen, 21 (ET, 33-34). 10  Ibid., 18 (ET, 30). 11  1 Cor 14:23 and Acts 2:13, respectively. Other gifts of the spirit, too, were attributed to the spirit, and none was seen as an ordinary act that any Christian at any time could perform. Even such gifts as giving and mercy were recognized as acts that were especially sacrificial, spontaneous and magnificent acts effected by the spirit. The believers at Macedonia, who provide more than amply despite their poverty, illustrate this sort of spiritinspired giving (2 Cor 8:1-5). See Gunkel, Wirkungen, 25 (ET, 37-38). 12  On the difficulty of offering a single definition of ecstasy, see my Inspired: the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 9-11.

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To demonstrate the antiquity of this conception of inspiration, I will touch down, like a tornado that touches down intermittently – I live in Texas now, where we think of these things – on a few texts, which illustrate a model of inspiration that incorporates learning and skill alongside ecstasy. There are many others, but these texts have in their favor that they represent the Hebrew Bible, the literature of Second Temple Judaism, and the New Testament: the story of Jahaziel in 2 Chron 20:14-17; Philo’s self-reflection in three autobiographical texts; the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. 1. Jahaziel (2 Chron 20:14-17) The endless genealogies that provide entrée to Chronicles hardly promise a trove of spiritual vitality. Nor does the way in which this postexilic author adapts earlier sources. Chronicles leaves no trace of Saul’s dramatic surrender to spirits, both good and evil (1 Samuel 10–19). Nor does David receive the spirit, as in 1 Sam 16:13. In this light, it is startling that no less than four times the spirit comes to otherwise unknown figures, whose footprints are negligible in the sands of Israel’s history. All four are fascinating instances of inspiration, but we will limit ourselves to one of them: the figure of Jahaziel. The author writes that, as “all Judah stood before the LORD, with the little ones, their wives, and their children … the spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel” (2 Chron 20:13-14). “The spirit of the LORD came upon” – this formula brings to mind the judges, who liberated Israel from its oppressors, and Saul, the errant warrior king, who succumbed to some sort of prophetic ecstasy when the spirit came upon him. It suggests spontaneity or some change of direction. Jahaziel’s pedigree seals this impression. Jahaziel is one of the sons of Asaph, whom David and his officers earlier “set apart” to “prophesy with lyres, harps, and cymbals” (1 Chron 25:1). There are adumbrations of ecstasy here or, if not ecstasy, the impulse of intense inspiration prompted by music. Think again of Saul among the prophets (1 Samuel 10). Jahaziel’s prophesying in a community of musicians recalls the prophesying of Saul in the company of prophet-musicians when the spirit came upon him. Similar elements – spirit, prophesying, and music – occur in both stories. It is surprising, therefore, when Jahaziel tells the people that their enemies “will come up by the ascent of Ziz; you will find them at the

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end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel.” This command sizzles with military precision rather than an out of control experience of inspiration. Strategy, however, is not the whole of this inspired speech. Jahaziel also takes over the priestly role prior to battle. What he says is entirely biblical – Torah driven – because his speech emulates the prescribed priestly speech of Deut 20:2-4: Deut 20:2-4

2 Chron 20:14-17

Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the troops, and shall say to them:

Then the spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the middle of the assembly. He said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat:

“Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies.

Thus says the LORD to you:

Do not lose heart, or be afraid, or panic, or be in dread of them;

‘Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude;

for it is the LORD your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies,

for the battle is not yours but God’s.

to give you victory.”

Tomorrow go down against them; they will come up by the ascent of Ziz; you will find them at the end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel. This battle is not for you to fight; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem’. Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.”

There are, in addition, significant allusions to scripture in Jahaziel’s speech. The command, “Fear not … This battle is not for you to fight; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the LORD on your behalf,” recalls Moses’ words to Israel on the cusp of the sea, with

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Egyptian chariots in hot pursuit: “But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today’” (Exod 14:13). In addition, the words, “the battle is not yours but God’s,” recall David’s final words to Goliath before he kills the giant (1 Sam 17:47). How does the story of Jahaziel shape our perspective on inspiration? In short, a speech that contains a crystal clear military directive and equally clear allusions to scripture is, for all of this perspicacity, inspired by the spirit. The presence of the spirit, further, is not communicated by an irenic verb such as “resting upon,” which occurs with respect to the seventy elders in the desert (Numbers 11) or the messiah of Isaiah 11. The apparent onslaught of the spirit is far more dramatic. The gist of these observations lies in these two statements. On the one hand, the formula, “the spirit of the LORD came upon,” suggests a spontaneous experience, an extemporaneous speech, especially since the one on whom the spirit comes belongs to the sons of Asaph, whom David “set apart” to “prophesy with lyres, harps, and cymbals” (1 Chron 25:1). On the other hand, the content of the speech – especially if it were not preceded by a reference to the spirit – looks perfectly well prepared, the product of study, of learning. How can these apparently incongruent parts fit together? By noting how the spirit gathers up what Jahaziel already knows, what he has already learned, and how he applies it to the exigencies of a new context. The spirit, in other words, gathers up a life of learning, steeped in Israel’s traditions, and makes it perfectly suited to a time of crisis.13 We discover, therefore, deep in the bowels of Chronicles, an experience of inspiration, even perhaps an ecstatic experience prompted by music, which yields a speech marked by military precision and careful allusions to scripture. Inspiration and intellect, study and the spirit, go hand in hand in this post-exilic literary portrayal of inspiration. Latent in this observation is a corrective about the post-exilic era, which has been characterized as an era of sterile spirituality: a stringent opposition to intermarriage and concomitant stress upon purity and separation; meticulous attention paid to the intricacies of worship and the details of priestly ritual; even the putative cessation of prophecy.14 All of 13  Another excellent example of this symbiosis at a propitious time occurs in the story of Simeon, in Luke 2:25-32, on which see my Inspired, 146-148. 14  Scholars have chipped away at this misconstrual of ancient data. See, for instance, my “Did the Spirit Withdraw from Israel? An Evaluation of the Earliest Jewish Data,” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 35-57.

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this, many scholars have argued in many ways, led to a moribund faith void of vitality. Gunkel himself would write of Jesus, “But what a powerful impression the pneuma must have made when its fullness appeared to a Judaism bereft of the Spirit. Despite that fact, the number of converted Jews must be reckoned as few, which proves how strong the antiprophetic and thus antievangelical tendency in Jesus’ time was, a tendency later culminating in the Talmud.”15 A text such as 2 Chronicles 20, by providing a glimpse of an alternative point of view, in which meticulous attention to detail does not preclude inspiration, puts the lie to Gunkel’s negative assessment of early Judaism.16 2. Philo Judaeus A similar amalgamation of ecstasy and inspired intellect comes to the fore in first-century Alexandrian philosopher Philo Judaeus’ autobiographical snippets, in which Philo explains how he is a gifted interpreter of Torah. In particular, these snippets describe the sort of inspiration that comes upon him to lead him to a higher, allegorical interpretation of scripture. On occasion, ecstasy pierces the heart of Philo’s self-understanding. In On the Migration of Abraham 34-35, Philo illustrates, from his own experience, the thesis that “the offspring of the soul’s own travail are for the most part poor abortions … but those which God waters with the snows of heaven come to the birth perfect, complete and peerless” (33).17 He recounts what has happened to him a thousand times: confident and prepared to write, he finds himself empty, unable to birth a single thought, at which point God suddenly fills him: On some occasions, after making up my mind to follow the usual course of writing on philosophical tenets, and knowing definitely the substance of what I was to set down, I have found my understanding incapable of giving birth to a single idea, and have given it up without accomplishing anything, reviling my understanding for its self-conceit … On other occasions, I have approached my work empty and  Gunkel, Wirkungen, 53 (ET, 70-71).  For a more substantial critique of Gunkel, see my “Assessing the Origins of Modern Pneumatology: The Life and Legacy of Hermann Gunkel,” in Christian Body, Christian Self: Concepts of Early Christian Personhood, ed. Clare K. Rothschild and Trevor W. Thompson (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 313-331. 17  All quotations of Philo are taken from the Loeb Classical Library, unless otherwise indicated. 15

16

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suddenly become full, the ideas falling in a shower from above and being sown invisibly, so that under the influence of the Divine [ὑπὸ κατοχῆς ἐνθέου] I have been filled with corybantic frenzy and been unconscious of anything, place, persons present, myself, words spoken, lines written. For I obtained language, ideas, an enjoyment of light, keenest vision, pellucid distinctiveness of objects, such as might be received through the eyes as the result of clearest shewing.

In this stunning moment of self-disclosure, Philo describes himself as filled with the movement of Corybants, nature spirits who prance about the newborn Zeus, who dance to the sound of flutes in the orgiastic cults of Dionysus (Strabo 10.3.11) and Cybele (Diodorus Siculus 5.49). Philo adopts the most pagan of dances to describe what happens to him on those occasions when he is stumped by scripture. On those occasions, God steps in to offer him an ecstatic unawareness of anything but a vision of keenest light, in which Philo becomes “unconscious of anything, place, persons present, myself, words spoken, lines written.” The end product of this experience? “Language, ideas, an enjoyment of light, keenest vision, pellucid distinctiveness of objects,” and a lucid interpretation of scripture, inspired writing, when he himself comes to the task of interpretation empty. In short, Philo claims to experience a studied concoction of ecstasy and inspired intellect.18 This amalgamation permeates On the Cherubim 27-29 as well, in which Philo claims to receive a specific allegorical interpretation, a “higher word” – the allegorical meaning – of the two Cherubim: But there is a higher thought than these. It comes from a voice in my own soul, which oftentimes is god-possessed [θεοληπτεῖσθαι] and divines [μαντεύεσθαι] where it does not know. This thought I will record in words if I can. The voice told me that while God is indeed one, his highest and chiefest powers are two, even goodness and sovereignty. … O then, my mind [διάνοια], admit the image unalloyed of the two Cherubim, that having learnt its clear lesson of the sovereignty, and beneficence of the Cause, thou mayest reap the fruits of a happy lot.

Philo is in ecstasy – god-possessed – and able to divine what he does not know. Yet that is only part of the story. Philo is also able to discern, through a voice within, that the cherubim represent God’s sovereignty 18  For further interpretation of this in relation to Philo’s Who Is the Heir 264-265, Questions and Answers on Genesis 3.9, and On the Special Laws 1.65 and 4.49, see my “Philo’s Personal Experience and the Persistence of Prophecy,” in Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism, ed. M. H. Floyd and R. D. Haak (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2006), 197-202.

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and beneficence. He exists, in short, in a possessed state that does not obviate his intellectual powers. The voice tells Philo – better yet, Philo’s mind – the meaning of why two cherubim, not one, guard the entrance to paradise.19 Philo’s enthusiasm for what he calls sober intoxication prompts him to describe a different experience of inspiration in On the Special Laws 3.1-6, in which he is taken up on the winds of knowledge – like the ascent of the soul in Plato’s Phaedrus 246-253. At these times, which lie regrettably in his past, when he was less a civic leader than a philosopher, Philo “seemed always to be borne aloft into the heights with a soul possessed by some God-sent inspiration [ἐπιθειασμὸν].” The word, ἐπιθειασμόν, is reminiscent of Philo’s interpretation of God’s command to Abraham (Genesis 12:1) to leave his home: “Like persons possessed [κατεχόμενοι] and corybants, be filled with inspired frenzy, even as the prophets are inspired [ἐπιθειασμόν]. For it is the mind which is under the divine afflatus, and no longer in its own keeping, but is stirred to its depths and maddened by heavenward yearning … with truth to lead the way.”20 Of particular importance in grasping the nature of inspiration in Philo’s writings is the recognition that the product of inspiration is something learned. Philo does not need to claim inspiration to grasp the literal interpretation of Torah, but he does appeal to inspiration to offer allegorical interpretations of scripture, as if those levels of interpretation were not accessible to the normal human mind. Yet this mode of interpretation, while ingenious with respect to certain passages, is unremarkable on the whole. Alexandria, Philo’s home, was home, too, to a tradition of allegorical interpretation that would span centuries.21 Ecstasy was never the goal of inspiration. Rather, during his own experiences of ecstatic ascent, which Philo recounts in striking detail in On the Special Laws 3.1-6, Philo was able “to open the soul’s eyes,” to be wafted on the winds of knowledge, and to become “irradiated by the light of wisdom.” Inspiration kindled knowledge and wisdom in Philo. The truest goal of ecstasy lies even farther along this vein of intellectual acuity, when Philo finds himself “daring, not only to read the sacred

19  For further interpretation of this text in relation to Philo’s On Dreams 2.252 and Life of Moses 2.264-265, see my “Philo’s Personal Experience and the Persistence of Prophecy,” 202-207. 20  Philo, Who Is the Heir 69-71. 21  See D. Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1992).

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pages of Moses, but also in my love of knowledge to peer into each of them and unfold and reveal what is not known to the multitude.” What is the purpose of ecstasy? The answer, notwithstanding diverse vocabulary and different modes, from ascent to voices within, is simple: to prove Philo an inspired interpreter of Torah. Whether due to the sway of ecstasy and corybantic dance, the quiet whisper of a customary spirit within (On Dreams 2.252), or the upsurge at the apex of contemplation, Philo becomes, to his own mind at least, an exceptional and inspired interpreter of Moses’ writings.22 3. Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) Ecstasy and comprehension fuse as well in the fiery experience of Pentecost. The way Luke tells the story, the cosmos stirred at Pentecost: When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the holy spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the spirit gave them ability (Acts 2:1-4).

At first blush, the experience of Jesus’ followers exhibits the characteristics of Greco-Roman ecstasy: fire, filling, and the appearance of drunkenness. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a GrecoRoman reader (including Jews) to have heard about tongues as of fire, filling with (the) spirit, and the charge of drunkenness without discerning in them the presence of ecstasy.23 Alongside these ecstatic elements – even somewhat overshadowed by them – lies comprehension, which is evident in three words. First of all, Luke actually writes, not that the earliest followers of Jesus “spoke in tongues,” but that they “spoke in other tongues.” The underlying element of ecstasy that is inherent in the phrase “speaking in tongues” 22  In general, on Philo and inspiration, see my “Inspiration and the Divine Spirit in the Writings of Philo Judaeus,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 26 (1995): 271-323. 23  For a more detailed analysis of ecstasy and Acts 2, see my Filled with the Spirit, 325-335. For caveats on using Plutarch et al. for New Testament interpretation, see H. Gunkel, R. Hirsch-Luipold, and J. R. Levison, “Plutarch and Pentecost: An Exploration in Interdisciplinary Collaboration,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. J. Frey and J. R. Levison (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 63-94.

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is broken by the word, “other,” which points to comprehensible dialects. The inspired ability to speak in other languages prompts the hearers, “who were bewildered because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each,” to ask, “And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” (2:6-7). Comprehension – what Michael Welker calls the miracle of ultra-comprehensibility – rules the day of Pentecost. Luke tells us so in both third person narrative (2:4) and direct speech (2:7-8). It is hard to miss the comprehensible impact of the holy spirit.24 Comprehension is apparent, second, when Luke reveals the content of speaking in other tongues: the praiseworthy acts of God (τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ θεοῦ). “Praiseworthy acts” is a shorthand expression for God’s powerful acts in Israel’s history.25 These acts begin with creation, traverse the storied experience of the exodus, and continue through the reigns of faithful monarchs. In short, when they are filled with the holy spirit, when tongues hover above each of them, when they appear to be drunk, their words consist of nothing other than a great litany of God’s works – just the sort of litany that we discover in the books of Deuteronomy and the Psalms. Comprehension is evident, third, in the verb Luke adopts to describe the disciples’ speech – a word, ἀποφθέγγεσθαι, translated inadequately at the end of Acts 2:4 as “gave them ability” (NRSV) or “enabled” (NIV) or “gave them utterance” (ESV). In the book of Acts, this word means much more. A few short lines later, Peter will stand up and deliver an inspired sermon that brings thousands to repentance. This grand speech is introduced by the word, ἀπεφθέγξατο (2:14). Peter “uttered” his explanation of Pentecost by stitching together scriptural allusions and citations. All of these texts provide certainty “that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (2:36). Luke takes up this verb a third time when he depicts Paul in dire straits, left to languish in prison and itching for an appearance before the Roman governor. In the course of his appearance, Paul is accused, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!” Paul responds, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth” (26:24-25). The verb Paul adopts to underscore the utter veracity of his claims is ἀποφθέγγεσθαι. Of all the words Luke might 24  M. Welker’s God the Spirit showcases the ultra-comprehensibility of Pentecost. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1994), 233. 25  See, for example, Deut 11:2-5 and Ps 105:1-2.

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have chosen to express Paul’s sanity, of all the ways in which Luke might have contrasted madness with mental composure, he chooses to contrast, in the clearest of terms, two expressions: “I am not mad” and “I utter [ἀποφθέγγομαι] true and sober words.” The verb earlier used of the Pentecostal believers (2:4) and Peter the preacher (2:14) occurs here to communicate complete and utter sanity (26:25). If there is a verb in Acts that expresses intellectual acuity, it is this verb, ἀποφθέγγεσθαι. The selection of this verb in the context of the Pentecost story blunts the hard edge of ecstasy while maintaining the rhetorical clout the ecstatic dimension conveyed within the confines of the Greco-Roman world. In a dazzling world of disarray overflowing with violent winds, filling with spirit, tongues as of fire, and the appearance of drunkenness, there occurs a trustworthy utterance of scripture. These believers, like Paul before Agrippa and Festus much later in the story, are not mad or drunk; their proclamation, like Peter’s in quick succession and Paul’s later, contains a fresh – Luke would say inspired – interpretation of scripture that is, through and through, the essence of sobriety and truth. What, then, are we to make of the narrative of Pentecost? There is a rich subtlety in this story, which preserves the ecstatic dimension by retaining the elements of filling with the holy spirit, fire, the phrase “speaking in (other) tongues,” and the impression of intoxication. Luke is prepared not only to tolerate but even to appreciate the ecstatic dimension of Pentecost. Yet he recognizes that this is not the whole of the story, for he refers not to speaking in tongues but to speaking in other tongues, other dialects that the hearers are amazed to be able to understand, and he adopts the verb, ἀποφθέγγεσθαι, to communicate words spoken under inspiration. Luke happily embraces the worth of both ecstasy and restraint. The power of Pentecost may lie, in Luke’s estimation, not in either incomprehensibility or apprehension, but in the early believers’ ability to embrace both. The story of Pentecost continues in the book of Acts. When, in the second instance of speaking in (other) tongues, the holy spirit comes upon Cornelius and his Gentile friends, Peter and his coterie hear them “speaking in tongues and praising God.” The association of speaking in tongues with praise draws the reader back to speaking in other tongues in Acts 2, where the recitation of “God’s praiseworthy acts” in other languages is comprehensible; the verb praise (μεγαλυνόντων) in Acts 10:46 is even related to the noun praiseworthy acts (τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ θεοῦ) in Acts 2:11. This literary parallel suggests that this second instance, like

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the first, combines comprehensible praise with the ecstasy of speaking in tongues – or other tongues. A similar scenario characterizes the third instance of speaking in (other) tongues, in which Luke’s readers meet a band of “disciples” who had not heard of the holy spirit (Acts 19:1-7); when Paul laid his hands upon them, “the holy spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” Prophesying in Acts, like praise, is comprehensible. Prophets punctuate the history of the early church with occasional but certain clarity about the future. For example, the prophet Agabus correctly predicts a famine (11:27-28). Judas and Silas, themselves prophets, are sent to Antioch with a letter to interpret the Jerusalem Council’s decision “by word of mouth.” When they arrive in Antioch, they encourage and strengthen the believers; this speech, of course, is comprehensible (15:22, 27, 32). In Acts 19, then, speaking in tongues is combined with comprehensible speech. Luke’s portrayal of speaking in tongues – or other tongues – joins ecstasy to comprehension. In Acts 2, the believers speak in “other” tongues. In Acts 10, they speak in tongues and praise. In Acts 19, they speak in tongues and prophesy. All of these are comprehensible speech acts, though their association with speaking in tongues suggests that they are not merely comprehensible speech acts.26 Luke refuses to opt for either comprehension or ecstasy, because his understanding of inspiration combines the most respected forms of Greco-Roman ecstasy – so respected, in fact, that Jews like Philo adopted them to explain prophetic inspiration – with the richest interpretation of Jewish scripture to illuminate the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.27

26

 This combination is apparent as well in the Fourth Gospel, where the paraclete, the spirit of truth, leads believers into the truth that Jesus was unable to communicate while he was still alive because the disciples were so grief-stricken. This truth is about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which is brought to light through the study of the Jewish Scriptures. We see this combination of inspiration and education twice in John’s Gospel: in the statement about the destruction of the temple (John 2:13-17) and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (12:12-16). In both cases the disciples understand an act or word of Jesus only after his death, and they do so only in light of a specific text from the Jewish Bible. Simply put, the spirit in the Fourth Gospel, like the spirit in the book of Acts, imparts an inspired interpretation of Jesus that is rooted in Israel’s scriptures. See further my Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 399-404. 27  See ibid., 343-344 for a full statement.

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4. Pneumatology Past and Future Inspiration and intellect. Study and spontaneity. Ecstasy and restraint. These pairings lie at the heart of this essay, in which I have suggested a particular model of inspiration for the future of Christianity. Rooted in writings from Tanak, Early Judaism, and the New Testament, this is the thesis I have proposed, that Israelite, early Jewish, and early Christian authors embraced a conception of inspiration, in which ecstasy and intellectual acuity meet. In light of this ancient model, ecstasy in the burgeoning Christian church must not be allowed to overshadow inspired intellectual acuity; nor must a penchant for intellectual acuity overshadow the essential ingredient of ecstasy. To this pneumatology should be added two further reflections. First, the examples of Jahaziel and Philo may suggest that claims to an experience of the spirit were an entirely individual affair. Though it may not always be front and center, however, the presence of a community and its traditions provides the crucible for inspiration. Jahaziel belongs to the community of the sons of Asaph, who are said to prophesy; just as important, another figure in the book of Chronicles, Amasai, “Chief of the Thirty” (1 Chron 12:18), speaks similarly under inspiration. Both reflect, in short, an established pattern of inspiration-in-community. Philo, though he may at first blush seem like a solo interpreter, is enmeshed in his Jewish community, so much so that he leads a delegation to the emperor Gaius when a persecution hampers Jews in Alexandria; further, his allegorical interpretations, which he deems inspired, fit neatly among the contours adopted by other Alexandrian exegetes, who, like Philo, belonged to a longstanding tradition of allegorical exegesis.28 Pentecost, too, is communal, from start to finish, from communal prayer and study in a nondescript upper room to a community that would devote itself to camaraderie, the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread together, and prayer (Acts 2:42).29 The second reflection is this: inspiration demands preparation. It is, according to the model I propose, the product of learning. In Jahaziel’s inspired speech coalesce precise military strategies, a priestly blessing before battle, and multiple allusions to what is now scripture. Philo enters into an ecstatic state as an interpreter of Torah, and his 28  Once again, see Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. 29  For related texts, see my Inspired, 180-182.

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interpretations, inspired or not, reflect an established Alexandrian tradition of allegorical interpretation that would stretch into centuries of Christian thought. The followers of Jesus at Pentecost speak content – the praiseworthy acts of God – when filled by the holy spirit. Such speech is not the product of spontaneous recollection but communal study. When Peter speaks later before the Sanhedrin, his hearers grasp his boldness, realize that he and John with him are unlettered men, and recognize – here is the key – that they were companions of Jesus (Acts 4:13). How so? First, of course, because, according to all three synoptic gospels, Jesus had cited Ps 118:22 – the very text Peter now cites – in his parable of the wicked tenants. Peter first heard the citation from Jesus. And second, because Ps 118:22 was a popular section of Jewish scripture adopted by the early church. In 1 Pet 2:7, this text occurs alongside several other scriptural snippets in testimony to Jesus Christ. When the holy spirit fills Peter, then, the words that arise in testimony to Jesus are ones that he – and the community of which he is a part, starting with Jesus – has committed to memory.30 In closing, we return to Maria Woodworth-Etter and Hermann Gunkel. Maria drew thousands to her white revival tents in the cornfields of Indiana, where she would “take a text and trust God to lead me in his own way.” This may be a viable model of inspiration, but it is not a model that ancient Jews and Christians ultimately endorsed. For them, inspiration arose out of learning, not despite it – though I would hazard a guess that Woodworth-Etter had more scripture stored in her memory than her statement would lead us to believe. By the same token, Hermann Gunkel, at the same time as Woodworth-Etter though an ocean and education apart, was correct to supplant German Idealism with a model in which the effects of the spirit were paramount – in particular, speaking in tongues. Still, the appreciable impact of Gunkel’s Büchlein should not be allowed to efface the reality that leaders in the early church, such as the apostle Paul, embraced ecstasy alongside study. Paul, while not a champion of glossolalia, never discarded the experience. He connected it, rather, to the edification of the community – and with this observation we return to the heart of this essay and the mandate to develop a pneumatology that embraces inspiration through intellect, the spirit in study – what Philo long ago called sober intoxication.

 For related texts, see my Inspired, 182-184.

30

‘The Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Dialogues’ and the Promotion of the Dialogue School in Flanders, Belgium Ma. Marilou S. Ibita Documents are important, but they are not all. Documents can become dead letters; in contrast, dialogue thrives on personal face to face encounter.1

Catholic religious education (RE) in Belgium finds itself in the midst of various factors that have an impact on the support for the Catholic identity features at school. They include the complexity of Belgian religious education being legally mandated (which has been questioned in recent years), globalisation, multi-causal migration leading to increasing pluralism and, particularly, religious diversity, growing individualisation, rising secularism, and de-traditionalization which is manifested by the decreasing support for the traditional expressions of being members of the Roman Catholic church.2 Since the Catholic schools serve the * I am grateful to Didier Pollefeyt and Jan Bouwens for sharing the 2008-2015 empirical results on the Catholic identity of the Catholic Schools in Flanders, Belgium. 1  Walter Kasper, “Reflections by Card. Walter Kasper: The Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews: A Crucial Endeavour of the Catholic Church,” November 6, 2002, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/cardkasper-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20021106_kasper-boston-college_en.html. 2  For a Catholic perspective, see Didier Pollefeyt, “Belgium: The HermeneuticCommunicative Model: A Feasible Option?,” in How Teachers in Europe Teach Religion: An International Empirical Study in 16 Countries, ed. Hans-Georg Ziebertz and Ulrich Riegel, International Practical Theology 12 (Berlin: Lit, 2009), 31-43; Henri Derroitte et al., “Religious Education at Schools in Belgium,” in Religious Education at Schools in Europe. Volume 2: Western Europe, ed. Martin Rothgangel, Robert Jackson, and Martin Jäggle, Wiener Forum für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft 10/2 (Vienna: V&R Unipress/Vienna University Press, 2014), 43-62; Lieven Boeve, “Beyond Correlation Strategies: Teaching Religion in a Detraditionalised and Pluralised Context,” in Hermeneutics and Religious Education, ed. H. Lombaerts and D. Pollefeyt, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 180 (Leuven/Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), 234-254. In contrast, see Patrick Loobuyck and Leni Franken, “Towards Integrative Religious Education in

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majority of the students in all of Belgium, particularly in the Flemish Region and the (Dutch-speaking) Flemish Community, Derroitte et al. underline the crucial debate about the more appropriate and relevant approach to Catholic RE: whether it should be dialogical with other worldviews, or whether it should be focused on being more Catholic.3 Recent research findings show the need for an increasing movement from a monological to a dialogical model departing from a clear Catholic identity in dealing with these challenges. Transforming the monocorrelation of Catholic faith with daily life experiences into multiple correlation through a hermeneutic-communicative model with strong links to interreligious learning processes is one of the most important tasks.4 This challenge for Catholic schools to serve as training grounds for dialogue is also found in the Vatican document celebrating the fortyeighth anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Gravissimum Educationis.5 Given this background on the Catholic schools in Flanders, Belgium, this paper presents the recent results of the participating Flemish schools in the Catholic Dialogue School Project from October 2008-December 2016, which indicates a decrease in support for the Catholic identity of the schools. The responses to the questionnaires on Catholic Identity features – the Post-Critical Belief Scale, the Melbourne Scale, and the Victoria Scale – show a decreasing support for the schools’ Catholic identities. As part of the dialogical and hermeneutical response, this paper suggests using a normativity of the future hermeneutical approach6 in

Belgium and Flanders: Challenges and Opportunities,” British Journal of Religious Education 33, no. 1 (2011): 17-30. 3  See Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 47-48. 4  Ibid., 47-53; Didier Pollefeyt, “The Difference of Alterity: A Religious Pedagogy for an Interreligious and Interideological World,” in Responsibility, God and Society: Theological Ethics in Dialogue. Festschrift Roger Burggraeve, ed. Johan De Tavernier et al., Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 217 (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 305-330. 5  See Congregation for Catholic Education, “Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love,” October 28, 2013, available from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_ con_ccatheduc_doc_20131028_dialogo-interculturale_en.html (accessed 19 April 2017). 6  See Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, “Introduction: The ‘Normativity of the Future Approach’: Its Roots, Development, Current State and Challenges,” in Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 3-25; Reimund Bieringer, “Texts That Create a Future: The Function of Ancient Texts for Theology Today,” in the same book, 91-116; and Reimund

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engaging the stories of the Spirit-empowered Jesus in his ministry (Spirit Christology, or better still, Shekinah Christology) and the early church in its Jewish-Greco-Roman context. It is hoped that this approach will help the teachers explore ways of recontextualising biblical texts in forms that can strengthen the Dialogue School pedagogy and help prepare Christian and Catholic students to become people of dialogue in the increasingly plural Flemish and global contexts. 1. Support for the Catholic Identity of Catholic Schools: Flemish Data The cumulative October 2008-December 2016 results presented here involve 28,822 adults (teachers and school leadership) and students (year 5-12) from 42 primary schools and 145 secondary schools in Antwerp, Limburg, Brussels, Flemish Brabant, East Flanders and West Flanders. Regarding the question about their religious affiliation and life philosophies, Table 1 show that the majority of the respondents (53.8%) are Catholics followed by those who have non-religious life philosophy or the ‘nones’ (30.9%). The rest include the religious ‘other than Christian’ (8.5%) and the ‘non-Catholic Christians’ (6.8%). Table 1 also displays the more specific breakdown of the various respondent groups. With regard to the students, while Catholics form the majority of those in Year (henceforth ‘y’) 5-10, the ‘nones’ overtake them in y11-12 by 10.4%. Moreover, starting from y9-10, the Catholic participants diminish. In contrast, the ‘nones’ consistently increase from y5-6 until they become the majority in y11-12, representing close to half of the students (48.7%). Those from other religions continuously drop in number as the year level goes higher. The Christians who are non-Catholics represent the smallest group in all year levels. Regarding the teachers and the school leadership, Catholics account for the big majority. With a big gap, the non-religious group comes next, followed by the Christians. Those who are ‘religious other than Christian’ are the least. These trends in the composition of the participants will impact upon the results of the overall outcomes of the different scales used in measuring how the Catholic identity features can be expressed in dialogical means.

Bieringer, “The Normativity of the Future: The Authority of the Bible for Theology,” in the same book, 27-45.

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Table 1: Religion and Life Philosophy Results Flanders (2008-2016) Catholic

Christian other Religious other Non-religious than Catholic than Christian philosophy of life

Students Year 5-6 (n=907/1172)

58.2%

7.2%

21.5%

13.1%

Students Year 7-8 (n=4738/10288)

61.1%

8.2%

10.8%

19.9%

Students Year 9-10 (n=5318/10994)

41.8%

8.2%

11.1%

32.6%

Students Year 11-12 (n=5567/11444)

38.3%

6.2%

6.8%

48.7%

Teachers (n=3635/4899) School leadership (n=430/387)

71.2%

4.1%

2.1%

22.6%

85.1%

3.7%

0.5%

10.7%

All respondents (n=20595/72201)

53.8%

6.8%

8.5%

30.9%

As noted in the introduction, increasingly the preferred direction in Catholic RE, particularly on theological grounds, is to promote a dialogical pedagogy.7 The Victoria Scale measurement used in the Dialogue School Project is helpful as it assesses the schools’ religious identity from a pedagogical perspective through four ‘types’ of Catholic school (see Figure 1).8 The upper two quadrants represent the pedagogies that uphold the Christian identity. The Monologue School promotes a strong desire to sustain the religious identity but at the cost of minimal commitment to others who do not belong to the same group (maximal Christian identity but minimal solidarity). The Dialogue School is preferable because it promotes strong solidarity with others from a very clear Christian perspective (maximal Christian Identity and maximal solidarity). The theologically preferred position in the Dialogue School quadrant is the upper right corner where maximum Christian identity meets the maximum solidarity, as pointed out by a clear dot. The two lower quadrants exemplify the secularising options. The Colourful School 7  See Pollefeyt, “Belgium,” 31-43; Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 48-58; Boeve, “Beyond Correlation Strategies,” 251-254. 8  See Didier Pollefeyt and Jan Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue: Assessing and Enhancing Catholic School Identity. Research Methodology and Research Results in Catholic Schools in Victoria, Australia, Christian Religious Education and School Identity 1 (Zurich/Berlin: LIT-Verlag, 2014), 60-65.

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advocates solidarity but with weak religious attachment or association (minimal Christian identity but maximal solidarity). The Colourless School wants to privatise religion and commitment (minimal Christian identity, minimal solidarity).9 preferential school identity option on theological grounds

Figure 1. Diagram of the typology of the Victoria Scale 10 Table 2: Victoria Scale Results Flanders (2008-2016)

Participants

Year 5-6 (n= 729) Year 7-8 (n=3716) Year 9-10 (n=4527) Year 11-12 (n=4781) Teachers (n=3055) School Leadership (n=374)

Monologue School

Dialogue School

Colourful School

Colourless School

Current Ideal Current Ideal Current Ideal Current Ideal Practice School Practice School Practice School Practice School 3.2 3.2 2.8 2.4 3.0 2.8

2.9 2.8 2.3 2.0 2.5 2.5

4.4 4.5 4.5 4.5 5.1 5.3

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.2 5.4 5.7

4.2 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.1 3.8

4.6 4.8 4.9 5.0 4.6 3.8

3.8 3.7 3.6 3.6 3.8 3.5

1= I strongly disagree; 2= I disagree; 3=I somewhat agree; 4= I neither agree nor disagree; 5= I somewhat agree; 6= I agree; and 7= I strongly agree

The 2008-2016 comparative results between the factual level and the normative level of the Victoria Scale in Table 2 show that the adults have  See Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 60-63.  Ibid., 60.

9

10

4.0 4.0 4.1 4.2 3.9 3.2

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an increasingly high appreciation of the Dialogue School on both levels compared with the students’ low and even slightly decreasing support. Both groups have a diminishing support for the Monologue School but it is a sharper decline among the students, especially as the year level goes higher and since there are decreasing numbers of Catholic and Christian participants. Both groups also have rising openness to the secularising options at the normative level but the Colourful School is more desired than the Colourless School. Commitment to solidarity is supported in the Colourful School but the schools’ Catholic identity is increasingly overlooked. The secularising, private practice of one’s faith in the Colourless School is also growing.11 The overall results potentially lead to the Colourful School rivalling, or even replacing, the Dialogue School as the preferable primary option in the current and ideal settings resulting in the eventual loss of the school’s Catholic identity. The same trends are shown in the Melbourne Scale which identifies five theological identity options that relate to Catholic school identity within a pluralising and secularising cultural context (see Figure 2).12 The Confessionally based approach reflects the classic Catholic school, with its Catholic identity features and structure continuing in an unreflective preferential school identity option on theological grounds

Figure 2. Diagram of the typology of the Melbourne Scale 13 11  See Kathleen Engebretson, Catholic Schools and the Future of the Church (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 5-12. 12  See Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 174-175. 13  Ibid., 52.

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manner, seemingly unaffected by the ongoing tendencies of detraditionalisation and secularisation. Here, the elements of culture and religion are considered to be very close to one another. As the diagram shows, this is the context in the 1950s. As the gap/ divide between culture and Christianity was growing, especially in the West, one of the response strategies was Christian Values Education, where there was a one-to-one or mono-correlation of relating the faith tradition with the changing surrounding context. It still works somehow today in a setting where there continues to be some level of Confessionality as detected in the current practice.14 However, when the gap grows bigger, three trajectories can be chosen by a school in varying degrees and combination: (a) to (inadvertently) let go of the Catholic identity since nothing can be done anyway (Institutional Secularisation); (b) to insist on the Catholic identity but in a way that is defensive and exclusive (Reconfessionalisation); or (c) to nurture the Catholic identity in multi-correlational fashion and to engage in more dialogue with the changing, de-Christianising context (Recontextualisation). The preferred theological position of the Dialogue School is the middle area within the ambit of Recontextualisation. Table 3: Melbourne Scale Results Flanders (2008-2016) Secularisation Participants

Year 5-6 (n= 677) Year 7-8 (n=3188) Year 9-10 (n=3941) Year 11-12 (n=4177) Teachers (n=3117) School Leadership (n=371)

Reconfessionalisation

Christian Values ReconEducation textualisation

Current Ideal Current Ideal Current Ideal Current Ideal Current Practice School Practice School Practice School Practice School Practice 3.3 3.6 3.9 4.2 3.5 3.2

3.5 3.8 4.2 4.6 3.5 2.9

3.3 3.3 2.7 2.4 3.6 3.6

2.9 2.7 2.2 2.0 3.5 3.7

4.4 4.5 4.4 4.4 4.6 4.5

4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.5 4.4

4.1 4.1 4.0 4.0 4.8 5.1

3.8 3.7 3.7 3.7 5.1 5.5

1= I strongly disagree; 2= I disagree; 3=I somewhat agree; 4= I neither agree nor disagree; 5= I somewhat agree; 6= I agree; and 7= I strongly agree 14

Confessionality

 Confessionality is not possible to assess in the ideal level.

3.4 3.3 2.9 2.6 3.6 3.5

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The Melbourne Scale results (see Table 3) show that, unlike the adults, the students mainly continue to observe at school a one-to-one correlation of Catholic faith tradition with the plural context (Christian Values Education). Yet this approach is inadequate in bridging the growing gap between the Catholic faith and the present, more complex, and increasingly plural context. In settling for the least common denominator between Christian tradition and the pluralising context, Christian Values Education unintentionally waters down the particularity of Christianity, consequently leading to a rising appreciation of Christian Values Education and the ironic but increasing loss of the school’s Catholic identity.15 The multi-correlational approach of Recontextualisation tends to be more difficult and requires more dialogical work among the school members in and out of the school in relation to the fast and ever-changing socio-cultural-ethnic-religious context in Flanders. Thus, there is more resistance to it compared to Christian Values Education. Nonetheless, Recontextualisation is seen as the most effective approach in the long run. There is therefore a need to fortify and to communicate clearly to the students the advantages of Recontextualisation in promoting a dialogical pedagogy.16 Both the results of the Victoria and the Melbourne Scales, which lean toward a more secularising option, are also reflected in the Post-Critical Belief Scale. The PCB Scale demonstrates the ‘cognitive belief styles’ or ‘religious attitudes’ of the respondents (Figure 3).17 In the diagram in Figure 3, the two lower quadrants represent the believing styles, whether it is literal (Literal Belief) or symbolic (Post-Critical Belief). The two upper quadrants show the unbelieving styles, again from both literal (External Critique) and symbolic (Relativism) perspectives. The theologically preferred position of Post-Critical Belief helpful to the Dialogue School, indicated by a clear dot, is found in the corner of the maximum believing stance where the symbolic and literal are in a creative tension, where there is an inclusion of transcendence.

 Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 260.  Pollefeyt, “Belgium,” 33-43; Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 305-315; Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 48-58. 17  See Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 44-51. 15

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preferential belief position on theological grounds

Figure 3. Diagram of the typology of the Post Critical Belief 18 Table 4: Post-Critical Belief Scale Results Flanders (2008-2016) Participants

Literal Belief

External Critique

Relativism

Post-Critical Belief

Year 5-6 (n= 789) Year 7-8 (n=4445) Year 9-10 (n=5542) Year 11-12 (n=9823) Teachers (n=3522) School Leadership (n=398)

3.6 3.1 2.6 2.3 2.5 2.7

3.0 3.5 3.7 3.7 3.6 3.0

4.8 4.9 5.0 5.1 5.0 5.0

4.5 3.9 3.6 3.4 5.0 5.4

1= I strongly disagree; 2= I disagree; 3=I somewhat agree; 4= I neither agree nor disagree; 5= I somewhat agree; 6= I agree; and 7= I strongly agree

In the Flanders’ results, the dwindling support for the Dialogue School (Table 2) corresponds with the students’ growing agreement with the symbolic but non-believing cognitive style of Relativism and the growing support for the non-symbolic, literal and disbelieving stance of External Critique. At the same time they register a decreasing adherence to the believing and symbolic cognitive stance (Post-Critical Belief) and an increasing indication of outgrowing Literal Belief.  Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 44.

18

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Table 5: Catholic School Identity Features: Catholics and Christians

Participants

Year 5-6 (n=506) Year 5-6 (n=64) Year 7-8 (n=2699) Year 7-8 (n=337) Year 9-10 (n=2404) Year 9-10 (n=370) Year 11-12 (n=1808) Year 11-12 (n=236) School staff (n=2493) School staff (n=105)

Involvement in social justice projects

Openness to different cultures, beliefs & life philosophies

3.72

3.27

2.99

3.05

2.67

2.70

3.0

3.75

3.05

2.94

2.73

2.69

3.37

3.24

2.95

2.91

2.41

2.33

3.26

3.45

2.88

2.86

2.25

2.33

3.31

3.35

2.84

2.78

2.30

2.15

3.11

3.32

2.80

2.74

2.19

2.12

3.32

3.38

2.82

2.71

2.38

2.28

3.66

3.71

2.83

2.68

2.31

2.25

3.57

3.36

3.27

3.32

3.18

3.16

3.54

3.44

3.20

3.19

3.09

3.19

Religious Education Celebrating and faith formation together of students

Reading the Bible or Prayer Use of at school Scriptures at school

1= A lot less 2= Less 3= OK 4= More 5= A lot more White font, not underlined: Catholics; Black, underlined: Christians

Tables 5-6 list the various Catholic identity features and the respondents’ different religious affiliations, or lack of them, whereby we see that the general trend for all the groups is somewhat the same in leaning towards Secularisation, although the intensity varies. The students’ resistance to the more traditional expressions of Catholic identity rises not only in relation to the year level but also in view of each feature. There is an increasing disapproval of religious education and formation, although the growing resistance to communal faith celebration is slightly stronger. Prayer at school and reading/using the Bible at school are the most opposed, especially as the students grow older. The Christ-believing students exhibit

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the same trend, although to a lesser degree than the ‘religious but nonChristians/Catholics’. The ‘nones’ show the clearest indication that they want fewer of these Catholic identity features. The latter trend is also present among the adults who are religious but non-Christ believers and those with non-religious life philosophies. Only the Christ-believing school staff (teachers and school leadership) have mean scores close to the middle which means that they find these features “okay” to have at school. Those who are ‘religious but non-Christians’ and those who have ‘non-religious life philosophy’ tend to be less inclined to support these features. Table 6: Catholic School Identity Features: Other Religions and Non-Religious

Participants

Year 5-6 (n=186) Year 5-6 (n=114) Year 7-8 (n=398) Year 7-8 (n=866) Year 9-10 (n=488) Year 9-10 (n=1592) Year 11-12 (n=297) Year 11-12 (n=2165) School staff (n=66) School staff (n=722)

Involvement in social justice projects

Openness to different cultures, beliefs & life philosophies

4.05

4.03

3.11

2.95

2.35

2.19

3.57

3.43

2.55

2.54

2.25

2.26

3.22

3.53

2.84

2.78

2.02

2.02

3.33

3.28

2.45

2.35

1.71

1.85

3.30

3.80

2.83

2.70

2.03

1.95

3.34

3.42

2.42

2.28

1.81

1.81

3.60

4.08

2.62

2.49

2.01

1.95

3.51

3.58

2.48

2.30

1.98

2.00

3.77

3.76

3.08

3.03

2.76

2.89

3.80

3.69

2.77

2.70

2.59

2.67

Religious Education Celebrating and faith formation together of students

1= A lot less 2= Less 3= OK 4= More 5= A lot more Black Italics: Other Religions; White Bold: Non-religious

Reading the Bible or Prayer Use of at school Scriptures at school

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In contrast, most of the students and the adults find common ground in supporting the Catholic identity features of openness to diversity followed by involvement in justice projects. Openness to diversity garners most support. The Catholic respondents in all their grouping tend to find it “okay” to have at school and they show a slight desire to have more of it. The Christians tend to display a bit more longing for openness to diversity compared to the Catholics, and those in y5-6 and y11-12 are the strongest supporters. More support to increase openness to plurality is found among the ‘nones’, with the desire growing higher as the year level goes up, and with the school staff being most supportive of it. The strongest agreement is found among the ‘non-Christian religious’ particularly those in y11-12 and y5-6, along with a clear support from the school staff. It is notable that openness to diversity is desired most by the non-Christ believing religious group than all the other groups. Meanwhile, involvement in justice projects is also supported especially by those in y5-6 who are religious but non-Christian. The Catholics of the same year follow and the third are the non-Christians. The y5-6 Christians say that they are okay with it. In comparing with the other student groups, involvement in justice projects is well-appreciated. The y11-12 Christian students are the most supportive. They are followed by the non-Christian, then by the ‘nones’ and, finally, by the Catholics. Among the school staff, the strongest agreement to have a bit more of involvement in justice projects is the non-Christian religious group. According to Tables 5-6, the identity features of openness to diversity and involvement in justice projects seem to be the most open routes for developing proactive and dialogical ways to foster a school’s Catholic identity. On the other hand, the more traditional and dogmatic expressions of Catholic identity are spaces where more challenges for dialogue are found. These challenges are further corroborated by the results of the participants’ in the other measuring instruments. Here, the combination of a high score for the Post-Critical Belief, Recontextualisation and Dialogue School will be very helpful. Although Christian Values Education might help, the mono-correlational approach will water down the specific identity of the dialogue partners. Hence, the multi-correlationality of Recontextualisation is preferable. In particular, resistance to the use of Scriptures at school is the most challenging since the Bible is a fundamental resource in upholding Catholic identity. This dwindling desire to use Scriptures at school manifests the so-called “Bible boredom” or “Bible fatigue”.19 While more 19  See Didier Pollefeyt and Reimund Bieringer, “The Role of the Bible in Religious Education Reconsidered: Risks and Challenges in Teaching the Bible,” in Normativity

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detailed empirical research on its causes has not yet been done,20 according to Pollefeyt and Bieringer, in religious education, Bible boredom happens when … reading the Bible takes on the character of a preprogrammed activity. It becomes a procedure with easily predictable results. It does not provide the opportunity for active participation in the reading process, but provides a detailed film script so that the actors know from the very beginning how the story will end. It is not surprising that students resist this kind of biblical instruction. Young people have a strong intuitive sense for situations where a truth is imposed on them and where they are denied the possibility of participating actively in discovering a truth. They prefer not to have personal convictions spoon-fed to them like reheated take-out meals.21

In sum, given the diverse religious backgrounds of the participants in the Flemish Schools survey, the students’ decreasing support of the Dialogue School, and the growing agreement with the secularising pedagogy of the Colourful School, what will result is a thinning down of the participants’ own religious identity, Catholic or not. This move towards the secularization of the identity of the members and of the school can intensify if the students’ preference for Relativism over Post-Critical Belief and Christian Values Education over Recontextualisation is not addressed. They are seen more explicitly in the trend, related to the Catholic identity features, that sees the more universal ethical expressions (openness to diversity and joining justice actions) increasingly favoured over the more explicitly Catholic features. Are there ways to respond to these secularising trends in order to uphold the school’s Catholic identity in more integrated ways? 2. The Spirit, Normativity of the Future Hermeneutics and the Dialogue School Pedagogy There are a variety of ways to address the diminishing support of and increasing doubt and opposition to the Dialogue School pedagogy and the other manifestations of the secularising trend as shown in the of the Future, 377-402, 393-394; Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 142-143, 292, 307. In a conversation with Reimund Bieringer we discussed also the critique of Luc de Saeger that Bible boredom/may not necessarily be boredom or fatigue with the Bible per se but with the way it is dealt with in a classroom or school setting. 20  Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 292. 21  Pollefeyt and Bieringer, “Role of the Bible,” 393.

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Catholic identity features.22 As Pollefeyt suggests, the hermeneuticalcommunicative model coupled with interreligious learning is one combination of the ways to approach the challenges of Catholic RE in Flanders.23 A range of compulsory or optional pastoral projects and religious experiences are offered to the students with the “head, hands, heart” approach in order to “provide children and young with the opportunities to be introduced to, nourished by and inspired with the Christian tradition in daily school life.”24 In Catholic RE teacher training, one can choose between university teacher training, college or diocesan programs to respond to the task of being witnesses of their tradition, moderators in religious communication and professional experts or specialists, not only in their own tradition but also about other religions and worldviews.25 A concrete example of support for this training is found in the collaboration of the Flemish Catholic Office (Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen) and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven such as the THOMAS (Theologie, Onderwijs en Multimedia: Actieve Samenwerking/Theology, Education, Multimedia: Active Cooperation ) website.26 In particular, I will focus on exploring the Normativity of the Future (henceforth NF) hermeneutical approach. It pays close attention to some aspects that are important to include in the RE discussion in Flanders and resonates with this conference’s foci, namely, Spirit, hermeneutics and dialogue. Started by Reimund Bieringer and further developed with Mary Elsbernd, the NF approach is a hermeneutical stance which aims to explore the revelatory character of the biblical text and the kind of future(s) it suggests.27 As it continues to be refined, it has also been tested as an approach to life realities.28 The NF can also help foster 22  See Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 297-315. Regarding those who say they are “non-religious,” their spirituality remains unclear, see Andrew Singleton, “Are Religious ‘nones’ Secular? The Case of the Nones in Australia,” Journal of Beliefs & Values 36, no. 2 (2015): 239-243. 23  Didier Pollefeyt, “Difference Matters: A Hermeneutic-Communicative Concept of Didactics of Religion in a European Multi-Religious Context,” Journal of Religion Education 56, no. 1 (2008): 9-17; Didier Pollefeyt, ed., Interreligious Learning (Leuven: University Press and Peeters, 2007); Pollefeyt, “Belgium,” 31-43; Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 47-53. 24  Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 54. 25  Ibid., 55. 26  Ibid., 55. See also https://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/. 27  See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 3-25. 28  See ibid., 9: “In the inclusion of human experience as a source for the just and inclusive community, there is a nascent awareness that ‘normativity of the future’ has

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a Dialogue School pedagogy that is more effective in integrating the classical expressions of Catholic identity with the ethical expressions toward a more just and inclusive future. I hold that the NF approach can help the school members especially the students in their formation as persons and communities of dialogue to gain more recontextualising insights and skills that foster a more participative, multi-correlational and hermeneutical engagement of (a) their plural context, (b) the tradition and praxis of their religions, and (c) the biblical text and other authoritative texts in a way that responds to Bible fatigue/boredom. Below I discuss the salient features of NF and how it can enrich the hermeneutical-communicative model seen in the Dialogue School pedagogy. 1. The Spirit The Dialogue School can benefit from the NF’s emphatic focus on the Spirit in engaging both religious texts and praxis. Bieringer and Elsbernd expound on this point: The “normativity of the future” approach complements the emphasis on the historical Jesus and on the Son of God with a focus on the role of the Spirit (…) The Spirit guides the reading of Scripture to grasp its deeper meaning. The Spirit inspires people to write their own fifth gospels. The Spirit awakens the longing and hope for a better world. The Spirit is the creative power that engenders the vision in people and empowers them in living out the vision.29

The Dialogue School will also be enriched by this understanding of the role of the Spirit in connection with the process of revelation and biblical hermeneutics: As Joh 16,13 affirms, the Spirit remains active in the church and leads the post-Easter church in unprecedented ways. It inspires people and significance not only for the study of texts but also for our approach to life itself.” See also Rolando A. Tuazon, “Narrating Christian Ethics from the Margins,” in Normativity of the Future, 297-325. 29  Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 13-14. See also Reimund Bieringer, “The Spirit’s Guidance into All the Truth: The Text-Critical Problems of John 16,13,” in New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis: Festschrift J. Delobel, ed. Adelbert Denaux, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 161 (Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 2002), 183-207; Mary Elsbernd, “Toward a Theology of the Spirit That Builds Up the Just Community,” in The Spirit in the Church and the World, ed. Bradford E. Hinze, The Annual Publication of the College Theology Society 49 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004).

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communities of any age to write their own “fifth gospel.” In continuity with the other gospels the writing of this new gospel will have to be open to the Spirit guiding us to new insights in response to the new challenges, unprecedented in Scripture and Tradition.30

A hermeneutics that is more explicitly conscious of the role of the Spirit demands a critical dialogue between the challenges of the signs of the times31 and a full engagement with the biblical text (in view of the world behind the text, the world of the text and the world before the text).32 This dialogue is vital not only in responding to the challenges of the present, but also in relation to the kind of future one hopes to build. The NF approach explicitly includes the importance of the signs of the times in considering the process and results of hermeneutical involvement. This understanding of the role of the Spirit in critically discerning the signs of the times and the task of biblical interpretation in light of the future are significant for the consequent task of writing one’s own “fifth gospel”.33 Given the results of the Flanders Catholic schools as a locus of discerning the signs of the times, there is, then, an accompanying important challenge to improve Bible pedagogies at school. There is a need to help train the teachers to provoke interest among the Jewish and Christbelieving students by asking not only what the biblical text meant but also what it means to them34 and, crucially, what it means in building their future. Those who belong to the other religions and the ‘nones’ can discuss the same topic in relation to their own sacred text or other authoritative texts. During the dialogue at the conference, I am glad to find echoes of our suggestions regarding the response to Bible fatigue in Amy-Jill Levine’s proposals, although she is speaking of her experience as a guest in Australia. For example, it is vital to use a multi-sensory and 30  Reimund Bieringer, “Biblical Revelation and Exegetical Interpretation according to Dei Verbum 12,” in Vatican II and Its Legacy, ed. Mathijs Lamberigts and Leo Kenis, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 166 (Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 2002), 52. 31  See Mary Elsbernd and Reimund Bieringer, “Interpreting the Signs of the Times in the Light of the Gospel: Vision and Normativity of the Future,” in Normativity of the Future, 47-90. 32  See Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999). 33  This metaphor parallels the music metaphor expounded on by Godzieba in the conference. See pp. 19-25 in this book. 34  This is a point highlighted by A.-J. Levine during the conference discussion on May 27, 2016.

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multi-intelligence approach including arts, music, theatre, and other pedagogical approaches that are meaningful for the varying age groups, such as those offered in the THOMAS website.35 Levine highlighted both in the conference discussion and in her publications36 that one of the ways to help the students is to make the familiar unfamiliar or strange in order to capture the students’ attention and interest while expanding their horizons in understanding the biblical stories. She encourages collaboration with others by means of excursions,37 for instance, by visiting a Jewish Museum to highlight Jesus’ Jewish context.38 Since the RE classes are taken by students of varying religious affiliations and life philosophies, encouraging them to share how they view their own sacred text is also a possible activity to enrich interreligious learning. These suggestions will likely improve the students’ PostCritical Belief and Recontextualisation knowledge and skills so that they can further develop dialogical skills in their diversity. In particular, it will help the school in forming the Christ-believing students as people who can uphold maximal Christian identity and maximal solidarity with nonChristians, especially Jews, while it also underlines Christianity’s close relationship with Judaism. Another way to render the biblical text unpredictable is to use different methods of biblical interpretation. For example, one can re-read and re-interpret biblical readings with a focus on the Spirit using

35  See THOMAS, “Bijbeldidaktiek Databank” available at https://www.kuleuven.be/ thomas/page/bijbel/ (accessed 16 March 2017). The example includes Godly Play which is also used in Flanders. 36  See, for example, Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014). 37  In Belgium, there are various possibilities offered like visit to important Jewish places in Flanders listed in the Jewish Heritage Tour of Flanders, see http://www.visitflanders.com/en/themes/red-star-line/jewish-heritage-in-flanders/ (accessed 16 March 2017). 38  Levine collaborated with the Jewish Museum in Victoria. See for example the programs like “A Typical Visit” and “The Jewish Context of the Life and Words of Jesus Program” at the Jewish museum in St. Kilda, Victoria available at http://www.jewishmuseum.com.au/education/schools/a-typical-visit and http://www.jewishmuseum.com. au/education/schools/jewish-context-life-and-words-of-jesus respectively. Accessed 16 March 2017. In Belgium, see the information about “Jewish Museum of Belgium,” available at https://www.brusselsmuseums.be/en/museums/jewish-museum-of-belgium (accessed 15 September 2017). See also “Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance” available at https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/190/Jewish-Museum-of-Deportationand-Resistance.htm (accessed 15 September 2017).

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narrative-criticism39 and performance criticism40 which encourage recognition of multiple intelligence and participation among the students. This suggestion complements the renewed interest in pneumatology and Spirit-Christology which accentuates the role of the Spirit in Jesus’ life and ministry.41 For instance, Myk Habets’ treatment of the ministry of Jesus42 can be enriched further by studies on the Spirit from an exegetical perspective, while biblical scholars can also benefit from an interdisciplinary study with colleagues from other theological fields. The hermeneutical process and insights gathered can be made available to the RE teachers in their study or professional development later on. Likewise, Spirit-Christology offers some opening for ecumenical and inter-religious dialogues.43 Yet the Spirit-Christology approach needs to be used critically in the general interpretation of the Bible. In particular, one needs to examine how the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament texts pertaining to the Spirit are included or not in the collection of biblical texts discussed at school. The NF approach examples given tend to focus on the New Testament. It can be used also to deal more consciously with the inclusion of Old Testament texts about the Spirit which, I think, is very much required in Spirit-Christology. This task needs to be done in ways that do not potentially promote antiJudaism which happens when the Spirit’s role in the life and ministry of Jesus and the life of the early church is dissociated and, more problematically, contrasted with the Jewish context and the longer Jewish history, before, during and after the New Testament period. The problem of an “exclusively Christological understanding of the Spirit” is already noted 39  See Mark Allan Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism? (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990); Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, Revised and Expanded (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 200-221; David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012). 40  For example, David Rhoads, “Biblical Performance Criticism: Performance as Research,” Oral Tradition 25, no. 1 (2010): 157-198, http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/ articles/25i/11_25.1.pdf. See also the materials available from http://www.biblicalperformancecriticism.org/index.php (accessed 23 February 2017). 41  The papers from Systematic Theology included in this volume can expound better on this aspect. 42  See Myk Habets, The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Eugene, OR, Wipf & Stock, 2010) especially pp. 103-187; Myk Habets, “Veni Cinderella Spiritus!,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10, no. 1 (2001): 65-80, accessed May 10, 2016, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1177/096673690101000104. For a concise history of pneumatology, see Anthony C. Thiselton, The Holy Spirit – In Biblical Teaching, Through the Centuries, and Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013). 43  See Habets, The Anointed Son, 276-280.

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by George Hendry. “But if we insist on the Christocentric reference of the Spirit, what, then, are we to make of those passages in the Old Testament which speak of an activity of the Spirit in creation and in the life of man?”44 Thus, I find it important to pay attention to Michael Lodahl’s proposal of Spirit/Shekinah Christology that can help Christ-believers in ensuring that “Jesus is not cut off from the religio-historical context of the Spirit’s work in Israel. For it is God’s adoption of Israel, and the Shekinah’s faithful calling of the people Israel to godly sonship and daughterhood through Torah, which provide a context for Jesus as the Christ.”45 These insights are important to bear in mind in view of the challenges shown in the graph and the possible responses to them. One theme that can be focused on is the role of the Spirit both in the lessons and in the practice at school. What are the expressions at school and the school community that hint at the presence of the Holy Spirit? Others observed the minimal reference to the Holy Spirit so much so that Alistair McGrath’s describes the Holy Spirit as the Cinderella of the Trinity.46 This is also shown in the lack of referral to the Spirit-inspired activities of Jesus in the Nicene Creed or Apostles’ Creed. More can be done to underline the role of the Spirit in understanding Jesus’ ministry, the life of the church, and the links to Jesus’ Jewish context primarily through a careful use or reading of the Old Testament references that relate to it. From the perspective of the NF approach in promoting the Dialogue School, it is very important to have a wider view of the role of the Spirit in the Jewish tradition that serves as Jesus’ context. Lodahl’s Shekinah Christology mentioned above is a pneumatological reflection from an explicit post-Holocaust interreligious encounter between Christians and Jews, with its potential and its limits.47 He warns against pneumatological anti-Judaism in passages like 2 Cor 3:1-18 (Paul’s comparison of his ministry of the new covenant with the covenant in Sinai), the Spirit passages in John’s Gospel, Acts 7:51-60 (the stoning of Stephen) and the 44  See George S. Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (London: SCM, 1965), 127. He is cited by Michael E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion, Studies in Judaism and Christianity (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1992), 25-29. 45  Lodahl, Shekhinah, 154. Italics in the original. 46  See Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 5th ed. (Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 227; Habets, “Veni Cinderella Spiritus!,” 65. 47  For a concise and critical review of the book, see Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 20 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 85-93.

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caricature of “unbelieving Jews” in the rest of Acts.48 Although there is no space for discussion here, Lodahl also warns about the same tendencies of post-Holocaust “anti-Judaic triumphalism in Christian pneumatology” which he opines appear in parts of the works of George Hendry and Jürgen Moltmann.49 In view of this concern, it is important to note that the NF approach is sensitive to the potential for anti-Judaism of the biblical and other authoritative texts. It poses questions regarding the sinful dimensions of the text in connection with the world behind the text, the world of the text and the world in front of the text in addition to the questions raised by other exegetical or hermeneutical methodologies.50 In the NF, there is additional room to be more cognizant of employing the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament, as the Pontifical Biblical Commission repeatedly suggests,51 while including materials from Jewish scholars on the relevant themes. Another example is the use at school of the Jewish annotated NT along with the other versions to help widen the students’ horizons regarding Catholic identity and solidarity with Jews.52 2. Dialogical Approach to Revelation While the NF started as an approach to interpret the Bible and later to understand other authoritative texts, the hermeneutical approaches to  See Lodahl, Shekhinah, 17-25.  Ibid., 31-32. 50  Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 17. 51  Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Biblical Commission’s Document “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”: Text and Commentary, Subsidia Biblica 18 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1995) especially pp. 74-78, “Approach through Recourse to Jewish Traditions of Interpretation.” See also the Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible,” accessed April 26, 2016, http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_20020212_popolo-ebraico_en.html. See also the critical comments of Philip A. Cunningham, “The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s 2001 Study on The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible: Selected Important Quotations with Comments,” April 24, 2002, https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/ cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/PBC_2001_Summary.htm, accessed April 26, 2016. Likewise, see also the efforts of the Bat Kol Institute in Jerusalem towards this direction, available from http://www.batkol.info/?page_id=48 (accessed May 07, 2016): “the institute is an international association of Christian women and men who are committed to study the Word of God within its Jewish context and to incorporate these studies into their Christian self-understanding in a manner that respects the integrity of both traditions.” 52  See Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011). 48

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the texts can be used as a parallel guide to life itself in view of being people of dialogue. NF uses various methodologies in order to explore a text’s vision or horizon of the future53 and the same method can be employed in planning the improvements for the school’s Catholic identity features that facilitate the integration of the desire to improve the ethical commitments and the classical features in complementary ways. A fundamental feature of NF is that it follows a critical, discerning, dialogical understanding of God’s revelation, both in engaging the biblical text and life in general: … revelation is seen as happening in the dialogue to which God invites human persons (DV 2). Humans also bring their sinfulness to this dialogue. However, in a biblical text as in life in general, God is able to write straight with the crooked lines of human sin. It is important that revelation is not identified with the biblical text, but is seen as mediated by it. … This enables us to accept sinful dimensions in the text without linking sin to revelation. … claiming the biblical text to be revelatory is intended to open our eyes for the revelatory dimensions of all of reality.54

The dialogical understanding presupposes the continued maturation of a believing, symbolic and critical cognitive stance (Post-Critical Belief) in a participative and incarnational manner55. In this way, the dialogical approach to revelation can help the students to deal critically with the biblical and other authoritative texts as well as ecclesial praxis. At the same time, however, there is a need to assist the students as they outgrow their Literal Belief and its own inadequacy while they enter adolescence so that they can replace it with a more mature Post-Critical Belief (see Table 4).56 The NF approach both presupposes and helps to further develop the Post-Critical Belief as it assists the students in dealing with 53  For a more comprehensive introduction to the approach, see Bieringer and Elsbernd, Normativity of the Future, 3-116. In particular, see Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 3-25; Bieringer, “Authority of the Bible,” 27-45; Bieringer, “Texts That Create a Future,” 91-116. 54  Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 17. See also Bieringer, “Authority of the Bible,” 37-38. 55  See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 15. See also Tom A. Vollmer, “Creation and God’s Dream: Reading Rom 8:18-27 in a Normativity of the Future Perspective,” in Normativity of the Future, 167-196, 194: “normativity of the future invites humanity and in particular the community of faith into an incarnational or participatory role in the world.” 56  The Literal Belief coheres with the tendencies to support Reconfessionalisation (Melbourne Scale) and the Monologue School (Victoria Scale) while Post-Critical Belief serves as a very good foundation for Recontextualisation and Dialogue School pedagogy.

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various texts and praxis in the Christian tradition that have become more questionable, strange and even regarded as (potentially) sinful57 in the ongoing, self-correcting historical process. Examples of this point include texts and praxis that that can be misused for potential anti-Judaism58 – an important consideration in Belgium, a country that many Jews call home, including those who survived the Holocaust.59 The dialogical approach between the adult and student participants, as well as among the various subgroups, will also benefit the school in planning ways to improve the Catholic identity features so that they can discuss their varying levels of agreement/disagreement and priorities regarding how to improve these expressions of Catholic identity within the context of a dialogical school. The dialogical approach to revelation is explored in many ways when various biblical hermeneutical approaches and methodologies are used. In particular, I want to highlight the narrative-critical approach which is informed by historical criticism.60 In this way, instead of the spoonfeeding approach that can lead to Bible fatigue,61 students are provided with an active, participative, text-based entry into the biblical story while being encouraged to gather historical information to inform various aspects of the story and, at the same time, providing avenues for broader imagination and envisioning of the text’s horizon. In exploring the complexity of characters, the settings, the points of view, the plot, and other narrative aspects, students are invited to engage the biblical text actively. The dialogical approach is multi-faceted. The students get to dialogue with the biblical text from the various perspectives of the world of the text, the world behind the text, and the world before the text, in all its familiarity and unfamiliarity. They dialogue with their teachers, peers and themselves, and with its implications and challenges in multicorrelational ways. A historically informed narrative-critical approach can help students to become more involved in the process and gain

57

 See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 17, 24-25.  See Reimund Bieringer and Didier Pollefeyt, “Open to Both Ways…? Anti-Judaism and Johannine Christology,” in Normativity of the Future, 121-134. 59  For the history of the Jews in Belgium and current events, see Jewish Virtual Library, “Belgium Virtual Jewish History Tour” available from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/belgium-virtual-jewish-history-tour#1 (accessed 16 March 2017). 60  See, for example, Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism?; Osborne, Hermeneutical Spiral, 200-221. 61  See Pollefeyt and Bieringer, “Role of the Bible,” 393. 58

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dialogical insights and skills.62 This approach will benefit RE teachers who, speaking from within a confessional RE set-up,63 each fulfil the role of a specialist who can provide the background information but also act as a moderator of the ongoing process and a witness who can also tell his or her own story and its relationship with the biblical stories.64 The abductive approach to religious education teaches the young in a transformative manner by letting them “discover new insights by bringing together the ‘already known’ and new experiences, thought, experiments, and explorations of alternative interpretations.”65 3. Vision(s) of the ‘future’ Closely related to the aforementioned is the importance Bieringer and Elsbernd give to “the interrelated concepts of future, an alternative world, in-breaking and vision” in the NF approach. Thus, I quote them at length:66 Future also connotes the sense of a promise that stretches into a fullness or an always more … Alternative world or the world projected by the text are literary and philosophical language for the future in these senses. Future also conveys an eschatological sense, both as already present values and praxis which carry the potential for transformation into the City of God as well as the not yet realized inbreaking of the end-times into our world. (….) Vision, as we use it, is first of all an eschatological term; hence vision break-into the world from an end-times future. In this perspective, vision is a present,

62  For instance, character analysis can go a long way even for those that are not initially considered as narrative text. For example, one can characterise the Lord and the shepherd in Psalm 23 or the Corinthians in the story of the Lord’s Supper in Corinth in 1 Cor 11:17-34 by considering what they say and do, and what other human and nonhuman characters say and do to/for them. See, for instance, Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, “Including the Hungry Adelphoi: Exploring Pauline Points of View in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34,” in By Bread Alone: The Bible through the Eyes of the Hungry, ed. Sheila E. McGinn, Lai Ling Elizabeth Ngan, and Ahida Calderon Pilarski (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014), 159-184; Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, “Fostering Narrative Approaches to Scripture in Asia: The Primary Task of Explicit Recognition,” East Asia Pastoral Review, no. 46 (2009): 124-141. 63  See Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 58. 64  See Pollefeyt, “Belgium,” 37; Derroitte et al., “Religious Education,” 55; Didier Pollefeyt, “Difference Matters,” , 14-15; Reimund Bieringer, “‘Come and You Will See’ (John 1,39): Dialogical Authority and Normativity of the Future in the Fourth Gospel and Religious Education,” in Hermeneutics and Religious Education, 179-201, 198-201. 65  Pollefeyt, “Difference of Alterity,” 315. 66  See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 15-16.

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incarnate glimpse of God’s preferred future, that is, universal salvation. (…).67

As Bieringer and Elsbernd point out there are repeated metaphorical expressions of the eschatological vision such as the “Reign of God, new birth, City of God, better world, just and inclusive community for all, new creation, as well as a new heavens and a new earth.”68 Yet, as the authors explain, this eschatological vision does not remain abstract but is found in various espressions such as in “the arts, in liturgy, in spiritual experience, in community, in social action”.69 It is realized and incarnated through the power of the Spirit and in line with the continuous dialogical relationship between God and his creation, of which humanity is a part. As already mentioned earlier, the discernment of the signs of the times as concrete expressions of the challenge of the future, or hints of a possible future, is crucial. the in-breaking of end-times vision announces what is not yet, accompanied by the Spirit which makes the not yet a possible future. The Spirit provides inspiration and power, while eschatological vision embodies an incarnational approach, that is, concrete events and texts are the “stuff” of vision. Much like the incarnation of God’s own child as Jesus of Nazareth, signs of the times are the conditions of possibility for in-breakings of the end-times.70

The concept of vision is very important in enriching the Dialogue School and ensuring the maximal Christian identity and maximal solidarity with others. By means of vision, the various Catholic identity features, particularly the ethical examples, can be understood in the larger scheme of things as expressions of their own identity, including their religious identity. The idea of vision can appeal to the students’ idealistic and critical stance as adolescents, as well as in their multi-faceted experience of the Catholic identity features at school. The school members can dialogue about the way in which they want to deal with the explicitly religious and the more ethical expressions given the results above. Going back to Shekinah Christology, the approach to reconsider Jesus’s ministry as providing examples of God’s vision of the future for 67

 Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 15.  Ibid., 15-16. 69  Ibid., 15. 70  Mary Elsbernd, “Vision, Context and Transformative Praxis: Reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Forty Years Later,” in Normativity of the Future, 327357, 344. 68

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the whole of creation needs to include the characterization of the Spirit in the Old Testament. Using a post-Holocaust, post-Nostra Aetate lens, particularly in the way vision is communicated in the word-concept “shalom” and the other visions found in the prophets, is very crucial.71 In my view, Lodahl’s treatment of “seven pneumatic moments in the apostolic witness to Jesus” (including conception/pre-existence, baptism, the Nazareth sermon, defeat of demons, transfiguration, crucifixion and resurrection)72 is an example of a more cognizant approach to Spirit/ Shekinah. It is also less prone to inadvertent anti-Jewish understanding. The same approach will also encourage the engagement of those who belong to other religions and those who are non-religious. In relation to the idea of vision, NF also highlights the virtue of hope.73 Including vision and hope can be relevant for the dialogical formation of the students as they envision their “future self” or “possible self,” both from a personal and communal perspective.74 It can help in the vital task of guiding the students towards becoming people of dialogue in an ever changing plural context. It can help them to be predisposed to engage in dialogue, and to become equipped with insights as to why Dialogue is important and the skills to participate in it both as listener and speaker.75 This point ties in with the dialogical approach 71  Lodahl, Shekhinah, 205: “Yet there is in the gift of Torah a deeper, more recognizably eschatological thrust, in that God shares with this people something of the vision which God has for the whole of creation. Several times in this study the rich Hebrew word-concept shalom has been used to describe this vision.” Lodahl clarifies the eschatological vision from a Shekinah Christology view on p. 201: “…while process theology conceives of creation as an ongoing, open process, it also posits that God has a vision for creation which determines the aims that God provides to the creatures. Thus, the aims God provides reflect God’s vision for the creation as it can best determines be suited to the particular context of the moment. God’s vision for creation, then, is operative in every moment of becoming as the goal or end which God intends; it is, in this sense, an eschatological vision.” 72  See ibid., 157-188. I perceive in Habets a stronger Christological emphasis, see Habets, The Anointed Son, 118-187. Habets add the discussion of “Jesus’s Two-Stage Exaltation.” 73  See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 14-15. 74  See Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius, “Possible Selves,” American Psychologist 41, no. 9 (1986): 954-969; Karina L. Schmid, Erin Phelps, and Richard M. Lerner, “Constructing Positive Futures: Modeling the Relationship Between Adolescents’ Hopeful Future Expectations and Intentional Self-Regulation in Predicting Positive Youth Development,” Journal of Adolescence 34, no. 6 (2011): 1127-1135. 75  See Judith A. Berling, “The Process of Interreligious Learning,” in Interreligious Learning, ed. Didier Pollefeyt, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 201 (Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 2007), 25-53. Likewise, a few suggestions specifically focused on the interpretation of the Bible at school is found in Pollefeyt and Bouwens, Identity in Dialogue, 307-310.

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in understanding revelation in view of the biblical and other authoritative texts, the ongoing historical process and the dialogue that needs to happen among peoples. The NF approach can help ensure that all are given the chance to participate since the various individuals and groups make a unique contribution in the envisioning of the desirable future(s) and in making it a reality, while at the same time keeping the hope for the in-breaking of God’s dream for all creation.76 This point is important with regard to how the school community would like to envision the further development of the Catholic identity features so that they help in fortifying the Catholic identity of the Christ-believing members and of the school in dialogue with members of different religious groupings and those with non-religious life philosophy. Without envisioning and forming people who desire and see the need for dialogue and are capable of being dialogue participants, the desirable future vision of having dialogical persons and communities (glimpsed in the biblical and other authoritative texts of the church and its praxis as well as in other traditions) can slowly stagnate and be in danger of fading away. In the present plural and global context where fundamentalism and suspicion of the different other is increasing in the larger society, forming people of dialogue is increasingly a must. Starting to help them in the tender stage of primary and secondary school is an important task. 4. Inclusivity and Exclusivity The NF approach explores the question of inclusive and exclusive dimensions of authoritative texts, praxis and approach to life itself. Since the Dialogue School pedagogy upholds maximal Christian identity and maximal solidarity with others who differ, the question of inclusivity and exclusivity is very important to explore. In the very diverse context of Flanders, this area of consideration in the NF will help form the school members (whether Christ-believers or not) to become people of dialogue. It is important to know what constitutes inclusivity and exclusivity in view of the biblical or other religious texts, praxis and traditions. Focusing on the skill-development for hermeneutical-communicative approaches of reading the Bible such as feminist hermeneutics, ecological 76

 See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 13-15.

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hermeneutics, critical reading of potentially anti-Jewish texts, and other lenses will contribute to the encouragement of participative hermeneutics that is concerned with issues of inclusivity and exclusivity. These methods and approaches will be helpful in guiding the Christ-believing school members – especially the students – to have a firmer biblical foundation as they advocate the further development of the Catholic identity features, such as openness to diversity and involvement in justice projects. This approach can elicit the same response from those of other beliefs. Likewise, with the adolescents’ need for acceptance, the students can be aided in developing critical thinking both in the process of questioning and searching for answers in their religious formation with the shifting roles of teachers as witness, specialist and moderator. The following can be asked: Are there points in the world behind the text, the world of the text and the world in front of the text, or the history behind a particular praxis/tradition in the Catholic tradition and other religious traditions, or the history of the school, that explicitly or implicitly deal with inclusivity or exclusivity? What are the impacts of these inclusive and exclusive dimensions on their Recontextualisation of the text or of a particular praxis? What are the points of consistency and inconsistency in the text and in the praxis with regards to inclusion and exclusion?77 Equally important in expanding the NF approach are the following questions applicable both in and out of the classroom: if there are signs of abuse of inclusivity, what are the ways in which these could be addressed? If there are signs of exclusivity, how can they be overcome? For example, Lodahl’s Shekinah Christology proposal critically examines the potential for anti-Judaism when speaking about the Spirit: The Church’s perennial mistake has been to assume that its Christomorphic experience of God’s presence as Spirit is the only and exclusive “word” or interpretive structure through which God addresses human beings, and it could make this mistake only by ignoring or violently reinterpreting for two millennia much of the Hebrew scriptures which it includes in its canon. (…) This proposal, to be sure, calls for Christian faith to reinterpret itself with particular attention to the problem of its traditional eschatology. Would it be possible, given such a reinterpretation, to say that God’s Spirit at work in the Church, for so long understood eschatologically, can still be rightly considered the eschatological Spirit? Could there yet be recognized an 77

 I am adapting and adding to the list of questions found in Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 20.

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eschatological impulse in a Christianity which does not claim exclusive rights to God as Spirit?78

Thus, while Bieringer and Pollefeyt can pose the challenge about the possibility of Christians being able to “develop a Christology which does not continue to establish the authenticity of the Christian faith in Jesus at the cost of authentic Jewish faith,”79 the same question can be posed about Shekinah Christology and, if I may add, a Shekinah ecclesiology, i.e. understanding the church as imbued by the Spirit but aware and respectful of its Jewish heritage. The school is a very important place to impart and put into practice this understanding. Considering the question of inclusion, exclusion and ethics as well as the potential for supersessionism, I think that Lodahl’s contribution can be further explored regarding what it can offer Jewish-Christian Dialogue: For the eschatological Spirit draws Christian believers into covenantal relationship not primarily through the word of Torah, but through the word of the proclaimed gospel of Jesus as the Christ. Nevertheless, the Church is called to walk and worship alongside the people Israel, as even the apostle Paul, after having wrestled exhaustively with the question in Romans 9-11, seems to suggest in 15:8-12.80

In order to gain improved religious literacy, it will be very important to form people of dialogue – whether they are religious or not – that help the school members to learn more about ecumenical and interreligious dialogue as Nostra Aetate envisions.81 It is vital to find ways to include in open and respectful dialogue those who say they have nonreligious life philosophy as well as those who say they are spiritual but not religious.82

 Lodahl, Shekhinah, 210. Italics in the original.  Bieringer and Pollefeyt, “Open to Both Ways,” 134. 80  Lodahl, Shekhinah, 211. In view of the gathering and the topic, I find it important to include Rom 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 81  See Cyndi Nienhaus, “Nostra Aetate and the Religious Literacy of Catholic Students,” Journal of Catholic Education 17, no. 1 (2013): 67-80, where she includes four ways in which NA can help improve religious literacy in contemporary Catholic education: “(a) educate students in multiple faith traditions; (b) facilitate encounters with people and practices from other religions; (c) promote interfaith collaboration; and (d) model and support activism for religious literacy. Each of these ideas is explored in turn.” 82  See Singleton, “Are Religious ‘Nones’ Secular?” This is also a point raised by Levine during the discussion. 78

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5. Ethics and the Catholic Identity Features The NF approach also includes an ethical dimension which might be helpful in strengthening the Dialogue School.83 This ethical dimension is highly entwined with the vision of the future: Thus vision points to values which require the formulation of norms. Such norms guide praxis which transforms or at least moves the current world toward an incarnation of the vision. Thus vision requires both a future-based normative process and a resulting transformative praxis.84

The Dialogue School pedagogy and the challenge of integrating the ethical expressions to the other Catholic identity features listed in Tables 5-6, particularly the problem of Bible boredom, can also benefit from the NF approach and its inclusion of the criteria of ethics. The insights offered by Bieringer and Elsbernd related to scholarly study can be explored and adapted in view of primary and secondary education. Ethics requires that our interpretation process is accountable to the human community as a whole and to the scholarly community as well as to the texts and events that are being interpreted. We are also responsible for the consequences that our interpretation has for others, i.e., scholarship is a political act. The ethics of interpretation impels us to engage the interpretative process deliberatively for the advantage of the oppressed and to include the marginalized in the interpretative process.85

This consideration is important when we consider the decreasing support for the classical examples of the Catholic identity features, particularly Bible boredom, while there is more sustained support for the promotion of ethical actions. The THOMAS website link of the Dialogue School also provides materials that highlight ways to support social justice within the school and as part of its outreach.86 The increasing gap between the ethical expressions and the more classical features hints at 83

 Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 20-21.  Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 344. 85  Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 16. They also refer to the work of Daniel Patte, Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: A Reevaluation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995). 86  See THOMAS, “Sociale rechtvaardigheid,” available from https://www.kuleuven.be/ thomas/page/dialoogschool-sociale-rechtvaardigheid/ (accessed 16 March 2016). It is also important to include in the website more examples of how social justice relate to the scriptures since the Catholic Social Teachings also form part of the history of the interpretation of the Bible in the church. 84

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the secularising tendencies and the decreasing support for the Dialogue School. Thus, there is a need to communicate more fully the meaning of a Dialogue School. As a participative approach, the NF can help in the discernment of how the ethical expressions of the Catholic identity features need to be more developed and improved in ways that are not increasingly divorced from the other features, particularly the biblical foundation. In view of this, it is also very important to view the increasing inclination towards the ethical commitments (involvement in social justice and openness to diversity) in Catholic schools as fruits that are deeply rooted in the Scriptures and the Christian tradition, as Justice in the World paragraph 6 says: Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.87

While actions on behalf of justice are enshrined in the Catholic Social Teachings, they are also born out of one’s deep engagement with God’s word. At the same time there are manifestations of God’s work that beckon one to go back to the Scriptures and discern God’s presence. As Lodahl points out “To both the Church and the people Israel, God’s eschatological vision for creation has at its center an all-encompassing love, which issues in compassion, mercy and the struggle for justice to all peoples.”88 The inward, self-critical task will help to address the Bible boredom and can be recontextualised in connection with the other Catholic identity features at school and how they can be improved. Here, the role of the teacher as a moderator and an expert or authority means that s/he can “critically evaluate and/or deconstruct certain aspects of the religious/ideological Traditions, both within and without Christianity.”89 The questions Elsbernd and Bieringer pose on the text are applicable to develop further and recontextualise the Catholic identity features with the role of the teacher as expert, facilitating what is applicable to the Catholics and those of other religions and the ‘nones’: Who do the 87  See Charles M. Murphy, “Action for Justice as Constitutive of the Preaching of the Gospel: What Did the 1971 Synod Mean?,” Theological Studies 44, no. 2 (1983): 298311, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1297043571/citation/8971AF271A744150PQ/1. 88  Lodahl, Shekhinah, 212-213. 89  Pollefeyt, “Difference Matters,” 15.

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biblical texts and other authoritative texts like Nostra Aetate call us to become from the perspective of Dialogue? What do these texts and the post-Vatican II dialogical actions of the church call its readers to do who are in primary and secondary school? Which values and norms are explicit or implicit in these texts and actions? Likewise, one can explore the ways in which the ethical statements agree or disagree with contemporary social or cultural convictions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rapidly changing and pluralising global context.90 In addition, the NF proponents also present the following questions: Where does the text use divine authority to approve of or command actions which contradict or endanger its core biblical teachings? How does the text and how do we evaluate inclusion and exclusion which are present in the text? Is there any evidence that the text implicitly or explicitly transcends its own exclusive tendencies? Where is the text potentially influenced by structural or personal sin?91

The NF approach also equips the school members with insights and skills to make them more skilled in responding to the warning given by Bieringer and Pollefeyt about Bible boredom as an example of the secularisation at school: Those who nevertheless continue to be interested in the Bible and who have the technical means at their disposal might turn to the digital environment for help. In the virtual world of the Internet, however, they run the risk of either getting lost on fundamentalist websites or of seeking their salvation in sites that lack any historical, doctrinal, communal, or moral context.92

In line with this concern about the growing number of digital sources related to the Bible, digital versions of the Bible and other authoritative texts and how they relate to justice issues in the worldwide web, the need to train students to have critical considerations and skills becomes a necessity. Post-Critical Belief, Recontextualisation and Dialogue School pedagogy can equip them with critical thinking for discernment. In addition, the Spirit’s role in discerning the “signs of the times” is also underlined in the NF approach. It explicitly includes the importance of the signs of the times93 in considering the process and results of 90  Here I am again adapting the questions to the Dialogue School. See Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 20-21. 91  Ibid. 92  Pollefeyt and Bieringer, “Role of the Bible,” 393-394. 93  See Elsbernd and Bieringer, “Signs of the Times,” 47-90.

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hermeneutical involvement. For Bieringer and Elsbernd, “[t]he Spirit provides eschatological criteria for judging and discerning any current social, political, religious or economic structure. … Such a Spirit challenges us to develop ethical norms from the eschatological city of God, the future of humanity (Justice in the World 38) or cosmic flourishing.”94 In connection with this discussion on ethics and social justice, we agree with Levine that it is important to be prepared for and, when necessary, include discussion about controversial issues related to church distrust and boredom like the sexual abuse issues, alienation due to the continual focus on sexual ‘evils’ (for example, abortion, homosexuality, …), boring services,95 and others. These are important teaching moments and dialogical events at school. 6. The Meta-questions and the Catholic Identity Features Finally, the Dialogue School, supported by Post-Critical Belief and Recontextualisation insights and skills, can also benefit from NF’s way of paying attention to the meta-questions addressed to the interpreter and the interpretive process. While Bieringer and Elsbernd focus on the authoritative texts in the Church, the questions can be adapted in view of the other Catholic identity features that the school members would like to pursue, according to the developmental and learning levels of the students. The NF approach can help the school members, especially the students, to assess critically their aspirations and plans to advance the school’s Catholic identity features with ethics in mind, scrutinising how they plan to improve the ethical expressions without divorcing it from the others, and in dialogical ways that allow a multicorrelational relationship between the Christian faith and the plural context in Flanders. Some of the questions that they pose in view of biblical interpretation can be applied in other settings as well. They include the following: How do we avoid claiming our position as inherently superior? In which ways do our own sinfulness misguide us in a particular interpretation? In which corrective processes do we engage concerning our work? In which ways does the unfolding vision operate as a corrective for our work? To which communities are we accountable? With whom are we collaborating in the interpretive process? How do we accept 94

 Elsbernd and Bieringer, “Signs of the Times,” 60.  Amy Jill Levine, personal e-mail to the author on May 28, 2016.

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accountability to the text and its history of interpretation? How does our interpretation impact the marginalized and oppressed?96

Moreover, preparation to undertake the various forms of Dialogue advanced by the church would also be needed to engage the plural reality of the school members, especially the students who belong to other religions and who have non-religious life philosophy. a) The dialogue of life, where people strive to live in an open and neighborly spirit, sharing their joys and sorrows, their human problems and preoccupations. b) The dialogue of action, in which Christians and others collaborate for the integral development and liberation of people. c) The dialogue of theological exchange, where specialists seek to deepen their understanding of their respective religious heritages, and to appreciate each other’s spiritual values. d) The dialogue of religious experience, where persons, rooted in their own religious traditions, share their spiritual riches, for instance with regard to prayer and contemplation, faith and ways of searching for God or the Absolute.97 These forms of dialogue would need to be adapted to the students’ varying levels of learning and the different school settings so that the decreasing support for the Dialogue School pedagogy as expressed in the Catholic identity features can be addressed and renewed appreciation can continue. Conclusion This paper presented the challenge of the decreasing support for the Dialogue School pedagogy in the primary and secondary schools in Flanders, as seen particularly in the widening gap between the sustained support for the ethical expressions (openness to diversity and involvement in justice projects) and the dwindling appreciation of the more 96

 Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction, “21.  See Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, “Dialogue and Proclamation: Reflection and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1),” (Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, May 19, 1991), No. 42. Accessed May 10, 2016, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/ interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_19051991_dialogue-and-proclamatio_en.html. 97

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classical and particularly Christian features, especially Bible fatigue. This approach could be more engaging for the adolescents who live in the plural and detraditionalising context of Flanders. The teachers’ role is fluid: witness, expert, moderator. By equipping the students with the NF approach and some particular methodologies rooted in Post-Critical Belief, Recontextualisation and Dialogue School, the teacher can help the students to become more prepared to develop persons and communities of dialogue in an increasingly diversifying global context while at the same time addressing the multiple challenges in the Flemish Catholic school religious education context. The highlighted focus on the Spirit will hopefully give the school members, especially the students, fresh eyes in engaging the Catholic identity features, to enkindle in them the desire to improve the ethical expressions of involvement in social justice and openness to diversity coming from their own religious or life philosophy, particularly their traditions’ authoritative texts such as the Bible for the Christ-believers. The renewal, recontextualisation and improvement of the other more classical and specifically religious Catholic identity features can follow. However, there is an important caveat especially among the Christbelieving members: a Spirit-Christology that only considers the role of the Spirit in relation to Jesus can be inadvertently misused and its potential for anti-Judaism activated. Thus, in the plural context of Flemish schools in post-Shoah and post-Nostra Aetate times, I proposed that using the NF with an eye on Shekinah Christology and even Shekinah ecclesiology, could pave the way toward a more inclusive approach in engaging in concrete dialogue with people of other religious beliefs and those who have non-religious life philosophy. The words of Kasper are an important reminder: In this perspective, in the future our dialogue should not only deal with religious questions of principle; nor should it be dedicated only to clarifying the past. Our common heritage should be profitably made available in response to contemporary challenges: to issues involving the sanctity of life, the protection of the family, justice and peace in the world, the hostages of terrorism, and the integrity of creation, among others.98

In light of these proposals, hopefully Bible boredom and the other challenges regarding the Catholic identity features at school can be engaged more relevantly by means of finding ways to form people of 98

 Kasper, “Crucial Endeavour.”

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dialogue through a heightened appeal to the Spirit and a more participative NF hermeneutics within the context of dialogical pedagogy. Bieringer and Elsbernd underline that “[t]he text is not only a dead fossil of past life, not a guide (answer book) to enhance present life, but an invitation to participate in building a better world for full life for all.”99 In doing so, the school members, especially the students, are invited to become people of dialogue for, as Kasper also points out, “Not only do we undertake dialogue, we are dialogue.”100 May this predisposition to dialogue further develop into an predeliction to friendship with others.101

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 Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction,” 23.  Kasper, “Crucial Endeavour.” 101  See the concern expressed by Adam Gregerman, “A Jewish Response to Elizabeth Groppe, Philip A. Cunningham and Didier Pollefeyt, and Grego Maria Hoff,” in Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships, ed. Philip A. Cunningham et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 221-228, 228: “While the Catholic Church will, I believe, continue to support these welcome changes, the importance of personal contact with Jews lead me to question if changes in demography and conservative theological trends, and fewer opportunities for personal contact, may encourage backsliding on these issues.” Although I cannot fully explore this topic here, I think that developing the dialogue into an invitation to friendship can be a way to ensure that the dialogue continues. See Hanspeter Heinz, “‘Your Privilege: You Have Jewish Friends’: Michael Signer’s Hermeneutics of Friendship,” in Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships, ed. Philip A. Cunningham et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011). 100

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The Spirit and Jewish-Christian Relations

The Holy Spirit A Possible Foundation for a Catholic Theology of Religious Pluralism John T. Pawlikowski In my many years of academic involvement in the Christian-Jewish dialogue I have come to see how central Christological interpretation remains in theological discussions relative to that dialogue. We have come a long way theologically within the churches with regard to Christianity’s understanding of Judaism and the Jewish people. Since the approval by Vatican II of chapter four of its declaration on the Church’s relationship with the religious communities outside the Christian tradition, Nostra Aetate, the classic notion of Jews as covenantly displaced after the Christ Event and as a people to be subjected to a miserable and marginal status in human society, their role as “witness people” – to employ Augustine’s name for them – has been formally rejected within Christianity. Christians now affirm that Jews continue to enjoy covenantal inclusion after the Christ Event. However this affirmation is almost always combined with a co-affirmation, namely the universal salvific significance of Christ, both in official ecclesial documents such as the one issued for the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in December 20151 and by individual theologians and church leaders such as Cardinal Walter Kasper.2 These two affirmations have not as yet been brought together in a theologically-integrated document. While Christology presents a special challenge for Christian-Jewish relations it also poses difficulties for the other dialogues in which the 1

 Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews, “‘The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate (no. 4),” accessed September 15, 2016, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20151210_ebraismo-nostra-aetate_en.html. Also, cf. Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2013), 119-122. 2  Cf. Walter Cardinal Kasper, Foreword to Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships, ed. Philip Cunningham et al. (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011), x-xviii.

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churches engage, Islam in particular, which claims some links with both Judaism and Christianity and their sacred texts but also posits a revelatory experience beyond that of the two prior traditions. This claim is especially troubling for the churches given their traditional proclamation of revelatory finality in and through Jesus the Christ. As one who has struggled with this theological dilemma in a number of my writings over several decades3 I have come to recognize that as Christians we will never deepen and expand the foundation of our theology of interreligious dialogue, whether with the Jews or any other religious community, until we begin to develop a theological perspective which transforms our understanding of the Christ Event into a vision that does not automatically bestow on Jews and all other religious traditions a fundamentally inferior status. Is there a way in which Christians can maintain a belief in the universal meaning of the Christ Event while recognizing distinctive contributions through other revelatory experiences? This essay is intended to try to explore whether a path exists within a Christological framework for such a development. Its tentativeness needs to be emphasized, as does the fact that this effort draws its spirit from the December 2015 Vatican’s document celebrating the golden anniversary of the Nostra Aetate call for enhanced theological reflection on the nature of the Christian-Jewish theological relationship and, by extension, the church’s relationship with other religious and spiritual families. Many years ago, while a theological student at the University of Chicago, I did a paper in which I explored the use of the terms “Christ” and “Spirit” throughout the New Testament. What struck me in particular in that study was how interchangeable the terms seem to be in many of the books, especially in the epistles. As I recall that study in the context of my current work on Christology within the Christian-Jewish dialogue as well as the wider interreligious interchange, I have begun to ask whether a key in moving along this discussion constructively might not lie in a new emphasis on the role of the Spirit. I now believe this may be the case. 3

 Cf. John T. Pawlikowski, “Christology and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Personal Theological Journey,” Irish Theological Quarterly 72 (2007): 147-167; Christ in the Light of Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001); “The Christ Event and the Jewish People,” in Thinking of Christ: Proclamation and Meaning, ed. Tatha Wiley (London: Continuum, 2003), 103-131; Restating the Catholic Church’s Relationship with the Jewish People: The Challenge of Super-Sessionary Theology (Lewiston, NY/ Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2013).

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What my tentative conclusion leads me to explore in this paper are the possible implications of what is termed “Spirit Christology” as a building block for the advancement of Christian perspectives on interreligious relations. Spirit Christology has been a part of the theological scene in Christianity for many centuries, but it has not engendered much interest within an interreligious context. Some years ago Dr. Michael Lodahl, then on the faculty of the College of Idaho in the United States, published a volume in the Stimulus series on Christian-Jewish relations published by Paulist Press titled Shekhinah Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion.4 However, the book received scant attention within dialogical circles. In recent years we have witnessed somewhat of a renaissance, not merely in Spirit Christology approaches that remain deeply rooted in Chalcedon and Trinitarian theologies, but others as well which wish to go beyond this more classical version of Spirit Christology and propose a Christological outlook in which the Spirit replaces Christ Jesus as the principal Christological focal point. Theologians espousing this perspective see their form of Spirit Christology superseding earlier versions of this approach, generally known as Logos Christology. In their view these theologians regard the emphasis on the Spirit in Christology considerably more palatable to modern religious consciousness than a stress on the Incarnate Son. Those embracing such a view include Roger Haight, Norman Hook, Geoffrey Lampe, Paul Newman, Hendrikus Berkhop, Piet Schoonenberg, and James Dunn.5 In an American context Haight has been the best known. He writes in Theological Studies that “by a Spirit Christology I mean one that “explains” how God is present and active in Jesus, and Jesus’ divinity, by using the Biblical symbol of God as Spirit, and not the symbol of logos.”6 Haight has encountered considerable opposition in Catholic 4  Michael E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion, Studies in Judaism and Christianity (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1992). 5  For more on this, cf. Myk Habets, The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Surrey: Pickwick, 2010); D. Lyle Dabney, “Why Should the First be Last: The Priority of Pneumatology in Recent Theological Discussion,” in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2005), 240-261. 6  For a discussion of Roger Haight’s perspective on Spirit Christology and other more recent forms of such Christology, cf. the following: Roger Haight, “The Case for Spirit Christology,” Theological Studies 53 (1992): 257-287; Ralph Del Colle, “SpiritChristology: Dogmatic Foundations for Pentecostal-Charismatic Spirituality,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 3 (1993): 91-112 and Ralph Del Colle, “Spirit Christology: Dogmatic Issues,” in A Man of the Church: Honoring the Theology, Life and Witness of Ralph Del

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circles and has been banned by his province from membership on a Catholic faculty of theology. He has found a partial home at Union Theological Seminary in New York where he involves himself with research and has limited interaction with students. In a recent article in the Irish Theological Quarterly, a Baptist theologian Greg Liston regards the effort by the above theologians to totally replace Logos Christology with their version of Spirit Christology as a “return” to some very early Christological perspectives giving this modern version the name of Spirit-Ebionism. He writes the following: In attempting to replace the category of Logos with the category of Spirit in the person of Jesus this stream of researchers essentially replicates the errors of the early Church in its initial Spirit Christological explorations. Openly rejecting the Chalcedonian and Nicene formulations, they invite the same critique and suffer from the same flaws as their early Church counterparts. To fully understand Jesus’ identity, neither the Spirit nor the Son can be denied or neglected.7

At this point I will refrain from entering a discussion as to whether Liston’s critique does full justice to the perspective offered by Roger Haight and others. My initial assessment is that he does not read them with full accuracy. Despite the above critique Liston expresses some openness towards a “Spirit Christology.” It would be a Spirit Christology in which the Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead is thoroughly integrated into Christological expression. But the integration cannot be such that it in any way obscures the reality of Jesus Christ as truly the Son of God. I have some sympathy for Liston’s critique as well as his approach to Spirit Christology. Nonetheless I also harbor some reservations. Yes, I do believe that in any form of Spirit Christology the bodily dimension of the Incarnation must remain front and center. But as I see it, this bodily dimension is ultimately dependent on the Spirit’s anointing of the Jewish man Jesus. Without this anointing he remains a Jewish preacher of the first century; with this anointing he became Jesus the Incarnated Christ. While Liston rightly calls for an integration of Christ Colle, ed. Michael Rene Barnes (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013), 3-19. For a more classical view of Spirit Christology in an interreligious context, cf. Philip A. Cunningham and Didier Pollefeyt, “The Triune One, the Incarnate Logos, and Israel’s Covenantal Life,” in Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships, ed. Philip Cunningham et al. (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011), 183-201. 7  Greg Liston, “A ‘Chalcedonian’ Spirit Christology,” Irish Theological Quarterly 81, no. 1 (2016): 74-93.

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and Spirit, in my judgment he still keeps them in somewhat separate boxes. By turning to the analysis offered by Lodahl in the volume already mentioned, we may be able to move this discussion to a new constructive phase, one that can also prove useful in any consideration of a Christian theology of interreligious encounter. For out of a context of the Christian-Jewish relationship he puts forth a vision which preserves Jesus’ concrete humanity while interpreting the presence of the Spirit in the man Jesus in a way that might open some links with religious perspectives beyond the parameters of Christianity. Lodahl strongly emphasizes at the outset of his book that he is not presenting a vision of Trinitarian theology or, put another way, an exposition of the third person of the Trinity. Rather his is an effort to comprehend God’s relatedness with all of creation. His own words go as follows: Spirit Christology is “a way of talking about God ‘as near’ or in active relation to creation, and especially to humanity.”8 Throughout his book Lodahl strongly emphasizes the profound connection between the Jewish man Jesus and the Spirit. But his approach is not primarily metaphysical such as a path through the Johannine Logos, but through the witness of Jesus during his public ministry. The Spirit, fully imbedded in the physicality of Jesus, enabled him to express the dynamic presence of God within humanity. For Lodahl every encounter with Jesus and the Spirit is ultimately, and primarily, a direct encounter with God. In this regard Lodahl is close to the thinking of the late Paul van Buren. Van Buren, who authored three major volumes on the Christian-Jewish relationship,9 took part in discussions of the ecumenical Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish relations (of which I have been an active participant) and argued that, when all is said and done, what Christians have experienced through Jesus and his ministry is greater transparency regarding the profound integration of the divine presence within humanity and all of creation. Van Buren appeared to imply that this enhanced transparency was a unique dimension of the Christian vision, although I could not be certain on that point. Van Buren was putting forth this idea primarily within the discussions of the Christian Scholars Group. He never actually wrote down his ideas. He  Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit, 3.  Cf. Paul van Buren, Discerning the Way (New York, NY: Seabury, 1980); A Christian Theology of the Jewish People (New York, NY: Seabury, 1983); and A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality: Christ in Context (San Francisco, CA: Harper&Row, 1988). 8

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was to have produced a fourth volume detailing how the ChristianJewish dialogue impacts wider interreligious understanding. However, that book took a different turn in the end as he returned in some ways to his earlier Barthian roots and soon thereafter died of cancer. But I have come to identify with his emphasis on transparency, particularly if it is tied to Lodahl’s insistence on the Spirit at work in the ministry of Jesus. The issue that remains for discussion is whether that transparency remains totally unique to Jesus or perhaps might be grasped through some other religious lens, even if only partially. This issue is key for any discussion of the Spirit in terms of a Catholic theology of religious pluralism. If the answer is in the affirmative, then Spirit Christology may indeed open new doors for the Church’s vision of other religious communities. If we focus on the Christological dynamic present in Jesus and manifested in his ministry rather than primarily, or even exclusively, on the metaphysical dimensions of Christology, we may be able to move towards a greater spiritual solidarity with people in other religious traditions. As many of you know, I have spent a major part of my academic life reflecting on Christology and the Christian-Jewish relationship. My views began in the volume Christ in the Light of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue. That was followed by Jesus and the Theology of Israel, several contributions to edited volumes and journals, and most recently Restating the Catholic Church’s Relationship with the Jewish People: The Challenge of Super-Sessionary Theology.10 If one follows my arguments closely it will become clear that, while my basic approach remains largely consistent, there is some evolution as well. Part of the reason for this evolution is my growing involvement in the wider interreligious encounter through the Parliament of the World’s Religions and Religions for Peace. It is becoming clear to me that those of us who have been deeply involved in the Christian-Jewish dialogue must find a way of relating that dialogue to the wider interreligious discussion. Otherwise the insights gleaned from this dialogue will become marginalized. This leads me to say that the viewpoint expressed in the recent document Thoughts and Reflections on “The Gift and Calling of God are Irrevocable” (Rom 11:29) issued for the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews remains incomplete.11 I certainly accept its insistence on the special character of 10

 Cf. note 3.  Cf. note 1.

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the Christian-Jewish relationship, but it isolates that relationship far too much from the wider interreligious encounter. My presentation here today, with its focus on the turn to Spirit Christology, represents yet a further evolution in my thinking in this area. Before I turn to some reflections on Spirit Christology as a foundation for a Christian approach to interreligious relations I need to summarize where I have come in my most recent volume. I do believe one will see some connections between my basic Christological stance and this new turn to Spirit Christology. My Christological approach has been largely honed within the context of my longstanding involvement in Christian-Jewish dialogue through my more recent participation in the wider interreligious dialogue. Early on in my Christological development I was significantly impacted by the writings of the German theologian Franz Mussner.12 Throughout his published works, Mussner underscored Jesus’ positive links to the Jewish tradition. He likewise rejected any interpretation of the Christ Event that would see Jesus as the one who fulfilled messianic prophecies. For him the uniqueness of the Christ Event arises from the complete identity of the work of Jesus, as well as his words and actions, with the work of God. As a result of the revelatory vision in Christ, the New Testament, Mussner has maintained, speaks with an “anthropomorphic boldness” not found to the same degree in the Hebrew Scriptures. What Mussner does not say in this regard is that this “anthropomorphic boldness” was brought about by the dynamism of the Spirit’s integration with Jesus’ physicality. For me this is crucial. Jesus did not act apart from the Spirit. Rather, the Spirit was the energizing force behind his actions during his public ministry, a ministry which showed the face of God to humanity. In answer to the question of what the disciples finally experienced through their close association with Jesus, Mussner spoke of a “unity of action extending to the point of congruence of Jesus with God, an unheard-of existential imitation of God by Jesus.” But this imitation, Mussner insisted, is quite in keeping with Jewish thinking at the time, a contention that some Jewish scholars might challenge. The uniqueness of Jesus is to be found in the depth of his imitation of God. So for Mussner the most distinctive feature of Christianity, when contrasted to 12  Franz Mussner, Tractate on the Jews: The Significance of Judaism for Christian Faith, trans. Leonard Swidler (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1984); and “From Jesus the ‘Prophet’ to Jesus the ‘Son’,” in Three Ways to One God: The Faith Experience in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Abdold Javad Falaturi, Jacob J. Petuchowski, and Walter Stolz (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1987), 76-85.

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Judaism, is the notion of the incarnation rather than the fulfillment of messianic prophecies. With regard to the incarnation, Mussner was not privy to the emergence in some sectors of contemporary Jewish scholarship of explorations in incarnationalism, a subject I will return to later on in this presentation. Mussner then went on to amplify this Christological model. As he saw it, there have existed several overarching approaches to the theological meaning of the Christ Event within Christian history. He highlights two of them which he names “Prophet Christology” and “Son Christology.” As Mussner also posits development in Christological thinking in the early Church, he places “Prophet Christology” ahead of “Son Christology” chronologically. The former perspective views Jesus as standing in the line of the great prophets of the Jewish biblical tradition who manifested the “pathos” of God and joined their words and actions to the divine plan for human salvation, a plan that culminated in the life, ministry and death of Jesus. “Son Christology,” on the other hand, focused primarily on the “word made flesh” of the Christological revelation, drawing in a special way on the gospel of John. But Mussner never saw these two approaches as contradicting each other. Nonetheless, in his view, “Son Christology” added a dimension of superiority to “Prophet Christology” which further differentiated Christian and Jewish belief. Mussner’s perspective is far from complete, in my view. There has been important new scholarly work on Jesus and the Early Church’s positive links with sectors of the Judaism of the time, and a significantly new interpretation of Christology as articulated by Paul in his epistles that re-emphasizes continuing ties with the Jewish tradition. But I am grateful to Mussner for moving me, as well as a good part of Christological discussion, away from an emphasis on prophetic completion towards an incarnational focus. His work affected my thinking in that way and his stress on Christological development opened up new reflective doors on my part. I believe his claim that “Prophet Christology” and “Son Christology” can be easily meshed is overstated and he never moved “Son Christology” in the direction of “Spirit Christology.” Unlike Mussner, I have come to see that Christian theologians must make a concrete decision to ground their Christological reflections in one specific approach, especially if they hope to produce a Christological vision that can serve more readily as a foundation for a theology of interreligious relations, with Judaism in particular. So I have moved far away from the use of “Prophet Christology” as a viable foundation. I also have rejected another classical Christological approach as a starting point,

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namely the patristic-based understanding of human redemption through the washing away of human sinfulness through the blood of Christ. Jon Levenson and Kevin Madigan of Harvard explored this avenue in a joint book several years ago.13 While I appreciate the range of their scholarship, in the end they have not convinced (me?) that this Christological path can lead to contemporary theology of interreligious relations from the side of Catholicism. I do recognize how deeply entrenched these two Christological approaches remain in the Christian faith perspective, especially in liturgical texts.14 So it will not be easy to put them aside even though I am now convinced that this must happen if we are to experience genuine progress in building a theology of interreligious relations. But Nostra Aetate mandated the Church to create a theological linkage with other faith communities. In my view this mandate can only be pursued effectively within the framework of an Incarnational approach to Christology. Over the years of my reflection on Christology in the light of interreligious relations, particularly the church’s ties to Judaism, I have worked within an Incarnational perspective along with an emphasis on the gradual development of what we term Christology, a term that would have been rather incomprehensible to the early followers of The Way, as Christians were originally known. The basic Christological vision which I laid out in my previous writings still remains today the starting point for my approach. I continue to maintain that what ultimately came to be recognized with clarity for the first time through the ministry and person of Jesus was how profoundly integral humanity was to divine biography. This in turn implied that each human person shares in divinity. Christ is the theological symbol – using ‘symbol’ in the most profound sense of the term – that the Church selected to try to express this reality. As the later strata of the New Testament stress, this humanity existed in the Godhead from the very beginning. Humanity was integral to divine essence from the very beginning, however “beginning” is described. Thus in a very real sense we can say with Paul that there is 13  Kevin J. Madigan and Jon Levenson, Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 2008); Jon Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 1995). 14  Liam M. Tracey, “Liturgical Reform and Renewal in the Roman Catholic Church and Its Impact on Christian-Jewish Relations,” in A Jubilee for All Time: The Copernican Revolution in Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Gilbert S. Rosenthal (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 165-181; Richard McCarron with Eileen Crowley and John Pawlikowski, “Worshiping in a Religiously Pluralistic Age,” Worship 89, no. 5 (2015): 386-393.

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a sense in which God did not become a human person in Jesus, unless we wish to confine “human” to physicality. God always had a human dimension. Humanity was an integral part of the Godhead eternally. The Christ Event, however, proved crucial for the manifestation of this reality to the world. In this regard I would be quite comfortable using Paul van Buren’s term enhanced “transparency” regarding the divinehuman link in describing the most significant aspect of the Christ Event. The above vision, let me make it clear, does not imply any simplistic equation between God and the totality of humanity. Such an interpretation would constitute a fundamental misreading of my approach. A gulf that remains forever impassible continues in my perspective regarding God and humanity. Moreover, despite the intimate link with God made known to humanity through the Christ Event, humankind remains equally conscious of the fact that this God is the ultimate Creator of the life that is shared with men and women as a gift. Nor does it mean that there was not a unique dimension to the union of humanity and divinity in Jesus himself. Humanity could never have come to the full awareness of its ultimate linkage with God without the explicit revelation occasioned by the Christ Event. While this event allows us to experience a new closeness with the Creator God, our humanity will never share the same intimacy with the divine nature that existed in the person of Jesus himself. It is this inherent link with divinity, based at times on human sinfulness, that is at the heart of what we term salvation or redemption. The path of redemption/salvation is the path of gradually overcoming the alienation within this relationship caused by individual and communal sinfulness. It is the path of ultimate divine/human reconciliation. Christians remain hopeful about this process because the link between humanity and divinity has never been totally ruptured despite the sinfulness, and this link was reaffirmed in the resurrection. Other religious traditions may ground their hope in different theological visions. The challenge before us in interreligious dialogue is to probe whether there is any correspondence among the various visions. On this point I would refer to what I consider a key point in the 2001 extended statement from the Pontifical Biblical Commission.15 While this statement was intended primarily for the Christian-Jewish Dialogue I believe it carries some 15  Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2002). For a discussion of the document, cf. the special issue of The Bible Today May/June 2003.

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implications for the wider interreligious dialogue. Given the fact that the Pontifical Biblical Commission falls within the jurisdiction of the Pontifical Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and that it contained a positive introduction by the then head of CDF Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, its perspective takes on special significance. They key text found in Part 1A, paragraph #5, though it remains somewhat oblique, reads as follows: “Like them (i.e. the Jews) we too live in expectation. The difference is that for us the One who is to come will have the traits of the Jesus who has already come and is already present and active among us.” While this statement certainly claims messianic fulfillment in and through the person and ministry of Jesus, it seems to imply that this messianic fulfillment is not yet complete. Might we therefore say that the Jewish eschatological vision adds something critical for the completion of messianic (or we might say eschatological) understanding? A critical “trait” visible in and through Jesus might in fact be the enhanced transparency in our understanding of the divine-human linkage that stands at the heart of incarnational Christology. This statement also opens up the possibility that not all messianic traits have been made visible in and through Jesus but in fact have been better exposed within Jewish messianic perspectives and perhaps in other religious communities as well. The PFB document also argues that Jewish messianic understandings are not in vain, a point that Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly endorsed in his introduction. If they are not in vain, then it would seem that they must have some positive meaning for the Christian perception of eschatological fulfillment or ultimate redemption/salvation. Finally, the statement seems to legitimate a discussion about whether the “traits” seen by Christians in and through Jesus might be expressed in a different set of theological categories and symbols. I realize that what I have just said regarding possible implications of the PFB document, both for the Christian-Jewish encounter as well as the wider interreligious dialogue, may be a stretch in terms of the actual text. But I believe theological textual analysis has a right and responsibility to look beyond the plain (i.e. immediate) meaning of a text. It is in that spirit that I am suggesting that the document’s emphasis on messianic traits might provide an opening for wider reflections beyond the parameters of the Christian-Jewish dialogue. Such reflections will need to incorporate the insights gained in the last fifty years from the Christian-Jewish dialogue and encounters with other religious traditions. At this point, let me add that there is also a need to begin to explore eschatological implications of an incarnational presence in all of

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creation. Some African Christian theologians are beginning to probe in this area and we need to incorporate their reflections into the present discussion of incarnationalism and Spirit Christology in the context of the interreligious dialogue.16 Is human reconciliation with the natural world an integral part of eschatological realization? If so, and I think it is the case, then the Spirit as interpreted in various religious communities may play a crucial role where the Spirit has always been viewed as residing both in humanity and the natural world. And some religious communities have preserved this sense of the dynamic presence of the spirit in the natural world far better historically than has been the case in Christianity. Let me now return to the views of Michael Lodahl as a foundation for building a theology of interreligious encounter through an emphasis on the dynamic presence of the Spirit, a dynamism exhibited through the physicality of Jesus in particular through his public ministry. Lodahl spends many pages in his volume breaking open key notions about understandings of the presence of the Spirit in the Judaism that proved so influential on the Jesus. There is a richness in terms such as Ruach, Pneuma and Shekhinah that can contribute both to a specifically Christian theological approach to interreligious encounter as well as a wider interreligious perspective that might pick up on the richness embodied in these terms in the Hebrew Scriptures. Lodahl has demonstrated how important these notions can be for the construction of a Spirit Christology which places a high premium on the spirited activities of Jesus during his public ministry, whose aim was human affirmation and reconciliation. These activities provided humanity with a model for achieving redemption and reconciliation. Through these activities Jesus revealed the power of the spirit instilled in creation by reason of the Incarnation. While Christian theology will continue to hold a unique integration of the spirit in Jesus, it can and must stress at the same time that the power of that spirit dwells in all of creation and can be appropriated by all of humanity, even though others may employ different linguistic terms from those of Christians. In this way a Christian emphasis on Spirit Christology may build some positive bridges between Christianity and other religious communities. Certainly this is the case with Judaism, as 16  Cf. Orobator Agbonkhianmeghe, Theology Brewed in an African Pot (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008). Agbonkhianmeghe is now at work on a study of animism which may well have implications for the approach to interreligious understanding that I am not proposing in this essay.

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Lodahl’s book aptly demonstrates. I am not sufficiently versed in other religious traditions to render any bold assertions, but I do suspect that there are connections that need exploration. Spirit Christology may also establish some links with the religious traditions of Asia in particular, where inner reconciliation between God and creation stands as a primary goal. One can see interest in such an exploration in a recent contribution to a forthcoming volume from Palgrave Macmillan edited by Edmund Chia of the Catholic University of Australia in Melbourne titled Interfaith Dialogue: Global Perspectives. The particular chapter by Jojo M. Fong investigates what Christians might learn from Shamanic Pneumatology. Two additional points need to be made in the context of the above discussion. Several years ago when Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ appeared on the screen I joined over one hundred other scholars in strongly objecting to its anti-semitic potential. But I also made the point that I had another major problem with the film, one that had to do with the vision of salvation in and through Christ and Christianity itself. Gibson’s film made it appear that the only period that ultimately mattered in terms of Jesus’ redemptive work was that of what we today celebrate during Holy Week. The film contained virtually nothing on the significance of the three years of Jesus’ public ministry. For Gibson what mattered was Jesus’ final spilling of his blood on Calvary. Over the years, excessive emphasis has been placed on the so-called Passion narrative, isolated from the events of the period from Jesus’ public ministry. The reality as I see it is that Jesus died on Calvary for what he did and said during his public ministry. The days of the passion certainly constitute an integral element of the model of redemption/ salvation that Jesus provided us. But “integral” is a key word here. The passion is the culmination of the redemptive journey of Jesus and cannot be adequately understood without connecting it with the spirit-led ministry of the three years prior to Calvary. Jesus’ death does show the realistic possibility of suffering and death if one embraces the redemptive/salvific model Jesus presented to us during the three years of public ministry. That ministry, and let me clarify my use of the terms redemptive and salvific, both freed people from their sinful condition, whether acquired by birth or through concreate sinful actions, and also helped to move them in the direction of ultimate reconciliation with the Creator God. “Redemption” covers the first part, “Salvation” refers to the constructive reorientation of one’s life through the power of the Spirit to the root meaning of the term salvation, i.e. wholeness.

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A second point that needs emphasis in this context is the importance of Jesus’ fundamental Jewishness. I once heard a presentation by interreligious scholar Wesley Ariarajah who worked at the World Council of Churches in Geneva and subsequently has served on the faculty of Drew University during a Christian-Jewish dialogue held at Temple Emanuel in New York and co-sponsored by the WCC.17 In that lecture Ariarajah argued that while he fully accepts Jesus’ Jewishness on a human level, that reality carries little theological significance for him. As an Asian Christian theologian he is far more interested in links between the teachings of Jesus and Buddhism. I certainly do not object to an exploration of such links. In fact, such exploration is what I am calling for in this paper. But to truly understand Jesus’ teachings we must set them in their Jewish context. The spirit worked through a thoroughly Jewish person. As scholars such as Amy-Jill Levine and the late Clemens Thomas have both shown in their writings, a lack of understanding about the Jewish context of Jesus’ teachings has resulted in a significant misrepresentation of his perspective. To round off my presentation let me turn to the area I know best, i.e., Christian-Jewish relations. Christology has certainly created a wall of separation between Jews and Christians over the centuries. But in recent years there has been a small movement in Jewish scholarship that has the potential for slightly reducing the impenetrability of that wall. Certainly the emphasis on the Jewish context of the Spirit that Lodahl has so thoroughly exposed, and new studies by Jon Levenson and others on the intimacy and affectivity involved in God’s covenant with Israel, open some new doors.18 And despite my earlier rejection of the “Fulfillment of Messianic Prophecies” approach to Christology, the prophetic tradition might also contribute to this process if, instead of focusing on the fulfillment theme in terms of the prophets, we turn our attention to the close presence of God within them that allowed them to truly speak in God’s name with a measure of divine authority. While the presence of the Spirit is not explicitly mentioned with regard to the message of

17

 Wesley Ariarajah, “Towards a Fourth Phase in Jewish-Christian Relations: An Asian Perspective,” unpublished paper presented at a Conference on Christian-Jewish Dialogue, Temple Emmanuel, New York. Co-sponsored by the Center for Interreligious Understanding and the Office of Interreligious Affairs of the World Council of Churches, November 2003. 18  Jon D. Levenson, The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism (Princeton, NJ/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016).

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the prophets nonetheless there is an aura around their proclamation that render them “Spirit-filled.” But there is even a more significant development emerging in a few quarters of Jewish scholarship that build on the above connections just mentioned and in fact deepens them. I speak of the emergence of “Incarnationalism” in some recent Jewish scholarly literature. Let me, however, put this new development in perspective. Jewish scholars as a whole are hardly rushing to embrace the investigation of the Jewish context of Jesus’ teachings and the theological tradition that grew up around his person. Without question Daniel Boyarin, whose writings remain controversial in Jewish circles, has put the issue on the table. This is particularly true of his volume The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ19 where he argues that what we in Christianity term Christology was in fact a job description already existing in the Jewish community of the day. According to Boyarin it was applied to Jesus rather than invented for Jesus. While Boyarin’s bold assertion may never win the day in Jewish scholarly circles, certain other scholars have taken somewhat more moderate stances in terms of the presence of “incarnationalism” in Jewish religious texts. The works of people such as Elliot Wolfson,20 Benjamin Sommer21 and the various contributors to the volume Teaching the Historical Jesus edited by Zev Garber22 represent collectively an important breakthrough given the virtual taboo on this subject in Jewish circles just a few years ago. The Jewish discussion has taken a new important step recently with the publication of a volume by Shaul Magid title Hasidism, Christianity and the Construction of Modern Judaism.23 In this new book Magid presents Hasidism as a perspective on Judaism in which the divine/human boundary was permeable, and sometimes even crossed. In examining anew the Hasidic tradition we discover, according to Magid, a resurgence of the very incarnational theology that mainstream forms of 19  Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York, NY: The New Press, 2012). 20  Elliot Wolfson, “Gazing Beneath the Veil: Apocalyptic Envisioning the End,” in Reinterpreting Revelation and Tradition: Jews and Christians in Conversation, ed. John Pawlikowski and Hayim G. Perelmuter (Franklin, WI: Sheed & Ward, 1997), 77-103. 21  Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge /New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 22  Zev Garber, ed., Teaching the Historical Jesus: Issues and Exegesis (New York/London: Routledge, 2015). 23  Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015).

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Judaism basically rejected, in large part clearly to distinguish the Jewish tradition from Christianity. Within Hasidic writings God and humanity have been reintegrated. For Magid the key sources for his argument about the incarnational nature of Hasidism are the writings of noted rabbis such as Nachman of Bratzlav and Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, to name but a couple. Their portrayal of the tsaddik, the ultimate spiritual leader in the Hassidic tradition, as the person who intercedes between God and humanity in fact rekindles incarnational theology within Judaism, even though Magid is careful to assert that Hasidic Incarnationalism differs substantially from notions of Christology in the Christian tradition. That is a position that might be pursed further with Magid because I am not sure he is in fact fully acquainted with the various Christological options present in the broad Christian tradition. Magid attempts to delineate the difference between Hasidic views of the tsaddik and Christian understandings about Jesus as the Christ. Christian theology, as Magid sees it, has argued that in Jesus word became flesh. But in Hasidic Judaism people such as Rabbi Nachman envisioned themselves as “fleshy beings” who had been chosen to speak the word of God. Such language suggests, according to Magid, a certain penetration of the classical boundary between the divine and the human that can be labeled “incarnationalism.” Such an understanding is not found in traditional rabbinic literature nor even in non-Hasidic forms of Jewish mysticism. Magid acknowledges some kabbalistic influence on this Hasidic “incarnationalism.” But, generally speaking, non-Hasidic forms of Judaism have been very reluctant to acknowledge such a reality lest it blur the distinction between the Jewish community and Christianity, especially in regions of Europe where Jewish Leaders were struggling to preserve a clear sense of Jewish identity in the face of Christian political and social domination. Hasidism, as a modern Jewish movement that stood far beyond the eyes of Christianity, had an easier time enhancing and promoting the seeds of incarnationalism already present in the Kabbalah. It is important to note that there has also been important pushback by some leading Jewish scholars with regard to the notion of Incarnationalism in Judaism. A seminal figure in the study of Jewish mystical literature such as Moshe Idel has spoken strongly against the use of the term by people such as Wolfson and Magid. Idel does not totally deny the existence of texts in the Hasidic tradition that seem to allow for some divine-human penetration. But he is adamant that such texts should not

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be interpreted as espousing “incarnationalism” lest people lose sight of a fundamental difference between what the Hasidic literature presents and what Christianity proclaims.24 Arthur Green, a prominent Jewish scholar who works on the same literature as Idel, however, has reviewed Magid’s volume on incarnationalism somewhat more positively.25 I have focused on this new development in the Jewish Studies field not only because the Christian-Jewish dialogue is the one I know best but also because it presents us with the kind of analysis that will need to be done for the other interreligious dialogues in which the churches are now engaged. Let me be clear: I am not advocating a return to a somewhat earlier approach which tried to find Jesus and, in some instances, even Mary in the literature of other religious communities. What I am calling for is an in-depth probing of such literature to discern whether there are instances of incarnationalism and the dynamic power of the Spirit which may be present there even if expressed through different religious symbols. If an analysis along these lines does discover possible links they could serve as a binding force for interreligious cohesion. Such symbols need not fully replicate Christian symbols, only approximate them. Christians, for example, might well retain a sense of the infiltration and integration of the Spirit in the physicality of Jesus as quite distinctive even if instances of incarnationalism are indeed found in other religious traditions. Such distinctiveness may well be seen to validate the interpretation of Paul van Buren mentioned earlier regarding the transparency of the divine-human linkage in and through Jesus the Christ. But distinctiveness and similarity can in fact be argued at one and the same time. Classical Christology has tended to create a rockhard wall between Christianity and other religious communities. Spirit Christology rooted in an incarnational perspective opens the door to the affirmation of some bonding despite the uniqueness of the Christian understanding. What I have presented needs to be regarded as tentative and exploratory, in part because in-depth research across the interreligious dialogue will take considerable time and effort. What we need to see in the short term is whether there is sufficient ground for hope that the proposed research will in fact yield some promising results. If so, we can then 24  Moshe Idel, Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism (New York, NY: Continuum, 2002). 25  For Green’s review of Magid’s book, cf. Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 10, no. 1 (2016), http://ejournals.bec.edu/ojs/index.php/scir/article/view/9173.

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move on to the implementation of a new vision of incarnational bonding. For Christians, especially for those denominations with fixed liturgies, the task will be daunting. In Catholicism and other such traditions liturgical celebration will present a major obstacle, though not one that cannot be overcome if there is the will to do so. Fixed liturgies in the Christian tradition usually revolve around the two other forms of Christology, i.e. the prophetic and the spilling of Jesus’ blood to wash away the effects of human sinfulness. Incarnationally-based Christological expression plays a secondary role, if a role at all, in most fixed liturgies. A few liturgists have begun to look at this situation with interreligious glasses but their numbers are quite small.26 A shift to incarnationalism set within the framework of Spirit Christology would require a major reorientation, not merely in theology, but also in liturgical expression where in fact most Christians form their theological outlook. For me, after nearly fifty years of work in Christian-Jewish and wider interreligious dialogue, the possibility of such a reorientation remains an open question. Most likely, it will occur in small steps that continue over the years rather than in one single overhaul. This process must gradually move incarnationalism with its Spirit Christological base to the center of Christian theological thought and liturgical celebration in place of the dominance of the prophetic and “blood” Christologies. Christianity can surely survive, interreligious dialogue can survive, without this fundamental reorientation. But I remain deeply convinced that Christianity, religion as such, will squander its potential for serving as a binding force within humanity and between humanity and all of creation, a unity that our increasingly global civilization needs if it is to successfully encounter the monumental challenges it faces in terms of protecting human dignity and creational sustainability. As the Jewish scholar Hans Jonas put it in his book on human responsibility, in a technological age we live in the first generation to have to face such a challenge.27 Theology can help us meet this challenge but only, I am convinced, if it can reorient itself towards the centrality of the interreligious self-understanding along the lines I have sketched above. My final word is, therefore, let us get on with the task.

26

 Cf. note 14.  Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Moral Responsibility (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 27

Christ as the Way and the Spirit as the Guide Stumbling Blocks and Points of Inspiration in John 14:6 for Jewish-Christian Dialogue Laura Tack “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (NRSV). These words from the Gospel of John sound very familiar to present day Christians. They are often used as a catchphrase in interreligious conversation by those Christians who want to emphasize Christianity’s unique vantage point on the Truth. Indeed, the reception history of this Bible verse shows that John 14:6 is often cited in theological works that want to sustain an exclusivist claim. In the 12th century Rupert of Deutz (Rupertus Tuitiensis) discusses this verse in his Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Joannis as follows: What does it mean: ‘No one comes to the Father except through me?’ I say: ‘What does this mean, if not: No one believes in the Father unless he believes in me?’ Therefore I have said to you: ‘You believe in God, also believe in me’ (14:1). For whether Jew or heretic, it is of no use to him if he confesses that God is the creator of heaven and earth and of all its array (Rom 8). For he does not come to the Father by such a confession, because he does not believe in me. Therefore, whomever the Father wants to attract to him, he attracts to me with the intention that they are conformed to the image of the Son and receive adoption by the Spirit of adoption and that they become heirs, that is, co-heirs of this same Son (Rom 9).1

This passage is an example of how John 14:6 has been used in a way that is not only disdainful of the unbelievers, but is, moreover, especially harmful towards the believing Jews. As Rupert of Deutz writes “it is of no use to him if he confesses that God is the creator of heaven and earth and of all its array.” According to Rupert of Deutz, even if one believes that God created heaven and earth and all that dwells in it – as surely all the faithful Jews do – if one does not believe in Jesus Christ, he maintains, one is cut off from any relationship with God the Father as well. 1  Rupertus Tuitiensis Abbas, Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Joannis, Patrologia Latina 169 (Paris: Migne), Liber XI, no. 295, col. 697 (my translation).

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1. Introduction to the Problem and the Methodology In this contribution we attempt to describe which aspects of John 14:6 might have triggered its anti-Jewish reception, as is epitomized in the example by Rupert of Deutz. We would also like to clarify whether the anti-Jewish interpretation is or is not already inherent in the Johannine verse. Most of all, we consider this article as the start of a dynamic thought process in which we would like to search for and find a way to mend what was broken. We wonder how present day Christians can read and interpret this verse in a way that might help to express their faith in a dialogical Jesus rather than in a Christ who excludes and causes frictions. Obviously, the particular outlook of our Johannine Christology will be important during this thought process. As the title of this contribution suggests, however, in a particular way pneumatology, and most of all perhaps, a Trinitarian interpretation of the Fourth Gospel will be of paramount importance. On a methodological level, this contribution requires the integration of an exegetical explanation of John 14:6 within a coordinating hermeneutical approach to the verse. The exegesis has to be considered as a way to determine the boundaries of what John 14:6 can signify and what it cannot signify. In order to answer the central question of this contribution properly, a hermeneutics is needed that treats the Biblical text not just as a text, but as a revelatory text that is in search of an inclusive future, even though it cannot avoid carrying the burdens of the past. The normativity of the future approach, also known as a futureoriented hermeneutics, is tailored to measure this particular concern. This approach, which was introduced in a seminal article of 1997,2 has, in the course of the past two decades, been further developed and finetuned by Reimund Bieringer, Mary Elsbernd and Didier Pollefeyt.3 It is nearly impossible to describe this rich and multifaceted hermeneutical approach in a nutshell. For the sake of clarity, however, we will try to 2  Reimund Bieringer, “The Normativity of the Future: The Authority of the Bible for Theology,” ET Bulletin: Zeitschrift für Theologie in Europa 8 (1997): 52-67. 3  For the collected essays on the normativity of the future approach, see Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, eds., Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven/Paris/Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2010).

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briefly recapitulate the major thrust of this particular hermeneutics. Finding its inspiration in the Ricoeurian notion of le monde du texte,4 a future-oriented hermeneutics looks for the world the Biblical text projects. Because it is a revelatory text, the world that is projected by the Biblical text contains a vision of the future, which is inclusive. In eschatological terms, it is the vision of the future community of the whole of creation with God. This vision of an inclusive community in the future, nonetheless, urges present day readers to take up their responsibilities in society today. The normativity of the future approach, moreover, maintains that this inclusive vision also shines through the words of those Biblical texts that are considered problematic, because they have misogynic, anti-Jewish or violent undertones. In a way, God knows how to write straight with the crooked lines of those texts. As the title suggests, this contribution consists of two main parts. First, we attempt to map out the crooked lines. In our case these are the possible stumbling blocks for Jewish-Christian dialogue that might, or might not, be inherent to John 14:6. Next, we try to figure out how God can write straight with these lines. We attempt to define the possible points of inspiration of John 14:6 within the broader literary context of the Farewell Discourse. 2. Stumbling Blocks: John 14:6 Risks to Sustain Christomonism Before we start with mapping out the stumbling blocks that are related to John 14:6abcd in view of Jewish-Christian dialogue, we suggest to give a brief presentation of this verse in the literary context of the Fourth Gospel. Being one of the many ‘I am’-sayings in the gospel, John 14:6 belongs to the first part of the Farewell Discourse (John 13:31–14:31). In this first part, John stages a Jesus who is deeply concerned with the future of his disciples after his departure from the world. The Johannine Jesus uses three strategies to set the disciples’ minds at ease: He stresses that, in the future, the disciples will participate in the mutual abiding between the Father and the Son (John 14:2-3,20,23). This first strategy is founded on what we consider as the prevalent

 Paul Ricoeur, Du texte à l’action: Essais d’herméneutique II (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 114.

4

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Christological concept in the Fourth Gospel, i.e., the Father-Son Christology5 (cf. John 14:9-11). In the future the disciples’ participation in this mutual abiding of the Father and the Son with the disciples will be guaranteed by the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will send in Jesus’ name and who will abide with the disciples forever (John 14:16-17,26). This future participation in the mutual abiding of the Father and the Son has moral repercussions as well. If the disciples observe the love command that the Johannine Jesus has introduced, they themselves will also be loved by the Father and Jesus in the future (John 13:34-35; 14:21,23-24). The first part of the Farewell Discourse is quite an inspiring speech. By its openness for the future it has the capacity to address present day readers. The Christological foundations are, moreover, balanced with due attention for pneumatology and the discourse is imbued with strong ethical claims. Yet, in view of Jewish-Christian dialogue, John 14:6 is the stumbling stone in this passage. How can this be best explained? A lot of the hurdles for Jewish-Christian dialogue that are related to this verse are, of course, based on inadequate interpretations of John 14:6.6 However, we maintain that there also exist a couple of stumbling blocks that are expressed by the gospel text itself. We propose to start with a brief discussion of the second part of the verse, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6cd), which sharpens the Christocentric edges of the verse as a whole. If one takes a look at the structure of this second part, one notices a marked emphasis on the personal pronoun ἐγώ at the end. In fact, ἐμοῦ forms an inclusion with the beginning of the Jesus saying: 6b ἐγώ …· 6d … δι᾽ ἐμοῦ

Moreover, the οὐδεὶς…εἰ μή construction intensifies the unique role of Jesus as point of access to the Father. No one can arrive at the Father, unless through Jesus’ mediation. 5  According to Mark Appold, the unity in diversity between the Father and the Son is the Fourth Gospel’s central theme. Mark L. Appold, The Oneness Motif in the Fourth Gospel: Motif Analysis and Exegetical Probe into the Theology of John, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II/1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1976), 18. 6  Within the scope of this article we cannot go into detail. We refer to the fourth chapter of our dissertation in which we give a thematic overview of the reception history of John 14:6. Laura Tack, Weg van de waarheid? Een historisch-kritisch en hermeneutisch onderzoek van Joh 14,6 in het licht van de joods-christelijke dialoog (PhD Diss., Catholic University of Leuven, 2015), 355-377.

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The stumbling block in John 14:6cd is not only what the sentence does express (i.e., an exclusive focus on Jesus as the sole mediator of salvation), but perhaps even more so what it does not say. John 14:6cd – and by extension the whole of verse 6 – does not mention and, therefore, risks to neglect the active role of the Father in the salvation process. Let us now take a look at John 14:6ab. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life’.” Does the first part of the verse testify to a more nuanced Christology? Before answering this question, we would like to offer some exegetical remarks. (a) We maintain that ‘the way’ is the central idea in this sentence. The concepts ‘truth’ and ‘life’ are added by John to further explain the way.7 (b) The Greek word for way, ὁδός occurs only in the 14th chapter of the gospel and in John 1:23. It is therefore rather difficult to define its precise significance for John. It most likely ties in with John’s figurative use of spatial language elsewhere in his gospel. The many verbs of movement and the repeated references to the descent and subsequent ascent of the Johannine Jesus are a way to figuratively express the relationship between the Father and the Son: the Johannine Jesus comes from the Father into the world, and He will leave the world again in order to return to the Father.8 (c) In comparison to the word ὁδός, the concepts ‘truth’ (ἀλήθεια) and ‘life’ (ζωή) occur more often in the Fourth Gospel. Different from the mainly epistemological sense which truth has in our contemporary discourse, ἀλήθεια for John is a relational concept.9 In those passages in the gospel where ἀλήθεια is related to the Johannine Jesus, it almost constantly refers to the authenticity of his relationship with the Father (John 1:17; 8:40,45,46; 18:37). In some other passages, moreover, the believers are characterized as those who are doing the truth (John 3:21) and the truth has the ability to set people free (John 8:32). Pilate’s question at the end of the gospel sounds therefore rather ironical. By asking ‘what is truth?’ he seems to imply that truth is a thing which is in no way related to a personal and relational reality. The addition of the predicate ‘life’ 7  See, for example, Christian Cebulj, Ich bin es: Studien zur Identitätsbildung im Johannesevangelium, Stuttgarter Biblische Beiträge 44 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2000), 226-228. 8  The importance of the Descent-Ascent Scheme in the Fourth Gospel was already demonstrated by Godfrey C. Nicholson, Death as Departure: The Johannine DescentAscent Schema, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 63 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). 9  Yu Ibuki developed the idea that truth in the Gospel of John refers to the unity of love between the Father and the Son. Yu Ibuki, Die Wahrheit im Johannesevangelium, Bonner Biblische Beiträge 32 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1972), 851.

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(ζωή) to ‘truth’, however, precisely points to the inherently relational, and thus life-giving, character of this truth. ‘Life’ is, in fact, a mainly soteriological concept in John. In John 14:6, in addition, the concept has to be considered from a theo-christological perspective. It expresses the life that the Johannine Jesus shares with the Father. This said, the question remains: in what way might John 14:6ab be difficult for Jewish-Christian dialogue? The difficulty lies not so much in the specifically Johannine content of the words way, truth and life as it lies in the way John chose to formulate his sentence. John 14:6ab is deliberately phrased as an ‘I am’-saying and not in terms of the language of mutual indwelling that is typical for the more nuanced Father-Son Christology in the Fourth Gospel. As such, John chose to put the sole emphasis on Jesus, and not so much on his relationship with the Father (John 14:8-11) and the Spirit (John 14:16-17) which he does mention elsewhere in the Farewell Discourse (see 14:8-11 and 14:16-17 respectively). By the way in which John chose to formulate John 14:6, he runs the risk of neglecting the Father’s role in salvation and as such creates a blind spot for the reader. As we know, blind spots can be quite dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists in daily traffic. In the case of Jewish-Christian relations the blind spot of John 14:6 might endanger an honest dialogue between both faiths. If the role of the Father and the Spirit in revelation and salvation is momentarily set aside in John 14:6, how can Christians on the basis of this verse respect the never revoked covenant of the Jews with God? The potential anti-Jewishness of John 14:6 is closely related to its tendency to christomonism. By stressing the centrality of Jesus, the Father and the Spirit are rendered invisible. It is particularly this christomonistic tendency of John 14:6 that gave rise to commentaries such as those by Rupert of Deutz, which we discussed at the beginning. 3. Points of Inspiration: John 14:6 Opens up a Trinitarian Perspective on the Future As we already mentioned in the introduction, we choose to read John 14:6 from a future-oriented perspective. The normativity of the future approach looks for the inclusive vision that the text projects and maintains that this inclusive vision also shines through the words of those Biblical texts that are considered problematic. In this second part we attempt to describe in which way God can write straight with the crooked lines of the text of John 14:6.

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In the very first lines of John 14, the Johannine Farewell Discourse opens up a perspective to this inclusive vision. John 14:2a contains an important eye opener: “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places.” The way in which the Johannine Jesus envisages the future of his disciples is clearly theocentric. His vision is oriented towards the house of the Father. In this house, moreover, there are many dwelling places. Taking up residence with the Father, therefore, is not meant for the happy few. In the past, the Johannine community has been described as elitist or sectarian.10 It is possible that the eschatological vision in John 14:2a contradicts this hypothesis and might give additional evidence of the more universalistic tendencies in John, which are expressed elsewhere in the gospel (e.g., John 3:16). The Greek noun for ‘dwelling place’, μονή, is reiterated in John 14:23 to describe how the Father and Jesus will come to the disciples who love them, in order to make a dwelling place amongst them. In a typically Johannine fashion, the dwelling of the disciples in the house of the Father (John 14:2a) is further characterized in v. 23 as a mutual indwelling: the Father and the Son also dwell with the disciples. The mutual indwelling of the disciples with the Father and Jesus is, therefore, clearly modeled on the mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son. By stressing the many dwelling places, John clarifies that this mutual indwelling is an inclusive rather than an exclusive model of relationship. We still need to ask how this eye opener can change our perspective on the christomonistic formulation of John 14:6. Clearly no hermeneutics can alter the Christocentric content of the verse, but christocentrism itself can function in many different ways. We opt to interpret the ‘I am’-saying as a metaphorical expression, along the lines of Paul Ricoeur’s understanding of metaphor as le travail de la resemblance. He explains this process as follows: “Dans la métaphore, le ‘même’ opère en dépit du ‘différent’.”11 In order to understand the picture the metaphor projects, readers ought to see ‘object a’ as if it were ‘object b’.12 In the case of the ‘I am’-saying of John 14:6, we have to understand at the same time in what way Jesus is and is not the way. Jesus is not the way: clearly he is no material road connecting two places that are geographically separated. At the same time Jesus is the way 10  E.g., Wayne A. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972): 44-72, 69-70. 11  Paul Ricoeur, La métaphore vive (Paris: Seuil, 1975), 249-250. 12  Ibid., 269.

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precisely because he does what a way does: he connects. This is exactly why the relational (and deeply Johannine) concepts of truth and life are added by the fourth evangelist to explain how Jesus is the way. By consequence, what we find here is a dynamic metaphor that presents Jesus as someone who connects rather than excludes. The christocentrism of John 14:6 is in fact centrifugal. In the end, more than simply pointing to his own person, the Johannine Jesus points away from himself to the Father with whom he brings the disciples into connection. In the Johannine Farewell Discourse, Jesus is, however, not the only character that is qualified as someone who excels at networking. As a matter of fact, also the Spirit of truth is described as someone who will lead (ὁδηγέω) the disciples into full truth (John 16:13).13 If Jesus is the way, then the Spirit surely is the guide. Both the Spirit and the Johannine Jesus are set out on the same mission, which is to connect the disciples with the Father. The Spirit’s guidance is, moreover, as indispensable as the way. There are, of course, always the more adventurous amongst us who risk to travel along the way without ever consulting a guide. Based on our reading of John 16:13, however, one could conclude that the Spirit even helps to discover the way. He more closely resembles a mountain guide or a Sherpa who takes travelers on roads that are hard to find or seemingly invisible. 4. Conclusion: Reading John 14:6 as an Invitation to Dialogue We have gradually shifted away from the christomonistic undertones of John 14:6 in the direction of understanding John 14:6 as a dynamic metaphor that gives voice to the Johannine ideal of the inclusive and mutual indwelling of the Father, Son, Spirit and the believers. The metaphor is dynamic in two ways. First, it presents a dynamic Jesus, who, together with the Spirit, is set out on a mission to connect the world with the Father. Second, the way stands exactly for what the word signifies. It is a road that connects two geographic points that are distant from each other. It refers to the dynamism that is involved in overcoming that 13  For an exegetical discussion of the text-critical problems involved with this verse see Reimund Bieringer, “The Spirit’s Guidance into All the Truth: The Text-Critical Problems of John 16,13,” in New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis. FS J. Delobel, ed. Adelbert Denaux, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 161 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 183-207.

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distance. Even Jesus’ truest disciples are still on the way. They are not there yet. They are still being led by the Spirit on this way that is open towards the future. To conclude we would like to consider if we can go even one step further and read John 14:6 as an invitation to dialogue, instead of an incitement towards exclusivism and religious intolerance. So far we have treated the image of the house of the Father as figuratively expressing the idea of an inclusive community. In other contexts, however, the expression ‘the house of the Father’ or in koine Greek ὁ οἶκος τοῦ πατρός, refers to the Jerusalem temple (e.g., John 2:16).14 John, moreover, regularly uses the verb ἀναβαίνω to describe both Jesus’ ascent to the Father and his many pilgrimages to Jerusalem.15 Jesus’ ascent to the Father, therefore, can also be understood in terms of a pilgrimage to the heavenly temple. We can ask ourselves if we can perhaps compare Jewish-Christian dialogue with a pilgrimage to the house of the Father. Although both partners in dialogue have traveled on different roads, which are the different covenants, they are connected by the same goal that they wish to attain in the future, which is to dwell in the presence of God. The Psalmist expresses this joint venture in words that are similar to John 14:616 when he writes: “O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling (Ps 43:3 NRSV).”

 Cf. James McCaffrey, The House with the Many Rooms: The Temple Theme of Jn. 14,2-3, Analecta Biblica 114 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1988), 62-64, 73-75, 85-87, 97-98, 107-108, 125-127, 254-255; Alan R. Kerr, The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John, Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Supplement Series 220 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 293-308; Jacob Chanikuzhy, Jesus, the Eschatological Temple: An Exegetical Study of Jn 2,13-22 in the Light of the Pre-70 C.E. Eschatological Temple Hopes and the Synoptic Temple Action, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology 58 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 266. 15  Reimund Bieringer, “‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (John 20,17): Resurrection and Ascension in the Gospel of John,” in The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, ed. Craig Koester and Reimund Bieringer, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 222 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 209-235, at 224. 16  The correspondences between both passages have been described by Johannes Beutler, Do Not Be Afraid: The First Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel (Jn 14), Neutestamentliche Studien zur kontextuellen Exegese 6 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2011), 39-41. 14

3

The Spirit and Orthodox Theology

The Spirit as a Hermeneutic Lens of Israel’s Past and the Church’s Present and Future 2 Cor 3:16-17 and Its Reception in Patristic Tradition Ekaterini Tsalampouni 1. Introduction In the post-Holocaust period, Jewish-Christian dialogue has mostly focused on Christology and on an inclusive understanding of the covenant, whereas Pneumatology seems to have played a secondary role.1 However, the importance of the latter in exploring new possibilities of the encounter between Jews and Christians has already been stressed.2 New critical approaches have also suggested a fresh look into those texts that have often contributed to the sharp distinction and tension between the two religious realities, especially through the reception and adaptation of these texts in particular historical circumstances. Within this context scholars involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue have wondered whether the Christian Scriptures could allow for the development of a Spirit Christology or even for an understanding of the Spirit in such a way that could lead the discussion beyond the limitations of a traditional Christological understanding that seems to promote the well-known rhetoric of Christian superiority against the temporary nature of Judaism and the inevitable replacement of the latter by the former (supersessionism).3 The following observation is also relevant to the topic of this study, namely that the traditional pneumatological interpretation of biblical passages and its connection to Christology has 1  For a brief review see John Pawlikowski, “Christology in Light of the JewishChristian Dialogue,” CTSA Proceedings 49 (1994): 120-134; John Pawlikowski, “Christology and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Personal Theological Journey,” Irish Theological Quarterly 72, no. 2 (2007): 147-167. 2  Dermot A. Lane, Stepping Stones to Other Religions: A Christian Theology of InterReligious Dialogue (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 171-175. 3  See the paper of John Pawlikowski in this volume and John Pawlikowski, “The Uniqueness of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue: A Yes and a No,” Studies in Christian Jewish Relations 12, no. 1 (2017): 1-14.

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contributed not only to a “parting of the ways” but also to the development of an adversus Iudaeos discourse from ancient to modern times.4 The third chapter of 2 Corinthians is a significant text in this respect. It is certainly a challenging text from an exegetical point of view because Paul’s style is elliptic and often ambiguous. Moreover, in chapter 3 Paul adapts the Scriptures in a particular way and with the goal that it should serve his main argument, namely that his ministry, a ministry of the spirit, is superior to that of Moses whose ministry is based on the letter. Therefore, the stark contrast between the letter of the old covenant that “kills” and the spirit of the covenant that “gives life,” which seems to dominate this chapter, has served as the basis for Christian pneumatology but also for an anti-Jewish discourse in the generations after Paul, as it will be shown below. The formative character of these verses has already been noted in current scholarship on Jewish-Christian dialogue.5 A fresh look at this text seems, therefore, to be within the scope of the present discussion regarding the role of pneumatology in inter-religious dialogue. In the following pages the exegetical difficulties of the text will be discussed as well as a possible alternative reading to that of the mainstream. Although the reading suggested in this study has been proposed before, it has not been widely accepted. It seems, therefore, necessary to approach this text anew in order to explore its potential contribution to Jewish-Christian relations as well as to establish its possible limits in this respect. In the second part of this study, the reception and appropriation of this text in the patristic literature of the Greek East will be briefly discussed. The reason for focusing on it is the crucial role patristic readings played in defining the relationship of Christianity to Judaism through history as well as because of their authoritarian role in current Orthodox theology. In this context, a crucial issue from the perspective of Orthodox biblical hermeneutics will be also addressed, namely whether and in what respect this tradition of interpretation – especially since it is closely related to the long process of the formation and articulation of the Christian Trinitarian doctrine – could function as a restrictive and normative authority leaving no space for fresh approaches and new interpretations of the biblical text. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn regarding its re-reading within the context of contemporary 4  Michael E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion, Studies in Judaism and Christianity (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1992), 25. 5  Ibid., 17.

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Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as the potentiality and the limits of our hermeneutical traditions. 2. Exegesis 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 forms a clearly defined unit within the broader section of Paul’s apologia in 2:14–7:66 for the reasons that Jan Lambrecht has already provided: (a) it refers to a concrete Old Testament passage, namely Exod 34:29-35, (b) the two smaller units within it, namely verses 7-11 and 12-18, have many intratextual links,7 and (c) the personal pronoun ἡμεῖς in 3:18 seems to include all believers, whereas in 2:14–3:6 and 4:1-6 the word refers to Paul alone or to Paul together with his coworkers.8 At the same time, however, this passage is part of the larger unit of 2:14–4:6.9 It occupies the middle part of a threefold composition that follows a concentric pattern: 2:14–3:6 (A), 3:7-18 (B), and 4:1-6 (A’).10 The topic of the middle part – as well as of the broader unit – has been a matter of debate among scholars. Most of them focus on the contrast between the old and the new covenant and on the replacement of the former by the latter.11 Although the comparison between Paul and 6  Tobias Nicklas, “Die verborgene Herrlichkeit des Paulusdienstes: Überlegungen zu 2Kor 3,1–4,6,” in Der Zweite Korintherbrief: Literarische Gestalt – Historische Situation – Theologische Argumentation. FS D.-A. Koch, ed. D. Sänger, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur zum Alten und Neuen Testament 50 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 240-256, at 241, who suggests that this unit is much larger and ends in 2 Cor 7:4. 7  Most prominently, Moses and his veil, glory and the spirit. 8  Jan Lambrecht, “Structure and Line of Thought in 2 Cor 2,14–4,6,” Biblica 64, no. 3 (1983): 344-380. Whether, however, this is an indication of a composition prior to or independent from the rest of the letter is a question still open to debate. More specifically, the following proposals have been made: a) it had previously been a sermon preached by Paul in a synagogue or b) it was a re-writing of an existing narrative of Exodus composed by Paul’s opponents. For a detailed presentation of the various hypotheses about the unity of the letter, see Reimund Bieringer, “Teilungshypothesen zum 2. Korintherbrief: Ein Forschungsüberblick,” in Studies on 2 Corinthians, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Jan Lambrecht, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 112 (Leuven: Peeters, 1994), 67-105. 9  Rudolf Bultmann, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, Kritisch-Exegetischer Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924), 65. 10  Lambrecht, “Structure and Line of Thought,” 347-350. 11  See, for example O. Hofius, “Gesetz und Evangelium nach 2. Korinther 3,” in O. Hofius, Paulusstudien, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 51 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 75-120.

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Moses’ ministry occupies an important place in Paul’s argumentation in 3:7-18 the whole passage should be read in its wider context where the main issue is Paul’s ministry and its qualitative features. The centrality of the theme of διακονία can also be established by the occurrences of this word in the middle part of 2:14–4:6.12 This creates intra-textual links to the other two parts of the unit where words that belong to the same semantic field also occur.13 As it has already been observed the focus is on Paul’s ministry and the theme of διακονία runs through the whole unit thus establishing its coherence.14 If this is correct, Tobias Nicklas’ observation regarding the main point of this section of the letter seems justified; the question in 2:1–4:6 does not seem to be which covenant is better but rather why Paul’s ministry does not exhibit signs of God’s glory in the way Moses’ ministry did.15 More concretely, Paul reflects upon this issue in the second half of the middle part of this unit (in vv. 12-18) and on the basis of the story of Moses’ shining face in Exod 34:29-35.16 However, even a quick comparison of the text of Exodus to that of 2 Corinthians makes it clear that this is not a faithful reproduction of the original story. Paul seems to have adapted the original narrative in a way that would support his own exegetical purposes. He deliberately omits the fact that, when Moses transmitted to his fellow Israelites the words that God spoke to him on Sinai, he kept his face unveiled and that he covered it only after finishing his speech (Exod 34:33: καὶ ἐπειδὴ κατέπαυσεν λαλῶν πρὸς αὐτούς, ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ κάλυμμα). He also did the same every time he came out from the Tent of Meeting to speak to the Israelites (Exod 34:34-35). In Paul’s re-telling, though, the Israelites were not able 12

 “διακονία”: 3:7, 8, 9 (twice).  See 3:3 (διακονηθεῖσα); 3:6 (διακόνους); 4:1 (διακονία). 14  Lambrecht, “Structure and Line of Thought,” 353. 15  Nicklas, “Die verborgene Herrlichkeit,” 243. His point can also be further supported by the predominance of words that belong to the semantic field of glory in this passage, Lambrecht, “Structure and Line of Thought,” 353-354. 16  Most proposed structures of the passage highlight the central function of the Exodus narrative. For example, Linda L. Belleville, Reflections of Glory: Paul’s Polemical Use of the Moses-Doxa Tradition in 2 Corinthians 3, Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Supplement Series 52 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 177 suggests a haggadic structure with a sequence of text and commentary: a) v. 12: opening statement, b) vv. 13-14a (Exod 34:33): text, c) vv. 14b-15: commentary, d) v. 16 (Exod 34:34): text, e) v. 17: commentary, and f) v. 18 (Exod 34:35): text and commentary combined. Cf. also Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians : A Commentary on the Greek Text, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005), 294. 13

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to face Moses’ radiant face at all. Therefore, he had to veil it while contacting them and in order to transmit the divine message. Although this small detail seems harmless it gives a particular twist to the Pauline version of this narrative and certainly makes the contrast between the ministry of the letter and the ministry of the spirit even sharper.17 By doing so, however, Paul does not seem to diverge much from the interpretive strategies of the contemporary Jewish exegesis18 or even from his own usual exegetical practices.19 This has led many commentators to label this section as a midrash,20 although this identification has been contested by some others.21 Those who acknowledge the midrashic nature of vv. 7-8 also note that v. 16 is a pesher text, although not in its strict sense but in the extended form of a modified scriptural text applied to a certain situation.22 17  For a detailed discussion of the interpretation of Exod 34:29-35 in 2 Corinthians 3 see Albert Vanhoye, “L’Interprétation d’ Ex 34 en 2 Co 3,7-14,” in Paolo: Ministro del Nuovo Testamento, ed. Lorenzo de Lorenzi (Rome: Benedictina Editrice, 1987), 159-180. 18  Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 1980), 2-5; Linda L. Belleville, “Tradition or Creation? Paul’s Use of the Exodus Tradition in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18,” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel, ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 165-186. 19  See, for example, Rom 1:17; 9:33; 11:8, 35; 2 Cor 6:16-18. 20  Hans Windisch, Der zweite Κorintherbrief, 9th ed., Kritisch-Exegetischer Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924), 112-131; James D. G. Dunn, “2 Corinthians III.17 – The Lord Is the Spirit,” Journal of Theological Studies 21, no. 2 (1970): 315-317. See also the comment of Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Glory Reflected on the Face of Christ (2 Cor 3:7–4:6),” Theological Studies 42, no. 4 (1981): 630-644, at 632: “It is one of the few passages in the New Testament which is clearly midrashic in the strict sense…” Note also his position that this midrash is a Pauline composition written by Paul on another occasion and inserted here. 21  According to them, Paul rather seems to reflect upon Moses’ story without going into an in depth interpretation of its details. He uses it as a metaphor and as a foil for his own thoughts while at the same time mainly focusing on two terms, those of glory (δόξα) and veil (κάλυμμα), which obtain a deeper allegorical meaning in his discourse, Hays, Echoes, 132-133. See, also Margareta Gruber, Herrlichkeit in Schwachheit: Eine Auslegung der Apologie des zweiten Korintherbriefs 2 Kor 2,14–6,13, Forschung zur Bibel 89 (Würzburg: Echter, 1998), 151-152 and Thomas Witulski, “Der Alte und der Neue Bund: Die Funktion von 2 Kor 3,7-18 im Kontext der Argumentation des Paulus in 2 Kor 2,14–4,6,” in Der zweite Korintherbrief: Literarische Gestalt – Historische Situation – Theologische Argumentation, 338-340. 22  Dunn, “2 Corinthians III.17 – The Lord Is the Spirit,” 315-316 distinguishes between two different types of pesher and considers the second, extended form, as a legitimate Christian form of pesher; E. E. Ellis, “A Note on Pauline Hermeneutics,” New Testament Studies 2 (1955): 127-133. For a different opinion see Scott J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 81 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 398, n. 199.

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In this context, v. 17 seems to be Paul’s note that explains who the κύριος of the previous verse is and correlates the story of Moses and Israel with the circumstances of the apostle and his readers.23 This is an important point that needs to be taken into consideration when interpreting this particular verse. The story of Exodus and the appearance of the term κύριος in verse 16 can provide the necessary clues for understanding the meaning of vv. 17-18. Indeed, these verses have posed difficulties to both ancient and modern exegetes. This is reflected, for example, in the proposed emendations of verse 1724 and the various hypotheses regarding its provenance.25 The key term in v. 17 seems to be the word κύριος. Its syntactical function within v. 17a, as well as its semantic content, are issues that have certainly determined the interpretation of the whole passage in many respects.26 Unfortunately, the brevity of the clauses in v. 17 offers no clue for a single interpretation. More particularly, κύριος can either be read as the subject of the verb ἐστιν or as the predicate to the noun πνεῦμα, 23  Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Vol. 1: Introduction and Commentary on II Corinthians I–VII, International Critical Commentary (New York, NY: T&T Clark International, 2004), 274. In this case, the introductory δέ is anaphoric and refers to κύριος in the previous verse. 24  Several conjectural emendations were proposed by the exegetes: a) Jean Héring, La seconde Épître de saint Paul aux Corinthiens, Commentaire du Nouveau Testament I/8 (Neuchâtel/Paris: Delachaux-Niestlé, 1958), 38-40 suggested that the word οὗ should be added in both parts of the verse: οὗ δὲ ὁ κύριος, τὸ πνεῦμα ἐστιν· οὗ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐλευθερία, a reading that has no manuscript support, though. See also the same emendation but without the definite article before κύριος in J. Winandy, “L’énigme de 2Cor 3,17: une bévue de scribe?,” Revue Biblique 107 (2000): 72-80; b) according to N. Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1965), 128 the original form was οὐ instead of οὗ; it has also been suggested that c) the nominative neuter adjective κύριον should be read in v. 17b instead of κυρίου, B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek. Vol. 1: Introduction and Appendix (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881), 119; or that d) the masculine nominative noun κύριος should replace κυρίου, an emendation proposed by E. von Dobschütz, as cited in J. F. Collange, Énigmes de la deuxième épître de Paul aux Corinthiens: Étude exégétique de 2 Cor. 2:14–7:4, Society of New Testament Studies: Monograph Series 18 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 106; e) the verb κυριεύει instead of the genitive κυρίου that has to be regarded as a scribal error, F. H. Ely, “The Reading of 2 Corinthians iii 17 (τὸ πνεῦμα κυρίου),” Journal of Theological Studies 17 (1915): 60-65. 25  There is some discussion by some scholars whether this verse comes from Paul or from his source, see Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 276. Walter Schmithals, “Zwei gnostische Glossen im zweiten Korintherbrief,” Evangelische Theologie 18 (1958): 570, claimed that the verse is a gnostic gloss. 26  For a classification of the various interpretations of the verse see Collange, Énigmes, 107-112 and Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 278-282.

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which in this case is the subject of the sentence. Both options though reflect different ideological backgrounds and accentuations. On the one hand, the second understanding led to a pneumatological interpretation of the verse, in the sense that it was perceived as a reference to the Spirit’s divinity and was thus often evoked in Trinitarian debates, especially in the ancient Church.27 In this case, the word “κύριος” denoted God or more generally the divine nature. On the other hand, the former option led to an identification of κύριος with Christ. This identification produced a variety of Christological interpretations. Ernest Bernard Allo, for example, pointed to the antithesis between the spirit and the letter that runs through 2 Corinthians 3 and maintained that in v. 17a Paul’s point is that Christ is the true spiritual meaning of the Old Testament letter.28 This interpretation, though, seems to ignore the second half of the verse where Paul speaks of the “Spirit of the Lord” and where there is no allusion to a spiritual understanding of the text.29 Most exegetes seem to opt for a more or less “substantialist” understanding of πνεῦμα in v. 17a, namely that the spirit is the essence of Christ30 or that there is a hypostatic merge of two different personal entities, the risen Christ and the Spirit.31 The presence of the definite article with πνεῦμα seems to be the main weakness of the first interpretation.32 The second interpretation, though, seems more plausible since in Pauline letters the term κύριος usually refers to the Risen Lord. Despite that, Paul usually distinguishes between the Spirit

27  For the prevalence of this interpretation in Roman-Catholic exegesis in the first half of the 20th century, see Karl Prümm, “Die katholische Auslegung von 2 Kor 3,17a in den letzten vier Jahrzehnten nach ihren Hauptrichtungen,” Biblica 31, no. 3 (1950): 316-345 and no. 4 (1950): 459-482. 28  E.-B. Allo, Saint Paul: Seconde épître aux Corinthiens (Paris: Gabalda, 1956), 95-96, 107-110. 29  Collange, Énigmes, 109. 30  Hans Lietzmann, An die Korinther I–II, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 9 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1949), 113; B. Schneider, Dominus autem Spiritus est: II Cor 3,17a (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1951), 41. 31  A. Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1876), 138-139. See also the rather radical position of Samuel Sandmel, The Genius of Paul: A Study in History (New York, NY: Schocken, 1978), 83, that the Holy Spirit and the man Jesus comprise the risen Christ. 32  Belleville, Reflections of Glory, 261. However, this observation goes back to John Chrysostom, Hom. 2 Cor. vii, John Chrysostom; Homiliae XXX in Epistolam secundam ad Corinthios, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 61 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1862), 448.

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and Christ,33 which makes any ontological or personal identification in v. 17a less than certain. Moreover, v. 17b does not seem to support this identification.34 Many of the proponents of the Christological interpretation, therefore, suggest a functional or dynamic identification35 of the two on the level mainly of the community’s experience;36 Christ is being experienced by the members of the community through the πνεῦμα, and it is the Spirit that makes possible their access to him. This last option has been preferred by many modern exegetes, but its roots can be traced back in the patristic period.37 If this reading is correct then Paul might have claimed that it is only through the Spirit that the contemporary Jews could have access to Christ the Lord. In this context, v. 16 is also read through these Christological lenses and the ambivalence of the subject is definitely answered. It is the unbelieving Jews that have to return to the Lord who is Jesus Christ.38 The identification of κύριος with Christ that all variations of the Christological interpretation presuppose reflects the traditional interpretatio christiana of history. It lays more emphasis on the soteriological perspective of history, which is now perceived as a Christ-centered history of salvation. Jesus Christ is the one who can act as the connecting link between past, present, and future. He guarantees the unity of the two Covenants and should thus be regarded as die Mitte der Zeit. However, such an interpretation could also lead to a discriminating treatment of Judaism and argue for its transitory character, especially when it is used in the context of certain types of “replacement theology.”39 33  E.g., Rom 1:4; 1 Cor 12:3; 2 Cor 13:13. Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians: Translated with Introduction, Notes and Commentary, Anchor Bible 32A (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 212-213. 34  Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 310. 35  For the dynamic identification, i.e., the Spirit being the power with which the Risen Lord is present in the Church, see Eduard Schweizer, “πνεῦμα, πνευματικός,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 415-419. 36  For example, R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians, Word Biblical Commentary 40 (Dallas, TX: Word, 2002), 71. 37  See, for example, Cyril of Alexandria, Adversus Anthropomorphitas, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 76 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1863), 1088-1089. 38  For a discussion of the various interpretations of the verse see Margaret E. Thrall, “Conversion to the Lord: The Interpretation of Exodus 34 in II Cor. 3:14b-18,” in Paolo Ministro del Nuovo Testamento, Serie Monografica di “Benedictina” 9 (Rome: Benedictina Editrice, 1987), 205-208. See also the opinion of Collange, Énigmes, 101-103 that in v. 16 Paul is referring to his Christian opponents. 39  The “structural” supersessionism, for example, promotes a “colonial” reading of Israel’s history and despite applying the lens of continuity between the two covenants in

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Admittedly, the identification of κύριος with Christ is text-based since Paul generally uses the word κύριος as identical to Jesus Christ. However, as James Dunn has observed, this cannot be decisive. More concretely, in those passages where Paul quotes the Old Testament verbatim or in a loose way the word κύριος refers to ‫ יהוה‬and not to Christ.40 What should, therefore, determine its meaning is the context itself and each case should be treated individually.41 It is the context, indeed, of v. 17 that leads the interpretation to a different direction. As it has already been claimed earlier this verse should be regarded as a Pauline explanation to the previous references to κύριος and especially to v. 16 where the emphasis is on lifting the veil and returning to the Lord.42 Paul’s exegetical gloss in v. 17 is, therefore, closely connected to the previous verse and explains that the Lord of the Exodus story is no one else but the Spirit who acts as the transforming power of the new covenant. However, in Exodus, the Lord that Moses encounters is ‫ יהוה‬himself. The fact that in vv. 16 and 18 the word κύριος is anarthrous cannot determine that its occurrence in v. 16 points to Christ instead of to the God of Israel.43 Thus a connection is established; ‫ יהוה‬and the Spirit are identified. This interpretation again endorses the idea that in this passage Paul focuses more on the functional and relational role of the Spirit than on a detailed explication of some doctrinal truth about the hypostasis of the Spirit.44 As Scott Hafemann has already observed, Paul’s point here is that Moses’ experience of Israel’s God is equivalent to the experience of the Spirit in the case of Paul.45 It also presupposes a certain fluidity regarding the descriptions of the Spirit in early Christianity. This fluidity that can also be traced in other aspects of early Christian Trinitarian theology will be later transformed by the Church Fathers into an argument about the common divine essence of all three persons of the Trinity. Moreover, to use an anachronism, such fact introduces the element of discontinuity, see “Various Forms of Replacement Theology,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 20, no. 1 (2009): 57-69, at 63-65. Richard Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1996), 1-2. 40  See also Furnish, II Corinthians, 211. 41  Dunn, “2 Corinthians III.17,” 317. 42  For the various possibilities of interpretation of κύριος in v. 16 and its identification with ‫ יהוה‬see Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 271-273. 43  Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel, 397. 44  See, for example, Geoffrey Lampe, God as Spirit (London: SCM, 1977), 42 who holds that the Spirit refers to “God experienced as inspiring, motivating, empowering, vivifying, indwelling, and acting in many ways which are recognized by faith as modes of the personal active presence of God.” 45  Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel, 399.

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a description of the Spirit rather points to the notion of the “economic” Trinity, a concept that was definitely introduced later in Christian theology.46 Going back to 2 Corinthians it seems that Paul claims that it is the Spirit who is the revealer of the power of the God and to whom the Jews have now to return.47 This reading can be supported by the context of verse 17. Paul’s insertion of this exegetical gloss immediately after the passage from Exodus certainly creates a close connection between the references to the Lord in the two verses making such an association possible and probable. Moreover, it maintains the antithesis upon which the whole passage is structured, namely between the law and the spirit but not between the law and Christ, which would be favoured by the Christological reading of v. 16. This can also have some significant theological implications. First, it shifts the focus from the Christological understanding of history to a more “pneumatological” one, in the sense that the Spirit acts as the common denominator of Israel’s past but also of the Church’s present. Admittedly, Paul’s tone here remains polemical although the apologetic purpose of 2 Corinthians 2–4 should not be totally dismissed. However, the sharp distinction between Judaism and Christianity that the Christological lens introduced in the interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3 can be moderated. It seems that by identifying the Lord with Jesus Christ here one would also maintain the usual discriminative evaluation of Judaism; Heilsgeschichte and Jesus Christ himself would certainly be used as a stumbling block in this case and the focus would be on the differences between Judaism and Christianity as well as on a condemnation or at least a devaluation of Judaism because of its rejection of Jesus instead of their common background and history. On the other hand, it seems that a “pneumatological” understanding of the word κύριος as well as a possible identification of the Lord of Israel with the Spirit would shift the focus from the differences to the common experience of the two communities and could also create a link between Israel’s past and the Church’s present. It could also moderate although

46  In this respect the hesitation of Belleville, Reflections of Glory, 203 to accept any personal or ontological identification of ‫ יהוה‬and the Spirit is justified. 47  M.-A. Chevallier, Esprit de Dieu: Le rôle de l’esprit dans les ministères de la parole selon l’apôtre Paul, Bibliothèque théologique (Neuchâtel/Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé 1966), 93-97.

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not completely abolish any degradation of Moses and his ministry when compared to Paul.48 I am not sure whether Paul would have been willing to go into such an elaborate discussion regarding the identity of κύριος or whether his original readers would have understood the implications of his thought here. There are some indications in the text, though, that point to the direction proposed. In v. 17b Paul refers to this Spirit as πνεῦμα κυρίου, an echo, as Margaret Thrall has suggested, of the OT ‫רוח יהוה‬, the Spirit of Yahweh.49 There are also indications in rabbinic literature that the God of Israel was sometimes associated with the Spirit. According to the evidence presented by Martin McNamara it seems that in the Palestinian targumim the Spirit is often “God himself conceived of as speaking with Israel.”50 He also proposed the targumim of Pseudo-Jonathan to Exod. 33:16 and to Num 7:89 as the possible background of Paul’s identification of the Spirit with the Lord.51 In these passages the voice of God is described as the “voice of the spirit” that converses with Moses and Israel. If McNamara’s proposal is correct, then Paul’s explanation in v. 17a probably reflects this particular part of the Jewish tradition regarding Shekinah and God’s spirit and a “pneumatological” and not Christological reading of the κύριος in v. 17 could gain more support. As it has already been noted this interpretation cannot completely remove the polemic tone of the passage. Moreover, it cannot certainly clarify all ambiguities or difficult points of the text. How should, for example, the word ἐλευθερία in v. 17b be understood? Does it refer to the usual antithesis between the law and the gospel or is it a general description of the positive state of life in Christ? Does it refer to the 48  See, for example, the proposal of Nicklas, “Die verborgene Herrlichkeit,” 250-251 to understand the participle “καταργουμένην” in 3:7 as denoting not the annulment of the institution of Moses’ ministry but rather its prognosis of the condemnation and death of humans. Ιn a similar way, Paul B. Duff, Moses in Corinth: The Apologetic Context of 2 Corinthians 3, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 159 (Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2015), 178-180 suggests that the phrase τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου should be understood as a reference to the fact that the condemnation of the Gentiles through Moses’ ministry has come to an end. The interpretation of τέλος in v. 13b as “goal” or “purpose” that was proposed by some scholars seems to point to the same direction, see Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 256-258. 49  Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 274; Collange, Énigmes, 113. 50  Martin McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, Analecta Biblica 27a (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978), 173-174 and id., Targum and Testament Revisited: Aramaic Paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 171-176. 51  McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum, 186-188.

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present situation or does it also have eschatological intonations? Moreover, and since both Jews and Christians share the Spirit (although the first only as a past experience) what does the “conversion” (ἐπιστρέφειν) of the former mean? If Paul’s vision describes the eschatological prospects of the Christian community in verse 18 as it is usually understood, what is the future of the Jewish community? These are certainly challenging questions that cannot be easily answered. It is also obvious that any answers given will certainly be dictated by the previous exegetical decision regarding the identity of κύριος. It is also important to note that every decision, although not necessarily arbitrary, is certainly a conscious choice influenced by each reader’s ideological background, historical context, and personal stimulation and inspiration. This certainly does not abolish the reality or need of the interpretive community of Stanley Fish52 nor discard Michael Rifaterre’s proposal of the leading and prescriptive role of the textual structure in the process of interpretation.53 It rather attempts to establish a balance between all participants in this hermeneutic process that is not perceived as a hermeneutical cycle but rather as a spiral.54 Turning back to the text, the proposed reading would also offer the possibility to understand the word ἐλευθερία in v. 17b not in the strict sense of the antithetical pair slavery of the law/freedom of the gospel but also opt for a more general perception of it as the quality of the life the Spirit provides.55 Those interpreters who propose this reading usually point to a similar role of the Spirit in Gal 4:1-7 (all believers are now the sons of God and can call him ‘Father’) or Gal 4:21-31 (the allegory of Agar and Sarah).56 However, even in these passages the context of freedom is again rather polemical, because the antithesis of the two covenants is prominent. In this respect, both texts have a general affinity of context with the passage in 2 Corinthians. Furthermore, both texts from 52  Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 319-320. 53  Michael Riffaterre, Text Production, trans. Terese Lyons (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1983), 10-11. 54  Ernst M. Conradie and Louis C. Jonker, “Determining Relative Adequacy in Biblical Interpretation,” Scriptura 78 (2001): 448-456. 55  Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 275. See also the connection with παρρησία proposed by W. C. van Unnik, “‘With Unveiled Face’, An Exegesis of 2 Corinthians iii 12-18,” Novum Testamentum 6, nos. 2-3 (1963): 153-169 and Furnish, II Corinthians, 237-238. 56  C. A. G. Emeling, Epistola Pauli ad Corinthios posterior graece perpetuo commentario illustravit (Leipzig: Barth, 1823), 37; Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 275276.

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the letter to the Galatians, like the passage from 2 Corinthians, refer to the present distinction between the two covenants alluding, however, at the same time to the future. It can certainly not be denied that all three texts, and especially Gal 4:1-7 and 2 Cor 3:17-18, have eschatological undertones.57 Interestingly, another Pauline text, Romans 8, also connects this eschatological future with the Spirit and the freedom given to the children of God. Furthermore, in both 2 Cor 3:18 and Rom 8:21 the eschatological status of God’s children is connected to glory. Does, however, Israel have a place in this eschatological glory? I think that this is directly affected by the way the verb ἐπιστρέφειν in verse 16 is interpreted and by who the subject of the verb might be. Paul modified this quotation from Exod 34:34 by omitting the original subject which was Moses and by placing it in the context of 2 Corinthians 3. He ascribed thus a new meaning to it. Paul’s interference actually made this verse ambiguous and offered the possibility of understanding it in ways beyond its literal meaning. In this case, the subject could be all Jews (although this is doubtful if one follows Rom 11:25-32), any Jew or even anyone generally.58 Furthermore, if ἐπιστρέφειν retains its biblical meaning of conversion then it would mean a return to God who is the Spirit. If, however, the role of the Spirit is functional as it was claimed earlier and it also helps people experience the exalted Lord and realize their state of sonship (as Gal 4:1-6 explained), it seems that the future of the Jews is closely related to the new covenant and the new life in Christ. However, Paul does not explicitly state this possibility despite his elaborate discussion of the permanent and superior character of the new covenant and the ministry of the spirit. Could this silence be on purpose leaving open other possibilities of Israel’s participation in the future glory (as he stated in Rom 11:25-32)? This is where, however, the limits of the text have been reached and any answer has to be given by taking into consideration facts and factors outside of the text.

57  See, for example, for Gal 4:1-7, Ernest D. Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (New York, NY: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1920), 225; Wilfried Eckey, Der Galaterbrief: Ein Kommentar (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2010), 224-225. 58  For a discussion of the various possible subjects to the verb ἐπιστρέφειν in v. 16, see Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I: 269-271.

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3. Patristic Reception: Tendencies Modern exegetes were certainly not the only ones to struggle with the text. It seems that the ancient readers were also confronted with its ambiguities and conflicts. Moreover, they felt free to adapt and provide new meaning to it, led by their own challenges and interests. Therefore, they produced a variety of interpretations of the verses under discussion, which reflect the theological debates of their times. This is the fascinating world of the history of reception, an adventurous recording of the community’s experience of living with the text and interpreting it under the guidance of the Spirit. This can have two important implications: firstly, none of these “moments” of the history of reception can be regarded as an external authority that regulates the rest of it. Secondly, this offers the possibility of re-reading and re-applying the text and its previous reception in new contexts and situations involving each reader in the continuous spiral of interpretation.59 I would dare to say that this could also involve receptions from other interpretive communities (in the sense that Fisher used the word and not only in its strict religious sense). If the “Spirit blows wherever it pleases” (John 3:8) – to use a Johannine phrase very popular in Orthodox theological discourse, which, however, is not fully appreciated – each encounter with the biblical text can be fruitful and significant. Interestingly, most of the interpretations found in the patristic literature were also adopted by modern exegetes. However, the Christological reading of v. 17 is not prevalent among the Greek-speaking Church Fathers. It is suggested by Athanasius of Alexandria in his first Oration against Arius, where he claims that the Pauline verse refers to the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity.60 The same train of thought is

59  The limitations of the previous patristic tradition as well as its authoritative status in current Orthodox biblical hermeneutics is an ongoing discussion among Orthodox biblical scholars, especially in Greek-speaking scholarship. For an interesting moment of this debate, see Savvas Agourides, “Biblical Studies in Orthodox Theology,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 17, no. 1 (1972): 51-62 and Theodore G. Stylianopoulos, “Biblical Studies in Orthodox Theology: A Response,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 17, no. 1 (1972): 69-85. 60  Athanasius, Ar. 1.1; Orationes contra Arianos, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 26 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1857), 36A. However, see Ep. Serap. 1.6; Epistulae ad Serapionem, Patrologia Graeca 26, 545B where Athanasius probably refers to the Spirit. See Michael A. G. Haykin, The Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 & 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 27 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 68, n. 60.

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reflected in the work of Cyril of Alexandria61 and that of Didymus of Alexandria in his fragmentary comments preserved in ancient catenae.62 However, Didymus also seems inclined to accept the fluidity of the meaning of κύριος. Although it is a title usually ascribed to Jesus Christ, he also thinks that it can be used for the other two persons of the Trinity, due to the shared divinity of all three persons of the Trinity.63 In sum, 3:17 did not play an important role in the Christological discussions of the 4th c., and it is not quoted among the biblical testimonia evoked by ancient Christian writers in order to defend the Son’s divinity. Its interpretation, though, became very popular in patristic texts that were composed in the context of ancient debates regarding the divinity of the Spirit.64 Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, used 2 Cor 3:17-18 in order to demonstrate the divinity of the Spirit.65 Earlier, Basil of Caesarea, in his treatise on the Holy Spirit, had devoted a long passage to the interpretation of 2 Cor 3:17-18. He had associated this text with two others from the letters to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 3:12-13 and 2 Thess 3:5) and he had claimed that these texts clearly attest the divine nature of the Spirit.66 Basil obviously understood the word κύριος in the sense 61

 See these examples gathered in S. Lyonnet, “S. Cyrille d’ Alexandrie et 2 Cor 3,17,” Biblica 32, no. 1 (1951): 25-31. 62  K. Staab, Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche aus Katenenhandschriften gesammelt (Münster: Aschendorff, 1933), 23: μία γάρ ἐστιν ὁτὲ μὲν τύποις καὶ σκιᾷ κεκαλυμμένῃ. ὁτὲ δὲ ἄνευ καλυμμάτων προφαινομένη, ἐπείπερ ἀπὸ πνεύματος κυριακοῦ τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν αὐτῆς δεχόμεθα. Didymus seems to imply the same in a passage from his treatise De trinitate where he provides a “Trinitarian” interpretation of the glorious transformation described in verse 18: δεχόμενοι … τὴν δόξαν τοῦ Κυρίου, τοῦ οἰκοῦντος ἐν ἡμῖν, κατοπτριζόμεθα, ἀπὸ δόξης τοῦ Πνεύματος εἰς δόξαν τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐρχόμενοι (De trinitate 2.10: De trinitate, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 39 [Paris: PetitMontrouge, 1857], 640Α). 63  Didymus, De trinitate 2.19, Patrologia Graeca 39, 736; 2.24: Patrologia Graeca 39, 744; 3.23: Patrologia Graeca 39, 928. 64  See, for example, J. C. Cramer, Catenae grecorum patrum in Novum Testamentum. Volume 5: In epistolas S. Pauli ad Corinthios (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1844), 371, l. 4-6: μὴ φοβοῦ, φησι [Paul], καὶ πρὸς τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐπιστρέφων, πρὸς Κύριον ἐπιστρέφεις· Κύριος γὰρ τὸ Πνεῦμα, καὶ ὁμόθρονον, ὁμοπροσκύνητον καὶ ὁμοούσιον Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ. 65  Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 31; Orationes, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 36 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1886), 165. 66  Theodoret, Inter. 2 Thess III; Interpretatio Epistolae II ad Thessalonicensis, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 82 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1864), 669B also combined 2 Cor 3:17 with 2 Thess 3:5 and claimed that they bear witness to the Spirit’s divine nature. In his commentary on 2 Cor 3:17, he devoted a longer passage in order to refute the arguments of those who could not accept the equal status of the Spirit in the Trinity, Inter. 2 Cor III; Interpretatio Epistolae II ad Corinthios, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 82 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1864), 397CD.

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of “master,” and he thus dismissed any notion of the Spirit’s inferior or intermediate role.67 Interestingly, he interpreted the lifting of the veil in 3:16 as the personal encounter with the Spirit (Spir. 21)68 and claimed that the glory that one reflects in such an encounter is of the Spirit (Spir. 21.52).69 According to his line of thought, an in-depth reading of the text not only leads to the discovery of its spiritual meaning, but also to the transformation of its readers through their contact with the Spirit.70 John Chrysostom provided an interesting discussion of v. 17 in his commentary on the 2 Corinthians. Three elements in his interpretation are of particular significance: a) he rejected any Christological identification of the Spirit with Jesus, b) he underlined the divinity of the Spirit, and c) he stressed the participation of the members of the community in the glory of the Spirit and claimed a continuity between the experience of Paul and that of the members of his congregation.71 One could rightly remark, though, that if indeed Paul identified the Spirit with ‫ יהוה‬of the Old Testament – an identification not clearly stated in the patristic texts – this cannot be regarded as equivalent to the sophisticated ancient Christian discussion of the hypostases of the Trinity or of their essence. Indeed, the circumstances and the accentuation of the various receptions of 2 Cor 3:17 in the ancient Church are different from Paul’s presuppositions or the Sitz im Leben of his letters. Any projection of the patristic interpretations onto the biblical text should certainly be regarded as anachronistic; they reflect a totally different historical situation. On the other hand, their pneumatological horizon could provide a useful background for the interpretation proposed in 67  For a discussion of the reasons that drove Basil to this interpretation that moved away from his earlier Christological understanding of 2 Cor 3:17-18 in line with the Athanasian interpretation (in his Eun. 3.3; Contre Eunome, ed. B. Sesboüé, Sources chrétiennes 305 [Paris: Cerf, 1986], 156), see Haykin, The Spirit of God, 156. 68  In this respect, Basil distances himself from the traditional interpretation introduced by Origen: in Princ. 1.1.2; Traité des principes, ed. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, Sources chrétiennes 252 (Paris: Cerf, 1978) and Cels. 5.60; Contra Celse, ed. Marcel Borret, Sources chrétiennes 227 (Paris: Cerf, 1976) and adopted by others that the lifting of the veil signifies the shift from the literal understanding of the Bible to the spiritual meaning that lays hidden underneath the surface of the biblical letter. 69  See also Hom. in Ps. 29.7; Homiliae in Psalmos, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 29 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1857), 321C-D. 70  Haykin, The Spirit of God, 226. 71  John Chrysostom, Hom. 2 Cor. vii, Patrologia Graeca 61, 447-448. For a detailed discussion of John Chrysostom’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3, see Karl Prümm, “Der Abschnitt über die Doxa des Apostolats 2 Kor 3,1–4,6 in der Deutung des hl. Johannes Chrysostomus: Eine Untersuchung zur Auslegungsgeschichte des Paulinischen Pneuma,” Biblica 30, no. 2 (1949): 161-196.

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this study. Patristic readings, for example, reflect some fluidity in the manifestations of the “economic” Triad, which leaves space for a “Spiritoriented” interpretation that goes beyond the restrictions of the previously prevalent understanding of these verses. Moreover, the dynamic understanding of the Spirit’s role in the lives of the faithful and the emphasis on the community’s experience of the Spirit is compatible with the proposed identification of the Spirit with the Lord. Admittedly, there is no patristic evidence of any connection between the experience of Israel with that of Paul and the community or any association between the God of Israel and the Spirit. On the contrary, in some cases the polemic tone of the Pauline text is further intensified. The discontinuity between the old and the new covenant as well as the superiority of the latter over the former move from the periphery of Paul’s argumentation to the centre of the patristic discourse.72 This is certainly a challenging aspect of the patristic tradition that has to be treated critically. 4. Conclusion Summing up the following three points should be stressed. Firstly, the various readings of the verses under discussion have demonstrated that interpretation can exhibit both flexibility and adaptability. These are always influenced by the cultural and historical context but also by the ambiguities of the biblical text. This is an important aspect of the process of interpretation that can encourage both the critical reading of the previous exegetical tradition and the production of new appropriations of the biblical text. Secondly, a Spirit-oriented reading of the verses under discussion can certainly bring to the fore the potential of the biblical text, especially in relation to the ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue. By connecting the God of Israel with the Spirit, as it is experienced in the present of the Christian community but also in the past of the Jews, a link is established between them. Christians and Jews can share the same Spirit who becomes a connecting link between past and present leading the way to

72  See, for example, the interpretation of Oecumenius, Commentaria in Epistolam secundam ad Corinthios, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 118 (Paris: Garnier, 1893), 953-956.

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the future. Thus, the Spirit can be perceived not only as a Person but also as a relatedness that refers to the living God. Thirdly, although the Christological paradigm of understanding history was concerned mainly for the past and present, which are perceived through the lens of accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ, it seems that the Spirit-oriented perception of history can lead the way to a moderate eschatological perspective that both Jews and Christians can share. Since they share the same Spirit in their past and present respectively and since the future will also be filled with the presence of this Spirit what remains is to embrace the challenge for an open-ended perception of history that presupposes an inclusive covenantal relationship of both Jews and Christians – but also of the whole creation – with God.

Eschatology and Future-oriented Hermeneutics in Contemporary Orthodox Theology The Case of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas Pantelis Kalaitzidis 1. Introductory Remarks Eschatology and future-oriented hermeneutics constitute a quite characteristic example of the fruitful encounter and exchange between the theological traditions of the Christian East and the West, initiated during the 20th century in the framework of the ecumenical dialogue, and practiced since then at many levels and in many occasions. Although the eschatological vision pervades the spiritual life of the Eastern Orthodox Church,1 and especially its worship and liturgical praxis, it is impossible to conceive the renewed interest in eschatology, among contemporary Orthodox theologians, without taking into account the highly significant contribution to this domain by German Protestantism. In fact, Johannes Weiss’ idea of “consistent eschatology,” which he developed in his classic works,2 drove the view that the essence of Christianity lies in the expectation of the coming kingdom of God, and not in the profession and practice of certain ethical principles derived from the Gospel. This signaled the beginning of an eschatological turn in theology. The works of Albert Schweitzer3 followed the same tradition, while the various and * Sincere thanks are due to Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis, Deputy Director of Volos Academy, and to Dr. Viorel Coman, Research Fellow at KU Leuven, for their gracious help and relevant remarks during the preparation of this paper. 1  For an overview of the reception of eschatology in 20th century Orthodox theology cf. Marios Begzos, “L’eschatologie dans l’orthodoxie du XXe siècle,” in Temps et eschatologie: Données bibliques et problématiques contemporaines, ed. Jean-Louis Leuba, Académie internationale des sciences religieuses (Paris: Cerf, 1994), 310-328; Georgios Vlantis, “In Erwartung des künftigen Äons: Aspekte orthodoxer Eschatologie,” Ökumenische Rundschau 56 (2007): 170-182 (the last paper deals also with the still on-going discussion on eschatology in today’s Orthodoxy). 2  Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892); id., Die Idee des Reiches Gottes in der Theologie (Giessen: J. Ricker, 1901). 3  Albert Schweitzer, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus’ Messiahship and Passion, trans. W. Lowrie (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1956); id., The Quest for the Historical Jesus (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press,

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contradictory “schools” of eschatology – such as the “realized eschatology” of C. H. Dodd,4 the “internalized existential eschatology” of Rudolf Bultmann5 and the eschatology of “the history of salvation” promoted by Oscar Cullmann6 – even when they disputed Weiss, remained largely within the frame of his theology. For they did not intend to overturn his basic premise, which is also the core premise of eschatological thought in general – i.e., that the identity of the church is eschatological, and that the essence of Christianity consists in the expectation of the kingdom of God. It is not then without relevance for our discussion that Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas, evaluating Weiss’ decisive contribution to the rediscovery of the eschatological identity of Christianity, states unequivocally: “The history of eschatology is divided into pre- and postWeiss periods.”7 In light of the above introductory remarks, one needs to ask to which extent Orthodox theology is eschatological (and, therefore, faithful to the tradition of the Eastern Fathers) if it remains tied to its provincial, confessional self-sufficiency, “undefiled” by any contact with the ecumenical world – as certain ultra-Orthodox constantly demand. For the Orthodox, the case of eschatology demonstrates how fruitful the encounter and the dialogue with the “others” could be. For in which other way 1998); id.,“Die Idee des Reiches Gottes im Verlaufe der Umbildung des eschatologischen Glaubens in den uneschatologischen,” Schweizerische Theologische Umschau 23, nos. 1-2 (1953): 2-20. 4  C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Development: Three Lectures with an Appendix on Eschatology and History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1936); id., “The Kingdom of God Has Come,” Expository Times 40 (1936): 138-142; id., “The Kingdom of God and History,” in Church, Community and State, vol. III (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1938), 11-36; id., The Coming of Christ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951); id., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953). 5  Rudolf Bultmann, “Die Eschatologie des Johannesevangeliums,” in Glauben und Verstehen, Erster Band (Tübingen: Mohr, 1954), 134-152; id., Theology of the New Testament, trans. K. Grobel, vols. I-II (London: SCM, 1952, 1955); id., The Presence of Eternity: History and Eschatology, The 1955 Gifford Lectures (New York, NY: Harper), 1957. 6  Oscar Cullmann, Salvation in History, trans. Sidney G. Sowers et al. (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1967); id., Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, Revised edition (1962) with a new introductory chapter, trans. from the German by Floyd V. Filson (London: SCM, 1962); id., Le retour du Christ, espérance de l’Église selon le Nouveau Testament, trans. André Dumas (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1948). 7  John D. Zizioulas, “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” in La chrétienté en débat (Colloque de Bologne, 11-15 mai 1983), ed. G. Alberigo et al. (Paris: Cerf, 1984), 89-100, at 89. Reprinted in Métropolite Jean (Zizioulas) de Pergame, L’Église et ses institutions, ed. Grigorios Papathomas et Hyacinthe Destivelle (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 459-473, at 459.

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can we offer to them from our tradition, and how can we learn from the “others” about their, but also even about our tradition?8 Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893-1979), the great Orthodox theologian of the Russian diaspora, with his idea of “inaugurated eschatology” seems to be one of the first Eastern Orthodox theologians who in the context of a fruitful encounter and exchange with Western Protestant theology (e.g. Brunner, Cullmann) boldly emphasized eschatology, and organically integrated it in his theological vision, reminding at the same time the eschatological vision of the theology of the Fathers, and underlining the eschatological fulfillment of history.9 The same can be said also for Frs. Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983)10 and John Meyendorff (19261992),11 two distinguished theologians of the Russian diaspora, as well as for Olivier Clément, a French convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, commonly recognized as “the father of Western Orthodoxy.”12 Furthermore, the Greek theologian Nikos Nissiotis (1924-1986), Orthodoxy’s ecumenical spokesman and theologian of the Holy Spirit, paid special attention in his writings to the close relationship between pneumatology and eschatology, and the eschatological openness of history, while he constantly highlighted the importance – and even the primacy – of the future

8  The great Orthodox liturgical scholar Fr. Alexander Schmemann, without mentioning Johannes Weiss (probably because he was addressing a wider readership) maintains on his side: “For it is enough to read the Gospels once to be convinced that the teaching of the kingdom of God lies at the very heart of the preaching and teaching of Christ. Christ came preaching the gospel of the kingdom.” Alexander Schmemann, Our Father, trans. Alexis Vinogradov (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 36. 9  See Georges Florovsky, “The Last Things and the Last Events,” in id., Creation and Redemption, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 3 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976), 243-265; id., “The Patristic Age and Eschatology: An Introduction,” in id., Aspects of Church History, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 4 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975), 63-78. Cf. id., “Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert,” and “Christianity and Civilization,” in id., Christianity and Culture, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 2 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1974), 67-100, 121-142. Cf. also Nikolaos Asproulis, “Creation, History, Eschata in Contemporary Orthodox Theological Hermeneutic: From Georges Florovsky to John Zizioulas,” PhD diss., Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece, 2016, 239-257, 272-286 [in Greek]. 10  See e.g. Alexander Schmemann, “Liturgy and Eschatology,” in id., Liturgy and Tradition, ed. Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), 89-100; id., The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003). 11  See e.g. John Meyendorff, “Does Christian Tradition Have a Future?,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 26 (1982): 139-154. 12  Olivier Clément, Transfigurer le temps: Notes sur le temps à la lumière de la tradition orthodoxe (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1959).

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dimension for theology.13 But no one of these theologians – and other Orthodox theologians before Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas of Pergamon – make use, in my knowledge, of the future-oriented hermeneutics in their theological work, with the possible exception of the Greek biblical scholar Savas Agourides (1921-2009) – professor at the School of Theology, at the University of Thessaloniki (1956-1968), and then at the University of Athens (1968-1985), doctor honoris causa of the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston (2003), founder and first director (1971-2003) of the Bulletin of Biblical Studies (Deltion Biblikon Meleton), to this day, the best well-known biblical journal in the Orthodox world. He not only put emphasis on eschatology and its close relationship to pneumatology, but also seemed to announce, in a rudimentary way, the future-oriented hermeneutics.14 Agourides was 13  See e.g., Nikos Nissiotis, “The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity for Church Life and Theology,” in The Orthodox Ethos: Essays in Honour of the Centenary of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, ed. A. J. Philippou (Oxford: Holywell Press, 1963), 32-69, especially 65-69; id., “Our History: A Limitation or a Creative Power?,” Student World 1 (1965): 33-43, especially 39-43; id., “Pneumatological Christology as a Presupposition of Ecclesiology,” in Oecumenica 1967, ed. F. W. Kantzenbach and V. Vajta (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1967), 235-252, mainly 247-250; id., “Some Thoughts on Orthodoxy,” in Lambeth Essays on Unity: Essays Written for the Lambeth Conference, ed. Michael Ramsey (London: SPCK, 1969), 365-388, especially 379-380, 386-388; id., “Orthodox Theological Education: Reality and Perspectives,” Academic Yearbook of the Faculty of Theology, Athens University 23 (1976): 507-530. In a paragraph of this last paper entitled “The Eschatological Dimension and the Futureoriented Theology” (pp. 522-523), Nissiotis critized the excessive attachment of some Christian theologians – especially among the Orthodox – to the past, reminding at the same time the centrality of the future for the theological perspective in the following terms: “Theology is nourished and supported by the past but it is oriented to the future. We exist as theologians out of the wisdom of the past but for the sake of the future. In this respect theology as a whole has been greatly gratified by the rediscovery of the importance of eschatology in contemporary theological thought. Eschatology in this respect does not mean the word about the meta-historical situation for the Christian souls after death, but the always present reality of the End, as the end of time and the fulfillment of history by the saving judgment of God. It is an eschatology which exercises pressure on our present times and gives to life here and now a deep meaning by pointing out to the final destination of humanity. It is, therefore, an evaluation of life from its end in this double sense. This aspect of eschatological theology has offered to contemporary theology the basis for the realisation of its mandate to work as a future oriented thought.” Despite the importance attached to the future and even the reference to “future-oriented theology,” Nissiotis’ theological perspective remains for its greatest part in the classic way, since it is mainly directed from the past to the future, and not the other way around, as it is the case with Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas and his futureoriented hermeneutics. 14  See on Agourides: Marios Begzos, “L’eschatologie dans l’orthodoxie du XXe siècle,” in Temps et eschatologie, 324; Theodore G. Stylianopoulos, ed., Sacred Text and Interpretation: Perspectives in Orthodox Biblical Studies. Papers in Honour of Professor Savas

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the first theologian to introduce the discussion about eschatology in the Greek-speaking world. Firmly basing his theology on the biblical, liturgical and patristic Orthodox tradition, enriched by its interpretation by eminent theologians of the Russian diaspora, like Florovsky, and invited to creatively address many of the challenges posed by Western theologians, especially the Protestant theology of the 20th century, the late Savas Agourides would be among the first in the Greek – and the wider Orthodox – context who opened the discussion about eschatology. He did not however elaborate in his work a systematic and well-articulated futureoriented hermeneutics, although the openness and orientation to the future which characterizes his theological thought, allows us to discern in his writings some premises of the future-oriented hermeneutics.15 In Agourides’ understanding, eschatology – of which he repeatedly stresses its Jewish background in numerous studies – is associated with the preaching of God’s kingdom, a preaching whose emphasis lies in the future, in the expected and transformed new world of God. This kingdom has both moral and social, as well as cosmological implications and dimensions, while the dialectic between present and future, “already” and “not yet,” renders possible a new and exciting way of being for Christians who experience the reality of the “in-between” and the “as if,” by standing with the one leg in the present, while with the other “as if” Agourides (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006). The same texts are also published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 47, nos. 1-4 (2002). See also on Agourides, Petros Vassiliadis, ed., Christ and History: A Scholarly Symposium in Honour of Professor Savas Agourides (Thessaloniki: Paratirites, 1993 [in Greek]); Bulletin of Biblical Studies (Deltion Biblikon Meleton) 21-22 (2002-2003): Special Issue in Honour of Professor Savas Agourides [most of the papers are in Greek]. 15  The eschatological concern seems to play already a central role in his work since the submission of his habilitation thesis in 1955, “Enoch: The Character of the Eschatological Teaching according to the Book of Enoch. Contribution to the Research of the Jewish Eschatology in New Testament Era,” Faculty of Theology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1955 [in Greek]), while later, in 1964, as professor of New Testament at the Theological School of Thessaloniki, he publishes a work entitled: Time and Eternity: Eschatology and Mysticism according to the Theological Teaching of St. John the Evangelist (Thessaloniki: Pournaras Publications, 1964 [in Greek]). Agourides did not stop publishing articles and essays directly or indirectly related to eschatology, insofar as it is a subject that became central in his thought (see for example his “Eschatology,” and “The Organic Unity of Biblical Eschatology,” in Biblical Studies II [Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1971], 83-96 and 97-106 respectively [in Greek]), until his later works, such as the short but full of meaning essay under the title: “The Hope of an Orthodox Christian: Present Promise and Future Fulfillment (a simple catechetical lesson)” trans. Peter A. Chamberas, ed. Liadain Sherrard, in Synaxis: An Anthology of the Most Significant Orthodox Theology in Greece Appearing in the Journal Σύναξη from 1982 to 2002. Vol. 3: Ecclesiology and Pastoral Care (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2006), 23-28.

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they are already in the future of the expected eschatological kingdom.16 In the words of Agourides himself interpreting the Christian perspective on human beings: the human being stands both within and over history, only as an eschatological being, as a new creature of God in Christ, as a spiritual substance/hypostasis and free moral existence, while his/her present state of being is not determined by natural elements, or the past and the present, but chiefly and primarily by the future as regards the aim and the ideals of life, a future that is not limited by the human experience but only in the revealed by God scope of life. This entrance of the future into the present, this “arrabon” of the enjoyment of the future goods, leads to the overall transformation of the whole human condition by virtue of the ideals of the future aeon, while it presupposes a serious crisis inside the human being, a spiritual concern, a condemnation of the past and the present, a spiritual and moral rebirth. When one turns to the past, the gates of the present open to the future, a new world and a new humanity emerge. Human being is not created by God in order to become what he/she was once or today. He/she was destined for freedom, which as spiritual and moral freedom, as releasement from the fear and necessity, but also as freedom from nature, as overcoming of decay, this sort of freedom is a good of the future par excellence. Therefore this entrance of the future in the present reality constitutes the basic characteristic of Christianity. The concern about the end of the present condition of the world and the beginning of the new world of truth and love, the struggle against the evil powers of the present with the support of the future values, constitute irrevocable elements of Christian life.17

One could summarize the core element of Agourides’ eschatological approach in a dynamic understanding of eschatology, in the vision of Christianity and the entire Gospel in the light of the coming kingdom of God and the moral, social and political consequences of this view especially as regards the horizontal eschatology, and finally the emergence of the future as the theological concept par excellence that shifts the center of gravity of the ecclesial life from the given forms and realities of the past, to the optimistic and always open perspective of the future, a perspective nurtured by the refreshing breeze and action of the Holy Spirit.

16

 Cf. 1 Corinthians 7.  Agourides, Time and Eternity: Eschatology and Mysticism, 3-4 [in Greek].

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2. The Centrality of Eschatology and Future-oriented Hermeneutics in the Work of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas The case of John D. Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (born in 1931) deserves special attention, since it represents the most characteristic example of an Orthodox understanding of the normativity of the future and eschatological hermeneutics.18 Zizioulas taught at the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, King’s College and Thessaloniki and was visiting professor and doctor honoris causa at many universities, a member of the Athens Academy and numerous committees on theological and ecumenical dialogue, and until very recently co-chairman of the International Joint Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. His work has been seminal not only for his 18

 A major reference for the discussion on the normativity of the future and the eschatological hermeneutics remains the work by Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, eds., Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensa 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010). For an excellent overview of Zizioulas’ overall theology in English, see, among others, the now classic, Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). See also Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), and the collective volume, Douglas H. Knight, ed., The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikolaos Asproulis, eds., Personhood, Eucharist, and the Kingdom of God in Orthodox and Ecumenical Perspective: Synaxis Efcharistias in Honor of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas of Pergamon (Volos: Ekdotike Demetriados, 2016 [in Greek]). For a first in-depth critical appreciation of Zizioulas’ theology in comparison to Georges Florovsky, cf. Asproulis, “Creation, History, Eschata in Contemporary Orthodox Theological Hermeneutic”; Nikolaos Asproulis, “John Zizioulas,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Recourses for Theological Education, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Cyril Hovorun et al. (Volos, Greece: Volos Academy Publications, in cooperation with WCC Publications and Regnum Books International Oxford, 2014), 254257. On the eschatological perspective in Zizioulas’ work, cf. Douglas Knight, “John Zizioulas on the Eschatology of the Person,” in The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology, ed. David Fergusson and Marcel Sarot (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 189-198; Douglas Knight, “John Zizioulas on Eschatology and Persons,” in Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet in the Now, ed. Neal DeRoo and John Panteleimon Manoussakis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 91-100; Robert Turner, “Eschatology and Truth,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church, 15-34; John Panteleimon Manoussakis, “The Anarchic Principle of Christian Eschatology in the Eucharistic Tradition of the Eastern Church,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 1 (2007): 29-46. For a full, almost exhaustive, list of Zizioulas’ writings and the related secondary bibliography, see Nikolaos Asproulis, “Bibliography,” in Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas, Ecclesiological Studies, ed. Stavros Yangazoglou, Collected Works 1 (Athens: Domos, 2016), 31-78 [in Greek].

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own generation or for contemporary Greek theology, but also for the late 20th century Orthodox theology in its entirety and a growing number of western theologians. Zizioulas has been widely recognized, not unjustly, as the preeminent theologian of personhood and the Eucharist in contemporary Orthodox Christian theology. However, he is not less a theologian of the eschaton, since eschatology and the kingdom of God have been instrumental in shaping his theological synthesis, while he widely makes use of future-oriented hermeneutics in his theological program, starting already from the ’90s. Following the fundamental theological vision of his mentor, the late Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893-1979, perhaps the greatest 20th century Orthodox theologian, and one of the founders of the World Council of Churches), and abreast as few were in Orthodoxy with the most creative developments in the ecumenical theological discussion, Zizioulas, since the beginning (late ’60s), ascribed special importance and priority to the eschatological “outlook,”19 which played a decisive role throughout his work. One would dare to say that he was destined to become the Orthodox theologian par excellence through his decisive focus on the importance of the eschaton for all aspects of Christian theology.20 To this end Zizioulas will devote seven ad hoc studies, several other references and of course his forthcoming and very promising book under the provocative title “Remembering the Future” to eschatology. Among his articles or lectures dealing explicitly with eschatology one should refer to the following: “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique” (1984),21 “Eschatology and History” (1985),22 “Towards an Eschatological Ontology” (1999, talk given at King’s College, London, still unpublished), “Eschatologie et Société” (2000),23 “The Church and the 19  See especially his “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” 89-100; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 459-473. 20  John D. Zizioulas, in his Remembering the Future: Towards an Eschatological Ontology (London: T&T Clark, 2009) aims exactly at a dogmatic theological synthesis from an eschatological point of view (remark based on a personal conversation with Metropolitan John). 21  For full reference, see above note 7. 22  John D. Zizioulas, “Eschatology and History,” in Cultures in Dialogue: Documents from a Symposium in Honor of Philip A. Potter, ed. Thomas Wieser (Geneva: WCC, 1985), 30-39, and id., “Eschatology and History,” in Whither Ecumenism? A Dialogue in the Transit Lounge of the Ecumenical Movement, ed. Thomas Wieser (Geneva: WCC, 1986), 62-71, 72-73. 23  John D. Zizioulas, “Eschatologie et Société,” Irénikon 73, nos. 3-4 (2000): 278-297; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 475-493.

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Eschaton” (2003, in Greek),24 “Eschatology and Existence: An Ontological Approach to the Problem of the Eschaton” (2012, in Greek),25 while above these aforementioned papers discussing eschatology expressis verbis, one should also refer to some others of Zizioulas’ writings like “Christ, the Spirit and the Church” (first published in 1981)26 or “Implications ecclésiologiques de deux types de pneumatologie” (first published in 1982),27 or even “The Early Christian Community.”28 The three fundamental axes of his overall theological program, namely Person, Eucharist, and the kingdom of God are inextricably linked in his work, as becomes apparent in his in-depth study “The Eucharist and the kingdom of God,” published initially in Greek (1994), and later translated into English (1995).29 In all these studies, by drawing primarily on the Bible (Pauline Letters and Johannine literature), the Greek Fathers, and especially Maximus the Confessor (7th century), as well as on various modern exponents of the eschatological perspective (e.g. from Johannes Weiss30 to Wolfhart Pannenberg31), Zizioulas attempts to articulate an 24  John D. Zizioulas, “The Church and the Eschaton,” in Church and Eschatology, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Volos: Ekdotike Demetriados, 22014), 27-45 [in Greek]. 25  Synaxi issue 121 (2012): 43-72 [in Greek]. 26  See John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 123-142. 27  John D. Zizioulas, “Implications ecclésiologiques de deux types de pneumatologie,” in Communio Sanctorum: Mélanges offerts à Jean-Jacques von Allmen (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1982), 141-154; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 29-47. 28  John D. Zizioulas, “The Early Christian Community,” in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1985), 23-43, mainly 23-26, 28-31; reprinted in John D. Zizioulas, The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today, ed. Gregory Edwards (Los Angeles, CA: Sebastian Press, 2010), 147-169, especially 147-150, 153-155. 29  John D. Zizioulas, “Eucharist and the Kingdom of God,” parts I-III. English translation in Sourozh 58 (November 1994): 1-12; 59 (February 1995): 22-38; 60 (May 1995): 32-46. This tripartite study of Zizioulas is republished as Chapter Two of John D. Zizioulas, The Eucharistic Communion and the World, ed. Luke Ben Tallon (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 39-82. 30  Cf. Zizioulas, “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” 89-100. 31  While Zizioulas clearly recognizes the importance of Weiss’ work concerning the centrality of eschatology in Christian theology, this is not the case as regards Pannenberg’s contribution to the eschatological perspective, and especially to the articulation of the eschatological ontology, and the “retroactive” causality, that is the causal priority of the future over the present and the past, and the anticipatory and proleptic character of eschatology. For the importance of eschatology in Pannenberg’s work, and the priority of the end over the beginning, cf. Christiaan Mostert, God and the Future: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Eschatological Doctrine of God (London/New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2002). Cf. also, Robert John Russell, Time in Eternity: Pannenberg, Physics, and Eschatology in Creative Mutual Interaction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), 117-122; Christoph Schwöbel, “History and Eschatology: Wolfhart Pannenberg,” in The

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eschatological view which is both unique in its Orthodox character and robust in its comprehension, based firmly on ontology (e.g. on “being” but also and mainly on “ever-being”), proleptically and momentary experienced in the Eucharist, and realized in personhood as the historical manifestation of the very Trinitarian way of life in history. If he is sometimes overemphasizing the reading of the worldly and historical reality through the light of the eschaton, one should bear in mind that this is not any sort of negation or annihilation of the created order, but rather a plea for the need of its purification from death, as well as the sanctification of creation and history in its entirety. As mentioned before, in his study “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” Zizioulas makes a bold distinction between a pre- and a post-Weiss32 period as regards the recovery of the importance of eschatology in Christian theology, while in “Eschatology and History” he deals with the different Western and Eastern understandings of this dialectic relationship in terms of action and icon. In his later studies (e.g. “Towards an Eschatological Ontology”) Zizioulas would attempt to highlight the ontological foundation of eschatology and its existential/ soteriological dimension, insofar as eschatology has to do with the very redemption of creation and history from death that threatens and finally annuls its very being ontologically and not ethically. 3. The Foundations of John Zizioulas’ Eschatology According to Zizioulas, the basic theological aspects of an eschatological perspective as it is liturgically experienced in the church and further conceptually articulated by especially the Greek Fathers are threefold: first the context of this eschatological outlook, namely the Eucharist,33 where the coming kingdom of God is being imaged and foretasted even proleptically; second the ontological basis of this attitude, since everything is deeply interrelated to the being, “ever-being” and the well-being of the whole creation;34 third and finally an existential/soteriological Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, vol. I, ed. David F. Ford (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 258-292. 32  See Zizioulas, “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” 89; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 459. 33  Zizioulas, “Eucharist and the Kingdom of God,” parts I-III. 34  For the bold interrelation between eschatology and ontology see John D. Zizioulas’ “Towards an Eschatological Ontology” (unpublished paper delivered at King’s College,

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dimension that would make all this relevant to human beings in every age and especially in our post-modern condition.35 Zizioulas’ basic assumption is that the Eucharist, as the very core and DNA36 of the church’s identity constitutes an icon of the coming kingdom of God, an image of the eschaton. He goes even further and maintains that the Eucharist derives its being and truth from the kingdom, while the liturgical practice serves as the language by which the church expresses this experience.37 In this respect, one should take seriously into consideration his profoundly original understanding and use of the concept of icon, as a necessary clue of realizing the way that the future eon, the eschatological reality, affects history, by offering a foretaste of the kingdom.38 This eschatological interpretation of the Eucharist proposed by Zizioulas (cf. his “Symbolism and Realism in Orthodox Worship,” 1999),39 as opposed to the protological and commemorative approach that usually prevailed in practice, means, “in layman’s terms,” that the identity of the church is not to be found in the past, in what was given to it or in the present, in what it is, but in the future, in what it will be, in the eschaton.40 By this perspective theology avoids the pitfall of an absolutizing protology, i.e., the tendency of thinking that whatever is genuine and authentic must belong to the beginning – a timeless, a-historical escape to a distant ideal past – and that salvation is simply the return to a pristine original condition. This view, which according Zizioulas himself is nothing else than a Platonism in disguise, has been theology’s permanent temptation, throughout its history.41 London, 1999) and John D. Zizioulas, “‘The End Is Where We Start From’: Reflections on Eschatological Ontology,” in Game Over? Reconsidering Eschatology, ed. Christophe Chalamet, Andreas Dettwiler, Mariel Mazzocco, and Ghislain Waterlot (Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017), 259-278. Cf. also John D. Zizioulas, “Eschatology and Existence: An Ontological Approach to the Problem of the Eschaton,” Synaxi 121 (2012): 43-72 [in Greek]. 35  Zizioulas, “Eschatology and Existence,” 43-72 [in Greek]. 36  Zizioulas, “The Church and the Eschaton.” 37  See especially Zizioulas, “Eucharist and the Kingdom of God,” part I and II. 38  See his interpretation in Zizioulas, “Eschatology and History.” 39  John D. Zizioulas, “Symbolism and Realism in Orthodox Worship,” trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff, Sourozh 79 (2000): 2-17, and in Synaxis: An Anthology of the Most Significant Orthodox Theology in Greece Appearing in the Journal Σύναξη from 1982 to 2002. Vol. 1: Anthropology – Environment – Creation (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2006), 251-264. 40  See also his “The Church and the Eschaton,” where he defines and compares different perspectives of determining the identity of the church (e.g. from the point of view of confession of faith, ethics, mission, doctrine etc.). 41  For a thorough analysis see his quite interesting and provocative still unpublished paper “Towards an Eschatological Ontology.”

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At the same time the Eucharist does not leave the world behind or liberates it from the material dimension of creation, but rather seeks, by incorporating the whole of creation in the yeast of the Eucharist, to make it ontologically incorruptible and to endow it, even if only proleptically and momentarily, with eternal being and not simply well-being, a utilitarian and ephemeral use of materiality, which limits it to this world and consigns it to a disastrous self-referentiality.42 Besides, the Eucharist, in Zizioulas’ understanding, might serve, if it is rightly understood, as the safety valve in the dialectical relationship between history and eschatology. And this is because the Eucharist is not only a historical reference and memory of the past events of the divine economy, but also, or even chiefly, the remembrance of the future, an icon of the eschatological kingdom, as it is described in the quintessentially Eucharistic book of the New Testament, i.e., Revelation, in which Christ stands in the center of the eschatological banquet, surrounded by the apostles and the eschatological people of God.43 All the above could not be realized out of the context of a pneumatologically conditioned Christology which informs Zizioulas’ eschatology and ecclesiology. As he aptly put it, “it is the Spirit that raises him [sc. the Son] from the dead. The Spirit is the beyond history, and when he acts in history he does so in order to bring into history the last days, the eschaton. Hence the first fundamental particularity of pneumatology is its eschatological character. The Spirit makes of Christ an eschatological being, the ‘last Adam’.”44 For this reason, and for the decisive role that the Holy Spirit plays to the Christ event and to the “corporate personality” of Christ, and therefore to the notion of communion (κοινωνία) and the Body of Christ, Zizioulas maintains that eschatology and communion, as the core aspects of pneumatology, qualify the very ontology of the church, are constitutive of ecclesiology. In his view, “the Spirit is not something that ‘animates’ a Church which already somehow exists. The Spirit makes the Church be. Pneumatology does not refer to the wellbeing but to the very being of the Church. It is not about a dynamism which is added to the essence of the Church. It is the very essence of the

42  Zizioulas, “La vision eucharistique du monde et l’homme contemporain,” Contacts 57 (1967): 83-92, and in English as “The Eucharistic Vision of the World,” in The Eucharistic Communion and the World, 123-131. 43  See Rev 4:4. Cf. Zizioulas’ “Biblical Aspects of the Eucharist,” The Eucharistic Communion and the World, 1-38, especially 30. 44  Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 130.

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Church. The Church is constituted in and through eschatology and communion.”45 4. Future-oriented Hermeneutics, and Its Implications Looking throughout Zizioulas’ work one could implicitly define one further axis deeply related to eschatology, i.e., a future-oriented hermeneutics, a future-oriented perspective, with notorious implications on a wide range of topics, related to church’s life, self-understanding and its relation to the surrounding reality. In what follows I will focus only on a few exemplary issues in order for one to be able to evaluate the importance and uniqueness or perhaps the possible ambivalences and still pending and open questions of Zizioulas’ theological eschatological contribution. a) A new understanding of Tradition: In the light of eschatology, the Tradition of the Church itself acquires a new meaning, an optimistic and hopeful perspective. Now, Tradition is not identified with past habits, customs, traditions, but with a person, Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory who is coming. It does not relate chiefly to the past; or to put it differently, it is not bound by the patterns of the past. Strange as it may sound, in the authentic ecclesial perspective Tradition is oriented toward the future. It comes principally and primarily from the future of the kingdom of God, from the One who is coming. So the eschatological understanding of Tradition appears as the counterpart to the definition of faith according to the Hebrew Letter: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1),46 or as the analogue to the eschatological “memory of the future” as this is experienced in the anaphora prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy: “Remembering therefore this our Saviour’s command and all that has been done for us: the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Sitting at the right hand and the Second and glorious Coming again.”47 And this because, according to the 45  Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 132. Cf. Métropolite Jean (Zizioulas) de Pergame, “Implications ecclésiologiques,” in L’Église et ses institutions, 31-35, 46. 46  Cf. Rom 8:24. Cf. also the entire context of Hebrews 11. 47  The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, The Divine Liturgy of Our Father among the Saints John Chrysostom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 33.

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scholia on the Areopagitic writings attributed to St. Maximus the Confessor,48 the entire Divine Liturgy represents not some eternal heavenly archetypes or some reality in the realm of ideas, but the eschatological kingdom which is to come, a reality of the future where the truth of things and of symbols is to be found: For those things are called causes that in no way owe the cause of their being to anything else. Or from the effects to the causes, that is, from the perceptible symbols to what is noetic and spiritual; that is to say, from the imperfect to the more perfect, e.g. from types to an image, and from an image to the truth. For what is in the Old Testament is a shadow; what is in the New Testament is an image; it is the state of things to come that is the truth.49

This text, according to Zizioulas’ perception, is important not only for an eschatological understanding of the Divine Liturgy, but also for the eschatological and hence “future” and retroactive or inverted conception of causality, an interpretation that overturns the traditional Platonic, Aristotelian and mediaeval understanding of the concept. In common with the Platonic, Aristotelian and later medieval tradition, Maximus accepts that the name “cause” is given to things that do not owe their existence to anything else; but he dissents from that tradition in every other respect. For according to ancient and medieval philosophy and our common sense, a cause is logically and chronologically prior to its effect; but for Maximus, as Metropolitan John interprets him, the further back we go in time, the further we get away from the archetype, the cause: the Old Testament is “shadow,” the New Testament is “image,” and the “state of things to come” is truth. In other words the archetype, the cause of “what is accomplished in the synaxis,” lies in the future. The Eucharist is the result of the kingdom which is to come. The kingdom which is to come, a future event (the state of things to come), being the cause of the Eucharist, gives it its true being.50

48  Though this is actually a passage that scholarship now ascribes to John of Skythopolis. On the attribution of this passage to John of Skythopolis see Paul Rorem and John C. Lamoreaux, John of Skythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 174. 49  Maximus the Confessor (John of Skythopolis), Scholia on On the Church Hierarchy, ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 4 (Paris: Petit-Montrouge, 1857), 137CD. 50  Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, “The Eucharist and the Kingdom of God,” part 1, Sourozh 58 (1995): 6-7. Cf. Zizioulas, “Symbolism and Realism in Orthodox Worship,” Sourozh 79 (2000): 8-10.

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The future is therefore the cause and not the effect of the past, since according Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas, the world was created for the eschatological Christ who will come at the Eschaton as the union of the created and the uncreated. The church experiences this, according to St. Maximus, in the Holy Eucharist: there, what will be at the Eschaton happens now in reality, the future becomes the cause of the present. In the Holy Eucharist, we travel backwards in time: from the future to the present and the past. Thus the Church is not what it is or what it was, but what it will be.51

Being understood from this angle, Tradition is not then a nostalgic repetition or uncritical acceptance of the past, but a creative continuity in the Holy Spirit and an openness to the future, to the much awaited new world of the kingdom of God.52

51

 Zizioulas, “The Church and the Eschaton,” 42. Knight, “John Zizioulas on the Eschatology of the Person,” 193, commenting on Zizioulas’ idea of inverted or retroactive causality aptly remarks that “since the end decides finally about the truth of history, only those events leading to the end will be shown to possess true being, being as such. The historical events of revelation, therefore, are true and real because they lead to the end from which they came into being. Not even the cross has a meaning of its own; it is the resurrection that makes the cross the event it is. […] But it is the end that is determinative, not the beginning. The beginning is reckoned from him who is at the end and from whom all beginnings and ends come to take their orientation.” In the same hermeneutical principle initiated by Zizioulas, John Panteleimon Manoussakis (“The Promise of the New and the Tyranny of the Same,” in Phenomenology and Eschatology, 70), maintains that: “The beginning functions as the cause of what has thereby its beginning – and does not the cause come always before its effects? Not for theology. The chronological and ontological primacy of the cause is challenged by a series of events, such as the Creation, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. These events do not fit in the protological paradigm of causality that we described above. What would be, for example, the ‘cause’ of the crucifixion? Does the cross make any sense at all if seen by itself, that is, as the effect of what has preceded in the life of Jesus? We would argue that the cross becomes the cross only once it is seen from the future, that is, from the point of view of the resurrection that follows it. Theologically, then, it is the resurrection that is the ‘cause’ of the crucifixion.” As suggested already in footnote 31, it is a matter of further discussion and study the relationship of this causal priority of the future in Zizioulas’ work to the retroactive or inverted causality, and the anticipatory and proleptic character of eschatology developed in Pannenberg’s theological synthesis. At the same time, however, one could argue that Zizioulas reaches the same conclusion as Pannenberg by virtue of a deep and creative interpretation of the patristic (especially Maximus the Confessor) and liturgical (cf. the role of the Eucharist and Pneumatology) tradition of the ancient church, in his effort to go beyond the impasses of the classic protological thought. 52  I develop this idea further in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “The Eschatological Understanding of Tradition in Contemporary Orthodox Theology and Its Relevance for Today’s Issues,” in The Shaping of Tradition: Context and Normativity, ed. Colby Dickinson et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2013) 297-312.

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b) This new eschatological “outlook” rooted in the biblical, patristic and liturgical tradition of the Church and further articulated by Zizioulas in a comprehensive manner nowadays also has important implications for theology and its witnessing to the pluralistic world today. The eschatological orientation of Zizioulas’ theology acquires special importance for the way that Christian theology would address the various challenges put forth by a wide range of issues such as gender and anthropology, politics, church and state relationship, secularization and modernity/post-modernity, ecological crisis, apocalypticism, and more. At the same time it insulates his work from some symptoms of the virus that usually continues to plague contemporary Orthodox theology, even in its most serious forms like: 1) the idealization of the past, the fixation to the model of agrarian or traditional/patriarchal societies; 2) ecclesiastical individualism, i.e., ecclesiastical provincialism, or even ecclesiastical nationalism; and 3) anti-Westernism and anti-liberalism, which today are basically synonymous with anti-Europeanism in the Eastern Orthodox context. Zizioulas is engaged to a critical dialogue with secularization and modernity in different ways – the theology of personhood itself of which he is one of the main initiators, at least as it is understood by Zizioulas, is nothing else but an attempt to address the challenges posed by modernity/post-modernity in a constructive way.53 Zizioulas is criticizing the secularization (that is the infiltration of the worldly spirit) of the Church, and therefore in the context of a pluralistic society he is not dreaming of a return to the, so to say, “ideal” byzantine model of “symphonia” or “synallelia.”54 As noted by Zizioulas himself,

53

 Cf. Theophilos Ambatzidis, “Theology of the Person and Modern Individuality,” in Orthodoxy and Modernity, Winter Program Volos Academy 2001-2002, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikos Ntontos (Athens: Indiktos Publications, 2007), 211-262 [in Greek]. Cf. for instance the discussion between Zizioulas’ understanding of personhood and the post-modern individual in his “On Being Other: Towards and Ontology of Otherness,” in John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, ed. Paul McPartlan (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 44-55. 54  Cf. e.g. John D. Zizioulas, “The European Spirit and Greek Orthodoxy,” Eythyni 163 (1985): 329-333; 167 (1985): 569-573 [in Greek]; id., “Witness and Diakonia of the Orthodox Woman in the United Europe,” in John D. Zizioulas, Orthodoxy and Contemporary World (Nicosia: Studies Center, Holy Monastery of Kykkou, 2006) 35-57, especially 35-47 [in Greek]; id., “Cultural Identities and Globalization,” in Cultural “Identities” and “Globalization”: Conference Papers, ed. Laokratis Vassis (Athens: Society of Education and Culture “Entelechia,” 2003), 25-33 [in Greek]. Cf. also Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Academic Laudatio for the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Pergamon John D. Zizioulas,” in Personhood, Eucharist, and the Kingdom of God in Orthodox and Ecumenical Perspective, 303-325 [in Greek].

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The Orthodox Church, however, particularly after the fall of Byzantium, was in danger of confusing the Church with the world. During this time, the bishops of the Orthodox Church undertook purely secular – and even some times political – roles, such as ethnarch and leader of the struggle for peoples’ (national) liberation. The result is that today in countries such as Greece, the bishop is viewed as an official person, to such a degree even that as soon as the government does something which slights the clergy or takes away some of their secular authority, one can see an immediate reaction which betrays deep theological confusion. This example shows how important it is for Orthodoxy today to develop its own theological criteria, so that it can determine what is related to the structure of the Church as an eschatological community and what is related to the Church as a community that belongs to the world.55

c) The ordination of women: It is probably less known that regarding the burning issue of women’s ordination, which is a source of serious discordance in the ecumenical relations between the Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic, the Anglican, and the mainstream Protestant Churches, Zizioulas has adopted a moderate position, even leaving the whole question open while moving to the field of eschatology. Despite the overall dominant negative Orthodox attitude, in more recent years the opinion has gained ground (even among distinguished Orthodox hierarchs and theologians) that, apart from the criterion of “tradition,” there seems to be no other serious theological reason hindering the ordination of women.56 As early as 1968, in a WCC meeting, the then still layman Zizioulas, maintained that “on the question of the ordination of women, Orthodox theologians could find no theological reasons against such an ordination. Yet the entire matter is so deeply tied up with their tradition that they would find it difficult in their majority to endorse

55  Zizioulas, “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique,” 99; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 471. 56  See as examples the following publications: Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, “L’ordination des femmes: un problème œcuménique: Développements récents dans la sphère de l’Église orthodoxe,” Contacts 150 (1990): 101-127; Κonstantinos Yiokarinis, The Priesthood of Women in the Framework of Ecumenical Movement (Katerini: Epektasi Publications, 1995 [in Greek]); Elisabeth Behr-Sigel and Kallistos Ware, The Ordination of Women in the Orthodox Church (Geneva: WCC, 2000); Anthony Bloom, “Preface to the English Edition,” in Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, The Ministry of Women in the Church, trans. by Steven Bigham (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), xiv; Nikos Matsoukas, “Women’s Priesthood as a Theological and Ecumenical Problem,” in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: Ecumenical Reflections on the Church, ed. Tamara Grdzelidze (Geneva: WCC, 2005), 218-223.

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without reservations the rather enthusiastic statements of the paper.”57 More significant, participants of the official Anglican-Orthodox dialogue inspired by the theology of Zizioulas wondered whether the objections to women’s ordination usually founded on the realm of history, could also be justified in an eschatological perspective. d) This eschatological ontology, and even anthropology, implicit in Zizioulas’ theology could have serious implications for the discussion about the burning issue of gender and homosexuality. Zizioulas does not explicitly deal with this delicate issue. However, he relativizes the reproductive relationships (to the extent they are inhabited by death), as well as the inherent natural/biological and gender characteristics, in favour of a personal identity founded in our relationship with Christ Jesus experienced mainly in the Eucharist. In addition, and in accordance with his fervent appraisal of radical otherness,58 in other words the sometimes highly contested dialectic between necessity and freedom, or nature and personhood, makes some people attributing fluid perceptions of gender in Zizioulas and the overcoming of the limitations of either male or female identity, and think that his theology could be open to a positive perception of homosexual relations, an issue quite important for the pastoral work of the Church in today’s world.59 57  John D. Zizioulas, “Comments on the Study Paper of the Faith and Order Commission on ‘The Meaning of Ordination’,” Study Encounter 4 (1968): 192-194, especially 193. 58  See Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 13-98 (“On Being Other: Towards an Ontology of Otherness”). Cf. also the “programmatic” paper John D. Zizioulas “Communion and Otherness,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38, no. 4 (1993): 347-361, republished as the introduction in his book with the same title. 59  See for example David Edwin Eagle, “Homosexuality and the Church: Challenging Essentialist Definitions of Gender through the Work of Karl Barth, Eugene Rogers, and John Zizioulas,” PhD diss, Duke University, North Carolina, 2009; David Eagle, “Pneumatological Ecclesiology and Same-sex Marriage: A Non-essentialist Approach Using the Work of Eugene Rogers and John Zizioulas,” The Conrad Grebel Review 28, no. 1 (2010): 43-68; Philip Abrahamson, “Trends in Eastern Orthodox Theological Anthropology: Towards a Theology of Sexuality,” Facta Universitatis. Series: Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History 15, no 2 (2016): 93-102. Cf. Matt Elder, “A Queer Ontology of Personhood: John Zizioulas and Queer Theology,” MA thesis, Tyndale University College, Toronto, Ontario, 2013. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. himself, claims finding significant elements in favor of a positive theological assessment of homosexuality in, among others, Zizioulas (cf. for example Rogers’ works, Sexuality and the Christian Body [Oxford: Blackwell, 1999], 73, n. 11; p. 211, n. 74; p. 256, n. 21, and Rogers, “Sanctification, Homosexuality, and God’s Triune Life,” in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. [Oxford: Blackwell, 2002], 217-246, 243, n. 17), and other works of Eastern Orthodox theologians (especially in Evdokimov’s The

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e) Christian ethics or the ecclesial ethos in an eschatological perspective: In the light of this future-oriented hermeneutics, the future liberates from the tyranny of the past, inasmuch as in this eschatological understanding we travel backwards through time from the future to the past, something with revolutionary, and radical implications in the domain of ethics. In a talk given from the podium of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies in February 2001 (and published first in 2003 in Greek), Zizioulas spoke about the implications of the eschatological ethos for the church. He concluded that “the Church is not what it is or what it was, but what it will be [at the eschaton],”60 just as the sinner in his turn “is not defined ontologically by what he was, but by what he will be [at the eschaton].”61 For this reason, according to our theologian, “the secularization of the Church involves not only institutional questions (such as the relationship between the Church and the State, or the Church and society), but also ethical issues. […] The Church must not adopt society’s attitudes toward ethical matters; rather, it must spread throughout society the spirit of forgiveness and love, which allows the future to release humans from the past. An unforgiving Church is a secularized Church, because unwillingness to forgive is a characteristic of this world and worldly ethics.”62 5. Pending Issues and Critical Remarks Regarding Zizioulas’ Eschatological Orientation What I have already discussed, is a positive reception and affirmation of the implications of an eschatological theology and future-oriented hermeneutics. In order, however, to further enrich the whole discussion, one should point to various other aspects of Zizioulas’ eschatological perspective, which raises some critical questions. Due to space limitations Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Light of the Orthodox Tradition [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985], which is probably the most cited theological work in support of Roger’s argument) (based on a personal conversation with Rogers at Princeton, during the fall semester of 2012-13). On the issue of gender and sexuality in Zizioulas cf. also the more traditional approach provided by the study of Maksim Vasiljević (Orthodox Serbian Bishop of West America), “A Prolegomenon to a Study on Gender and Otherness: With Particular Reference to the Theology of John Zizioulas,” Philotheos 11 (2011): 261-269. 60  Zizioulas, “The Church and the Eschaton,” 42 [in Greek]. 61  Ibid., 43. 62  Ibid., 43-44.

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I will only focus on two cases where a further clarification or elaboration seems to be required. a) Undoubtedly, Zizioulas is one of the most representative and, one can say, faithful exponents of the famous “return to the Fathers,” and the “neo-patristic synthesis,”63 in other words of the still dominant theological trend in contemporary Orthodoxy, initiated by his mentor Fr. Georges Florovsky. Although he is very critical regarding the way in which this “return to the Fathers” was understood and practiced by the majority of the Orthodox theologians, and the “fundamentalism of tradition” developed in a numerous cases or contexts, he is not ready to depart (or perhaps to re-envision) from Florovsky’s call put forth in his paper delivered at the First Orthodox Theological Congress, which was held in Athens in 1936, for Orthodox theology’s need to “return to the Fathers” and its liberation from the “Babylonian captivity” to Western theology in terms of its language, its presuppositions, and its method.64 He also does not clearly distance himself from Florovsky’s idea of “Christian Hellenism” (i.e., the Patristic synthesis which resulted from the encounter between Christian theology and Greek ontological philosophy in the early history of the Church), as “the eternal category of Christian existence,”65 and as “something more than a passing stage” in the Church66 (and which is integrally connected with Hellenism, Patristics, and catholicity67), although our theologian, in my knowledge, nowhere 63  Cf. John D. Zizioulas, “The Timeliness and Timelessness of Neo-Patristic Synthesis,” in Neo-Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual?, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikolaos Asproulis (Volos: Ekdotike Demetriados, 2018), 136-150 [in Greek; English translation under preparation]. 64  The paper was originally presented in German at this conference: cf. Georges Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse in der russischen Theologie,” in Procès-Verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre-6 décembre 1936, ed. Hamilcar S. Alivizatos (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 212-231. English translation (by Thomas Bird and Richard Haugh): “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” in Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, 157-182. 65  Georges Florovsky, “Ways of Russian Theology,” in Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, 195. Cf. Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 6 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1987), 297. 66  Florovsky, “Ways of Russian Theology,” 195. Cf. Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, 297. 67  “In a sense the Church itself is Hellenistic, is a Hellenistic formation – in other words, Hellenism is a standing category of Christian existence. […] let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox,” see Georges Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” in Procès-Verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes, 238-243, 241-242. Cf. also Georges Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism,” Orthodox Observer 442 (1957): 9-10, at 10: “Let us be more ‘Hellenic’ in order that we may be truly

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in his writings – in which he often returns to the issue of the encounter between Hellenism and Christianity – seems to adopt Florovsky’s terminus technicus of “Christian Hellenism” as the “eternal category of Christian existence.”68 Following Zizioulas’ future-oriented hermeneutics, and his eschatological outlook, this close correlation between on the one hand the “return to the Fathers” itself, and on the other Florovsky’s idea of “Christian Hellenism,” in other words this kind of fixation to the Patristic paradigm of the relationship of theology with the surrounding Hellenistic world, which prevents Orthodox theology from any new paradigm or synthesis, as for example the one which was attempted by another great Eastern Orthodox theologian, the late Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, could raise critical questions about the legitimacy of Greek philosophy or ontology in general as the exclusive means and language of properly witnessing the Gospel in the context of post-modernity. In principle Zizioulas does not seem to exclude the possibility of a new theological synthesis by using concepts and categories of thinking taken from the modern philosophy or thought; this new synthesis, however, should preserve the ontological character of theology. If Florovsky stressed the perennial character and the diachronic relevance of “Christian Hellenism” in order to preserve the historicity and the rationality of theology and Christian faith, Zizioulas for his part finally comes to a similar

Christian.” An exhaustive analysis and critique of these ideas of Florovsky can be found in my doctoral dissertation: Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Greekness and Anti-westernism in the Greek Theological Generation of the 60’s (Thessaloniki: School of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2008), especially 173-205 [in Greek]. Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s ‘Christian Hellenism’ and the Greek Theologians of the Generation of ’60s,” Theologia (Athens), vol. 81. 4 (2010): 247-288 [in Greek]. 68  The most representative work of Zizioulas on this topic remains the 1976 long article in Greek language entitled “Hellenism and Christianity: The Meeting of Two Worlds,” under publication as a book in English, trans. Fr. Gregory Edwards, ed. and forwarded by Nikolaos Asproulis, “Doxa & Praxis: Exploring Orthodox Theology” series (Geneva: WCC, forthcoming). The issue of the relationship between Hellenism and Christianity, and the related question of ontology and theology appear as the framework upon which Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas develops the basic axes of his program. In this respect one could take into account, among others, the first two chapters “Personhood and Being” and “Truth as Communion” of his classic work Being as Communion, 27-65, 67-122, respectively, and his study “The Contribution of Cappadocia to Christian Thought,” in Sinassos in Cappadocia, ed. Froso Pimenides and Stelios Roidis (Athens: Agra Publications, 1986), 23-37. For Zizioulas’ account of Florovsky’s “Christian Hellenism” see Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Orthodoxy and Hellenism in Contemporary Greece,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 54 (2010): 365-420, especially 388-393.

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conclusion due to his aspiration to preserve the ontological element and language in theology. In my understanding an eschatologically oriented theology, and a future-oriented hermeneutics should lead to a quite different attitude towards this crucial issue, contributing at the same time to the liberation of Eastern Orthodoxy from one of its main fixations: the almost exclusive recourse to the ontological language exemplified by contemporary Orthodox theologians, clerics, and some missionaries in their theology and preaching, even when they come from the Global South, where most of the people and languages are completely devoid of the use, or the very concept of “being,” or even the verb to be. The adoption of the ontological language by Christian theology was a great achievement realized mainly thanks to the efforts of the great Church Fathers, especially the Cappadocians of the fourth century, who were the pioneers of the encounter between Christianity and Hellenism, and of the Christianization of the Hellenistic philosophical categories, without of course neglecting the important contribution of the Fathers of the previous period – mainly the apologists and Irenaeus of Lyon. In fact Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole, Greek-speaking and not Greek-speaking, cannot depart from its strong connection with the Hellenistic world, and its mode of thinking. Without refusing or neglecting the major achievements that came out of the encounter between Christianity and Hellenism, and especially the classic and unsurpassed dogmatic formulae of the ecumenical councils which decisively shaped the ecclesial faith, Orthodoxy has to recover and rediscover its biblical roots, and its narrative and non-philosophical treasures like the ones preserved in the tradition of the Oriental Orthodox churches, especially when it comes to non-Western peoples like the ones of the Global South. This does not relate to any project of re-Judaizing the Christian faith, nor to Asianize or Africanize the traditional – and final or perennial for many – definition and wording of the ecclesial creeds, but rather it concerns an appropriate response to the theologically legitimate demand for contextualization and inculturation of the Orthodox faith, teaching, and practice, something that Orthodoxy used to do in the past, but seems to be afraid of doing again in our rapidly changing global world.69 69  See more on this in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “New Wine into Old Wineskins?: Orthodox Theology of Mission Facing the Challenges of a Global World,” in Theological Education and Theology of Life: Transformative Christian Leadership in the 21st Century.

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b) If the Eucharist is chiefly the remembrance of the future, an icon of the eschatological kingdom, as Zizioulas repeatedly maintains, then what about the social implications of this future reality imaged and proleptically experienced in the Eucharist? Does this future have any impact in the present social life both of the ecclesial community, but also of the wider community or the surrounding world? Does the future also become the “cause” of the present in the social realm, and therefore does it define the present, even partially? In other words, is there any hint of the so-called “the liturgy after the liturgy” perspective in Zizioulas’ eschatological vision? Finally, does the Eucharist exceed the liturgical context being transformed in social praxis, in other words is the Eucharist the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of Christian engagement with history? In my knowledge social praxis, and radical political activity for the defense of the poor and the marginalized, alongside the victims of history is an element missing or at least not explicitly developed in Zizioulas’ theological synthesis. Except his robust eco-theology developed already in his early work and further elaborated in more recent papers, an eco-theology70 which actually derives from the cosmic dimensions A Festschrift for Dietrich Werner, ed. Atola Longkumer, Po Ho Huang, and Uta Andrée (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2016), 119-147. 70  For his eco-theological perspective, see, e.g., Zizioulas, “La vision eucharistique du monde et l’homme contemporain,” 83-92; John D. Zizioulas, “Preserving God’s Creation: Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology,” King’s Theological Review 12 (1989): 1-5, 41-45; 13 (1990): 1-5; id., “Ecological Asceticism: A Cultural Revolution,” Our Planet 7, no. 6 (1996): 7-8; id., “Man the Priest of Creation,” in Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World, ed. Andrew Walker and Costa Carras (London: SPCK, 1996), 178-188; id., “Towards an Environmental Ethic,” in The Adriatic Sea, a Sea at Risk, a Unity of Purpose, ed. N. Ascherson and An Marshall (Athens: Religion, Science and the Environment, Text Publications, 2003), 93-101. As indicated in previous pages, some of these articles have been republished in The Eucharistic Communion and the World. On Zizioulas’ ecological theology see also, Jaroslav Z. Skira, “The Ecological Bishop: John Zizioulas’ Theology of Creation,” Toronto Journal of Theology 19, no. 2 (2003): 199-214; Christine Gschwandtner, “Creativity as Call to Care for Creation? John Zizioulas and Jean-Louis Chrétien,” in Being-in-creation: Human Responsibility in an Endangered World, ed. Brian Treanor et al. (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2016), 100-112; Aikaterini Tsalambouni, “The Ecological Dimension of the Theology of Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon,” in Personhood, Eucharist, and the Kingdom of God in Orthodox and Ecumenical Perspective, 241-257 [in Greek]; Idara Out, “The Eco-theologies of Thomas Berry and John Zizioulas: Intimations for Ecological Justice,” MA thesis, Faculty of Theology of Regis College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology, 2012. For a recent articulation towards an Orthodox eco-theological perspective drawn mainly on Zizioulas’ vision, see Nikolaos Asproulis, “Creation, History and the Church: Towards an Orthodox Eco-theology and Social Ethics,” in EcoTheology, Climate Justice and Food Security: Theological Education and Christian

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and implications of the Eucharist, Zizioulas did not articulate or rather he did not work towards the direction of a comprehensive political theology or political eschatology,71 in line for instance with the eminent German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann. And this is due to Zizioulas’ fear (and of other Eastern theologians too), that any attempt at changing history via “political eschatology” or liberation theology would mean that it is ultimately the human person itself, and not God, who then brings and realizes the eschaton into history.72 In other words what seems to be problematic and questionable for Zizioulas, is the excessive and one-sided engagement with history which characterizes Western Christianity, even though he himself is aware of the problematic and deficient relationship of Eastern Orthodoxy with history and historical praxis.73 At the same time, however, one could more or less detect the Leadership Development, ed. D. Werner and Elisabeth Jegliztka (Geneva: Globethics.net, 2016), 187-208. 71  Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas will assert, however, in a recent address (delivered at the occasion of the conferment of a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Munich, in November 2015), that “the agenda of Theology is set by history. This was known to the Fathers of the Church who were in constant dialogue with their time. It was unfortunately forgotten at times by academic Theology.” See Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas, “The Task of Orthodox Theology in Today’s Europe,” Orthodoxes Forum 29, no. 2 (2015): 259-263, especially 262. 72  See Zizioulas, “Eschatologie et société,” 291; reprinted in L’Église et ses institutions, 489. 73  Cf. ibid., 291; reprint, 488-489: “Visser ’t Hooft a un jour déclaré que le problème des orthodoxes est qu’ils ne prennent pas suffisamment au sérieux la réalisation de l’histoire, alors que le problème des Occidentaux est qu’ils prennent la réalisation de l’histoire trop au sérieux. Un juste équilibre est peut-être nécessaire. En tout cas les orthodoxes, en raison de leur adhésion à l’eschatologie, mettront toujours en garde leurs frères d’Occident à l’égard d’un engagement excessif au niveau de la planification historique. C’est peut-être la réserve la plus sérieuse qu’aurait un théologien orthodoxe à propos d’eschatologies telles que celle de Moltmann et, dans une certaine mesure, de la théologie de la libération. Si la résurrection du Christ conduit à l’action politique pour changer l’histoire, c’est essentiellement l’homme qui amène alors l’eschaton dans l’histoire.” Zizioulas’ understanding of history is criticized by Pavlo Smytsnyuk in his recent paper, “Spirit, Mission and Politics: Practical Consequences of Orthodox Pneumatology” (paper delivered at the Conference Theology of the Holy Spirit: Personal Experience and Charismatic Movements in the Contemporary Churches, Sibiu, Romania, November 12-15, 2014, unpublished; courtesy by the author). Following this young scholar, the sharp distinction between a historical and eschatological type of pneumatology often adopted by Orthodox theologians, and clearly crystallized in Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas of Pergamon’s thought, has affected the historical commitment, and the social and political witness of the Orthodox Church, leading to its escape from history. By giving a bold preference to eschatological pneumatology, which regards the Holy Spirit as the one who constitutes the church as worshiping community and static icon of Kingdom, setting at the same time aside the historical pneumatology, which stresses the Spirit’s assistance to the church in order to become an active pilgrim to kingdom, Orthodox theology seems to

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contours of such a political theology from his work, as is evident by the first two quite systematic attempts of an Orthodox political theology, directly or indirectly inspired by his work: the ground-breaking work by the Greek-American Orthodox theologian Aristotle Papanikolaou entitled The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy,74 and my book on Orthodoxy and Political Theology.75 From an American point of view, Papanikolaou tries to set an agenda for an Orthodox political theology, by highlighting the political implications of the very central axis of Orthodox tradition, that is the divine-human communion (theosis), as chiefly experienced in Eucharist and expressed in personhood, mainly focusing on issues related to the cultural left (liberal democracy, common good, human rights, political forgiveness, etc.). More concentrated to a European perspective and mainly focusing on issues related to the socio-political left, I attempted in my work to present the basic foundations of an Orthodox political theology, by raising the crucial question: Why has Orthodoxy not developed a political theology in the liberating and radical sense of the term? In my book I gathered the elements and premises of an Orthodox approach to the political, mostly based on the eschatological understanding of the church and its Eucharistic constitution, as well as on the biblical texts and the Patristic tradition, and on the major contributions of contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians, mainly those of the Russian diaspora, considering at the same time the burning issue of the legitimacy of a public role for the church and theology in the secular pluralistic societies of late modernity. In this perspective, one could say that both Papanikolaou and I would not be able to present a first sketch of a more or less comprehensive Orthodox political theology, contributing decisively in this way to the overall discussion, without the already existent seeds and elements in Zizioulas’ work, that would offer an open-oriented positive reception

have gradually undervalued the relevance of mission (that is the opening up of the church to the worldly needs and challenges) and history. This perspective led unfortunately to a more or less over-emphasis on a meta-historical eschatology as the exclusive way of approaching the nature of the church. 74  Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). 75  Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology (Geneva: WCC, 2012). For a critical comparison of these two works see Nikolaos Asproulis, “Pneumatology and Politics: The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Articulation of an Orthodox Political Theology,” Review of Ecumenical Studies 7, no. 2 (2015): 184-197.

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and understanding of the surrounding reality, as being receptive of redemption from everything that negates or undervalues its divine origin.76 6. Instead of a Conclusion If it is the case, according to Zizioulas, that “the history of eschatology is divided into pre- and post-Weiss periods,” it seems to me that one can rightly claim that the history of eschatology in Orthodox theology can in its turn be divided into a pre- and post-Zizioulas period, thanks to its creative and original theological synthesis, and the impact of his thought on the Orthodox world as a whole, and even beyond it. His eschatological ontology and the future-oriented hermeneutics he genuinely practiced, reflect the pattern of a fruitful encounter and exchange between the theological traditions of the Christian East and West, while they do liberate Christian theology from the one-sided attachment to past forms and schemes. Seen from this point of view, Zizioulas’ eschatological theology can be of high importance and relevance for both the Orthodox and the Christians of other traditions, as well as for religious and secular people, to the extent that it provides the ecumenical dialogue with the means and the dynamism of addressing the various new challenges that the rapidly changing world poses to the churches, with a clear view and commitment to the coming kingdom of God which will finally judge the very truth of reality itself.

76  The same applies to the case of the Greek biblical scholar Petros Vassiliadis from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. One cannot perceive his attempt on highlighting the political relevance of Orthodox Christianity, without taking in account key elements of Zizioulas theology, i.e., the strong emphasis on eschatology, and the Eucharistic constitution of the Church, which Vassiliadis further developed and radicalized in his writings. See more in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Eschatology in the Work of Petros Vassiliadis and Its Relevance for Political Theology,” in The Ecumenical Dialogue in the 21st Century: Festschrift to Emeritus Professor Petros Vassiliadis, ed. Ioannis Petrou, Stylianos Tsompanidis, and Moschos Gkoutsioudis (Thessaloniki: Vanias Publications, 2013), 381-426 [in Greek].

Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology in the Debates Surrounding the Issue of the Filioque Viorel Coman Introduction This chapter focuses on the two patterns of divine revelation, i.e, the classical schema of revelation (Logos-Christology) and the messianic schema of revelation (Spirit-Christology) in the context of the debates surrounding the issue of the filioque. More precisely, the paper concentrates on the question of the relationship between Christology and pneumatology from an ecumenical point of view, arguing that both Eastern and Western theology need to pay attention to a proper ecclesiological synthesis between the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit that is more solidly rooted in the doctrine of the so-called ‘immanent Trinity’. In so doing, the paper is divided in two main parts: the first part sheds light on the discussions on the ecclesiological consequences of the Western filioquist and the Eastern strictly monopatrist doctrines of the Trinity; the second part explores several models proposed by Christian theologians to harmonize the messianic and the classical schema of revelation in ecclesiology: Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993) and John Zizioulas (b. 1931), on the Orthodox side, and Yves Congar (1904-1995) and Walter Kasper (b. 1933), on the Roman Catholic side. Whereas John Zizioulas and Yves Congar remain silent about the way Spirit-Christology and LogosChristology are to be anchored in the inner life of the Trinity, Dumitru Stăniloae and Walter Kasper offer a solution to this question. 1. The Movements of Trinitarian Revelation and the Debates on the Filioque The study of the New Testament allows us to discern several movements of Trinitarian revelation.1 Two of them have defined in a substantial  James D. G. Dunn, “New Testament Christology,” in The Christ and the Spirit. Vol. 1: Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 3-29. See also James D. G. Dunn, 1

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manner the way theologians have articulated the relationship between Christology and pneumatology in the life of the Church: According to the first schema, the classical one, the movement of revelation originates in the Father who sends the Son and both of them, i.e., the Father and the Son, send the Holy Spirit to continue Christ’s work and lead people back to God: “But when the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (John 15:26). The classical scheme of revelation is more consonant with what has been defined as Logos-Christology and portrays the Spirit as instrumental in relation to Christ. The Spirit is sent by Christ to fulfil his work. In this case, one can speak of the Holy Spirit using the notion of ‘Christological pneumatology’: the Spirit is conceived and defined in function of Christ. According to the second schema, the messianic one, the movement originates in the Father who, together with the Holy Spirit, sent Christ to perform his messianic task: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4, 18-19). The messianic schema of revelation comes closer to Spirit-Christology and emphasizes the fact that Christ is anointed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out his salvific mission. The Spirit’s activity is no longer conditioned by Christology; on the contrary, Christ’s work depends on the Spirit. For this reason, this type of Christology is called ‘pneumatological Christology.” Needless to say, the question of how to adequately integrate these two Trinitarian schemas of divine revelation into an organic synthesis, which keeps the balance between Christology and pneumatology, became a topic of intense debate among Eastern and Western theologians in the context of the 20th-century extremely polemical discussions on the filioque. Both sides involved in the debates on the filioque considered that the way a tradition understands the eternal and temporary status of the Spirit in relation to the Son is not unconnected to the priority that “The Spirit of Jesus,” in The Christ and the Spirit. Vol. 2: Pneumatology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 329-342; Boris Bobrinskoy, “Models of Trinitarian Revelation,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 39, no. 2 (1995): 115-127. Similar ideas are present in Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition, trans. by Anthony P. Gythiel (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), 63-75.

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tradition gives either to the classical schema of revelation or to the messianic one. It does not come then as a surprise to hear Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky,2 Dumitru Stăniloae3 or Nikos Nissiotis4 arguing that the Trinitarian doctrine of the filioque is an example of Western theology’s overemphasis on the classical schema of revelation, which leads automatically to the subordination of the Spirit to Christ in the life of the Church. In their understanding, the subordination of the Spirit to Christ is synonymous with the subordination of charism to institution, personal freedom to Church authority, the prophetic element to the juridical one, mysticism to scholasticism, common priesthood to hierarchical priesthood, and finally, episcopal collegiality to the primacy of Rome.5 As it could be expected, Western theologians, including K. Barth,6 M.-J. le Guillou7 and others, have evaluated the issue at stake in a totally different way. According to them, the Orthodox Church’s rejection of the filioque leaves the intra-Trinitarian relationship between the Son and the Spirit unclear; as a result of that, Orthodox ecclesiology runs the risk of introducing a separation between Christology (institutional dimension) and pneumatology (the charismatic or spiritual dimension); moreover, the constant opposition to the doctrine of the filioque determined Orthodox theology to overemphasize the role of pneumatology in the Church. Matthias Haudel noted in this regard: The view which was postulated in reaction to the filioque, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone” forced a one-sided concentration on the third article, thus on pneumatology. This is also 2  Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. John H. Erickson and Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), 67. See also: Olivier Clément, “Vladimir Lossky, un théologien de la personne et du Saint Esprit,” Messager de l’exarchat du Patriarche russe en Europe occidentale 8 (1959): 137-206. 3  Nikos Nissiotis, “Pneumatologie orthodoxe,” in Le Saint-Esprit, ed. F. J. Leenhardt, P. Reymond, P. Fraenkel, N. A. Nissiotis, G. Widmer, J. de Senarclens, E. Rochedieu (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1963), 86. 4  Dumitru Stăniloae, “The Holy Trinity: Structure of the Supreme Love,” in Theology and the Church, trans. R. Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 107. 5  Lossky’s criticism is summarized by André de Halleux in his article: “Du personnalisme en pneumatologie,” in Patrologie et œcuménisme: Recueil d’études, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 93 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990): 396-423, at 406. 6  Karl Barth, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, ed. Hannelotte Reiffen, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 129. 7  Marie-Joseph le Guillou, “La critique du filioque de L. P. Karsavine,” Istina 17, nos. 3-4 (1972): 304-305.

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true of the assumption that God is known only through the power, or the energies, communicated by the Holy Spirit. The one-sided emphasis on the Spirit, with its deficient link to Christology, leads not only to the danger of an eschatological theologiae gloriae anchored in the third article […], but also to the danger of making an absolute of one’s own spiritual experience and thus of one’s own church tradition.8

The debates on the practical ramifications of the Eastern and Western Trinitarian models were not devoid of oversimplifications and misunderstandings. One should not forget that the question of the ecclesiological implications of the doctrine of the filioque emerged in a context of hostility and lack of sympathy between the two Christian traditions. As it is very often the case in polemical and hostile contexts, the risk of exaggerations is always present. In spite of that, the intuitions of the theologians involved in the debates on the practical ramifications of the filioque and of the Trinitarian monopatrism should not be too easily dismissed or rejected as totally unworthy of attention. As metropolitan Zizioulas of Pergamon argued, the Western ecclesiological ethos is marked by a certain priority given to Christology over pneumatology, whereas the Eastern ethos is defined by the very important role it ascribes to pneumatology (emphasis on energies, development of a therapeutic ecclesiology very often disconnected from Eucharistic ecclesiology, emphasis exclusively on contemplative monasticism, etc). For this reason the West and the East should continue to work together towards the elaboration of a proper synthesis between Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology, between Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology.9

8  Matthias Haudel, “The Relation between Trinity and Ecclesiology as an Ecumenical Challenge and Its Consequences for the Understanding of Mission,” International Review of Mission 90 (2001): 401-408, at 404. A similar observation was made by A. Dulles: “the monopatrist position runs the risk of portraying the Son and the Spirit as two autonomous and competing agencies, so that what is given to the Son is subtracted from the Spirit and vice-versa. This portrayal imperils the unity of the economy of salvation, according to which all grace and sanctification are from the three divine persons operating in unison – from the Father as sending, from the Son as sent by the Father, and from the Holy Spirit as sent by both the Father and the Son. … In some Eastern theologies one gets the impression that an independent sphere of action is being allotted to the Spirit. This tenet would compromise the unity of the godhead and the universal efficacy of Christ’s redemptive mediation.” Avery Dulles, “The Filioque: What Is at Stake?,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 59, nos. 1-2 (1995): 31-48, at 40. 9  John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 129.

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2. The Synthesis between Christology and Pneumatology: Yves Congar and John Zizioulas It goes without saying that models of a balanced synthesis between Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology have been elaborated so far – with varying degrees of success – by Eastern and Western theologians. However, with very few exceptions, the models proposed by theologians remain almost silent on the way in which this synthesis is to be integrated into the doctrine of the inner Trinity. Christology and pneumatology may have been synthesized but Trinitarian theology appears as a realm apart. This holds true for the ecclesiological synthesis of both Yves Congar and John Zizioulas. 1. Yves Congar The Orthodox criticism against the so-called ‘pneumatological deficit’ of pre-Vatican II ecclesiology has received a fair amount of attention from Western theologians. Despite the fact that the Second Vatican Council has only partially managed to place ecclesiology within a pneumatological horizons,10 it has given a decisive impulse to the pneumatological renaissance in Roman Catholic theology. Yves Congar is one of the 20th-century Roman Catholic theologians who took over the Council’s commitment of elaborating a synthesis between the work of Christ and the Spirit that integrates pneumatology organically into ecclesiology. Experts in Congar’s theology observed that there is a gradual development in his reflections on the relationship between pneumatology, Christology, and ecclesiology. The periodization of Congar’s reflections on Christ, the Spirit, and the Church, differs from scholar to scholar. F.-M. Humann proposes a periodization in three stages: 1) 1930-1945; 2) 1945-1965; 3) 1965-1985.11 Joseph Famerée speaks of two main periods: 1) before Vatican II; he divides this period in three stages: 1937-1950;

 Jos Moons, “Lumen Gentium’s Pneumatological Renewal: A ‘Work in Progress’,” Ecclesiology 12, no. 2 (2016): 147-164; See also id., “A Pneumatological Conversion?: The Holy Spirit’s Activities according to Lumen Gentium,” in Conversion and Church: The Challenge of Ecclesial Renewal, ed. Stephan van Erp and Karim Schelkens, Brill’s Series in Catholic Theology 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 244-260. 11  François-Marie Humann, La relation de l’Esprit-Saint au Christ: Une relecture d’Yves Congar, Cogitatio fidei 274 (Paris: Cerf, 2010), 35-121. 10

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1952-1953; 1954-1959;12 2) after the Council. Following Cornelis Th. M. van Vliet, Elisabeth Groppe and Alain Nisus detected four major periods in Congar’s pneumatology: 1) 1931-1944; 2) 1944-1959; 3) 1959-1968; 4) 1969-1991.13 In presenting Congar’s reflections on pneumatology and its relation to Christology, I will rely on the four-stage period, which has been adopted by the majority of scholars. 1931-1944: The Church as the Mystical Body of Christ constituted the predominant paradigm of Congar’s initial reflections on ecclesiology. As he pointed out in an article from 1937, “la vraie définition de l’Église c’est ‘le Corps mystique de Jésus-Christ.”14 Even though Congar was aware of the fact that “l’Église est le Corps du Seigneur ressuscité et glorifié; elle est la Pentecôte continuée, le signe permanent de l’envoi du Saint Esprit,”15 the Holy Spirit played no fundamental role in his ecclesiological explorations of these years. When the Dominican Father referred to pneumatology in connection to the doctrine of the Church, he spoke of the Holy Spirit mainly as the indwelling soul of the Mystical Body of Christ.16 The major risk of this pneumatological approach is that the Spirit’s activity seems to be domesticated or monopolized by the Church’s structures. 1944-1959: If the Mystical Body of Christ was the dominant theme in Congar’s initial reflections on ecclesiology, it was the People of God image of the Church that became the central ecclesiological theme in his post-war writings. From 1944 to 1959, the ecclesiological paradigm of the People of God became for the Dominican the theoretical basis for a rediscovery of the laity’s role in the life of the Church. As a Congarian scholar notes, “les concepts clefs qui l’aident à aborder ces questions [ecclésiologiques] sont les couples dialectiques ‘structure et vie’, ‘institution et communion’.”17 As for the function of pneumatology in ecclesiology, in the post-World War II period Congar started developing the idea  Joseph Famerée, L’ecclésiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II: Histoire et Église. Analyse et reprise critique, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 107 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), 400. 13  Elisabeth T. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 33-35; Alain Nisus, “L’Esprit et l’Église dans l’œuvre d’Yves Congar,” Transversalités 108 (2006): 111-114. 14  Yves Congar, Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un ‘œcuménisme’ catholique, Unam Sanctam 8 (Paris: Cerf, 1937), 266. 15  Yves Congar, “Bulletin d’ecclésiologie,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 25, no. 4 (1936): 747-773, at 766. 16  Congar, Chrétiens désunis, 64. 17  Alain Nisus, “L’Esprit et l’Église dans l’œuvre d’Yves Congar,” 111. 12

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that the Spirit’s opus proprium refers to the vivification and dynamization of the Church’s structures, which are established by Christ. Holding a sharp distinction between “une écclesiologie de la vie et une écclesiologie de la structure,” Congar claimed that the first type of ecclesiology is to be identified with “une écclesiologie pneumatologique,” whereas the second type with “une écclesiologie christologique.”18 Such an approach introduces however an opposition between Christ and the Spirit and does not explain the way in which the two components of the Church relate to each other. In spite of the Spirit’s function of vivifying the Church’s structures, pneumatology detained though only a secondary role in ecclesiology, for the Spirit comes to animate what has already been constituted by Christ. As Congar said, the Holy Spirit “est envoyé lors de la Pentecôte à une Église déjà constituée et structurée; il vient en elle comme un principe de vie et de mouvement, mais l’Église existe par l’institution de Jésus.”19 1959-1969: As a very general observation, in this period, Congar was rather preoccupied to respond to the exaggerated criticism of the Orthodox theologians against the “Christomonism” of Western ecclesiology than to offer a solid contribution to the theme of the Spirit’s role in the Church.20 What is still necessary to be mentioned about the conciliar period in Congar’s theology is the fact that it represented the preparatory stage for the Dominican Father’s most prolific years in terms of his reflections on the relationship between Christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology. 1969-1991: In contrast with the French theologian’s writings before Vatican II, in which Congar had presented the Spirit as the one who continues or animates the work of Christ, in his publications from the 1970s and 1980s he emphasized that the Spirit is not a mere instrument or appendix of the Word but Christology and pneumatology are of equal importance in the establishment of the Church. Integrating more fully the pneumatological aspect into his theology, in the opening lines of his introduction to the volume Le Parole et le Souffle Congar noted that there is one phrase that could summarize his later essays and books on the Holy Spirit: “pas de christologie sans pneumatologie, pas de  Yves Congar, Esquisses du mystère de l’Église, Unam Sanctam 8 (Paris: Cerf, 21953),

18

176.  Yves Congar, “L’Esprit-Saint dans l’Église,” Lumière et vie 10 (1953): 51-74, at 54.  Yves Congar, “La pneumatologie dans la théologie catholique,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 51, no. 2 (1967): 250-258. 19

20

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pneumatologie sans christologie.”21 Apart from indicating the inseparable communion that exists between Christ and the Spirit in the economy of salvation and in the life of the Church, the statement speaks of Congar’s greater emphasis on a pneumatological Christology: the Holy Spirit is not simply sent to the world by the risen Christ but constitutes Jesus as Messiah;22 therefore pneumatology defines Christology and vice-versa. Congar’s articulation of a pneumatological Christology in the latest decades of his theological activity was meant to balance the Christological pneumatology of his earlier ecclesiological writings: “l’Esprit ne vient pas seulement animer une institution totalement déterminée en ses structures, mais qu’il est proprement ‘co-instituant’.”23 But the major weakness of Congar’s ecclesiological synthesis between Christology and pneumatology is the fact that it is not fully incorporated into the Roman Catholic doctrine of the intra-Trinitarian relationships between the divine Persons. The Dominican theologian’s emphasis on both pneumatological Christology and Christological pneumatology does not manage, however, to relate the way the Spirit acts in the economy of salvation and in the Church, i.e., the Spirit is not only the gift poured forth by the risen Christ (filioque) but also the One who empowers Christ and conditioned His activity (spiritumque), with the way the Holy Spirit is said to exist eternally, i.e., the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). A central question arises: what does the fact that in the economy of salvation the Spirit empowers Christ say about the eternal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit? In some of his writings, Congar seems to suggest however that the Western doctrine of the filioque needs to be complemented by the spiritumque.24 But this aspect remains undeveloped in his theology. The challenge posed by the pneumatological Christology to the Western understanding of the inner doctrine of the Trinity remains still a subject of discussions at the ecumenical level. 2. John Zizioulas In the English-speaking world there is no other living Orthodox theologian as famous and influential as the current metropolitan of  Yves Congar, La Parole et le Souffle (Paris: Desclée, 1983), 13.  Yves Congar, Je crois en l’Ésprit-Saint, vol. III (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 219-228. 23  Yves Congar, Je crois en l’Ésprit-Saint, vol. II (Paris: Cerf, 1979), 19. 24  Congar, La Parole et le Souffle, 151. 21

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Pergamon John Zizioulas. His world-wide reputation is based on: 1) his work in the ecumenical movement, and especially in the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church; 2) his activity as a professor of Systematic theology in Athens, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Thessaloniki, and London; 3) his very creative theological ideas, which have been exposed in a series of articles and books, including his masterpiece Being as Communion. Following initially the views of his mentor Florovsky, Zizioulas made clear in the introduction to his doctoral dissertation, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop during the First Three Centuries (1965),25 that he opts for a Christological approach to ecclesiology. According to him, when pneumatology gets precedence over Christology in the life of the Church there is always “the risk of ecclesiology being made into ‘charismatic sociology’, and the unity of the Church becoming nothing more than a societas fidei et Spiritus Sancti in cordibus.”26 However, the publication of the article “Ordination – A Sacrament? An Orthodox Reply”27 in 1972 marked a turning point in Zizioulas’ theology: the Greek theologian started to integrate pneumatology organically into the texture of ecclesiology and Christology. Yet it was not until the beginning of the 1980s that Zizioulas unfolded his ideas regarding the content of a proper ecclesiological synthesis between Christology and pneumatology.28 The metropolitan of Pergamon clarified the question of what a proper synthesis between the two vital components of the Church should include by saying that the problem

 John Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop during the First Three Centuries, trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001). Zizioulas’ doctoral thesis contains the most important revisions brought by an Orthodox theologian to Nicholas Afanasiev’s Eucharistic ecclesiology. 26  Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 16. 27  John Zizioulas, “Ordination – A Sacrament? An Orthodox Reply,” Concilium 8, no. 4 (1972): 33-40. 28  John Zizioulas, “Cristologia, pneumatologia e istituzioni ecclesiastiche: Un punto di vista ortodosso,” Cristianesimo nella storia 2, no. 1 (1981): 111-127. The original English version of this article has been published in John Zizioulas, Being as Communion under the title “Christ, the Spirit, and the Church,” 123-142; See also John Zizioulas, “Implications ecclésiologiques de deux types de pneumatologie,” in Communio Sanctorum: Mélanges offerts à Jean-Jaques von Allmen, ed. Boris Bobrinskoy, Claude Bridel, and Bruno Bürki (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1982), 141-154. The article has been republished in Zizioulas’ book L’Église et ses institutions, ed. Grigorios Papathomas et Hyacinthe Destivelle (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 29-47. 25

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is not whether one accepts the importance of Pneumatology and Christology and vice versa; the problem arises in connection to the question of priority (should Christology be made dependent on Pneumatology or should the order be the other way round?), and content (what particular content of Christian doctrine is at stake when speaking of Christology and pneumatology?).29

Zizioulas is of the opinion that, as long as the two schemas of divine revelation. i.e., the classical and messianic schemas, are not separated, the question of priority between Christ and the Spirit does not necessarily constitute a problem. If both schemas of divine revelation are successfully incorporated into an organic and unbreakable synthesis, the “question of priority can remain a ‘theologoumenon’.”30 As for the question of content, the Greek metropolitan holds the fundamental assumption that God’s activity ad extra is one and indivisible. The unity of the divine operations ad extra is indivisible but not undifferentiated. Each Person of the Trinity contributes to the economy in a different way, and the unique contribution of each divine Person is directly relevant for ecclesiology. For Zizioulas, even though both the Father and the Spirit are involved in history, only the Son “becomes history” through the Incarnation. The economy, in so far as it assumed history and has history, is only one and that is the Christ event.31 The assumption of history is therefore the particularity of the Son in Zizioulas’ view. The question that arises, inevitably, is the following one: What is then the particular role of the Spirit? In order to respond to this question, Zizioulas notes that since the Spirit is not related to history in the same way as the Son, the contribution of the Spirit is but the opposite, i.e., to liberate from history. In this regard, eschatology turns to be one of the main particularities of the Spirit in Zizioulas’ theology: … what is the contribution of the Spirit? Well, precisely the opposite: it is to liberate the Son and the economy from the bondage of history. If the Son dies on the cross, thus succumbing to the bondage of historical existence, it is the Spirit that raises him from dead. The Spirit is the beyond history, and when he acts in history he does so in order to bring into history the last days, the eschaton. Hence the first

29  John Zizioulas, “Christ, the Spirit and the Church,” in id., Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 123-142, 127. 30  Zizioulas, “Christ, the Spirit and the Church,” 129. 31  Ibid., 130.

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fundamental particularity of Pneumatology is its eschatological character. The Spirit makes of Christ an eschatological being, the ‘last Adam.’32

Apart from eschatology, Zizioulas associated the Holy Spirit with the notion of communion, for it is the Spirit who fashion Christ into a ‘corporate personality’. For the Greek theologian, a real synthesis between Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology is achieved only when pneumatology and its fundamental aspects, i.e., eschatology and communion, are constitutive for the very being of Christ and the Church. That being so, the Holy Spirit must not be perceived as a mere ‘animator’ of the ecclesial structures and institutions but the very condition of their existence. In order to express the idea that pneumatology has an ontological category role in ecclesiology, the Greek theologian speaks of the Church as “instituted by Christ and simultaneously ‘constituted’ by the Holy Spirit.”33 It would be entering too much into details to explain the way in which Zizioulas nuances the implications of such a synthesis between Christology and pneumatology for ecclesiology. Suffice it to say that, according to his argumentation, when pneumatology is made a decisive category in ecclesiology two major implications can be detected. On the one hand, if the Holy Spirit has a constitutive role in ecclesiology, the Church “ceases to be regarded as a historically given reality – an institution – that is a provocation to freedom. She will be regarded at the same time as something constantly constituted.”34 On the other hand, if pneumatology is not a secondary ecclesiological category but a component of a primary importance, the pyramidal understanding of the Church vanishes. The attempt to integrate Christology and pneumatology into a harmonic ecclesiological synthesis along is one of the crowns of Zizioulas’ theology. Despite the fact that the metropolitan of Pergamon offered Christian theology one of the most interesting models of synthesizing the role of Christ with that of the Holy Spirit in ecclesiology, he left open the question of how to relate the ‘economic’ functions of both Christ and the Spirit with their ‘immanent’ status. Zizioulas did not create his synthesis based on the relation between the Son and the Spirit 32

 Zizioulas, “Christ, the Spirit and the Church,” 130.  Ibid., 140. 34  John Zizioulas, “The Doctrine of God the Trinity Today: Suggestions for an Ecumenical Study,” in id., The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2010), 3-16, at 15. 33

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in the Trinity but went straight ahead to considerations of the activity of God ad extra. In other words, his synthesis is not rooted in the life of the inner Trinity, even though Zizioulas had offered Orthodox theology a solid doctrine of the immanent Trinity. For this reason, as important as his reflections on the role of Christ and the Spirit in the Church might be, Zizioulas’ theology seems to promote a sort of ‘rupture’ between the status of the Son and the Spirit within the Trinity and their functions in ecclesiology. Even though Orthodox thinkers do not subscribe to Karl Rahner’s Grundaxiom, i.e., the ‘economic Trinity’ is the ‘immanent Trinity’, and the ‘immanent Trinity’ is the ‘economic Trinity’, a certain continuity between God ad intra and God ad extra still needs to be emphasized by Eastern theologians. The absence of a rich theology of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit reverberated in their ecclesiology. Suffice it here to mention the connection between Zizioulas’ emphasis on the monarchy of the Father and his episcopocentric ecclesiology. 3. Trinity and Church: Dumitru Stăniloae and Walter Kasper Dumitru Stăniloae and Walter Kasper offered theology two examples of a model of an ecclesiological synthesis between Christology and pneumatology that is anchored in the doctrine of the inner Trinity. Unlike Congar and Zizioulas, whose theological reflections paid no significant attention to the way their synthesis is to be integrated into the doctrine of the Trinity, both Stăniloae and Kasper harmonized Christology and pneumatology in the Church in light of the Trinitarian mystery. As a matter of fact, Stăniloae departed from the strict monopatrism of Orthodox theology and elaborated a solid theology of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit, whereas Kasper interpreted the doctrine of the filioque in a way that includes the intuitions of Spirit-Christology. 1. Dumitru Stăniloae As metropolitan Kallistos Ware remarked, the Romanian theologian Dumitru Stăniloae “occupies a position in present-day Orthodoxy comparable to that of Karl Barth in Protestantism and Karl Rahner in Roman

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Catholicism.”35 Although over the past few decades, many of his books and articles have been translated into many different languages, Stăniloae’s theology is still very little known amongst Western scholars. The Romanian theologian was more successful in harmonizing Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology as he chose to integrate his doctrine of the Church into an extremely elaborated and skilfully nuanced Trinitarian scheme.36 The doctrine of the Trinity, “the supreme mystery of existence” which “explains everything, and nothing can be explained without it,”37 is the structuring principle of Stăniloae’s entire theology. Far from being a remote, speculative, and peripheral issue, the doctrine of the Trinity shapes every chapter of Stăniloae’s theological work: gnoseology, anthropology, cosmology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Relying heavily on the Trinitarian reflections of several late Byzantine theologians Stăniloae’s theological corpus offers one of the most captivating Orthodox depictions of the inner dynamics of the Triune God. In so doing, Stăniloae integrated Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology in the inner life of the Trinity. In line with the Trinitarian tradition of the Byzantine theologians, Stăniloae operated a clear distinction in the Trinity between the Spirit’s movement towards existence, which is from the Father, and the Spirit’s movement towards manifestation, which is from the Son. According to him, – the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and rests in the Son (Spirit-Christology). The Son is therefore the eternal resting place of the Son. In proceeding from the Father in order to rest in the Son, the Spirit communicates the Father’s love to the Son, which is the goal of procession;38  Kallistos Ware, foreword to The Experience of God: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, vol. I, by Dumitru Stăniloae, trans. Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998), xxiv. 36  For a detailed presentation of his synthesis between Christology and pneumatology, see Viorel Coman, “Dumitru Stăniloae on the Filioque: The Trinitarian Relationship between the Son and the Spirit, and Its Relevance for the Ecclesiological Synthesis between Christology and Pneumatology,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 49, no. 4 (2014): 553-576. 37  Dumitru Stăniloae, Sfânta Treime sau la început a fost iubirea (Bucarest: Ed. Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1993), 7; English trans.: The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love, trans. Roland Clark (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012), i. 38  Dumitru Stăniloae, “Purcederea Duhului Sfânt de la Tatăl și relația lui cu Fiul ca temei al îndumnezeirii și înfierii noastre,” Ortodoxia 31, nos. 3-4(1979): 588-589; English 35

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– the Holy Spirit shines out from the Son towards the Father, as the Son’s loving answer to the love of His Father, which is the goal of manifestation. The Spirit manifests himself eternally through the Son (Logos-Christology);39 – the procession of the Holy Spirit from and Father and the generation of the Son from the Father happen simultaneously and inseparably; – the Holy Spirit, that is, the third Person of the Trinity, not only “keeps the other two Persons from immersing themselves in each other,”40 but is also the “loving tie formed between the Father and the Son.”41 In Stăniloae’s understanding, the relationship between Christ and the Spirit sub specie temporis is but the extension of the relationship between the Son and the Spirit sub specie aeternitatis. In this regard, what makes Stăniloae’s ecclesiology attractive and unique is the full incorporation of the Church into the loving communion of the Trinity. The mystery of the Trinity’s divine life is extended to the Church while the Church trans.: “The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of Our Deification and Adoption,” in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy, ed. Lukas Vischer, Faith and Order Paper 103 (Geneva: WCC, 1981), 176-186, at 181. 39  Dumitru Stăniloae, “Relaţiile treimice şi viaţa bisericii,” Ortodoxia 16, no. 4 (1964): 516-517; English trans.: “Trinitarian Relations and The Life of The Church,” in D. Stăniloae, Theology and the Church, trans. Robert Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 30-31. 40  “The third fulfills the role of «object» or horizon, assuring the sense of objectivity for the two by the fact that he keeps the two from becoming confused within an indistinct unity because of the exclusiveness of their love, an exclusiveness which can flow from the conviction of each that nothing worthy of love exists outside the other. With a third of the same worth exists, neither of the two who love each other loses sight of the merit of loving that belongs to the third, and both are thereby kept from becoming confused, the one in the other.” Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. I (Bucarest: Ed. Instiutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1978, 3 2003), 323; English trans.: The Experience of God, vol. I, 268-269. 41  “The Spirit is sent by the Father to rest in the Son as a demonstration of the Father’s love for the Son. For the Father Himself is pleased to rest in the Son through the Spirit who proceeds from Him. But the Son does no remain passive and uncaring in the face of the Father’s loving attention. He is pleased that the Father sends His Spirit to Him, and by accepting the Spirit He shows the Father His joy … The Spirit does not proceed from the Father as an end in Himself, but the Spirit constitutes a loving tie formed between the Father and the Son … The Father and the Son unite as Father and Son even more through the Spirit. They are three Persons, but the third does not stand to the side of the other two; He unites Them. He is in each, uniting Them and reinforcing Them in Their distinct qualities even when They speak to us.” Dumitru Stăniloae, Sfânta Treime sau la început a fost iubirea, 70, 71, and 73; English trans.: The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love, 62, 63, and 65.

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is raised up into the loving communion between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The ecclesiological relevance of Staniloae’s Trinitarian model is twofold: On the one hand, he extended the loving relationship between the divine Persons to the Church, avoiding the risk of presenting the Trinity and the Church as two parallel realities. Whereas sub specie aeternitatis the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and abides in the Son as the Father’s love towards His Son, in the history of salvation as well as in the life of the Church the same Spirit descends upon Christ and upon those gathered in His Body the Church to fashion them in the likeness of the Father’s beloved Son (Spirit-Christology). Moreover, the same Spirit, who eternally shines forth from the Son towards the Father, is sent by Christ (Logos-Christology) in the hearts of the members of his Mystical Body so that they can also respond actively to the Father’s paternal love: When the Son becomes incarnate and unites men with himself, the love of the Father which is upon him and his own response to the Father’s love are assimilated by all who are united with the Son. All are beloved of the Father in the Son and all respond to the Father in the Son with the Son’s own love. This is the climactic moment of the condition of salvation: the union of all with Christ in the Spirit, and through the Spirit in the consciousness of the Father’s love for them and of their own love for the Father. Hence salvation is recapitulation in Christ. All are loved in the Son by the Father and all respond in the Son with the Son’s love, for inasmuch as all are found in the Son, the Spirit of the Father hovers over all and shines forth from all upon the Father.42

On the other hand, he avoided the risk of prioritizing either Christology or pneumatology: the mutual interiority and reciprocity that characterize the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit is reflected in the life of the Church, where Christology and pneumatology are inseparable and mutually dependent.43 In other words, the Spirit, as the One who rests both eternally and temporally upon the Son of God, stands permanently like a light upon Christ and reveals him to the human persons; whereas the Son of God, from whom the Spirit shines 42

 Stăniloae, “Relațiile treimice,” 517; Stăniloae, “Trinitarian Relations,” 31-32.  Stăniloae, “Relațiile treimice,” 506; Stăniloae, “Trinitarian Relations,” 15: “… the indissoluble union between Christ and the Holy Spirit who truly constitutes and sustains the life of the Christians within the Church has its profound roots in the indissoluble union which according to Orthodox teachings exists between them within the sphere of their inner Trinitarian relations.” 43

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forth both eternally and temporally, is the locus of the Spirit’s presence and the One who leads creation into the Spirit’s transfiguring light. This is to say that Christ cannot be properly revealed to the world without the work of the Holy Spirit just as the Spirit cannot be known and experienced without the work of Christ. The revelation of Christ is conditioned by the Spirit just as the revelation of the Spirit is dependent on Christ. The Spirit is the spiritual light in which Christ is seen and Christ is the revealer of the Spirit. In ecclesiology, the Spirit gives human beings access to Christ, whereas Christ makes the Spirit’s descent in the Church possible. As a matter of fact, Christology cannot be conceived of without pneumatology just as pneumatology cannot be conceived of without Christology, for pneumatology points toward Christology and Christology points toward pneumatology. The same unity between Christ and the Spirit provides grounds for saying that the institutional aspect of the Church is not devoid of spirituality, just as spirituality does not imply a lack of structure and institutional order.44 2. Walter Kasper In an article published in 2008, Denis Edwards mentioned that, after Congar, Walter Kasper is “the second radical example of Catholic ecumenical receptivity in the area of pneumatology and it is this that bears fruit in his ecumenical theology and practice.”45 As a matter of fact, a careful reader will notice that “theological consideration of the Holy Spirit runs like a golden thread through all of Cardinal Kasper’s work,”46 especially in essays and volumes related to matters concerning ecclesiology. In fact, Kasper is one of the Catholic theologians who sought to enhance or complement Logos-Christology with Spirit-Christology, determining the ecclesiological implications of such a pneumatology. 44  Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă, vol. 2 (Bucarest: Ed. Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1978), 202; English trans.: The Experience of God, vol. 4, trans. Ioan Ionita (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012), 2. For a detailed analysis of Stăniloae’s ecclesiology in light of Christology and pneumatology, see Viorel Coman, Dumitru Stăniloae’s Trinitarian Ecclesiology in the Context of the Debates on the Filioque, doctoral dissertation, KU Leuven, 2016, 149-346. 45  Denis Edwards, “The Holy Spirit as a Gift: Pneumatology and Catholic Re-reception of Petrine Ministry in the Theology of Walter Kasper,” in Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism, ed. Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 198. 46  Elisabeth A. Johnson, “Pneumatology and Beyond: ‘Wherever’,” in Speaking Truth in Love: The Theology of Cardinal Walter Kasper, ed. Kristin M. Colberg and Robert A. Krieg (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 98-109, at 98.

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Following Vatican II’s renewed attention to the role of the Holy Spirit, the publication of the monograph Jesus the Christ almost ten years after the closing of the council made Kasper one of the first Roman Catholic theologians to develop a pneumatologically-defined Christology. In the monograph on Christology he integrated the entire life and activity, death and resurrection, history and mystery of Jesus “within a rich theology of the Holy Spirit, arguing that the mediation between the divine and the human Jesus can only be understood as an event in the Spirit.”47 According to Kasper, his choice for a Spirit-Christology does not exclude Logos-Christology but complements it. Spirit-Christology and Logos-Christology are only apparently opposed. The two Christological schemas are organically related according to a link that is rooted in the eternal mystery of the Trinity.48 Spirit-Christology and LogosChristology cannot exclude each other because the experience of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the history of salvation and in the life of the Church presents the Son and the Spirit as they exists always in the Trinity. The basic question is then what Trinitarian schema inspires Kasper in order to connect the experience of Jesus and Spirit in the history with the way in which the two divine Persons exist eternally? The German Cardinal arrived at the conclusion that a model of the Trinity that portrays the Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son provides the necessary link between the two Christological schemas. According to him, in spite of the differences concerning the issue of the Spirit’s eternal procession, both traditions can agree on the fact that the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son. However, Kasper went beyond Augustine’s paradigm, pointing out that the Spirit is not only the mutual love between the two other Persons of the Trinity but also the “surplus and effusion of freedom in the love between the Father and the Son.” In the Holy Spirit, “as love that is utterly free, God at the same time has the possibility of producing something outside, that is, a creature, and while maintaining its intrinsic creaturely independence, to draw it into his love.” It is the Spirit, gift and giver at the same time, who is the transcendental possibility of a free self-communication of God in history: “The Spirit as mediator between Father and Son is at 47

 Edwards, “The Holy Spirit as a Gift,” 198-199.  Carlos Kalonji Nkokesha, Penser la tradition avec Walter Kasper: Pertinence d’une catholicité historiquement et culturellement ouverte, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 259 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 180. 48

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the same time mediator of God into history.”49 A double Trinitarian movement, said Kasper, shows even more clearly the function of the Holy Spirit: on the one hand, “the Father communicates himself in love to the Son, in the Spirit this love is aware of its freedom.” Through the Holy Spirit this love between the Father and the Son communicates itself outside the Trinity to the creation; on the other hand, in the Spiritfilled humanity of Jesus, the Son gives himself back in love to the Father. Moreover, “in this all-consuming dedication to the point of death, the Spirit as it were becomes free; he is released from his particular historical figure, and consequently Jesus’ death and resurrection mediate the coming of the Spirit.”50 The Spirit universalizes the Christ event and renders us receptive to the Father’s love. Yet only in Jesus Christ is God’s selfcommunication fully accepted. He is the only bearer of the Spirit in the absolute sense of the word: “The universal historical activity of the Spirit therefore reached its goal in him in a way that is ultimate. Light falls from Jesus Christ on the rest of history.”51 Ecclesiologically speaking, Kasper’s reflection on the way in which the two Christological schemas are rooted in the mystery of the Trinity is important for several reasons: first, it insisted in presenting the economy of salvation and the life in the Church as the extension of the Trinitarian love to the human person. Since pneumatology and Christology are synthesized in closed connection with the functions of the Spirit and the Son in the inner Trinity, the Trinity and the Church seem no longer to be parallel realities; second, instead of presenting the Church as domesticating the Spirit’s activity, Kasper opted for an ecclesiology that is a function of pneumatology. An ecclesiology built on pneumatology fashions the Church not as an institution which possesses the Spirit but as an event in the Spirit, which includes the institution. If the Church is an instrument of the Holy Spirit, there is a dynamic complementarity between the different ministries and charisms. He noted that the Holy Spirit as the ecstatic and kenotic love between the Father and the Son, that is, the love that give itself freely and gives the other persons space, 49  Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, trans. V. Green (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2011), 238. See also, Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (London: Continuum, 22013), 227: “A theology of the Holy Spirit as both giver and gift, and thus a theology of the Holy Spirit as self-gift, is the ultimate ground or, in other language, the transcendental theological condition for the possibility of the reality and effective realization of the salvation that is bestowed on us through Jesus Christ.” 50  Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 252. 51  Ibid., 255. 2

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provides the model and source of a correct interaction between ministries and charisms: “As spiritual gifts, ministries and charismata should be totally themselves by giving themselves and particularly by spreading love they are to keep their own freedom and that of others.”52 Conclusions The 20th-century discussions on the ecclesiological implications of the filioque have determined theologians of both Trinitarian traditions to embark themselves on one of the most interesting projects: the synthesis between Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology. The theme continues to remain even today an important subject in the agenda of Christian theologians. With very few exceptions, the models proposed by theologians of both Trinitarian traditions to harmonize the work of Christ with the work of the Spirit have not been articulated in connection with the eternal status of the Son and the Spirit. Christology and pneumatology may have been synthesized in ecclesiology but the symbiosis is not articulated in light of the relationship between the Son and the Spirit within the Trinity. Two implications of this aspect are to be detected: On the one hand, if in the West the ecclesiological synthesis between Christology and pneumatology is not anchored into a Trinitarian theology that complements the doctrine of the filioque with the intuitions of Spirit-Christology, the risk of an overemphasis on Christology in Western theology is still potentially there. If in the East, the ecclesiological synthesis is not elaborated in light of a more robust description of the eternal link between the Son and the Spirit, some ecclesiological risks are potentially present in there as well: an overemphasis on the monarchy of the Father and on the role of the bishop. On the other hand, if the synthesis between Christology and pneumatology is not anchored in the doctrine of the inner Trinity, the Church and the Trinity remain disconnected from one another. When the ecclesiological synthesis between Christology and pneumatology is elaborated solely on the basis of the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the economy of salvation, the doctrine of the ‘immanent Trinity’ (primarily the link between the Son and the Spirit) remains  Walter Kasper, The Catholic Church: Nature, Reality, and Mission, trans. Thomas Hoebel (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2015), 142. 52

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ecclesiologically irrelevant. Unlike Yves Congar and John Zizioulas, who articulated their synthesis between Christology and pneumatology without any solid reference to the status of the Son and the Spirit in the Trinity, both Dumitru Stăniloae and Walter Kasper harmonized the work of Christ and the Spirit sub specie temporis with their roles sub specie aeternitatis.

Epilogue

Four Questions on the Trinity, Pneumatology, and Jewish-Christian Relations Amy-Jill Levine In November 2015, Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter De Mey invited me to present a paper on the role of the Trinity in Jewish-Christian dialogue. Since I am not a theologian, I proposed, instead, to respond to a theological argument from a biblical perspective. Thus, I came to write a response to Anthony J. Godzieba’s “The Question, ‘To What Question Is Biblical Hermeneutics the Answer?’” From that exercise, as well as from participating in the conference, I realized numerous openings the Trinity, and especially the emphasis on pneumatology, had for such dialogue. Allowing Godzieba’s paper to set the tune for this paper, I address four questions that the papers on the Trinity and pneumatology raise for Jewish-Christian dialogue: (1) What are the songs we are singing? (2) What does a hermeneutics of performance look like? (3) What is the baseline, the heartbeat, of our study? and (4) What new songs might we Jews and Christians sing, whether as a chorus, or antiphonally, or in our own choirs? 1. What Songs Are We Singing? I am not a fan of macro- or meta-analysis, in which a single model, or a system, guides discussion. The single-note approach limits biblical studies rather than allows full appreciation of the diversity of the canons and the texts within them. Each time I read the texts, I find that their diversity rejects any grand scheme. Each time I read a new exegetical study, especially those informed by the subject position of the author, I see new meaning in the text. Here we may find an initial disjunction between (most) biblical interpreters and (most) theologians: the biblical interpreter seeks the diverse chords sounded in the text, puts those chords against the background of the text’s historical contingencies, and then adds the notes of tradition history (Wirkungsgeschichte) and the grace-notes of the subject positions

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of the interpreters; the theologian seeks an overall answer to a single question. For Godzieba, hermeneutics may be the response to finitude and death. For me, hermeneutics in its various forms can also respond to contemporary political and social issues (gender, race, class, ideology…), to one’s personal relationship with the Deity the text both reveals and conceals, and even to more mundane questions of history. Having been technically dead, twice, I do not fear death (although it is dreadfully inconvenient when one has books to complete), and I do not engage biblical studies in light of personal finitude. On the other hand, perhaps finitude, when understood as the constraints of history, as well as the theological/pneumatological/soteriological move to transcend history, has something to offer Jewish-Christian dialogue. For example, Viorel Coman, following John Zizioulas, finds the “Spirit is the beyond history”; it serves to “liberate the Son and the economy from the bondage of history,” and it “makes of Christ an eschatological being.” History can be constraining, but it is not always a form of slavery. The recuperation of history, especially for peoples whose stories have been told by, or replaced by, others, is a form of liberation. The Jesus of history is a source for productive Jewish/Christian dialogue, as is the role of the Spirit as manifested in historical context. Here we have theological work to do: Does viewing the Christ as transcending history lead to a diminution of the Jewish identity of Jesus of Nazareth? Does it erase this identity? Such questions speak directly to John Pawlikowski’s mention of Wesley Ariarajah, who finds that Jesus’ Jewishness “carries little theological significance for him.” Should his Jewishness, his historical embeddedness, carry significance and, if so, what is being signified? Next, Godzieba comments on “the accelerated pace of contemporary life” and how this acceleration “leads paradoxically to its ‘de-temporalization.’” The “presentist” culture, with each import lasting as long as the latest text or tweet, is antithetical to much of religion, and hence the growth of the nones – the non-affiliated, who have no time, literally, for that old-time religion. For the biblicist, presentist culture leads to the conclusion that the text means what we say it means. Should we have any doubts about the authority of our own views (a position known as solipsism), the church is not the most welcoming setting for expressing them. The presentist model, with its individual focus, becomes fertile ground both for eschatology, itself atemporal, and ecstasy, and to those who claim that their revelation, received in trace or vision, is true. Maria

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Woodworth-Etter, described so vividly in John R. Levison’s paper, would be at home here. For biblical studies, atemporality – this focus on the present and the individual and the now, rather than on history and community – means a move to echo-chambers rather than concert halls. Historical-critical work increasingly gives way to the reading “In Front” of the text (to use Ricoeur’s category), and that meaning is narrowed to the self-declared identities of the interpreter: I as a lesbian Methodist from Korea; I as the Lutheran disabled veteran of the First Iraq War; I as the post-Christian, post-colonial, post-modern, post-structural, post-whatever… The ecstatic, individualist model is inevitably nearby. Concerns for the Greek and Hebrew of the original texts fade, as interpretation is based on the latest translation, or at least the one most congenial to the reader. Again, Jesus’ Jewish identity, indeed all of Judaism, is erased in favor of the “now.” When I first arrived at Vanderbilt, I was asked to serve on the qualifying exam committee of a PhD student in New Testament who planned to write a dissertation using a post-colonial lens. I asked the student what I thought would be an easy question: “Can you tell me something about how Rome ran its colonies?” The student responded that such historical-critical issues were irrelevant to the post-colonial project, that all history is written by the historical winners anyway and so is tainted, and that for political reasons the student would not answer my “hegemonic” question. I packed up my books and left the room: with history dismissed and with readings only in front of the text, I had nothing to contribute. Pawlikowski foregrounds a different hermeneutical problem, “individual and communal sinfulness,” even as he correctly notes that other traditions “may ground their hope in different theological visions.” Similarly, Laura Tack suggests that the telos of both Judaism and Christianity is “to dwell in the presence of God,” and Pantelis Kalaitzidis most strongly articulates the claims both that “the identity of the church is eschatological” and that “the essence of Christianity consists in the expectation of the kingdom of God.” In each case, the focus is future oriented; the past and the present are more problems than they are opportunities. Until Jews and Christians can fully discuss our often-tragic pasts and our mutually unknown presents, we are not in a good position to jump to the future. Rather than start with eschatology or soteriology, I’d prefer to start with ethics, and so with the present. I wonder if, for the sake of Jewish-Christian dialogue, teleology could be rekeyed. Kalaitzidis insists

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that the kingdom of God has moral and social, as well as cosmological implications and dimensions: therefore, a discussion between (Christian) Orthodox and (Jewish) Orthodox participants, both invested in religious praxis, might yield a fruitful harvest, especially in terms of how we understand the relationship of the cosmological to the social. For example, Kalaitzidis’ comments on “freedom” resonate not only with the celebration of the Passover, but also with morning prayers (birchot Hashachar) in which the Jew praises the divine for creating us each a “child of freedom” (she-asani ben-chorin). Here, Ekaterini Tsalampouni’s comments on the freedom Paul promotes in 2 Cor 3:17 might also be relevant. Perhaps this freedom includes the freedom to recognize the dangers in the very couplet in which the term appears in Paul’s letter: freedom can also be freedom from any tradition that promotes bigotry. Does our freedom, as Jews and Christians, include the freedom to reject a text, or at least suggest that it not be proclaimed to congregations? If Pauline freedom is based in polemic, in a negativizing of another group such as 2 Cor 3:15-16 suggests, then it is not really freedom but constraint, because its definition is bound to another. I checked, in an admittedly non-scientific way, with members of my Orthodox congregation in Nashville to see what questions they found Judaism to answer. The responses were not about death or the afterlife, and nor were they about sin or hope or even about dwelling in the presence of God. They were about ethics and about human nature; they were about how to live in the world, and how our sacred texts and great teachers, provide multiple views. And while they agreed that the project of life is not complete since the messianic age has not yet arrived, they found themselves already filled with a sense of divine presence. While Christian theologians determine the major question to which there is a singular answer, Jews in the synagogue resist the singular question, which is necessarily detached from history, in favor of the targeted question: we ask not “what do we believe?” but “what should we do?” The answers are, not unexpectedly, debated. Ironically, my Jewish friends would do very well at the schools in Flanders that Ma. Marilou Ibita mentions where “the identity features of openness to diversity and involvement in justice projects seem to be the most open routes for developing proactive and dialogical ways to foster a school’s Catholic identity.” Identity is found, for these students, in ethics rather than in eschatology or, to anticipate my comments on pneumatology, in ecstasy. I also mentioned to my friends in the synagogue that I had just read an article claiming that “the Eucharist” was “the very core and DNA of

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the church’s identity” and that it “constitutes an icon of the coming kingdom of God” (so Kalaitzidis, citing Zizioulas). The claim resonated (after I explained, briefly, what “the Eucharist” is). That we were sitting at a Shabbat meal made the setting appropriate. We Jews recollect in the Shabbat meal the past (the giving of the Torah), assess the present (the ongoing meaning of the parashah just read), and anticipate the future (how what we have heard, discussed, and learned will inform our everyday life). We do this in community, in the Sabbath meal that is always the foretaste of the olam ha-ba, the world to come, the messianic age. The difference is that we Jews at the time had non-Jews at our table (several are regular visitors, the modern equivalents of the ancient godfearers); the Orthodox Eucharist, like the Roman Catholic Eucharist, is closed to us. Thus, to the Orthodox (as well as Roman Catholic and some Protestant perspectives) we Jews pose the difficult question: is the coming kingdom a closed table? Who can participate in its discussion, if not live in its mansions? For much of Jewish hermeneutics, the dominant issue is not how we “reply to finitude and indeed to death itself,” or the tropes of sin, forgiveness, and reconciliation, but rather “how do we live (in community)?” In Christian sources and Christian liturgy, death (and resurrection) are prominent, indeed the prominent topics. The Crucifixion is at the heart of Christian confession; resurrection is at the heart of Christian hope; the Parousia is the fulfillment of the Christian promise. But neither death nor resurrection nor messianic time is the focus of Jewish texts or worship or confession. The more the early Church spoke of death and resurrection and Parousia, that is, of soteriology and eschatology, the more the rabbinic tradition spoke of sanctification in this world through Torah-obedience as understood by the Mishnah, the Talmud, Medieval commentaries, and the ongoing tradition. Even our central Kaddish prayer, used for numerous liturgical purposes including the memorial for the dead, speaks not of either death or resurrection, but of the grandeur of the Deity. Before we can fully have a dialogue, we Jews and Christians need to determine the extent to which we are singing the same song. 2. What Does a Hermeneutics of Performance Look Like? At Vanderbilt, I team-teach a course on the Bible and Classical Music with my colleague, the composer Michael Alec Rose. We begin the

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semester with settings of creation – Josef Haydn, The Creation; Aaron Copland, In the Beginning; Duke Ellington, “In the Beginning God,” from The First Sacred Concert, 1965, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 6. We then ask the students, “Which composer ‘got it right’?” The students, some from quite conservative Christian backgrounds who begin with the view that there is only one way to read the Bible, but the others in the class as well, find their theologies complicated, and thus they become open to new ideas. Once introduced to various interpretations – again to use Ricoeur’s terms: Behind, Within, and In Front of the text – both their performances and their understandings are enhanced. Judaism teaches that there are “seventy faces to the Torah” (Numbers Rabbah 13.15-16) and thus that every verse is open to a myriad of interpretations and so performances. Each one is distinct to the performer and the setting, and each is connected to what is played before and after. So yes, in Godzieba’s terms, Time+Identity can equal hermeneutics. Tack’s approach to John 14:6 provides one example of this approach. Tack recognizes how this exclusivity statement takes on different nuances when read as part of the Last Supper discourses, when seen in connection to the theologically (and not just christologically) determined use of “I am” statements, and when interpreted in light of John’s other uses of the key terms “way,” “truth,” and “life.” Tsalampouni’s reading of 2 Corinthians 3, another difficult text, reveals the same potentialities and pitfalls. Both authors seek a way of continuing to sing the songs of these verses, verses which have proved stumbling blocks (or worse) in JewishChristian dialogue. Whether their performances of these verses, orchestrated with other instruments and seen in eschatological timing, redeem the text, or whether the contested verses still sound ugly to Jews, Christians, or both, will remain a matter of theological taste, informed by reception history. Tack finds in John 3:16, the notice that God loves the world, a universalism that can challenge the particularism of John 14:6. My own readings are less positive. In response to this divine love in John 3:16, the Gospel depicts the “world” and the “Jews” (the terms are mutually implicated) as opposing this divine love; thus, the verse functions, in the Johannine narrative, to show just how fallen, and how damned, the world and the Jews are. No wonder there is a need for “many mansions” away from the world and the Jews. Nor do I find the Johannine Jesus to be the “way” because of “what he does.” The Johannine Jesus is the way because of “who he is,” the “only begotten son of God,” the “Incarnate Logos.” Whereas the “house of the Father” may refer to

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the Jerusalem Temple, Jesus himself replaces that Temple as well as the Samaritan sacred site of Mt. Gerizim (4:23). I have no problem with the claim that for Paul, “It is the Spirit who is the revealer of the power of the God and to whom the Jews have now to return” (so Tsalampouni). I do have a problem with the claim itself, especially since it is not spoken to Jews but to gentiles. Tsalampouni states, twice, “Admittedly, Paul’s tone here remains polemical” – yes, and with that admission, conversation may be foreclosed. Therefore we need to discuss: does polemic preclude conversation? As for finding a “common experience of the two communities,” again I have concerns about history. The link “between Israel’s past and the Church’s present” can lead to the history of Israel becoming (only) the history of the church, or a supersessionist reading that Israel according to the flesh has lost its legacy. Like land, history too can be colonized. Is there room in theology, perhaps informed by the ongoing teaching of the Spirit, for a biblical text to be found as no longer speaking to the present? If the Spirit can open questions of women’s ordination and homosexuality (see below), can it not open questions of biblical authority? Are there some texts that can no longer be proclaimed “as gospel” but should remain as warnings of the limitations of the human capacity for kindness, mercy, and pluralism? If the Pauline and Johannine songs are to be sung, they should be sung with a warning label. Like Bach’s St. John’s Passion, the verses can be seen as beautiful; they should also be seen as a problem. Tsalampouni’s recognition of Paul’s polemic, the dissonance that keeps 2 Corinthians from any easy use in Jewish-Christian dialogue, is a place where our own (individual and communal) senses of biblical authority must be addressed. It is our task to determine when to sing the song, when to protest it, and when to walk out of the performance. Finally, the topic of ecstasy could hold potential for Jewish-Christian dialogue, although I worry that the topic would eventually lead to apophatic theology, and thus literally say nothing. John Levinson’s contrapuntal descriptions of the labors of Hermann Gunkel and Maria Woodworth-Etter, his appeal to Philo, Jahaziel, and the Pentecost scene set out models of ecstasy. Each example could find valuable connections both in mystical Judaism and in the (often critical) Jewish response toward personal mystical experience. Woodworth-Etter labors among the stalks and Gunkel labors among the stacks, but both are individuals, in multiple senses of the term, and both, especially in the context of this conference, strike me as echt

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Protestant. Woodworth-Etter’s ecstasy is an individual performance, even if its effects were sometimes contagious. Gunkel’s scholarship is similarly individual, even if he influences others by his writings. The Jewish tradition promotes a communitarian model: worship is the voice of Israel, the people; revelation comes to the people and not to the individual; interpretation is based on dialogue and debate with others in the community and not simply in a recuperation of past texts. In the Trinity of Jews, Catholics/Orthodox and Protestants, the Protestants – in personal ecstasy or singular scholarship apart from a magisterium or rabbinic body – may find themselves the outliers. What Levison finds to be intellectual acuity combined with ecstasy, I see to be apologetic repurposing of known forms (we could both be right here; much depends on the questions we ask, or the songs we sing). Whereas Levison insists that “inspiration occurs in community,” that is not how the texts depict the performances. An individual may belong to a community, whether by genealogy (Jahaziel) or delegation (Philo) or apostolic commission (the people at Pentecost), but the inspiration remains focused on the individual. I also have my suspicions about the Chronicler and Luke. Jahaziel’s speech is a mash-up of earlier materials, and I wonder if Luke has repurposed the glossolalia Paul notes in Corinth: no utterances in need of an interpreter for Luke, but xenoglossia and so comprehensible messages. I see the attempt to make the derivative ecstatic (Chronicler) and the ecstatic logical (Luke, who similarly cleans up the reputations of Paul and Jesus). Finally, I have my doubts about Levison’s claim that “The genius of early Judaism and Christianity [which reaches its apex in Luke’s interpretation of Pentecost,] is the ability to embrace and to communicate the symbiosis of ecstasy and intellectual acuity.” How ironic that the genius of Early Judaism appears in a text, mostly likely written by a gentile to a predominantly gentile audience, that accuses the Jews of killing the “author of life” (Acts 3:15). But I am being fussy. Despite the apocalyptic currents in some streams of early Judaism, I see more of the ecstatic in the gentile-based Jesus-following communities than I do at Qumran, in Josephus and Philo, in what we know of the Temple and the synagogues, and in the Scriptures of Israel. Then again, I may be reflecting my own Litvak sensibilities in contrast to the Hasidic movement, and so I find myself in dialogue here with both Pawlikowski and his references to the work of Shaul Magid and “incarnational theology.” That we Jews do not agree should not surprise.

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3. What Is the Baseline, the Heartbeat, of Our Study? Godzieba’s composes a coherent hermeneutic based in a set of “origins” defined as the “practices of Jesus of Nazareth and his followers.” It is not clear to me, however, why these practices, necessarily selective, are the only baseline. These practices themselves are based on anterior compositions played on different instruments: the Promises to Abraham, the Torah of Moses, the voices of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Ruth and Esther and Judith. Jesus himself riffed on these pieces: the Sermon on the Mount draws from Mt. Sinai’s teachings; Mary’s Magnificat is a reprise of Hannah’s song; John’s prologue and the Christ hymn of Philippians find their origins in the journey of Wisdom/Sophia; the spirit that blows through the Gospels and that finds development in the Patristic sources Wolfgang Vondey delineates first hovered over the deep in Genesis. And yet, these anterior pieces are lost to the performers and the congregation. Today’s jazz has its origins in West African call-and-response and Eastern European Jewish klezmer, but today’s improvisors do not know their roots and sometimes actively deny them. Christian discipleship when detached from its Jewish roots, detached from its base-line, the one shared by Jesus and his fellow Jews, has no beat, no heartbeat. What then does the Gospel sound like, if this baseline is recovered? Along with recovering the baseline such that Christian hermeneutics does not lose its “Old Testament” timbre, I wonder why many if not most Christians interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue and hermeneutics are delighted to recover the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, Josephus, and especially Philo but do not go to the Rabbinic sources (a marvelous example of this selective recovery of Jewish sources is the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s 2002 statement, “The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible”: lots of commentary on Hellenistic Judaism and the Scrolls; almost nothing from Rabbinic tradition and so from the branch of Second Temple Judaism that continues into the living community of Jews). If the point is interreligious dialogue, then all participants need to be cognizant not only of Jewish history up to the turn of the eras, but of how that history plays out over time. Similarly, Jews need to know not just the New Testament, but its diverse reception history. To have Jewish-Christian dialogue, one needs not only Jewish and Christian ears and mouths, it requires Jewish and Christian sources. Post-biblical Jewish sources are rarely if ever

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mentioned in the pages of these essays. Jews would not typically, I think, cite Gnostic texts or Codex Beza in Jewish-Christian dialogue; why then the fascination of what Jews, today, do not consider kosher? And why, in discussion of pneumatology, ignore rabbinic and later Jewish understandings of the Ruach Elohim of Genesis 1 and its 15 other uses in the Tanakh. On the question of reception, technical terminology is important. Vondey speaks of “Judeo-Christian Hermeneutics.” I don’t think I’ve ever met a “Judeo-Christian” (although I have met a number of Marcionists). If by “Judeo-Christian” Vondey means “Old Testament plus Christian thought,” then a better term is needed, such as, well, “Christian,” since “Christian” presupposes the Old Testament. While Jews and Christians share books in common, be they Genesis or Isaiah or the Psalms, we are not reading the same texts. Jews are reading in Hebrew, Catholics and Protestants in the vernacular, and the Eastern communions are reading the Greek; we read in different canonical order and through different lenses. I even wonder if we are speaking of the same score. For Vondey, “the center of Judeo-Christian controversy is theological” and the focus is “theological reconciliation.” The formulation is a formulation in Christian terms. For Jews, the “center” of discussion might be the people Israel, or the land of Israel, or the place of Torah. Further, I am less interested in “theological reconciliation” (Vondey’s term) than I am in understanding and respect. Reconciliation suggests to me a resolving of the discord; I am inclined to keep the discordance in place, as itself a beautiful musical form although I grant not to everyone’s taste. 4. Can We Sing a New Song? Godzieba, following Odo Marquard, proposes that hermeneutics is a “way of changing where no change is possible.” In my view, if we begin with “no change is possible,” we begin with an attitude of defeat. For example, increasingly throughout the globe, questions of gender and sexuality occupy the news: same-sex marriage, gender identity and transsexuality, access to abortion and birth control, femicide by incels (“involuntary [male] celibates”), and so on. Psychological studies reveal that sexual identity is fluid, and that the body’s display and the brain’s disclosure may be disharmonious. Laws across the globe are changing; as I am typing this paragraph, women in Argentina are protesting the lack

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of access to safe and legal abortions and Ireland is getting ready to vote on the legalization of abortion. Might Jewish-Christian dialogue, informed by the ongoing meaning of the text, or pneumatology, have something to contribute to such discussions? Kalaitzidis raises not only the question of women’s ordination but also matters of gender and (homo) sexuality in light of the implications for “future-oriented hermeneutics.” There the Orthodox (Christian and Jewish) are locked into tradition, and here the “highly contested dialectic between necessity and freedom, or nature and personhood” requires more attention from both communities. Kalaitzidis also asks why (Christian) Orthodoxy has “not developed a political theology in the liberating and radical sense of the term”: the same question also may be applied to branches of Jewish Orthodoxy. We “must do something,” as Godzieba insists. But that something has to be more than “interpret”: we must also, necessarily, act on the truths we have determined, or that determine us. Perhaps it is the Spirit that will guide us. The students discussed in Ibita’s paper are, I suspect, tired of “talking” about issues when nothing changes in practice. If churches let the Spirit do its (her?) work, then these students might have greater respect for their religious identity. Vondey finds that “Pneumatology in Jewish thought is little pronounced” and Jewish pneumatology is “widely concerned with the human being and not the divine nature.” However, it may be Jewish pneumatology that opens the way for a broader discussion of the very issues of justice that engage the students surveyed in Flanders and that warrant the changes hermeneutics seeks to create. Throughout the conference, and despite numerous comments on matters of gender and sexuality, the papers did not fully introduce gender into discussions of the Trinity and pneumatology. That could be a productive next step. Pawlikowski states, “There is a richness in terms such as Ruach, Pneuma, and Shekinah that can contribute both to a specifically Christian theological approach to interreligious encounter.” Ibita too adduces the Shekinah for enhancing Catholic education. Each of their essays calls for a deeper discussion of the Shekinah, in its gendered particularity. The gendered spirit may provide guidance for questions of gender and sexuality today, including the questions about marriage and the family which served as Godzieba’s example of how hermeneutics might work. The Spirit, for Jews, is female, and the feminine here is not limited to a grammatical form. She is the ruach in Genesis 1, the shekinah of the Rabbinic tradition (b. Sanh 39a; b. Shabb 12b; b. Meg 29a, etc.), the

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female manifestation of the divine in Kabbalah. For the Church, the spirit is either neuter (Greek pneuma) or male (the Latin spiritus). The female aspect of the divine had to go somewhere in Greek- and Latinspeaking Christianity, so she early on became a component of Mariology. In turn, Jews needed to respond to the compelling image of Mary, the Queen of heaven, and so the development of the Shekhinah may be a response to Mariology (similarly, Mary replaces Eve as the true virgin who does not sin just as Jesus replaces Adam; the Jewish community, needing its own response to Eve, invents Lilith, compared to whom Eve looks splendid). Questions for discussion are numerous. For example, is the female Spirit as much of a stumbling block to Christians as the incarnate or triune God is to Jews? Does the fluidity of bodies including Jesus’ complications of gender roles and corporeal fluidity – he is the word/memre/ logos who descends and ascends, as does Wisdom; he refuses male privilege; he does not mark his gender identity by marriage and children but rather praises those who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom; power flows from him, as liquids flow from bodies, to heal a hemorrhaging woman; on the cross he gives birth to the church in the parturient flow of blood and water; he is both slain lamb and mighty warrior; he walks through walls and eats breakfast; he is known in the breaking of bread but not by sight… – open space where Jesus-as-Spirit can walk together with the Shekhinah, serving the same role and providing the same guidance? Is the Word to be coded neuter or masculine, or something more fluid, as its performance in Semitic languages intimates? Is the Logos to be understood as (feminine) wisdom (Sophia) incarnate, or does the Logos coopt the feminine presence of the divine? Does discussion of the gender of the Spirit, and the implications of gender roles in antiquity and today, allow for broader discussions of the gender roles of Father and Son? Coman’s paper on the filioque provides another opportunity, more centered in the symposium than in the soup kitchen, for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Just as we can inquire of the Spirit, so we can ask about the Shekinah: is she part of the revelatory enterprise, or is she sent? Does she fit into what Coman calls the “messianic schema of revelation”? As the work of the Christ depends on the Spirit (pneumatological Christology), so does the practice of the Jew depend on the Shekinah (pneumatological anthropology, as it were)? The filioque mode, which “leads automatically to the subordination of the Spirit to the Christ” matches the Jewish

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liturgical mode that subordinates the female Shekinah to the (now identified as male) God. I also wonder to what extent the Shekinah as a (potentially) subordinate figure creates a Jewish complement to the “subordination of charism to institution, personal freedom to [synagogue] authority, the prophetic element to the juridical one, mysticism to scholasticism, common priesthood to hierarchical priesthood, and finally, episcopal collegiality to the primacy of Rome.” Does the emphasis on theology over pneumatology necessarily create hierarchy? Could it instead serve to curtail individuals who would promote their own revelation over that of the community (one thinks of Philo, or Jesus, or Paul)? How does one avoid the abuse that the personal, the idiosyncratic, and the ecstatic can promote? (I dearly hope that Levison is correct in seeing the ecstatic espoused to the intellectual, but that connection may not be enough.) Finally, Ibita proposes a “Shekinah Christology” model for Catholic religious education. I appreciate the concept, but I suggest the terminology needs reframing. The Shekinah develops in post-biblical Judaism, and thus it is not part of Christian origins. It may well have developed in response to Christian pneumatology and Mariology. I do not think that Catholic religious education should be based on a Jewish conceptional model that is not part of the common root of Church and Synagogue. There is richness enough in various forms of Christian pneumatology and Trinitarian thought, to which these seminar papers bear witness. And there is impetus from the role of the Spirit to turn from academic discussion to action. I initially had strong doubts that Trinitarian or pneumatological thinking had anything to contribute to Jewish-Christian dialogue. I was wrong. Perhaps the Spirit/Shekinah moved me to a deeper appreciation for the potential of the subjects. But I can confirm, with Levison’s model, that this spiritual revelation fits neatly with intellectual concerns. Who knew?

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List of Contributors Viorel Coman is a post-doctoral researcher of the Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (FWO) at the Research Unit Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Anthony Godzieba is Professor of Fundamental Theology, Systematic Theology, Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology at Villanova University in Villanova, PA, USA. Ma. Marilou S. Ibita is a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Unit Biblical Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Pantelis Kalaitzidis is a Professor and the Director of Volos Academy for Theological Studies at the Hellenic Open University in Volos, Greece. Amy-Jill Levine is a University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences in Nashville, TN, USA. John R. (Jack) Levison is the W. J. A. Power Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew, at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA. John T. Pawlikowski is Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics and former Director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union, part of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools in Chicago, IL, USA. Laura Tack is a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Unit Biblical Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Ekaterini Tsalampouni is an Associate Professor at the School of Pastoral and Social Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Wolfgang Vondey is a Professor of Christian Theology and Pentecostal Studies, the Director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, and the Head of Postgraduate Studies Research at the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham in Birmingham, UK.

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