PAUL’S theologia crucis ÁS
AN INTERMEDIATE STAGE
OF THE TRAJECTORY FROM Q TO MARK
I
One
of the major issues, which occupies serious biblical scholarship during the last
decades, is the study of Q. Not so much as a solution to the Synoptic problem,
but because of the effects it has caused to the conventional picture of
Christian origins, which dominated biblical scholarship for almost a century.
The well-known to scholarly circles second source of the Synoptic tradition, now
lost, seems to expound a radically different theological view from the
mainstream kerygmatic expression of the early Church. Taken together with
the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, the widely held among scholars conviction
of the existence of an early “Christian” document (Q, i.e. a document with a
semi-canonical status) lacking not only (i) a historical structure of Jesus’
life of a Gospel type, i.e. with a “Passion and Resurrection Story”, but
also (ii) any reference of the soteriological significance of Jesus’ death,[i]
“challenges the assumption that the early Church was unanimous in making
Jesus' death and resurrection the fulcrum of Christian faith.”[ii]
The results of recent research on Q “has revealed the complexity of early
Christian literary activity and also contributed to a reassessment of the
originating impulse(s) of the whole Christian movement”.[iii]
In
fact, the challenge of Q to the conventional picture of Christian origins, and
by extension also to the quest of the Historical Jesus and the predominance of
the pauline interpretation of the Christ event, is more far-reaching than the
making of a little room for yet “another Gospel,” another early Christian
community etc. If Q is taken seriously into account the entire landscape of
early Christianity with all that it entails may need to be radically revised, at
least thoroughly reconsidered.[iv]
Of course, there have been voices from the discipline of Archeology for
some time now,[v] pointing out that the
extant archaeological evidence supports this view.[vi]
But none (or very few) could have ever listen to them, nor was biblical
scholarship ready to review or put to a test the conventional picture of early
Christianity. Yet, a quarter of a century ago a number of scholars from all
Christian traditions tried to analyze the origin of the theological
significance of Jesus' death.[vii] They all illustrated that there was no unanimity among the first
Christians with regard to the interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross. In
fact, there was a considerable variety of attempts to give a theological
interpretation to Jesus' death.[viii]
Besides the so-called “soteriological” interpretation, according to
which the raison d’ être of
Jesus' death on the cross was the salvation of humankind, one can count at least
another four (4) crystallized interpretative attempts, with which the early
Christian community was trying to grasp the mystery of the crucifixion:
(a)
The "prophetic" interpretation,[ix]
according to which Jesus' death was given no expiatory significance, being
rather seen as the true continuation of the persecution, sufferings and violent
end of the Old Testament prophets.
(b)
The "dialectic" interpretation,[x]
according to which Jesus' death was dialectically contrasted[xi]) to the resurrection with the stress on the latter, making again no
soteriological hint to the cross.
(c)
The "apocalyptic" (or "eschatological")
interpretation,[xii] where too Jesus' death is
referred to as having no soteriological significance, but was seen as an
eschatological act in full agreement with the divine plan. And finally,
(d)
the "eucharistic" or "covenantal" interpretation,[xiii]
pointing also to other than the expiatory significance of Jesus' death. His
blood has rather sealed the new covenant that God established with his people.
The almost unanimous preference, I concluded my analysis almost 20 years
ago,[xiv]
in the later New Testament literature to the so-called “soteriological”
interpretation, which of course can surely be traced to the period before Paul's
conversion (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3ff.), was “due to its hellenistic background,
compared with the more or less Jewish background of all the other
interpretations”. I stretched a little further my argument advancing the
hypothesis that:
“the lack of any
reference in other pre-pauline strata of the early Christian tradition…would
suggest a limited usage in the early Christian community. On the other hand, the
prophetic interpretation, traces of which are found in almost all layers of
primitive Christianity (Q-community, hellenistic community, marcan community,
pauline community), suggests that it was widespread during this creative
period”.[xv]
Few years ago I argued that:
“the time has
come for scholarly research to distance itself as much as possible from the
dominant to modern scholarship syndrome of the priority of the texts over the
experience, of theology over ecclesiology. There are many scholars who cling to
the dogma, imposed by the post-Enlightenment and post-Reformation hegemony over
all scholarly theological outlook (and not only in the field of biblical
scholarship or of Protestant theology), which can be summarized as follows: what
constitutes the basis of any historical investigation, the core of Christian
faith, cannot be extracted but from given texts (and/or archeological evidence),
from the expressed theological views, from a certain depositum
fidei (be it the Bible, the Church (or apostolic) Tradition
etc.); very rarely is there any serious reference to the
eucharistic/eschatological experience that preceded them, in fact from the
communion-event which was responsible and produced these texts and views”.[xvi]
These
views were met with criticism on the basis of a suspicion of a latent return to
the pre-critical approach to the Gospels, and were further connected with my
expressed post-modern concerns.[xvii]
I do not hide my discontent of modernism, if not for anything else at least
because it has over-rationalized everything from social and public life to
scholarship, from emotion to imagination, seeking to over-control and -limit the
irrational, the aesthetic and perhaps even the sacred. In its search to
rationalize and historicize all, modernism has transformed not only what we know
and how we know it, but also how we understand ourselves. Hence the longing by a
wide range of intellectuals (not limited to scholars) for wholeness, for
community, for Gemeinschaft, for an antidote to the fragmentation and
sterility of an overly technocratic society, and at the end of the road a
content to post-modernism. Having said all these, it is important to reaffirm
what sociologists of knowledge very often point out, i.e. that modernism,
counter (alternative) modernism, post-modernism, and even de-modernism, are
always simultaneous processes. Otherwise post-modernism can easily end up and
evaporate to a neo-traditionalism, and at the end a neglect or even negation of
the great achievements of the Enlightenment and the ensuing critical order and
of course the democratic structure of our (Western) society.[xviii]
I
felt obliged to affirm all these and reaffirm that all I argued for was a
reminder of the priority of the eschatological experience of the early
Christian community over against its literary products (texts, Bible
etc), admitting
of course at the same time that
“ very early, even from the time
of St. Paul, there has been a shift - no matter for what reasons[xix]-
of the center of gravity from the (eucharistic)
experience to the (Christian) message,
from eschatology to christology
(and further and consequently to soteriology),
from the event
(the Kingdom of God), to
the bearer and center of this event (Christ,
and more precisely his sacrifice on the cross).... (concluding)
that the horizontal-eschatological view was the predominant one in the
early Church, both in the New Testament and in subsequent Christian literature.
The vertical-soteriological (and pauline) view was always understood within the
context of the horizontal-eschatological perspective as supplemental and
complementary.[xx]
This, however, is not something uncommon, even among the most fervent
supporters of modernism within biblical scholarship of our time. More and more
studies come out, and more and more scholars appear, admitting the priority of
the “eucharistic” behaviour and/or “common meal” eschatological
anticipation of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries, of Jesus himself “eating
together” with his disciples, and of course of the early Christian community.[xxi] This wide recognition of the importance of what has come to be called
Eucharist in dealing with Christian origins, brought new dimension to the
understanding of its earliest stages. We are talking, of course, of the
Eucharist neither in the sense of a mystery cult, nor as a mere ritual, but as
the living expression of the ecclesial identity of the early Christian
community, an expression of a koinonia of the eschata, and a proleptic
manifestation of the Kingdom of God, a vivid act of a community living in a new
reality.
The issue at stake, therefore, is how our Jesus-tradition-literature
moved from an eschatological, experiential, didactic (saying
[sophiological]?)[xxii]
pattern, to a historical Markan type. To put it in different
terms, how the ritual developed into a story. How we moved from
Paul, who did not care about the Jesus of History (II
Cor 5: 16f), to a pauline Gospel of Mark. And equally, how one can
explain the trajectory of Jesus’ traditions from a (non-pauline) Saying
literary genre (Q and Thomas) to a Story literary genre (Mark and then the rest
of the canonical Gospels).
Previously,
before the consolidation of the Q hypothesis, everything was woven around the
assumption of a soteriological emphasis from the very beginning of the Christian
origins. According to this explanation the trajectory goes as follows:
The
soteriological significance of Jesus of Nazareth -> Paul -> Post-pauline
Christianity (Gospels: Mark etc. - John) ->and then on to Catholic/Orthodox
Christianity.
The
new explanation, on the contrary, places a great deal of importance on the
assumption of the priority of the eschatological teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,
being re-enacted and performed around the “common-meal” eschatological
fellowships, and the ensuing “eucharistic” expression of the first Christian
community. According to this analysis the early Christian community was
developed in two trajectories:
(i)
Q -> James -> Didache -> Thomas..... and then on to marginal Christian
groups, especially Gnostic Christianity.
(ii)
Paul -> Mark -> Acts ....and then on to early Orthodoxy.
It
is quite interesting that the later Catholic/Orthodox Christianity preserved
both the eucharistic/eschatological element, prominent to the first trajectory,
and the soteriological/christological one, around which the second trajectory
was developed.
With regard to the Marcan-Q relations I hinted in an earlier study that
Mark did “have (a) knowledge
of Q-traditions….. he was acquainted
with the Q-Document itself…. (he did not) derive
any material therefrom….(because) his attitude to the Q-materials (was)
critical”.[xxiii]
And this might have been due to Q’s non-soteriological motifs and
perhaps to its non-theologia-crucis orientation, which the pauline tradition was so depended upon.
I
take for granted the findings of some (cultural) anthropologists, that in
Israel, like in all societies and religious systems, the connection between
ritual and story was fundamental. The main story of the Jewish people, the
exodus from Egypt, was ritually re-enacted in Israel's major festival, the
Passover. And the main promise of Jahwe to his people, i.e. his unilateral
covenant to all descendants of Jacob (Israel), was re-enacted in rituals and
offerings during all their annual festivals. We also know that these promises of
the blessings of that covenant had been a hope
rather than a reality, which nevertheless stayed alive and was constantly
renewed up to the time of the Historical Jesus. In all its forms (Isaianic,
Danielic, Enochic or Qumranic) this hope was celebrated around their common
meals in anticipation of the coming of the messianic meal with the anointed
priest and/or the anointed king. And there were numerous prophets during
Jesus’ time who attempted to re-enact or to prepare for the messianic
liberation of Israel.
Coming now to Jesus of Nazareth there is good evidence in all gospel
accounts that he, too, celebrated common meals with his disciples and friends,
and this not only because he certainly was a devoted Jew, “marginal” or not.
And there is no reason to doubt that the early Christian communities celebrated
common meals in anticipation to the eschatological/ messianic reality. Most
probably the Christian community meals had its origin in meals that Jesus
celebrated with his disciples. The question which arises is whether these meals
can be reduced only to the last one, commonly called “Last Supper”, before
his execution. Paul, our earliest source, seems to anchor the eucharistic
tradition he received in the historical situation of the last meal of Jesus with
his disciples. Thus, he claims a continuity between the meal celebrated by the
community with the meal celebrated by Jesus in the night in which he was handed
over.
Recent studies on the original form of the eucharistic accounts of the
N.T. have shown that Jesus' last meal, as well as the other common meals, must
have been understood in eschatological
rather that soteriological sense, i.e.
as anticipation of the banquet of God, the banquet in the Kingdom of God.
Whatever soteriological significance was later attached to them was certainly
understood only within this eschatological perspective, never outside it.
It is not only (i) the apparent eschatological orientation of the overall
“institution narratives” in all their forms (Marcan/Matthaean and
Pauline/Lucan); it is also clear that (ii) the saying of the cup
in its oldest form was not centered on the content of the cup (the wine, and
further through the sacrificial meaning of Jesus’ blood, on its soteriological
significance), but on the cup as the symbol of the new covenant;[xxiv]
and above all, (iii) the bread in its
original meaning was not connected with Jesus’ crucified body, but had
ecclesiological connotations, starting as a symbol of the eschatological
community. Justin Taylor has convincingly argued for the eschatological
importance of the “breaking of the bread” in early Christianity.[xxv]
Perhaps the intermediate stage in the overall process was the pauline image
[term?] “body of Christ”.
The story of Jesus' suffering and death remained fluid for a long time.
Evidence for this are the different versions of the passion narrative in the
Gospel literature, owing to the oral performance of the story in ritual
celebrations. As the early faithful in their ritual celebrations were reading
again and again the O.T. lessons and then told the story of Jesus' death, that
story was enriched by more scriptural language.
At this stage Paul’s theological interpretation of Jesus’ death
through his famous theologia crucis –
in fact his major contribution to Christianity – played a catalytic role. In
view of the fact that, it is stories that create nations, and more precisely
stories that can function as a founding element in any religious system, the story
of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection – and by extension the Gospel
narratives – proved to be a significant factor in Christianity, by which its
original eschatological dimension was able to survive and have a lasting
impact in the course of history. The new eschatological community, which
expressed its identity in eucharistic ritual, could only be nourished by
this version of the story, namely the passion narrative, a version derived from
ritual, and which in turn has ultimately its roots in the meal practices of
Jesus.
The theologia crucis, the
story, and the soteriological interpretation of Jesus’ death in the course of
history eventually overwhelmed the earlier ethical, eucharistic and
eschatological understanding of Christian identity. Ironically enough, the same
process was in force in the understanding of the Sacrament of the Eucharist,
where for most of the time the personalistic and soteriological elements
overwhelmed the prominent eschatological and ecclesiological ones; not as a
deviation and corrupted additional elements, but as a necessary surviving
process.
[ii]
H. Koester,
Ancient
Christian Gospels. Their
History and Development, SCM
London, TPI Philadelphia 1990,
p.
86.
[iii]
H. W. Attridge, “Reflections on Research into Q,” Semeia
55 (1991) 223-34, p.223.
[iv]
Cf. P. Vassiliadis,
“Pauline Theology, the Origins of Christianity and the Challenge of
Q. A Personal Journey,” L. Padovese (ed.), Atti
del V Simposio di Tarso su S. Paolo Apostolo, Rome
1998, pp. 41-60.
[v]
G.
Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before
Constantine, Mercer GA 1985. Also L. M. White’s more recent two-volume
work in the Harvard Theological Studies, entitled The Social Origins of
Christian Architecture (Vol. I: Building God’s House in the Roman
World: Architectural Adaptations Among Pagans, Jews and Christians; and
vol. II: Texts and Monuments for the Christian Domus Ecclesiae in its
Environment), Valley Forge 1996 and 1997 respectively.
[vi]
Snyder e.g. has pointed out that "”from 180 to 400 artistic analogies
of self-giving, suffering, sacrifice, or incarnation are totally missing.
The suffering Christ on a cross first appeared in the fifth century, and
then not very convincingly.” Snyder, of course, interprets these exemplars
of early Christian iconography as representative of popular Christian
religion as opposed to official Christian religion, simply because as an archeologist he did not scrutinize theologically
his extraordinary findings. "There is no place in the third century [or
earlier] for a crucified Christ, or a symbol of divine death. Only when
Christ was all powerful, as in the iconography of the Emperor, could that
strength be used for redemption and salvation as well as deliverance" (Graydon
Snyder, Ante Pacem, p. 29)
[vii]
Cf. H.Kessler, Die theologische Bedeutung des Todes Jesu. Eine
traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, Düsseldorf 1970;
K.Kertelge
(ed.), Der Tod Jesu. Deutungen im Neuen Testament, Freiburg 1976;
O.Knoch, "Zur Diskussion über die Heilsbedeutung des Todes
Jesu," Theologisches Jahrbuch 1977/78, Leipzig 1978; G.
Delling, Der Kreuzestod Jesu in der urchristlichen Verkündigung, Göttingen
1972; M. Hengel, The Atonement. The Origins of the Doctrine in the New
Testament, Philadelphia 1981; F.-J. Ortkemper, Das Kreuz in der Verkündigung
des Apostels Paulus dargestellt an den Texten der paulinischen Hauptbriefe,
Stuttgart 1967; J.Roloff, "Anfange der soteriologischen Deutung des
Todes Jesu (Mk X.45 und Lk XXII.27)," NTS 19 (1972), pp. 38-64;
and M.-L.Gubler, Die frühesten Deutungen des Todes Jesu. Eine
motivgeschichtliche Darstellung auf Grund der neueren exegetische Forschung,
Fribourg 1977; and P. Vassiliadis, Cross and Salvation. The
Soteriological Background of St. Pau1's Teaching about the Cross in the
Light of the Pre-Pauline Interpretation of Jesus' Death, Thessaloniki 1983
(in Greek, an English summary of which can be found in “Óôáõñüò:
Centre of the Pauline Soteriology and Apostolic Ministry,” A. Vanhoye
[ed.], L’Apôtre Paul.
Personnalité, Style et Conception du Ministère, Leuven
1986, pp. 246-253).
[viii]P.Vassiliadis,
Cross and Salvation, pp. 47ff.
[ix]
Traces of the “prophetic” interpretation are found in the earliest
pauline epistle (1 Thes 2:15), the Acts (7:52), the Marcan tradition (cf.
Mark 12:1-12 par) and the Q-Document.
[x]
This is found in the earliest and most traditional strata of Acts (2:23ff.;
2:32ff.; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:39f.) and the pauline literature (1 Thes 4:14;
Rom 8:34; 14:19a; 2 Cor 13:4).
[xi]J.
Roloff ("Anfange
der soteriologischen Deutung..”, p.
39) calls it Kontrastschema.
[xii]
Cf. the synoptic
passion predictions (Mark 8:31 par; 9:31 par; 10:33 par).
[xiii]
Cf. the earliest layers of the eucharistic tradition both in Paul and the
Synoptic Gospels (1 Cor 11:25 par.; also Mark 10:45a; Luke 22:37b; 12:37b).
[xiv]
Cross
and Salvation, pp.
58.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi]
P. Vassiliadis, “The Challenge of Q. The Cynic Hypothesis,”
ËOÃOI
IHÓOY.
Studies in Q, pp. 151f. Cf.
also idem, “Pauline Theology, the Origins of Christianity and the
Challenge of Q,” p. 57; and “The Eucharistic Perspective of the
Church’s Mission,” Eucharist and Witness. Orthodox Perspectives on the Unity and
Mission of the Church, WCC Publications/ HC Orthodox Press,
Geneva/Boston 1998, 49-66, p
50.
[xvii]
P. Vassiliadis, “Prolegomena to Theology of the New Testament,” Deltion
Biblikon Meleton 19 (2000) 5-21 (in Greek).
[xviii]
The rationalistic sterility of modern life, has turned to the quest for
something new, something radical, which nevertheless is not always new, but
very often old recycled: neo-romanticism, neo-mysticism, naturalism, etc. In
fact, all these neo-isms share a great deal in common with the early 18th
century reactions to the modernist revolution.
[xix]Bruce
Chilton (A Feast of Meanings.
Eucharistic Theologies from Jesus through Johannine Circles,
Leiden 1994) has
discerned six such paradigm shifts from Jesus’ time to the johannine
circles. D. Passakos (Eucharist
and Mission in Greek, Athens 1997, p.
267) analyzed this “paradigm shift” at that crucial moment of early
Christianity and claimed that “the
Eucharist in Paul” was understood not only as an icon of the eschata, but
also as a missionary event with cosmic and social consequences. The
Eucharist for him was not only the sacrament of the Church, but also the
sacrament of the world. Within the pauline communities the Eucharist had a
double orientation (in contrast to the overall eschatological and
otherworldly dimension of it in earlier tradition): towards the world as diastolic
movement, and towards God as a systolic
movement.” According to Passakos “the Eucharist for Paul is at the same
time an experience of the eschata and a movement toward the eschata”
(p. 268).
[xx]This
is why the liturgical experience of the early Church is incomprehensible
without its social dimension (see Acts 2.42ff., 1 Cor 11.1ff., Heb 13.10-16;
Justin, 1 Apology 67;
Irenaeus, Adver. Her. 18.1, etc.).
[xxi]
Cf. H. Koester’s recent lecture on “Story and Ritual in Greece, Rome and
Early Christianity,” (http://
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/symposium/story.html). Also
B. Chilton, A Feast of Meanings; and
E. Nodet - J. Taylor, The Origins of Christianity: An Exploration,
The Liturgical Press, Collegeville 1998.
[xxii]
My argument in what follows is not affected by the dispute over the priority
in Q of the wisdom or apocalyptic element. More on this in J. S. Kloppenborg
The Formation of Q: Trajectories in
Ancient Wisdom Collections, Philadelphia 1987.
[xxiii]
P.Vassiliadis, "Prolegomena to a Discussion on the Relationship Between
Mark and the Q-Document," Deltion Biblikon Meleton 3 (1975)
31-46, p. 45.
[xxiv]
Cf. my “The Biblical Foundation of the Eucharistic Ecclesiology,” Lex
Orandi. Studies of Liturgical Theology, EKO 9 Thessaloniki
1994 , pp. 29ff.
[xxv]
J. Taylor, "La fraction du pain en Luc-Actes", in: J.
Verheyden (ed.), The Unity of Luke-Acts, Leuven 1999 pp. 281-295; cf.
also E. Nodet - J. Taylor, The Origins of Christianity, pp. 88-123.