"'Jesus as the Holy One of God"

Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism

(Image from JGRChJ Site)

A scholar-friend (John C. Poirier) and I have had a jointly authored article accepted by the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, as a recent email from one of the editors informs us:

[Y]our article 'Jesus as the Holy One of God: The Healing of the Zavah in Mark 5.24b-34' . . . . got a great review . . . . We are happy to accept this article for publication in vol. 8 of the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism . . . . [Y]our article will probably . . . appear . . . [in] early 2012. I will be in touch when I start the editing and typesetting process.

That was a nice email to receive, for we've been reworking this article for a long while now. Here's the introductory paragraph:

Mark 5:24b-34 tells the story of Jesus healing a woman suffering from a flow of blood. The story has a number of features that make it more than just another account of a healing miracle. It is foremost a story about the woman’s faith (Jesus is unwitting to the miracle until it actually occurs), but it also informs the reader, in a not-so-subtle way, that the healing virtue that flowed from Jesus has certain dynamic properties -- properties not unlike those characterizing the egressive properties of ritual purity. The story, as Mark has redactionally cast it, interrupts the narrative of Jesus bringing Jairus's daughter back to life (vv. 21-24a, 35-43). Two questions arise: (1) What does the miraculous healing of the woman signify? and (2) Why does it interrupt the narrative about Jairus's daughter?

That probably all that I ought to say about this article for now. When the time of publication comes, I might post more. I also have a few articles solely my own that I worked on earlier in Australia and Israel but have had to put on back burners until the day that the internet has advanced enough to enable me to rework them myself here in Korea.

That day may have arrived. Now, if I can just find the time to move them forward onto front burners . . .

Epistle to the Hebrews: Delay of the Name "Jesus"

Melchizedek

Icon on Altar Side near Royal Doors

Libotin Wooden Church

Maramureş County, Romania

Photo by Țetcu Mircea Rareș

(Image from Wikipedia)

In preparing for this morning's group study of the Epistle of Hebrews, a New Testament text noted for its High-Priestly Christology -- namely, a priesthood placed above even the Levitical one and identified with the priestly order of Melchizedek -- I noticed that the "Son of God" is only first called "Jesus" in verse nine of chapter two. Except for the very short letter of Third John, a text of merely one chapter consisting of just fifteen verses (which does not use "Jesus" at all), only Hebrews, among all the epistles, delays so long -- in effect, twenty-three verses -- before supplying the name "Jesus."

Why? Why this delay?

The epistle opens by emphasizing that God has spoken to mankind, or at least to believers, through his Son, a status quickly affirmed as superior to that of the angels by virtue of reflecting the glory of God, bearing the stamp of his image, and sustaining the universe, in whose creation he was the agent

The Son's subsequent role as High Priest is also soon affirmed, albeit less explicitly, in verse three of chapter one, which refers to the Son as having made purification for sins.

By first emphasizing the high status and eminent role of the Son, the author of Hebrews takes pains to ensure that there be no doubt about the theological and soteriological understanding before providing the human name "Jesus," a name quite common among first century Jews.

Note therefore that when the author of Hebrews does finally refer to the Son as "Jesus," he does so in 2:9 with implicit allusion to the incarnation and emphasizes the brevity of this 'humble' state:

τὸν δὲ βραχύ τι παρ’ ἀγγέλους ἠλαττωμένον βλέπομεν Ἰησοῦν διὰ τὸ πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφανωμένον ὅπως χάριτι θεοῦ ὑπὲρ παντὸς γεύσηται θανάτου

But the one who for a little while was made lower than the angels we see, Jesus, through the suffering of death with glory and honor crowned so that by the grace of God for all he might taste death. (translation mine, largely to preserve word order)

The allusion to the incarnation comes in the expression "who for a little while was made lower than the angels" (βραχύ τι παρ’ ἀγγέλους ἠλαττωμένον), which refers back to verse seven in its citation of Psalm 8:6 from the Septuagint, the Greek rather than Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The author of Hebrews understands this expression -- that the Son was, for a short time, made lower than the angels -- as meaning that the Son took on the lower status of human nature.

Even in acknowledging that the Son lowered himself, however, the author insists that this was merely temporary, for the purpose of the Son's suffering and death, and at any rate resulted in his being crowned with glory and honor, an affirmation of his supra-angelic status.

From the evidence, then, I tentatively suggest that the author of Hebrews was concerned with countering an argument to the effect that as a human being, Jesus was necessarily lower than the angels and therefore could not be divine. This is the issue of status, which the writer deals with immediately and directly by insisting on a high, pre-incarnate existence as "Son." This leads to the second issue, that of role, which explains the Son's earthly function as a priestly one in offering himself up as purification for sins, a purpose whose incarnational necessity is explicated in the remainder of chapter 2 (verses 10-18), which is at pains to justify why the Son took on flesh and blood. And note that the priesthood is later proclaimed to be of the order of Melchizedek (2:6, 10), a priestly order that appears to transcend human nature (7:1-3).

These interlinked issues of status and role are, I think, why the author of Hebrews only belatedly refers to the human name "Jesus."

John Milton: "transcendentalizing the flesh"?

Gerard van Honthorst

Adoration of the Shepherds (1622)

A transcendental sort of flesh?

(Image from Wikipedia)

On the Milton List recently, Professor John Geraghty made an interesting remark about Alexander Gill, John Milton's old schoolmaster at St. Paul's School, in which Milton enrolled at age 12 -- or did Geraghty intend Alexander Gill the Younger, a lifelong friend of Milton? Anyway, here's the remark:

I remember Alexander Gill referencing that God weaving himself into human flesh at Christ's Nativity sanctifies and redeems human flesh to the point it transcendentalizes it and makes it abhorrent to Satan.

I'd have to look up the reference again, if anyone is interested.

I need to ask him to look that up (and also inform me which Gill is meant), for another list member, James Rovira, observed that this:

Sounds like basic neoplatonic Christian theology.

I wasn't entirely sure about that observation, so I inquired:

Jim, could you (or anybody) elaborate a bit on this sort of Neoplatonism? What makes it Neoplatonic? I'm not challenging, by the way, just asking out of ignorance.

My understanding of the Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition is that it looks upon the body with disdain, spirit and body being fundamentally, dualistically opposed -- the body (soma) as tomb (sema).

The point about God transcendentalizing human flesh reminds me of what Raphael tells Adam about the human body as they discourse upon food in Paradise Lost 5:496-503

And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to Spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wingd ascend
Ethereal, as wee, or may at choice
Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell;
If ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire
Whose progenie you are.

(Luxon, Thomas H., ed. The Milton Reading Room, June, 2008.)

This possibility seems counter to the Neoplatonic tradition to me -- though it seems to share the view that the spiritual is higher than the corporeal -- for it accepts an underlying commonality between spirit and body.

Ultimately, isn't this more consistent with the Jewish element in Christianity that emphasizes the resurrection of the body than the Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition, which disdains the body?

In other words -- to repeat my initial questions above -- could you elaborate a bit on this sort of Neoplatonism and explain what makes it Neoplatonic?

James Rovira replied:

I think this depends upon what you mean by "transcendentalizing the flesh." For example, you do acknowledge a hierarchy in the passage from PL, but don't you think the body/spirit opposition (hostility) is maintained in that quotation from PL? Our physical bodies are "transformed to spirit" and "improved." Depending on how you read this passage, this idea is very different from saying that our bodies are transformed from one type of body to another while our spirit remains something distinct from, though united to, our physical body, as described by Paul in 1 Cor. It appears to me in this passage that our body transforms into spirit, so that we exist as pure spirit when the process is complete. I should search other relevant context in PL, but these are my first thoughts on the matter.

The list discussion has since gone in other directions, but I wanted to remember my query in case I have some time to pursue it . . . so I'm inflicting it upon you readers of my blog.

A pretty decent nonplagiarized essay...

Jesus as Pantokrator

6th-Century Mosaic

Church of San Apollinare Nuovo

Ravenna, Italy
The Christ, but no Christian hero?

(Image from Wikipedia)

... has landed on my desk, and since I bemoan the work of the cheaters, then I ought to praise the work of the honest, especially if it aims high and does well.

This particular essay begins so well that I initially thought that it must indicate yet another instance of plagiarism:

Controversy swept over Christians around the world as the Harry Potter books became international bestsellers. Was it a dangerous book that could influence people, especially young children, to confuse the fundamental beliefs of Christianity with the fictional but pagan ideas from the world of magic? Or was it just a children's fantasy story that didn't deserve such a huge reaction? Even now, as the seventh Harry Potter book is yet to be released, some people claim that it is anti-Christian because it explains the world order in laws of magic that holds no room for Christian doctrines. Others say that it actually promotes Christian values such as love, courage to do what is just, and forgiveness. Similarly, Beowulf is often among heated controversy on whether he is a Christian or pagan hero figure, as there are frequent references to the Bible and acknowledgements of one divine God that rules the earth in the text. In this essay, I will try to prove in a completely textual perspective that Beowulf in Beowulf cannot be identified as a Christian hero in comparison to Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight because Beowulf dissatisfies the crucial conditions of a Christian hero that are visible in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

I'm not sure that one can properly use "dissatisfy" in this impersonal sense. Ordinarily, the word puts emphasis upon the mood of a disappointed individual, not upon an abstract failure to meet criteria, but this provides such a useful extension of the word's semantic range -- by concisely capturing the sense of the wordier phrase "fails to satisfy" -- that I'm nearly willing to accept it.

In fact, I think that I will accept it, and for all I know, my student's usage might even, technically, be correct. Anyway, I'm feeling generous due to the overall good writing and the student's mastery of the engaging introduction.

That said, I don't happen to agree with this student's thesis, and the paper goes on to define "Christian hero" too narrowly as "a hero who is a Christian." As I point out to my student, this definition would exclude King David and every other Old Testament hero, who are -- admittedly -- not themselves Christian but who are certainly heros to Christians. It would even exclude that greatest of heros revered by Christians: Jesus himself. He may have been the Christ, but he was no Christian.

Ultimately, this narrow definition detracts from the student's otherwise fine effort because it makes the analytical job too easy. All that one need do is show that the hero Beowulf is not a Christian, and one has proved that he is not a Christian hero.

That might work -- in a bare, technical sense -- but it ignores as irrelevant all the interesting things that one might otherwise notice concerning Beowulf's status as a symbol of Christ.

Thus, the paper can't quite achieve the highest mark, but it's nonetheless a joy to read.