The Gospel of John and the Five Senses

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) The Gospel of John uses a number of images express its understanding of what it means believe in Jesus and belong community of faith. These images, drawn from material world, are used as symbols or vehicles of divine world.1 Indeed, faith cannot appear and develop without such imagery, so foundational is it world of fourth evangelist. Of particular significance is remarkably cohesive presence of images relating five senses throughout Johannine narrative-sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell-a narrative presence that is grounded in John's central theological motif, incarnation. While some of senses have been recognized and discussed extensively, others have been paid scant attention; nor has cooperation of all five senses together been sufficiently observed.2 In physiognomic terms, five senses-the number and identification of which are generally attributed Aristotle-are means by which human beings apprehend external reality. Each is associated with one organ or aspect of body, and each corresponds a particular segment of brain.3 Sight, or vision, asso- ciated with eyes and physiological intake of light through cornea and pupil, enables us discern color, movement, shape, distance, and size. Hearing, or audition, involves movement of sound through ears eardrum, which sends messages brain, telling it of volume, type, intensity, and balance. Taste, or gustation, occurs on tongue with its manifold taste buds, detecting sweet and sour, salty and bitter, and conveying appropriate messages brain. Touch, or somatic feeling, takes place on skin of body, in middle layer that has nerve endings connected brain, discerning whether touch is soft or hard, gentle or sharp, safe or dangerous, painful or painless, pleasant or unpleasant. Finally, smell, or olfaction, employs air and breath through nose and nerves in top of nasal cavity transmit messages of pleasant or unpleasant, threatening or soothing, as well as summon memory. Each of these senses may be lacking in any person, and each, therefore, has its opposite (respectively, blindness, deafness, ageusia, anesthesia, and anosmia). Each, too, works together with others-for example, taste and smell combine discern flavor. Generally, senses of sight, hearing, and smell involve no necessary contact, unlike taste and touch which do; yet taken together, five senses enable us see world in a unified way.4 The senses, in short, are intrinsic what makes us human: means of our apprehension and communication, and basis of our experience.5 Their capacity for metaphorical or spiritual signification is also important,which is evident in way Aristotle sees senses as part of soul; later Jewish-Arabic philosophy in Middle Ages made an important distinction between external and internal senses.6 In this article I examine way in which Fourth Gospel employs each of five senses as a core image in narrative for life of faith. I describe briefly occurrence and usage of senses in Johannine text in order of frequency and intensity of usage in Gospel narrative. I look also at implications of five senses, both separately and together, for implied reader's imaginative entry into symbolic universe of Fourth Gospel, since that is only way, in this text, comprehend and apprehend Johannine faith. I. Sight The sense of sight has been described as mankind's most noble and dependable sense.7 In ancient world, likewise, dominance of vision among senses is widely recognized: the eyes are most important marker of character and are frequently used in this way.8 It is not surprising, therefore, that most significant Johannine image based on senses is that of sight, mostly found in verbal form to see. …