Primitive Christianity Research Articles

Fundamental Questions about Literary-Critical Methodology A Review Article

It is seldom that a book on methodology succeeds in challenging more than a small segment of the establishment methodologies. Erhardt Giittgemanns, however, has managed to confront the entire spectrum of contemporary literary analysis of the primitive Christian writings in a work which essentially demonstrates how insufficient exegetical listening to non-theological linguistic disciplines has been. The importance of the book lies almost entirely in the Fragen of the title (which would have to be translated something like: Candid questions about the form criticism of the gospels a methodological sketch of the fundamental problematic of form and redaction criticism); the book raises questions about some of the sacred assumptions, and more often directly challenges established interpretations, of form criticism since Gunkel and Overbeck. Solutions are seldom forthcoming, but inter-disciplinary paths to more adequate methodological rationale are charted, and no one in the field will be able to ignore the work. Because of the significance of the questions placed, as well as because of the intensely involuted German and t e multiplicity of issues, the book can be opened up through a selection of topics rather than the usual book review. Out of an almost encyclopedic treatment, I have highlighted the following issues as most relevant to the methodological predicaments of contemporary New Testament literary criticism as I understand them. It should be emphasized that the list is my own, and while I try to represent fairly the author's intentions, the sequence of presentation or the emphasis is not necessarily his. He presents a sequential summary of results and tasks for the future on pp. 251261.1

The Significance of Apocalypticism for Systematic Theology

The rediscovery of the force and scope of apocalypticism in primitive Christianity can help systematic theology to find new openings for thoughts of faith that have long languished in systems that obstruct their expression.

Scripture, Tradition and the Community

This is not a time to be digging the old entrenched positions a little deeper and then defending them, so it is worth noting with caution that each of the terms in this title trails with it a long history of old battles and rigid attitudes. In any case, the old certainty about the meanings of the words we use is one of the new uncertainties.There is even an implicit assumption hidden in the order in which the terms are used traditionally. We take it for granted, perhaps, that tradition is rooted in scripture, and that the community is first formed, and then grows, by a causal combination of these two prior factors. This view holds that the people of the Old. Testament and of the New were ‘People of a Book’, who were formed by the scriptures which they accepted. They had a clear tradition, as well, handed down to them from the very beginning : ‘It was of importance that this tradition should be preserved without deformation; and fidelity to the received tradition was the ultimate assurance that the doctrine proposed was genuine.’ A little later in the same article the function of tradition as a vital factor in the formation of the community is explicitly stated: ‘… the spirit indeed taught the Church, but communicated no new word beyond that which Jesus had incarnated and uttered. The content of the revelation, once Jesus no longer dwelt on earth, was secured only by the faithful preservation and transmission of the word among his followers. Tradition must therefore be included among the constitutive elements of the primitive Christian community.’

Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Was Jesus Really Obedient unto Death?

In this essay I want to take off from a few sentences in Rudolf Bultmann's lecture, entitled in its English translation Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus, I delivered in response to his associates who had resumed the quest for the historical Jesus. The sentences in question occur in Section III of the lecture, in which Bultmann deals with what he deems to be abortive attempts to assimilate the activity of Jesus to the kerygma. Although he believes that certain features of Jesus' activity can be known-such as that he performed exorcisms, took up with outcasts, castigated Jewish legalism, attracted a small group of followers, and exhibited a consciousness of authority in relation to the eschatological message he preached-any effort to reconstruct a portrait ofJesus must fail, according to Bultmann, because we can know nothing about how Jesus understood his own death. Theories that he went to Jerusalem to confront people with the message of the imminent appearing of the kingdom of God, and in so doing laid his life on the line, are all only assumptions for which there is no real evidence, as the passion narratives, though primitive, are entirely kerygmatic in nature. Bultmann says: is certain is merely that he was crucified by the Romans, and thus suffered the death of a political criminal. This death can scarcely be understood as an inherent and necessary consequence of his activity; rather it took place because his activity was misconstrued as a political activity. In that case it would have been-historically speaking-a meaningless fate. We cannot tell whether or how Jesus found meaning in it. We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that he suffered a collapse.2 It is especially the last sentence that I want to examine. What does it mean to say that Jesus may have suffered a collapse ? What sort of possibility

Church: Brotherhood and Eschatology

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that there has been some change in our understanding of the nature of the Church in the last ten years or so. I suggest that we are being encouraged to think now more in terms of the Church as the people of God and as mystery, but that these two themes finally converge. There is, of course, no prospect of tying up all the loose ends that there must inevitably be in a paper as brief and ambitious as this.My first thesis is that we are in the middle of discovering a new sense of the Church as a community, as a community with a mission, as a ‘movement’, and that this springs from our retrieval of the original primitive Christian insight that the Church is nothing if it is not the people of God, and should then issue into a renewed belief in the fraternal structure of the Church. I should emphasize that this is a discovery of what the Church should be, not of what it actually is.It is clear that the documents of Vatican II have made it respectable to talk about the Church in terms of the people of God. It was not always so. While it is, of course, impossible that any single concept could ever catch what one means by any phenomenon as complex as the Church, it is important to decide which to start from, for this will govern one’s whole understanding of the Church.

Acta Congressus Internationalis de Theologia Concilii Vaticani II ed. by A. Schoenmetzer, S. J.

BOOK REVIEWS 135 to one Person cannot in the same way be appropriated to another. (cf. I Sent., d. 31, q. 1, a. 2, ad Sum) Contemporary investigations into the phenomenon of language tend to confirm the propriety of this sort of linguistic device in speaking of the divine. All in all, a certain inadequacy of Fr. Cooke's attempt continues to force itself upon us. Contemporary theologians seem not to have ventured beyond the endeavor to seek a delicately balanced dialectical movement between preconceptual, lived theology and notional theology. The reemphasis on existential faith-experience below the threshold of concepts has been a welcome corrective to a cerebral re-ifying of logical entities. But we have now reached a sort of halfway house; the real task remains. Here and now the theological tools to forge such concepts may be lacking, but there are such clues as Wittgenstein's notion of the person as not " the thinking, presenting subject ... but the metaphysical subject, the limitnot a part of the world." (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.631-5.641) The question needs to be asked whether in such thinking insights are being newly discovered out of the perspective of today's intellectual milieu, insights that bear continuity with those of primitive Christian theology and their elaboration in the High Middle Ages but that will be differently rendered into concepts and hopefully somewhat deepened. At any rate, the theological task is still that of seeking to conceptualize what in reality lies beyond concepts but is affirmed by faith. Thus there remains the need to employ the metaphysical resources of human intelligence (either as reflective science or in a spontaneous, ordinary, "vulgar" way) to conceptualize the realities of faith simply because, if the perfective term of every cognitive act lies in the existential grasp of reality and union with it as it actually is, this is humanly possible only from that angle of insight and at that depth of intelligibility that comes to birth in the concept. This is not less true as regards our cognitive union with the Three Persons of God, where it IS more a case of our being grasped by Ultimate Reality. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. WILLIAM J. HILL, 0. P. Acta Congressus lnternationalis de Theologia Concilii Vaticani II. Ed. by A. ScHOENMETZER, S. J. Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1968. Pp. 881. An international congress met in Rome from September 26th to October 1st, 1966, to discuss the theological implications of the Second Vatican Council. This volume presents the papers that were read, along with the 136 BOOK REVIEWS scientific apparatus to verify, expand, and elucidate the texts. The points made regarding institutional and doctrinal development offer a broad conspectus of thought among Roman Catholics at what historians will likely regard as a turning point in the life of the Christian churches. The episcopal college and the origin of the office of bishop formed the subject matter of eleven conferences. Here an outstanding contribution is that of Dr. Jean Colson, who treats the period from the election of Matthias in the Acts of the Apostles to the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. What the author brings out most clearly is his conviction that an evolution was taking place within the New Testament regarding the special teaching role of certain Christians. This was continued, he maintains, in the period to which the Apostolic Fathers belong. Dr. Colson's performance is of the quality Jaroslav Pelikan has indicated theologians must achieve if dogmatic development is not to be regarded as too important a topic to be left to them. He establishes what is a scientifically respectable case for a line of continuity in the New Testament . First, through the election of Matthias, the apostolic college that had been depleted by the loss of Judas is expanded. The role of apostle at the beginning of Acts is to be understood as the Christian analogue of the priestly paqid or mebaqqer of the Jewish sects. And the addition of Matthias completes the college of twelve in such wise that the eschatological state of Israel (symbolized by the HW there present) had a representative of the Lord at the head of each...

Taoistic Patterns in War and Peace

It is well known that Tolstoj responded warmly to Taoism from time that was first introduced to Tao Te Ching of Lao-Tzu in 18781 and that Taoist ideas were important in ideology and attitude of older Tolstoj.2 Although this direct influence came late, this ready acceptance is almost predictable in retrospect, for Tolstoj had long been employing patterns of thought surprisingly parallel to those of Lao-Tzu. Especially in case of War and Peace, something very much like a vision of Tao underlies psychology, characterization, and ethic of novel. This kind of analogy should not be carried too far-ignoring as it does such other lines of thought as Stoicism, Christianity, etc., which directly acted on Tolstoj earlier. Still, a demonstration of parallels can show a good deal about movement of Tolstoj's mind in sixties and also illuminate some aspects of novel by offering a new frame of reference.3 Here we would like to consider, in light of Lao-Tzu's Taoism, characterization of Platon Karataev, Pierre, and Nikolaj; character and military theories of Kutuzov; and total world view of War and Peace. Platon Karataev often voices stoic truths of Russian peasant and pieties of primitive Christianity, but in basic ways is strongly suggestive of Taoist sage, who gains power from quiescence, durability from acceptance. His deft undoing of his leg wrappings,4 which nudges Pierre toward a new life, is in line with Lao-Tzu's doctrine of economydoing nothing superfluous. From that point, Platon expresses and dramatizes a way of life much like Taoist Way. His peasant aphorisms, like Don't fret, friend-suffer an hour, live for an age (WP, XII, 3, p. 1073; SS, VII, 54), fit in with Lao-Tzu's he who is satisfied with his lot is rich ...; who dies and does not perish, has longevity.5 When Platon says, Where there's law there's injustice (WP, 1074; SS, VII, 55),6 is close to Lao-Tzu's denunciation of moral rules: If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, people would again become filial and kindly (Ch. 19). Platon's view is that things happen not as we plan but as God judges; Lao-Tzu says that the Tao produces all things, nourishes them, brings them to their full growth, completes them, matures

S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity, Manchester (University Press) 1967. XV + 413 S., 55 s . net.

S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity, Manchester (University Press) 1967. XV + 413 S., 55 s . net.

Book Review: Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Book Review: Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity

Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive ChristianityBrandonS. G. F. Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity Manchester University PressManchester, 1967, xii+412, 12 plates, 55 s.

Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive ChristianityBrandonS. G. F. <i>Jesus and the Zealots. A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity</i> Manchester University PressManchester, 1967, xii+412, 12 plates, 55 <i>s.</i>

A New Source for the History of Primitive Christianity?

A New Source for the History of Primitive Christianity?

Jesus and the Zealots: a Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. By S. G. F. Brandon. Pp. xvi + 414 + 12 illustrations. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967. 55s.

Jesus and the Zealots: a Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. By S. G. F. Brandon. Pp. xvi + 414 + 12 illustrations. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967. 55s. - Volume 18 Issue 2

‘Verba Christi’ in I Peter: Their Implications concerning the Authorship of I Peter and the Authenticity of the Gospel Tradition

The Epistle of I Peter has occupied a rather large place in recent critical studies of the New Testament. E. G. Selwyn has advanced the view that the epistle draws from four primary sources: a liturgical document, a persecution fragment, a primitive Christian catechism, andverba Christi. E. Lohse prefers to think that the early church had a common stock oforalparaenetic tradition, from which the epistolary writers drew. F. W. Beare has popularized in English the liturgical-homiletical hypothesis widely accepted in Europe, namely, that the major part of I Peter (i. 3–iv. 11) is the transcription of a baptismal liturgy-homily, transformed into an epistle by the addition of i. 1 f. and iv. 12–v. 14. The view has been carefully worked out by F. L. Cross, but has encountered increasing resistance.

Developing Doctrines and Changing Beliefs

The notion of doctrinal development has become increasingly popular with Roman Catholic theologians in recent years, and has received official recognition in the decree of the second Vatican Council on Revelation. ‘There is’, the document maintains, a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. … As the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fulness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfilment in her. But, if dogma develops, how can revelation be constant? This, starkly put, is the dilemma to which many Roman Catholic theologians have directed their attention in recent years. If there has been a growth in dogma, must we not say that the contemporary Church is in a better position than the early Church? How can we deny that the Church today, in which dogmas have been better understood and more fully expressed, has an advantage over the primitive Christian community? As one nineteenth-century theologian observed, If there be a difference of any sort between Augustine and Liguori (and if there be not, what becomes of Mr Newman's theory?) it must manifestly be incalculably to the advantage of the latter … to compare the catachetical schools of Alexandria, Antioch, Gaesarea, with our Irish Maynooth, would palpably be an insult to the latter, too gross even for the licensed bitterness of religious controversy.

コロサイ人への手紙1, 15-20におけるキリスト論について

A German philologist E. Norden (Agnostos Theos, 1913, 4th ed., 1957) first made a comparative study of liturgical formulas in Hellenistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, laying the foundation for further studies by other scholars. In this study, Norden discovered a liturgical formula (das Liturgische) in Colossians 1, 15-20 and observed that this liturgical formula was formulated under the influence of Hellenistic Judaism.After him, M. Dibelius, E. Lohmeyer and others made further studies of this passage. E. Käsemann (Eine urchristliche Taufliturgie, Festschrift Rudolf Bultmann zum 65 Geburtstag überreicht, 1949, 133-48, now in: Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, Bd. I, 1960, 34-51) saw in 1, 12-20 of this letter a formula of Baptismal-liturgy of Primitive Christianity and pointed out that, there was in 1, 15-20 a Christhymn which was derived from Gnosis.The study of this passage was further advanced by the scholars such as James M. Robinson (A Formal Analysis of Colossians 1, 15-20, JBL, 1961), H. Hegermann (Die Vorstellung vom Schöpfungsmittler im hellenistischen Judentum und Urchristentum, Berlin, 1961) and H. M. Schenke(Der Widerstreit gnostischer und kirchilicher Christologie im Spiegel des Kolosserbriefes, ZThK, 1964).The aim of this article is to present the Christology of this passage against its religious background, criticizing and examining the above mentioned studies.

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Primitive Christianity

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Primitive Christianity

St Paul, the Philogamist (I Cor. vii in Early Patristic Exegesis)

In a recent Short Study I suggested that St Paul was not discussing virginity in I Cor. vii but dealing with the subject of second marriages and, more specifically in υυ. 36 ff., with levirate marriage. The present article is an examination of early patristic exegesis of I Cor. vii to show that consecrated virginity was not a customary way of life in the most primitive Christian communities. I have given special attention to the Jewish background of Montanism and Tertullian's exegesis during his Montanist period which seems to provide the most substantial evidence that the recipients of St Paul's letter were not posing questions concerning celibacy and perhaps had no conception of this practice for women.

The Jesus-Paul debate: from Baur to Bultmann

TE question of the relation of Paul to Jesus has, during certain decades in the last century and a quarter, been the chief preoccupation of biblical criticism and systematic theology alike. The publication in 1962 of E. Jiingel's provocative new book, und and of W. Schmithals's Marburg lecture, Paulus und der historische Jesus, and the 1963 lecture of W. G. Kiimmel Jesus und * suggests that the topic is still alive. But since these recent publications also make it clear that the discussion has taken a new turn, a survey of the course of the preceding debate may help to define the issues which most demand the attention of critical scholarship in our own day. The Jesus-Paul controversy in its modern form may perhaps be dated from an article published in 1831 by the Tubingen critic, F. C. Baur, who offered an important new hypothesis respecting Paul's place in the earliest church.2 Baur held that Paul had developed his doctrine in complete opposition to that of the primitive Christian community ,3 and that the early church was divided into Pauline and Petrine wings. Using the pattern of Hegelian dialectic, Baur identified the emergence of the early catholic church as the adjustment of these two antithetical streams of earliest Christianity. Along with this novel interpretation of the character and development of earliest Christianity went a radical sifting of the New Testament