Johannine Arch-Intelligibility

Chapter Six opens up Part Three of this work, devoted to the reading of the Gospel of John given by the French Phenomenologist Michel Henry. This chapter begins by exploring the phenomenology of life developed by Henry, not that which appears in the world, but that which is prior to the world and only known in the immediacy of its pathos, the self-affectivity of the experience of living. The condition of our self as living ones is Christ himself, the First Living One, in whom the life that is the Father is engendered, so that, as Henry quotes Eckhart, ‘God engenders me as himself’. Identity in pathos (suffering is the experience of suffering, it doesn’t appear elsewhere by another means) grants truth, unlike the horizon of the world, in which something only appears as other than itself, torn from its own identity, rendered dead (for life, Henry reminds us, does not appear in the world). According to Henry’s analysis, this pathos of life constitutes the flesh, as phenomenologically distinct than the body; the latter is how we appear, externalized, in the world, the former is how we experience ourselves in the self-affectivity of the pathos of life. This then enables Henry to provide a more sophisticated understanding of Incarnation, not as the appearing of the Word of God within the world, but rather as the Word of God giving us access to life by sharing in his own flesh and his own pathos. The chapter finishes by considering how Henry reads Scripture, especially John, not against the horizon of the world and its history, but as an invitation to life with its own intelligibilty or ‘arch-intelligibility’.

The Prologue as a Paschal Hymn

On the basis of the analysis of the Gospel of John given so far, and in particular the celebration of Pascha that began with him, this chapter offers a radically new interpretation of the Prologue to the Gospel of John. Rather than a pre-existing hymn to the Word adopted and modified by the Evangelist, or a Prologue to the Gospel written by the Evangelist himself, explaining how the Word became flesh as the prelude to the narrative that follows, it is argued that the Prologue is best understood as a Paschal hymn in three parts. The first verse celebrates the one who is in first place, the crucified and exalted Jesus Christ, on his way to God, and as himself God. Verses 1:2—5 speak not of creation and the presence of the Word in creation before his sojourn on earth, but of how everything that occurs throughout the Gospel happens at his will, specifically the life that comes to be in him, a light which enlightens human beings, that is, those who receive and follow him. The third part, verses 1:6—18, are a chiastically structured celebration of what has come to be in Christ, where 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt in us’ refers to the Eucharist, the flesh that he now offers to those who receive him and so become his body, following on from baptism in verses 1:12–13; the chiastic center of this section is 1:10–11, his rejection by the world but reception by his own, and the beginning and end of this section is the witness provided by John the Baptist.

John the Evangelist

Chapter One explores the figure of John and his Gospel from historical testimony given in the second and third century CE and as treated in contemporary scholarship. The John who wrote the Gospel, the chapter argues, was not the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles, but the disciple of the Lord, the Elder who resided in Ephesus. The first part of this chapter also examines, on the basis of the historical evidence, the occasion for the writing of the Gospel, and argues for the unity of the Johannine corpus (including the Apocalypse). The second part of the chapter turns to the description given by Polycrates of Ephesus that John wore the ‘petalon’ in Jerusalem, that is, that he was the high priest of the temple, which, this chapter argues, refers to the fact that, in the Gospel of John, he alone amongst the disciples stood at the foot of the cross as the body of Jesus was lifted up upon the cross as the true Temple. It was, moreover, as this chapter shows, only the followers of John who had an annual celebration of Pascha, held on 14 Nissan, until the mid to late second century, when others began to celebrate this feast on the following Sunday, leading to the Quartodeciman controversy, the association of Sunday with the Resurrection, and the development of the Tridium, the three-day celebration of the Passion.

Conclusion

The Conclusion brings together the different threads spun during the course of this work to reflect on the nature and task of theology. Rather than seeing theology as the articulation of various doctrines, Trinity and Incarnation chief among them, and as a separate discipline from scriptural exegesis or phenomenological reflection, the conclusion argues that the subject of Christian theology is the Crucified and Exalted Jesus Christ, as preached by the apostles in accordance with Scripture, who, in the way in which he dies as a human being, shows us what it is to be God and human, simultaneously, so calling us to become human, as he is, and share in the life that he offers. This connection between theology and anthropology, centered in Christology, is compared to similar insights developed by Karl Barth and Karl Rahner.

History, Phenomenology, and Theology

This chapter brings together the presentation of Michel Henry’s reading of John in Chapter Six with themes explored in the previous two parts of the work. In particular the connection is made in the concern of both theology and phenomenology with ‘apocalypse’, that is, ‘unveiling’, ‘revelation’, ‘appearance’. This unveiling results in a doubling: the way Scripture had been read before the Passion (as narratives about the past) and now in the light of the Passion (as speaking about Christ); and following this unveiling: the identity of Christ, no longer known as the son of Joseph and Mary, but the eternal Word of God; the Eucharist, which appears in the world to be bread and wine, but is consumed as the life-giving flesh of Christ; and ourselves, not simply as bodily children of our parents, but, as living flesh, sons and daughters of God, with a body not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. Sharing the Passion of Christ, recalled from absorption in the world to the pathos of life, is our entry, in and with Christ, into the divine reality of God, in which, while remaining what we are by nature, created beings, we share in the properties of God, uncreated and eternal, just as iron, when placed in a fire, remains what it is by nature but is now only known by the properties of the fire. And in turn, the divine fire, while remaining unchanged, is now embodied, but in a body no longer known by spatio-temporal properties as it appears in this world. The economy of God, understood in an apocalyptic key, brings together heaven and earth, the beginning and the end, in Christ, the first human being, the theanthropos.

The Paschal Gospel

Chapter Two considers the ways in which the Gospel of John has come to be understood in ‘apocalyptic’ terms, following John Ashton, suggesting instead that the Gospel of John is best understood as a ‘paschal gospel’ in an ‘apocalyptic’ key, noting the implications that this has for understanding the genre of the Gospel and its relation to the Apocalypse, as a two-part work. The chapter further explores what is meant by the term ‘apocalyptic’, especially the correspondence between above and below, and the beginning and the end, as a fundamental feature of Christian theology (‘on earth as it is in heaven’, Adam and Christ), and the modern debate about how apocalyptic thinking works, whether as an ‘eschatological invasion’ or an ‘unveiled fulfilment’, and so what is meant by ‘salvation history’, treating such figures as J. Louis Martyn and NT Wright. The chapter concludes by suggesting that early Christian exegesis, as practiced by the apostles themselves and then the Fathers, is best understood as an ‘apocalyptic’ reading.

Introduction

The introduction explores the various methodological problems involved in studying the Gospel of John and the idea of Incarnation, and introduces the various readers of the Gospel engaged in this study: early Christian writers (the ‘School of John’ as they were called by J.B. Lightfoot), modern exegetes, and Michel Henry. The methodological issues are addressed by way of Quentin Skinner’s ‘mythology of doctrine’, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ‘effective history’, and Herbert McCabe’s questioning of the coherence of the idea of ‘pre-existence’ as it relates to ‘incarnation’. Of particular concern is the way in which systematic theological reflection has become detached from the exegetical practices in which theology developed, to be combined with a very different practice of reading Scripture, resulting in a loss of coherence and a different understanding of key ideas, such as Incarnation and the Passion (meaning the Crucifixion and Resurrection) and the relationship between them. Finally, the introduction argues for the need to bring together the different readers engaged in this volume so as to undertake the task of theology.

‘The Temple of His Body’

Chapter Three opens Part Two of this work, which looks at what it is that is ‘finished’, as Christ affirms with his last word from the Cross in the Gospel of John. This chapter focuses on Christ as the true Temple, erected when his body is lifted up upon the Cross, Building upon the work of Mary Coloe and others, this chapter explores how Christ is presented in the six feasts which structure the narrative of this Gospel, culminating in the Passion and the appearances of the Risen Christ on the first and eighth day. In addition, this chapter also examines the way in which imagery drawn from the Tabernacle and Temple are used to explain Christ’s flesh (John 1:14 and 6), the relationship of this flesh, his glorified body, to the Eucharist and martyrdom, broadening in this way what is meant by ‘incarnation’.

‘Behold the Human Being’

Chapter Four demonstrates how Christ’s word from the Cross, ‘It is Finished’, refers back to the opening verses of Genesis, where, unlike every other aspect of creation, which is brought into existence by an imperative, a divine fiat—‘Let it be!’—the particular project of God is given in the subjunctive, ‘Let us make a human being’: a project only completed when Christ lays down his own life in an act of love, unwitting confirmed by Pilate, ‘behold the human being!’. The first part of the chapter shows how this theme is developed by John over the course of the Gospel, most notably in the ‘woman’ who appears in Cana and at the Cross, and in John 16, where she is in travail until a human being is born into the world. This theme is also traced in the Apocalypse, and in writers following on from John: Ignatius of Antioch writing on his way to martyrdom, Melito of Sardis in his Paschal celebration, and Irenaeus of Lyons as a fundamental feature of his account of the whole economy of God leading, in the end, to the true human being. The second part of this chapter explores how this understanding of the human being informs the enigmatic figure of the Son of Man, as he steps dramatically into view at the beginning of the Gospel and appears frequently thereafter, examining John Ashton’s new proposal for interpreting the Son of Man, as a stage in the composition of the Gospel before the idea of Incarnation came to the fore, but argues instead that the Son of Man is the true human being, uniting heaven and earth, ascending the cross to descend as the flesh he offers to the faithful.