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Iv/ for Further Study 1 Jesus and the Gospel Movement: Not Afraid To Be Partners (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006) by William Thompson-Uberuaga CHAPTER THREE —supplements— (1) eschatology and geography; (2) christology and the creeds, Alexandrines, Antiochenes, technical categories, western and Syriac traditions, the hypostatic union. Eschatology, Geography, and the Advancing Jesus Movement It will be useful to return to the theme of time and space, which we noted in our second chapter on the New Testament materials. We recall that the orientation to the divine Ground transforms temporality into history, and space into place. At the same time, neither time nor space is simply “there” for humans to manipulate or use in an arbitrary fashion. In some sense, time remains time and not history, and space remains space and not simply place. Jesus and his movement exist within these complicated coordinates, as all humans do, and we noted something of the way in which the Jesus event revalorized each of these coordinates. Inasmuch as Jesus through and with his new community mediates a more personalized relationship with the divine Ground, history becomes even more fully packed with the promise of personal meaning and space becomes even more fully an hospitable home/place for the advancing Jesus movement. But the issue is really more complex, and returning to it offers us the possibility of 2 adding greater texture to the themes covered in this chapter. It will also likely bring greater ambiguity to our proposals. But such would seem to be the way of reality. Apocalyptic and Eschatology “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!,” some were apparently complaining at the time of Second Peter (3.4), one of the later New Testament writings. Earlier Paul himself had to contend with similar concerns, for he counsels his Thessalonian community “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here” (2 Thes 2.2). Apparently Paul’s considered view on this matter, after perhaps expecting the Lord’s return in his lifetime (1 Thes 4.17), settled into thinking that Christ and his earthly work represent the “first fruits,” to be followed by his later “coming” for “those who belong to him,” which will then be the signal that the “end” will come (1 Cor 15.23-24). One notices in this perspective the absence of any precise date (see also Mk 13.32; Mt 24.36). But the grumbling recorded by Second Peter indicates that not everyone had come around to Paul’s more considered viewpoint. The experience of Jesus, particularly in the light of the resurrection appearances and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, apparently gave some the impression that the victorious reign of God which Jesus had preached was now so “present” that its futurity was soon to be a thing of the past. It would take some time to sort things out in a more differentiated manner, and Paul’s considered view was a sober assessment immensely aiding this effort of differentiation. Paul, we might say, has eschatologized apocalyptic elements in the Jesus tradition. That is, some of the expected acts in the typical apocalyptic scenario (suffering, struggle, death, 3 resurrection, judgment, establishment of the victorious reign of God, etc.) are taken over by Paul, but assimilated into and thought through in the light of Jesus himself and his own resurrection vindication. Apocalyptic’s harsh dualism, which pits a new world against an utterly corrupt old one, the elect against the reprobate, is ameliorated to some extent, any precise time calculations are omitted, an anxiety stemming from a destructive alienation in the world is relaxed by a sense of faith, hope, and love, and responsible action in the world in an expectant manner is called for. Paul believes that what has come with Jesus is a fullness (Gal 4.4; Col 1.19; 2.9-10) which somehow prefigures the end/eschaton, but the manner in which this will be worked out within the constraints of history remains rather mysterious: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8.24-25). Paul also, at his most profound, has a sense of how the dualism of good and evil cuts across all, including himself. It is not a question of simply good people in an apocalyptic battle against utterly corrupt people. “For I do not do the good I would …”; the Spirit helps us in our weakness …” (Rom 7.19; 8.26). Paul is working with the already/not yet tension we noted earlier in Jesus’ proclamation of the new community. Eventually he seems to sense its qualitatively new dimension of fullness, that is, a new personalized relationship with God is “at hand.” But this personalism that is at hand does not abolish the already/not yet tension. Rather, it transforms it into a potential kairos. Some others, in the early period of the advancing Jesus movement, seem to have lost, or nearly lost, all traces of this tension. Paul also seems to have become keenly attuned to the kenotic nature of the reign of God mediated by Jesus, that is, it comes humbly, in 4 a servant mode, appealing to our response, slow as that may be in coming. This reign is not another of the many empires of domination. Jesus, Paul wrote, “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave . he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Phil 2.7-8). We recall the imperial style of Christology and soteriology developed by Eusebius (d. c. 340). We will not be surprised, then, to find that this carries its implications for the theology of history. Referring to the Emperor Constantine’s building of the Savior’s church at the site of the resurrection in Jerusalem, Eusebius suggests: “And it may be that this was that second and new Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets, concerning which such abundant testimony is given in the divinely inspired records.”1 Eusebius, apparently, has a rather complicated apocalyptic eschatology, in which Emperor Augustus’ Pax Romana was the kingdom of peace spoken of by the prophets (Is 2.1-4; Mic 4.1-4), and the Emperor Constantine and his heirs were “the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7.18) who would govern Rome, the fourth kingdom (Dan 2.31-45), up to the final tribulation, which would bring the world’s destruction and the last judgment. He followed Origen, apparently, in holding that immortality would be a form of life in a realm beyond the cosmos, but he was apocalyptic in his other perspectives. The final apocalyptic events just noted were to occur sometime between several generations and several centuries after his own life, according to Glenn Chesnut.2 Eusebius is representative of the earlier apocalypticism noted in Second Peter and in the early Paul, and he manifests its lingering appeal in the later Church. Irenaeus (second century) 1 Eusebius, The Life of Constantine, 3.33 (A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2d ser. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969], 1:529). The reference may be to Rev 21.2: “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God …” (idem, n.1). 2 Glenn F. Chesnut, “Eusebius of Caesarea,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, 2:675. 5 would offer another example, but a more cautious one. For example, he suggests that “Lateinos has the number six hundred and sixty-six; and it is a very probable [solution], this being the name of the last kingdom [of the four seen by Daniel].” He goes on to say that “the Latins are they who at present bear rule …,” but he cautions: “I will not, however, make any boast over this [coincidence].” He also prefaced this entire section with the caution that “it is more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfillment of the prophecy, than to be making surmises …”3 Paula Fredriksen offers us one explanation of how these apocalyptic number calculations emerged. First, we should note the biblical tradition “that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2 Pt 3.8; Ps 90.4). If we combine this with the seven days of creation in Genesis 1 along with the thousand year reign of the saints promised in Revelation 20, we arrive at a 6000 year period (the six days of creation, each day viewed as a cosmic week/age of the world of a thousand years), followed by the millennium of a thousand year reign, which then brings on the final end. In one of his sermons, Augustine writes, “Behold, from Adam all the years have passed,” some Christians of his time are crying, for Rome had fallen in 410; he continues: “and behold, the 6000 years are completed, and now comes the Day of Judgment!”4 Obviously different writers offered different dates. Fredriksen writes: “Calculations for the year 6000 fell variously between anno domini dates of 400 to 500, the latter prevailing in the West.”5 Origen (d. c. 254) offers us an example of how one can react to this misguided apocalypticism through spiritualizing and even interiorizing the apocalyptic passages of the 3 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.3 (ANF, 1:559).
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