JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA 49

Christology and Community: A Study of the Social Matrix of the Fourth Gospel Bill Domeris

INTRODUCTION I owe a profound debt to Albert Geyser, for he served for many years as my academic guide and mentor. Both during my time at Wits and later when he visited me in Durham he was a source of inspiration and encouragement. He was instrumental in making possible my participation in the City of David excavations in Jerusalem, and like him I learnt to love that land. But it was his love for the Fourth Gospel in particular which has left its mark upon me. So to his memory and his name (yud vashem) I dedicate this study of John. The application of Social Scientific methodologies and models to the study of the New Testament has added significantly to our understanding of the Biblical text. In particular, the work of social scientists like Poter Berger and Thomas Luckmann1 has opened the way for the sociology of knowk dge to be applied to the New Testament. Leon Festinger* has received new recogr

1. P Berger and Τ Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, (Garden City Doubleday, 1967) 2. L Festinger, Η W RieckenandS Schachter, When Prophecy Fails A Social and PsychologicalJ Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World, (New York Harper and Row, 1956) 3. Κ Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth A Study of Millenarian Activities (New York Schocken Books, 1969) 4. E W MILLS, "Sociological Ambivalence and Social Order The Constructive Use of Normative Dissonance" in Sociology and Social Research 67,1983, pp 279-287 5. Β J Malina, "Normative Dissonance and Christian Origins" in Semeia 35,1986, pp 35-59 6. R Scroggs, "The Sociological Interpretation of the New Testament" in NTS 26,1980, pp 164-79 7. Ρ J Richter, 'Recent Sociological Approaches to the Study of the New Testament" Religion 14,1984, pp 77-90 8. J Elliott, "Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament More on Method and Models" in Semeia 35,1986, pp 1 -33

Dr. W.R. Domeris is Associate Head of the Department of Biblical Studies, Johannesburg Col­ lege of Education. 50 CHRISTOLOGY AND COMMUNITY in which it arose. Social histories, like those of Louis Martyn9 and Raymond Brown10 have begun the process of drawing back the curtains, but many questions have yet to be answered. In particular the social, economic and geographical setting of the Gos­ pel remains a mystery. Perhaps, in this article, we will go a little way towards dispelling some aspects of the enigma. The starting point for our search, is the belief that there is a connection between the Christology for the Gospel and the Johannine community. This is not a new idea. In 1926 Rudolph Bultmann suggested that the Gospels are primarily sources for the situ­ ations from which they arose and only secondarily sources for the historical situations they describe.11 Several decades later Rudolph Schnackenburg argued that the driv­ ing motive for the composition of the Fourth Gospel may be discovered within "the author's intention to provide the Church of his time with a picture of Christ correspond­ ing to the Church 's spiritual condition... ".12 And so the belief took shape that the teach­ ing of the Fourth Gospel in some way mirrored the writer's own Church situation. David Aune has provided us with one of the most important studies in the relation­ ship between the Fourth Gospel and its founding community. Presupposing that re­ ligion is a projection of the consciousness of a community, he writes:

The Chnstology of the Fourth Gospel is the primary means of expressing the religious needs, values and ide­ als of the Johannine community. That is to say that the Chnstology of the Johannine community is pnmanly determined by the sotenological interests of the ecclesiology of that community13 Aune argues that it was within the pneumatic worship of the Johannine community that the "present experience of the exalted and living Jesus" came to be understood as "the recurring actualisation of his future Parousia".14 What the people experienced in their regular worship, namely the spiritual presence of Jesus, became the basis for a realised form of eschatology. This doctrine was then read back into the teaching of the historical Jesus by the Evangelist.15 Thus the worship of the community lead to a radical re-assessment of their Christology.16 Aune's understanding of the flow from the social experience of the community to their Christology, has been criticised by Louis Martyn. Martyn agrees that the history of the Gospel intrudes upon the Gospel's presentation of Jesus,17 but prefers to follow Wayne Meeks and to speak of "a harmonic reinforcement between social experience and christology".18 Aune moved from the theological (charismatic) experience of the Johannine com­ munity to their Christology. Meeks chose to start with the history of the community and to understand their theology in the light of this history. He suggested a connection be­ tween the community's experience (expulsion from the synagogue), and the Evangelist's use of the ascent/descent motif as in John 3:13.19 Following Peter Berger

9. L Martyn, The Gospel of John in Christian History, (New York Paulist, 1978) and History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Nashville Abingdon, 1979) 10. R Brown, The Community ofthe Beloved Disciple (New York Paulist 1979) and "Johannine Ecclesiology-The Commun­ ity s Origins" in Interpretation 31,1977, pp 379-393 11. R Bultmann, "The New Approach to the Synoptic Problem" reprinted and translated from the original 1926 article in Exis­ tence and Faith Shorter Writings of Rudolph Bultmann edited by S M Ogden, (New York Living Age Books, 1960) pp 35-54 esp ρ 38 12. R Schnackenburg, The Church in the New Testament, (Ε Τ New York Herder and Herder, 1965) ρ 104 13. D Aune The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology m Early Christianity, (Leiden E J Brill 1972) ρ 76 14. Ibid ρ 101 15. Ibid ρ 99 16. Ibid ρ 101 17. Martyn, History and Theology, ρ 18 18. Martyn, The Gospel of John, ρ 105 19. W Meeks, "The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism ' in JBL 91,1972, pp 44-72 see esp pp 70-72 JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA 51 and Thomas Luckmann's theory of the sociology of knowledge,^Meeks refined the projection model by arguing that the relationship between the Christology of the Gos­ pel and its social milieu was a dialectical one. He described the process as follows: the Christological claims of the Johannine Christians led to the exclusion of the commun­ ity from the synagogue, which led in turn to the development of the ascent/descent motif, and this in turn drove the community into further isolation.21 The advantages of such a dialectical model are obvious. Therefore, for this study I have chosen the model employed by Norman Gottwald in his classic work, Tribes of Yahweh. Utilising the theoretical frameworks of Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx, Gottwald describes the religion of pre-monarchic Israel as the product of the social- egalitarian relations experienced by the early Israelites.22 Pressing beyond Marx's belief that consciousness determines one's life,23 Gottwald opts for a dialectical model in which life and consciousness interact. He introduces the idea of a servomechanism or feed-back loop.24 In a convincing manner Gottwald argues that instead of a static model in which ideology is determined by the relations of production, we are to under­ stand a dynamic model. Yahwism is not simply a product of the social-egalitarian relations among the Israel­ ites, it also serves as "a feedback loop" by influencing in turn the very societal rela­ tions which brought it into being.25 Thus Yahwism legitimates and empowers a move­ ment for social equality.26 In fact Gottwald believes that it is the single most significant servo-mechanism for the society,27 able to feed information back into the social rela­ tions and so enable the system constantly to correct itself. In applying this model to the Fourth Gospel, I will focus on three areas: 1. The social structure of the community. 2. The leadership operative within the community. 3. The audience envisaged by the Evangelist. My thesis is that the Christology of the Fourth Gospel reflects the culmination of an historical process in which that Christology was developed in a dialectical relationship with its social praxis.

THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY A Unique Community "Israel thought they were different, because they were different" writes Gottwald.28 The same may be said of the Johannine community. The prime indication of this fact is the Christology found in the pages of the Gospel, which is without direct parallel either inside or outside the New Testament. Traditionally this feature of the Gospel has been placed at the feet of the Evangelist, who is then applauded as a creative genius. Alternatively we hear of years of deep reflection upon the primitive Christian traditions before the production of the Gospel, or of the influence of new-comers to the Johannine community (Samaritans, Gnostics, followers of the Mystery Cults). Our solution is a simpler one. The Fourth Gospel is different because the community in

20. Ρ Berger and Τ Luckmann, op erf 21. Meeks, op at ρ 71 22. Ν Κ Gottwald, The Tnbes of Yahweh A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 BCE, (London SCM Press, 1979) pp 622-91 23. Κ Marx, and F Engels, The German Ideology, (Edited by C J Arthur London Lawrence and Wishart, 1974) 25. «wo* ρ 643 26. Ibid ρ 645 27. /ö/dp646 28. Ibid ρ 693 52 CHRISTOLOGY AND COMMUNITY which it was created was different. I believe that there is evidence to show that the Christology of the Gospel reflects a social system which was markedly different not only from the usual patterns evident in the Graeco-Roman world, but even from the other Christian communities. The following examples illustrate this point. In the place reserved in the Synoptic Gospels for Jesus' words on the bread and wine as his body and blood, the Fourth Gospel describes Jesus taking on the garb of a servant to teach a lesson about the way in which Christians should live (John 13:2-17). Here is the heart of the Gospel where followers of Jesus are exhorted to be "servants of their servant-lord" (cf 13:13-17). There are also other indications. As Ernst Kasemann has noticed, the Gospel shows a marked absence of hierarchical structures.29 We find no mention of the inner group of three among the disciples as in the Synoptics, and even the term "the Twelve" is used only to stress that Judas was one of these and so heighten his guilt. In the role of women in the Gospel we discover as nowhere else in the New Testament a clear affirmation of their position as disciples of Jesus. Martha makes the key confession of faith, and the encounter of Jesus with Mary in the garden (John 20:10-18) speaks clearly about the concern of the writer with the role of women. But it is in the oneness motif, and the emphasis on sacrificial love that we find the strongest indications that the inner composition of the community stood in stark contrast to the regular social systems of the day. The Synoptics include a substantial amount of teaching addressed specifically to a class situation. Jesus is seen to bring good news to the poor and judgement to the rich. By contrast, the Johannine version of the discourses of Jesus shows no indica­ tion of teaching addressed specifically to either rich or poor. In fact there is only one mention of "the poor" and that is in John 12:5-8. Judas' apparent concern for the poor is exposed as a disguise for his pilfering, and Jesus is led to contrast his own imminent departure with the ongoing presence of the poor. "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me" (John 12:8). Why is there this apparent lack of con­ cern for the poor? Why are there no rebukes against the rich? Clearly because these were not issues in the Johannine community. The world of the Johannine community, was not one where they experienced the rough edges of social inequality. Within the compahtive isolation of the community, the injustices of the world appeared rather distant. Their ideals related to their own community and not to the world, which in their eyes was a lost cause. So in contrast to the slighting reference to the poor in John 12:8, John 15:15 affirms the considerable degree of social equality which obtained within the community. In the living out of their egalitarian communal life the sect came upon a new under­ standing of the relationship between God and Jesus. In particular this led to the dis­ covery of the oneness which they came to believe characterised Jesus' relationship with his Father. In fact that oneness was a projection of their own social system. The counterpart of their egalitarian ideology was to be found in their emphasis on the unity between Jesus and God, and this in turn generated the belief in the unity between Jesus and the individual members of the community. How does the Johannine Christology function as a servo-mechanism within the community? The answer is to be found in the ethics of the Gospel. We find that the ethical teaching of Jesus common to other Christian groups is abandoned in favour of

29. E Kasemann, The Testament of Jesus according to John 17, (ET Philadelphia Westminster, 1968) pp 27-34 JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA 53

a new ethic. Jesus offers a new commandment. The disciples are to love one another even to the point of being prepared to die for each other. As the disciples of Jesus they are to strive after oneness with each other and to seek to emulate the unity between Jesus and God. Jesus prays, "That they may be one even as we are one" (Jn 17:22b). Ernst Troeltsch's profile of a sect30 provides us with a good model for constructing the social profile of the Johannine community. Membership is voluntary, personal experience is rated very highly, there is an absence of emphasis on institutionalised features like liturgy or sacraments, and bureaucracy and hierarchy is abandoned in favour of an egalitarian structure. Strong primary group bonds among the members sustain the sect's orientation against persecution and the temptation to return to the "world".31 All of these features are evident within the Fourth Gospel. We have already mentioned the lack of bureaucracy, and we note also the absence of specific refer­ ences either to Christian baptism or to the eucharist, although the writer knew of these practices. There is a strong sense, as shown by Ernst Kasemann32 of togetherness in the face of the threat of the outside world. Clearly there is a good case for viewing the Johannine community as a sect with a particularly strong sense of equality among its members. Beyond Troeltsch's profile, we are reminded also of K. Rudolph's description33 of the Gnostic community as one which represented all strata, with an ideology advocat­ ing equality of sexes, the elimination of social differences and private property. Per­ ceiving themselves as an elite group possessing exclusive knowledge, they advo­ cated community, equality and individualism as a means of escaping the clutches of a Roman dominated world. Rudolph's hypothetical description has received consid­ erable support from the work of Elaine Pagels34 and most recently Henry Green.35 In view of the similarities with our reconstruction of the Johannine community, the social background of the Gnostic communities warrents further attention. Green provides his readers with an exhaustive analysis of the comparitive modes of production, found in Egypt, under the Ptolemies and the Romans. He suggests that with the introduction of direct Roman rule during the First Century, a change occurred which led ultimately to the rise of the Gnostic religion.36 His thesis runs as follows: the transformation in the Ptolemaic mode of production towards privatisation is structur­ ally related to the ideology of individualism embodied in . Certain Jews in Egypt, experiencing this change in the mode of production, acted as catalysts in the sectarian development of Judaism and hence played a pivotal role in the emergence of Gnosticism.37 "Disenfranchised Egyptian upper class Jewish intellectuals became the catalysts for a new salvation religion."38 Given the parallels between our understanding of the social structure of the Johan­ nine community and Rudolph's depiction of the Gnostic communities, it seems only logical to raise the question of a common Sitz im Leben. Indeed may we not go further and using Green's findings offer the following scenario. The increased stratification of the surrounding society under the influence of the new slave mode of production, as

30. Found in Ν Shupe, Six Perspectives on New Religions A Case Study Approach, (New York Edwin Mellen, 1981) ρ 180 31. Ibid 32. Kasemann, op erf pp 56-73 33. Κ Rudolph, "Das Problem einer Soziologie und sozialen Verödung in der Gnosis" in Kairos 19 1,1977, pp 35-44 34. E Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, (New York Random House, 1979) 35. Η Green, The Economic and Social Ongins of Gnosticism, (Atlanta Scholars Press, 1985) 36. Äwdp18f 37. ÄWü*p261 38. Ibtd ρ 262 54 CHRISTOLOGY AND COMMUNITY experienced in Egypt, drove not only the marginalised Jewish groups towards Gnos­ ticism, but perhaps also played a part in pushing the Johannine community towards a privatised form of religion with an increased stress upon the role of the individual. The Roman influence in Alexandria and the introduction of their system of land tenure, according to Green, accounts for the privatisation evident in the religion of the Gnostic sects. If we locate the Johannine community in Alexandria similar signs ought to be apparent, and indeed they are. One such feature of the Fourth Gospel is its emphasis on the personal nature of the believers response to the revelation incarnate in Jesus. The direct use of the second person singular and the openess of the pronoun "pas" in verses like John 3:16,4:13,6:40,11:26,12-46 and 15:2 all point in this direc­ tion. Although not without parallels in the Synoptics, the force of the appeal to the indi­ vidual is most pronounced in the Gospel according to John. Indeed in no other New Testament work does the faith of the individual receive as much attention. The idea that the Fourth Gospel originated in Alexandria has been suggested by, among others, William Brownlee39 and Louis Martyn.40 The large contingent of Jews, with a welt-controlled bureaucracy of archons, a sizeable group of Samaritans as evi­ denced by Josephus41 and the discovery in Egypt of the earliest papyri of the Fourth Gospel are just some of the reasons mentioned by Brownlee.42 There are others. For example we notice Josephus's mention of the Alexandrian debate between the Samaritans and the Jews regarding their respective temples^hich took place in the Second century before the Common Era and is reflected in John 4:20. But for me the deciding factor remains the amazing correlation between the Johannine and the Gnostic communities and the way in which they so clearly are responding to the same social, political and economic situations.

A Unique Form of Leadership The type of leadership one would expect within a sect committed to an egalitarian structure would be of the order of a charismatic leader, like the Judges of Israel and as described by Max Weber.44 This is precisely what scholars like Raymond Brown, David Aune and Bruce Woll45 have suggested was indeed the case. In the absence of an accepted system of successon each new leader would need to legitimate his or her position within the confines of the dominant ideology. A study of the Farewell Dis­ courses contains the elements of just such a process of legitimation. The most traumatic moment for a cult, according to Joachim Wach is the death of its founder.46 suggests that in the Johannine community a crisis was precipi­ tated by the death of the Beloved Disciple. The early Johannine community was like other early Jesus movements a millenarian movement. Moreover it appears that the death of the Beloved Disciple was associated with the non-event of the Parousia (John 21:21 -23). It is probable therefore that following his death, a period of acute dis­ illusionment threatened to engulf the community. What some social scientists, follow­ ing Leon Festinger47 call cognitive dissonance. But beyond the failure of the Parousia,

39. W Brownlee, "Whence the Gospel according to John?" in John and Qumran, edited by J H Charfesworth, (London G Chapman, 1972) pp 166-193 40. Martyn, History and Theology, pp 83 41. Antiquities 14-7-2 42. Brownlee, op cit 43. Antiquities 13 3 4 44. M Weber, Ancient Judaism, (Ε Τ Glencoe, Illinois The Free Press, 1952) pp 40f 45. Brown, op at, Aune, op at, and Β Woll, Johannine Chnstianity in Conflict, (Chico Scholars Press, 1981) 46. J Wach, Types of Religious Expenence· Chnstian and Non-Chnstian, (Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1967) ρ 137 47. Festinger, op at JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA 55 there were other issues. Since the Beloved Disciple apparently had had personal con­ tact with Jesus, his death raised the question of access to Jesus. Finally there was the question of a successor. The Upper Room discourses represent a series of responses to these questions. Beneath the words of Jesus we may discover, not the trauma caused by the death of Jesus but the attempt to legitimate a particular successor to the Beloved Disciple. For a community who had never experienced the human Jesus, their crisis lay with the loss of the one person who had known and followed the Master. Bruce Woll working along similar lines has suggested that the Upper Room Discourses were written in order to critique certain forms of charismatic leadership which in his opinion had tried to claim equality with Jesus.48 What Woll fails to notice is that these discourses serve an ideological function namely to legitimate the position in the struggle for succession, not of a rival form of leadership, but of the new leader of the community. The leader is in the process of establishing his or her position and the Farewell Discourses are the means to that end. In the description of the work of the Paraklete, in the titles used and the comparative disuse of the term Holy Spirit, together with the masculine pronoun, we are led to dis­ cover not just the projection of the community's identity or their sense of mission, or even the ongoing sense of the presence of Jesus, but a concrete individual whose words challenged the wof Id about its thinking on Jesus and the Johannine community namely the Evangelist himself. Indeed we discover the remarkable way in which the Evangelist uses the words of Jesus to legitimate his own position within the commun­ ity. Jesus is seen to forecast the coming of another comforter, beyond himself or the Beloved Disciple, who would remind the community of his words, and judge the world about its system of values. This is precisely the function taken upon himself by the Evangelist. In time as the community reacted to the new leadership, so the Evangelist was obliged to reiterate his claims, and so we have the extension of the Upper Room Dis­ courses, which have puzzled scholars for so long. Yet the Evangelist is not free to lead as he pleases, for we discover that the Christology of the Gospel serves to control his form of leadership. That Christology which had its roots in the unique social system of the Johannine community now functions as the controlling mechanism within the community, preventing the Evangelist from creating an authoritarian structure incon­ sistent with that tradition. Once again we witness the operation of the religion of the Johannine community as a form of servo-mechanism, and the preservation of what Bruce Malina49 calls "normative dissonance".

A unique message So we come to the last section of this paper, and to a consideration of the audience envisaged by the Evangelist. While the Gospel was written largely for the community and in no small part as a reflection of the pervading ideology both to legitimate their social order and their style of leadership, that was not the whole purpose. We notice following Barnabas Lindars50 that the major threat feared by the com­ munity appears to be not the Romans, but the Jews, as evident in John 15:25 and 16:2. Persecution and expulsion from the synagogue stand as the works of the Jews

48. Woll, op at ρ 66 49. Malina, op at 50. Β Lindars, "The Persecution of Chnstians in John 1518 -16 4a" in Suffenng and Martyrdom in the New Testament, edited by W Horbury and Β McNeil, (London Cambridge University Press, 1981 ) pp 48-69 56 CHRISTOLOGY AND COMMUNITY against the community. What a contrast here with the fear of Roman persecution found in the Gospel of Matthew (10:18) and the . The expulsion from the synagogue mentioned in the Gospel (John 9:22 and 12:42), probably reflects not the history of the community so much as the steps taken by the Council of Jamnia to prevent the growing swing towards heretical movements of which Johannine Chris­ tianity was just one group. The formulation in John 9:22, particularly the words "to be the Christ" is a Johannine formulation of the general edict against heretics in general. Taking account of the stress on personal religion found in the Johannine commun­ ity, and the Jewish move against heretics in general, I suggest that the Gospel was written not just for insiders, but also for these other groups who together with the Johannine Christians experienced alienation from orthodox Judaism. The message of the Gospel was appealing, for it represented so nearly the experiences of other marginalised groups caught between the pressures generated by the changing modes of production, on the one hand, and the movement towards orthodox Judaism of Jamnia on the other. For those Jews whose political and economic hopes had been dashed by the changing system of government in Alexandria under the Romans, the Gospel offered a real alternative - a personal religion as a counterpart to the Roman system of privati­ sation. For those Jews who had already taken the step towards an heretical form of Judaism, the decree from Jamnia and the rabbinic moves against heretics (like the Twelth Benediction) meant that they could no longer call themselves "Jews". Once again such marginalised people would feel at home within the world of the Gospel. The Johannine community found itself in competition with Judaism and an ideolog­ ical claim based upon the antiquity of the Jewish writings. So the pre-existence of Jesus becomes a vital part of the Johannine teaching. Jesus is seen to antedate not only Moses but the very Father of the Jews, namely Abraham himself. "Before Abraham, I am" (8:58) thus served to counterthe rival claims of orthodox Judaism and to reinforce the Johannine community's own sense of election, even predestination, as the chosen agent of God. In the period of the First Epistle, we discover the first signs of the breaking up of the community. The egalitarian nature of the community pushed the members towards an identification of Jesus with God, that denied his humanity. In other words, one logical end of the ideology of the community was Gnosticism. But the leader of the commun­ ity expells these docetists and so begins the community's move to a new societal structure, and the consequent loss of normative dissonance. An authoritarian note creeps in and the old ideology is no longer free to function as a servo-mechanism. This spells the end for the community as reflected in the Gospel.51

51. This paper was first presented at the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting in Jerusalem (August 1986). ^s

Copyright and Use:

As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.

No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law.

This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However, for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article. Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available, or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).

About ATLAS:

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS®) collection contains electronic versions of previously published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American Theological Library Association.