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Introduction
- Duquesne University Press
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1 Introduction What sentiments moved the disciples, the companions of Jesus, on Easter morning and after he had departed from them? Were they overwhelmed, flabbergasted, enthused, inspired, enlightened? It is difficul to say, but one thing is certain: these men and women wondered about and pondered the events they had witnessed. They sought to comprehend the unbelievable, a series of events that did not correspond at all to what they had previously imagined. Following this man along the routes of Galilee (and less often in Judea), this rabbi, preacher, and thaumaturge, they had imagined him eventually sitting on the throne of David. Or better—perhaps he would be an emperor, like the one in Rome. Better still, in the place of the one in Rome. Instead, he was imprisoned, tortured, and condemned to the most infamous of deaths: death on a cross. But he had triumphed over this death. He had returned; he had risen. And they believed this. History will never come to a definitive pronouncement on this point. No one can give absolute credence to Mary Magdalene’s cry, returning from Golgotha on that Easter morning: “He lives!” Those same men who had denied him after his arrest came to the tomb to verify her words and found it empty. Then they themselves saw him. And what they saw was not a ghost; they were not dreaming. The best proof of this is that he ate with them. The apostles would never back down from this conviction, even to the point of martyrdom, as we know with certainty in the case of those whose history can be traced. Nonetheless, after his departure, they still had questions about the meaning of what they had experienced, about what he had told them and taught them, and above all, about what they were now to do. To be sure, they knew they should continue, as he had frequently told them. He had said so to Mary Magdalene when he met her by the tomb on Easter morning, in words charged with meaning: “Do not hold me” (in Western tradition the Latin translation is: Introduction 2 Noli me tangere—“Do not touch me”). “Do not hold me, but hasten to my brothers.” This celebrated passage of the Gospel of John demonstrates that Christianity is not based on the cult of the dead, on visits to cemeteries and memorial monuments. Rather, it is a religion of motion, of proclamation. Another version of the words of Jesus to Mary Magdalene reads: “Do not remain here by the tomb, but go tell the community that I will ascend to my Father.” “Community”... a word for us to ponder, since the followers of Jesus were at that point only a small group. It evokes a question that has endured for 20 centuries: Did Jesus intend to found a larger community, an immense and lasting one—the church? Any history of the Christian church must begin with this query. At the center of this debate is a passage from the Gospel of Matthew. It relates that shortly after the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus asked his companions a question calculated to test them: “Who do you say I am?” While the crowds considered him a magician or a new prophet or a future revolutionary leader (riots and rebellions were then a common thing in Galilee), Jesus compelled his disciples to commit to a position. It was Peter who responded: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Christ was the word used in the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible of the third century B.C. to designate the ideal king, the awaited Messiah. With his words, Peter placed Jesus outside the common sphere of humanity. He did not say, “You are God yourself,” but he was not far from saying so. Jesus then replied, “And I tell you, you are Peter [Rock], and on this rock I will build my Church.” Catholic tradition has adduced from this sentence both an affirmatio of the intention of Jesus to create the church and evidence of the primacy of Peter and his successors . On the other hand, there are many who point out that this text does not appear in other accounts of the same scene as written in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, but only in the Gospel of Matthew. The question arises, then, if the passage might not have been inserted at a later date, a question that cannot be answered with any certainty...