| WASHINGTON — Christians who emphasize Jesus’ death over his resurrection as the central mystery of faith make a tragic theological separation. It all goes back to about 1100 A.D., says the Rev. Gerard S. Sloyan.
About that time, Christians in the Western world began to stress the agony of Jesus’ death on the cross, says Sloyan, a Catholic priest, scholar and author of the new book, The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth and Faith (Fortress Press).
But such a shift in piety, he argues, is somewhat at odds with the Gospels, and most definitely at odds with the faith of the Apostle Paul, Sloyan said. In a telephone interview, he said stressing the Crucifixion without the Resurrection goes against the meaning ascribed to it by the ancient church.
“What we cannot forget is that Jesus’ teaching, which is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke — some of it in John — is treasured, remembered, preached upon and recalled only because it culminated in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead,” Sloyan said.
“Nobody in Jerusalem on that Friday afternoon, among the people of Galilee who knew Jesus from there and had come with him to the pilgrimage feast would look at his bloody beating and dying and say, ‘He is the savior of the world,’” he added. “There was no such thing as immediate comprehension of the meaning of his death and resurrection.”
Only later did the understanding of Christ’s followers deepen. And only in time did the church discover the true meaning of his death, Sloyan contends.
Were he leading a parish Lenten study in preparation for Easter, Sloyan would encourage Christians to look at the New Testament in depth.
“Speak not only of what you find in the four Gospels of what the church made of Jesus’ death and resurrection,” he said. “I would hope you would look to Paul’s epistles, to Hebrews, to Revelation.
“They extracted the faith of the church. The Gospels speak only briefly of the Resurrection narratives. It’s Paul and Hebrews that describe the faith that came from the events.”
A gentle fellow with a self-effacing conversational style, Sloyan, 84, is professor emeritus of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia and visiting professor of religion and religious education at Catholic University of America in Washington. A past president of both the Catholic Biblical Association and the College Theology Society, he has written many books, including What Are They Saying About John? and Preaching from the Lectionary.
He begins this new book by noting that hundreds of thousands died by crucifixion at Roman hands, as did Jesus. Then he asks why it is that Jesus is universally remembered for his suffering death. He goes on to explore how Jesus died, who was responsible for his death, how his death came to be seen as redemptive and how accounts of his death played a role in the rise of anti-Jewish feelings.
In detail, Sloyan examines excessive practices including flagellation among monastic and lay believers in the 14th and 15th centuries, when emulation of Christ’s suffering reached a new height. He notes that the first 10 centuries after Jesus’ death “went largely unmarked by devotion to Jesus’ flagellation and crowning with thorns.”
He also explores why the Crucifixion became separated from the Resurrection in common piety.
St. Paul didn’t see it that way, he said in the book.
“When Paul wrote that Jesus was handed over to death for our sins and was raised up for our justification (Romans 4:25), he indicated, however unconsciously, that the death of Jesus had already become in his mind a fact to be believed in, and that God’s response to that death was another, greater fact tending to wipe out the memory of the first,” he writes.
Sloyan has not seen Mel Gibson’s blockbuster film, “The Passion of the Christ,” so he shies from criticizing it. But the many articles he has read about the film have led him to ruminate on its depiction of the story.
“Evidently the Resurrection is portrayed in the blink of an eye, relative to the time given to Jesus’ agony on the cross,” Sloyan says. “I think it (the movie) goes on the wrong assumption — reports of the film seem to say that Mr. Gibson relies on Christian faith in Jesus’ cruel torment and death as the heart of the mystery of human redemption.
“If that’s the case of the film, he’s right because so many Christians of the West — not of the East (meaning the Eastern Orthodox Church) — have separated his death from his resurrection in their prayer and piety.”
But it is the two together that comprise the mystery, Sloyan says. “Good
Friday is nothing if it does not lead to Easter Sunday,” he argues.
His book is a well-written and well-researched volume especially suited for scholars, pastors and lay leaders. While Sloyan makes no claims to great insights or surprising findings, the way he tracks the history of how Jesus’ death came to be seen as sacrificial in theology, literature, liturgy and art provide essential information to modern Christians seeking deeper understanding.
|
