Prophecies Pandemics

Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text Prophecies of the Last Days in the NT and Apocrypha Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners1 Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God2 1. Introduction: Prophecy as a vision, knowledge, and politics Among several elements, ancient Jewish and Christian prophecies are characterized by vision, knowledge, and politics.3 “Vision” has here a “box-function” that includes other ways to perceive divinity: to see4, to hear or, most in general, to feel God.5 “Knowledge” means both, to know what will soon happen by a divine revelation, and—in less mythological terms—a particular human savoirfaire, a sensibility given to specific (elected) people (prophets, indeed) in order to interpret current age according to God’s revelation6. “Politics” concerns the address and the essential content of the 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mk. 2:17. The English translations of biblical passages are from NRSV. Q 6:20 (= Lk. 6:20). See e.g., the classic Klaus Koch, The Prophets, 2 vols (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983-1984); Louis Isaac Rabinowitz, “Prophets and Prophecy”, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2007, Vol. 16, p. 566-581. See also John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End”, in Bernard McGinn, John J. Collins, Stephen J. Stein (eds), The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Vol. 1 (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 129-161; Stephen L. Cook, “Apocalyptic Prophecy”, in John J. Collins (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 19-35. To directly see God is a rare possibility in Jewish and Early Christian traditions. Cf. Mauro Belcastro, “Essere e vedere. Dichiarazioni identitarie nel Libro delle Parabole”, SMSR 85 (2/2019), 428. The Christian writings The Shepherd of Hermas or Ascension of Isaiah are exceptions (Asce. Is. 9:39: «Behold, now it is granted to thee to see God»), but the sentence was probably added at some stage of redaction. In fact, 10:2, and especially 11:32, confirms the traditional impossibility to see God directly. According to Paul’s perspective, vision (ὀπτασία) is exceeded by revelation (ἀποκάλυψις). Cf. 2 Cor. 12:1-10 where the hyperbolic sublation of the revelation respect vision (ἡ ὑπερβολὴ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων) is clear. About the perfection of vision in «visionary literature», see Luca Arcari, Vedere Dio. Le apocalissi giudaiche e protocristiane (IV sec. a.C. - II sec. d.C.) (Roma: Carocci, 2020), esp. pp. 27-33; see also Enrico Norelli, “La visionarietà apocalittica”, Humanitas 73/4 (2018), 530-559. About the definition of apocalypse, apocalyptic, and apocalypticism see John J. Collins (ed.), Apocalypse: The Morphology of the Genre, Semeia 14 (1979); Adela Y. Collins, Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting, Semeia 39 (1986); Enrico Norelli, “Apocalittica: come pensarne lo sviluppo?”, RStBib2 (1995), 163-200; John J. Collins, “The Genre Apocalypse Reconsidered”, ZAC 20 (1/2016), 2140; Enrico Norelli, “Introduzione”, in E. Norelli (ed.), Apocalisse come genere. Un dibattito ancora attuale?, RSCR 1/2020, 3-58. See the ingenious and still strong answers of Baruch Spinoza to the question «quid esset prophetia?» (TTP, Praefatio, 10) in Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, «Hamburgi: apud Henricum Künraht» [0 =Amsterdam: Rieuwertsz], 1670, 1:27-28. 1 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text prophecy. Prophetical message is, in fact, essentially addressed to a king or a “sovereign” collectivity (Israel or Christian groups) to reconfigure human behaviour in according to God. Prophecy is always defined as a politics.7 Prophetical engagement does not mean just a reflection about this present world, a sort of nowadays picture: it is an action to try to change it, a reaction to prepare a new world after a crisis. This also means that those who are involved in prophecy, anticipate by words and images the end of this world. Prophecy is tied to a transformation, a reconfiguration of the present (or presence), and a creation of a new sense of history. Thus, if prophecy is banded to the crisis of the present, it is also a disclosure of a new future. As Ernesto de Martino suggested, prophecy is connected with the «Western insidious apocalypticism» that is characterized by the loss of sense [perdita di senso] and domesticity [domesticità] of the world; by the failure of human intersubjective relationship; by the threatening narrowing of any horizon of a workable communally future according to human freedom and dignity; and, finally, by the risks of alienation that we can see if not in a technical progress, certainly in technicality and fetishization of the technic.8 De Martino’s mention weaves the present essay as a file-rouge, leading it through an attempt of analysis of certain early Christian samples that will be considered. In particular, my attention will be focused on the specific declination that Jesus, Paul, and a crucial non-biblical writing, the Christian apocalypse named Ascension of Isaiah, realize as a perspective about another divine reconfiguration of this present world, through categories as “the end of this current age”, “the kingdom of God that is becoming”, and “the future”. Avoiding hypothetical chronological orders, first of all, I will address my attention to Jesus’ interpretation of prophecy, strongly connected with politics. In the first paragraph, I will analyze Jesus preaching according to the Synoptic perspective; here the link between politics, society, and illness will arise. Jesus will be presented as a prophet who, in his therapeutic activity, meets certain specific human beings, all of which are considered marginals as a consequence of their social subaltern 7 8 See Nitzan Lebovic, Daniel Weidner, “Prophetic Politics: An Introduction”, Political Theology, 21/1-2 (2020): «The history of Abrahamic religions shows how prophets frequently came to realize their role in society as a symptom of crisis. Not only reflecting as passive commentators, prophets became active agents who, by speaking out, pushed the crisis forward toward its radical culmination. In this sense, the prophet is a mediating figure who stands—even when passive herself—for change in general, or a principle of boundary crossing in particular. The prophet is the one who rejects any separation of religion from politics, and sovereign from community, conservative and reform camps, high and low cultures», p. 2. Ernesto de Martino, La fine del mondo. Contributo all’analisi delle apocalissi culturali (Torino: Einaudi, 2019), p. 82. The English translation is mine. 2 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text condition.9 In the second paragraph, I will analyze reflections about the origin of the evil, and the possible rescues, investigating the Ascension of Isaiah, an important Christian 2nd century apocalypse.10 Finally, I will face Paul and his considerations about crisis of the present last days, and a cultural/theological reconstruction of an uncertain future, in particular as they emerge in Phil. 3, and 1Cor. 7. In this last paragraph, the category of marginality will be extended (according to the Pauline perspective) to human beings as a whole, considerate in a condition of illness due to their essential sinfulness. In all of these passages, the sense will appear of the “end of the world” understood by the poor, sick, and marginalized as a crisis of their current presence (or present), the perception of a collapse of any possibility to a (better) future, the serious risk of not being there anymore, which de Martino calls psychopathological apocalypses.11 The kingdom of God that is coming is announced not just as an alternative to this world: as I claim, to consider the kingdom of God just as an alternative is a nonsolution, because it will propose again, sooner or later, the same unjust output of marginality, that is the waste of the political action of immunization of a community.12 Quite the opposite, eschatological 9 As I will point out, this is about poor (essentially unable to work) people affected by disabilities, women (not necessary affected by some illness), but also people refused by their own συγγενεῖς because they are considered as a traitor (e.g., tax collectors). Thus, marginality (i.e., exclusion) depends on the cultural horizon taken as a model by certain societies, and it is not necessarily coinciding with subalternity (that remains functionally linked to the unfair growth of society). About marginalization and subalternity, see at least Antonio Gramsci, “Storia della classe dominante e delle classi subalterne”, in Id., Quaderni del carcere, Q3, §14 (Torino: Einaudi, 1975). See also Guido Liguori, “Subalterno e subalterni nei “Quaderni del carcere”, International Gramsci Journal 2(1), 2016, 89-125. 10 Many other readings are possible in this context, from the Apocalypse of John to the Apocalypse of Peter or Paul. On the importance of the Ascension of Isaiah in early Christian history and theology, see Enrico Norelli, L’Ascensione di Isaia. Studi su un apocrifo al crocevia dei cristianesimi (Bologna: EDB, 1994). See also Pierluigi Piovanelli, “‘A Door into an Alien World’: Reading the Ascension of Isaiah as a Jewish Mystcal Text”, in Jan N. Bremmer, Thomas R. Karmann, Tobias Nicklas (eds.), The Ascension of Isaiah (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), pp. 119-144. 11 About this, it is highly significant the story reported by Mk. 5:25-34 (// Mt. 9:20-22; Lk. 8:43-48) of a «woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse». Here there is a clear example of a crisis of the presence not necessarily linked to a poor person. Quite the opposite, that woman initially may have had economical means to face medical care; nevertheless, crisis eventually happen anyway, and Jesus is seen as the only one who can repair: «She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”» For a different social case (with the same horizon of reconfiguration), see Lk. 15:17 (the parable of the lost sheep) and 15:8-10 (the parable of the lost coin). 12 The category of “immunity” or “immunization” is employed by Roberto Esposito, Immunitas. Protezione e negazione della vita (Torino: Einaudi, 2020). This important concept will be useful in the following considerations. Unlike Esposito, I claim that the process of immunization (in its different declinations according to the nómos, religio, biopolitics or anthropology) is a dispositif of marginalization, a mechanism that, generating “security” and “identity” for a “safe society”, inevitably produces a waste. This waste consists of concrete human beings refused by society as a-normal, sub-normal, dysfunctional people or simply subalterns (poor, mental and physical disabled people, women, foreigners, not heteronormative people). This refusing is preceded and followed by a narrative of marginalization rooted in an alleged biological or natural condition that finally justify inequality, totally avoiding the cultural and 3 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text perspective announces a future kingdom where human beings will be together (in ἐκκλησία) in peace without fight or division (cf. Is 11:1-10), and paradoxically makes present a possibility of a new “sensible” «cultural apocalypse».13 Through this chapter, I will conduct a semantic and symbolic overlap; in fact, I will consider the crisis mentioned above as a pandemic (the extreme possibility of annihilation),14 according to multiple points of view (disease, infirmity, famine, poverty). The goal of my investigation is to show how early Christian perspective considered here is not a new form of power (even divine) generating a new form of organization of the society. Quite the opposite, it is the crisis of the crisis, a metacrisis that aims to deconstruct the present ill world15 by the revelation of the kingdom of God that is coming; at the same time, this revelation destroys even the possibility of injustice, prefigured in the biblical shalom. 2. Jesus, Prophecy, and the Last Days What does it mean “the end of the world”, “the end of the age”16? This is an expression that we can find everywhere in early Christian writings. Speaking about the same final time, Paul says that «the present form of this world is passing away»17, while the Ascension of Isaiah calls this condition «the last days»18. In an important 1965 article, Cesare Cases, reporting his last conversation with Ernesto de Martino, preserves an important testimony. According to Cases, for de Martino 13 14 15 16 17 18 economic reasons of it. About the idea of “wasted lives”, see Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives. Modernity and its Outcasts (Oxford: Polity, 2004). Once again, it is Ernesto de Martino who forges this evocative concept, «cultural apocalypse», that contrasts the psychopathological one. As will be clear, early Christian concept of “end” moves these two horizons (psychopathological and cultural) closer more than de Martino wanted to admit. A different case concerns the death, the possibility that certainly erased any other possibility. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), § 50-53. For a de Martino’s critique to Heidegger, see La fine del mondo, cit. pp. 186-187 and 520-531. Essential here is Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2014): «The illnesses cannot be reduced to “diseases” that could have been “cured” by modern biomedicine but were rather illnesses typical (and symbolic) of peoples impacted by colonial/imperial invasion or conquest, the most striking of which is possession by alien spirits but which also include paralysis, blindness, hemorrhaging, and extreme weakness (being virtually dead). These were symptoms of a whole society undergoing disintegration», p. 106. Cf. Mt. 28:20: «συντέλειας τοῦ αἰῶνος»; 1Pt 1:20: «ἔσχατος τῶν χρόνων»; Heb. 9:26: «συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων». 1 Cor 7:31: «παράγει γὰρ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου». Ascen. Isa. 9:131: «Descendet vero in mundum ultimis diebus Dominus qui vocandus est Christus / ይወርድኬ ፡ ውስተ ፡ ዓለም ፡ በድኃሪ ፡ መዋዕል ፡ እግዚእ ፡ ዘሀሎ ፡ ይትበሀል ፡ ክርስቶስ». 4 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text the end of the world has always been there. What else Incas or Aztecs thought toward Spanish conquerors— those Martians who poured in from no one knows where—but that it was the end of the world? We can say that it was the end of their world; after all, what is the end of the world if not the end of our own world?19 According to de Martino, the collapse (the «loss of presence») of my world could have two different outputs: on the one hand, collapse leads to a psychopathological apocalypse; on the other hand, it can be the occasion to reconfigure a collective horizon into a cultural apocalypse. To make possible this second condition, people who experiment a crisis have to reconnect their current lives with what anticipated them at cultural level. This reconnection is a cultural «energy», a «beyond», a «valorizing transcends», that de Martino calls ethics of transcension («etica del trascendimento»).20 Crisis and reintegration (that is the self-possibility-of-not-being-there-anymore and the have-to-being-there-inthe-world) are good categories, useful in order to try to explain how prophecy—and especially Jesus’ preaching—works. But the same cultural world that could become a renovated horizon giving a sense to a crisis, in early Christian terms is the same cultural horizon that determined the crisis itself.21 Thus, it is better to interpret Jesus preaching in dialectical terms, using those categories, but translating them as a) presence-in-this-evil-world, b) crisis-of-the-presence, c) eschatological-new-horizon.22 If prophecies could be understood as human attempts to see beyond the veil of human activities and historical situations, the prophet—in connection with divinity—is able to say something about what is really going on in present days (deconstruction), and what will happen to human beings from now to a short piece of time (eschatological vision). The prophet, this special and peculiar link between this present essentially evil world and a future promised kingdom of God, tries to figure out divine signs spread out through this world. Usually, prophecies are connected to terrible facts that must happen: it is easy to put the accent on the catastrophic events like earthquakes, cosmological explosions, diseases, pandemics, especially because the most relevant parts of prophets’ books are 19 Cesare Cases, “Un colloquio con Ernesto de Martino”, Quaderni Piacentini 4/23-24 (1965), 8. The English translation is mine. 20 De Martino, La fine del mondo, p. 186ff. 21 What is crisis for marginalized people? De Martino speaks about a loss of domesticity [perdita di domesticità] regarding a domestic typical daily world (La fine del mondo, p. 173ff.). But what is a domestic world for the poor, or marginalized? The same world that he or she perceives as “domestic” is the world that threatens him or her, the world whose political structures create his or her marginality. Any single domestic element of the daily life (from the street through which the blind man reaches the place where he can beg to the place where he recovers himself at the end of the day) becomes a cultural place imposed from dominant culture that understand marginal people in their social imposed function. Thus, for people marginalized also domesticity could be a strong cultural function of the power. 22 So structured, a cultural apocalypse is not just a return to the tradition, but it is a disclosure of a truly new possible world, unexpected and for so apocalyptic. According to de Martino «se l’esserci-nel-mondo costituisce la norma della presenza, la condizione del suo emergere e del suo impegnarsi sempre di nuovo nel processo di presentificazione, come potrà chiamarsi ancora “mondo” quello della presenza che rischia di non poterci essere in nessun mondo culturale possibile?» (La fine del mondo, p. 202). 5 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text felt with them. All those situations follow moral attitudes—more collective than individual—due to which human beings are accused of perverting divine law. But the central point about prophecies is more connected to a certain understanding of the reality and its perversion, that is manifested by oppression, injustice, inequality, and idolatry. To focus our attention only on the catastrophic features of prophecies means to misunderstand their political perspective, that is instead to put in question the status quo of the human injustice. So, did Jesus. In his activity and preaching, ideally inheriting the prophetical subversion of (or repulsion for) any form of political establishment, Jesus indicates in the established political power the structural root of a pandemic, the condition of an inevitable marginalization of subalterns (cf. the “woe’s discourse”, Q 11:37-54). When Jesus starts to spread the good news about the kingdom of God, he already finds the human world affected by diseases, that is the consequence of a “pandemic” already at work into the world.23 Thus, humanity is already affected by pandemic: it does not need to convert itself to avoid some form of illness, but to change its own mind in order to understand the offered revelation about the fulfillment of time and the closeness of the kingdom of God (cf. Mk. 1:15). The difference between the prophetical action of Jesus and other Jewish forms of prophecy could be seen in manifestation and accomplishment of the power of God.24 As in the Jewish prophecy, diseases and epidemics are the consequences of evil deeds exercised by people, the action of Jesus is the realization of the last purpose of the same prophecy, that is healing people from the consequences of sin, even removing the condition of possibility of it. In a way, the center of Jesus’ preaching is the revelation of the last mercy of God toward the world that was actually marked by “pandemic” since the beginning of its history. Moreover, this mercy is the realization of Jeremiah and Ezekiel’s crucial 23 According to this perspective, pandemic is not the future consequence of evil deeds. Quite the opposite, it is the already at work daily human historical condition. 24 This relationship is, of course, more a development than a cesura. See, for instance, the obsession of Gospels in picturing Jesus’ preaching as the realization of biblical justice of God (Dt. 10:18-19; Is 61:1-9!), esp. in Q 7:22: «πορευθέντες ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰωάννῃ ἃ εἴδετε καὶ ἠκούσατε· τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσιν, χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσιν, λεπροὶ καθαρίζονται καὶ κωφοὶ ἀκούουσιν, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται, πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται». Here, the “apocalyptic tone” is specifically expressed as an urgency toward the crumbling of the world. Blind, lame, lepers, deaf, dead, poor, in a word the useless people of any society, receive the good news, the final revelation that fulfills ancient prophecies (cf. Is. 26:18b-19), the actual sublation of the mechanism of marginalization that will be finally settled à-venir. About the “undeconstructible justice” à-venir, see Jacques Derrida, “Force of Law. The Mystical Foundation of Authority”, in Id. Acts of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 228-298, where it is clear inter alia that what I call “production of marginalization by the process of immunization” is a secret active performative force intimately belonging to the organization of (in our case, Roman and Jewish) societies that emerge from the right. But that force is also a paradoxical (and Pauline) openness to the à-venir. 6 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text prophecies that see fulfilled a new righteous life for anyone, thanks to the divine gift of a new heart (cf. Jer. 31:31-33; Ez. 36:22-30). In preindustrial societies there was a strong connection between marginality and pandemic, poverty, exclusion and disease.25 In the social context of the ancient world, where «inequality was typical»26, Jesus goes to “the outside”, taking care of people who needed cure, and it is this very concept of “outside” that concerns this research. 27 While in apocalypses (from Daniel or 1 Enoch to the Ascension of Isaiah) it is elected people that usually beg God, demanding to godself to rescue them from this irredeemable world, in Jesus activity, God is preached as being close to the poor, active in liberating them. This proximity clearly fractures the distinction between outside and inside, out and in, alien and proper. It seems that Jesus wants to—impossibly—reach those people who are by now beyond the logic of the immunization. Hence, the presupposition of this claim is that the disease is present among humanity in the form of pandemic, that is an endemic stain of the human condition. In fact, if ancient prophecies threaten human beings through epidemics in order to instill changing in 25 About some definition of poverty in ancient Roman imperial world, see e.g., Charles R. Whittaker, “Il povero”, in Andrea Giardina (ed.), L’uomo romano (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1993); Steven J. Friesen, “Injustice or God’s will? Early Christian explanations of poverty”, in S. Holman (ed.), Wealth and poverty in early church and society. Holy cross studies in patristic theology and history (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), pp. 17-36. The insightful article of Friesen is focused on a central question: «I was not able to find a single study on early Christian analysis of the causes of poverty», he says (p. 18). I think dramatic Jesus’ answer to this point could lead us on a right way to interpret political and social mechanism of marginalization: «πάντοτε γὰρ τοὺς πτωχοὺς ἔχετε μεθ᾽ ἑαυτῶν» (Mk. 14:7). See also Sakari Häkkinen, “Poverty in the first-century Galilee”, HTS 72/4 (2016), 1-9. For a larger understanding of the connections between marginality and disease also see Mario Vegetti, Paola Manuli, “La medicina e l’igiene”, in A. Momigliano, A. Schiavone (eds.), Storia di Roma, vol. 4 (Torino: Einaudi, 1989), pp. 389-429; Michel Foucault, Naissance de la clinique (Paris: Gallimard, 1975); Id., “La naissance de la médecine sociale”, in Dits et Écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), t. III, pp. 207-228; Id., “La politique de la santé au XVIIIe siècle”, in ibid., pp. 725-742; Philip van der Eijk, “Medicine and Health in the Graeco-Roman World”, in Mark Jackson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Pratik Chakrabarti, “Imperialism and the globalization of disease”, in Id., Medicine and Empire (London: Palgrave, 2014), pp. 73-10. 26 Häkkinen, “Poverty”, p. 1. See also Moses I. Finley, Ancient economy, 2nd edn. (London: University of California Press, 1999). 27 I take this concept of “outside” also in a temporal sense, thus showing the crucial nexus between status of inequality and revelation. “Outside” and “inside” are important concepts for both social history and anthropology. In ancient Roman imperial world, that concepts could refer to the relationship between Rome and Provinces or cities and villages; but they could also refer to internal dynamics into the same context. For instance, in a village of Galilee, that considers itself as marginalized in respect to the center of economic power, the same dynamic of marginalization concerns the relationship between government and workers, workers among them, and workers toward the poor (unable to work). For a socio-historical point of view of this point, see Ekkehard W. Stegemann, Wolfgang Stegemann, Urchristliche Sozialgeschichte. Die Anfänge im Judentum und die Christusgemeinden in der mediterranen Welt (Stuttgart-BerlinKöln: Kohlhammer, 1995); Adriana Destro, Mauro Pesce, L’uomo Gesù. Giorni, luoghi, incontri di una vita (Milano: Mondadori, 2008); John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q. The history and setting of the sayings gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000); Id., Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). See also Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from cultural anthropology, 3rd edn. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). 7 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text them, Jesus’ preaching reveals the actual condition of humans, showing that a sort of social epidemic is already at work among them. According to Roberto Esposito community and immunity are in inverse relationship between them: although both of them conserve the Latin word munus (“law”, “gift”, “cure”), on the one hand, community shows the deep connection among people, a connection based on the gift (in a noneconomic sense), and the necessity of a reciprocal care; on the other hand, immunity is the category of exclusion, activated in order to avoid a large contamination, to realize an idealized security around people.28 Ancient societies apply this paradigm to ill people—more or less consciously—through the social dispositive of marginalization. This is clear in rural settings such as those described, for instance, in the Gospel of Mark, where mental illness, leprosy or blindness are signs of the incurable curse of God (cf. also Jn 9:2-3). This kind of marginalization (with that of women, especially if sick and prostitutes) is a form of social immunization, the creation of an edge of secureness. Thus, the last judgement of God—according to Jesus’ action and preaching—is recovery. All of this is clearly showed in Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples according to the source Q: Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.29 The perspective mentioned above is well expressed since to the beginning of canonical Gospels. But it is important to distinguish properly the sources of Gospels. While Mark, for instance, points out a more political implication of Jesus’ preaching about last days, Q is more interested in showing the fact of a judgement that is coming under the world.30 Referring to Mark (or the use that Luke and Matthew make of it), Q is more interested in «countryside and private spaces» as a place of acceptation of the kingdom, but also as a symbol of a great place from where the great judgement will come to the cities. This could suggest a reflection about the kingdom more “interior” than social and politics (as in Mk.), and its reflection orientated exclusively on Judean or Jewish people (exp. Galileans), without any attention to Gentiles.31 28 Besides Immunitas, see also Roberto Esposito, Communitas. Origine e destino della comunità (Torino: Einaudi, 2006); Jacques Derrida, Donner le Temps. 1. La Fausse Monnaie (Paris: Galilée, 1991); Donner la mort (Paris: Galilée, 1999). 29 Q 7:22 (= Lk. 7:22 // Mt. 11:4b-5). 30 John S. Kloppenborg, Q, the Earliest Gospel. An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008). 31 Cf. Ivi. Kloppenborg closes his reflection on Q’s social setting saying: «Q presents us with a rural, Galilean Jewish gospel, not a gospel that already imagines the extension of the mission of the Jesus movement to Gentile areas and the cultic debates that this extension would provoke. It is this feature of Q that is perhaps the most significant, since 8 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text The triple attestation (Mk., Lk., Mt.) shows a general last days’ framework where John the Baptist addresses to the people a message of repentance. As the content of this announcement is quite clear («Prepare the way of the Lord» [Mk. 1:3]), the purpose of repentance is not so evident: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins32 The «forgiveness of sins» evokes the necessary state that humans have to assume at last, when God will come to unchain godself wrath. It is the usual motive that we can find in the Hebrew Bible, where prophets continually exhort people to change their mind, and move back to God. Thus, John preaching is the link between a prophetical “old fashion way” speaking about change of mentality (μετάνοια) and the different Jesus perspective in preaching that inaugurates not a different content, but the very way of changing.33 This way is signified by the famous aim of Mk.: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.34 There are many parallels between this claim and those of John: the verb μετανοέω is there in both preachings; however, Jesus does not disclose a general reference to forgiveness of sins, but the closeness of the kingdom of God—this is the good news—that is the condition of possibility of the evoked changing. In short, although the message is the same, the difference of time (sometime in the future for John, a current state of humanity for Jesus) changes the entire perspective about the meaning of this claim. Now the time is over: people have to decide where to be, though the imperative does not leave any range in choice. Another important example can lead the reflection further on. It is the case of the Gerasene demoniac (Mk. 5:1-20//Mt. 8:28-34//Lk. 8:26:39) who lives outside the country, among graves. Jesus and his disciples ἦλθον εἰς τὸ πέραν τῆς θαλάσσης (5:1, «came to the other side of the sea»)35; then Jesus ἐξελθόντος ἐκ τοῦ πλοίου (5:2a, «he had stepped out of the boat»); finally, εὐθὺς ὑπήντησεν αὐτῷ ἐκ τῶν μνημείων ἄνθρωπος ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτω (5:2b, «immediately, a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him»). These three steps show the interpretation that Mark gives to Jesus’s activity: 32 33 34 35 along with the letter of James, Q provides us with one of the very few arguable instances of a document produced by and for the earliest Judean followers of Jesus», p. 69. Mk. 1:4. The same Jesus’ “double moving” described in Mk. 1,10ff. leads to a re-semantization of both, the meaning of baptism (that in Mk. becomes the sign of the designation of Jesus as a Messiah by God and anticipated by John who recognizes Jesus as stronger and more powerful than John), and the wilderness (a place where Jesus has to come, and from where has to start his mission). Mk. 1:15. Note here the presence of the verb ἔρχομαι that simply expresses a movement from one point to another. Constructions from this verb present in this passage are even more important: ἐξέρχομαι, «to move out of or away from an area», and ἀπέρχομαι, go away, leave a place, but also change a state or condition (cf. BDAG, ad. loc.). 9 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text he goes “outside” (ἔρχομαι εἰς), to the other side (τὸ πέραν), and he steps out [of the boat] (ἐξέρχομαι ἐκ). Someone possessed by an unclean spirit meets him (ὑπαντάω αὐτῷ). The person who meets Jesus comes ἐκ τῶν μνημείων, from the graves, where he is dwelling (5:3a, «τὴν κατοίκησιν εἶχεν ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν»). The text gives us much evidence of the social marginalization of this possessed man: he lives in a place where there is no life, so in a place incompatible with human dwellings. No one ἁλύσει οὐκέτι οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο αὐτὸν δῆσαι (5:3b, «no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain»); this indicates that, on the one hand, his fellows’ will to remove him from their “normal” life; on the other, their will to keep him outside (by chains)36. We can read this movement of marginalization as a concrete process of immunization where people keep out “abnormality” in order to live in peace. The impossibility to reconfigure a possible horizon of sense by this possessed man clearly points out: διὰ παντὸς νυκτὸς καὶ ἡμέρας ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν καὶ ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσιν ἦν κράζων καὶ κατακόπτων ἑαυτὸν λίθοις (5:4, «Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones»). There is no future for him, and the cause of this is indicated by a demoniac origin. As Richard Horsley suggests, this demon (which is a Legion) could be the figure of the cultural oppression by Roman Empire in that region.37 What is interesting for my reflection is the mechanism of action/reaction that determines a reintegration of a sense for the possessed, and a new perspective of human (future) life by Jesus. In fact, Jesus ἔλεγεν αὐτῷ· ἔξελθε τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἀκάθαρτον ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (5:8, «said to him: “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”»). The demon gets immediately the mismatch between Jesus and himself: «What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?» (5:7). There is one only alternative: this evil marginalizing world or Jesus’ renovated condition. When, finally, Legion is (are) cast out, people from the village come (again ἔρχομαι) and see (θεωρέω > look with attention, contemplation) the man who was possessed set down, dressed, and σωφρονοῦντα (with his mind right): «They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion» (5:17a). Is he returned to normality? Is he able to recuperate a place in society? The reaction to the contemplation of people is unexpected. They, in fact, ἐφοβήθησαν: «They were afraid» (5:17b). There is no joy, no good emotions. They were fearful and, possibly, upset. The reaction to this new life generated by Jesus’ action leads those who are not directly involved in it to reject him and the man. Thus, for the former possessed man, the only possibility is to follow Jesus himself, leaving that people who reject him and his new condition. He cannot recover his old life anymore. And this is the sign of 36 This is even more clear at Mk. 5:4: «διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν πολλάκις πέδαις καὶ ἁλύσεσιν δεδέσθαι καὶ διεσπάσθαι ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τὰς ἁλύσεις καὶ τὰς πέδας συντετρῖφθαι, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἴσχυεν αὐτὸν δαμάσαι». Not only his fellows want to remove him, but they hope that the chains work in order to keep him off. 37 Horsley, Jesus, p. 102. 10 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text a regeneration that is not restoration. The conclusion of the pericope shows the eschatological nature of the text. In fact, the man cannot leave the country to follow Jesus, but he has to proclaim what happened to him after the encounter with Jesus: As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed (5:18-20). The old mark of possession—culturally impossible to remove—becomes an indelible sign of a dialectical renovation.38 At the end (the real end of this man’s world), he has to leave (ἀπέρχομαι) to proclaim the new reconfigured a sense of the future that he has experienced. It is a cultural apocalypse that anticipates the condition in the kingdom coming. Another important textual evidence of Jesus’ apocalyptic activity that I want to discuss here concerns a miracle of healing. It is interesting to remark that, in curing people, Jesus often resorts to a peculiar way of touching the sick or using his own saliva to make therapeutic unguents (cf. Mk. 8:22-26). Thus, the first way to turn sick people to life is the daily and so concrete act of touch and closeness. There are two crucial passages in synoptic Gospels closer to the classical interpretation of the thematic of pandemic (broadly speaking): the Jesus’ anathema against the fig tree (Mk. 11:12ff.//Mt. 21:12ff.//Lk. 19:45ff.), and the little apocalypse (see above), locus classicus about the catastrophic end of age. But it is even more interesting that these two combined passages are introduced by a highly significant miracle, the healing of a blind man the name of which we know only because Mark preserved it: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus: They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.39 Here the healing happens when Jesus is leaving Jericho. Symbolically, it cannot occur in the village. While Jesus ἐκπορευομένου ἀπὸ Ἰεριχώ (ἐκπορεύομαι, to be in motion from an area to another), the 38 See Giovanni Bazzana, Having the Spirit of Christ. Spirit Possession and Exorcism in the Early Christ Groups (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2020), p. 60ff. 39 Mk. 10:46-52. 11 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text blind marginalized Bartimaeus (he was ἐκάθητο παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν, where παρὰ indicates a belonging to an “alongside”, an extraneousness to the village) starts to shout out, stopping Jesus and his disciples’ movement. Bartimaeus makes a simple request: to receive mercy by Jesus, in line with an understanding of reconfiguration of a sense. It is important to note that the request of the miracle comes in a second time. First of all, Bartimaeus demands of Jesus (recognized as Son of David) mercy. This request, this attempt to be noticed by those who did not see him (who is the true blind?) has, as a consequence the attempt to stop him in order to restore the immunized society (καὶ ἐπετίμων αὐτῷ πολλοὶ ἵνα σιωπήσῃ, that it means the attempt to reduce Bartimaeus to silence). Finally, Jesus stops (ἵστημι) himself, and breaking the rules, calls Bartimaeus to him. Before reaching Jesus, Bartimaeus ἀποβαλλεις τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ, throws away his cloak, an indispensable piece of clothing to survive. The apocalyptic process is almost accomplished. In this context, the usual translation of the verb ἀναβλέπω (to see again) does not get the point of the request. In fact, the preposition ἀνα indicates something up. Thus, a more appropriate translation could be “to see upward”. This is not just a request finalized to return to the past, but a change of perspective, to see in another upward direction. In this context, there is a double revelation: on the one hand, Bartimaeus starts to see differently; on the other, Jesus links the new perspective to the faith; and differently in respect to the possessed man in Gerasa, Bartimaeus can share from now the new life of Jesus along the way. The last passage that I want to mention is about Jesus’ preaching in Mk. 13:1-37 (// Mt. 24:1-51; Lk. 21:5-36), the famous little synoptic apocalypse. Here, the logic destruction-reconfiguration is even more explicit (cf. 13:7-9.15-19). The last days will be characterized by catastrophic events: Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Mk. 13:8) Wars, earthquakes, and famines (λιμoί) are the sign of the end. But they are also current events that people at that time experienced daily. Thus, once again, when Mark (followed by Matthew and Luke) tells the story about the end, it is picturing the reality that people suffered every day. As I already said, Gospels are not interested just in picturing reality, but in deconstruct it. In a way, it is not without importance to remark an interesting not trivial addition that at this very point Luke makes to the Mark’s story, saying that at the end it will be also pestilence (λοίμος). Λοίμος (pest, pestilence, plague) is a Greek word that translates the Hebrew ‫( בליעל‬beli’al), which is the personification of the plague (basically meaning “worthless”, “good-for-nothing”).40 As we will see in the next paragraph, Belial 40 On the word Beliar/l, see TDNT, I, p. 607ff.; EDNT, I, p. 212ff.; TDOT, II, p. 131ff. 12 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text is an equivalent to the illness and satanic political power, so Luke is tracking the line that reveals, in the end, the origin of evil. In those unknown days of revelation (cf. 13:32), after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory […] So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.41 Only after the effectiveness of the end (the collapse of any possibility to being there), «they will see the Son of Man». 42 There is no other possibility of rescue but future (and paradoxically closer) accomplishment of the kingdom of God.43 Every possibility of a crisis of the presence will be erased by the Son of Man who «will send out the angels, and gather (ἐπισυνάξει) his elected from the four 41 Mk. 13:24-26. 29-31. 42 There are a lot of other passages that I wanted to analyze, but comprehensiveness goes beyond the intention of the present work. See, for instance, Q (cf. Q 7:22) about marginalized categories, like blind, lame, lepers, deaf, dead, and poor, but the list is partial (while they are largely represented physical diseases, it seems there is no place for mental illness, that, on the contrary we can see well portrayed in Mk. and parallels by possessed). It is interesting that Gospels build Jesus’ miraculous activity around this list. See also Q 12:22b-31 about last days’ faithfulness; Q 7:18-23 that gives a clear orientation about last days; Jn 5:14; 8:11 and Pap. Egerton 2:41 where physical illness is strongly connected with sin. For a connection between Jesus’ activity and poverty, see also the Gospel of the Nazaraeans. Responding to the rich man who was interrogating him about «what good thing shall I do to live» (1) sure to already have fulfilled the law and the prophets (cf. Mt 19,16-24), Jesus answered to him: «How can you say, “I have fulfilled the law and the prophets”, since it is written in the law: You shall love your neighbour as yourself, and lo! many of your brethren, sons of Abraham, are clothed in filth, dying of hunger, and your house is full of many goods, and nothing at all goes out of it to them.» (ibid.) The Gospel according to the Hebrews says about this «And the Lord is spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And in the Gospel referred to above I find this written: “And it came to pass, as the Lord came up out of the water, the whole fountain of the Holy Spirit descended upon him and rested upon him and said to him, ‘My son, in all the prophets I expected that you might come and that I might rest upon you. You are my rest, you are my firstborn Son, who reigns in eternity.’”», Jerome, on Isa. 11:2. It is interesting to remark upon other two quotations by Clement of Alexandria: «As it is also written in the Gospel of the Hebrews, “He who wonders shall I reign, and he who reigns shall rest”», and «With these words agrees the sentence: “He who seeks will not rest till he finds, and when he finds he will wonder, and wondering he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest.”». The climax (to seek, to find, to wonder, to reign, to rest), that has its clear parallel in the Gospel of Thomas (NHC 2 and Pap. Oxy. 654, 5-9), finds its setting in a wisdom (Jewish Gnosticism?) reflection. What it is important to point out here is the not accidental choice of the use of verbs “to reign” and “to rest”. Beyond an assumed symbolic language, it seems plausible to suppose a deeper political reflection behind the text, that could better also explain the connection between these two texts with Mt. 11:28-30 (// Is. 57:15; Lam. 5:5; Ez. 34:15!) where the verb ἀναπαύνω (“I rest”) is the goal and the result of the action of κοπιῶντες and πεφορτισμένοι. The verb ἀναπαύνω suggests a reference to the eschatological “rest”, that is the goal of the kingdom of God (Ex. 23:12; Lv. 25:2; Dt. 5:14 LXX translates by this verb the Hebrew ‫ ;שׁבת‬essentially equivalent to “to stay”, “to be in peace, or quite”, cf. 2Sa. 7:11; 1Ki. 5:18; 1Ch 22:9; Is. 11:2). The English translation of these non-canonical texts is from J. Keith Elliott (ed.), The Apocryphal New Testament. A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 43 See Jesus’ admonition about false prophets in Mk. 13:22-23. 13 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven» (Mk. 13:27). The verb ἐπισυνάγω (to gather) expresses the exact dialectical sublation behind a cultural apocalypse.44 As Horsley acutely aims, «Jesus’s exorcism and healing cannot be separated from the other aspects and the general agenda of his mission», and this claim could be extended to any other of Jesus’ activities. While I totally agree with Horsley’s perspective when he says that «as portrayed in both Mark and the Q speeches, followed by Matthew and Luke and paralleled by John, this was evidently the renewal of the people in opposition to the rulers», based on what I said above, it seems to me more problematic that «the exorcisms were manifestations of the renewal of Israel».45 It is not just a question of renewal, but a (dialectical) accomplishment and recreation of the kingdom of Israel as the kingdom of God. This perspective will be clearer after the analysis of the Ascension of Isaiah. 3. The Ascension of Isaiah. The Origins of Evil and Final Rescue The canonical Revelation of John may seem one of the most privileged observation points to recover the early Christian perspective on criticism of politics in eschatological sense46. And it is certainly true. But I preferred to focus my attention on another important Christian apocalypse—the Ascension of Isaiah—for its dialectical character. While Revelation seems to simply oppose this current kingdom of evil to the kingdom of God (through Christ)47, and it seems to represent elected people as onlookers in a tragic history, Asce. Is. is a text whose content is an attempt of explanation of the current historical earthly evil situation, and of its solution. The main character in earthly historical drama is Satan with his multiple names.48 In the episodes of exorcism told by Gospels, Jesus is always in connection with the presence of this fallen angel (Satan, 44 The verb ἐπισυνάγω also attests this cultural process in other places, as Mk. 1:33 or Lk. 17:37. 45 Horsley, Jesus, pp. 106-107. See also the interesting reflection of Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, La invención de Jesús de Nazaret. Historia, ficción, historiografía (Madrid: Siglo XXI de España, 2018), pp. 174-298. 46 So, e.g., Friesen, Jesus: «The Revelation of John presents a blistering critique of Roman imperialism as the source of injustice and poverty», p. 21. 47 See e.g. Rev. 5-7, esp. 6:9-10: «When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”». The elected people waiting for the accomplishment of the time, knowing that it is just a question of time. 48 See the important Jewish tradition preserved in Hebrew Bible, in non-canonical texts, in Dead Sea Scrolls or in further rabbinic tradition: Satan (1Ch. 21:1; Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-10) is also Baal (Nu. 25:3; Jdg. 2:13; 1Ki. 18:25; 19:18; Jer. 2:8; Hos 2:16), Asael > Azazel (1Enoch), Belial > Beliar (Deut. 13:14; Naum 1:11; 2:1; Ps. 18:5; 41:9; 101:3… 1QS; CD; 1QM; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs et al.), Mastema (Jubilees), Sammael (2Ki. 21:1-8; 2Ch. 33; 2Bar. 64), Melkireša > Melkira (1QS 3,16-20; CD 16-18; also, Angel of Darkness), etc. See Enrico Norelli, “Sammael, Makira, Beliar nell’AI”, in Id. Ascensione, cit., pp. 79-92; Annette Steudel, “God and Belial”, in L.H. Schiffman, E. Tov, J.C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem 14 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text the opponent; Beelzebul, the king of flies), actually active in human beings. It has been preserved a later interesting story about Eve and Adam who decide to eat Sam(m)ael’s son (Sammael is another name to Satan) that he, as a trick, gave in custody to Eve. The diabolic Sammael’s son, after this bloody event, starts to live in “protoparents” saying to his father: «I have penetrated to the heart of Adam and the heart of Eve, and never again shall I quit their hearts, nor the hearts of their children, or their children’s children, unto the end of all generations».49 This story (among others) shows the obsession of Jewish, Christian and Islamic writings in finding the origins of the evil in the world. Ascension of Isaiah is one of these important examples of it, but beyond the research of the origins of evil (an original mythological crisis in the past after which people can be reconciled with God), this text tries to reconfigure the essential inevitable crisis of humanity in a dialectical solution that coincide with Jesus’ descent and ascension.50 Asce. Is. is a Christian two part apocryphal text, of which the first part (1-5 + 11:41-43) is the most recent. The first part tells the story of the Isaiah’s martyrdom by a sow, after the unmasking of Manasseh (the idolater King of Jerusalem, Hezekiah’s son). The political power of Manasseh is directly connected with an action of Sammael/Belial/Satan51: And Sammael Malkira will serve Manasseh and execute all his desires, and he will be a follower of Beliar rather than of me. And many in Jerusalem and in Judah will he cause to depart from the true faith, and Beliar will dwell in Manasseh, and by his hand shall I be sawn asunder. And when Hezekiah heard these words, he wept very bitterly, rent his clothes, cast dust upon his head and fell on his face. And Isaiah said to him, “The design of Sammael against Manasseh is [already] settled: nothing will help thee.”52 49 50 51 52 Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in cooperation with The Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 2000); Corrado Martone, “Evil or Devil? Belial between the Bible and Qumran”, Henoch 26 (2004). Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2003), p. 141-142; Louis Ginzberg, Ha-Goren, 9:38-41; Zohar Hadromi-Allouche, “The Death and Life of the Devil’s Son: A Literary Analysis of a Neglected Tradition”, Studia Islamica 107 (2012), pp. 157-183; James E. Hanauer, Folklore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian and Jewish (London: Duckworth, 1907), p. 12; IFA (Haifa), text 1141, “How did the Devil enter the human heart,” collected by Heda Jason from Yehuda Jefet Schwili (Yemen) (Holon [Israel]: Blokonim, 1959), p. 227. The English text of Asce. Is. is quoted by Wilhelm Schneemelcher (ed.), New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 2 (tr. By McL. Wilson, Louisville KT: Westminister John Knox Press, 2003), pp. 603-620. Critical edition of the text is edited by Claudio Leonardi, Enrico Norelli, Paolo Bettiolo, Alda Giambelluca Kossova, Lorenzo Perrone (eds.), Ascensio Isaiae. Textus (CCSA-BP 7) (Turhout: Brepols, 1995); see also Enrico Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae. Commentarius (CCSA-PB 8) (Turhout: Brepols, 1995). Norelli, “Sammael”, cit., pp. 82-90. It is interesting to note the link in Hebrew between those names and idolatry. Cf. 2 Chr. 33 (midrash of 2 Ki. 21:1-8), esp. v. 7 and 15, where ‫( סמל‬idol, statue, image, or figure of anything) is the idol that Manasseh put into the Temple. See also Dt. 4:16; Ez. 8:3.5. Asce. Is. 1:8-11. 15 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text After the kingdom of Hezekiah, the crisis (also tells in 2Ki. 18-21) is inevitable. Sammael acting in Manasseh,53 makes him a servant of Beliar.54 Also 2:4 («for the prince of unrighteousness who rules this world is Beliar»), 4:2 («Beliar, the great prince, the king of this world who has ruled it since it came into being, shall descend»), and 5:15-16 («Manasseh acted according to the will of Satan») claim the origin of Beliar’s power upon this world. Thus, the wicked presence into the political power leads inevitably to the dissolution of society, and it is understood as its cause. In other words, according to Asce. Is., Satan’s political activity is the condition of injustice that leads to the further process of immunization and, as a consequence, to marginalization of a certain category of people (further condition of the crisis of the presence). While Asce. Is. 1-5 is more interested in dividing humanity into two categories—into those (sons of God) who are moved by the highest angelical power, and into those (sons of evil) who are moved by the highest wicked power—6-11 is more interested in explaining the origin of the evil in the world, showing what kind of solution God offers through the creation by Christ of a new world. From the beginning of his trip with the angel-guide through the seven heavens, Isaiah learns that this world is a mirror of the firmament, where angels are fighting each other for envy and research of supremacy. Thus, in Asce. Is. 6-11, the problem about liberation from evil (soteriology) has to be interpreted as a way by which the glory of God can descend in a world far from him and enchained by evil; but this way has to be revealed. In this text, there is no place for the classical issue about when this evil world will come to an end55, but that and how it will be. In fact, at the very beginning of ch. 6, Isaiah exchanges with Hezekiah «words of faith and truth» in front of all the princes of Israel, eunuchs, kings, and «forty prophets and sons of prophets» (6:3).56 It is the preparation of an ecstatic revelation.57 53 «And after Hezekiah died and Manasseh become king, he remembered no more the commands of his father Hezekiah, but forgot them, and Sammael settled upon Manasseh and clung fast to him. And Manasseh ceased from serving the God of his father and served Satan and his angels and powers.» (Asce. Is. 2:1-2). 54 About the overlap of the Devil’s name in Asce. Is. see Norelli, “Sammael, Malkirà, Beliar”, in Id. Ascensione, cit., pp. 77-92. 55 Norelli, “La ricerca sull’Ascensione di Isaia”, in Id. Ascensione, cit., pp. 60-61. 56 The context of an early Christian prophetical setting is well described once again by Norelli, “AI 6 e il profetismo estatico cristiano”, in Id., Ascensione, cit., p. 235-248. 57 As Norelli says, «ciò presuppone un’idea della profezia non come qualcosa che Dio suscita nell’uomo in maniera inattesa, e neppure come qualcosa che si può favorire con pratiche religiose individuali, ma come un fenomeno di cui cu si attende la manifestazione durante un’assemblea a ciò ordinata», “Il profetismo”, cit., p. 236. More than Susan Niditch, “The visionary”, in J.J. Collins, G.W.E. Nickelsburg (eds.), Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism. Profiles and Paradigms (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1980) could be interesting to compare the prophetical and esthatic phenomenon described in Asce. Is. 6-11 whit Ernesto de Martino, Il mondo magico. Prolegomeni a una storia del magismo (Torino: Einaudi, 1948) who describes shamanic activities in their large social context, in order to show as magic may rebuild an endowed with sense world after a crisis of the presence. 16 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text My point is that prophecy and ecstatic experience in Asce. Is. 6-11 unveil to the prophetical group around it a dynamic knowledge, an active gnosis that while put in connection this world to the divine one, performs an actual and current soteriology and eschatology58. Thus, while Asce. Is. 6:6-9 speaks about a «door» that opens (revealing the starting point of the communication between two worlds), the presence of the Holy Spirit who speaks by Isaiah ensures the actual efficacy of the vision59: it is not, in fact, just the content of a mystery, but the mysterious activity of God among godself people. At this very point, it is important what Norelli says about the incarnation of Jesus: Salvific event does not pass through the incarnation, that is, in fact, illusory [apparente] (9,13-14; 10,9-10; 11,2-22); it is played at the level of heavenly powers: to the Beloved sent into the world is question to defeat the firmament powers which rebelled against God, dividing from it [the firmament] this world (10,12-13), that is dark anyway, also beyond that rebellion due to the distance from God in the system of the universe (7,26; 8,24).60 Texts here mentioned are actually important and probative61; however, I retain that is not without importance that “this world” is an actual image of the firmament (that the text sets apart by the first heaven), the dwell of Semmael. In fact, And we ascended to the firmament, I and he, and there I saw Sammael and his hosts, and a great struggle was taking place [against him]62, and the angels of Satan were envious of one another. And as it is above, so is it also on the earth, for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is also on the earth. And I said to the angel, “What is this struggle and what is this envy? And he said to me, “So it has been, since this world began until now, and this struggle [will continue] till he whom thou shalt see shall come and destroy him [Satan].63 Thus, “this world” is in direct connection with the firmament of which is specular. When Jesus, during his trip of incarnation, goes through the seven heavens, he is transformed into (or covered by) the heavenly creatures who he meets. But when he reaches the firmament, Jesus passes through the place 58 It seems to be paradoxical speaks about a current eschatology, and so it is. The text speaks about a future vision that Christian prophets around it know as already realized. Thus, Asce. Is. is an actual apocalyptic attempt to reconfigure a possible current crisis of a prophetical community in Antioch (see Norelli, “Ricerca”, cit., p. 66), and more in general the disclosure of a knowledge about the real divine activity into the world to settle God’s kingdom. 59 Moreover, the ecstatic experience of Isaiah seems to be a dimension that excludes his body, that remains among the other onlookers. This could be another sign of the connection between the two worlds that remain opened (cf. 6:1112). 60 Norelli, “Ricerca”, cit., p. 61. The English translation is mine. 61 Asce. Is. 7:26: «Nothing is named by reason of the weakness of this world, and nothing is hidden here [of what] took place below»; 8:24: «I say to you, Hezekiah and Jasub my son, and Micaiah, that there is much darkness here, yes, much darkness». 62 So Schneemelcher tr. By McL. Wilson. But there are no reasons to retain the specification “against him”. 63 Asce. Is. 7:9-12. 17 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text without transforming himself (that is to say, without loading himself with the conflict that characterizes that place), thus leaving open the possibility to make the difference in the world. In fact, the vision/trip of Isaiah ends with an understanding (10:18) of the sense of his vision. The reconfiguration of this world starts with the descent of the Lord through the heavens to the world (10:16-31); then, Isaiah sees the action of the Lord in the world (11:1-22); finally, the Lord’s ascension to the glory is the reconnection of the lost distance between this and the other divine world (11:2336). The horizon of reconfiguration is better shown from the theocratic politics mentioned in 7:21ff., where the angel who guides Isaiah in his ascension forbids him to worship the angels and their glory in the first five heavens: I fell on my face to worship him, and the angel who conducted me did not allow me, but said to me, “Worship neither angel nor throne which belongs to the six heavens—for this reason was I sent to conduct thee—till I tell thee in the seventh heaven. From 7:24-27, then, starts the mutation of the prophet (a physical transformation of who is meeting God is necessary), but also of the space of the glory (from the third heaven, heavenly people ignore what there was before them). This transformation is in the line with Jewish mysticism,64 but also with Jesus’ preaching: what is healing if not a transformation? The goal of this transformation is not a rehabilitation of this world, but the preparation of the next one (cf. Asce. Is. 8-4-10).65 In other words, Asce. Is. is a text where religious prophetical and eschatological experiences move up people involved in them after a crisis of the presence (that, in historical perspective, could be the effective survival of the prophetical group itself), in realizing (cultural apocalypse) what that God accomplishes in Jesus’ descent/ascension, already giving in present time the fulfillment of his kingdom. 64 Piovanelli, “Door”, cit. See also Alan F. Segal, “The Afterlife as Mirror of the Self”, in Frances Flannery, Colleen Shantz, Rodney A. Werline (eds.), Experientia, Volume 1: Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Christianity (Atlanta: SBL, 2008), pp. 19-40. 65 Up on the fifth heaven, Isaiah sees a tripartite configuration: a throne in the middle, and angles on the right (more glorious) and on the left. From the sixth heaven, this distinction falls: there are no more thrones and angelical groups; the thrones could mean the identification of the power with something concrete, something that could be identified as a god. The structure and connection of heavens (is it a helix?) is also a connection between this sublunar world and the heaven itself. 18 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text 4. Pauline’s perspective about the end The Letter to the Philippians conserves one of the most dramatic and significant biographical representation that Paul makes about himself: If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.66 Using evocative words, Paul describes his encounter with «Christ» as a total crisis of the presence. All that he was (his clear, accepted, and not easy to prove identity,67; his ζῆλος (intense ardor) in refusing the specific possibility offer by Jesus’ followers to gather fragments of reality going to crumble; his righteousness and blamelessness) is fully collapsed: [Ἀλλ᾽] ἅτινα ἦν μοι κέρδη, ταῦτα ἥγημαι διὰ τὸν Χριστὸν ζημίαν (3:7). Κέρδος (a gain, a profit) and ζημία (a damage, a loss, a collapse) are two existential keywords about a strong life of certainty that fall down after a catastrophic event: ταῦτα ἥγημαι διὰ τὸν Χριστὸν (ibid.) Διά here has a function of an attribution of responsibility; it seems that Paul was good with his former life, and that Christ was responsible for the crisis. Even more, ἡγοῦμαι πάντα ζημίαν εἶναι διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου μου, δι᾽ ὃν τὰ πάντα ἐζημιώθην, καὶ ἡγοῦμαι σκύβαλα, ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω (3:8). Thus, the knowledge (γνῶσις) of Christ determines the collapse (ζημία) and the crisis of the presence (τὰ πάντα ἐζημιώθην, aorist pass. of ζημιόω, translatable by “I have lost everything”). In a word, Paul considers everything he was, or what he could have been in the future, as σκύβαλα (plur. of σκύβαλον), a waste, or worse an excrement. The knowledge of Christ is a peculiar form of knowing, an experience that exceeds (part. of ὑπερέχω) any other form of knowledge. First, Christ is recognized as ὁ Κύριος μοῦ (3:8b), the only possible point of recollection of the reality. According to Paul, this “point of recollection” is not just a cultural possibility among others, a human ability to pass through a crisis. Quite the opposite, it is a realization that the new life after the experience of Christ is a gift: ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω (3:8b) καὶ εὑρεθῶ ἐν 66 Phil. 3:4b-11. 67 See Martin Hengel, The pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991). 19 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text αὐτῷ, μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου ἀλλὰ τὴν διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ, τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει (3:9). What is this justice based on (resulting by) faith? The v. 10 could answer to this question: τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ [τὴν] κοινωνίαν [τῶν] παθημάτων αὐτοῦ, συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ (3:10). I propose reading τοῦ in an epexegetical sense, that allows us to understand v. 10 as an explication of the content of the justice given by faith. Thus, the «justice resulting by faith consist in knowing him (i.e., Christ), the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, to reach somehow the resurrection» (3:8b-11). This biographical experience overflows the limits of Paul’s individual life, giving a new filter by which to understand God’s action into the world. After Christ’s death and resurrection, this known world is finished. The First Letter to the Corinthians is the place where Paul better explains to Christ’s congregation how to live in between the collapsed past and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. In particular, 1 Cor. 7:17ff. could lead us in this last analysis: However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything. Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. 68 For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God. 69 Pauline invitation (or order, given the presence of the verb διατάσσω) to continue to lead the life assigned by Lord (ἑκάστῳ ὡς ἐμέρισεν ὁ κύριος) reveals two important thoughts: on the one hand, in the new condition of believers, people know that there is no human condition that is not assigned (the verb μερίζω indicates precisely “to assign”) by God, but that everything is conducted by godself;70 on the other hand, apparently this new life in Christ does not change anything, socio-historically speaking. It is the growing consciousness that everything is loss «because of the surpassing value of 68 1 Cor. 7:21: «Even… opportunity». NRSV translates ἀλλ᾽ εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι, μᾶλλον χρῆσαι by «Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever». On the debate about this controversial verse, see the cleaver considerations of Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC) (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2013), p. 553ff. who finally proposes to translate «even if some possibility exists of becoming free, make positive use, rather, of your situation». 69 1 Cor. 7:17-24. 70 For a discussion about this important Pauline theological aspect, see Mauro Belcastro, «Quelli che egli ha predestinato». Paolo e l’azione di Dio nella storia (Torino: Claudiana, 2018). 20 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text knowing Christ Jesus my Lord» (Phil. 3:8; cf. 1 Cor. 7:19, ἡ περιτομὴ οὐδέν ἐστιν καὶ ἡ ἀκροβυστία οὐδέν ἐστιν). Nothing matters anymore, no social belonging and identity (Jewish or Gentile), no social condition (slave or freedom). Especially looking at social condition, Pauline’s words sound serious.71 Nevertheless, the only thing that matters is to be in Christ (cf. 7:22-23a, ὁ γὰρ ἐν κυρίῳ κληθεὶς δοῦλος ἀπελεύθερος κυρίου ἐστίν, ὁμοίως ὁ ἐλεύθερος κληθεὶς δοῦλός ἐστιν Χριστου. τιμῆς ἠγοράσθητε). I think that, in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife [...]; the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. 72 This world is going to pass (παράγει γὰρ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου [7:31]), and the «impending crisis (ἐνεστῶσα ἀνάγκη)» which anybody lives demands to stay on the κλῇσις of Christ, that is the only possibility of reconfiguration of the future. The current life in Christ is a life that believers have to live ὡς μὴ (“as if”) because ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος ἐστίν (7:29). For believers, even the time is changed, it has been συνεσταλμένος, abridged, synthesized. All of this is not an escape from time (fuga mundi); in fact, to live ὡς μὴ means to make an experience of the real transcension into a paradoxical eschatologized time.73 To Paul everybody is fatally exposed to the risk of loss of the world, because the world is risky by nature. The revelation that Paul maintains to have received from Christ is itself the unveiling of the unity of any historical human category under the mechanism of injustice (cf. Rom. 1:18; Gal. 3:22), against which God opens a given (“undeconstructible”) new life in Christ (cf. Rom. 3:21-22), revealing that passing through the crisis was the only possible chance in which receiving it. 71 About this point, see Laura S. Nasrallah, Archeology and the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 40-75. 72 1 Cor. 7:26-27.29b-31. 73 About this, see Giorgio Agamben, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 62ff. For a critic of Agamben position, see Mauro Belcastro, “The Advent of the Different: θλῖψις, ὑπομονή, ἐλπίς and the Temporal Disclosure of the Divine Eternity in Paul’s Letter to the Romans”, EC 10 (2019): «The contraction of time in Paul means something different: the perception of the beginning and the end (always supposed to be the start and finish of time itself) collapses into messianic time; there, they begin the possibility to be understood and interpreted. In a certain way, the time that remains is the only time that remains. In this sense, “to remain” does not have to be interpreted as a time between resurrection and the end, but as an experience in “my” present of the presence of the Messiah», p. 491. 21 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text 5. Conclusions People described in early Christian literature are often pictured as suffering by the consequence of a social and political mechanism of immunization. As I have showed, this representation is historically reliable. The mechanism of immunization produces at least two social groups: those who are immunized, and those who are not. Immunization patronizes society from an uncertain “outside”, the place where marginalized people live. Jesus’ preaching according to Mark and Q seems to be especially addressed to those people. Going outside, Mark’s Jesus breaks social rules, announcing the advent of a kingdom (the kingdom of God) that only can make justice and peace. In Asce. Is. the elected are not simply onlookers who wait for the fulfillment of the divine kingdom; quite the opposite, the Beloved’s descent, ascension, and unveiling give them an eschatological knowledge that transforms themselves and the world around them, generating a prophetical community, already living a new life. Regarding Paul, all humans are marked by injustice because this world is essentially alien with respect to God. The discovery (by the gift of revelation) of Christ and the action of the Spirit of God determine the true collapse of any possibility (cf. Ga. 2:16.19-21), that becomes the only chance to reconfigure current lives of believers, in waiting for the à-venir. De Martino’s perspective resulted highly useful to read the text here considered, although it cannot be assumed as an optimistic possibility among others of a meticulous human being that, by his or her efforts, can go beyond the crisis of the presence toward the new «ethnographic humanism» («umanesimo etnografico»). The texts interpreted confirm another way for reaching «cultural apocalypse», the way of the gift. 22 Mauro Belcastro – Provisional text BIBLIOGRAPHY Agamben, Giorgio, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). Arcari, Luca, Vedere Dio. Le apocalissi giudaiche e protocristiane (IV sec. a.C. - II sec. d.C.) (Roma: Carocci, 2020). Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus theologico-politicus, «Hamburgi: apud Henricum Künraht» [0 =Amsterdam: Rieuwertsz], 1670. Bazzana, Giovanni, Having the Spirit of Christ. Spirit Possession and Exorcism in the Early Christ Groups (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2020). 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