Adele Reinhartz Ed. Semeia 85 God the Father in the Gospel of John 1999

SEMEIA 85

God the Fatherin the Gospel of John

Editor: Adele Reinhartz

© 1999by the Society of Biblical Literature

Published Quarterly byTHE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

825 Houston Mill RoadAtlanta, GA 30329

Printed in the United States of Americaon acid free paper

CONTENTS

Contributors to this Issue......................................................................................v

Introduction: “Father” As Metaphor in the Fourth GospelAdele Reinhartz ....................................................................................1

1. “Show Us the Father, and We Will Be Satisfied” (John 14:8)Gail R. O’Day ......................................................................................11

2. “The Living Father”Marianne Meye Thompson................................................................19

3. The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Relationship

Paul N. Anderson ................................................................................33

4. Intimating Deity in the Gospel of John: Theological Language and “Father” in “Prayers of Jesus”

Mary Rose D’Angelo ..........................................................................59

5. “And the Word Was Begotten”: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John

Adele Reinhartz ..................................................................................83

6. The Fathers on the Father in the Gospel of JohnPeter Widdicombe ............................................................................105

7. Disseminations: An Autobiographical Midrash on Fatherhood in John’s Gospel

Jeffrey L. Staley ..................................................................................127

8. The Soul of the Father and the Son: A Psychological (yet Playful and Poetic) Approach to the Father-Son Language in the Fourth Gospel

Michael Willett Newheart ................................................................155

RESPONSES:

9. The Symbol of Divine FatherhoodDorothy Ann Lee ..............................................................................177

10. Reading Back, Reading ForwardSharon H. Ringe ................................................................................189

11. The Fatherhood of God at the Turn of Another MillenniumPamela Dickey Young ......................................................................195

Paul Anderson George Fox CollegeNewberg, OR 97132

Mary Rose D’Angelo Department of TheologyUniversity of Notre DameNotre Dame, IN 46556

Dorothy Ann LeeUnited Faculty of TheologyQueen‘s CollegeParkville, Victoria 3052AUSTRALIA

Gail R. O’DayCandler School of TheologyEmory UniversityAtlanta, GA 30322

Adele ReinhartzDepartment of Religious StudiesMcMaster University Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1CANADA

Sharon H. RingeWesley Theological Seminary4500 Massachusetts Ave. NWWashington, DC 20016

Jeffrey L. StaleyDepartment of Theology and

Religious StudiesSeattle University900 BroadwaySeattle, WA 98122-4340

Marianne Meye ThompsonFuller Theological Seminary Box O Pasadena, CA 91182

Peter WiddicombeDepartment of Religious StudiesMcMaster UniversityHamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1CANADA

Michael Willett NewheartHoward University School of

Divinity1400 Shepherd St. NEWashington, DC 20017

Pamela Dickey YoungQueen’s Theological CollegeKingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6CANADA

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

INTRODUCTION: “FATHER” AS METAPHORIN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Adele ReinhartzMcMaster University

The image of God as father is deeply entrenched in Jewish and Christianscriptures. God frequently calls Israel God’s son (Hos 1:10) or God’s first-born son (Exod 4:22). God is referred to explicitly as Israel’s father, as in Isa63:16: “For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israeldoes not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our father; our Redeemer fromof old is your name.” The relationship between God and Israel is often de-scribed in analogy to a human father and son, as in Deut 8:5: “Know then inyour heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disci-plines you”; and Ps 103:13: “As a father has compassion for his children, sothe Lord has compassion for those who fear him.” The usage is also frequentin the Gospels, as in the words of Jesus in Mark 8:38: “Those who areashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, ofthem the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of hisFather with the holy angels,” and, perhaps most famously, in Jesus’ cry tohis father in Mark 14:36: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible;remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

The use of “father” for God is particularly well attested in the Gospel ofJohn. God is referred to as father approximately 118 times in the FourthGospel, primarily in the discourse materials that develop the Gospel’s dis-tinctive theology and christology. This usage has not gone unnoticed in themany thousands of works that have been written on this Gospel over thecenturies. As new scholarly methods appear, new insights brought to bear,and new questions asked, the traditional approaches to and interpretation ofthe image of God as father too are called into question.

This volume of essays is intended to explore the metaphor of God asfather in the Fourth Gospel from a variety of perspectives and to invite itsreaders to reconsider the image in light of their own interactions with theGospel of John. The impetus for a volume on this topic was a session of theJohannine Literature Section at the annual meeting of the Society of BiblicalLiterature in 1998, at which several of the papers in this volume were pre-sented in draft form (D’Angelo, O’Day, Reinhartz, Widdicombe). Otherpapers were then solicited to broaden the purview (Anderson, Willett New-heart, Staley, Thompson), and several respondents drafted (Lee, Ringe,Young). These essays do not cover the field in a comprehensive way, nor do

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they have a common point of departure. Their interests range from concernswith the original meanings of the metaphor in the Greco-Roman and Jewishcontexts of the first century C.E. through to the ways in which the metaphorcan be used in self-understanding in the twenty-first century. Their commonfocus uncovers the complexity of the Johannine use of paternal God-language and suggests some ways in which its ancient and contemporaryuses might be understood.

This introduction will address three issues. The first is the context ofthese essays in the larger scholarly discussion of God as father in the FourthGospel. The second concerns the approaches to and assumptions about“father” as a key metaphor in the Gospel. The third traces briefly some directions for further research.

Context in Johannine Scholarship

Gail O’Day’s essay, “‘Show Us the Father, and We Will Be Satisfied’(John 14:8),” outlines the contours of the question in Johannine scholarship.Interest in the image of God as father in the Fourth Gospel runs high in fourareas of research.

1. Historical Jesus studies consider whether or not Jesus himself referred toGod as his father. Of particular interest is the relationship between the Johannine Jesus’ prominent use of “father” to address God, and the syn-optic Jesus’ invocation of God as “abba,” the Aramaic and familiar formof address to one’s father (Mark 14:36).

2. Feminist criticism wrestles with the implications of using paternal termi-nology to refer to God. Especially difficult is the question of whether suchlanguage is necessarily and utterly patriarchal and hence to be discarded,or whether paternal language might support alternate readings, includ-ing a critique of patriarchy. As Janet Martin Soskice notes, the question is:“Can a feminist be at home in a religion where ‘father’ is a central divinetitle, if not necessarily in current usage, then certainly in the foundationaltexts and the subsequent history to which these have given rise?”(1992:15).

3. Studies in early Christian doctrine examine the development of thismetaphor from its biblical usage to its place in more systematic theologi-cal discourses.

4. Narrative critical studies look at the characterization of God and the waysin which the paternal language figures in the development of Jesus’ char-acterization as well as that of God.

These approaches do not exhaust the potential of the topic for Johanninestudies. O’Day points out that the majority of the Johannine occurrences of the

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“father” figure of speech as well as its most substantive development within theGospel occur in the discourse material. She urges a closer look at the role of the“father” image in shaping Jesus’ discourses and, by extension, in Johannine theology as a whole. Important in this regard is a focus not only on the meaningof the “father” figure as such, but on its interrelationships with other imagesand its formative role within the larger contexts in which it is embedded.

O’Day’s fourfold categorization of the field also provides a conceptualframework for this volume. The essays contribute to all of the areas thatO’Day mentions and extend the current discussion in a number of ways.

1. Historical issues are addressed in several of the contributions. Mary RoseD’Angelo’s paper, “Intimating Deity in the Gospel of John: Theological Language and ‘Father’ in ‘Prayers of Jesus,’ ” intends to dislodge readings of“father” in the Fourth Gospel from theories about Jesus’ “abba” experiencethat have been based to a large extent on the work of Joachim Jeremias. Sheargues that, pace Jeremias, Jesus’ use of “father” was not unique. Rather, itwas closely paralleled in Jewish communities. Its very currency in thecommon parlance of early Jewish piety and resistance made it likely that itwas used by the historical Jesus for similar purposes.

Historical-critical approaches to the “father” language focus not only onthe possibility that Jesus used this designation but also speak to the role that itmay have played in the Johannine community in its Greco-Roman context.Some articles look to the use of the term in Jewish and Greco-Roman texts toexplicate as well as to fill in the background to the Johannine usage. MarianneMeye Thompson’s essay, “The Living Father,” points out the presence of thisterm in the Hebrew Bible, and even more so in the writings of Philo and Josephus, which convey a view of God as the source of creation and the onewho gives life. Paul Anderson’s study of “The Having-Sent-Me Father”argues that the Johannine Christians would have heard the Johannine con-struction of the relationship between God and Jesus against the backgroundof Deut 18:15–22, which promises the return of a prophet like Moses. Ander-son links up the usage of “father” language with various stages in the historyof the Johannine community. My article, “‘And the Word Was Begotten’:Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John,” suggests that Greco-Roman theoriesabout the male role in procreation may have influenced the Johannine presen-tation of the relationship between God and Jesus.

2. Feminist concerns are prominent in two of the articles and in all three ofthe responses. D’Angelo examines the context of pater in Roman patriarchyas a social system and concludes that patriarchal ideology is deeply embed-ded in the Johannine usage of the “father” metaphor. My article supportsthis conclusion by suggesting that the Johannine usage draws on Aristotle’stheory of epigenesis, which dominated the Greco-Roman understanding of

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the process of generation. Epigenesis attributed the formative aspect of thegenerative process to the male. If the Fourth Gospel drew on this theory,then it may be virtually impossible to disentangle the Johannine use of themetaphor from a fundamentally gendered understanding of God as male-like in his role as the source of life.

The three respondents reflect on the essays in light of the contemporaryfeminist grappling with the “father” image. Pamela Dickey Young suggeststhat wisdom theology provides a way to counter the patriarchal effects ofthe language of divine fatherhood. The presence of both “father” and“wisdom” imagery in the prologue (John 1:1–18) allows the latter to supple-ment or perhaps even to displace the former in a feminist reading of theFourth Gospel. Dorothy Ann Lee is less sanguine about feminist possibili-ties. She advocates reading against the grain of the Gospel. She cautions,however, that while “de-patriarchalizing” the Johannine father may challengethe male world, it ultimately fails to embrace fully the female world. This isso despite the prominent and inclusive way in which female characters aredramatized in the Johannine narrative. Sharon Ringe challenges us to con-sider carefully the use of the “God as father” metaphor today. As Ringepoints out, the image of God as father may repel not only women who feelexcluded from a community that expresses its theology in male metaphors,but also those children, women, and men whose experience of fathers isnegative, violent, or abusive.

3. The development of the father metaphor in early Christian doctrine is thefocus of Peter Widdicombe’s essay, “The Fathers on the Father in the Gospelof John.” Widdicombe looks at the ways in which Origen and Athanasius developed the concept of fatherhood and drew on the Fourth Gospel to doso. He shows that the “father” metaphor is used by both Christian Fathers toexplore theology, christology, and soteriology but with rather different out-comes. Dorothy Lee discusses the views of two figures of the fourth centuryC.E., Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. Whereas some ancientwriters, such as Gregory of Nyssa, could concede that “mother” can replace“father” as the name for God, since “there is neither male nor female in thedivine,” a number of recent neoconservative theologians argue that “father”is the literal and exclusive name for God.

4. Narrative critical concerns emerge in most of the essays, particularly withrespect to the Johannine characterization of God and of the relationship between God and Jesus. For example, in Anderson’s view, God is portrayedin the Fourth Gospel primarily as the one who sends Jesus into the world.For Thompson, the most important element of the divine father’s character-ization is that he gives life. They both support their conclusions from thediscourse and the narrative material in the Gospel, that is, from the ways in

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which Jesus and the narrator speak about God and the narrative portraysthe relationship between Jesus and God.

The essays thus fit handily into the four categories that O’Day has dis-cerned in previous scholarly treatments of this topic. They also heed her callto consider the ways in which the paternal language has shaped the theolog-ical discourse in this Gospel. As already noted, Thompson and Andersonboth discuss the central role played by the “father” in Johannine theologyand christology. Anderson maps the Johannine discourses onto the Deutero-nomic prophet-like-Moses motif to argue that Deuteronomy 18 hasstructured the language and theology of the Gospel as well as its characteri-zation of God and Jesus. Thompson acknowledges the presence andimportance of the sending and agency motifs but argues that God’s role asthe source of life is the fundamental structuring device of the discourses. Forthis reason, this role, which emphasizes the “father” metaphor as such, is themost important vehicle for Johannine theology. My article shares Thomp-son’s focus on “father” as the one who gives life but takes the argument in adifferent direction by suggesting that the language of biological generationshapes Johannine theological discourse, including christology as well as soteriology. Jesus as the Son of God does his father’s works and embodies hiswords precisely because he has been generated by the father’s logos andform. By following the son, others too can enter into this filial relationshipwith God. D’Angelo draws attention to the irony of the dialogues and dis-course and argues that, from the Johannine perspective, Jesus is not in factthe only son of God. Rather, Johannine irony can work only on the basis of anassumption of a shared sonship. Both Jesus and his Jewish sparring partnersare sons of God; the deity is the father of Jesus just as he is the father ofothers. This shared relationship becomes the foundation for the theologicalstrategy at work in the text.

Two of the essays exemplify new approaches within New Testamentstudies, namely, autobiographical, psychological, and cultural criticism. Jeffrey Staley describes his article, “Disseminations,” as “An AutobiographicalMidrash on Fatherhood in John’s Gospel.” Staley moves back and forth between the Gospel and his own life, using the Gospel’s utterances about Godas father as a way of thinking about the experience of fathering and of beingfathered. Also brought into play is the Beatles’ song, “I Am the Walrus.”Readers would be well-advised to have a copy of the lyrics handy when read-ing Staley’s essay, better to appreciate the intertextual play around which theessay revolves. Michael Willett Newheart’s contribution, “The Soul of theFather and the Son” is “A Psychological (yet Playful and Poetic) Approach tothe Father-Son Language in the Fourth Gospel.” It combines psychology, intertextual readings from the African American experience, and autobio-graphy to reflect on the father-son language. His readings illumine the text


and show how the paternal God language in John can be read intertextuallywith African American poetry and as a vehicle for self-analysis and reflection.

These autobiographical essays illustrate movingly some of the ways inwhich the divine father metaphor can be appropriated for self-understanding.Their appropriation of this male image, however, may exclude women read-ers just as the Johannine God-father metaphor may exclude them from theGospel itself. This possibility is explored in the responses of Pamela DickeyYoung and Sharon Ringe. Although Staley’s and Willett Newheart’s autobio-graphical approaches have been profoundly influenced by feminism, theirembrace of the father image in John and their focus on their own experience offathering might indeed shut out those who by definition cannot be fathers. Iconfess that my own reaction is quite different. Rather than being excluded, Ifeel invited to experience, however partially and vicariously, the experience offathering that will never be my own. I also found many echoes of my own lifeexperience in these essays. Although fathering is a gendered experience, beingfathered is not; while Willett Newheart’s and Staley’s experiences of being fa-thered are very different from my own, their comments were a spur to myown thinking about this fundamental human relationship. Further, the essaysresonate strongly with my own sense of myself as a parent and as someonewho cares deeply about children, my own and others. The nurturing of youngchildren, whether by mothers, fathers, teachers, or others, raises the same orsimilar fundamental issues, questions, and vulnerabilities. One example is thefear of failing the children in one’s life, including, as Ringe describes, theyoung children of our society and indeed of the world for whom, in my view,we have some responsibility whether we acknowledge it or not. Finally, thoseof us who are not and cannot be fathers nevertheless can rejoice in the careand the joy that these fathers take in their fathering. The autobiographical appropriation of the father image thus calls forth different responses from dif-ferent readers. In this way, it mirrors the diversity of responses to the divinefather image itself, from a life-giving metaphor that has ongoing meaning forall to a patriarchal expression that excludes and demeans women, and manypoints in between.

Father As Metaphor

One point upon which all interpreters agree is that “father” is ametaphor for the divine in this Gospel. Janet Martin Soskice notes thatphilosophers and literary critics through the years have proposed over 125definitions of metaphor (1985:15), with no consensus in sight. Soskice’sstudy, however, can guide us to some of the basic issues that may provehelpful in reading the essays in this volume. Metaphors are figures of speech;that is, they are linguistic in nature. Metaphors provide a way of speakingabout one thing that is suggestive of another. To use the word “father” as a

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metaphor for God is therefore to speak of a familiar being—a father—in sucha way as to suggest the unfamiliar and indeed the unspeakable—God.

According to Soskice, theories of metaphor fall into three different cate-gories: those that view metaphor as a substitution for the thing itself, that is,as a decorative way of saying what could be said literally; those that considermetaphor to be primarily emotive in that its originality lies not in what itsays but in its affective impact; and those that see metaphor as a unique cog-nitive vehicle that enables us to say that which can be said in no other way(Soskice, 1985:24). For Soskice, the latter definition is the richest and mostapt, particularly for a consideration of “father” as a metaphor for the divine.In her view, metaphors permit an “intercourse” of thoughts and compel newpossibilities of vision (1985:57). That is, through the metaphor of “father” oneis able to come to an enriched understanding of the nature of God.

Some metaphors become models. According to Sallie McFague, a model is“a dominant metaphor, a metaphor with staying power” (23). Models are simi-lar to metaphors “in that they are images which retain the tension of the ‘is andis not’ and, like religious and poetic metaphors, they have emotional appeal insofar as they suggest ways of understanding our being in the world” (23).One metaphor that has become a model is “God as father.” McFague continues:

As a model it not only retains characteristics of metaphor but also reachestoward qualities of conceptual thought. It suggests a comprehensive, order-ing structure with impressive interpretive potential. As a rich model withmany associated commonplaces as well as a host of supporting metaphors,an entire theology can be worked out from this model. Thus, if God is un-derstood on the model of “father,” human beings are understood as“children,” sin is rebellion against the “father,” redemption is sacrifice bythe “elder son” on behalf of the “brothers and sisters” for the guilt againstthe “father” and so on. (32)

Christians typically have not taken models like “God is the father” or “thekingdom of God” as “evaluative phenomena or redescriptions of human experience,” but as ways of speaking, however obliquely, about states and relations that they do not fully understand but that they take to be morethan simply human (Soskice, 1985:107).

Some metaphors, on the other hand, do not become or remain modelsbut rather lose their original force and associations. These “dead metaphors”become commonplaces that we use without thinking very much about theircontent. Everyday speech is replete with dead metaphors; think, for example,of the “leaves” of a book, the “stem” of a glass (Soskice, 1985:71). One way todistinguish a dead metaphor from a living metaphor lies in the relationshipbetween metaphor and model. “An originally vital metaphor calls to mind,directly or indirectly, a model or models. . . . As the metaphor becomes commonplace, its initial web of implications becomes, if not entirely


lost, then difficult to recall” (Soskice, 1985:73). It must be stressed that“living” and “dead” are not evaluative terms when it comes to assessingmetaphors. A live metaphor, particularly one that has become a model, provides a rich web of associations that allow us to speak of the unspeakable.A dead metaphor has a different but nevertheless important function in thatit provides an image that is free from the control of the associations of theoriginal metaphor and can be used in new and creative ways.

Gail O’Day’s reflections on the degree to which the “father” motif hasbeen taken for granted in New Testament scholarship and Christian theologysuggests that for many it has long been a dead metaphor; that is, it is simplya substitute, name, or title for “God.” But many studies that focus on the Johannine usage of paternal God-language frequently imply the former. Byreflecting on whether Jesus is the source of the metaphor or whether headopted it from his environment, on the development of God as father inearly Christian texts, on the negative impact or positive potential of paternalGod-language for women, and on the role of the “father” image in theGospel’s narrative and theology, scholars implicitly affirm the vitality of themetaphor in the New Testament period and beyond.

Although the studies in this volume do not address the question explic-itly, they do contribute to the discussion of whether the father metaphor is anactive model or a dead metaphor. Some imply that “father” was no longer alive metaphor at the time of the Fourth Evangelist. Anderson’s essay arguesthat the controlling feature of the father is his role as the one who sends theson. That is, the controlling motif is not one that is inherent in either the biological or social elements of the “father” image. In privileging the father assender over the father as creator, Anderson implies that for the Fourth Evan-gelist, the metaphor’s content and primary referent is less important than theuse of it to describe God as agent. This suggests that the image was alreadydeeply embedded in the ways in which the original audiences would haveunderstood God and that every reference to God as father does not necessar-ily evoke the original terms of the metaphor. In other words, “father” wasalready a dead, or dying, metaphor. As such, it could be used to explore othermodels, in this case the prophet-like-Moses typology of Deuteronomy 18.

D’Angelo argues that the “father” metaphor was not unique to Jesus butrather had already become a substitute for the divine name by Jesus’ day. Although the origin of the metaphor emphasizes generation, alliance, commitment, and intimacy, its importance for Jesus’ usage was precisely itsbanal and commonplace nature. For this reason, the most important elementof the father-son relationship was not intimacy but rather its potential for atheological strategy that allows the Johannine Jesus to assert his superiorityover others who also claim a special relationship to the divine.

Not only contemporary commentators but also the church fathers dif-fered in their implicit assessment of the vitality of the “father” metaphor.

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Peter Widdicombe indicates that for Justin Martyr, God the father was infact a dead metaphor; the description of God as father appears to have hadno conceptual importance for his thought. Origen, on the other hand, ex-plicitly looked at paternal language as a model that explores the relationship between Jesus and God regarding the generation of the son and found aplace in the model for believers. Similarly, Athanasius used the model tosupport the uniqueness of the son’s generation; he argued that the otherscan become sons, but only by adoption.

For Thompson, however, the vital nature of the “father” metaphor, andits extension into an important model for theology and christology, are fun-damental. This is evident in her emphasis on God as the source of life andher analysis of the ways in which this understanding of God as father shapesthe Gospel’s discourses. My own article begins with the assumption that thefather metaphor was indeed a vibrant and rich model that extended beyondits role as a paradigm for the social, affective, and salvific relationship between the father and the son back to the process of generation itself.

The papers by Staley and Willett Newheart similarly assume the ongoingvitality of the father metaphor and use it in its Johannine configuration as amodel through which to think through other texts as well as their own experiences. These papers take the metaphor back home, so to speak. That is,Staley and Willett Newheart take a human concept such as father, as it hasbeen used metaphorically to describe God, and then bring those associationsback to consider their own human roles as fathers and sons. The readings inthis volume therefore exemplify not only a variety of approaches to the “Godas father” metaphor but also the diverse assessments of its content and func-tion with the Fourth Gospel and in Christian theology.

Future Research

As Sharon Ringe notes in her response, this volume does not solve or resolve the “problem” of paternal God-language in this Gospel. It is likelythat solutions or resolutions are not possible in any definitive sense; there areno doubt some readers of the Fourth Gospel for whom it does not constitutea problem at all; those troubled by the “father” metaphor, whether on femi-nist or other grounds, will not all be satisfied by the same solutions. It is myhope that this volume will be helpful for those who wish to think more aboutthe range of issues raised by the use of paternal God-language in this Gospel.

If it does not offer definitive solutions, the volume does illustrate some ofthe directions that research and thinking about this topic might take. Some ofthese articles themselves are parts of larger studies that have been or soonwill be published (Widdicombe, Anderson, Willett Newheart, Staley,Thompson). Perhaps these essays will spur additional research, for example,on the Jewish and Greco-Roman background to the “father” metaphor, in


order to continue reflection on Jesus’ own use of the title and how it mighthave resonated with the early audiences of the Gospel of John. Also of valuewould be additional studies of the ways in which the “father” image is readin a number of interpretive communities, such as Latin American, Asian,Asian American, African, Caribbean, and African American. Finally, the con-versation regarding feminist theological approaches to and evaluations of the“father” metaphor is not yet concluded. How, for example, might a womaninteract with this image in autobiographical reflections? The fact that pater-nal God-language is so intertwined with many aspects of Christian theology ensures that the investigation of its meanings and functions is by no means atan end.

Two technical points must be mentioned. First, translations of biblicalmaterial are from the New Revised Standard Version (1989) unless other-wise noted. Secondly, attentive readers will notice that the volume has not imposed uniformity on the use of “father” or “Father.” In the process of ed-iting, it seemed to me that this topic presents us with a case of orthographyas theology. For some authors, “Father” clearly functions as a divine title, atleast as it is used in the Gospel of John. Others retain the lowercase “f” to emphasize its metaphoric nature. I have followed the practice of each authorand attempted to ensure that the usage is internally consistent within eachessay while accepting inconsistency in the volume as a whole.

WORKS CONSULTED

McFague, Sallie1982 Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language.

Philadelphia: Fortress.

Soskice, Janet Martin1985 Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

1992 “Can a Feminist Call God ‘Father’?” Pp. 15–29 in Women’s Voices:Essays in Contemporary Feminist Theology. Ed. Teresa Elwes.London: Marshall Pickering.

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“SHOW US THE FATHER,AND WE WILL BE SATISFIED” (JOHN 14:8)

Gail R. O’DayCandler School of Theology, Emory University

abstract

This paper reviews four dominant approaches to the study of God as“Father” in John: historical Jesus research, feminist inquiry, the relationshipof John to early Christian doctrine, narrative critical studies of God as char-acter. Despite the differences in these approaches, they have in common thetendency to isolate “Father” from the dynamics of the larger Gospel narra-tive in which it resides. The fundamental role played by “Father” inshaping the Gospel’s many discourses still remains largely unexamined.

The brief conversation between Philip and Jesus at the start of theFarewell Discourse (14:8–9) provides a useful beginning point for thinkingabout the state of critical inquiry into “Father” in the Gospel of John.

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you stilldo not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can yousay, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Philip’s request is met by Jesus with a response that borders on aston-ishment, that Philip, so long into his relationship with Jesus, could continueto ask for something that has already been amply demonstrated. The meremention of the topic “Father in John” in contemporary scholarship is apt toevoke a comparable response from one’s listeners: “Have you been studyingso long and you still do not know? How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”

Indeed, the well-known and frequently cited lexical statistic that“Father” occurs approximately 118 times in the Fourth Gospel suggests thatthe terrain in which any quest for “God as Father” in John is to be under-taken is already well mapped. The very frequency of the noun “Father” inreference to God has led interpreters to traverse the Fourth Gospel landscapein well-worn paths. With the aid of such clearly recognizable road markers,one begins to assume with some certainty what the vista at the next turn ofthe path will be. Indeed, these 118 references are so taken for granted bymost readings of the Fourth Gospel that they are passed by unnoticed, nolonger viewed as a variable part of the landscape.

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This is nowhere more obvious than in the centuries of critical commen-taries on the Fourth Gospel. The noun “Father” (pathvr) first occurs at twocrucial junctures in the prologue: “And the Word became flesh and livedamong us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,full of grace and truth” (1:14); and “It is God the only Son, who is close tothe Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:18). While commentariesdevote considerable space to the discussion of lovgoı, savrx, skhnovw, dovxa, andmonogenhvı, the noun pathvr does not receive comparable attention. JohnCalvin, for example, provides detailed exegetical comment on “the Wordbecame flesh,” “flesh,” “and dwelt among us,” “And we beheld his glory,”“as of,” “the only begotten,” “full of grace,” and “the bosom of the Father,”but leaves pathvr without comment (19–22, 25–26). Bultmann devotes pagesto savrx and dovxa, but not a word to pathvr (66–72). So, too, Hoskyns, Barrett,Brown, Beasley-Murray, Schnackenburg—none devotes exegetical space tothe noun pathvr itself. “Father” is most frequently accepted as a straight-forward descriptive noun that requires no comment.1 Commentators do notstop to question or examine the choice of the metaphor “Father” to speak ofGod here but simply receive it as a given in the text.2

“God as Father” in John becomes a focused topic of inquiry in four mainareas of New Testament research: historical Jesus research, feminist inquiry,study of the relationship between John and later Christian doctrine, and narrative critical studies of God as character. Even in these more focused inquiries, however, the 118 easily identifiable lexical road markers and the attendant assumptions about the familiarity of the terrain may again maskthe complexity and variety of the landscape.

In historical Jesus research, to begin with, “Father” is primarily investi-gated for what it has to say about the prayer language of the historical Jesusand Jesus’ mode of addressing God. The defining treatment of this is thework of Jeremias (1966, 1967), whose primary concern was to sift through thelayers of gospel tradition to arrive at the authentic sayings of Jesus. For Jere-mias, it was beyond dispute that the address of God in prayer as ajbbav (Abba)was an authentic word of Jesus and that this Aramaic word should alwaystranslate the Greek vocative, pavter, whenever it was used by Jesus in prayer.Jeremias based his claim on the appearance of ajbbav at Mark 14:36 and extrapolated from there to Jesus’ prayers in all the Gospels (1967:54–57).

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1 One notable exception is the commentary of B. F. Westcott, whose observation on“Father” at 1:18 is densely textured (15).

2 It was with much fear and trembling that I turned to my own commentary on John anddiscovered that I, too, had done the same thing—let the choice of the metaphor “Father” passwithout comment in the prologue, while nonetheless commenting upon its function within vv.14 and 18 (523). My first comment on the choice of the metaphor does not occur until a discus-sion of 5:19ff. (584).

The Fourth Gospel presents two major problems for the thesis advo-cated by Jeremias and that still holds sway in many readings of “Father” inJohn. First, the vocative case of Father (pavter) occurs infrequently in John.The noun occurs most frequently in the nominative and accusative casesand is found in Jesus’ speech about, not to, God. Jeremias eliminates thisproblem by maintaining that the use of “Father” as a title for God does notbelong to the authentic words of Jesus but was introduced by later writers ina traditioning process that is most evident in the Fourth Gospel. Thus thepreponderance of nonvocative uses of “Father” in John is by definition ex-cluded from consideration. Second, the specific contours of the vocativewhen it is used in John are also largely overlooked. Of the nine occurrencesof the vocative in John, two are modified by adjectives—holy (17:11), right-eous (17:25)—that are quite common in the Hebrew Bible as divineattributes (e.g., 1 Sam 2:2; Pss 5:18; 11:7; 89:14, 16, 18; 97:6, 12; 99:5, 9; 111:3,9; 119:137). Jesus’ use of these adjectives in his prayer to God suggests thatpavter is not necessarily and always the unique and intimate form of addressthat Jeremias claims (1967:57–63).

These serious problems notwithstanding, much scholarly and populardiscussion of “Father” in John continues to be refracted through the domi-nant lens of ajbbav and the Lord’s Prayer. The distinctive and dominant roleof “Father” in the Fourth Gospel’s portrayal of God and Jesus becomes asimple variant (aberration?) of the synoptic norm of address to God inprayer.3 Yet “Father” belongs primarily to the language of discourse anddebate in John, not prayer. To understand Father in the Johannine sayings ofJesus, this discursive language, not the prayer language of the synoptic tra-dition, must be the starting point of investigation.

The 118 occurrences of pathvr in John also have been significant roadmarkers for feminist scholars who attempt to traverse the Fourth Gospel ter-rain. John provides much raw material for biblical scholars and theologianswho struggle with issues of the gender of God and the blatant and latent patriarchal assumptions that accompany the use of “Father” language tospeak of God. Not surprisingly, the primary focus of such investigations isnot on the function of “Father” in John per se, but on the broader horizonsof Christian theological language, ethics, and often church governance and politics (e.g., Schneiders, Johnson).

o’day: “show us the father, and we will be satisfied” 13

3 See, for example, the representative comment in Robert Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father:Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus, “The synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, andLuke are our primary written sources, John being so heavily freighted with community inter-pretation as to make the task of sifting impossible” (52). Yet, John 5 and 17 are part ofHamerton-Kelly’s argument to support his sense of the trajectory of the treatment of “Father” inlater traditions about Jesus (94–97).

A recent article, “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in theFourth Gospel” (Lee) is a good example of an attempt to merge the broaderfeminist conversations and Fourth Gospel studies. As the title suggests, Leereads “Father” in John with a hermeneutic of suspicion and notes the patriar-chal assumptions at work in the context out of which the Fourth Gospelemerged. Lee proposes to take a hermeneutic of suspicion one step further bysuggesting that the use of “Father” in John is itself a suspicious reading of itsown patriarchal context. For Lee, the Fourth Gospel challenges the patriar-chal projections that seem to be inherent in the noun “Father” and invertstheir conventional meanings. Patriarchal “power” in John comes from givingaway, not keeping, and the Father/Son relationship models the intimacy necessary for full human personhood (147–51).

Lee’s reading has in its favor that it deals with “Father” principally in its Johannine context and attempts to understand its functions in the theo-logical and social world constructed and communicated by the FourthGospel. Her reading represents a type of feminist reading in which patriar-chal images are not rejected as antithetical to feminist interests but arereinterpreted as supportive of the most basic feminist values. Yet Lee alsotends to follow the well-trodden paths of “God as Father” in John.4 Note,for example, that Lee states explicitly what most commentators tend toassume implicitly: qeovı and pathvr are interchangeable in John (145). Thistype of feminist approach, then, like commentary that simply accepts theuse of “Father” as a given, also offers limited access to the distinctive Johannine rhetoric for God.

“Father” in John also assumes prominence in conversations about therelationship of New Testament texts and early Christian doctrine, particu-larly the early creeds. For example, the phrase from the Apostles’ Creed,“God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” was the impetus forJuel and Keifert to study the doctrine of God in the Fourth Gospel (1990).The two authors are explicit about the pointed and potentially offensiveFather language for God in John (44) and struggle to make sense of this lan-guage in light of the other affirmations about God in the creed. Theyrecognize “Father” as the metaphor that is “most appropriate” for God inthis Gospel because “it focuses on the single issue on which everything elsedepends—God’s relationship to Jesus” (52). They conclude that together thetwo creedal affirmations about “Father” and “Maker of heaven and earth” capture the heart of Johannine theology: for John, the creator of the world,that is, Israel’s God, and the Father—the one who is in relationship with theSon—can only be one and the same God (52).

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4 Lee refers to the 118 occurrences of [pathvr] in John in the opening pages of the article (146)!

As soon as the rhetoric of “Father” and “Maker of heaven and earth” areequated, however, the specificity of the Johannine Father language begins towane in influence on the theological conversation that follows. Despite theircareful concordance work,5 Juel and Keifert assume that “Father” is simplya synonym for God. For example, they write that “Jesus is the sole way toGod” (52), when the Fourth Gospel speaks of “the Father” in that context(14:6). They also take the frequency with which Jesus speaks about God inJohn to show that “God is clearly a participant in the drama recounted bythe evangelist” (44). They do not, however, reflect on the difference betweenbeing talked about and being given one’s own speaking part—somethingthat occurs rarely, if ever, for God in John (perhaps only at 12:29). In order tounderstand the place of “Father” in John, one needs to linger inside theGospel’s theological rhetoric.

Narrative critical studies is another arena where “Father” now receivesfocused attention, in particular, in literary critical studies of characterization.This approach has tended to focus on God as a character in the Johannine nar-rative (e.g., Thompson, Tolmie) and on “Father” as one, if not the main, clueto God’s character. The operative approach of narrative critical study is toattend to the textual details of the Fourth Gospel narrative. One does notbegin with external constructions about God—whether those be derived fromthe synoptic tradition, feminism, or early Christian doctrine—but instead oneworks to surface the Fourth Gospel’s own narrative and theological construc-tions. Thompson, in her careful analysis, notes that “Father” is the mostsignificant designation of God in John. She also notes that this designation appears solely in the words of others, most notably Jesus, and never in anydirect speech of God. Moreover, she notes that the Fourth Gospel lacks anyexplicit description of God and God’s actions, in striking contrast to much ofthe biblical witness. She therefore concludes that it is Jesus’ prerogative toidentify God as “Father” and that the significance of the identification lies inthe familial relationship it establishes (189, 194–96).

Studies of God as character rightly highlight the near absence of anynonmediated presence of God in the Fourth Gospel (mediated either by thewords of the narrator or the words and deeds of Jesus), but rarely use thisobservation to ponder the appropriateness of applying the narrative criticalcategory of “character.” The “Father” is talked about by Jesus more frequently than the “Father” appears as a visible, independent, active agentin the story line. This pattern drives one back to struggle with the discoursesof the Gospel. Yet the literary critical questions that are most often broughtto bear are more suited to story than to theological exposition and debate.


5 The lexical statistic of 118 occurrences is cited on p. 49.

Each of the four lines of inquiry briefly traced above suggests that studiesof “Father” in John tend to look at pathvr as a category unto itself in the FourthGospel. As a result, “Father” can lose its dynamic connection to the unfoldingof the Gospel in which it resides. Its 118 occurrences give pathvr prominence onthe Fourth Gospel landscape, but much of the study of “Father” seems to haveheeded the markers without heeding the variety and texture of the terrain inwhich the markers are placed. In particular, the fundamental role played by“Father” in giving shape and substance to the Gospel’s many discourses needsto move to the forefront of scholarly attention. “Father” is not simply theGospel’s preferred name for God; it is the Gospel’s primary metaphor for shap-ing theological discourse. This larger role of “Father” needs to be examinedthroughout the Gospel. To arrive at even a hint of satisfaction in the quest to“see the Father,” broad observations about the 118 occurrences of “Father”need to be set aside in favor of concentrated attention on the complex inter-relationship of “Father” and its specific Gospel contexts.

WORKS CONSULTED

Barrett, C. K.1978 The Gospel according to St. John. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Beasley-Murray, George R.1987 John. WBC 36. Waco, Tex.: Word.

Brown, Raymond E.1966–70 The Gospel according to John. AB 29 and 29A. Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday.

Bultmann, Rudolf1971 The Gospel of John. Trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare and J. K.

Riches. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Calvin, John1959 The Gospel according to St. John 1–10. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Edinburgh:

Oliver & Boyd.

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert1979 God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus. Philadel-

phia: Fortress.

Hoskyns, E. C.1947 The Fourth Gospel. Ed. F. N. Davey. London: Faber & Faber.

Jeremias, Joachim1966 Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte. Göttin-

gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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1967 The Prayers of Jesus. Trans. John Bowden. London: SCM.

Johnson, Elizabeth A.1992 She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New

York: Crossroad.

Juel, Donald, and Patrick Keifert1990 “‘I Believe in God’: A Johannine Perspective.” Horizons in Biblical

Theology 12:39–60.

Lee, Dorothy1995 “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in the Fourth Gospel.”

Pacifica 8:140–54.

O’Day, Gail R.1995 The Gospel of John. NIB 9. Nashville: Abingdon.

Schnackenburg, Rudolf1982 The Gospel according to St. John. 3 vols. New York: Seabury.

Schneiders, Sandra A.1986 Women and the Word: The Gender of God in the New Testament and the

Spirituality of Women. New York: Paulist.

Thompson, Marianne Meye1993 “‘God’s Voice You Have Never Heard, God’s Form You Have Never

Seen’: The Characterization of God in the Gospel of John.” Semeia63:177–204.

Tolmie, D. Francois1998 “The Characterization of God in the Fourth Gospel.” JSNT 69:57–75.

Westcott, B. F.1908 The Gospel according to St. John. London: John Murray.


“THE LIVING FATHER”

Marianne Meye ThompsonFuller Theological Seminary

abstract

The primary understanding of God as Father in John comes to expressionin John 5:26: “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Sonalso to have life in himself.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the unique Son,the one heir of the Father, who receives life from the Father and in turngives it to others. This familial relationship, construed in terms of thefather’s life-giving role, defines the relationship of Jesus to God, and furtherbecomes the basis for a number of claims made for Jesus, including his au-thority to judge, to give life, to mediate knowledge of the Father and toreveal him, to do the works and will of the Father, and therefore to receivehonor, as even the Father does. The view of God as the Father of Jesus alsogoes a long way towards accounting for the Johannine emphasis on “life.”

The most common designation for God in John is “Father.” John uses“Father” about 120 times, more often than all the other Gospels combined.By comparison, “God” (qeovı) appears in John 108 times. But the pattern ofthe references is even more revealing of the significance of “Father” in John.The first references to God as Father are found in the prologue, where Godis specifically depicted as the Father of the only Son, Jesus (1:14, 18). In bothpassages the term monogenhvı (only, unique) emphasizes that Jesus is the onlySon of the Father. Subsequent references to God as Father occur in theGospel almost exclusively in the words of Jesus. Jesus refers to God as “myFather,” or as “the Father,” and most distinctively as “the Father who sentme.” A few references to God as Father are found in editorial comments,where again Jesus’ unique sonship is in view. For example, in John 5:18, theauthor states that Jesus was charged with calling “God his own Father,thereby making himself equal to God” (5:18; cf. 8:27).

John also exemplifies the pattern, found in the Synoptic Gospels as well,that not only do almost all the references to God as Father occur in sayings ofJesus, but it is only Jesus who addresses God as father. Over 85 times we havesimply “the Father” in the words of Jesus in John. Jesus speaks of “my Father”about two dozen times, and he addresses God simply as “Father” nine times(once, “holy Father”). Once he speaks to his disciples of God as “your Father”(20:17). Nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus speak of God as “our Father” in away that includes the disciples with him in such a designation, or in a form of

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address commended to the disciples as their own. There are but two excep-tions to this pattern. In John 8, “the Jews” argue that they have God as father(8:41), but this is a claim that Jesus disputes (8:42). Apparently, then, onlyJesus may properly speak of and to God as “Father.”

Given the frequency of the term “Father” in the Gospel of John, onemight naturally conclude that it has simply become a substitute for “God,”functioning as do a variety of epithets for God, such as “the Blessed” or“the Most High” or “the Almighty” in other New Testament texts, as wellas in the literature of Judaism. And yet this is not the case. “God” and“Father” are not simply interchangeable. For example, formulations thatrefer to the Son as being “sent” belong primarily to the Gospel’s “Father”terminology. It is the Father who sends the Son. Likewise, Jesus is said notto do “the will of God,” but the “will of the Father.” Thus there are distinctpatterns of usage that illumine the meaning of “Father” in the Gospel andsuggest why it has become the most important term, other than qeovı (God)itself, to refer to God. It is these patterns of usage, the particular formula-tions and contexts in which “Father” appears, that give shape and contentto God’s fatherhood in the Gospel of John. Particularly telling is the way inwhich God’s actions as Father are focused on Jesus himself. It is Jesus whospeaks of, and addresses, God as Father. Jesus speaks but rarely even to hisown disciples of God as their father, and then only after the resurrection. Inshort, according to the Gospel it is the prerogative of Jesus to address Godas Father and to speak of God in these terms. Hence, to understand God asFather in John demands a concentrated focus on the relationship of the Sonand Father.

The primary understanding of God as Father in John comes to expres-sion in John 5:26: “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted theSon also to have life in himself.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Son whoreceives life from the Father and in turn gives it to others. This fundamentalrelationship, this “kinship” of God and Jesus as Father and Son, becomes thebasis for a number of claims made for Jesus. These claims include his au-thority to judge, to give life, to mediate knowledge of the Father and toreveal him, to do the works and will of the Father, and therefore to receivehonor, as even the Father does. Such assertions depend on the unity andlove between the Father and Son, unity and love that are construed in termsof kinship. It is this basic relationship, the relationship of parent and child,father and son, and not any specific characteristic behavior or obligation of afather, which forms the basis for delineating the relationship of Jesus andGod in the Fourth Gospel. That is, in John it is not a particular characteristicor attribute of God that shapes understanding of him as Father, but ratherthe fundamental reality that a father’s relationship to his children consistsfirst in terms simply of giving them life. What it means to be a father is to bethe origin or source of the life of one’s children. For John, this pertains to the

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fact that the Father has given life to the Son and through the Son mediatedlife to others, who become “children of God” (1:12; 11:52; see 1 John 3:1–2).

This view of God as Father is closely linked with the understanding of afather as the head of a clan or family, and hence the “ancestor” who gives lifeand bequeaths an inheritance to his heirs. In the Hebrew Bible God is theFather of Israel as its founder, the ancestor of the “clan” of the Israelite nationinsofar as he called it into being (Jer 31:9; Deut 32:4–6; cf. Deut 32:18; Isa64:8–9) (Mason: 52; Jeremias: 13). Just as a human father provides an inheri-tance to his firstborn son (Zech 12:10; Mic 6:7; Gen 49:3; Exod 13:15), so Godprovides Israel, God’s “firstborn,” with an inheritance (Jer 3:19; 31:9; Isa61:7–10; 63:16; Zech 9:12). The inheritance is passed down from father toson—to one son—as an exclusive birthright. In the Gospel of John, it is to thisone Son that the Father gives life; that Son becomes the Father’s exclusiveheir. The Son in turn may bestow what he has received from the Father toothers. In order to flesh out this understanding of God as Father in John, wewill turn first to look very briefly at the understanding of God as “the livingGod” in the Hebrew Bible, as well as in a few first-century Jewish writers.The basic view of God as the one who lives eternally and so is the onlysource of life for the world fits integrally with John’s view of God as the life-giving Father, crystallized in the phrase “the living Father.” After that, weshall examine a few key passages in John in which this view of the relation-ship of Father and Son comes to expression.

“The Living Father”

Although “Father” often tends to stand on its own, it is modified onceby the adjective “holy” (17:11), a number of times by the personal pronoun“my” (5:17; 6:32, 40; 8:19, 38, 49, 54; 10:18, 29, 37; 14:7, 20, 21, 23; 15:1, 8, 15,23, 24; 20:17), frequently by the relative clause “who sent me” (5:37; 6:44;8:18; 12:49), and only once, but tellingly, by the adjective “living” (6:57).God is “the living Father.” This phrase mirrors the common designation ofGod as “the living God,” which had become quite common by the first century. The phrase occurs about a dozen times in the New Testament. It isfound, for example, in Matthew’s version of Peter’s confession of Jesus:“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16; see also 26:63;Acts 14:15; Rom 9:26; 2 Cor 3:3; 6:16; 1 Thess 1:9; 3:15; 1 Tim 4:10; Heb 3:12;9:14; 10:31; 12:22). In the polemic of the Hebrew Bible, the epithet “livingGod” contrasts the Lord who creates, with “dead idols” made by humanhands (1 Sam 17:26, 36; 2 Kgs 19:4, 16; Jer 23:36; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10; Pss42:3; 84:3; Isa 40:18–20; 41:21–24; 44:9–20, 24; 45:16–22; 46:5–7). “[Idols] arethe work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith. . . . they are all theproduct of skilled workers. But the LORD is the true God; he is the living Godand the everlasting King” (Jer 10:9–10). The contrast thus also emphasizes

thompson: “the living father” 21

that the living God is not a created artifact, but rather the creator andsource of life (Ps 36:9; Jer 2:13; Ezek 37:1–4).

This designation of God as “the living God” serves in later Jewishmonotheistic polemic to underscore the unity and uniqueness of God. One ofthe clear corollaries of belief in the uniqueness of the living God, or in God’seternal existence, is the affirmation of God as creator of the world. Conse-quently, where some variation of the phrase “living God” or “everlastingGod” is absent, one often finds instead a description of God as Creator, or asthe source of all life. Sirach explicitly joins God’s eternal existence with God’screation of the world: “He who lives forever created the whole universe”(18:1). For Philo, of course, God’s eternity is the self-evident truth about God;God is “the one who is” (oJ w“n). God is the sole uncreated—hence eternal—being, and so necessarily the source of the life of the world (Her. 42.206);Creator and Maker (Spec. 1.30; Somn. 1.76; Mut. 29; Decal. 61); planter of theworld (Conf. 196); Father;1 Parent (Spec. 2.197); “Cause of all things” (Somn.1.67);2 Fountain of life (Fug. 198).3 That God creates all that is rests on the as-sumption that God is the only ungenerated being. For Philo, in other words,God is the “unmoved mover.” Eternal existence and creation go together. Tobe sure, Philo has interpreted these biblical themes in light of his Platonism,but nevertheless they are tenets that he both affirms and develops.

Similar views are found throughout Josephus’s writings. Josephus writesthat God is “the beginning and middle and end of all things,” who createdthe world “not with hands, not with toil, not with assistants of whom He hadno need” (Ag. Ap. 2.190–92; cf. Ant. 8.280, “the beginning and end of all”). Infact, Josephus argues that the etymology of the Greek word Zeus “shows” theproper understanding of deity, for the name comes from the fact that “hebreathes life (zh'n) into all creatures” (Ant. 12.22). Once Josephus asserts that“the only true God is oJ w“n” (“the one who is”; Ant. 8.350). Josephus likewiseassumes that the God of Israel is “the God who made heaven and earth andsea” (Ag. Ap. 2.121, 190–91).4 In describing the zealous piety of the Essenes,Josephus states that they pray before and after meals in order “to do homageto God as the bountiful giver of life” (B. J., 2.131).

One could easily multiply texts that assume God’s eternity, and particu-larly, God’s creation of all that is, to show that for Jewish authors of the

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1 The Father: Spec. 2.197; Opif. 74, 76; Mut. 29; “Father of all things, for he begat them,”Cher. 49; “Father and Maker,” Opif. 77; “Father and Maker of all,” Decal. 51.

2 See Decal. 52: “The transcendent source of all that exists is God.”3 “God is the most ancient of all fountains. . . . God alone is the cause of animation and of

that life which is in union with prudence; for the matter is dead. But God is something morethan life; he is, as he himself has said, the everlasting fountain of living.”

4 See also Jdt 9:12; Jub. 2:31–32; 12:19; 16:26–27; 22:5, 66–67; 2 Macc 1:24; 7:28.

period, the uniqueness of Israel’s God was lodged in God’s creation of allthe world. God is “the Lord God who gives life to all things” (Jos. Asen. 8:4),the “Creator of all things” who, in his mercy, gives “life and breath” (2 Macc1:24; 7:23). Precisely in this life-giving activity, God is unique. Echoing thewords of Isaiah, one of the scrolls from Qumran reads, “You are the livingGod, you alone, and there is no other besides you” (4Q504 = Words of the Luminariesa V, 9).

Hence the corollary of monotheism, of belief in one God, is belief thatthis God is the creator of all that is. There is only one God who, in contrastto idols and false gods, is the living God; and that living God is the sourceof all life.

The phrase “the living God” does not occur in the Gospel of John. Butthe interesting variation, “the living Father,” does occur. The occurrence ofthe phrase “living Father,” rather than “living God,” is not simply an inci-dental variant. Rather, the epithet embodies within it the conviction that asthe eternally existent, living God, God alone is the source of all life. Butsince life is bestowed by the Father through the Son, the life-giving aspectof God’s activity is illumined by an image drawn from the human sphere ofpaternal relationship. The affirmation that God is “Father” cannot be separated from the affirmation that God is the source of life, nor from theconviction that the life of the Father has been given to, and comes to humanbeings through, the Son. Consequently, within the Gospel of John, the commonplace that God is the living God appears within polemic contexts(chs. 5 and 6) precisely as the warrant for the claims about the life-givingwork of Jesus, the Son.

Indeed, the Johannine emphasis on God as “the living Father” goes along way towards explaining the prominence of the theme of life in theGospel.5 Taken together, the ideas of God as “Father,” and hence the sourceof life, and of God as the living God, the creator of all that is, account for thebelief that God gives life through the Son who derives his life from theFather. A father gives life to his son; indeed, a son by definition is one whohas life from his father. So also, the Father gives life to his Son; the Son by definition has life from his Father. And therefore through him life can begiven to others as well; through the Son others become children of God.These virtually tautologous statements can be unpacked by looking brieflyat the fundamental assertion that the Son has life even as the Father has itand that through faith in the Son one has life in the present.


5 John Ashton (219) calls “life” the core or central symbol around which all other sym-bols cluster.

“As the Father Has Life in Himself”

We may turn, then, to look briefly at those verses that I earlier suggestedprovide the foundation for understanding God as Father in John: “Very truly,I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear thevoice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Fatherhas life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John5:25–26). According to these verses, those who hear the voice of the Son ofGod will live, because the Son “has life in himself” even as the Father does.The parallel clauses in these verses assert life-giving prerogatives of both theFather and the Son. These predications are striking for, as already noted, inbiblical thought and later developments, the power to give life is attributed to God alone. As C. K. Barrett comments, “This expression, denoting exact parallelism between the Father and the Son, is the keynote ofthis paragraph” (1978:260). But the question remains wherein this “exact parallelism” consists. Barrett himself explicates it as “the complete continuitybetween the work of the Father and the work of the Son.” Hence the emphasisis on the functional unity of Father and Son. Raymond Brown asserts that thelife in view is not the inner life of the Godhead but rather the “creative life-giving power” exercised toward human beings (215).

On this view, the Gospel is not addressing the nature of the relationshipor the unity of Father and Son, but rather is characterizing the unity of theirwork. The Father’s work and prerogative are to grant life, and because hegrants this prerogative to the Son, the Son participates in the Father’s work.This interpretation of the relationship of Father and Son has much to commend it. The Gospel does indeed argue that the work of the Son is thevery work of the Father and that the Father does his work through the Son.Hence the most famous of all the Johannine assertions regarding the unityof the Father and Son, namely, “I and the Father are one” (10:30), actuallyrefers in context to Jesus’ promise that the Father and Son are one in thework of preserving the sheep of the fold from loss or harm. “I give themeternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out ofmy hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and noone is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (10:28–29 RSV).

But these remarkable verses regarding the parallel life-giving powers ofFather and Son in the Fourth Gospel press further. The life-giving prerogativedoes not remain external to the Son. He does not receive it merely as a mission to be undertaken. It is not simply some power he has been given.Rather, the Son partakes of the very life of the Father: the Son has life in himself. Therefore, when Jesus confers life on those who believe, they alsoparticipate in and have to do with the life of the Father, because the Fatherhas given the Son to have life in himself, even as he has it (Grayston: 51). Suchpredications assume and are dependent upon the conviction that there is but

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one God, one source of life. Jesus is not a second deity, not a second source oflife, standing alongside the Father. Rather, the Son confers the Father’s life,which he has in himself.6 Hence the formulation assumes the unity of the life-giving work of Father and Son, but it also predicates a remarkable status ofthe Son, one that is not made of any other creature or entity. The Son “has lifein himself.”

Yet it is important to note that this statement does not stand on its own.The Son has life in himself because “the Father has granted it” to him. Preciselyin holding together the affirmations that the Son has “life in himself” withthe affirmation that he has “been given” such life by the Father, we find theuniquely Johannine characterization of the relationship of the Father and theSon. The Father does not give the Son some thing, power, or gift; the Fathergives the Son life. Therefore, the Son has the power to confer life. This poweris attributed in the Fourth Gospel to Jesus’ words (5:25; 6:63) and to his signs,which are God’s life-giving work effected through him (10:38; 14:11). God’sfatherhood, God’s life-giving power, is effected through and in the work ofthe Son. It is as the one who gives life that God is Father. Through the workand words of the Son, the Father’s life-giving power becomes embodied,rather than remaining merely a cipher or idea, and thus God’s identity asFather is concretely realized.

The one verse in John that uses the phrase “the living Father” reads asfollows: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of (diav) the Father,so whoever eats me will live because of (diav) me” (6:57). Here again theFather is described as the one who gives life, and the Son is the one who receives it. Unless Jesus’ life were granted to him from the Father, he wouldhave no life; unless he came from the “living Father,” he would be unable toconfer life.

Both verses (5:26; 6:57) do speak of Jesus’ power and authority to give lifeto others. In chapter 5, Jesus says that those who “hear the voice of the Son ofGod . . . will live.” In the “bread of life” discourse in chapter 6, Jesus states that“whoever eats me will live because of me.” These two verses make it clear thatJesus confers the life he has from the Father on others. While there is an analogy between the way in which God gives life to Jesus and Jesus in turnconfers it on others, there is not perfect parallelism. On the one hand, there isanalogy: Just as the Father has life and gives life to the Son, so the Son has lifeand gives life to those who have faith (Haenchen: 296).7 Jesus lives because of


6 “Just as the Father as Creator and Consummator possesses life, he has given that posses-sion also to the Son, not merely as the executor of incidental assignments but in the absolutesense of sharing in the Father’s power” (Ridderbos: 198).

7 Bultmann (236) translates, “As (i.e., correspondingly as) I have life because of the Father,so too he who eats me will live through me,” thus effacing the parallelism.

the Father’s determination that he should have life in himself (cf. 5:21, 24–27),even as believers live because of Jesus’ determination that they should have life.And yet there is a difference, a breach of the parallelism as well (Carson: 299).Believers always have mediated life, never “life in themselves.” They cannotpass on their “life” to others; they have no offspring or heirs. If others live, it isbecause they receive the Father’s life through the Son. These differences are expressed in terminological distinctions: those who have faith are children ofGod (tevkna), but Jesus is the Son (uiJovı), indeed the “only” Son (monogenhvı).Furthermore, Jesus is not “born of God” or “born from above,” as are thosewho have faith in him. Rather, he is from God; he comes from above. He haslife in himself, just as the Father does.

The scope of these assertions encompasses God’s life-giving work fromcreation to resurrection. God is the living and life-giving Creator, who exer-cises sovereignty over all life. The work of creation, the universal sovereigntyover creation, and its expected final redemption are all carried on in theGospel through the Son and are all expressed in terms of life. At the veryoutset of the Gospel, we read this affirmation, “All things were madethrough [the Logos], and without him was not anything made that wasmade. In him was life” (1:3–4 RSV). These verses underscore the presenceand agency of the Logos in creation. That same word “became flesh” in Jesusof Nazareth, to whom has been given the power to give life in works andwords. Jesus acts and speaks, and the dead come forth from their tombs(5:28–29). His words are “spirit and life” (6:63); in fact, he is life (11:25; 14:6).And Jesus’ life-giving works also anticipate the final resurrection at the lastday, which he himself effects (6:39, 40, 44, 54; 7:37; 11:24; 12:48). In short, thelife-giving work of the Father in the Son does not refer to a single event but tothe all-encompassing creative and sustaining work of God, which has past,present, and future reference points.

“The Father Who Sent Me”

On the lips of Jesus, God is repeatedly designated not only as Father butas “the Father who sent me.” This description underscores the distinctivenessof Jesus’ relationship to God as “Father” in several ways. First, the expressionhighlights the unique way in which God is the Father of Jesus. God is “theFather who sent me.” When John the Baptist is said to be “sent by God” thedesignation “Father” is conspicuous by its absence. The only other figuresent by the Father is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.8 Second, the very use of the relative clause, in Greek a participial form (oJ pevmyaı me pathvr),

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8 Of the other Gospels, Luke particularly stresses that the Spirit is the gift of the Father.

designates the Father as the one who sends. It makes the Father the subject andinitiator of the Son’s activity (Fennema: 4), and thus the participial phraseidentifies the Father by means of his action with respect to the Son. Third, theemphasis on God as the Father who has “sent” the Son introduces a new element into the description of the relationship of Father and Son. Not only isGod “Father,” but God is “the Father who sent me.” The language of sending reflects a view of the Son as an emissary or agent who is sent by another to carry out a task or fulfill a commission. Indeed, the Son is identi-fied primarily in terms of the one sent to carry out that mission, and theFather as the one who sends the Son.

Because of the prominence of “sending” language, John’s christology isoften understood against the background of the role of the “agent.”9 Thisrefers to a business or legal relationship or role, rather than to a specifically“religious” function or figure, like a prophet. In the rabbinic writings, oneoften finds this statement: “The one who is sent is like the one who sent him”(m. Ber. 5:5; b. B. Meßi<a 96a; b. Hag. 10b; b. Mena˙. 93b; b. Naz. 12b; b. Qidd.42b, 43a; Mek. Ex. on Exod 12:3 and 6). Hence, if one transacts any businesswith the agent, the one who is sent, it is as though one had transacted it withthe one who sent that agent. For all practical purposes, there is a functional,albeit limited and temporary, equality. This category of agency is oftendeemed helpful in interpreting certain passages in John, such as, “Whoeverhas seen me has seen the Father.”

But John takes this tradition in a somewhat different direction when, inaddition to stressing the virtual equality of the one who is sent with the onewho sends, he asserts that the one who sends is greater than the one who issent. So, for example, in John 13:16, Jesus states, “Very truly, I tell you, ser-vants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than theone who sent them,” a statement that certainly does not stress the equality ofthe one who is sent and the one who sent him. And then there is the well-known statement, “The Father is greater than I” (14:28). Such formulations inthe Gospel are typically labeled as examples of John’s “subordinationism” (Bar-rett, 1974). But this label is at best misleading, inasmuch as it conceives of the relationship of Father and Son primarily in hierarchical terms. Since Johnstresses the function of the Father as the one who gives life to his offspring,rather than the role of the Father as the one who instructs or disciplines,


9 Borgen; Bühner; Ashton (314) distinguishes between the Gospel’s language of mission,reminiscent of the sending of prophets, and the nonreligious language of agency. With respect tothe latter, Ashton comments: “Here for the first time we appear to have an authentic traditioncapable under the right conditions of generating the high christology according to which theman who has listened to the words of Jesus has heard the voice of God and, more strikingly, inJesus’ own words to Philip, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father.’”

statements such as “the Father is greater than I” ought not to be read againsta backdrop of patriarchal hierarchy. The Father is the source of the Son’s life;it is as the origin of the Son’s very being that “the Father is greater than I.”This is clear even from the context of that statement, in which Jesus assertsthat he returns to the Father, because the Father is greater; that is, he has hisorigins in the Father (14:28). In the Fourth Gospel, then, the emphasis on theSon as the “agent” who is sent actually serves to shift attention to the Fatherwho sends the Son, and the notion of hierarchy or “superiority” is subsumedinto the Father’s life-giving, not “command-giving,” persona.

The case is much the same in considering the issue of Jesus’ “obedience”to the Father. While maintaining the typical view that a true son is one who“does the will of the Father,” John nevertheless stresses rather dramaticallythe harmony of the Son’s will with the Father’s, interpreting the Son’s obedience as an enactment or expression of the Father’s will, rather than assubmission or acquiescence to it. For although the Son is often said to “dothe will” (4:34; 5:30; 6:38, 39) or to “do the works”of the Father (5:36; 10:25,37) the word “obey” is never actually used. Jesus receives and carries out theFather’s commandments (12:49; 14:31; 15:10).

Yet this does not imply that the Johannine Jesus has no will, rather, thatJesus’ will is fully in harmony with that of the Father. Few passages in Johnilluminate as fully the character of the Son’s “obedience” as do Jesus’ statements regarding his death: “For this reason the Father loves me, becauseI lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but Ilay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have powerto take it again; this charge I have received from my Father” (10:17–18). HereJesus speaks of his death in terms of a “charge” that he received from hisFather, a “charge” that encompasses his resurrection as well (10:18). Yet thepassage simultaneously stresses Jesus’ sovereignty: he lays down his lifefreely, not by force (10:18). Indeed, the emphasis on his own initiative soundsa steady drumbeat throughout these two verses: “I lay down my life”; “I takeit up again”; “I lay it down of my own accord”; “I have power to lay itdown”; “I have power to take it up again.” The climactic statement, “I havereceived this command from my Father,” stands out almost as a surd ele-ment, for now Jesus’ command over his own life, death, and resurrection isattributed to the command or charge of the Father.

But the dialectic is resolved in the peculiarity of the Father-Son relation-ship in John, in which the Father not only gives the Son his life but grants it tohim to dispose of it as he will—or, as the Father wills. A direct line runs fromthese statements to the recasting of Jesus’ prayer prior to his death. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is shown praying, “Father, take this cup from me;nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” In John, Jesus prays a rather dif-ferent prayer. In a clear echo of the prayer of Jesus in the synoptic tradition,Jesus states, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—’Father, save

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me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour”(12:27). His prayer is a declaration of his intent to do the Father’s will, not apetition that the Father remove the cup. The Son’s obedience to the Fatherdoes not establish their unity, nor does it signal his submission to an aliencommand. Rather, the Son’s “obedience” is the expression of the will of theone who sent him. The will of the Father is embodied in him, even as theFather’s life is embodied in him. As “the Son of the house” (8:35), Jesus is theheir of the Father; he has life from the Father and can bestow it on others; healone is obedient to the Father. All the elements of genuine sonship are em-bodied in him, but his mission is to set others free so that they can enter intothe Father’s inheritance through him. The exclusivity of Jesus’ sonship actually becomes the means through which others may receive the life andfreedom that characterize the true “children of God.”

The Life of the World

In the Gospel of John, the father-son relationship becomes the theologi-cal grounding for the predications of the authority and work of the Fathergiven to and embodied in the Son. This is not to say that the imagery offather-son necessarily generated all aspects of John’s christology. But Johnhas made it central. It plays a dominant role, not only in terms of sheer sta-tistics, but also in terms of its power to shape the way in which otherimagery is taken up and used. The Son comes “in the name of the Father.”Because the Son has the Father’s life, Father and Son are one, and those whoknow the Son know the Father. The Son who has the life-giving prerogativesof the Father is “equal to God” (5:18). The Father has placed “all things” intothe hands of the Son (3:35; 13:3; cf. 15:15; 16:15); the Father has given “alljudgment” to the Son (5:22). As the Son of the Father, Jesus embodies andconfers God’s creative and sustaining work. Consequently, God’s identity as“Father” expresses itself first in the specific and distinctive relationship toJesus, the Son. That God is “Father” is not some “ontological” predication inand of itself, but historically and theologically bound to the Father’s rela-tionship to the Son and to the embodiment of the Father’s life in the Son.

The images of father and son assume at one and the same time an indis-soluble unity and a clear separateness. While a son is not his father, no otherhuman relationship connects people in quite the same way as does the relationship of a parent to a child, for this is a relationship in which the verybeing of the one comes from the other and in which neither has their iden-tity as “father” or “son,” “parent” or “child,” without other. Although the language of “intimacy” is often used to speak of the “relationship” betweenJesus and God, this characterization of the relationship between parents andchildren owes more to Romanticism than to biblical concepts of paternity(Harvey: 158). The Decalogue, after all, commands children to “honor” their


father and mother, to esteem and obey them. The father always retains authority, merits honor, and remains the progenitor of his offspring.

Put differently, the idea of relationship construed as “kinship,” ratherthan as intimacy or some vague notion of “mutuality,” grounds the under-standing of “father.” When Jesus calls God “Father,” he points first to theFather as the source or origin of life and to the relationship established asthe Father gives life to the Son. But once again these terms apply differentlyto those “born of God” and to Jesus as the only Son of God. Ultimately itwill be through Jesus’ death and resurrection that others are empowered toenter into the life-giving relationship that characterizes the Father and theSon. The command of the risen Jesus to Mary makes clear the new situation:“Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended tothe Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to myFather and your Father, to my God and your God”’” (20:17). This is the firstuse of the language of family or kinship (ajdelfouvı; “brothers and sisters”) torefer to Jesus’ disciples, and the first and only reference to God as “yourFather,” which includes others with Jesus in relationship to God (contrast8:41, 42, 44). Still there is no reference in John to God as “our Father” inwhich Jesus includes the disciples together with himself in such address.Here it is still “my Father and your Father.”

The differences between the relationship of Jesus to the Father and ofthe disciples to the Father remain, but through the life-giving work of theSon, the disciples—and others—enter into the relationship of kinshipgranted to them by the Son. Not surprisingly, after Jesus’ resurrection, hisdisciples are referred to with the familiar New Testament designationajdelfoiv (“brothers and sisters”; 21:23), a term that plays an important role in1 John as the basis for the call to unity and love (1 John 3:13, 14, 16). Not onlyis the Father’s life tangibly and concretely embodied in the life and work ofthe Son, but also in the life of the community and of the members of it. It isnot a life which floats abstractly above the real life of women and men in theworld. It is life which is embodied, quite literally, in Jesus and his followers.In this way it can indeed become the life for all the world.

WORKS CONSULTED

Ashton, John1991 Understanding the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Barrett, C. K.1974 “‘The Father Is Greater Than I’ (Jo 14, 28): Subordinationist Christology

in the New Testament.” Pp. 144–59 in Neues Testament und Kirche, fürRudolf Schnackenburg. Ed. J. Gnilka. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder.

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1978 The Gospel according to St. John. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Borgen, Peder1968 “God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp. 137–48 in Religions in Antiq-

uity. Ed. J. Neusner. Leiden: Brill.

Brown, Raymond E.1966 The Gospel according to John. Vol. 1. AB 29. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

Bühner, J.-A.1977 Der Gesandte und sein Weg in 4. Evangelium: Die kultur- und religions-

geschichtlichen Grundlagen der johanneischen Sendungschristologie sowie ihretraditionsgeschichtliche Entwicklung. WUNT 2/2. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.

Bultmann, Rudolf1971 The Gospel of John. Trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare and J. K.

Riches. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Carson, D. A.1991 The Gospel according to John. Leicester: Inter-Varsity/Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans.

Fennema, David A.1979 “Jesus and God according to John: An Analysis of the Fourth Gospel’s

Father/Son Christology.” Ph.D. diss., Duke University.

Grayston, Kenneth E.1990 The Gospel of John. Philadelphia: Trinity.

Haenchen, Ernst1984 A Commentary on the Gospel of John. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Harvey, A. E.1982 Jesus and the Constraints of History. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Jeremias, Joachim1971 The Prayers of Jesus. Trans. John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Mason, Rex1993 Old Testament Pictures of God. Regent’s Study Guides. Oxford: Regent’s

Park College/Macon: Smyth & Helwys.

Meyer, Paul W.1996 “‘The Father’: The Presentation of God in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp.

255–73 in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith. Ed. R.Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black. Lousisville: Westminster/JohnKnox.

Ridderbos, Herman N.1997 The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.


THE HAVING-SENT-ME FATHER: ASPECTS OFAGENCY, ENCOUNTER, AND IRONY IN THEJOHANNINE FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP

Paul N. AndersonGeorge Fox College

abstract

Is “the Father” portrayed as doing anything in John besides sending theSon? A good question! This pivotal emphasis upon the Son’s being sentfrom the Father in John functions to legitimate the messianic mission ofJesus and to call Johannine audiences toward a believing response to thedivine initiative, as narrated in the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of Jesus’ministry and its ironic reception. Rooted in the Prophet-like-Moses typol-ogy of Deut 18:15–22, the Father-Son relationship becomes the backbone ofthe Johannine presentation of Jesus’ words and works. Because it is relatedto the history of the Johannine situation and the composition of the FourthGospel, John’s presentation of the “having-sent-me Father” contributes toJohannine theological, sociological, and literary issues.

Does the Father do anything in John besides send the Son? Yes, the Fatheralso loves the Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17; 15:9; 17:23), has placed all things into hishand (3:35), is worshiped in spirit and in truth (and seeks such to worshiphim, 4:23), works just as the Son is working (5:17), is imitated by the Son(5:19), shows the Son all that he is doing (5:20), raises and quickens the dead(as does the Son, 5:21), judges no one (but entrusts all judgment to the Son,5:22), has life in himself and has likewise given to the Son life in himself (andauthority and judgment, 5:26–27), gives the Son works to complete (5:36),witnesses concerning the Son (5:37; 8:18), has placed his seal on the Son ofMan (6:27), gives now the true bread from heaven (6:32), draws/enables allwho come to Jesus (6:44, 65), is heard from and learned from (6:45), is spokenof by Jesus (8:27), has taught and shown Jesus what he speaks about (8:28,38), is honored by Jesus (8:49), glorifies the Son (8:54; 17:1, 5, 22), knows andis known by the Son (10:15; 17:25–26), gives his commandment to the Son tospeak (10:18; 12:49–50; 14:31), entrusts all to the Son (10:29; 13:3; 16:15; 17:7,10), is one with the Son (10:30; 17:21), sanctifies and sends into the world(10:36; 17:17–18), is in the Son and the Son is in him (10:38; 14:10–11, 20; 17:21),hears Jesus (11:42), will honor any who serve the Son (12:26), is returned toby the Son (13:1; 14:3, 12, 28; 16:10, 17, 28; 20:17), is come to through the Son(14:6), is seen by those who see the Son (14:9), sends the Parakletos (14:16,

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26—as does the Son—15:26; 16:8), loves those who love the Son (14:21, 23;16:27), is loved by the Son (14:31), prunes “branches” to make them morefruitful (15:1), is heard from by the Son (15:15), is hated (15:23–24), is notknown (16:3), gives what is asked in the Son’s name (16:23), will be spoken ofplainly by the Son (16:25), is with the Son (16:32), keeps believers in the world(17:15), is not known by the world (17:25), is known and made known by theSon (17:25–26), and gives a “cup” for the Son to drink (18:11).

Of course, within and around all of these actions is “the having-sent-meFather” (or God, or “the having-sent-me one”) who sends the Son because ofhis love for the world (3:16–17, 34; 4:34; 5:23–24, 30, 36–38; 6:29, 37–40, 44, 57;7:16–18, 28–29, 33; 8:16–18, 26, 28–29, 42; 9:4; 10:36; 11:42; 12:44–45, 49–50;13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 17:3, 8, 18, 21–25; 20:21). So, in answer to the questionas to whether the Father in John does anything besides send the Son, theanswer is: not much. Most of the Father’s actions in John are tied directly tothe emissary mission of the Son, but this leads to the next question: What arethe theological implications of such a presentation?

The thesis of this essay is that the Father-Son relationship in John is rootedsquarely in the Prophet-like-Moses typology, founded upon the agency motifstemming from Deut 18:15–22. More specifically, the primary importance of“the Father” in John is associated with his sending the Son, and this emissaryfunction is foundational to understanding adequately the Johannine Father-Son relationship. The “having-sent-me Father” legitimates the Son’s mission.To believe in the Son is to believe in the Father who sent him—a response thatentailed different things at different times in the evolving history of the Johan-nine situation. Just as overlooking the sending motif within Johanninechristology skews one’s appraisal of the Johannine presentation of Jesus as theSon,1 so does the failure to appreciate the background and function of theJewish sending motif distort one’s appraisal of the Johannine presentation ofGod as the Father. This agency typology appears pervasively in various partsof the Johannine Gospel, suggesting theological, historical, and literary insights into John’s composition and interpretation.

The Having-Sent-Me Father—The Legitimator of the Johannine Jesus

While the participial crafting of the sending motif in John is typical ofother grammatical Johannine moves, the references to God as “the having-sent-me Father” (5:23–24, 37; 6:44; 8:18; 12:49; 14:24) and “the having-sent-meone” as an indirect reference to the Father (1:33; 4:34; 5:30; 6:38–39; 7:16, 18,

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1 For discussions of the tension in the Father-Son relationship in John see especially An-derson, 1996:174–77 and 221–24. See further references in “Bibliography I: The Christology ofJohn” in Anderson (1996:278–86).

28, 33; 8:16, 26, 29; 9:4; 12:44–45; 13:20; 15:21; 16:5) are significant theologi-cally. No fewer than twenty-five times in John, God is defined not in terms ofontic aspects of being but by active aspects of doing, the most important ofwhich is launching the mission of the Son. This observation suggests that theJewish sending motif, rooted in Deut 18:15–22, is essential for understandingthe function and identity of Jesus as “the Son” in John; but likewise, so it iswith understanding God as “the Father” in John. Consider the following out-line of the Gospel’s presentation of God as “the having-sent-me Father”:

Table 1: The Having-Sent-Me Father/One in John

a. Authentic Representation. The Son’s teaching is not his own (7:16), nor has hecome on his own (7:28), nor does he speak on his own behalf (presumptu-ously), but only as given a commandment to speak (12:49; 14:24) by thehaving-sent-me Father and to accomplish his will (5:30).

b. Divine Accountability. The judgment of the Son is valid because it is one withthe judgment of the having-sent-me Father (5:30; 8:16), from whom he hasheard (5:30; 8:26).

c. The Son’s Redemptive Mission. Jesus seeks to glorify (7:18), to do the will of,and to accomplish the work of the having-sent-me one (4:34; 6:38; 9:4),which involves losing none of those entrusted to him and raising them upon the last day (6:39).

d. Divine Enablement Required. No one can “come to” Jesus except by beingdrawn by the having-sent-me Father (6:44).

e. The Response of Faith. To hear Jesus’ word and to believe in the having-sent-me one is to receive eternal life and to pass from judgment and deathinto life (5:24), because whoever believes in Jesus believes in the having-sent-me one (12:44), whoever receives Jesus receives the having-sent-meone (13:20), and whoever has seen Jesus has seen the having-sent-me one(12:45).

f. The Father’s Legitimation of the Son. The having-sent-me Father testifies onJesus’ behalf (5:37; 8:18).

g. Negative Response As Indicative. The ones not honoring the Son do not honorthe having-sent-me one (5:23), and those who persecute believers do so be-cause they have not known the having-sent-me one (15:21).

h. The Return of the Agent to the Sender. Jesus returns to the having-sent-me one(7:33; 16:5).

Nearly all the above participial phrases are presented in the first-personwords of Jesus (except for John the Baptist in 1:33) in speaking of the Fatherwho sent him on his mission. They also occur within the narration, the con-troversy dialogues, and the discourse sections. The “having-sent-me Father”is presented in ways nearly identical with “the having sent me one,” andthey may be considered together in terms of content. It is also fair to say thatthe participial references to the Father’s sending of the Son are thematicallyconsonant with the rest of the presentations of God as Father in John.

anderson: the having-sent-me-father 35

When occurrences of “the Father” and “the having-sent-me one” inJohn are analyzed further, however, several other interesting connectionsemerge. First, they serve to legitimate the mission of Jesus. In that sense,the sending motif in John declares what Jesus’ signs and works demon-strate. Second, the Mosaic-prophet typology becomes the Johannine waythat Jesus’ messiahship is conceived, enacted, and attested. Jesus is to be regarded as the Mosaic prophet, who speaks on the Father’s behalf withauthentic congruity. Third, Jesus’ rejection is portrayed ironically in John,employing the Hebraic model of the presumptuous prophet—one whodoes not speak on behalf of Yahweh, but on his own behalf—as a means ofpresenting the rejection and death of Jesus.2 Fourth, one detects severallevels of history in these developments. These levels represent the historyof Johannine Christianity as it is forged in the dialogue with neighboringJewish communities in the latter third of the first century. The Mosaic typology appears traditional and early as well as rhetorical and late. By thetime the Gospel reached its final form, the “having-sent-me Father” phraseis a Johannine construct, but the Prophet-like-Moses presentation of Jesus’ministry is more likely rooted in the self-conception of the historical Jesusthan are the King-like-David, or thaumaturgic, typologies. The presenta-tion of the Father in John therefore represents both primitive anddeveloped tradition.

The Father-Son relationship in John, however, must first be locatedwithin the agency schema associated with Deut 18:15–22 for it to be under-stood properly. The sending motif and the Son’s representation of the Fatherare held in tension with the Father’s legitimation of the Son’s mission anddebates over such an authorization. This important motif deserves to beteased out in terms of theological, historical, and literary analysis. In doingso, several interesting aspects of agency, encounter, and irony emerge.

Prophet-Like-Moses Agency and Deut 18:15–22—A Key to the Johannine Father-Son Relationship?

The main thing the Father is portrayed as doing in John is sending theSon, and the central aspect of the Son’s mission is his “sent-ness” from theFather. The derivative source of this agency motif, however, is Deut 18:15–22.This passage presents itself in John in several ways.3 First, significant words in

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2 The Hellenistic model of the rejected visionary in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is also em-ployed, but this image will not be developed in the present paper.

3 See manuscript under preparation: “Egalitarian, Subordinate or Neither—The JohannineFather-Son Relationship in the Light of the Jewish Agency Motif,” where the place of Deut18:15–22 in John is developed more fully.

the Septuagintal vocabulary of this significant passage occupy significant the-matic roles in John (profhvthı, ajdelfovı, ajnavstasiı, ajkouvw, fwnhv, rJh'ma, lalevw,ejntevllomai, o“noma, and ginwvskw). Second, the confessional content of what aperson is to believe in John often relates to believing that Jesus is “from God,”“sent from the Father,” or “the one coming into the world.”4 Climactic in thenarrative, for instance, is Martha’s confession: “Yes, Lord; I have believed thatyou are the Christ—the Son of God—the one coming into the world” (11:27).This, and the other aspects of what the reader is expected to believe aboutJesus in John, point back to the Prophet-like-Moses schema rooted in Deut18:15–22. Third, the Father’s sending of the Son is mentioned in all major partsof John—narrative, controversy dialogues, and discourse, a fact that Meyer over-looks (264). Meyer also wrongly attributes the Father’s sending the Son todiachronic factors of composition. Rather, it is found in several strata of the Johannine Gospel.5 The sending motif is not limited to the discourses. Rather,in nearly all of John’s narrative, dialogue, and discourse sections where theFather is mentioned, some aspect of the Son’s emissary mission is also narrated, as confirmed by the first two paragraphs of the present essay.

A fourth way the influence of the Deuteronomic passage makes itselfknown in John is the associative links and parallels that occur with every partof its thematic outline. While often allusive, their presence is unmistakable.Consider, for instance, these eight themes from Deut 18:15–22, as repre-sented in John.


4 When pisteuvein is used with o{ti in John (. . . believe that . . . ) it invariably relates either toaccepting the claim that the Son is sent from the Father or accepting some other notion associ-ated with Deut 18:15–22. For instance, in 13:19 Jesus stresses the proleptic function of telling hisdisciples something that will happen, before it occurs, as fulfilling the criterion for identifyingthe true prophet: “so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am he.” Likewise, 14:10 im-plies believing that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him; therefore, the words he speaksare not his own but the Father’s who dwells in him; 16:30 stresses believing that Jesus came fromGod; 17:21 stresses the importance of the world’s believing that the Father has sent the Son; and20:31 stresses the Gospel itself has been written that the reader may come to believe that Jesus isthe Messiah, the Son of God, thereby receiving life in his name. And, to believe in (ejiı) the onewhom God has sent (6:29) is to do the work of God.

5 Neither can the Father-Son material in John be consigned simply to “a late stage of theGospel’s composition.” In note 61 (p. 272), Meyer constructs this judgment upon the shakyfoundation of Fortna’s inferred “Signs Gospel,” for which there is little compelling evidence (seeAnderson, 1996:70–136). In only two passages (2:16; 18:11) does “Father”-language for Godappear in the Signs Gospel. Meyer’s observation that “The patterns of attribution are thus bothclear and striking” (272) reflects more of Fortna’s selection criteria (including within this“source” only “non–reflective” narrative material having a solely thaumaturgic apologetic interest) than of tradition history proper. It is also “clear and striking” how alien some of the Johannine signs appear if they are excised from the Johannine narrative and commentary,de-johannified, and re-markanized with thaumaturgic wonder attestations. Such creativemoves, however, do not a semeia source demonstrate.

Table 2: The Thematic Outline of Deuteronomy 18:15–22 As Found in John

a. 15a, 18a—The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me(Moses) from amidst the brethren.i. Jesus—anticipated by (1:17; 3:14; 6:32; 7:19, 22), written about by (1:45;

5:45), and identified as being a Prophet like Moses (6:14–15).ii. “The Prophet”—ceded by John the Baptist (1:21–25) and declared to be

Jesus by the Samaritan woman (4:19), the Jews (7:40), and the blindman (9:17).

b. 15b—You must listen to him.i. The Son bears witness to that which he has seen and heard from the

Father (3:32; 5:19, 30; 6:46; 8:26, 38, 40; 14:24; 15:15).ii. Hearing the Son implies believing in him (3:36; 5:24; 6:45; 8:51) and know-

ing his voice (10:3–4, 16; 18:37).iii. Rejecting the Son implies neither having heard nor seen the Father

(5:37–38; 8:47), and the one not hearing or keeping Jesus’ words receivesjudgment (12:46–48).

c. 18b—Yahweh will put his words in his (the prophet’s) mouth. i. The words of the Father are spoken by Jesus (3:11, 34; 6:63, 68; 7:16–18,

28; 8:28, 38, 55; 12:44–50; 14:24, 31), and those who receive them receive one on whose behalf he speaks (1:12; 3:36; 5:24; 12:44; 13:20;14:21–24; 15:10).

ii. Witnesses include: the Baptist (1:6–8, 15, 19, 32–34; 3:26; 5:33–35;10:41–42); Jesus, who comes as a witness to the Father (3:11, 32–33)—likewise his words and works (2:11, 23; 3:2; 5:17, 36; 6:14; 7:7, 21, 31;8:14, 19; 9:16; 10:25, 38; 11:18, 45–47; 12:49; 13:21; 14:11, 29; 15:24; 17:4;18:37; 20:30–31; 21:24–25); the Samaritan woman (4:39); the Bethanycrowd and Lazarus (12:17); disciples (15:27; 19:35; 21:24); the Scriptures(5:39); the word from heaven (12:29); and both the Father (5:31–37; 8:18)and the Spirit witness to the veracity of the Son’s work (15:26).

iii. In John, of course, Jesus not only speaks the word of God; he is theWord of God (1:1, 14).

d. 18c—He shall speak everything Yahweh commands him (= in his name).i. The Son’s word is to be equated with that of the Father precisely because

he says nothing on his own but only what he hears and sees from theFather (5:19; 10:28–29, 38; 12:49–50; 17:21). Likewise, he carries out iden-tically the commandment of the Lord (10:18; 12:49–50; 14:31; 15:10).

ii. Jesus comes in the name of the Father (5:43) and the Lord (12:13), and heseeks to glorify the name of the Father (12:28). Jesus has manifested thename of the Father to those given to him, and they are kept in the nameof the Father in unity (17:11–12).

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iii. The Son issues a new commandment (13:34; 14:15, 21; 15:10–17), and thatwhich is done in the name of the Son is also efficacious (14:13–14, 26;15:16; 16:13–14, 26; 20:31), while a scandal to the world (15:21).

e. 19—Whoever does not heed Yahweh’s words, which the prophet speaks inhis name, will be held accountable.i. Those not receiving the Son or his words believingly have already been

judged (3:16–18; 12:47), and the Father entrusts all judgment to the Son(5:22, 27) as the truthful words of the Son produce their own judgmentif rejected (12:48).

ii. Eschatologically, the judgment of the world regards the casting out of theruler of the world and the lifting up of the Son of Man (12:31–36; 16:11),and the Parakletos will be sent as a further agent of revelation and judg-ment (16:8–11).

f. 20—However, a prophet who presumes to say in the name of Yahweh any-thing Yahweh has not instructed, or one who speaks in the name of othergods, that prophet shall die.i. Jesus is accused of speaking and acting presumptuously in John

(“breaking” the Sabbath, 5:16, 18; 7:22–23; 9:16; “deceiving” the crowd,7:12, 47; and witnessing about himself, 8:13, 53)—and considered asblasphemy are his calling God his “Father” (making himself “equal toGod,” 5:18) and accusations of making himself out to be God (10:33)and the Son of God (19:7).

ii. Thus, the Jewish leaders seek to kill Jesus (5:16, 18; 7:1, 19, 25; 8:37, 40,59; 10:31; 11:8), or at least to arrest him (7:30, 32, 44; 8:20; 10:39; 11:57).They accuse him of having a demon (7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20)—or even ofbeing “a Samaritan” (8:48)—and begin to orchestrate his being put todeath (11:53; 18:12; 19:7—likewise Lazarus, 12:10).

iii. They also agree to put “out of the synagogue” anyone who openly acknowledges Jesus to be the Christ (9:22; 12:42; 16:2).

g. 22a—If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the word does nottake place or does not occur, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. i. The words testified about him by the primary Johannine witness (John

the Baptist) are true (1:15, 26–27, 29–32, 36; 3:28; 10:41).ii. Moses’ writings, the Law, and the Scriptures are fulfilled in the ministry

of Jesus (1:45; 2:17, 22; 5:39, 46; 6:45; 7:38; 10:34–36; 12:14–16; 13:18;15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36–37; 20:9), confirming the authenticity of hismission.

iii. The word of Caiaphas regarding Jesus’ sacrificial death is ironically ful-filled (unknowingly, 11:49–52) being the high priest that year; and evenPilate declares, perhaps unwittingly, Jesus to be “the King of the Jews”(19:14–22).


iv. Predictions and earlier words of Jesus are fulfilled in John, especiallyabout his own departure and glorification (2:19–22; 3:14; 4:50–53; 6:51,64–65; 7:33–34, 38–39; 8:21, 28; 10:11, 15–18; 11:4, 23; 12:24, 32–33; 13:33,38; 14:2–3, 18–20, 23; 15:13; 16:16, 20, 28, 32; 18:9, 32). Likewise, Jesusmakes several other predictions assumed to have transpired, thoughnot narrated (21:18–19, 22–23).

v. To remove all doubt, Jesus declares ahead of time what is to take place sothat it will be acknowledged that he is sent from God (13:18–19;14:28–29; 16:2–4; 18:8–9, 31–32). The typological embodiment of Deut18:22 could not be put any clearer; Jesus is the true Prophet likeMoses because all of his words—as well as the testimony abouthim—come true.6 Thus, he is clearly sent from God (3:16–17, 34; 4:34;5:23–24, 30, 36–38; 6:29, 37–40, 44, 57; 7:16–18, 28–29, 33; 8:16–18, 26,28–29, 42; 9:4; 10:36; 11:42; 12:44–45, 49–50; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5;17:3, 8, 18, 21–25; 20:21) and is to be heeded as though heeding theone who sent him.

h. 22b—That prophet has spoken presumptuously; do not fear him. (Note theirony, given the fulfilled prolepses!)i. Jesus is accused of testifying about himself (see above under f), and not

being from David’s city (7:41–52) becomes an ironic criterion for rejection.

ii. Ironically, in seeking to have the “presumptuous prophet” put to deathat the hand of Pilate—in keeping with Deut 18:20 (John 19:7)—theJewish leaders commit blasphemy and hail Caesar as king (19:15).

iii. Furthering the irony, those tending to be feared in John are the Jewishreligious leaders (7:13; 9:22; 12:42) rather than God or the Prophet likeMoses sent from God, and even Jesus’ disciples are “afraid of theJews” (20:19).

In all of these ways, Deut 18:15–22 comes through as a foundational typological schema underlying the Johannine understanding of Jesus’ mission, his reception, and the work of the Father in his redemptive love forthe world. The Johannine depiction of God as “the Father” is integrally related to the divine commissioning of Jesus as the Prophet like Moses, whoacts and speaks not on his own behalf, but only as he—the Son—has seenand heard from God—the Father—in heaven.

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6 Reinhartz organizes these prolepses slightly differently, but her conclusion is the same.The fulfilled prolepses in John serve to confirm the identity of Jesus as the Prophet like Mosesdescribed in Deuteronomy 18.

Agency and Aspects of Theological Analysis

The agency of the Son in John carries important theological implications.As Peder Borgen put it: “The basic principle of the Jewish institution ofagency is that ‘an agent is like the one who sent him.’”7 The constructive workof Borgen and others here provides an emissary backdrop for Johannineinsistence upon Jesus’ oneness with the Father, his speaking only what theFather tells him to say, his doing the works of the Father, his proceeding fromand returning to the Father, and his redemptive mission as the eschatologicalProphet like Moses. On the other hand, he is to be accorded the status of representative agent precisely because he does and says nothing except whathe is instructed by the Father, he can do nothing without the Father, and theFather is greater than he. Again, Jesus’ egalitarian and subordinate relations tothe Father are thus two sides of the same coin—an agency schema rooted inDeut 18:15–22. This sending/returning, emissary schema is not only charac-teristic of the Father-Son relationship in John; it also can be seen in severalother Johannine christological motifs. The Johannine development of theagency motif includes the shaliach (representative agent) principle but is notconfined to it.

Theologically, the “having-sent-me Father” is described not in terms ofbeing but in terms of doing, and particularly in reference to the commis-sioning of the Son. This is understandable, as the central thrust of John isthe redemptive import of the divine initiative—over and against all that isof human origin—as the only way forward for humanity. John’s sending-theology is thus every bit as important as John’s sending-christology. Torespond in faith to God is to abandon the penultimate and the contingentin exchange for an openness in faith to the divine initiative. Whether it bethe illuminating light that enlightens everyone, or the witness of theScriptures or John the Baptist, or Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, theissue is the divine initiative versus human initiative. The saving/revealinginitiative of God scandalizes the world precisely because it is countercon-ventional. It exposes the frailty of creaturely schemes and reveals anoffering of unmerited love and acceptance that is life producing. And itmust be revealed because humanity cannot imagine the possibility ofsuch a counterconventional reality. This is why no one can come exceptdrawn by the Father. It is not a matter of divine permissibility or deter-minism, but a function of human incapacity to grasp such a paradoxicalreality. The “having-sent-me Father,” therefore, asserts that the divine


7 Borgen here (1986:68ff.) and elsewhere describes the halakic principle of the representa-tive agent as a juridical construct, but he also explores the connection within Jewish merkabahmysticism, where “the agent ranks as his master’s own person.”

initiative is embodied in the mission of Jesus; to respond to the agent is torespond to the sender.

An agency typology also pervades the central messianic references toJesus in John. References to “the Son” in John provide the clearest aspects ofcommissioning by “the Father” (3:17, 35, 36; 5:19–26; 6:40; 8:35, 36; 14:13;17:1), but the other christological titles reflect the same schema. Recognitionof, or debates about, Jesus being the anticipated Messiah/Christ (1:41; 4:25,29; 7:26, 27, 31, 41–42; 9:22; 10:24; 11:27; 12:34; 20:31) are associated with hisbeing the authentic Prophet (4:19; 6:14; 7:40; 9:17) or “the Savior of theworld” (4:42). Such a conviction is expressed confessionally by means of the“Son of God” title (1:34, 49; 11:27; 20:31), but as with the other titles, this oneis also used with explicit emissary associations in 3:18; 5:25; 11:4; and 19:7,likewise “Jesus Christ” in 1:17 and 17:3.

The Son of Man motif differs from presentations of “the Prophet” andmost other messianic associations in John most radically in that it appearsonly as Jesus’ reference to himself. The Son of Man is sent from God as an eschatological agent of redemption, to suffer a paradoxical glorification onthe cross and to be raised up again into the heavens as a triumphal agent ofGod’s salvation. In addition to the clear associations with Daniel 7 andJewish apocalypticism, the title as used in John also denotes agency. The Sonof Man descends and/or ascends (3:13; 6:62, likewise, angels ascend and descend on the Son of Man, 1:51), he is divinely authorized to execute judg-ment (5:27), he is lifted up and glorified on the cross as a paradoxicalcarrying forth of his mission (3:14; 8:28; 12:23; 13:31); humanity is invited tobelieve in the Son of Man, accepting his costly mission as their own, therebyreceiving the life-producing nourishment he offers (6:27, 51–53; 9:35). Inter-estingly, the Johannine Jesus conflates the Danielic use of the term withMosaic associations (3:13–14), and such moves suggest further the founda-tional place of Deut 18:15–22 within Johannine theology. The Son of Man issent as the divine agent to accomplish on the cross the saving work of God.He is paradoxically lifted up and becomes a vehicle of cosmic judgment asto whether “the world” will receive the work as such.

Consider also the Logos theology of the Prologue. Not only does the Sonconvey the words of God; the Son is the Word of God—made flesh (1:1, 14) inwhom the glory of God is encountered. In the incarnation the Word becomesflesh and dwells among humanity and in so doing plays out in narrativeform the descent of the divine agent. Therefore, “the Father” also occupies acentral role in the Johannine Prologue; the only-begotten one is comparedwith Moses. Building on the works of Meeks, Borgen, and others,8 Craig

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8 In one of the finest of recent works on the Prologue, Evans (1993) develops the connec-tions with the Mosaic prophet by sketching first the Jewish interpretive parallels (100–45) and

Evans shows convincingly that even in the Johannine Prologue we have clearconnections with Deut 18:15–19: “Like Moses, Jesus is presented as God’s‘agent’, a shaliach who speaks and acts with God’s authority. But unlikeMoses, Jesus is the shaliach par excellence, in whom God’s Word, Torah,Wisdom and Glory have taken up residence and are revealed” (1993:145).While not all aspects of the sending motif are included in the shaliachprinciple, we see in the Fourth Gospel several ways in which the larger motifis played out within a variety of its christological constructs.9

Finally, Christ as the Light, Word, and Wisdom of God imparts God’sknowledge to the world as a further form of agency; here the typology shiftsfrom a shaliach figure who imparts a message from God to the core of thehuman/divine relationship characterized as being “taught” by God (6:45).Marianne Meye Thompson (231) puts it well: “Wisdom is a category ofagency that allows for the closest possible unity between the agent and God.One may speak truly of inseparability.” As the mediator of God’s wisdom,Jesus is followed by “another” Parakletos, who will be with and in his followersas an ongoing source of comfort, guidance, and conviction. Notice that theHoly Spirit also is sent as an agent of God into the world, empowering Jesus’disciples to become apostolic agents themselves.

“The sending motif” is the larger rubric under which several types ofagency may be grouped. A common error is to identify a particular means ofagency (prophetic, juridical, apocalyptic, sapiential, etc.) as exclusive of othermeans, when they often play complementary and parallel roles. The pointemerging from such considerations is that beyond any particular christologi-cal title or theological image is a prophetic understanding of God’s being atwork in the world through representative agents, who carry forth the divinepresence and will in the world by means of their faithful witness.10 This


then developing a sense of the provenance of John and the Prologue (146–86). Numerousconnections are drawn between Philo’s development of the Logos motif (100–14) and John,as well as connections in targumic and midrashic exegesis (114–24). The relevance to thepresent study is that the centrality of the Mosaic agency typology also pervades the JohanninePrologue, illuminating from yet another angle the commissioning work of God as the send-ing Father.

9 This may be the reason that Evans (1998) misses my treatment of the agency motif as occupying one of four central roles in the epistemological origin of John’s christological unityand disunity (Anderson, 1996:262). My index does not contain a listing for the shaliach princi-ple as such, but the “sending (returning) motif” and the “agency (emissary) motif” are treatedextensively.

10 Here again, Meyer (264) is only partially right when he says, “There is not so much aGesandtenchristologie in the Gospel as there is a Sendertheologie. ‘The Father who has sent me’ or‘he who has sent me’ is ‘God’s name.’ The language of sending is theological language that un-dergirds Christology but refuses to be absorbed into it.” The sending motif pervades John’schristology as well as John’s theology.

understanding, however, brings with it a crisis: what will humanity do withthat which is conveyed, and what do human responses suggest about God,God’s agents, and their audiences? This is the conundrum of encounter, andit is typified in the Johannine references to God as “the Father.”

Aspects of Encounter in Johannine History

John’s agency motif reflects aspects of encounter in front of the text andbehind it. In front of the text are audiences encouraged to hold on to thetruth they have received in the light of hardships encountered, while behindthe text are traditional reflections in the light of other encounters within thehistory of Johannine Christianity. Some of that memory even draws upon anindependent Jesus tradition. All along the way, the role of the Father and hissending of the Son played important roles for Johannine adherents, and thismay be discerned within three epochs:11 the Johannine reflection upon theprophetic ministry of Jesus, Johannine dialectical relations with local Jewishcommunities, and Johannine individuation and formation as an ongoingand abiding community. The history of the Johannine situation involvedseveral crises which may have overlapped. These are outlined in table 3.

Table 3: Historical Issues within the Johannine Situation

a. A northern Palestinian (Galilean/Samaritan?) location with its own devel-oping Jesus traditions.

b. Debates with Baptist adherents and engagements with the pre-Markan oraltradition.

c. A move to one of the Pauline mission church settings (Asia Minor?). d. A set of dialectical debates with local synagogue leaders, including attempts

to evangelize, resistance and expulsion, and the effective recruitment of Johannine community members back into the synagogue.

e. Hardship under Domitian regarding increasing requirements of public emperor laud.

f. Tensions with docetizing Gentile Christians wishing to assimilate on thebasis of a nonsuffering view of christology and discipleship.

g. Corrective attempts to reverse institutionalizing innovations within the Christ-ian movement (including dialogues with synoptic traditions all along the way).

h. Transcending the death of the Beloved Disciple as Johannine Christianity integrates with the mainstream Christian movement around the turn of thefirst century.

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11 This is not to say first-century Johannine Christianity had only three epochs, but the three“epochs” discussed here are ordered by compositional factors: a) the largely oral Johannine tradi-tion; b) apparent first-edition material; and c) apparent supplementary material. In my judgment,the Johannine epistles were written in the late 80s–90s, between the two editions of the Gospel, notby the evangelist, but by the Elder, who was probably the compiler and final editor of the Gospel.

I. The first epoch (a–c, from the 30s to the 60s C.E.) involved a Johanninereflection upon the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Despite John’s lateness, manyof the Johannine details and insights may reflect proximity to the ministry ofJesus rather than distance.12 One of these plausibly accurate reflections ofJesus is as the Prophet-like-Moses figure, sent from the Father to do theFather’s bidding. This motif is omitted from later christological develop-ments. It is likely that Jesus thought of himself more in the role of the Mosaicprophet than a Davidic king; on this matter, the Johannine presentation ofJesus seems historically superior to some of those of the Synoptics. Thenagain, the Mosaic prophet motif comes through clearly in the Matthean andLukan presentations of Jesus.13 Regarding Jesus’ provocative actions and authoritative teaching, John Riches says:

Thus I think it is possible to trace in these sayings a coherent understandingof Jesus’ prophetic role which draws both upon the traditions of Malachi 3and Deuteronomy 18 but reinterprets them in the light of Jesus’ modifiedunderstanding of God’s judgment and mercy which we also met in Jesus’modifications of the notion of the coming Son of Man. What Jesus saysabout his role is that it is to mediate God’s righteousness and forgivenessthrough prophetic word and action and through the proclamation of God’swill and to call men to follow him in his struggle against enmity and dark-ness. Such action however, precisely because it mediates forgiving love, isalso a readiness to stand trial, to be exposed to and to bear the rejection oflove, even to the point of death. (184–85)

Here is where encounter comes in—the Johannine Jesus is portrayed asconfronting the world and its scaffoldings of human origin with the redeem-ing love of the Father—that as many as believe might become the children ofGod (1:11–13). It is little surprise, therefore, that the Johannine narrativebegins the ministry of Jesus with the temple-cleansing scenario (2:13–25).Jesus is cast here in the role of the confrontational prophet, who speaks andacts in the name of God, challenging the prowess of the kosmos. Likewise,Jesus is remembered as challenging religious and political authorities in John


12 For fuller discussions of John’s independent presentation of the Jesus tradition see An-derson, 1995 and 1996. This is not to say, however, that the Fourth Gospel is written ashistory-as-such. Indeed Franz Müssner’s work on the historical Jesus in John describes how theJohannine Jesus speaks with the language of the evangelist and argues that we have a long-developed Johannine paraphrase of Jesus’ teaching rather than the more historically plausiblesynoptic renderings. On the other hand, one clear image of Jesus resulting from recent Jesusstudies casts him in the role of the Jewish prophet, and on this matter, the Johannine renderingappears highly plausible.

13 See Matt 21:11 and the work by Dale Allison on the Mosaic typology in Matthew.Likewise see Luke 1:76 and the essay by Morna Hooker on the prophetic presentation ofJesus in Luke.

(Rome as well as Jerusalem); the Johannine memory presents a telling pictureof the death of Jesus at the hands of those who responded adversely to suchencounters. So, the first epoch of the developing Johannine tradition involvedreflecting upon the prophetic encounters in the ministry of Jesus and theirmixed reception. Regarding the use of “Father” language for God, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that Jesus himself may have describedhis prophetic mission using Father-Son terminology. After all, there are also parables in the Synoptics that portray God as a Father who sends his filialagent to accomplish his work. On the other hand, the Father-Son languageevolves into a variety of Johannine presentations that tell the story of Jesus intheir own distinctively paraphrastic ways. The first epoch thus contains theindependent Johannine reflections upon the encounter-oriented propheticministry of Jesus and its ambivalent reception. Within this heritage, agencyaspects of the Father-Son relationship add reflective commentary to theprovocative words and works of Jesus, and in John this relationship is rendered as prophetic rather than pietistic.

II. The second epoch of Johannine reflection (c–e, from the 60s into the 80s)shows traces of dialectical encounter with the local Jewish authorities. Here thecontroversy narratives in John (chs. 5, 7–10, and 12) display an acutely contem-porary relevance. They likely mirror some of the issues, challenges, andanswers posed by Johannine Christianity, and it was at the end of this time thatthe first edition of John was likely crafted. Assuming passages such as the Prologue and chapters 6, 15–17, and 21 (as well as a few shorter sections) havebeen added as supplementary material to an earlier edition, the remaining material betrays the evangelist’s acute attempts to evangelize the Jewish mem-bers of the community with the narration of Jesus as fulfilling theProphet-like-Moses typology of Deuteronomy 18. On this matter, debates overwhether he is “the Prophet” and whether “the Father” has sent him define thedialectical relationship most tellingly. As Meeks notes (1986:145), the Johan-nine community makes sense of its own dialectical history by telling the storyof Jesus’ mission and its reception. And, as J. Louis Martyn has shown, the roleof Jesus as the Mosaic prophet based on Deuteronomy 18 was a central aspectof these debates (102–51). Therefore, the having-sent-me Father legitimates theauthenticity of Jesus’ mission and forces the world to make a stand for oragainst the agent—and therefore—the sender. As the story shows, some accepthim, and some do not. In both cases the exemplary function of the responses toJesus is telling: to receive the revelation is life-producing; to reject the revela-tion by holding to something of earthly origin is death-producing.

Sonship language and claiming to speak on behalf of “the Father”would have been enough to incite serious Pharisaic concern. An emphasison the Son’s oneness with the Father may have provoked charges of “ditheism.” One may speculate that in opposition to the Jesus movement theJewish leadership would have invoked Deuteronomy 18 as a way of arguing that

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Jesus was not the true Prophet, but that he was speaking presumptuously,and that his execution was evidence of his having committed blasphemy.14

Would such discussions reflect institutional blaming of the victim as a de-terrent—to which the Johannine tradition responds antithetically—ratherthan a Johannine thesis (that Jesus is the Mosaic prophet) which evoked ahostile reception? One cannot know. Either way, as suggested by 1 John2:18–25, the first known Johannine schism was precipitated by appeals to“return to the Father” with all the cultural security and religious certainty ofthe synagogue. The Elder’s dejected language here is telling: “liars” are anywho deny Jesus is the Messiah, and these deny the Father as well as the Son.Further, no one who denies the Son has the Father. However, any who re-ceive the Son receive also the Father (1 John 2:22–23). Adherence to “theFather” in the heritage of Jewish monotheism becomes the rhetorical pawnfor leaders of the synagogue and would-be followers of Jesus alike. For thedisciples of Moses, adherence to the Father means keeping the law and re-sisting the semblance of ditheism. For the disciple of Jesus, adherence to theFather hinges upon one’s reception of the one sent in the Father’s name.

III. The third epoch of Johannine reflection (e–h, from the 80s through the90s) is implied in the supplementary material added to the earlier edition.15

Within this material, two primary emphases suggest the encounters faced byJohannine Christianity during the intervening years. The first is an incarna-tionalist thrust which suggests an antidocetic set of concerns. The eye-witnesstestifies that water and blood indeed flowed from Jesus’ side (19:34–35), theWord became flesh and dwelt among us (1:14), and believers must be willingto ingest the flesh and blood of Jesus (6:51–58). These passages are clearlylevied not only at the docetizing beliefs of the next major Johannine crisis—this time among Gentile believers (see 1 John 4:1–3 and 2 John 7)—but the


14 While such may be impossible to confirm or disconfirm, one can certainly imagine accu-sations of being a false or presumptuous prophet being used to oppose either the work of thehistorical Jesus or later efforts of his followers by religious leaders seeking to retard the advanceof the movement. Jeremiah’s ferreting out of such “false prophets” as Hananiah (Jer 28:1–29:19),who speak in the name of the Lord falsely (Jer 14:14–16; 23:25–32), as being inauthentic repre-sentative agents of God would have provided a memorable example for confronting laterreligious threats within Judaism. However, no system is flawless, and even Jeremiah was ac-cused of not being sent by God or speaking on God’s behalf when his word seemed a hardsaying (Jer 43:2). Such accusations also are levied against Jesus in John.

15 Of the various theories of John’s composition, that of Barnabas Lindars is the most convinc-ing. It makes sense of the most problematic incongruities in the text (aporias) with a minimal degreeof speculation. While the inclusion of chapter 11 in the supplementary material, the reordering of thetemple cleansing, and his view that the evangelist was the one adding the supplementary materialare not as compelling, the Prologue, chapters 6, 15–17, and 21, and eye-witness and Beloved-Disciplepassages are best accounted for as material added to an earlier edition. Such an approach also hasthe advantage of absolving the need for speculative disordering and rearrangement theories.

implications of those beliefs: “If Jesus did not suffer, neither need we, at thehands of the emperor-laud-exacting Romans, or otherwise.”16 Therefore, in re-sponse to encounters with docetizing teachers, within or without JohannineChristianity, the memory of Jesus is narrated in especially relevant ways. It isthe Father’s will that the Son should suffer and die, and believers will be persecuted by those who think they are doing the work of God.

The Father-Son language addresses a second major concern: the need forcorporate solidarity with Jesus and his community in the face of hardship.Here, the Son prays for unity within the community, and believers are exhorted to abide in Christ and to remain in the community. A few unpleasantencounters with the centralizing Christian movement, say, with Diotrephesand his kin (3 John 9–10), evoke correctives to rising institutionalism withinthe church. These are suggested by the juxtaposition of Peter and the BelovedDisciple and the bestowing of apostolic commissions upon a plurality of believers rather than a monepiscopal hierarchy.17 Here the having-sent-meFather not only confirms the authenticity of the Son, but he and the Son alsosend the Holy Spirit as a present source of empowerment and guidance. Be-lievers are also sent by the Father into the world as witnesses to the truth theyhave encountered and received. Parallel to the departure of Jesus, the death ofthe Beloved Disciple (21:22–23) must have produced a crisis evoking oncemore a focus on the Father—the source of the Son’s mission—to whom thisdisciple bore witness. Thus, in the final stages of the Johannine material, thehaving-sent-me Father becomes a source of encouragement for believers in anincreasingly complex situation, calling them to abide in the one he has sentand the beloved community. The comforting and empowering role of theFather’s work is therefore a primary feature of the presentation of the Fatherin John 1:1–18 and chapters 6, 15–17, and 21. To break fellowship is to denyeven the Father’s love; appeals to abiding in “the Father’s love”18 thus becomean acute source of centripetal appeal.

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16 While the Romans probably did not organize extensive persecutions of Christians, toassume those objecting to emperor-laud (particularly Christians) would have been excused po-litely by accommodating Roman soldiers is naive and simplistic. All it takes is for harassment atthe hands of the local Roman presence to be experienced adversely, and for a few incidences ofpenalization (especially capital ones) to occur, for Roman “persecution” to be perceived as real.

17 Thus, Peter is portrayed as “returning” the keys to Jesus (6:68), and the commissioningof the disciples in John 20:21–23 suggests a dialectical parallel to Matthew 16:17–19 (see Ander-son 1996:221–50, esp. table 20). See also Käsemann (39–40). Parallels can also be seen withIgnatius of Antioch, who also confronts docetizing threats within the Asia Minor churches, butdoes so by advocating the construction of hierarchies and adherence to the bishop as adherenceto the Lord. The Johannine evangelist and Elder object to this innovation—not against apos-tolicity—but in the name of it.

18 See also the rhetorical appeals to loving God and one another as centripetal efforts tohold the Johannine community together in the face of schismatic defections alluded to in 1 John.

Aspects of Irony in the Johannine Narration

The ironic presentation of the Father-Son relationship in the light of Deut18:15–22 has largely gone undeveloped.19 George MacRae (1973:42) is correctin saying that “the apex of the dramatic irony with regard to ‘the Jews’ appears, as is well known, in their climactic rejection of Jesus, ‘We have noking but Caesar’ (19:15), which also functions as a desperate rejection of thevery values they are portrayed as claiming to defend.” Consider further theseironic presentations of Jesus’ reception by religious leaders, who in citingscriptural and religious rationale for rejecting the revelation conveyed byJesus miss the prophetic and spiritual bases of his authenticity.

a) First, Jesus, who is clearly designated as the Prophet like Moses, ismisapprehended by those who should have known better. On one hand,John the Baptist is not “the Prophet”—that role is left open for Jesus(1:19–23); Jesus declares “Moses wrote of me”—an apparent reference toDeut 18:15–22 (5:46)—and Jesus performs signs after the manner of Mosesand Elijah attesting his divine commission. On the other hand, the crowdmisunderstands his spiritual mission and wishes to rush him off for a polit-ical coronation, which he rejects (6:14–15); the Jewish leaders reject his truemarks of divine agency because they look for a Davidic Messiah, implyingthe favoring of royal power over prophetic authenticity (7:40–52); and, iron-ically, while having asked for signs in order to believe (6:30) Jesus’discussants refuse to believe even after beholding his signs (12:37–38). Someof this irony has geographical and societal overtones to it. It is highly ironicthat the (supposedly) more sophisticated Jerusalocentric religious leadersmiss the workings of God versus the more unlikely Samaritans, women, andespecially the blind man—who behold the workings of God because theirhearts are open as well as their eyes. Apparently, some religious leaders whoshould have known better have completely missed the connections betweenthe ministry of Jesus and Deut 18:15–22, and Jesus’ coming indeed exposesas blind those claiming to see (9:39).

b) A second ironic feature is that some of those rejecting Jesus as the Messiah do so precisely on the basis of Deut 18:20! Here, any prophet presumingto speak on behalf of God, or in the name of other gods, shall be put to death.Religious leaders therefore accuse Jesus of having committed blasphemy(10:33), called himself equal with God (5:18), and spoken presumptuouslyabout himself (8:13, 53). They also are offended at his healings on the Sabbath


19 In his excellent treatment of irony in John, for instance, Paul Duke (1985) does not de-velop the Mosaic prophet of Deuteronomy 18 as one of the typologies developed ironically,although he (117–37) develops helpfully the two primary cases of extended irony in John: thecase of the man born blind (ch. 9) and also the trial of Jesus before Pilate (18:28–19:22).

(5:18; 9:16, a highly ironic fact in itself) and eventually tell Pilate they are required by their law to put Jesus to death (19:7)—a possible reference to Deut18:20. Ironically, the students of the Torah project various aspects of the inauthentic prophet onto Jesus, but they miss the many ways he is portrayedas fulfilling far more prolifically the attributes of the authentic Prophet likeMoses. The Johannine tradition exposes their inauthenticity and failure to livein the very Mosaic teachings they espoused.

Their insistence on the death penalty from Pilate is a double wrong: con-victing Jesus of speaking presumptuously—or of committing blasphemy—they commit blasphemy themselves by claiming to have no other king butCaesar (19:15). Thus, while their wrongheadedness is confirmed, so is theirduplicity. Not only does the crowd deny “the King of Israel” they acclaimeden masse a few days earlier (12:13), but they also deny Moses and the Fatherin claiming Caesar as their singular king. Of course, beyond the religiousand theological issues involved, ideological criticism of structural and institutional idolatry is herein implicated. Here, the darkness of “the world”is exposed as institutions are manipulated into carrying out the otherwise objectionable schemes of other threatened institutions and their representa-tives. For authority is rooted neither in structural position nor ininstitutional leverage. Jesus’ reign is not this-worldly in character; its powerhas its roots in truth (18:36–37).

c) The most telling ironic presentation are the proleptic words of Jesusas a fulfillment of the primary criterion for distinguishing true and falseprophets according to Deut 18:22. The true Prophet’s predictions alwayscome true, and this happens prolifically in the Johannine narrative. Again,prolepses and their fulfillments are narrated in several ways in John, butthey all convey the same thing: the authenticity of Jesus’ sentness from theFather. The words of the Scriptures and the Prophets are portrayed ascoming true in Jesus’ ministry, as are the words of the Baptist, Caiaphas,Jesus, and even Pilate. Likewise, the Father testifies as to the Son’s authen-ticity, making it clear for the reader that Jesus’ mission is to be regarded asauthentic and worthy of acceptance. Climactically, Jesus’ elusive predictionsof his death (3:14 and 12:31–33) come true in his crucifixion at the hand ofthe Romans (18:32), and his veiled prediction of the resurrection (2:19)comes true in the appearance narratives (chs. 20–21). Further, the ongoingevidence of Jesus’ credibility becomes the postresurrection consciousness attested by the Johannine community—a reality into which the reader is invited to become immersed.

Finally, John’s ironic presentation of the Father’s sending the Son, alongwith the Son’s ambivalent reception in the world, poses a striking critique of“the world”—or that which is not of divine origin, but of creaturely origin.While the formation of this material was hammered out within religious dialectical struggle, it would be a mistake to see the emphasis as elevating one

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religious expression over another. This would miss the whole point of thehaving-sent-me Father in John, which is to emphasize the transcendent originof authenticity. Indeed, it is the worldly character of religious and politicalconventionalities—and all that is of human initiative—that is here scandalizedby the divine initiative, and in the Father’s love for the world, imperialprowess and anthropic sufficiency are exposed as inauthentic illusions in thelight of truth. Divine grace deconstructs the very scaffolding humans erect toattain favor, societally and otherwise, and it scandalizes our systems designedto reward merit and to affirm owned values. Indeed, idols of structuralism arechallenged with the revelation of connectedness,20 and yet, to even glimpsethe vision requires an extension of grace and divine enablement.

So, why is the “having-sent-me Father” in John portrayed in such a convoluted way, and what are the theological implications of such a presen-tation? Is the evangelist indecisive, or perhaps contradictory? On the onehand, the Father is the legitimating source of the Son’s mission—the Son derives all authority from God; on the other hand, the Father is the glorify-ing end of the Son’s work—to draw humanity toward a faithful response tothe Father’s saving love. In effecting this end, the Son becomes the means ofthat incarnate revelation, but without the Father’s authorization and com-missioning, the Son can do nothing. It is the authorizing work of the Father,however, which becomes the matter of controversy, and the retrospectivecertainty of “that which was given”—by Moses or otherwise (6:32)—is alltoo easily chosen over the immanent ambiguity of “that which the Fathernow gives.” The “having-sent-me Father” in John thus functions theologi-cally to provide a bridge between the traditional past and the eschatologicalpresent, as the God who was and is becomes connected with the God who isdoing and will be doing. The Johannine Father-Son relationship, utilizingthe Mosaic-prophet typology of Deut 18:15–22, presents the christocentric revelation of the Father as conjoined with the theocentric mission of the Son.In that sense, while the Father in John is both the commissioning source andglorifying end of the Son’s redemptive mission, the Son is the revealing subject and representative agency by which the intended object of theFather’s love—the world—is reached.21


20 See Norman Petersen’s fine development of the Johannine critique of human-made structures.

21 Putting things a bit differently from Marianne Meye Thompson (223): “God is both thesubject (who sends the Son, seeks true worshipers, draws people to faith, and gives life) andobject (of worship and faith) of the primary action of the Gospel. Jesus is God’s agent for the sal-vation of the world, the revealer of God, the way to God, and the life from God .”

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INTIMATING DEITY IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE AND “FATHER”

IN “PRAYERS OF JESUS”

Mary Rose D’AngeloUniversity of Notre Dame

abstract

This essay examines several disparate but not unrelated issues in John’stheology: it locates “father” in the gospel’s discourse as an intimation ofdeity, describes the distributions of this divine designation in the Johanninetradition and the Gospel, and discusses the ways its appearances in“prayers of Jesus” both articulate the Gospel’s theology and are drawnfrom traditional prayer strategies that surface in Mark, Q, Thomas, andJewish materials of the period.

My contribution to this volume is very much un essai: an attempt, specifi-cally an attempt at ground-clearing, it seeks to dislodge readings of “father”in the Gospel of John from theories about Jesus’ “abba-experience.” Both pre-liminary and supplementary to investigations that explore new contexts forilluminating “father” as divine language in John, this essay examines severaldisparate but not unrelated questions: What sort of language is “father”? Howis this divine designation distributed in the Johannine tradition and theGospel? How are its appearances in “prayers of Jesus” related to traditionsthat surface in Mark, Q, Thomas, and Jewish materials of the period? Investi-gating these areas makes clear that the Johannine use of “father” is not aunique and mysterious revelation explicable only by the special teaching andmission of Jesus, radically revising Jewish conceptions of God and free frompatriarchal cultural formation, but rather it is the literary and theologicalproduct of communal reflection, cultural meaning, and authorial creativity.

Admittedly, claims about the uniqueness of Jesus’ use of “father” as anaddress to and designation for God have been based primarily on uses of“father” in the Synoptics. Joachim Jeremias, following Gerhard Kittel, popularized the idea that the Aramaic word ajbbav was Jesus’ universal andunique term of address to God, representing something “wholly new” inJewish practice (Jeremias, 1967:55–57; Kittel: 6). He read “father” (pathvr) inmost of these sayings as a translation for ajbbav (which occurs in the sayingsof Jesus only in Mark 14:36) and constructed a special meaning for it, as the expression of the unique intimacy of Jesus’ relation to God.

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The role John’s Gospel has played in theories of “Jesus’ abba-experience”is an ambiguous one. Mark and Q use “father” rarely and in very limited settings; in early Jewish literature the use of “father” for God is hardly morefrequent. By contrast, the Fourth Gospel uses the designation constantly andin ways that are not only integrated with, but actually central to, its christol-ogy. Thus, Jeremias himself readily drew the conclusion that John representsthe increasing tendency of early Christian texts to introduce the title “father”into the sayings of Jesus (1967:29–30, 36). But the supposition of “unparal-leled content” for Jesus’ use of this address implied a high christology andfrequent use of “father,” both of which are actually to be found in John. ThusGottlob Schrenk and Gottfried Quell insisted that the Gospel’s use of “father”was an outgrowth of Jesus’ practice, though transformed through thetreatment of Jesus as revealer (980, 997).

While ideas about Jesus’ “abba-experience” remain extremely influential,the anti-Jewish character and problematic methodological aspects of the orig-inal arguments have increasingly been recognized. At the same time feministcritical rereading of both the theological language and imagery for the divinehas inspired reevaluation of absolute claims based upon this idea. The linguistic theories about ajbbav have been reexamined and significantly revised(Barr: 1988a, 1988b; Fitzmyer; Charlesworth). Other scholars have undertakenreassessments of the role of the title in Jewish piety (Gnadt; Strotmann). Newevidence also became available; with the publication of 4Q372 1 it becameclear that addressing God as “my father” was not impossible in “Palestinian” Judaism (Schuller, 1990, 1992). In 1992, I published two essays attempting torelocate the question of Jesus’ use of this term in the context of other earlyJewish uses. The first essay argued that if the Gospels reflect the use of this ad-dress in the preaching of God’s reign, they do so because of the deeplytraditional resonances it had for Jesus and was capable of evoking for hisJewish hearers. Addressing God as “father” may have served to distinguishGod’s reign from Caesar’s by expressing resistance to the imperial title paterpatriae (1992a). The second article examined the occurrences of “father” inMark and Q and delineated both the continuities with Jewish practice and thetheological function of “father” in these earliest Christian gospels (1992b).

In extending those investigations to the Gospel of John, I draw heavilyon the recent article by Paul Meyer (1996). Responding to Nils Dahl’s identi-fication of theo-logy—the doctrine of God—as “the neglected factor in NewTestament theology” (Dahl, 1991), Meyer examined “father” as the primarymeans of the presentation of the deity in John. His study focused upon thecorollary of John’s depiction of Jesus as God’s agent: the Johannine deity asthe sender of Jesus, the guarantor of his person, and the vindicator of hismission. Meyer’s suggestion that there is in John not so much a Gesand-tenchristologie as a Sendertheologie makes a major contribution to thedemystification of “father” in John (264). In what follows I rely on his careful

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survey of the Gospel at many points, as also I do on the massive review ofthe evidence from the ancient world in the article on pathvr by GottlobSchrenk and Gottfried Quell in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.

Juxtaposing these two articles requires some comment on the issue ofthe relation of pathvr and patriarchy. Schrenk’s insistence on the “purely pa-triarchal” character of the title in the Jewish and Christian traditions strikesa strange note in contemporary ears; in his lexicon, patriarchy is an entirelypositive term, descriptive of the organization of ancient Indo-European soci-eties and strikingly manifest in the Roman concept of patria potestas (948–50).Its value for him seems to derive from the nineteenth-century theory of J. J. Bachofen, who posited a development in European society from a lowermatriarchal stage of social organization to a higher patriarchal stage. Thislatter stage was characterized by the control of women’s sexuality within themale-headed family and most fully realized in the “Roman imperium.”Schrenk read “father” as expressing an idealized patriarchal principlethrough the image of the Hausvater (the Roman paterfamilias) and in the unquestioning obedience and total submission of the son (950–51, 984, 997).Schrenk had no difficulty in absorbing Jeremias’s and Kittel’s insistence onthe “unparalleled intimacy” of Jesus’ address to God into his patriarchalideal or in extending it to John. By contrast, feminist critiques of “father” asa divine title inspired Hamerton-Kelly to defend the title by using Jeremias’stheories as evidence that Jesus’ use was “non-patriarchal” (1979, 1981).Meyer rejects Schrenk’s narrowing of the image to paternal power and filialobedience (257–58) as well as “the almost obsessive desire, running throughthe literature, to trace the Johannine use of the term ‘father’ for God to thepersonal piety and religious intimacy of the historical Jesus” (258). At thesame time, he views the problematic character of the language as a productof “the brokenness of human relationships” in “our times” (266 n. 8).

I share Schrenk’s understanding of patriarchy as a social system, and onethat is particularly well illustrated in Roman society, but not his regard for it asa higher principle. Like many feminists, I use the term to refer to social systems in which power is held by “fathers”: that is, by a limited number ofprivileged males; access to power is apportioned to women, children, and lessprivileged males (slaves, clients, unemancipated sons) through their relation-ships to the family head (D’Angelo, 1994:315, 323 n. 3; 1998:26). Given thisdefinition, ancient (as well as contemporary) uses of “father” as a title for thedeity cannot really evade patriarchal ideology, even though they can be andsometimes are deployed for antipatriarchal or anti-imperial purposes(1992a:628–30; 1992b:174). But neither is it appropriate to measure the Gospelimagery against some idealized (or vilified) essence of patriarchy. Rather,social arrangements of ancient patriarchy are refracted through the compleximagery of John in ways that are diffuse and diverse, contested in antiquityand contestable in later interpretation. Adele Reinhartz’s essay in this volume

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provides a glimpse into one aspect of this process, the way that social powerinformed and gendered ancient medical constructions of human reproduction.

“Father” As Theological Language: Substitution and Metaphor in Language for the Divine

In the past, I have generally referred to “father” as a divine title (1992a;1992b; 1992c). “Father” can and does function as a title in apposition to “God”or “Lord” in the texts of early Christianity. But it also names the deity andthereby functions as a synonym and an evocative euphemism for God, as apious substitution like “heaven,” the circumlocution “reign of God,” or com-binations of these like “reign of heaven” and “heavenly father.” Thus whileSchrenk saw early Christian worship’s preference for “pathvr over Yahweh,adonai, kyrios or theos” as an “astonishing novelty” explicable only by the community’s experience of Jesus (996), it would be more accurate to say that“father” functions in early Christianity much as adonai and kuvrioı functionedin early Jewish contexts: as one of a number of substitutes that could eitherimply a reverential circumspection, supply an image for a less evocative term,or both. One very early factor in this preference may have been the appropri-ation of kuvrioı as a title for Jesus (Phil 2:11). God the (our) father and the (our)lord Jesus are frequently linked in texts that appear to have a petitionary, doxological, or creedal function (Rom 1:7; 15:6; 1 Cor 1:3; 8:6; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal1:1, 3; Phil 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1, 3; 3:11, 13; Phlm 3; cf. 2 Cor 1:3; 11:31).

The Gospel of Thomas offers a particularly striking example of early Chris-tian use of such substitutes. “God” is used only twice in Thomas, both times incontexts that raise questions about its function.1 The Gospel shows a markedpreference for “father” or “heaven,” either of which can be combined with“reign.” The most frequent designation for the deity is “the (your) father”(sayings 3, 15, 27, 40, 44, 50, 61, 64, 69, 79, 83, 101, 105; “father’s reign” also appears in 57, 76, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 113). “The reign,” used absolutely (22, 27,46, 49, 82, 107, 109, 113), and “heavens’ reign” (20, 54, 114) may likewise referto the deity as active in the world. “The living one” (37, 59 [?], 111), “the light”(50, 83), and “the whole” (61) are other references to the deity as source of lifeand being. The ambiguity of the Gospel’s use of “god” and its preference for“father” suggest that the function of “father” in Thomas is continuous with itsfunction in those gnostic and Valentinian texts that use “father” (sometimes

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1 The Coptic version of saying 30 uses the word “god” but appears to refer not to the deitybut to sages (“where there are three gods they are gods”). Saying 100 (“Give Caesar what isCaesar’s, give God what is God’s, give me what is mine”) may be a revision of Mark 12:17added to Thomas in its later stages; alternatively, “god” may not actually refer to the deity evenhere, but to a lesser deity or to the deity inadequately understood.

translated “parent”)2 to distinguish the ultimate deity from lesser, defective orfallen divine offspring, while also expressing human kinship to the divine. Itis not necessary to read Thomas as gnostic or to posit its acknowledgement ofa demiurge to recognize that in this Gospel “father” points to and protectsdivine transcendence and unknowability while also asserting the kinship between the sages/gnostics and their source of being.

It should be noted that the term qeovı was not always or simply treatedas a generic term for the divine in antiquity. Philo, for example, supplied an etymology that derived qeovı from tivqhmi:

… the central place is held by the father of the all, who in the sacred scrip-tures is called ‘the being one’ (oJ w“n) as a proper name, while on either sideare the eldest powers, and nearest to being, the creative and the ruling(royal). The title of the creative [power] is God (qeovı), by which [the deity]made (e“qhke) and ordered the all; the title of the ruling [power] is Lord, forit is for the one who created to rule and control what came into being.(Abraham 121)3

Here Philo treats “father” as an overarching and widely intelligible metaphorand oJ w[n as the “proper” name for true deity. “God” and “Lord” describedivine powers or functions that are hypostatized in Philo’s thought. The derivation of qeovı from tivqhmi is frequent and consistent in Philo’s work (Mut.29, which also uses father; Conf. 137; Fug. 97; Mos. 2.99; Spec. Leg. 1.307). Segalhas described rabbinic reflection upon these “powers,” pointing out that theirascription to the divine names is the reverse of Philo’s (175). The difference inlanguage may explain this; Hebrew does not offer the connection between“God” and “create.”4 Paul too may be aware of this etymology for qeovı; 1 Corinthians 12 uses qeovı/e“qeto for the creation of functions in the body(12:18; cf. 24) and the church (12:28). The point is not that either Paul or Johndepends on Philo, or even that John shared the etymology, but that the meanings and character of designations for the divine were the subject of investigation in ancient theology and that metaphoric content, where it wasnot evident, could be assigned. Thus for the ancient theologian (as indeed formany theologians today), it is not so much the case that “father” is a substituteor metaphor for “God” as it is that “father” and “god” are both metaphoricand circumlocutory, expedients in the attempt to name the ineffable.


2 Layton uses this translation throughout; for a more nuanced reading of gender in lan-guage for the divine in the Nag Hammadi Library see Good; other positions, Williams, Sieber.

3 My translation; brackets supply implied words; parentheses alternate translations or theGreek original. All translations in the text are mine unless otherwise noted.

4 It is possible to produce an etymology for the Tetragrammaton that ties it to creation.Segal suggests that the difference is due to the points at which the LXX chooses to translateYHWH with qeovı.

The four canonical gospels and Q all use a range of designations for thedeity: “God” (qeovı), “father” (pathvr), “heaven” (oujranovı) and “reign”(basileiva). In Q, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, qeovı remains the most frequentdesignator of the divine. John fits between the Synoptics and Thomas; theGospel prefers “father” to “God”—about 118 to 76 uses.5 “Reign of God” appears twice only (basileiva tou' qeou', 3:3, 5). John also uses “heaven” (oujranovı),“from above” (a“nwqen) and “above” (a“nw) more or less interchangeably as references to the divine: authority is given from heaven (3:27) or (more ambiguously) from above (19:11); one is born of God (1:13) or “from above”(3:3, 7); the “bread of God” (6:33) is “the bread from heaven” (6:31, 32);“who/what comes down from heaven” (6:33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58) is alsowhat “my father gives you” (6:32). If “father” seems to be what Philo wouldcall the proper name of God in John, it is clear that all these designationsapply to the same divine being. There is no suggestion that qeovı refers to aninferior or defective power, as it does in the gnostic materials.

Distribution of Designations for the Deity in the Johannine Texts

On the whole, the Gospel of John seems to use “father” (pathvr) and“God” (qeovı) interchangeably and in the same contexts. Both appear mostfrequently in direct discourse and in the speeches of Jesus. There is some evidence that the differences correspond to redactional or developmentallayers in the Johannine tradition and Gospel. The letters use qeovı far morefrequently than pathvr; the prologue also prefers qeovı (using pathvr only at1:14 and 1:18); so does 1:19–51 use qeovı exclusively; John 2 never uses qeovıand uses pathvr only once. “Father” is never used in John 21, though “God”likewise appears only once (21:19). Meyer observes that “father” for thedeity occurs only twice in the material Fortna assigned to the “signs source”(Meyer: 272 n. 61); it should be noted that both of these occurrences haveanalogues in the Synoptics (John 2:16//Luke 2:49; John 18:11//Mark 14:36).Meyer also regards the use of “father” in the dialogues of the Gospel aslinked to specific literary layers and motifs; most important for his study,the language of sending is linked always to “father,” never to qeovı (264).

Given the pervasiveness of “father” in the Gospel and my observations onthe character of divine language above, it is worth reversing Meyer’s question(the usual question) and asking why the Gospel sometimes prefers qeovı overpathvr. I suggest that in the Gospel as a whole, the single biggest factor in thechoice of qeovı rather than pathvr seems to be case: when the genitive is required,

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5 This count is based on Meyer’s count of 118 uses of “father” and 45 uses of God, plus 31more uses of God as an adjectival genitive (269, n. 27 ); Schrenk counted 115 uses of father to 73uses of God (996); Jeremias counted 109 uses of father (1967:19).

the Gospel prefers qeou'; 44 occurrences of qeovı out of 76 are in the genitive. “OfGod” appears as a modifier in a number of phrases that are so conventionalthat Meyer excluded this formulation from his count (269 n. 27). Most of thesecould be translated by the adjective “divine”: “angels of God” (divine messen-gers; 1:51), “lamb of God” (1:29, 36), “reign of God” (basileiva tou' qeou', 3:3, 5);“words of God” (ta; rJhvmata tou' qeou', 3:34; 8:47), “wrath of God” (3:36), “gift ofGod” (dwreavn, 4:10), “love of God” (5:42), “work(s) of God” (6:28, 29; 9:3, but“works of the father” in 10:32, 37), “word of God” (lovgoı, 10:35), “bread ofGod” (6:33), “holy one of God” (6:69), “glory of God” (dovxa, 5:44; 11:4, 40; 12:43;“of the one who sent” him, 7:18), perhaps most importantly “son of God” (1:34,49; 3:18; 5:25; 10:36; 11:4; 27; 19:7; 20:31). A few traditional phrases prefer“father”: “my father’s house” (2:16, to;n oi\kon; 14:2, ejn th'/ oi“kia/; cf. Luke 2:49, ejntoi'~ tou' patrovı); “my father’s name” (5:43; 10:25), and “my father’s will” (6:40;see also Matt 7:21; 12:50; 18:14; 21:31; cf. 6:10//26:42 and m. RoS HaS. 3:8).6 Allthree of these draw heavily on familial imagery.

In addition to these traditional phrases, qeovı is more frequent than pathvrin the constructions “to be from, come from, or be born from (ejk, parav, ajpov)God”—all of which are quintessentially Johannine (Keck). These are expressedwith the genitive, whether they use pathvr (6:45, 65; 8:3; 15:15, 26 [2x]; 16:27, 28)or qeovı (1:6, 13; 3:2; 6:46; 7:17; 8:40, 42, 47 [2x]; 9:16, 33; 16:27, 30). One examplein which the designation appears to change with the case is John 13:3, whichbegins by using “father” but shifts to qeovı when the prepositional phrase inter-venes: “Jesus, knowing that the father [oJ pathvr] had given all things into hishands, and that he came from God [ajpo; qeou'] and was going to God. . . . ”7

Several of Meyer’s other observations deserve attention here. He pointsout that commentators generally expect or assume that “son” as christologicaltitle and “father” as divine designation are inevitably joined. But the Gospel,like the letters of Paul, does not regularly pair “father” as a designation forthe deity and “son of God” or “the son” (absolute; Meyer: 263). While“father” is noticeably more frequent in chapters 14–17 than in other parts ofthe Gospel, “son” as a title for Jesus appears only twice in this section, in14:13 and 17:1. Other passages in which “father” and “son” are closely linkedare 3:35; 5:20–23; 6:40. Observing that “son of man” and references to God asfather are rarely paired in John (as they are in Mark 8:38) suggests that thetwo concepts constitute quite distinct strands in Johannine christologicallanguage (Meyer: 259).

These observations underline Meyer’s warnings against absorbing“father” into the gospel’s christology and help to nuance his claim that: “‘My


6 Usually the Gospel prefers “the will of the one who sent me” (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38, 39; 7:17).7 All translations are my own.

Father’ in the mouth of Jesus (oJ pathvr mou, 25 times) makes it clear that Godis his Father as no one else’s” (Meyer: 260). This approaches Schrenk’s prob-lematic deduction that since Jesus speaks to the disciples of “your father”only in 20:17, God is not to be seen as also the disciples’ father until after theresurrection (996). The majority of occurrences refer to “the father” as absolute (74 times by Meyer’s count; 269 n. 27).

Much of the drama and irony of the dialogues is elided unless it is emphasized that the deity is the father of Jesus precisely as he is the father ofcertain others in the Gospel, most importantly of “the Jews.”

In 2:16, one of the two uses from the supposed sign source, “my father’shouse” refers to the temple in a fashion that differs little from Luke 2:49. Thephrase may make a messianic claim through the terms of the Nathanoracle’s promise to David of a son to whom God will be father and who willbuild God’s house (2 Sam 7:12–16; 2 Chron 17:14–16, cf. Mark 14:58). In thebrief succeeding dialogue, the Jews ask for a sign, perhaps because they seeJesus’ deed as messianic (2:18). The response predicts the resurrection as thebuilding of the temple. Notably, “the Jews” make no protest against hisclaim of divine paternity (2:18–22).

It is quite otherwise in chapter 5. There “the Jews” protest precisely because “he called God his own father” (5:18). But it is noteworthy that in thelong succeeding discourse, the metaphorical character of the terms “father”and “son” remain to the fore, and there is some sense that the Jews ought tobe able to claim divine paternity as well. Jesus’ claim to the example of hisfather initiates a long development of the analogy: “the father loves the sonand shows him everything he does” (5:20)—work/creation (5:17), resurrection(5:21–26), judgment (5:27–30). At the close of the discourse, Jesus faults hishearers for not receiving him, although he comes “in my father’s name,” butthey in their own (5:43). He warns them that not he but Moses will accusethem to “the father” (5:45). The impact of the warning derives from the recognition that it is to “the father” (theirs also) that they must answer.

The contexts of chapters 6 and 8 are similarly controversial. In John 6Jesus uses “my father” in contrast to “your fathers” (the Israelites of the gen-eration of the desert); in John 8, in contrast to “your father” (Abraham or thedevil?). Meyer argues that the christological concepts of sonship and missionshould be distinguished, at least in the sources of John. He cites Ashton’s observation that John 7 does not use pathvr at all and that there is in thischapter “not the slightest hint that Jesus regarded himself as the Son ofGod” (Meyer: 262). But caution must be used in drawing conclusions fromthe absence of pathvr in John 7. John 7–8, or at least John 7:1–8:30, is a singledramatic and literary unit, a suite of scenes set at Succoth and developing asingle question, and it is far from clear that the chapter division represents aredactional layer of the writing process. John 7:1–8:30 uses qeovı only once, toarticulate the question that controls the succeeding dialogues in both chapters

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7 and 8, that is, “whether [Jesus] is from God” (7:17). As Meyer notes, thedesignation of choice in John 7 is “the one who sent me” (7:16, 18, 28, 33).Only oblique references to the divine appear elsewhere in John 7, in thequestions “where [is he] coming from?” (7:27, 28; cf. 7:15, 41–42, 52) and“where [is he] going to?” (7:35). In 8:12–59, the “one who sent” Jesus is con-sistently identified as “the father” (8:18, 19, 28, 29, 35, 38, 49, 54).

Three of the sparse pairings of “son” with “father” appear in John 8. John8:28 promises the crowd that when they lift up the son of man, they will knowthat “as the father sent me so I speak.” The context of judgment (8:21–29) suggests that the promise derives from interpretation of Daniel 7 in which the“ancient one” has been identified as the father of the son of man. In 8:31–59,“son” absolute appears twice in an exegesis of the Nathan oracle that also func-tions as a metaphor: “the slave does not remain in the house forever; the sonremains forever; therefore if the son frees you, you will be truly free” (8:35–36;see Aalen: 237). Then debate turns to the paternity of “the Jews,” who insist ontheir descent from Abraham (8:39) and, in a revision of the Shema (“Hear, OIsrael,” Deut 6:4), from the deity: “we have one father, God” (8:41).

Irony pervades this conflict, because the Jews can and should claim Godas their father also (8:41). By refusing to recognize the father of Jesus theyreject their own: their deeds show that their father is neither God nor Abra-ham. The use of “son of God” and “father” in ways that are and are not thesame as Jewish uses seems to be a deliberate ploy of the dialogues. The textthus appears to accuse the Jews of disingenuousness in charging Jesus withblasphemy for “making God his own father” (5:19) and “though human,making [him]self God” (10:33). To this charge, Jesus replies that the veryscripture applied the term “god” to “those to whom the word of God came”;that is to other humans, Israelites like his accusers (10:34–35, citing Ps 82:6).8

Twentieth-century interpreters have tended to see this as a specious riposte,claiming to use the same words while actually saying something quite differ-ent (Bultmann attributes it to the ecclesiastical redactor, suggesting as analternative that it parodies Jewish legal argument: 389, 282; see differentlyBrown, 1966:409–11). But in fact it poses the central dilemma of John’s chris-tological enterprise: the words and scriptural texts the author appropriatesare both the same and different at all times, they both draw upon and trans-form the language of Jewish piety. This is because that language, or rather alllanguage for the divine (even the most direct like “god” and “father”), is am-biguous, human language that can speak of human and earthly things (3:12).


8 Bultmann identifies the “those to whom the word of God came” as the addressees in thepsalm. The more common view (based on rabbinic exegesis) is that it applies to the ancients atSinai (Brown, 1996). The phrase in itself could designate the prophets in general or Moses andAaron in particular.

For this reason, claims that the address expresses unparalleled intimacyand distinguishes Jesus’ teaching from Jewish piety in his time run agroundon John’s use of the title in the very conflicts between Jesus and the Jews ofthe Gospel over the announcement that God is his father. While it is clearthat these controversies are constructed precisely to articulate and defendthe Gospel’s christology, the point at which Jesus forces them to proclaim“we have one father, God” (8:41) may be the point at which the straw Jewsof John’s Gospel come closest to the real Jews of the Gospel’s context.

The absolute “father” also occurs in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritanwoman, who challenges his offer of living water by comparing him to theirshared father Jacob (4:12). Answering the theological problem she poses forhim (where one must worship, 4:19–20), Jesus accuses her people of worshipingwhat they do not know (4:22) but also proclaims that “the father” seeksthose who worship in spirit and truth (4:23–25). The woman appears tograsp this response without difficulty. However imperfect their knowledgeof the deity, there is no suggestion that she and the Samaritans might notrecognize “the father” as a reference to the deity that they share with Jewsand Jesus, as they do Abraham and Jacob.

Similarly, while Jesus speaks of “my father” to the disciples in chapters14–15, should that really be read as “my father and not yours”? The absolute“father” is frequent not only in 14–15 but also in 16–17, and in the latter theterm “my father” never appears. If John 14–15 stresses the identity betweenJesus and the father, chapters 16–17 stress the identity between the disciplesand Jesus. Pronouncements like “the father himself loves you” (16:27) and“you have loved them as you have loved me” (17:23) suggest that when therisen Jesus sends Mary Magdalene to tell the disciples, “I ascend to myfather and your father” (20:17), he does not award them a new status butrather reminds them of the destination they share with him. If “father” presents the deity as Jesus’ sender and vindicator, it also functions both anthropologically and soteriologically in the vindication of the community.“Born of God,” “from above,” “from the spirit” (1:13; 3:3, 7; 3:6), Jesus’ followers suffer opposition from those who come from below, are born fromthe flesh, are from their father the devil.

“Father” thus functions in the dialogues to express origin, but also alliance, commitment, and destiny, revealing the true being of the participants.But like all the other designations for the divine, it also points beyond the exchange, both naming and not naming, underlining the numinous realityby the common, even banal character of the image.

“Father” in “Prayers of Jesus” in John

In attempts to argue for the uniqueness of Jesus’ use of “father,” consid-erable attention has been focused on so-called “prayers of Jesus” that use

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this address, that is, on those points at which the gospels depict Jesus asspeaking directly to God. Regarding these speeches as uniquely significant is problematic in a number of ways; it ignores the degree to which they arelikely to reflect both Christian practice and the theological and literary concerns of the text. Thus any focus on such prayers should attend to bothtraditional practice and redactional interests.

Like Mark and Q, the Fourth Gospel attributes the address to Jesus. Butunlike the former, John does very nearly present a Jesus who always andeverywhere uses “father” as his address to God, though this observationmust be balanced with the acknowledgement that “prayers of Jesus” arenot frequent in either the Synoptics or John.9 The three instances in whichthe Fourth Gospel places a prayer on Jesus’ lips come late in the Gospel andoffer highly dramatic interpretations of their context: a thanksgiving thatprecedes the raising of Lazarus (11:41), a prayer that expresses his attitudeto his own death (12:27–28), and the lengthy prayer that closes the testament of Jesus (17:1, 5, 21, 24, 25). In John 17, qeovn is used in an obliqueaddress (“that they may know you, the only true God” or perhaps “thatthey may know that you are the only true God,” 17:3). Otherwise, Johndoes not depict Jesus as addressing the deity as “God” (as does Mark 15:34)or “Lord” (Matt 11:25//Luke 10:21). The narrator does use the euphemisms“to heaven” (17:1) and “above” (11:41) to describe Jesus’ prayerful gaze; theresponse to Jesus’ prayer in 12:27–28 comes “from heaven.” In all, the Johannine presentation of the deity as the sender and vindicator of Jesus isstrikingly manifest.

At the same time, these three prayers present certain traditional features.In 1963, C. H. Dodd discussed them in his attempt to undermine the Synoptics’ historical monopoly and establish the Fourth Gospel’s access to aprecanonical stage of the tradition and therefore to the earliest communities,including the career of Jesus (1963:423–32). In contrast, the comparisonsbelow set the use of “father” in these prayers into the context of traditionalprayer strategies in early Judaism and Christianity as well as into theGospel’s theological program.

In Mark and Q, “father” is especially important in prayers or references toprayer in three contexts that are continuous with its uses in early Jewish texts.First, “father” is important in the prayers of the afflicted and persecuted, especially of the righteous Jew (or proselyte) who is threatened by the wickedand haughty oppressor (especially the Gentile oppressor: 4Q372 16–20; Jos.Asen. 12:8–15; 3 Macc 6:3–4, 7–8; Sir 23:1; Wis 2:16–20; Mark 14:36; Matt 6:9,


9 Pace Käsemann, who opines that “the prayer of Jesus does not play the same importantrole in John as in the synoptics” (5).

13//Luke 11:2, 4). Second, the title occurs in recourse to the deity as wise andprovident in caring for the petitioners or directing history (1QHa IX, 35; 4Q372I, 17–19, 24; Jos. Asen. 12:15; Wis 14:1–4; 3 Macc 6:3; Jub. 19:29; Mark 8:38; 13:31;14:36; consistently in Q: Matt 5:48//Luke 6:36; Matt 11:25–27//Luke 10:21–22;Matt 6:9–13//Luke 11:2–4; Matt 7:11//Luke 11:13; Matt 6:32//Luke 12:30).Third, appeals to God’s mercy and forgiveness (4Q372 I, 19; 1QH IX, 30–35;Jos. Asen. 12:14–15; Apocr. Ezek. Fragment 2; Tob 13:4–6; Ant. 2.152; Mark11:25; Matt 6:9, 12//Luke 11:2, 4) or references to God as correcting thesinner (Sir 23:1–6; cf. Wis 11:10) also call upon God as father (D’Angelo,1992b:153–56). In both Mark and Q the title not only draws upon tradition butalso reflects and contributes to the ethos and practice of the gospels’ users. InQ, special knowledge (Matt 11:27//Luke 10:22) and practice (Matt5:48//Luke 6:36; Matt 6:32//Luke 12:30) make the practitioners “sons of the[heavenly] father” (D’Angelo, 1992b:162–73). In Mark, “father” is embeddedin the Gospel’s theology of apocalyptic expectation (8:38; 13:32) and spiritualpower (11:25; 14:36; cf. Gal 4:7; Rom 8:15; D’Angelo, 1992b:156–62).

None of the prayers or references to prayer in the Gospel of John makesor commends petitions for forgiveness or divine mercy for the sinner (although 1 John 2:1 represents Jesus as the advocate to the father for any sinwithin the community). But early Jewish and Christian uses of “father” inappeals to divine providence and in the cry of the suffering just one are reflected in Johannine use of the designation. As in Mark,”father” functionsin John to name the source and the guarantor of spiritual and propheticpower and knowledge, first that of Jesus, but also that of all who believe; asin Q, the prayers to God as father not only invoke the wise director of history,but also warrant the unique knowledge of God enjoyed by the sons. Theoverlap among the lists provided above makes clear that these contexts arenot so much distinct as distinguishable; in the Fourth Gospel they are evenmore deeply intertwined than in the Synoptics.

John 11:41: “Father” in a Prayer of Spiritual Power

The first occasion on which the Fourth Gospel cites a prayer of Jesus isat the raising of Lazarus: “Father, I thank you because you heard me: I knewyou always hear me, but I spoke on account of the crowd standing around,that they may believe that you have sent me” (11:41). This prayer has theform of a thanksgiving or blessing, rather like the Q prayer that begins “Ipraise you father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have revealedthese things to babes” (Matt 11:25//Luke 10:21). John 11:41 implies that theresurrection that is about to take place is the result of Jesus’ request, andperhaps also of Martha’s conviction that “whatever you ask, God will giveyou” (11:23). But the request is never made, presumably because, since Godgrants whatever Jesus asks, he does not even need to ask.

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In 11:41, “you always hear me” identifies the raising of Lazarus as amanifestation of the deity as sender of Jesus (11:42). But it also serves an ex-emplary function: the believers too expect that their prayers will workwonders. Martyn’s theory that the cure of the blind man in chapter 9 repre-sents not only a traditional story about Jesus but also the exercise of the giftof healing in the community might be reconsidered here (26–30). In the testament of Jesus, the power to ask and receive from “the father” is passedon to the disciples; Jesus will not have to ask on their behalf, because thefather loves them (14:13–14; 15:7; 16:23, 26). A variety of similar promises appears in contexts that assure believers of their own spiritual and propheticpower. In Mark the withering of the fig tree warrants the faith that movesmountains: “therefore I say to you, everything you pray and ask for . . . willcome to you. When you are praying . . . forgive, that your heavenly fathermay forgive you. . . ” (Mark 11:24–25//Matt 21:22; 6:14). Matt 18:19 proclaims: “Amen I say to you if two of you agree about whatever you askfrom my father in heaven, it will come to you.” Other versions do not referto the divine father (“ask and you shall receive,” Matt 7:7//Luke 11:9;Herm. Mand. 9.4, Herm. Sim. 3.6, Gos. Thom. 92; see also Dodd, 1963:349–52).

In Mark, the prayer of the believer is the source of spiritual power in thecommunity (9:29; 11:24–25) and the prayer “abba, father” has particular spir-itual force (14:36; cf. Gal 4:6, Rom 8:15; see D’Angelo, 1992b:159–62). Thisspiritual power must be understood in the prophetic and apocalyptic contextof the Gospel and the community. The Markan sayings that link “father” and“son [of man]” belong to the apocalyptic context of Mark, announcing theterms of judgment (8:38: “the son of man will be ashamed of you when hecomes in the glory of his father with the holy angels . . . ”) or considering thetime of the reckoning (13:32: “no one knows the hour, not the angels, noteven the son, but only the father”; see D’Angelo, 1992b:157–58). In John thetwo sayings Meyer notes as linking “father” with “son of man” are notablemanifestations of a sort of de-eschatologized apocalypticism (268 n. 26). John5:27 announces and explains Jesus’ status as judge through the imagery ofDan 7:12–14:10 “[The father] has given authority to him to do judgment, because he is the son of man.” The same image promises a vindication ofJesus’ revelation in 8:38: “When you lift up the son of man, then you willknow that I am, and that from myself I do nothing, but as the father taughtme, I speak” (cf. 8:38: “. . . as I have heard from the father, I speak”).


10 “As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were pro-longed for a season and a time. As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human beingcoming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented beforehim. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and lan-guages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away,and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed” (NRSV).

“Father” in the Prayer of the Suffering Just One

The second time the Gospel depicts Jesus as praying is John 12:27–28,where he proposes two alternative prayers: “What shall I say? Father saveme from this hour . . . father glorify your name.” The first of these (“fathersave me from this hour”) is reminiscent of Mark 14:35–36: “He prayed that ifpossible the hour might pass away: ‘father, take this cup away but not what Iwill but what you do.’” The cup given by the father appears in John 18:11 asan image for Jesus’ death: “the cup my father gave me to drink, shall I notdrink it?” With Mark 14:36, John 12:27 and 18:11 probably attest an earlierprayer that dramatized the interpretation of Jesus’ death through thePsalter’s image of “cup” for a lot given by God (Pss 75:8; 11:6; 15:6; cf. Mark10:38–39; see differently Dodd 1963:68–69). Both versions of this prayer usethe address “father” to locate Jesus as the persecuted just one, the son of Godfaced with death at the hands of the wicked. In doing so, they draw on a tradition manifest in early Jewish literature like 4Q372 1, 3 Macc 6:3–4, Wis2:16–20; cf. 11:10 (D’Angelo 1992a, 1992b).

The prayer Jesus chooses, “father glorify your name,” may also derivefrom traditional language, providing a very Johannine version (or inver-sion?) of the submission expressed in Mark 14:36: “father . . . not what I willbut what you do.” Matthew’s garden narrative translates this concession intothe traditional petition: “your will be done” (Matt 26:42), perhaps on themodel of the Q prayer (Matt 6:9–13). Matthew appears to regard this prayeras an example of very simple standard Jewish prayer (6:7–8), and probablyrightly so. The Kaddish, known from the end of the talmudic period, offerssignificant parallels to its first three petitions: “Exalted and hallowed be hisgreat name in the world which he created according to his will. May heestablish his reign in your lifetime and in your days and in the days of allthe household of Israel.”11 A string of synonyms open the praise that followsin the prayer book: “Blessed and honored and crowned and magnified andlifted up and glorified and elevated and praised be the name of the holy,blessed be he.” The point here is not the influence of these prayers upon thegospels, but their style as analogous to certain features of early Christianprayers. First, both the early Jewish and the early Christian prayers prefersynonyms and euphemisms for God: “the great name,” “the holy one” inthe synagogue prayers; “father” or “father in heaven” in the early Christianones. Second, the use of synonymous praises in the synagogue prayers suggests the synonymous character of the first three petitions in Matt 6:9–10:

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11 No claim of dependence is made here; the earliest datable forms of the Kaddish are tal-mudic. See Heinemann, 1970:24; Friedlander: 134–35, 137; Wener: 350–53; Hoffman: 56;Petuchowski and Brocke: 54; also D’Angelo, 1992b:164.

“may your name be sanctified, may your reign come, may your will be donein heaven and earth.” So also “father . . . your will be done” (6:10//26:42)can be expressed equally well as “father, glorify your name” (John 12:28). InJohn, this prayer receives an immediate affirmation from the divine (heav-enly) voice, which comes for the crowd, but is apparently understood onlyby Jesus, the readers, and perhaps the disciples (12:28–29).

Looking at John 12:27–28 in the context of prayers of the persecutedjust one raises the question of whether in John “father” might function inresistance to or critique of the imperial theology exhibited in the use of thetitle pater patriae for the emperor (D’Angelo, 1992a:623–30). If this is thecase, then the point is made by the absence of the title from the passion nar-rative. As I argued above, John’s Jesus uses “father” in dialogue with thosewho do, can, or ought to claim the same divine paternity as he does: theJews, those other Israelites the Samaritans, the disciples and friends beforewhom he speaks with parrhsiva (16:29). He does not use it with those whodo not worship this deity, who cannot know the truth (18:37–38). Similarly,Mark’s Jesus appeals to his father in private (14:36); in public, at his death,he cries to God, though the pagan soldiers apparently cannot understandhim (Mark 15:34–36). In John when Jesus displays his parrhsiva beforePilate, he speaks only obliquely of the deity as the one above who has allowed Pilate this moment of seeming authority over him (19:11), who is“not of this world” (18:36), unlike Pilate and the one above him. Their punymight tempts the Jews to repudiate their one father God (8:41) with the ter-rible confession: “We have no king but Caesar” (19:15). This last word ofthe Jews in the trial scene carries a perverse echo of the Shema. It cannot beestablished that the Abinu Malkenu—a central prayer in the Jewish NewYear liturgy—played a role in the construction of this dialogue, for it is notattested before the sixth century. But its earliest form presents a strikingcontrast to John 19:15: “Our father, our king, we have no king but you” (b. Ta<an. 25b; see D’Angelo, 1992a:626–27).

“Father” in John 17

John 17 is the passage most readily evoked by references to the prayer ofthe Johannine Jesus; both its position and its content manifest its importance inthe drama and theology of the Gospel. This prayer is so deeply imbued with Jo-hannine thought that Käsemann used it as the entrée into his radicalizeddescription of the theological idiosyncracies of the Gospel. Even so, the chapter both draws upon the style and traditions of Jewish prayer and sharescertain features of two sayings from Q. Dodd treated John 17 as a witness tothe so-called “Johannine Logion” (Matt 27:25–27//Luke 10:21–22; Dodd,1963:359–63) and to the Lord’s prayer (Matt 6:7–13//Luke 11:2–4; Dodd,1963:333–34). The location of these two sayings in Luke suggests that they


formed part of a single unit of the version of Q used by Luke (D’Angelo,1992b:171). Between the missionary sermon (Luke 10:1–20) and the Beelze-bul controversy (Luke 11:14–28) lie four sets of Q sayings that are usuallytreated as separate (Kloppenborg: 92, 190–206; Koester: 141) but that havesignificant thematic connections. They consist of a blessing of (thanksgivingto) the father and revealer, beginning “I praise you father, lord of heavenand earth. . . ” (Luke 10:21–22), a blessing (beatitude) on those who see andhear (Luke 10:23–24), the “Lord’s prayer” (Luke 11:2–4), and sayings urgingconfidence in prayer (Luke 11:9–13). If these four passages are seen as comprising a unit, all but two of the nine uses of “father” as a divine designation clearly attributable to Q occur within it (D’Angelo, 1992b:162).12

Two brief sayings that follow the Q thanksgiving find echoes not only inJohn 17 but throughout the Gospel:

1. all things have been given over to me by my father2. and no one knows the son except the father

and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son wishes to reveal him.

(Matt 11:27//Luke 10:22).

The first of these sayings appears in a slightly different formulationamong the final (but not valedictory) words of Matthew’s risen Jesus: “Allauthority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). InMatthew, “all things” (pavnta) and “all authority” (pa'sa ejxousiva) given toJesus apply especially in the realm of teaching, specifically in teachinghow to observe and do God’s will (7:21). Another version appears in theGospel of Thomas; to Salome’s challenge, “who are you, o man?” Jesus responds: “it is I who have come from the whole; I have been given fromthe things of my father” (saying 61). Here too the saying vindicates Jesus’authoritative teaching: for the Gospel of Thomas, finding the true meaningof the words of the living Jesus offers salvation through the apprehensionof the whole.

At its first appearance in John 17, the saying appears closest to Matt28:18: “Father . . . as you have given him [your son] authority over allflesh. . . ” (17:2; cf. 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 22, 24). The explicit mention of ejxousivaunderlines the presentation of the deity as the authorizer of Jesus’ mission.A version of the same proclamation that uses “all” (pavnta) appears in John3:35: “the father . . . has given all things into his hand.” Both the prayer of 17and the dialogues and discourses throughout the Gospel specify the mean-ing of the “all things” the father gives: it includes “all judgment” (5:22), “to

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12 The exceptions are Matt 5:48//Luke 6:36 and Matt 6:32//Luke 12:30.

have life in himself” (5:26), “to do judgment” (5:27), “the works” that testifyto Jesus (5:36), “the work” the father gave him to do (17:4), the words (17:8),perhaps the name (17:11), the glory (17:22, 24). But in John “everything thefather gave” most frequently refers to those who come to Jesus and believe.The Baptizer concedes the divine mission of Jesus: “no one can take any-thing that has not been given to him” (3:27); and Jesus repeats: “no one cancome to me unless it is given to him from the father” (6:65). The divine gift isthe guarantee of his followers: “This is the will of the one who sent me, thateverything he gave me I shall not lose from it, but I shall raise it up on thelast day—this is the will of my father (6:39; cf. 6:37; 10:29; 17:4, 6, 7, 9–10;17:22, 24).

The second part of the Q saying explains the wisdom and divine reve-lation that is celebrated in the blessing: “No one knows the son except thefather, no one knows the father except the son, and those to whom hechooses to reveal him” (Matt 11:26//Luke 10:21). The Johannine versionof this claim that is closest in formulation is 10:15: “the father knows meand I know the father” (Dodd, 1963:359–60). This claim to divine recogni-tion validates the “teaching” of Jesus which causes his own (like the blindman) to follow him. It becomes an accusation to the crowds at Succoth: “Ifyou knew me, you would know the father also” (8:19). So too the knowl-edge of God is both what Jesus claims and what he offers in 17:1–3:“Father … this is eternal life that they know you the only true God. …righteous father, the world did not know you, but I knew you and theseknew that you sent me, and I have made known your name to them. . . . ”(17:24–26).

Dodd’s endeavor to find in John independent witness to sayings fromthe synoptic tradition most nearly succeeds in regard to the two sayingsin Matt 11:27//Luke 10:22. The case of the Q prayer is different. The fol-lowing table aligns the petitions of Matthew’s version of the Q prayerwith similar petitions or phrases that use the same language from John 17.Its point is not to argue that John 17 is a revision of the Q prayer or toclaim a kernel of tradition that goes back to Jesus. Rather, the differentversions of that prayer in Matthew, Luke, and Didache, the similar peti-tions in John 17, and the blessings that become the various versions of theKaddish all reflect the raw materials of Jewish prayer in the first few cen-turies of the Common Era.13


13 See also Graubard (62): “the habit, widely known to us from ancient times, of adaptingand adjusting existing forms and formulae to different purposes, makes it unlikely that oneprayer should be clearly dependent on another. However, this fact shows all the more clearlythat the essence of the kaddish, its first sentence, and the Lord’s Prayer, spring from the samesource and are at home in one and the same world of belief.”

In John 17, traditional petitions (or imperatives) of praise are refocusedaround the fate of Jesus and of his hearers, John’s audience explicitly included (“not only these, but also all those who believe on account of theirword,” 17:20). Thus “sanctified be your name” appears in John as “glorifyyour son that your son may glorify you . . . father holy, keep them in yourname . . . sanctify them in the truth” (17:1, 5, 11, 17).

The first of the second-person petitions of the Q prayer (“give us todayour daily bread” Matt 6:11//Luke 11:3) does not appear explicitly in John 17,though Jesus’ opponents articulate a version of it in 6:34: “Lord give us alwaysthis bread.” But John 17 offers Johannine versions of this plea: “that he givethem eternal life . . . that they know you the only true God” (17:2, 3). John 6 in-terprets the gift of bread with eternal life: “My father gives you true breadfrom heaven. God’s bread is what comes down from heaven and gives life tothe world” (6:32–33). The ensuing dialogue identifies the true bread fromheaven as the knowledge of God (6:44–47). The Didache eucharist similarlyidentifies the bread with “life and knowledge” (Did. 9.2). The beatitude on thehungry in Gos. Thom. 59 also treats hunger and its satisfaction as spiritual, motions of the search for knowledge (D’Angelo, 1995:78–79).

The final petition from Matthew also appears in a Johannine version.“Keep them from the evil one” (17:15) is virtually identical with the petition“deliver us from the evil one” (Matt 6:13; see differently Dodd, 1963:333).Conspicuously lacking is the plea for forgiveness of debts or sins (Matt6:12//Luke 11:4). The petitions “that all be one” (John 17:21, 22, 23) do notso much substitute for this plea as cast into high relief the perspective that excludes it. John 17 is the prayer of and for the community of the elect, thosewho are not from the world, as Jesus is not from the world (17:11). These petitions in particular were the inspiration for Käsemann’s analysis of a radical dualism in the Gospel (56–73). Brown reads 1 John as addressing aconflict over boasts of perfect communion and sinlessness that the writer’sopponents derived from the Gospel (1979:122–28).

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Matt 6:7–15 (Luke 11:2–4)

our father in heaven

sanctified be your name

your reign comeyour will be donegive us breadforgivedo not bring us to the test; rescue us

from the evil one(yours are the reign and power and

glory)

John 17

father (17:1, 5, 24), holy father (17:11),just father (17:25)

glorify your son (17:1, 5; cf. 12:28, name;and 18:11)

the hour is come (17:1)sanctify them in the truth (17:17)you have given (17:2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 22, 24)——————keep them in the truth (17:11); keep

them from the evil one (17:15)my glory which you gave me (17:24)

Whether John’s communal vision led to gnostic positions (Käsemann:65–66; Brown, 1979:93–144), responded to them (Bornkamm: 111–12), or instead expressed the spiritual stance of a single community at a specificpoint in its existence, its highly individual self-understanding is interwovenwith traditional functions in the prayer’s setting and content. John 17 locatesJesus and “his own” among the persecuted and suffering just; at the sametime, it insists upon the spiritual power at their disposition.

Conclusions

“Father” in John is the preferred designation of the deity and very nearlywhat Philo might have called the proper name for God. As such, it is a theo-logical strategy of the Gospel, pointing toward, intimating the deity as theorigin and destiny of Jesus and of all believers, the guarantee of their author-ity. The impulse behind the Gospel’s preference for “father” is similar both toearly Jewish substitutions for the Tetragrammaton and to the use of “father”in the Gospel of Thomas and in some Valentinian and gnostic texts. This doesnot suggest that “father” has no metaphoric content. On the contrary, iteverywhere calls familial imagery into play. Such imagery cannot but be patriarchal, but the refractions of patriarchy that inhabit both theology andchristology are by no means reducible to simple propositions, nor are theyexpunged by the substitution of new and more inclusive language.

To be effective, the strategy requires that the audience (the first readersand hearers) of the Gospel find its referents immediately comprehensibleand meaning-filled. Further, the function of “father” in the dialogues re-quires that “the Jews” of the Gospel also be seen to understand it. Indeed,“the Jews” claim the deity as their father also and in this they may wellcome closest to representing the real Jews of the Gospel’s context. Thus, in asense, the Gospel of John can be added to the list of evidence for earlyJewish use of “father,” although at several removes. The “prayers of Jesus”in John bear this out, illustrating the transformation of traditions common toearly Jewish and Christian prayer by the dramatic exigencies and theologi-cal concerns of the Gospel.

These observations, while they controvert claims that the Gospel’s spe-cialized use of “father” was based upon the unique and revelatory practiceof Jesus, are not without some consequence for the picture of Jesus and themovement within which he preached. For the less “unparalleled” the content of “father,” the more current in the common vocabulary of earlyJewish piety and resistance, the more likely it is to have functioned in proclaiming God’s reign.


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“AND THE WORD WAS BEGOTTEN”: DIVINE EPIGENESIS IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Adele ReinhartzMcMaster University

abstract

This paper argues that underlying the “father-son” language that is used todescribe the relationship between God and Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is theAristotelian theory of epigenesis. According to this theory, the male spermis viewed as the vehicle for the logos and pneuma of the father, which pro-vide the form and essence of the offspring. Epigenesis provides a key tocomprehending the revelatory function that Jesus plays in the world, but atthe same time poses difficult problems for feminist theology by focusing at-tention on the masculinity of both God and Jesus.

Introduction

The designation of God as father in sacred texts poses a vexing problemfor feminists striving for inclusive theology, religious language, and religiousinstitutions. According to Sallie McFague, the designation of “father” as aname for God transforms a paternal model into a patriarchal model (9). ForElizabeth Johnson, “Language about the father in heaven who rules over theworld justifies and even necessitates an order whereby the male religiousleader rules over his flock” (36). In the words of Mary Daly, if God is male,then the male is God (19).

Of all the books in the Christian canon, it is the Gospel of John that usespaternal God language most relentlessly. The sheer number of passages thatdescribe or refer to God as father and Jesus as son testify to the centrality offather-son language to Johannine theology, christology, and soteriology.1

Virtually every chapter of the Gospel, every lengthy discourse attributed toJesus, and each one of the narrator’s own theological expositions expressesand reflects upon the God-Jesus relationship in father-son terms, and explic-itly or implicitly draws humankind into this relationship as well.

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1 Pathvr appears approximately 118 times as a designation of God; the exact numbercannot be ascertained due to textual variants among the manuscripts and versions.

One approach that has proven fruitful for feminist theology is to read paternal God language metaphorically (e.g., Teselle: 43–45). The variednature of the relationship between a human father and son can be viewed asan analogy for the complex and intimate relationship between God and Jesusthat otherwise eludes human description and in which the believer is also invited to participate. Applying this approach to the Fourth Gospel requiresseveral steps. The first is to identify the characteristic elements of the father-son relationship. According to John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and hasplaced all things in his hands.” John 5:20 declares that “the Father loves theSon and shows him all that he himself is doing. . . . ” This love is reciprocatedby Jesus, who does as the father has commanded him, “so that the worldmay know that I love the Father” (14:31). Other passages reflect the commonality of activity between father and son and imply that Jesus, like ahuman son, is apprenticed to his divine father (Lee: 146). Like the father, theson raises the dead (5:21) and has life in himself (5:26). The son works thesame long hours as the father, including the Sabbath, when, as Jesus declares, “My Father is still working, and I also am working” (5:17). The sondefends the father’s interests as well as his property. When the temple isthreatened by moneychangers and their wares, Jesus “cleanses” it andshouts, “Stop making my Father’s house a markeplace!” (2:16), remindinghis disciples of the psalmist’s declaration: “Zeal for your house will consumeme” (2:17; cf. Ps 69:9).

The second step is to recognize the specific social, cultural, and religiouscontext in which the Johannine father-son language is grounded. Both themutual aspects of the father-son relationship, such as love and concern, andthe hierarchical aspects, such as the father’s authority and the son’s obedi-ence, have a universal and enduring ring. But the ongoing relevance of theseaspects to our own society’s discourse on father-child relationships shouldnot obscure the fact that their formulation in the Fourth Gospel reflects thecultural constructions and practices with which the Gospel writer and originalaudience would have been familiar. Given the ubiquity of patriarchy in thefirst century as a social system in which fathers had tremendous power andauthority within the household, it is difficult to trace the background of theJohannine presentation of the father-son metaphor to a specific philosophicalsystem or set of texts. Nevertheless, the fourth evangelist’s understanding isconsistent both with Jewish and non-Jewish authors in the first-centuryGreco-Roman world.

The father’s absolute authority over his children is stressed, for example,by both Philo and Epictetus. Philo declares that parents have authority overtheir offspring like that of a master over a slave (Spec. 2.233). This authorityhas been awarded to them “by the most admirable and perfect judgment ofnature above us which governs with justice things both human and divine”(Spec. 2.231). For this reason, “Fathers have the right to upbraid their children

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and admonish them severely” (Spec. 2.232) and must be respected, obeyed, requited, and feared (Spec. 2.234). The father, in turn, instructs his son accord-ing to virtue (Spec. 2.236) and also loves and cherishes his children “with extreme tenderness . . . fast bound to them by the magnetic forces of affec-tion,” which too must be reciprocated (Spec. 2.240). Epictetus, a first- andsecond-century Stoic philosopher, admonished his male readers: “Remem-ber . . . that you are a son; and what doth this character promise? To esteemeverything that is his, as belonging to his father: in every instance to obeyhim: not to revile him to another: not to say or do anything injurious to him:to give way and yield in everything; co-operating with him to the utmost ofhis power” (Diatr. 2.10.7).

Viewing the father-son language as metaphor grounded in ancient cultural constructions allows space both for reinterpretation of the culturalnotion of fatherhood that is more compatible with more egalitarian idealsand for the inclusion of other motifs, such as God as mother, lover, andfriend (McFague: 177–92). In these theological moves, the relational aspectsof the Johannine understanding of God as father, such as mutual love, can bemaintained while the gender-specific formulation, including the linking ofdivine authority to patriarchy, can be set aside. The metaphorical interpreta-tion of God as father can therefore be read as an analogy and as a simile: therelationship between God and Jesus is “like” that between a father and a son.

Yet this approach, attractive and defensible as it is, leaves some attrib-utes of the father-son relationship unexplained. Whereas the filial relations described above could be as true of adoptive children as of biological ones,and the parental role as true of mothers as of fathers, other passages resist astraightforward metaphorical interpretation. In particular, some passagessuggest that for the evangelist and his earliest audience, the “father-son”language was not simply a way of speaking about the otherwise unspeak-able, but was also intended as a rather literal description of the relationship between God and Jesus (cf. Moltmann: 51). This possibility is suggested, forexample, by passages that describe Jesus as “coming from” God. In 8:42,Jesus declares to the Jews: “. . . I came from God [ejk tou' qeou' ejxh'lqon] andnow I am here. I did not come on my own [ejlhvluqa], but he sent me.” In16:30 the disciples declare their belief “that you came from God [ajpo qeou' ejxh'lqeı]” (cf. also 13:3; 16:27–28, 30; 17:8). jExevrcomai frequently referssimply to leaving a particular location, as clearly seems to be the case in 13:3;16:27–28, in which Jesus states that he has come from God and is returning toGod. But this verb can also have a generative sense, meaning “to be begottenby” (as in LXX 2 Chron 6:9, referring to Solomon as the son of David) or,more generally, “to be born or descend from” (LXX Gen 35:11; Heb 7:5). Asecondary nuance in the Johannine use of ejxevrcomai may therefore be thatJesus not only came from the place that God was but also that Jesus cameforth from, or was begotten by, God.

reinhartz: “and the word was begotten” 85

Even more telling is the Gospel’s prologue, which proclaims the pre-existence of Jesus as the Word of God, who “in the beginning” was bothwith God and was God (John 1:1–2). This introduction establishes thecosmic and eternal temporal and spatial framework of the narrative (e.g.,Kysar: 15) and provides a fitting introduction to Johannine christology,which consistently associates Jesus more closely with the divine realm thanwith the human world.

Through this prologue, the Gospel establishes that Jesus’ true place iswith God in the eternal time and space that is God’s realm. But like the syn-optic versions of Jesus’ life story, the Johannine gospel must also bring Jesusinto the human realm. Only this way can the good news be accessible to humankind and the narrative proceed. And so we learn, in John 1:14, that“the Word became flesh and lived among us” (1:14a). The incarnation of thedivine Word became the medium for divine revelation: “we have seen hisglory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (1:14b). Theexclusiveness of divine revelation through the Word is proclaimed in 1:18:“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to theFather’s heart, who has made him known.”

A curious feature of this introduction to the Fourth Gospel is the shift inlanguage that occurs at John 1:14. Whereas 1:1–13 speak of the relationshipbetween God and Jesus as that between God and the Word, 1:14–18 focus onthe Word incarnate as the monogenhvı (“only [begotten] son”) and on God asdivine father. The pivotal point at which the shift occurs is the incarnationitself, that is, the entrance of the Word into the human and time-bound arenain which filial and other familial relationships have meaning and context.

This introduction to the Fourth Gospel is a conundrum. In comparisonwith the infancy narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the silenceof the Johannine prologue regarding the timing, manner, and circumstancesof Jesus’ conception and birth as well as regarding the identity or even thepresence of a mother is glaring. Nevertheless, John 1:1–18 implies that theincarnation itself transformed the nature of the relationship between Godand Jesus to that of father and son. This paper will argue that included inthe Johannine understanding of the relationship between God and Jesus isthe belief that Jesus was quite literally begotten by God in a manner thatclosely resembles the human process of procreation as understood by theevangelist and his earliest audience. I begin by looking at the ways in whichthe process of generation was understood in the Greco-Roman world, andsecond, by considering the passages within the Gospel that may allude tothis process of generation as a component of, or indeed the basis for, the relationship between God and Jesus and, by extension, as a key to comprehending the revelatory function that Jesus plays in the world. I conclude with a brief consideration of the implications of this argument forfeminist theology.

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Greco-Roman Embryology

It is not known exactly how the individuals and/or community that liebehind this Gospel understood everyday processes such as human reproduc-tion. Works such as Aristotle’s treatise, Generation of Animals (Gen. an.), fromthe fourth century B.C.E., however, indicate that a number of theories werecurrent in the Greco-Roman world. These theories address not only the abilityof animals to reproduce but also the role of male and female in procreation,and related issues such as the physical resemblance between parents andoffspring. All theories give a seminal (so to speak) role in the generativeprocess to semen or sperm (both denoted by the Greek term spevrma).

The Hippocratic notion of pangenesis holds that the process of generationinvolves sperm that originated in all body parts of one or both parents. Thatis, the arms of the child were formed by sperm originating in the arms of theparents, the legs were engendered by the sperm from the parents’ legs, andso on (Tress: 37). Aristotle cites four arguments in favor of pangenesis(721b10–35): a) the intensity of pleasure involved in the sexual act: just assexual pleasure suffuses the entire body, so must the generative process thatresults from the sexual act involve the entire body; b) the observation that“mutilated parents produce mutilated offspring”; c) the nature and degree ofresemblance of the young to their parents; d) the relationship of a whole to itsparts: “Just as there is some original thing out of which the whole creature isformed, so also it is with each of the parts; and hence if there is a semen[spevrma] which gives rise to the whole, there must be a special semen whichgives rise to each of the parts” (Gen. an. 721b27–28).

Aristotle devotes many lines to the refutation of pangenesis and relatedtheories (Gen. an. 722a–24a). Most pertinent to our interests is his observationthat the resemblance between parents and children is much more complexthan the theory of pangenesis can account for. Some children, for example,resemble their remoter ancestors more closely than they do their parents(722a1–15). Furthermore, “not all offspring of mutilated parents are muti-lated, any more than all offspring resemble their parents” (Gen. an. 724a5).Also problematic is the issue of gender differentiation. As Aristotle notes, “ifthe semen is drawn from all parts of both parents alike, we shall have twoanimals formed, for the semen will contain all the parts of each of them”(Gen. an. 722b7). Since in some species, including our own, the norm is toform only one child at a time, pangenesis cannot easily account for the factthat a female can give birth to a male, or that a male can beget a female,since neither male nor female semen would contain all the body parts fromwhich to construct an offspring of the opposite sex.

A second well-known theory, known as preformationism or the homunculus theory, argues that the sperm contains a miniature animal or alittle human already formed and waiting simply to be implanted in the


uterus in which it will grow until birth (Tress: 37). Preformationism solvesone problem inherent in the theory of pangenesis, namely, the state of thebody parts within the sperm itself. As Aristotle noted, if the parts of thebody are scattered about within the semen, as the theory of pangenesis sug-gested, it is difficult to account for their vitality. If, on the other hand, theyare connected with each other, then surely they would be a tiny animal, aspreformationists argue (722b5). Like pangenesis, however, preformationismfails to account adequately for gender differentiation, since “that whichcomes from the male will be different from that which comes from thefemale” (722b3). Similar problems attend a related theory that Aristotle attributes to Empedocles: that each parent, through the semen, provides onehalf of the offspring’s body. Aristotle objects to this theory as well, for howcan the parts remain sound and living if “torn asunder” from each otherwhen small (Gen. an. 722b15–20; Preus: 6)?

Although these theories circulated widely, most influential was Aristo-tle’s own theory, called epigenesis, which held sway from his own lifetimeuntil the sixteenth century (Needham: 60). According to Aristotle, one oughtto look for a single generative material that carried the active principle formaking all the others, that is, a “spermatic material which is not from all theparts of the body, but for the whole body” (Preus: 7; cf. Gen. an. 724a17). According to the theory of epigenesis, animals and human beings grow organically—not part by part—from the sperm of the male as set within themedium of growth provided by the female. The male semen determines theform of the embryo as well as the process by which it reaches maturity. Thefemale semen, that is, the menstrual fluids (also called spevrma), provides thematter of generation, the substance from which the offspring is made. Bothmale and female semen are residues of blood, the ultimate food of the body(726b14; Preus: 7). The most important difference between male and femalesemen lies in their consistency. As weaker creatures than males, females produce semen that is thinner and has less form than that of males. Becausethat which has less form is matter, it can be deduced that females producethe matter for generation, whereas males produce the form (Gen. an. 729a10).

A number of analogies illustrate Aristotle’s understanding of the role ofmale and female. “Compare the coagulation of milk,” he suggests. “Here, themilk is the body, and the fig-juice or the rennet contains the principle [ajrchv]which causes it to set” (Gen. an. 729a10–12). Similarly, the male may be com-pared to a carpenter, who, in building a bedstead, imparts form and functionto the female matter, which is like the wood from which the bedstead ismade (729b19). According to Gen. an. 15:730b13–19, the form of the object tobe created is present in the carpenter’s soul and is generated in matter bymeans of movement. The carpenter’s soul and knowledge move his handsand body in a particular movement that is different for different products. Ina similar fashion, semen acts as a tool that imparts form. In either case, the

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tool does not become a material part of the production but serves to transmitthe formative movement from the maker to that which is made.

Integral to the form as supplied by the male seed is the sentient soul(Peck: xiii).2 The sentient soul resides in the pneu'ma, life-breath or spirit, ofthe male. The pneu'ma contains the dynamic structure of the individual andthus is capable of shaping the individuality of an offspring through theprocess of generation (Peck: xiv; Preus: 52). It is therefore the pneu'ma, presentin the male sperm, that carries the (potential) form of the offspring and ischarged with the movement that creates the sentient soul. When given theright conditions and the proper material (that is, the female semen of the appropriate species) to work upon, the movement of the pneu'ma containedwithin the male semen will produce a being of the same kind as that fromwhich the male semen came.

Like other processes, argues Aristotle, the process of generation can bediscussed in terms of four basic causes (Gen. an. 715a1–10; Preus: 3; Aristotle:xxxviii). The first is the tevloı, that for the sake of which the thing exists. Thesecond is the rational purpose of the thing, often refered to as the lovgoı.These first two causes are very closely tied, indeed almost identical. The thirdis the material cause, that is, the matter from which the object is made, andthe fourth is the motive cause, that is, the source of the movement that setsthe creative process in motion. The motive cause is also refered to as lovgoı. Inthe creation of a dog, for example, the motive cause is the male parent whosesperm supplies the movement that sets the process of development inmotion; the material cause is the menstrual fluid and the nourishment supplied by the female parent, both before and after birth; the formal causerefers to the particular process of development followed by the embryo andpuppy; the final cause or the tevloı is a perfect and full-grown dog. In Aristotle’s argumentation, the final and motive causes often coalesce withthe formal cause in opposition to the material cause (Peck: xxxix). So, for example, Aristotle describes the male, which possesses the form, suppliesthe movement, and acts as a motive cause, as superior and “more divine”than the female, which supplies the raw material and therefore serves as the material cause (Gen. an. 732a9).

Epigenesis, like the embryological theories that Aristotle criticizes, mustaccount for the existence of male and female, for if the form and essence ofthe offspring are determined by the father, it might be thought that all off-spring would be male. In Aristotle’s view, the degree of likeness betweenfather and son is determined by a competition between the male and female


2 The sentient soul, that which forms the essence of the creature, is to be distinguishedfrom the nutrient soul, which is possessed by the female semen as well (Peck: xiii).

principles in the early stages of the generative process. When the movementof the male semen prevails in shaping the embryonic child (766b15–16), theresult is a child who resembles his father in sex and in other physical andpersonality traits (767b1–768a8; Horowitz: 199). If the male lovgoı fails to gainmastery, the offspring will be deficient, that is, it will depart from the father’sform in some way (Gen. an. 768a25; 768b6–8; 769a22; Morsink: 136). Femaleoffspring are deficient males in the sense that they differ from the father’sform with respect to their sex (767b10; 768a10). Aristotle’s discussion impliesthat in ideal circumstances, which rarely if ever exist in nature, a man willfather a son who is identical to the father in all respects.

Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, therefore, describes the act of generationas being set in motion by the male sperm, which is the lovgoı, that is, themotive and final causes of the reproductive process, and is the vehicle for themale pneu'ma that determines the form and characteristics of the offspring.The role of the female sperm is to provide the medium of growth for the off-spring. Both male and female are considered to be ajrcaiv or principles ofgeneration, which, though small in themselves, are of great importance andinfluence as the sources upon which other things depend and as the agents ofgrowth and development (Gen. an. 716b3; Peck: xlv).

The generative process (gevnesiı) as such has its source and analogue inthe upper cosmos (a[nwqen; Gen. an. 731b24; cf. Tress: 44). For Aristotle, thefact that the male generates in the body of another and the female generatesin her own body explains “why in cosmology too they speak of the nature ofthe Earth as something female and call it ‘mother,’ while they give to theheaven and the sun and anything else of that kind the title of ‘generator,’ and‘father’” (gennwvntaı kai; patevraı; Gen. an. 716a15). Furthermore, males aredescribed as more “divine” (qeiovteron), that is, more godlike, than femalesdue to their active role in the process of creation (Gen. an. 732a9). In this way,Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis does not limit itself to the mechanical andphysical aspects of reproduction but also places reproduction in a broader,even cosmic context.

Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity

Aristotle’s theory, and particularly the role it ascribes to the male seed,dominated Greco-Roman embryology (Needham: 60). Although there is nodirect evidence for its impact on Jewish or early Christian views, traces of thegeneral theory of epigenesis including some of its key terms can be found inwisdom and late Second Temple Jewish literature (Needham: 64). For example, the narrator of Wis 7:1–2 declares, “I also am mortal, like everyoneelse, a descendant of the first-formed child of earth; and in the womb of amother I was molded into flesh, within the period of ten months, compactedwith blood, from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage.” The work

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of Philo too implies a knowledge of at least some elements of epigenesis. Inhis treatise On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi), Philo commentsthat “seed is the original starting-point of living creatures. That this is a sub-stance of a very low order, resembling foam, is evident to the eye. But whenit has been deposited in the womb and become solid, it acquires movement,and at once enters upon natural growth” (Opif. 67). Philo also speaks of thedivine seed. For example, in Philo’s version of Balaam’s oracles (Numbers23–24), Balaam declares that the Hebrews’ bodies “have been molded fromhuman seeds [spermavtwn], but their souls are sprung from divine [seeds],and therefore their stock is akin to God” (Mos. 1.279). In his treatise On theCherubim (Cher. 43–44), Philo draws an analogy between human generationand the generation of the virtues. “Man and Woman, male and female of thehuman race, in the course of nature come together to hold intercourse for the procreation of children. But virtues whose offspring are so many and so perfect may not have to do with mortal man, yet if they receive not seed ofgeneration from another they will never of themselves conceive. Who then ishe that sows [speivrwn] in them the good [seed] [ta; kalav] save the Father of all,that is God unbegotten and begetter of all things?” Philo also describes thebirth of Isaac, or Happiness, as begotten by divine seed. Says Abraham, “Lo, Ihave virtue laid up by me as some precious treasure, and this by itself doesnot make me happy. For happiness consists in the exercise and enjoyment ofvirtue, not in its mere possession. But I could not exercise it, shouldest Thounot send down the seeds from heaven [ejx oujranou' ta; spevrmata] to cause her[Sarah] to be pregnant. . . ” (Det. 60).

These examples provide some evidence for a general knowledge of thetheory of epigenesis in the role ascribed to the male and female semen. Theyalso suggest that Greco-Roman Jewish authors from approximately thesame period as the Gospel of John did not hesitate to apply the concept and vocabulary of epigenesis to God, as the creator of wisdom, Hebrews’ souls,the virtues, and happiness.

It is therefore conceivable that the author of John also was aware, atleast in a general way, of Aristotelian views of conception and generationand of traditions in which divine creation was seen in analogous terms. Thispossibility was noted briefly by Bernard in his 1928 commentary on theFourth Gospel. With respect to 1:13, in which the children of God are said tobe born of, or generated from [ejgenhvqhsan], God, Bernard noted that it was acurrent doctrine in Greek physiology that the human embryo is made fromthe seed of the father and the blood of the mother (18), thereby implying thatJohn 1:13 draws upon this current doctrine.

A more explicit reference to epigenesis may be found in 1 John 3:9:“Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed [spevrma]abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.” On thebasis of this passage, we may surmise that circles related to the Fourth Gospel


did not refrain from using the language of epigenesis in order to describe therelationship between God and at least some members of humankind (cf.Brown, 1982:408–10, who, however, does not refer to epigenesis directly).

It is not clear whether the language of generation in these passages isused literally or metaphorically, that is, whether 1 John 3:9, for example, intends to suggest that believers are literally born of God or to argue that it isas if they are born of God. The same difficulty exists with the Fourth Gospel.Nevertheless, I will argue that the Johannine use of generative language,while clearly metaphorical, also may be read as a claim that Jesus is quite literally the son of God.

Epigenesis in John

There are some striking verbal parallels between Aristotle’s account ofepigenesis and the ways in which the Fourth Gospel describes Jesus’ origins.These are clustered in the prologue. The term ajrchv, which begins the Gospel(ejn ajrch'/), is usually understood temporally (“in the beginning”) and as an allusion to the first line of the biblical creation narrative. But it also echoes thenotion of “first principle” of generation that in Aristotelian terms accompa-nies the lovgoı, the rational principle. The identification of Jesus as the Word(lovgoı) is often understood against the background of the Hebrew rbd, as theword of God through whom the world is created. Another element that is operative in the prologue is wisdom theology, in which personified Wisdomis seen as the preexistent and divinely created agent in creation (Proverbs 8;Sirach 24; Scott: 94–115). In the context of Aristotelian embryology, as we haveseen, the term lovgoı is often identified with one or more of the four causesthat undergird the physical world and its processes, including generation. In1:13, the children of God are said to be begotten (ejgennhvqhsan, from gennavw,to beget) of God; the verb givnomai (to be born or to become; 1:3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14,15, 17) appears throughout the prologue. Most suggestive are verses thatspeak of creation, as in 1:3: “All things came into being [ejgevneto] throughhim, and without him not one thing came into being [ejgevneto].” In this verse,the role of the lovgoı recalls not only divinely created Wisdom (Weder: 328)but also precisely the role of the motive cause in Aristotelian embryology,that is, the principal mover in the process of generation. This theme contin-ues in 1:3b–4: “What has come into being [gevgonen] in him was life. . . . ” Mostimportant perhaps is 1:14a, which declares that the Word (oJ lovgoı) “became”flesh (savrx ejgevneto). Scholarly judgments as to the primary meaning of 1:14a,that is, what actually happened when the Word became flesh, entice us toimagine the nature of the transformation at this point as it was understoodby the ancient author and audience (cf. Theobald). Profound as the theologi-cal implications of this declaration are, the generative sense of this termshould not be ruled out. O’Neill states this forcefully: “The Word did not

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turn into flesh, did not change its nature and become flesh, did not masquer-ade as flesh, and did not come on the scene as flesh. We should always becareful to say, ‘the Word was born flesh’ or use the old Latin translation etverbum caro factum est, ‘the Word was made flesh’” (27).

Perhaps the most problematic term in the prologue is monogenhvı (only[begotten]), which is used of the Word after it has become flesh (1:14, 18; cf.3:16, 18). In 1:14b, the Word-become-flesh is described as “a [or the] father’sonly son;” 1:18 reads “God the only Son” (the strongest reading, e.g.,Bodmer), “It is an only Son, God” (e.g., Latin), or “the only son” (the weakestreading, e.g. Tatian; cf. Brown, 1966: 17). In 1:14, the monogenhvı is the vehicleof divine revelation, the one who has the glory of his father and throughwhom this glory may be perceived by those around him. In 1:18, the motif ofrevelation is also present, since “No one has ever seen God. It is God the onlySon, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

The precise meaning of the term monogenhvı is elusive. Some scholars, suchas Pendrick and Fennema, argue that despite its etymology, the term does notconvey the sense of “only begotten.” Rather, it is a direct translation of theHebrew dycy and means “only” or “unique” without necessarily implying theconcept of begetting (Fennema: 127; Brown, 1966: 13). The term monogenhvıonly took on the meaning of “only begotten” in the hands of Jerome, whotranslated monogenhvı into Latin as unigenitus in order to answer the second-century Arian claim that Jesus was not begotten but made (Fennema: 126).Therefore 1:14 and 1:18 simply point to the uniqueness of Jesus as God’s sonwithout implying that he is the product of a generative process, let alonedivine insemination. Other scholars, such as Dahms and Lindars, view “begotten” as part of the intended meaning of the term and argue that thenotion of “begotten” is present even in the Hebrew dycy (Lindars: 96). In theirview, the nuance of “only begotten” was not created by Jerome but was implicit in monogenhvı already in the New Testament period, though it may havebeen brought to the fore in response to the Arian controversy (Dahms: 226).

Reading the prologue’s use of terms, such as ajrchv, lovgoı, and variousforms of the verb givnomai, as allusions to epigenesis supports the argumentin favor of monogenhvı as “only begotten.” Thus the first few verses of the prologue, when read against the background of Greek notions of genera-tion, declare that God is the first principle of generation, whose lovgoı, orrational principle, was given human life and form and sent into the humanworld as Jesus, the divine father’s only begotten son. This reading providescontent for the assertion that the Word became flesh by alluding to theprocess of epigenesis through divine seed.

What, then, of Jesus’ mother? The theory of epigenesis requires not onlymale seed, which determines the form and characteristics of the offspring, butalso female seed, as the material from which the offspring is to be formed.From the perspective of Aristotle’s theory, the brief and cryptic notice of


Jesus’ birth, “and the Word became flesh,” implies a scenario that does notdiffer greatly from Matthean and Lukan presentations of Jesus’ conceptionthrough the Holy Spirit and his fetal development within his mother’s womb.Yet the relative absence of Jesus’ mother from the body of the Johannine narrative contrasts starkly with the ever-presence of the father. Unlike theGospels of Matthew and Luke (and the many artistic depictions of the babyJesus in his loving mother’s arms), the Fourth Gospel sets a distance betweenJesus and his mother. While Jesus frequently calls God his father, he calls hismother only “woman” (2:4; 19:26); whereas he makes his home with thedivine father (14:2), he sends his mother off to live with the Beloved Disciple(19:27). One can, and probably should, construe this latter act as one of love,but the impression of physical estrangement remains. This aspect of theGospel serves to focus attention squarely on the importance of the fatherboth in Jesus’ formation and also in Jesus’ ongoing mission in the world.

A reading of the generative language as metaphor would argue that therelationship between Jesus and God is like that of a son and father. But inso-far as the Gospel imputes uniqueness to Jesus among humankind, as the onewho is preexistent and the only son of his divine father, we are afforded aglimpse of a more literal understanding of generative language according towhich Jesus’ uniqueness rests in the fact that he is the only one in the humanor indeed divine realms who has come forth from, or been generated directlyby, the divine seed. This literal reading gives substance to the claim thatknowledge of the father can be had only through or by means of the son.Jesus reveals the father not only through his words and deeds (5:24, 36) butalso in his very person and essence (6:51).

Epigenesis and Revelation

As the one who is begotten by the divine spevrma, Jesus is the embodi-ment of the divine lovgoı (word) and the divine pneu'ma (spirit). As such, theessence of the father, and perhaps, in some fashion, the father himself, dwellswithin him. Anyone wishing to have access to the father, or to witness thefather’s works and hear his words, can therefore do so only through the son,who embodies his father’s works and words, acts on his father’s behalf, andhas the father within him in the same way as human children carry their fathers within them. Because he comes from the father, Jesus contains thefather in his very being, abiding within him, and through his presence in theworld makes the father known in the world; God is no longer conceivedapart from his lovgoı (Weder: 331). As Weder notes, “In this Gospel, themaking known of God through Jesus Christ means that Jesus ministers inGod’s place, speaks in God’s place, and even dies as God. Such expositionmeans basically a carrying-through of God’s essence in the world, the actualpresence of God” (333).

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Interpreting the relationship between God and Jesus in light of Aristo-tle’s theory of epigenesis also implies a degree of likeness between fatherand son. In Aristotle’s view, the degree and nature of the resemblance between parents and offspring are determined by a competition betweenthe male and female principles in the early stages of the generative process.In ideal circumstances—as in the case of God and his son—the male princi-ple will father a son who is identical to himself in all respects. References tothe mutual indwelling of the father and the son may therefore recall thecommon human response to physical resemblance: that one sees the parentin the child, and the child in the parent (cf. 10:38 and 17:21). Echoes of thisconcept may also be found in 5:18, in which the narrator attributes the Jews’displeasure with Jesus’ Sabbath activity to the fact that Jesus called God “hisown Father, thereby making himself equal to God.” The Greek word thatthe NRSV translates as “equal” in 5:18 is i[soı, a primary definition of whichis physical resemblance (Liddell and Scott, s.v. i[soı). Hence it is possible toread the Jews’ objection as being not so much, or not only, that Jesus elevated himself to the status of God but that he claimed to resemble Godin his Sabbath work.

The TELOS of Generation

The fact that Jesus, in his person, reveals the father is not only importantfor its own sake but also as a component of human faith in the divine. Thistoo is expressed in the Gospel in generative terms. In John, as for Aristotle,generation has a divinely given goal or purpose. According to Aristotle, thepurpose of generation is the perpetuation of the species through the cyclicalprocess of genesis and decay (Preus: 51; cf. Gen. an. 731b35). The male istherefore “homo faber, the maker, who works upon inert matter according toa design, bringing forth a lasting work of art. His soul contributes the formand model of the creation. Out of his creativity is born a line of descendantsthat will preserve his memory, thus giving him earthly immortality”(Horowitz: 197; cf. Gen. an. 731b30–732a1).

The Gospel of John also describes a species of sorts. The purpose of theson’s coming in the flesh is explicitly portrayed in terms of revelation (1:18)and salvation (3:16–17). Fundamental to Jesus’ mission, however, is thegathering of disciples or believers (17:6), also described as the “children ofGod” (tevkna or paidiva qeou'). The primary meaning of tevknon is a child in rela-tionship to his or her parents, or more generally, as posterity, though it is alsoused to refer to spiritual children (e.g., Phlm 10). This term is almost synonymous with paidivon, though the latter denotes a child who is young inage and refers less directly to the generative aspect.

In Aristotelian terms, we might therefore say that Jesus’ purpose was tocreate a new and unique species—“children of God”—of which he was the


first exemplar. The prologue promises that believers will become “childrenof God” (tevkna qeou') “who were born [or begotten, ejgenhvqhsan], not ofblood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (1:12–13),a formulation that implies the notion of epigenesis. In 11:52, the high priestinadvertently prophesies that Jesus’ death will serve not only the nationbut “to gather into one the dispersed children of God [tevkna qeou'].” In12:36, Jesus urges his listeners, “While you have the light, believe in thelight, so that you may become children of light.” He calls his disciples,“Children” (paidiva) before inquiring after their catch of fish (21:5), and“Little children” (tekniva) when he breaks to them the news of his imminentdeparture (13:33). As in the connection between father and son, obedienceand love are central to the relationship between Jesus and his “little chil-dren”: “They who have my commandments and keep them are those wholove me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will lovethem and reveal myself to them” (14:21).

The model and first son of this second generation is the disciple whomJesus loved. That the Beloved Disciple is a child of God from his very firstappearance in the Gospel in John 13 is indicated by the description of hisposture during Jesus’ final meal. Just as Jesus, the only begotten son of God,rests in the bosom of his father (eijı to;n kovlpon tou' patrovı; 1:18), so does theBeloved Disciple—the son of God through Jesus?—rest in Jesus’ own bosom(ejn tw'/ kovlpw'/ tou' jIhsou'; 13:23).

Others too can become God’s children by being reborn “from above” or“again” (a[nwqen) through water and the spirit (ejx u{datoı kai; pneuvmatoı). Theidea of being born through the spirit echoes 1:12–13, in which the children ofGod are begotten by God, and is therefore to be understand as birth throughthe divine spirit. More difficult is the term a[nwqen. Is one to be born a secondtime, as Nicodemus presumes (3:4), or is one to be born from above? Rele-vant here may be the fact that a[nwqen also appears in Generation of Animals,as a reference to the upper cosmos that is the source of the generative abili-ties of animal species (Gen. an. 731b25). Also problematic is the reference towater, which is often understood to refer to the amniotic fluids and/or bap-tismal waters (Pamment; Witherington). Yet it too has a striking parallel inthe Aristotelian vocabulary of epigenesis. According to Gen. an. 735b10,semen, that is, the fluid of generation that provides the sentient soul of theoffspring, is said to be made of water and spirit (Preus: 26). Thus John 3:5can be read as a declaration that a child of God is one who is begotten of thedivine seed that originates in the upper cosmos.3

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3 Odeburg (48–71) also calls attention to this range of meaning, citing parallels in Jewishand Christian texts from the first several centuries C.E., but does not refer to the Aristotelianparallels.

That the disciples achieve this rebirth is implied in 20:22, when the risenJesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. In Aristotelian terms, thepneu'ma is carried by the male seed that gives form to the offspring. Thegiving over of Jesus’ pneu'ma to the disciples therefore might imply that Jesusis thereby “begetting” them, molding them in his shape and form. Just asthe divine father begot and sent Jesus into the world through the process ofdivine pneu'ma and generation, so does Jesus beget and send his disciplesinto the world. As Jesus says to God, “As you have sent me into the world,so I have sent them into the world” (17:18; cf. 20:21). With this spiritual rebirth, the disciples inherit the abilities that Jesus had, namely, the abilityto forgive or retain the sins of others (20:23; cf. 5:14), just as Jesus acquiredthe abilities of the father to judge and to give life.4 They will do the worksthat Jesus does and even greater works than these (14:12). The relationshipthat the father and son enjoyed will now be entered into by the disciples,“that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, maythey also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”(17:21). These children of God, like the only begotten son, will receive thebenefits of dwelling with God, as Jesus goes to prepare a place for them inhis father’s house (14:2–3) and prays that “those also, whom you havegiven me, may be with me where I am” (17:24).

The Gospel uses the language of generation to describe not only thosewho become legitimate children of God but also those who claim to be so butin fact are not. The confrontation between the Johannine Jesus and the Johan-nine Jews in 8:31–59 revolves around competing genealogical assertions. TheJews initially claim Abraham as their father (8:39). In 8:41 they trace backtheir genealogy even further, to God, declaring: “We are not illegitimate chil-dren [literally: begotten out of fornication, ejk porneivaı ouj gegennhvmeqa]; wehave one father, God himself” (8:41). To this Jesus responds: “If God wereyour Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth [ejxh'lqon]from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me” (8:42 RSV). Becausetheir behavior does not resemble that of Abraham or of God, Jesus deniestheir claim to be children of Abraham and of God. Jesus’ argument in this caseappeals to the belief that paternity can be attested by the likeness or similaritybetween father and son. Epigenesis therefore provides a background againstwhich to understand the Word’s entry into the world and also to delineate the boundaries between those within the Johannine communityand those outside it. Those within belong socially and even organically, thatis, by means of divine generation, to the children of God. Those outside,


4 We might suggest that the Johannine author is here playing with the double notion ofpneu'ma, as motivating life force and as breath, drawing on both the Aristotelian and biblical no-tions of human generation.

though they may claim to be divinely begotten, are in fact children of thedevil, as evidenced by their behavior towards Jesus, the son of God.

Conclusion

Viewed through the lens of Aristotelian embryology, the Gospel of Johndescribes the creation of a new species, called the “children of God.” The ultimate cause and origin of the species is God, the divine father, who senthis lovgoı and pneu'ma into the world through the generation of his only son inhuman form. The son, Jesus, continues the work of generation not throughhis seed, but by the postresurrection infusion of his spirit into those whostruggle for true knowledge of the father through the son. These believers, inturn, are sent into the world (17:18) to propagate future generations, notthrough their own flesh and blood, but through the word—the lovgoı—ofGod (17:20). Though this species resembles the human species in most ways,it differs in one major respect: it does not die but experiences eternal life.Taken to its logical conclusion, this aspect will eventually obviate the needfor generation of the species.

Is this Aristotelian lens in the eye of the beholder (that is, my own con-struct) or somehow embedded within the Gospel itself? I began my work onthis paper convinced that I was attempting an intertextual reading. BringingAristotelian embryology into conversation with the Johannine father-sonmotif, I believed, would help me better to understand the metaphorical usesof this language. But as I proceeded with the intertextual exploration, I foundmyself lapsing not only into formalism, that is, a belief that Aristotelian language is actually “there” in the text, but falling beyond formalism intothe “intentional fallacy,” the belief, or at least, the suspicion, that the authorof the Gospel intended to draw on common Greco-Roman embryological concepts and language in the attempt to articulate the mysterious and vitalrelationship between God and Jesus.

I also became convinced that the power of this language lies not only inits metaphorical aspects but also in its literal meaning. It seems to me thatfrom the Johannine perspective, Jesus’ special relationship with God as wellas his revelatory function stem precisely from the claim that Jesus is literallyand uniquely God’s son. Believing in Jesus, truly and profoundly, transformshuman beings also into God’s children and thus allows them to experiencelife, in the present and in the future, in a way that confounds and overcomesthe usual human experience of life and death, and to see themselves as trulyhaving passed from death into life (5:24).

Whether the allusions to epigenesis are intended by the author, presentwithin the text, or simply evoked in the mind of this reader by an intertextualreading of John and Aristotle, both their usefulness and their limitations as aninterpretive tool must be recognized. A focus on the generative and familial

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context of the father-son vocabulary serves as a reminder that faith in Jesus asthe son of God has a concrete dimension in addition to the complex theologicalwebs in which it is enmeshed in the Gospel and post-Johannine theology. Weshould not rule out the possibility that John’s Jesus was seen as God’s son ina generative, perhaps even biological sense, in much the same way asMatthew’s and Luke’s gospels imply. At the same time, it is clear that thefather-son imagery, while grounded in and evocative of familial ties, devel-oped in many different directions that cannot and should not be reduced tothis single element.

The hypothesis that the Fourth Gospel understood the divine father-sonrelationship literally along the lines of Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis complicates feminist theological approaches to paternal God language. Oneproblem, much discussed by classicists, is that of Aristotle’s portrayal ofmale and female in general (Horowitz; Allen; Tress). As we have seen, Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis allows an important place for the female asthe provider of the medium of growth for the offspring. Nevertheless, builtinto his account of epigenesis is the notion of the inherent weakness and passivity of the female, as well as her lesser divinity. Also disturbing is thedescription of the female as a “defective” male. This description posits theperfectly formed male both as the ideal and as the norm for humankind.Any being that departs from the norm, such as in the area of gender, is thus considered defective. This presentation raises the question of whether, fromthe Johannine perspective, women, who in Aristotelian terms are defectivemales, were fully children of God. The positive representation of women inthe Gospel as followers of Jesus suggests that the Gospel does not adopt thisaspect of Aristotelian anthropology, but this conclusion is at odds with theabsence of any explicit indication that women were among Jesus’ immediatedisciples (Reinhartz).

Perhaps the most problematic implication of the interpretation of“father-son” language in light of Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis is theprominence it gives to the male-ness of God and Jesus. God’s ability totransform the Word, his lovgoı, into flesh is predicated on an under-standing of God as male and as in some way being capable of generationthrough divine seed just as human males generate through human seed.As the perfect offspring, Jesus too must be male. These considerations suggest that the theologians among us must consider the ways in whichgenerative and familial imagery, including the father-son labels them-selves, can be contextualized in feminist revisioning of theology andchristology. Looking at generative language in John as a cultural con-struction can be a basis of reinterpreting the relationship between Godand Jesus in terms of our own understanding that male and female shareequally in determining the viability, sex, and other characteristics of theiroffspring (D’Angelo).


An alternative is to set aside the literal notion of generation and to reinterpret generative language solely in metaphorical terms, as an act of creation the mechanics of which are beyond human understanding and perhaps even human imagination. Or perhaps, indeed, it is best simply todiscard the generative language altogether and focus instead on the concepts of mutual love and devotion as we find them in the best aspects ofour own relationships with others. I conclude that the father-son constructis like Jacob’s ladder, solidly grounded in the known realities of human existence, while reaching up to the heavens and beyond (Gen 28:12; cf. John1:51). Whether it is the only, or the best, way to traverse the distance fromearth to heaven will be known only if, or when, we all see the father, or themother, for ourselves.

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THE FATHERS ON THE FATHER IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Peter WiddicombeMcMaster University

abstract

The Fourth Gospel’s portrayal of the fatherhood of God had a significanteffect on the early church’s thinking about the nature of God and of salva-tion. Origen was the first Christian writer to make divine fatherhood atopic of analysis, and his writings are replete with citations of verses fromthe Gospel in which God is referred to as Father. Several of these versesplay a role in the development of his understanding of both the Father-Sonrelation and how the believer comes to participate in that relation. Athana-sius, writing in the context of the early Arian controversy, was the first tomake the fatherhood of God a topic of systematic analysis, and he toodrew heavily on the Gospel of John. Verses from the Gospel were integralto his argument for the full divinity of the Son and to his conception of theFather-Son relation as a relation of love. Through these two writers, some-thing of the Fourth Gospel’s depiction of the fatherhood of God found itsway into the heart of subsequent Christian thinking about God and God’srelation to humankind.

The idea of the fatherhood of God became a topic of theological concernin the third century of the Common Era, and by the middle of the fourthcentury it had become central to Christian reflection on the nature of Godand the way in which salvation was brought about. Critical to this develop-ment was the fatherhood language of the Gospel of John. This paper willfocus on how two of the most important of the early church fathers—Origen and Athanasius—interpreted the Fourth Gospel’s portrayal ofdivine fatherhood. Origen of Alexandria, the most significant commentatoron the Gospel of John (and Scripture as a whole) prior to the Council ofNicea in 325, was the first of the Fathers to make divine fatherhood a sub-ject of theological reflection, and he drew heavily on the Johannine gospelin the course of doing so. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria from 328 to371, whose explication of the Creed of Nicea set the basis for subsequentorthodox reflection on the Father-Son relation, also drew heavily on theFourth Gospel’s language of fatherhood and its presentation of the Father-Son relation. In what follows, I shall comment on the questions of whetherand in what ways Origen’s and Athanasius’s interpretations are in conti-nuity with each other.

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The Second Century

Before we turn to Origen, it would be helpful to have a sense of how fatherhood language was used earlier in the tradition. In the First and SecondApologies and the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr refers to God as Fatherwith great frequency, much more often than any of his Middle Platonist contemporaries, but he appears not to have felt any need to explain what theascription meant. He uses both the platonic phrase “Father of all” and theabsolute phrase “the Father” of the Bible and makes no distinction betweeneither the provenance or the meaning of the two styles of reference.1 The description of God as Father appears to have had no conceptual significancefor him. There is nothing in Justin’s writings to suggest that he thought thatthe word “Father” conveyed a particularly close relationship, either affec-tively or metaphysically, between the Father and the Son, either in theirpreexistent relationship or in their postincarnation relationship. There does,however, appear to be a pattern in his usage of the language of fatherhoodthat tacitly reflects the influence of the Synoptic Gospels. In those places inhis writings, mainly the Dialogue with Trypho, where Justin is commentingon the historical narrative of the life of Christ in the first three gospels, the absolute usage predominates (Widdicombe, 1998:110–11 and 117–21).

Of more immediate concern for our purposes here are the questions ofwhether Justin knew the Gospel of John, and what effect, if any, theGospel’s use of the word “Father” for God had on his manner of describingGod. The latter question is rather easier than the former, which has been amuch disputed question. In answer to the former, we may reasonably con-clude that Justin “does appear to be familiar with a document which weknow as John’s Gospel” but that “he does not (apart from 1 Apol. 61.4–5)quote from it or reproduce a saying of the Lord from it in the same waythat he does with the synoptics,” and that he did not “regard it as scriptureor the work of an apostle” (Pryor: 169; Bellinzoni: 240). But whatever wemay say about the extent of Justin’s knowledge of John, what we can say inanswer to the second question is that it has left no discernible trace on hisdescription of God as Father.

Origen

We enter a rather different world in the third century with the writingsof Origen. The idea of divine fatherhood is central to Origen’s doctrine of

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1 For a detailed study of Justin’s description of God as Father, see Widdicombe (1998). Fora survey of Greek and biblical use of the word “father” for God, see the lengthy article bySchrenk and Quell. See also Jeremias. For a survey of the recent views on how the biblical evi-dence is to be interpreted, see D’Angelo (1992a and 1992b).

God, to his understanding of the Son’s eternal generation from the Father,and to his thinking about how it is that believers become children of God.The fatherhood of God, he believed, was a teaching distinctive to the Christian faith; salvation, as he perceived it, consisted largely in coming tothe knowledge that God is Father. His conception of the fatherhood of God,however, is not presented in a systematic manner. It is made up of a highlycomplex and imaginative weaving together of elements drawn from thebroad sweep of Christian tradition, Middle Platonist thought, and Scripture.The Fourth Gospel’s language of divine fatherhood is one of the principalstrands in this interweaving. But while Origen’s writings are replete with references to verses from the Gospel (and from the Johannine Epistles) inwhich God is referred to as Father, it is important to note that Origen alsofrequently refers to verses from other books of the Bible where the word“Father” is ascribed to God. He gives no sign of having had a deliberativesense that there was a distinctively Johannine understanding of divine fatherhood. The Johannine usage has largely been absorbed unselfcon-sciously into his vocabulary and the structure of his thought, and it is deeplyimbedded in the texture of his writing. Only rarely does he use Johannineverses where the word “Father” occurs to make a specific theological point,and then it is seldom the word “Father” that is the subject of his analysis.Consequently, we shall only be able to catch fleeting glimpses of identifiablyJohannine strands in the cloth of his presentation of divine fatherhood.Before we turn directly to the Johannine influence on his idea of divine fatherhood, however, it would be useful to have before us a (summary) account both of Origen’s view of the Bible and of his doctrine of God.

Scripture and Language

Origen had a high doctrine of Scripture and of language, both of whichplayed an important role in his thinking about God as Father. The Scriptureshe regarded as the authoritative source for the knowledge of God. Whenread aright, what one encounters in the text is the presence of the Logos, andthrough this encounter, one ascends to participation in the Son’s knowledgeand love of God the Father (Widdicombe, 1994:44–62). The premier book ofthe Bible for Origen was the Fourth Gospel, the spiritual gospel as he calledit, which he regarded as the firstfruits of the gospel of Christ because it revealed the eternal divine Logos in a more direct manner than the otherthree (Comm. Jo. 1.22–3).

The words “Father” and “Son” Origen took to be the given terms of theBible for describing God. Indeed, Origen appears in one place at least—inthe course of commenting on Ps 21[22]:23 when he says that Christ came toannounce the name of God to his brothers and to praise the Father in themidst of the church—to suggest that the word “Father,” like oJ w[n of Exod

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3:14 and a number of other titles from the Hebrew Bible, is a name for God(Comm. Jo. 19.28). A name, according to Origen, has an intrinsic relationshipwith that which it names and has the ability to manifest the particular quality that makes a thing what it is. Although he nowhere discusses thematter explicitly, he seems to have believed that the biblical names actuallydescribe God’s being (Widdicombe, 1994:58–60).

Father and Son and the Doctrine of God

What, then, do the words “Father” and “Son” tell us about the nature ofGod? Origen argues that inasmuch as God has been revealed by Scripture asFather, he must eternally have been so, since to suggest otherwise would beto attribute mutability to God. This in turn, Origen believed, entailed theidea of the Son’s eternal generation. Following the Aristotelian category ofrelations (perhaps not knowing its provenance), Origen argues that thewords “Father” and “Son” are correlative terms: the very words themselves indicate the existence of that to which each directly refers, and, as terms of arelation, each simultaneously indicates the existence of the other. On thebasis of this logic, God as Father must have a Son in order to be what he isand the Son’s generation must be eternal. Accordingly, Origen can concludethat there are biblical texts (which texts he leaves unspecified) that “defi-nitely prove” that “it is necessary for the Son to be Son of a Father, and theFather to be Father of a Son” (Comm. Jo. 10.246). As we shall see, the lan-guage of the Gospel of John serves to give content to the mutuality andplurality implied by this notion of correlativity.

The Oneness of God and the Existence of the Son

One of Origen’s principal concerns was to protect the oneness of Godwhile ensuring that the real individual existence and divinity of the Son beclearly maintained against those who, fearing the charge that Christians believed in two Gods, would deny either the Son’s distinct existence or hisdivine status. In the two passages where he takes this up most deliberately,Origen relies on a number of Johannine verses in which God is referred to asFather (verses that were to be of critical importance for Athanasius as well)to make his case. In Contra Celsum 8.12, he cites a collage of verses fromJohn—“I and the Father are one” (10:30); “For the Father is in me and I in theFather” (14:10, 11); and “As I and thou are one” (17:21–22)—to establish thatChristian faith believes in only one God. But, characteristically, he providesno specific exegetical commentary on them to support his argument. In Dialogue with Heraclides 3–4 he has rather more to say on the subject. Therehe explains that Father and Son have a unity that is greater than that of twobeing one flesh or of the spiritual union of the righteous person with Christ:

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the Father and Son are one in a higher way, that is, a divine way. He goes onto remark that “This then is the sense in which we should understand ‘I andthe Father are one’ (John 10:30).” Commenting on “My food is to do the willof him who sent me and to complete his work” (John 4:34) in Commentarii inevangelium Joannis 12.228, he suggests that the union indicated by John 10:30is one of will. The Son becomes a doer of the Father’s will to such an extentthat his will becomes “indistinguishable” from the Father’s and “there are nolonger two wills but one.” It was because of this that the Son said “I and theFather are one.” Accordingly, in an allusion to John 12:45, Origen concludesthat whoever has seen the Son has seen the one who sent him.

Origen’s concern to protect the distinct existence of the Son is also to beseen in the passage from Contra Celsum 8.12. Following his citation of the Johannine verses, he is immediately at pains to make it clear that these versesshould not be taken to mean that there are not two existences, and he quotesActs 4:32 (“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart andsoul”) as a gloss on the verses, though again without explanation. While he underscores the notion that the Father and the Son “are two existences,” he reverts to the idea of unity at the end of the passage, once again echoing, at leastin part, Johannine language: the Father and the Son, though two, “are one inmental unity, in agreement, and identity of will. Thus he who has seen the Son,who is the effulgence of the glory and express image of the person of God, hasseen God in him who is God’s image” (John 14:9; Heb 1:3; Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4).

The Generation of the Son

Origen’s understanding of the Son’s generation, and what that means forhow we are to think about the Son’s status in relation to the Father, is a com-plex matter, which he does not address in anything like a systematic way. Intime-honored fashion, he describes the Son as “generated” from the Father,using the verb gennavw and its cognates, and he commonly refers to the Son, asearlier writers in the tradition had done, with the title monogenhvı, from the verbgivgnomai. But he makes no distinction between the two kinds of words, as laterwriters were to do. Athanasius and others would later distinguish betweengennavw—“begotten”—and givgnomai—”brought into being” or “generated.”2

The title monogenhvı, Origen presumably knew, had its provenance in the Johannine literature, inasmuch as he quotes John 1:14 and 18 frequently, but heappears to have felt no need to comment on it. In three fragments of Commen-tarii in evangelium Joannis, he associates the word monogenhvı with the idea thatthe Son is Son by nature, but there he is making a contrast between the Son


2 Though as we shall see, Athanasius did not do so systematically.

and the status of believers who are sons by adoption, and he does not explainwhat he means by nature.3 It would appear that at least on one occasion hecalled the Son a ktivsma (a created thing).4 It is plain, however, that althoughOrigen did not have a specialized vocabulary to describe the generation of theSon, he nevertheless believed that the Son had been formed directly anduniquely by the Father and that the relation of Father and Son was distinctfrom and (logically) prior to the relation between God and creation. He mayhave thought that this was signaled in the identification of the Son as only oruniquely generated, but if he did so, he nowhere makes it clear.

The Son’s generation, Origen is careful to point out, is not to be thoughtof as being similar to that of human beings or animals. It is, rather, to beseen as an “exceptional process, worthy of God … eternal and everlasting”(Princ. 1.2.4). His favorite descriptions of this process are those of a lightfrom its source, for which he finds support in Heb 1:3, Col 1:15, and else-where in the Bible, and an act of the will from the mind, both of which hadbeen used by earlier writers in the tradition. He also uses the word “image”itself to describe the Son. The Son, he observes, is the “prototype of allimages” (Cels. 8.17). It is because he is the image of the Father that the Sonis able to reveal the Father. This, as Origen explains, was what the Son wassignifying in the words of John 14:9 (“Whoever has seen me has seen theFather also”) and John 10:30 and 38 (Princ. 1.2.8). And it is because he is theimage of the Father’s will that the Son is able to do the Father’s will, whichis why in John 5:19–20 the Son can say, “in a grateful manner,” as Origenputs it, that “The Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he seesthe Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Father alsodoes likewise. The Father loves the Son and showed him all that he himselfdoes” (Comm. Jo. 13.231–34).

While we might be tempted to conclude that Origen’s comments aboutthe unity and harmony of wills between the Son and the Father point to anunderstanding of the union as a moral and relational union rather than ametaphysical one, the description of the Son as the image of the Father’s willsuggests that this would be an oversimplification. Although he does notmake this explicit, Origen’s thinking about the Father-Son relation is informed by a metaphysical shaping. Underlying this notion of the Son asimage is the platonic idea of participation: the image participates in thebeing of that of which it is the image, and so can make it known (Williams,

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3 The fragments are found in the Apology of Pamphilus (Comm. Jo., pp. 562–63). Generally, helinks John 1:14 and 18 with Col 1:15, and specifically with the idea of the Son being the image ofthe invisible God. See for instance Cels. 7.43.

4 In the original text of Princ. 4.4.1. Quite what he meant by the word, however, is not clear.For references to the discussion in the scholarly literature, see Widdicombe (1994:89–90).

1983:67–73). As well, we have seen that Origen uses the language of natureto describe the Son’s relation to the Father. While he does not explain whathe means by nature, he does contrast it to adoption. Those who receive thespirit of adoption “are without doubt sons of God, but not as the uniquelygenerated Son. The uniquely generated Son is Son by nature, Son alwaysand indissolubly” (Comm. Jo., pp. 562–63).

The Subordination of the Son

But while the platonic understanding of participation helps Origen ex-plain the closeness of the Father and the Son and the latter’s ability to revealthe former, it also allows the Son to be viewed as subordinate to the Father.While the image participates in the being of that of which it is the image, itdoes so in a lesser way. Accordingly, for Origen, the Son, however divine, isless than the Father, and verses from the Fourth Gospel serve to support thiscontention. Origen famously uses the absence of the definite article beforethe second occurrence of qeovı in John 1:1 to argue that the Son is divine byparticipation in the Father and thus less than the Father. While the Son isGod, the Father is aujtovqeoı, and, in the words of John 17:3: “the only trueGod” (Comm. Jo. 2.2). While the Son is goodness, the Father is goodnessitself, and while the “Son is truth,” the Father is “the Father of truth.” Thislast remark Origen makes in the passage from Contra Celsum 8, where he is concerned to maintain that there is only one God, but two existences. Thesubordination of the Son to the Father, Origen thinks, is attested as well byJohn 14:28, a verse he frequently refers to in contexts where he is stressingthe transcendence of the Father. “The Son,” he says in Contra Celsum 8.15, “isnot mightier than the Father, but subordinate. And we say this because webelieve him who said ‘The Father is greater than I.’” In Commentarii in evan-gelium Joannis, he quotes John 14:28 to substantiate his claim that the Fathertranscends the Son and Holy Spirit by much more than the latter two transcend the created order (13.151), a claim that he would later reverse inhis Commentary on Matthew, where he says that the Son and Holy Spirit tran-scend the created order by much more than the Father transcends them(15.10). In this latter passage, he makes no reference to John 14:28. In none ofthe places where he cites 14:28 does he engage in an analysis of the verse. Heappears to think its meaning is self-evident.

The implications of the subordination of the Son to the Father forOrigen’s understanding of how believers come to know the Father may bebriefly stated. In platonic fashion, Origen describes this as an ascent. The believer ascends from a knowledge of the incarnate Logos, to the knowledgeof the eternal Logos, and thus to the knowledge of the Father (Widdicombe,1994:51–62). As we shall see, Athanasius has a much different conception ofhow the believer comes to know God.


Mutuality and the Father-Son Relation

Notwithstanding his subordination of the Son to the Father, Origen alsothought of the Father-Son relation as a dynamic relation marked by mutual-ity. The Father, he explains in Homiliae in Jeremiam 9.4, unceasingly generatesthe Son. Citing Wis 7:26 and Heb 1:3, he argues that just as a source of lightdoes not produce the light that flows from it at a particular moment only but continuously, so also the Son, being the effulgence of God’s glory, is gener-ated not momentarily but continuously. He maintains that the use of thepresent tense of gennavw in Prov 8:25, following a series of aorists, confirms thatthe generation of the Son is eternal and continuous. Correspondingly, the Sonunceasingly turns to the Father. Origen concludes the passage from Commen-tarii in evangelium Joannis, where he discusses the absent article in John 1:1, bysaying that the Son gives expression to his life with the Father “by remainingalways in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father” (2.18).Elsewhere, referring to Prov 8:30, Origen describes the Father’s life as an eternal rejoicing in the presence of the Son, for it is the Father’s nature to rejoice eternally and he delights eternally in his only begotten Son (Princ.1.4.4; 4.4.1; Comm. Jo. 1.55). In his commentary on chapter 12 of John, he observes that the Logos is Son, glorifying and being glorified by the Father(Comm. Jo. 32.345–66). For Origen, then, the Son shares in the Father’s gloryirrespective of his relation to creation, and, as Williams remarks, Origen“hints at a fundamental datum of later trinitarian thought, that the Father-Son relation is simply part of the definition of the word God, and so does notexist for the sake of anything else than itself” (1987a:139).

Salvation and the Knowledge of God As Father

As important as Origen’s conception of divine fatherhood was for hisdoctrine of God, it was no less important for his soteriology, and onceagain verses from the Gospel of John play an important role in Origen’s development of this aspect of his thought. Despite his concern to protectagainst the Marcionite distinction between the just God of the HebrewBible and the good Father of Christ of the New Testament, Origen isstrongly inclined to say that the revelation that God is Father is unique tothe incarnation. In the course of his exegesis of John 8:19 (“Jesus answered,‘you know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me you would knowmy Father also,’”) Origen argues that God is known by different aspects(ejpivnoia). According to one aspect, God is known as God, according to another God is known as Creator, to another as Judge, and to another asFather. While he acknowledges that the word “Father” is used of God inthe Hebrew Bible, Origen is tempted to blur the evidence, by maintainingthat the word Father is never so used in the prayers of the Hebrew Bible

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(Comm. Jo. 19.26–28).5 He remarks that he “has not yet succeeded in findingin a prayer [in the Hebrew Bible] that confident affirmation in styling Godas Father which was made by the Saviour” (Prayer 22.1). This is a particu-larly significant point for him as he regards prayer as the most intimateform of communication with God.

Jesus’ words to Mary in John 20:17 (“Go to my brothers and say to them,‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’”)Origen regards as an especially telling indication of the time at which therevelation of God’s fatherhood took place. In one of the instances where heuses the verse to this end (Comm. Matt. 17.36), he underscores his argumentby linking the Johannine verse with Matthew 22:31–32: “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘Iam the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He isnot the God of the dead but of the living.” He maintains that while it is evident that each of the patriarchs had an extremely close relationship withGod, they knew God only as God, whereas the disciples had a much supe-rior relationship with God because they knew God as Father. Thisknowledge they had acquired through their participation in the Son’s relationship with the Father. It was only at the moment of Jesus’ statementto Mary that Christ granted Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the favor that hence-forth they should know God as Father.

Some of Origen’s most beautiful and impassioned writing is to be foundin his description of the transformation that takes place in the believer’s relationship to God as the believer comes to know God as Father. The believer is moved from a relationship with God that is like the relation between a slave and a master, a relation characterized by fear, to one that islike the relationship of a son to a father, a relation characterized by love(Widdicombe, 1994:93–97). In one of his most elaborate statements concern-ing this progression, Origen writes that as the believer comes to know Godas Father, the believer advances from the status of servant to that of disciple,from disciple to infant, from infant to brother of the Son, and so becomes ason of God. “After the resurrection,” he explains, “those to whom [Christ]said ‘Little Children’ (John 13:33) become brothers of the one who earlier said‘Little Children,’ even as they are endowed with a different quality as a resultof the resurrection.” As evidence for this, he once again cites John 20:17(Comm. Jo. 32.368–75).

As this transformation in the believer’s status takes place, the affectivequality of the believer’s relationship with God also changes. In a paraphraseof Rom 8:15, he describes the state that precedes being a child of God as one


5 He makes the same point in his treatise Prayer 20.1.

in which people are “slaves of God, because they have received the spirit ofservitude, which leads to fear” (Comm. Jo. 19.289). But, as he notes elsewhere,“Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18; Comm. Matt. 13.26). While Christinitially is known as Lord, he becomes the friend of those who strive forpiety and wisdom, a progression summed up by Jesus, as Origen remarks,in the words of John 15:15: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servantdoes not know what the master is doing, but I call you friends” (Comm. Jo.1.201–2).6 But it is not simply a striving for piety and wisdom that brings thischange about. What lies at the heart of the matter is love. Origen takes Hera-cleon to task in Commentarii in evangelium Joannis for maintaining that whilesome are “sons by nature,” others are “sons by adoption.” Origen arguesthat John 8:42 (“Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you wouldlove me, for I proceeded and came forth from God’”) shows that the qualityof one’s relationship to God is not a matter of preordained nature but rathera matter of choice. God, Origen says simply, is Father of those who loveJesus (20.17.135–39). Finally, this transformation culminates in the ability to address God as Father in prayer, a point he makes in the discussion of John8:19 in the passage from Commentarii in evangelium Joannis (19.26–28) referredto above.7

While coming to know God as Father is the work of the Son and theSpirit, Origen believed that this was bound up also with the moral behav-ior of the believer. Origen maintains that only those who live a morallyperfect life in imitation of their heavenly Father could call God Father.8

This dimension of Origen’s thinking about divine fatherhood also featuresthe Johannine writings, though with respect to this topic he uses the FirstEpistle rather more than the Gospel. His understanding of the matter revolves around the polarity he posits between the fatherhood of God andthat of the devil. A person is son of either one or the other—it seems thatOrigen could not conceive of an intermediate condition—and the committingof any sin means that one has the devil rather than God as one’s father. Insupport of his argument, he repeatedly cites 1 John 3:8 and 9: “Everyonewho commits sin is a child of the devil,” and “Those who have been bornof God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, be-cause they have been born of God.” In this regard he also cites John 8:41and 44: “You are indeed doing what your Father does,” and “You arefrom your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires.”

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6 A verse he uses elsewhere in connection with Rom 8:15 to make much the same point.See, for instance, “The Commentary of Origen upon the Epistle to the Ephesians,” p. 237.

7 He makes the same point in his discussions of the Lord’s Prayer in Prayer (22.1) and inHomiliae in Lucam (frg. 73). See Widdicombe 1994:105–10.

8 He makes the point, for instance, in Prayer 22.4, where he alludes to Matt 5:44–45.

The Restoration of All Things

I conclude my analysis of Origen’s writings with one final example ofhis use of the Fourth Gospel’s language of fatherhood. Origen’s vision of the fulfillment of the soul’s journey is that those who believe in the Son shallcome to know and to contemplate the Father as now only the Son knowsand contemplates the Father. In Commentarii in evangelium Joannis, he writesthat at the “restoration” (ajpokatavstasiı) of all things

there will be one activity for those who have come to God by the Word, whois with him, which is to contemplate God, so that they might all become perfect sons of God, being thus transformed in the knowledge of the Father,as now only the Son knows the Father. (1.91)

Origen concludes the discussion with an allusion to John 17:21, a verse heuses frequently when discussing the restoration: perfect sonship and thesingle activity proper to it will be realized “when we become one as the Sonand the Father are one.”9 In Exhortation to Martyrdom 39, he explains that it isnot by loving transitory things but by doing the will of the Father that weshall acquire the unity with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit referred to inJesus’ prayer of John 17:21–22. Once again, he does not engage in an analysisof the Johannine verse, but for him, as he makes clear often elsewhere, doingthe will of the Father entails obedience to the Father and the living of a lifethat manifests the moral perfection of the Father (for instance, Prayer 22.4).What Origen is hinting at in this vision of the restoration is the possibilitythat through the Son and the Holy Spirit the believer may be taken up intothe plurality of the divine life and share in the Father-Son relation.10

Athanasius

Throughout his writings, Athanasius, no less than Origen, quotes verseafter verse from the Gospel of John in which God is referred to as Father(though it should be noted that, unlike Origen, he did not write a commen-tary on the Gospel). Several of those verses, particularly 10:30 and 14:9, 10,and 11, are texts fundamental to his conception of the relation between the


9 In Princ. 3.4.4 and 3.4.1 he cites the verse to make the point that the resurrected body willbe a spiritual body. In Comm. Jo. 28.184, he uses the verse as a gloss on the idea that through hisdeath Jesus will gather together the scattered children of God.

10 Notwithstanding the apparent similarity at the restoration of believers with the Son, it isplain from frequent comments that Origen has no intention of diminishing the fundamentalcontrast between the Son by nature and sons by adoption. At the end, the believer will not beabsorbed into the divine and be dehominized (Hom. Luc. frg. 73; Comm. Jo., pp. 562–63, which Ireferred to above in the discussion of Origen’s use of the word “nature”).

Father and the Son. The Johannine idea of rebirth, together with the Paulineidea of adoption, is basic to his soteriology. But it is no more clear that he hada sense of a distinctively Johannine portrayal of the divine fatherhood thanthat his Alexandrian predecessor had. As was the case with Origen, the Johannine materials are part of the warp and woof of Athanasius’s doctrineof God. That doctrine was forged in the first half of the fourth century in thecourse of the Arian controversy about the divinity of the Son. As we shallsee, writing in this context, Athanasius was to apply the Johannine texts in arather different manner than had Origen.

Athanasius assumes much of what Origen had set out concerning the fatherhood of God. Like Origen, he argues for the centrality of fatherhood tothe nature of God, the eternal correlativity of the Father and the Son, and theexistence of that relation for its own sake. But he extends and refines these elements, making them the structural pattern of his theology. With Athana-sius, for the first time in the Christian tradition, the concept of divinefatherhood and the relation of Father and Son are made the subjects of systematic analysis. Confronted with the challenge that he believed Ariantheology posed to the church’s largely unreflective acceptance of fatherhoodlanguage to refer to God, Athanasius attempted to clarify and to determinespecifically what that tradition of usage meant for a coherent theology of thedivine nature and a coherent theology of salvation. For him, nothing lessthan the affirmation of the full divinity of the Son would protect the Son’sstatus as savior, and nothing less would protect the fatherhood of God.

Scripture and Divine Fatherhood

Like Origen, Athanasius believed that the Bible, as divinely inspired, wasthe authoritative source for knowledge about God (Widdicombe,1994:155–58). What we discover when we read the Scriptures correctly is thatthe basic word for God revealed by the Son is the word “Father” and not theword “unoriginate,” as Athanasius charged the Arians with maintaining. It isthe word “Father” above all that tells us what the divine nature is like, and itis this word that is to be the first word of theological discourse and the wor-ship of the church (Widdicombe, 1994:165–71). In his major work, theOrationes contra Arianos, written in the early 340s,11 Athanasius points out thatit is as Father and not as unoriginate that Jesus addressed God and that Jesushas enjoined believers to do the same. Drawing on the evidence of the Lord’sPrayer and the baptismal formula, Athanasius observes, with characteristic

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11 Kannengiesser has argued that the third oration was not written by Athanasius but bythe young Apollinarius (see especially, 405–16). Stead has called Kannengiesser’s argument intoquestion (1985).

sardonic wit, that when the Son taught us to pray, he did not say, “When youpray, say, O God unoriginate,” but rather, “When you pray, say, Our Father,which art in heaven.” And, in the words of Matt 28:19, the Son did not instruct us to baptize “in the name of unoriginate, and originate, nor in thename of creator and creature, but in the name of Father, Son, and HolySpirit” (C. Ar. 1.34). For Athanasius, the calling of God “Father” lies at theheart of the devotional and liturgical life of the believer.

The Coessentiality of the Son

The full divinity of the Son Athanasius thought was entailed in the bib-lical words “Father” and “Son.” These two words, together with the word“begotten,” he believed indicated in themselves that the relation between theFather and the Son was one of being and not, as Arius had said, of will. ForAthanasius, the core element in the words “Father” and “Son” is the semanticfield that covers kinship, biological continuity, and membership in the samegenus.12 As he remarks in his Letter to the Bishops of Africa 8, coessentiality isthe distinctive mark of the relation of a son to a father—this in contrast tothe relation of will between a maker and the thing made.

John 10:30 and 14:9, 10, and 11, among others, were texts that Athanasiusregarded as evidence that the coessentiality of the Son and the Father is partof the fabric of the biblical understanding of the relation between the two. Inan example typical of his interpretation of the verses, he says that the Sondoes not “accrue to the [Father’s] essence by grace and participation,” but“the very being of the Son is the proper offspring of the Father’s essence,”and cites John 10:30 and 14:10 in support of the argument (C. Ar. 3.6).

The Begetting of the Son

Athanasius clearly distinguished between the begetting of the Son, forwhich he always uses gennavw and its cognates, and never givgnomai, exceptwhere he is quoting Scripture, and the making of creation, for which he usu-ally uses ktivzw or poievw. But he does not consistently distinguish betweengennavw and givgnomai. In some passages, he distinguishes between the two inorder to make a theological point. In Orationes contra Arianos 2.59, for instance, he maintains that the occurrence of givgnomai in John 1:12 and gen-navw in 1:13 establishes that human beings are not sons by nature, that statusbeing true only of the Logos, but that they may come to be called sons


12 Though no less than Origen is he careful to ensure that the notion of divine generationalso be distinguished from human generation. Divine generation is not conditioned by time; itis an incorporeal and impassable generation (C. Ar. 1.14, and 27–28; De decretis 10–11).

through adoption. Perhaps not surprisingly, he does not then go on to com-ment on the implications of the description of the Son as monogenhvı in verse14. But if the description of the Son as monogenhvı was a source of unease forhim, he does not betray that either here or elsewhere. While he refers to theSon as monogenhvı repeatedly in his writings and quotes John 1:14 and 18often, he rarely comments on the verses. On one of the few occasions wherehe does, however, it is clear that he thinks the prefix movnoı (“only,”“unique”) gives us the interpretive key for the meaning of the word (C. Ar.2.62–64). He explains that the difference between the description of the Son,on the one hand, as monogenhvı (John 1:18), and, on the other, as prwtovtokoı(“firstborn,” Col 1:15 and 18), turns on the recognition that the two wordsdescribe different categories of relations. The word monogenhvı refers to theSon’s eternal relation to the Father and is used because in that context thereare “no brethren” of the Son, but “only” he, inasmuch as there is no otherWord, or Wisdom. The Son is uniquely related to the Father. “Firstborn,”by contrast, refers to the Son’s incarnate existence and is used because, in assuming flesh, the Son was one of many, though as “first,” he was preeminentamong them.13 Athanasius does not explicitly say so, but he seeminglythought that the word only was determinative of the sense in which “gener-ated” is to be taken.

While Athanasius uses much the same imagery as Origen to describe thegeneration of the Son, for him to say that the Son was the radiance or imageof the Father entailed the full participation of the Son in the being of theFather. Thus, for Athanasius, the image must possess all the attributes of theone in whose image it is (C. Ar. 1.21). Accordingly, the Son can be a subject ofthe divine attributes in the same way that the Father is a subject of the divine attributes. And because the Son shares in the divine attributes, it was possiblefor the Son to bring the divine presence into the created order and for him todo the work of the Father, for it was as much his work as it was the Father’s.Consequently, while Origen believed that the Christian ascended from theknowledge of the Son to the knowledge of God, Athanasius argued that John14:9, 10, and 38 mean that in knowing the Son, the believer has an immediateapprehension of the Father. “For,” as Athanasius says, “the Father’s godheadis contemplated in the Son” (C. Ar. 3.5) and, conversely, “the Son is in andcontemplated in the divinity of the Father” (C. Ar. 3.6). It is an interpretationof these and other Johannine texts that Athanasius was to come back to timeand again, both in the Orationes contra Arianos and in his later works.

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13 Underlying the discussion is the hermeneutical principle that some verses are to be in-terpreted as referring to the Son’s eternal existence and others to his incarnate existence, aprinciple basic to his and much subsequent exegetical practice. Athanasius was the first to applythe principle in a thoroughgoing way (Widdicombe, 1994:157).

John 14:28 seems to have left Athanasius unperturbed. He only rarelyrefers to it. On the first occasion where he cites the verse (C. Ar. 1.13), heshows no concern to deal with the issue of its apparent subordination ofthe Son to the Father. He cites it rather (and somewhat obscurely) to helpmake the point that the Son is eternal and thus that such Arian phrases as“he was not,” “before,” and “when” could not apply to the Son. On thesecond occasion (C. Ar. 1.58), he does address the matter explicitly, and hedoes so by making the coessentiality of the Son and Father the interpretiveframework for his commentary (as he does in the third instance [C. Ar.3.7], though there the verse is only one of a number on which he is commenting). In 1.58, he takes the verse to refer to the eternal relation ofthe Father and the Son. He says that because the Son is “proper to theFather’s essence and one in nature with it,” the Son did not say that theFather was “better” than the Son. The word “greater” he takes simply tosignify that the Son has his generation from the Father. Athanasius is notunique among the Fathers in viewing the verse in this way. Tertullian,Hilary, and Gregory of Nazianzus did so as well, but why Athanasiusshould have taken this tack is not clear. Others, Ambrose, Augustine, andCyril of Alexandria among them, took the verse to refer to Christ’s incar-nate existence, an approach that, as I observed above, is fundamental toAthanasius’s hermeneutics.

Love and the Father-Son Relation

The words “Father” and “Son,” however, do not only tell us that the Sonis coequal in being with the Father. According to Athanasius, they also tellus that the godhead is a dynamic, inherently generative relation, a relationcharacterized by love. Athanasius was the first among the Greek patristicauthors to identify the characteristic and determinative quality of the relation between Father and Son as love. The Father, perfect in nature, canonly fully express his nature in love and joy with a subject who is equallyperfect, who is able perfectly to return that love and joy. The Son is such aperfect subject (C. Ar. 1.38). John 3:35 and 5:20 frame Athanasius’s portrayalof this. He introduces his discussion of the Father-Son relation in Orationescontra Arianos 3.66, by citing a combination of the two verses: “The Fatherloves the Son and shows him all things.” The Father, Athanasius explains,wills and loves the Son, and with the same will the Son loves and honorsthe Father. Quoting Prov 8:30, he describes the divine life as one of mutualdelight, as we have seen Origen do before him. The Father delights in seeinghimself in his own perfect image, the Son, and the Son, with the same delight, rejoices in seeing himself in the Father. There is, as Athanasius explains, nothing intermediate between the Father and the Son. Citing John14:10, Athanasius concludes that “the Son is the Father’s all and nothing


was in the Father before the Son” (C. Ar. 2.82). As Athanasius conceives it,the divine life consists in a plurality and mutuality in which there is aneternal richness of intentional enjoyment and love arising from God’s gen-erative nature as Father and Son. It can be so because the Son, eternallybegotten by the Father, shares in, and is expressive of, the divine act ofbeing, which is itself a “generative love that is eternally generative of love”(Williams, 1987a:241). In the divine relation of Father and Son, being andwill are one. The words “Father” and “Son,” then, identify the divine beingas a “generative nature,” as “fruitful” (C. Ar. 2.2), and it is this act of beingas love that gives rise first to creation and then to redemption (Widdi-combe, 1994:206–9).

Salvation and Divine Love

Compared to Origen, Athanasius has little to say about the believer’stransition from knowing God as Lord to knowing him as Father. He largelyassumes this, as he does the corresponding transformation of the relation-ship from one of fear to one of love. But he does, in proto-Augustinianfashion, make the eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit themodel for the life of the church. The Christian community, through the “indwelling and intimacy” of the Spirit, is to participate in the relationshipof Father and Son and to reflect the unity that the Son has with the Father (C.Ar. 1.46). His understanding of this turns on his interpretation of John 17:11and 20–23.

As we have seen, Origen quotes John 17:21 to confirm his vision of theunity that would be realized at the restoration of all things, and he does notattempt to explain the nature of the union. But in the light of the early Ariancontroversy, Athanasius felt constrained to work this out. He distinguishesbetween two kinds of union. The Arians, he explains, contend that if the Sonwere equal in being with the Father, as the orthodox maintain, John 17:11and 20–23 would have to be interpreted to mean either that believers alsowere equal in being to the Father or that the union between the Father andSon was like that between the believers and the Father, and not one of being.(The full discussion runs from C. Ar. 3.17 to 25.) In a long response, Athanasiusargues that the occurrence of the word “as” in 17:11, 21, and 22 shows thatthe two relations are not to be taken as equivalent. While the relation ofFather and Son is one of being, that of the Father and the church is to be a relation in which the church becomes “one in the Father and Son, in mindand harmony of Spirit.” In an allusion to Eph 4:2–3, Athanasius concludesthat the bond that creates this oneness and holds the common life of thechurch together is love (C. Ar. 3.23). He is not far from identifying the lovethat Christians are to have for one another with the eternal love of the Fatherfor the Son and the Son for the Father, a love that Augustine later was to say

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was the Holy Spirit. But the elements of such an idea are present in his account of the life of the church.14

Conclusion

My summary remarks are few. There is no evidence to suggest thateither Origen or Athanasius had a sense that the Gospel of John’s portrayalof divine fatherhood was distinctive, but it is plain that the Gospel’s por-trayal of God as Father had a profound impact on their thinking. They bothdrew on verses from the Gospel in which God is described as Father in thecourse of the construction of their doctrines of God and of salvation. Boththeologians saw in the Fourth Gospel evidence of a relationship of intimacybetween the Father and the Son, though it was an intimacy they thought attested to in other biblical texts as well. The Fourth Gospel served to helpOrigen in his characterization of the divine life as one of plurality and mu-tuality, and, while he did not say that the principle quality of the Father-Sonrelationship is love, he came close to the idea. Athanasius did so identifythat quality, and verses from John played a critical role in the identification.Both thinkers believed that this understanding of the divine life had radicalimplications for salvation. For both salvation consisted ultimately in a par-ticipation in that love, and this too they thought attested by the FourthGospel. The interpretations of each, of course, reflect their underlying assumptions about the nature of reality. While Origen used the Johanninetexts to emphasize both the Son’s closeness to the Father and his subordinatestatus, Athanasius used them to support the idea that the Son was coequalwith the Father, as the context of the early Arian controversy seemingly required. But whatever we may think about how the two theologians interpreted the material, we may say that through Origen, and Athanasiusafter him, something of the Fourth Gospel’s portrayal of the love of the Sonfor the Father and the Father for the Son, and the love of both for the believer, found its way into the heart of Christian thinking about the natureof God and of salvation.


14 Explaining how the preposition “in” is to be understood in 1 John 4:13 (“We abide in[God] and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit”) Athanasius remarks that our partici-pation in the oneness of the Father and Son is brought about through our participation in theSpirit (C. Ar. 3.24).

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1971 Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione. Ed. and trans. R. Thomson. OxfordEarly Christian Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

1978 Select Writings and Letters of Athanasius of Alexandria. Ed. ArchibaldRobertson. NPNF1 4.

1986 Der Zehnte Osterfestbrief des Athanasius von Alexandrien. Trans. RudolfLorenz. BZNW 49.

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1994 Iustini Martyris apologiae pro Christianis. Ed. Miroslav Marcovich. Berlinand New York: de Gruyter.

1979 The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Ed. A. C. Cleve-land. ANF 1.

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Origen Origenes Werke. GCS. Leipzig: Hinrichs.

1899 Vol. 1. De Martyrio and Contra Celsum I–IV. Ed. P. Koetschau.

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1913 Vol. 5. De Principiis. Ed. P. Koetschau.

1959 Vol. 9. Homilae in Lucam. Ed. M. Rauer. 2d ed.

1935 Vol. 10. Commentaria in Matthaeum. Ed. E. Klostermann.

1893 The Philocalia of Origen. Ed. J. A. Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1901–2 “The Commentary of Origen upon the Epistle to the Ephesians.” Ed. J. Gregg. JTS 3:233–244, 398–420, and 554–576.

1911 Der Scholien-Kommentar des Origenes zur Apokalypse Iohannis. Ed. C. Diobouniotis and A. Harnack. Texte und Untersuchungen zurGeschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 38. Leipzig: Hinrichs.

1953 Origen: Contra Celsum. Trans. Henry Chadwick. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1953.

1954 Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and the Bishops with Him concerning theFather and the Son and the Soul. In Alexandrian Christianity. Trans. J. E. L.Oulton and H. Chadwick. LCC 2. London.

1954 Exhortation to Martyrdom. In Alexandrian Christianity. Trans. J. E. L.Oulton and H. Chadwick. LCC 2. London.

1954 On Prayer. In Alexandrian Christianity. Trans. J. E. L. Oulton and H. Chadwick. LCC 2. London.

1960 Entretien D’Origène Avec Héraclide. SC 67. Ed. and trans. Jean Scherer.Paris: Cerf.

1962 Homélies sur Saint Luc. SC 87. Ed. and trans. H. Crouzel, F. Fournier andP. Périchon. Paris: Cerf.

1966–82 Commentaire sur saint Jean. SC 120, 157, 222, 290. Ed. and trans. CécileBlanc. Paris: Cerf.

1973 Origen on First Principles. Trans. G. W. Butterworth. Gloucester, Mass.:Peter Smith.

1976–77 Homélies sur Jérémie. SC 232, 238. Ed. and trans. P. Nautin. Paris: Cerf.


1978–84 Traité Des Principes. SC 252, 253, 268, 269, 312. Ed. and trans. HenriCrouzel and Manlio Simonetti. Paris: Cerf.

1978 Commentary on Matthew I, II, and X–XIV. Trans. John Patrick. ANF 10.5th ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

1989 Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1–10. Trans. RonaldHeine. FC 80. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

1993 Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 13–32. Trans. RonaldHeine. FC 89. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

Bellinzoni, Arthur1992 “The Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century.” The Second Century

9:197–258.

Chadwick, Henry1966 Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin,

Clement, and Origen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

D’Angelo, Mary Rose1992a “Abba and ‘Father’: Imperial Theology and the Jesus Traditions.” JBL

111:611–30.

1992b “Theology in Mark and Q: Abba and ‘Father’ in Context.” HTR85:149–74.

Dillon, John1977 The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism 80 B. C. to A. D. 220. London:

Duckworth.

Gregg, Robert C., and Dennis E. Groh 1981 Early Arianism: A View of Salvation. London: SCM.

Hanson, R. P. C. 1959 Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origen’s

Interpretation of Scripture. London: SCM.

1988 The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy318–381. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

Heine, R. E. 1986 “Can the Catena Fragments of Origen’s Commentary on John Be

Trusted?” VC 40:118–34.

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Ariens. Théologie historique 70. Paris: Beauchesne.

Lash, Nicholas1982 “‘Son of God’: Reflections on a Metaphor.” Concilium:11–16.

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Lowry, Charles W.1938 “Did Origen Style the Son a ktivsma?” JTS 39:39–42.

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1985 Review of Charles Kannengiesser, Athanase d’Alexandrie évêque etécrivain: Une lecture des traités contre les Ariens. JTS 36:220–29.

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Patristische Texte und Studien 28. Berlin: de Gruyter.

1989 “Hermeneutics and Soteriology in Origen’s Peri Archôn.” Pp. 333–48 inPapers Presented to the Tenth International Conference on Patristic StudiesHeld in Oxford, 1987. Studia patristica 21. Ed. E. A. Livingstone. Leuven:Peeters.

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Young, Frances1997 Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.


DISSEMINATIONS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MIDRASHON FATHERHOOD IN JOHN’S GOSPEL1

Jeffrey L. StaleySeattle University

abstract

This essay takes fragments from the Fourth Gospel’s father-son language andthrough a mix of poetry and prose, self-disclosure, and scholarly discourse,explores their theological connection to my experience of being a father. Iread my experience of having a son and a daughter as a context from whichto critique that dominating, gendered metaphor in the Fourth Gospel. By fo-cusing particularly on my lifelong desire for a daughter and the unplanneddecision to circumcise my firstborn son, my essay raises important questionsabout violence, the male body, and Jesus’ death as “the will of the father.” Although my essay is not explicitly theoretical, it could be termed post-feminist in its literary style and in its avoidance of universalizing a particularideology, identity, or experience; and postmodern in its intertextual weave ofpopular music, Jacques Derrida, and medical texts on circumcision.

“… to say the opposite of Scripture is often precisely what midrash does.”

—Jon D. Levenson

“In midrashic, somewhat parabolic fashion our leading stories complicatethe binary or polar thinking that would cleanly distinguish the ethical fromthe critical, the analytical from the applied, weapon from tool—the kind ofthinking that comfortably relies upon pure distinctions and categories.”

—Phillips and Fewell

Fragment One

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” (John 8:39)

And Abraham knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and theynamed him Isaac. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked west. And he

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1 An earlier version of this essay was published under the title “Fathers and Sons: Frag-ments from an Autobiographical Midrash on the Gospel of John” (Kitzberger: 65–85).

saw that the land of Indiana was good land, and he journeyed westward andsettled there. Abraham Staley and Mary had two sons and two daughters.Abraham lived seventy-seven years, and he died and was buried beside hiswife beneath a grove of hickory trees near Cumberland, Indiana.

And Isaac knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. And theynamed him Abraham. Isaac and Lavinia had five sons and four daughters.Isaac lived seventy-five years, and he died and was buried beside his motherand father, beneath the grove of hickory trees near Cumberland, Indiana.

And Abraham knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. Andshe named him Arlonzo. For she said, “There have been far too many Biblenames in this family.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked west,and he saw that the land of Kansas was good land, and he journeyed west-ward and settled there. Abraham and Eliza had nine sons. Abraham livedeighty-two years, and he died and was buried beside his wife in Ottawa,Kansas.

And Arlonzo knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. Andthey named him Lloyd. Arlonzo and May Belle had five sons. Arlonzolived ninety-one years, and he died and was buried beside his wife inWellsville, Kansas.

And Lloyd knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. And theynamed him Robert. And there was a famine in the land, so Lloyd and Marymoved to the city. Lloyd and Mary had six sons and three daughters. Andwhen they were old, lo, they lifted up their eyes and looked west. And theysaw that the land of California was good land, and they journeyed westwardand settled there. Lloyd lived eighty-eight years, and he died and was buriedbeside his wife in Atascadero, California.

And Robert knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. And theynamed him Jeffrey Lloyd. And Robert lifted up his eyes and looked westfrom Kansas, and he saw that the land of Arizona was good land, and hejourneyed westward and settled there. Bob and Betty had four sons and twodaughters. And Betty died and was buried at Immanuel Mission, on theNavajo Reservation. Then Robert took Esther for his wife, and they movedto Phoenix, a royal city, a miracle of glass and steel rising like a gigantic birdout of hot desert ashes. And there they live, even until this day.

And Jeffrey knew his wife. . .

Fragment Two

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53)

And he said,“This is my body;

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take, eat ye all of it.Run your tongueover its soft round smoothness.Breathe deep its heavenly scent.Gaze long at its fragile opaqueness.Cup it in your hands, caress it tenderly.Nibble its outer edges slowly, slowly.Then swallow me whole.Eat me up, up, up;sup on me, one long,everlastingly long sip—dip in,dine, dine.Come to me,oh come.Come unto me,on to menow, now,and I will give you rest.”And it was so.And he said,“Here is my life bloodpoured out for you;drink deeply of it.Remember mein the rhythmic passagesof your life.Wash your bodyin my heavenly flow.Find in its tingling flushyourself unearthed,rebirthed.A wriggling mass of unumbilicled joy.”And it was so.And so she conceived and bore a son, and they named him Benjamin,

for they said, “It is a good name, a family name.”Jeffrey and Barbara had one son and one daughter. And they are alive,

even until this day.

staley: disseminations 129

Fragment Three

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

I have always wanted to be a father,2 just like in the beginning. But Iwanted to be the father of a daughter first. A son could come later. Just giveme the daughter first. My mother promised I would have the daughter first.Moments before she died I saw my daughter in her eyes—a translucentembryo in her last, silent tear that said, “I’m sorry I will never get a chanceto hold your baby girl in my arms.”

Now I have two children. A son and a daughter. But my mother waswrong. The son came first.

jEn ajrch'/ h'jn oJ lovgoı kai; oJ lovgoı h'jn pro;ı to;n qeovn, kai; qeo;ı h'jn oJ lovgoı.

jEn can mean “in, with, or by,” says Arndt and Gingrich’s A Greek-EnglishLexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. And it canmean a host of other things too. It’s like the Hebrew preposition b. The rabbisspeculated about the meaning of the preposition b together with the nountyDar

3 in Gen 1:1. Does the expression mean “In the beginning” or “Withthe first thing”? And if it means “with the first thing,” then what is that firstthing to which it refers? Maybe it refers to hmkc, said the rabbis. God madewisdom first, a female creature, and then everything else followed from herand was imprinted with her image. Perhaps John 1:1–18 is a fragment of ahymn to wisdom in which the feminine, Hellenistic sofiva or the feminine,Semitic hmkc has metamorphosed into the masculine lovgoı.4

Some say that Christians, like those Jewish rabbis of old, also have a the-ology of prepositions. The real body and blood of Jesus are given “in, with,and under” the bread and wine, say Lutherans in argument with Calvinistsand Roman Catholics. You are baptized “ejn pneuvmati aJgivw/,” says the authorof Luke-Acts (Acts 11:16). But does the writer mean “in the Holy Spirit,”“with the Holy Spirit,” or “by the Holy Spirit”? Entire denominations havebeen founded upon fine-line distinctions such as these. It’s the difference, forinstance, between telling my son, “Go play by yourself for awhile,” andtelling him, “Go play with yourself for awhile.” The distinction is crucial, but

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2 “But what is a father?” asks Jacques Derrida (80). And Dorothy Lee answers that as far asthe Gospel of John is concerned, a close reading “suggests that, far from supporting patriarchalconstructions of power, the notion of God as father challenges such projections and radically re-forms the basic symbol within its cultural framework” (147).

3tyDar probably should not be confused with Ra and Thoth, or Ra and Seth, those gods of

ancient Egyptian mythology (Derrida: 87–90).4 “logos is a wild creature, an ambiguous animality” (Derrida: 116).

he doesn’t seem to do much of either. Most often he is outside in the neigh-borhood, organizing games among his friends. My daughter, on the otherhand, is more apt to play by herself and with herself.5

“See, Dad, I have a little penis,” she announces proudly as she sits in thebathtub and spreads her labia apart.

“Well, kind of,” I say. I try to explain to her the difference between boysand girls. But she has already lost interest. She is busy blowing bubbles andtrying to catch them in the palms of her hands.

I want to be right up front about this gendered thing in John, just as Ihave been with my children. Gender matters.

jEn ajrch'/ h'jn oJ lovgoı kai; oJ lovgoı h'jn pro;ı to;n qeovn, kai; qeo;ı h'jn oJ lovgoı,the author of the Fourth Gospel writes. One feminine noun and two mas-culine nouns. And the two masculines, hiding behind the one feminine,have overpowered (katevlaben) the feminine sofiva and hmkc in the historyof exegesis (Lee: 152).

But if you take the masculine ending oı off of qeovı you simply have qe. “Inthe beginning was the Qe.” I like that. The terminal sigma, shaped like a slithering snake, is absent, and in its absence qeovı loses its masculine power.

In the beginning was the word—defrocked, emasculated, skinned,undone. And the word was with the … the … whatever—and the wordwas—whatever. Whatever the oı will make it be. And mark my words, theoı will make itself into something.

Fragment Four

All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:3)

That sneaky, sibilant sigma, shaped like a snake, is the one sound I couldnot say as a lisping boy of four. And not only at four. It would be twenty moreyears before my future wife finally taught me where to place my tongue.6

“Like this,” she said, smiling encouragingly. And she opened her mouthinto a wide O. So esses came spewing out of my mouth, just as if I were theGihon Spring or the Euphrates River. And from that day forward the esseshave not stopped coming.

Then one day a son came out. Right out of a wide, pulsating O. Theunique child of his father. Half Chinese. The first non-Caucasian Staley child


5 “Play is always lost when it seeks salvation in games” (Derrida: 158).6 “Let us imagine for this double function, localized in one and the same site, a single

transgression, which would be generated by a simultaneous use of speech and kissing…”(Barthes: 141).

that I have been able to find in my family genealogy; the first non-Asianchild in my wife’s family. A wrong-headed child from the Staley-Wongfamily. His mixed-up genetics are a metaphor for my own mixed-up life.

The Father is in me and I am in the Father. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together… .I am the eggman… .I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob, g’goo goo g’joob.In the beginning there was my son. And then three years later a daugh-

ter came along. My son is now eleven and my daughter is seven.“Seven and three-quarters,” she hastens to correct me.I always wanted the girl to come first. Just like in John 1:1, where the

feminine ajrchv precedes the masculine lovgoı and qeovı. But for five genera-tions in the Staley family, boys have come first. I am not as different as mymother thought I would be, nor as different as I had hoped.

I watch my firstborn slowly poke a head through the widening O, intothe great unknown. Before the child is waist deep in the world I hear thestrong cry of life. Regardless of gender, the child will be strong and healthy. Ihelped make this child. I will teach this child—born, borne, bone of my boneand flesh of my flesh—about truth, about love, about the ways of the world.

Oh.Boy.It’s a boy.

Fragment Five

“Look, here is the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36)

My newborn son’s penis is huge. And it is not circumcised. He is notlike me. What do I do now? I don’t know anything about foreskins. This is America. American boys aren’t supposed to be born with them. Snakes shedtheir skins. Baby boys shed their foreskins. Take him out behind the wood-shed and have him skinned.

What do you do with a foreskin? My son’s is the first I’ve seen. Maybe we should cut it off. “Do you want to make the first cut?” the doctor asks."What??”“You know, do you want to cut the umbilical cord? Lots of fathers do

nowadays. It’s kind of a ritual.”“Oh. No, not really. You can cut it. I’ll just watch.”Clip.My daughter is different. We know she is a girl almost from the begin-

ning. We saw her in utero, in a frontal position on the sonogram. A head,two arms, trunk, two legs. No penis.

132 semeia

“Really?”“Really. See?” says the doctor. “Looks like a girl, all right!”But just to be safe we pick two names: Allison Jean, if the sonogram is

right; Stephen Isaac, if it has somehow missed an important part of humananatomy.

I was sicker than a dog when my daughter was conceived. My wife andI had been trying for months to have another child. The child should be bornin summer, we decided, just like the first one, because I am a professor, andI will have the summer off to help with the new baby. So in September 1987we begin babymaking in earnest. But no baby. Now it is February, and Ihave a horrible cold.

“It’s that time,” Barbara nudges me in the dark. “Are you sure?”“Yeah, I’m sure. I just took my temperature.”“It can’t be,” I groan, “Not tonight. I can’t even breathe!” “But you’ve got to!” she whispers fiercely. And then she touches me. I know it’s going to be hard, but I give it a try anyway. After all, I am the

eggman. Much to our surprise a child is conceived that night. Our daughter will

be born in October, mid-semester, just in time for midterms. Oh well, I don’tsleep much then anyway.

Allison’s umbilical cord is wrapped around her neck. It stretches taut,her heartbeat quickens. Her face begins to turns blue. With a quiet, urgenttone that sends chills down my spine, the doctor commands my wife, “Stoppushing.”

Then she slips a knife blade between my half-born daughter’s neck andmy wife’s vagina. Slowly, carefully she cuts the cord. I am surprised at therush of air that escapes my throat. I feel lightheaded and look for a chair.

The boy is red and smooth; soft, like crushed velvet. He nestles in myarms as I try awkwardly to hold his huge, swaying head. He is perfect, notone blemish or mole on his entire body. A spotless lamb of God.

My daughter is different. She is born with a wine-stain birthmark in themiddle of her forehead. It is a special sign. A bright pink star.

A nurse, noticing my intense gaze, says encouragingly, “It will fadewith time.” But she misunderstands my staring. I want the star to stay.

Star light, star bright,first star I see tonight;I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

I inspect the rest of her body. Ten fingers, ten toes. An engorged vulva.She waits three minutes before she utters a sound.


She has a beautiful round mole on her left buttock.

—All things counter, original, spare, strange;Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how)—

“That mole will make some man happy one day,” I say, and my wifesmiles.

His eyes try hard to focus on my face7 as I speak to him. I have talked tohim many times in the past few months, as I nuzzled my wife’s bulgingbelly. For seven months I have been calling him Katie, to help him becomethe girl I wanted first. But now I hold a boy in my arms and devise for himan impromptu vow as his eyes careen off crazily in different directions.

“I know I will make many mistakes as a father,” I whisper in his tiny ear.“I’ve never been one before now. But I promise that I will always love you.”

I silently pray that it will be true, for I have never been a father, and Ihad not been expecting a boy.

I carry him to the Alta Bates Hospital nursery, wrapped in a warmtowel, where a nurse washes him off and lays him under a heat lamp, asthough he were an entree to be served up from a cafeteria steam table.

This is my son. Hear him cry. A bleating little lamb.I return to my wife’s side, give her a kiss goodnight, and walk home

alone to our two-room apartment on College Avenue in Berkeley. It is June 7,1985. It is two o’clock in the morning. Even though I know that this will bemy last chance in many months to get a good night’s sleep, I lie awake forhours.

I am the father of a son: Benjamin (named for my favorite uncle, whowas named for Benjamin Lamb, my paternal grandfather’s maternal grand-father) Walter (named for my wife’s father). A family name. Also a playfulinversion of Walter Benjamin, a famous Jewish philosopher and literarycritic whose writings I have recently read. My son’s name is a subtle jokethat no one in my family or my wife’s family will ever catch. The son’s left-handed father likes to pretend he is a famous New Testament literary critic.So the father gives his firstborn a famous name, turned upside down, justlike the way he came into the world.

I have just finished writing a dissertation on the Gospel of John, and Iwill begin teaching next fall in a tenure-track position at the University ofPortland, in Oregon. I have a wonderful wife, a new son, and a new career.I know I will be a good provider, just like God was a good provider for hisSon. I want to be like God. Tonight I feel like a god.

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7 “This face is not a metaphor … How many faces to the face? More than one. Three, four,but always the only one, and the only one always more than one” (Cixous, as quoted in Phillipsand Fewell: 7).

The world is a beautiful place. It is my place, my world. I have made itone person more beautiful than it was yesterday.

Fragment Six

“Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs). . . . ” (John 7:22)

Okay. We’ve had some time to think about it.Should we have our son circumcised? I am vacillating. Just a few hours

ago he was a girl. I was sure of it. Now he is Benjamin, my son. And he hasa foreskin.

My wife and I weigh the pros and cons of circumcision for seven days.Finally, her brother calls. “Look, I had to be circumcised when I was

twelve, because of an infection. It was pure hell. Junior high and all that.You should do it now, so he won’t be forced to have it done later.”

How do you clean a foreskin? I don’t know how to do it. If we don’thave him circumcised he will be different, and I will be unable to help him.

Suddenly I am eight years old again, standing in the new, cinder-blockdormitory bathroom at Immanuel Mission School. A group of excitedNavajo Indian boys, many of them nearly twice my age, crowd around meas I edge up to the urinal and unzip my trousers. I am apprehensive. I don’tknow why they have followed me in here or what they are expecting to see.I pull out my little white thingamajigger and begin to urinate. The boysbegin to laugh and point. “Ncho’ d’ííl! Ncho’ d’ííl!”

I don’t know why they are laughing or what they are saying, but I rec-ognize one word, ncho’. It is the Navajo word for the thing I have justexposed in their dormitory bathroom. They are all laughing at my thinga-majigger for some reason. I am ashamed, and I don’t know why. I want torun and hide, but I can’t. I quickly finish what I have come in to do and rushout. For the rest of the day whenever other Navajo boys see me they try topoke me in my thingamajigger. They say “ncho’ d’ííl!” and grin wickedly.

When I am alone with my one Navajo friend I ask him what ncho’ d’íílmeans. He is embarrassed and tries hard to explain, but the English wordswon’t come. “It means your thing is … is … is someway” (Geller: 357, 373–74).

The next day when other Navajo boys are trading insults with my brothersand me, I shout at them “Ncho’ d’ííl! Ncho’ d’ííl!” They gang tackle me andbeat me up. Whatever it is I have said, I will never again say it to their faces.

On the eighth day we decide to have Benjamin circumcised. Just like alittle Jewish boy.

He will look like me.He will be like me.


I hold him down while the doctor straps his tiny arms and legs to a pad.

He will look like me.He will be like me.

My son begins to cry. He doesn’t like being tied down, naked and spread-eagled, like the

Greek letter

X.

8

Caught in the surgeon’s finely woven web,he fights to free himself (Derrida: 213).In just a few moments it will be over, my son. Trust me.You will be free. Free indeed.I hear the bleating of a lamb.9

Abraham is my father.Abraham is my father.

“It won’t really hurt, you know,” the doctor says reassuringly. “I’vedone hundreds of these before. He won’t remember a thing. Trust me. I’ma father too.”

“After properly cleansing the penis and pubis, the dorsal aspect of theprepuce is put on a stretch by grasping it on either side of the median linewith a pair of hemostats” (Yellen: 147).

This boy should have been named Isaac—Laughter—like his great, great,great, great grandfather.

Isaac, my son, I want to hear you laugh.Laugh, boy! Laugh!

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8 “According to the c (the chiasmus) (which can be considered a quick thematic diagram ofdissemination), the preface, as semen, is just as likely to be left out, to well up and get lost as aseminal differance, as it is to be reappropriated into the sublimity of the father. As the preface toa book, it is the word of a father assisting and admiring his work, answering for his son, losinghis breath in sustaining, retaining, idealizing, reinternalizing, and mastering his seed. The scenewould be acted out, if such were possible, between father and son alone: autoinsemination, ho-moinsemination, reinsemination” (Derrida: 44–45).

According to some scholars, the entire Gospel of John is built upon chiastic patterns (Ellis;Mlakuzhyil; Howard-Brook). Indeed, the heart of its chiastic preface focuses on “reinsemina-tion” (“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to becomechildren of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, butof God,” John 1:12–13).

9 “Take our lamb and walk with me!” (Gosse: 81).

The joke’s on me. I have helped bind you to an altar of plastic andsteel. You will be altered, and no divine voice will tell the doctor to putdown his knife.

23_______________________________,24_______________________________?10

You are my son, but you don’t look like me.I want you to look like me. I want you to be like me. I want you to fit in.I don’t want other American boys to laugh and stare at you in the gym

or the bathroom when they see you naked, with a foreskin in your hands.My eyes are on the doctor.Steady, steady.

A flat probe, anointed with vaseline, is then inserted between the prepuceand the glans to separate adherent mucous membrane. The prepuce is thengently drawn backwards exposing the entire glans penis… . In cases wherethe prepuce is drawn tightly over the glans, a partial dorsal slit will facilitateapplying the cone of draw stud [the bell] over the glans. After anointing theinside of the cone, it is placed over the glans penis allowing enough of themucous membrane to fit below the cone so that too much is not removed.The prepuce is then pulled through and above the bevel hole in the platformand clamped in place. In this way the prepuce is crushed against the conecausing hemostasis. We allow this pressure to remain five minutes, and inolder children slightly longer. The excess of the prepuce is then cut with asharp knife without any danger of cutting the glans, which is alwaysprotected by the cone portion of the instrument, leaving a very fine 1⁄32 of aninch ribbon-like membrane formed between the new union of the skin andmucous membrane. The pressure is then released. (Yellen: 147)

No anesthesia is used.

5_____________________________________. 6_____________________________________________.11

It is finished.Ncho’ d’ííl.


10 Sony-ATV Music Publishing refused my request to reprint any more lines from “I Am TheWalrus” than “fair use” law permits. For those interested in knowing what lines I wished to printhere, go to http://radiowavenet.com/beatles/bea/lyr-1iamthe.htm, print out the lyrics, numberthe lines, and then write them in the space provided. The lyrics are also available on http://www.beatlefans.com/lyrics/i_am_the_walrus.htm.

11 See note 10 above.

Fragment Seven

The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. (John 3:35)

Watch my son writhe.He is purple with rage and pain.

The application of two hemostats to the edges of the sensitive, unanes-thetized prepuce, the application of a third crushing hemostat to the prepucebefore cutting the dorsal slit, and the crushing of the entire circumference ofthe prepuce by turning a screw on the Gomco Clamp produces excruciatingpain. Since Anand and Hickey’s article in the New England Journal of Medi-cine. . . , it can no longer be denied that pain is felt by the male infant duringcircumcision. Although the Gomco Clamp may have been designed toreduce the risk of bleeding, it has produced excruciating pain in every infanton which it is used. Even if anesthesia is used, the post-operative pain originating in a pleasure center can be expected to have serious untowardconsequences. (Denniston)

My son screams. He screams and he screams. I cannot console him.

His eyes are tightly shut. He doesn’t know that I am here besidehim, holding his hand. I will not let him go.

The Father is in me and I am in the Father.I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

The father loves the son and has placed all things in his hands.In his hands.In his tiny pink hands.I am the father.The son of far too many Abrahams.But I am worse than they are.I pay someone else to take knife in hand and do what I cannot do.

During the biblical period (c. 1700 B.C.E.–140 C.E.), the operator, or mohelplaced a metal shield with a slit in it near the tip of the foreskin, so only thetip was removed. Often the mohel … pulled up on the outside of the foreskin before placing the shield. The result was that virtually all of theinner lining of the prepuce was preserved. This was known as Bris Milah.

The wonderful statue of David by Michelangelo appears intact but is in factcorrectly represented because the future King David has been circumcisedby the accepted procedure of the biblical era. Only the tip of his foreskinhas been removed, fulfilling the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17).(Denniston; cf. Gairdner: 1433; Hall: 74)

Hours later I am still clasping my son’s doll-like fingers. Benjamin!

138 semeia

Benjamin!I will always love you.Jesus!Sweet, sweet Jesus!I’m sorry.I am sorry.

Look at me! I’m wet with your sweat and tears.You look like me. You will be like me.You will like me.

For I am the eggman.12

Fragment Eight

“Put your sword back in its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11)

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” my doctor asks as heenters the room where I lie, half-naked, on an examining table.

My legs are spread apart, and my feet are in webbed stirrups, as thoughI am about to give birth. A white sheet covers the lower part of my body.

A nurse comes in and cleanses my crotch with some orange, purifyingliquid. Does she find my penis tiny? How does it compare with otherpenises she has seen? Does she ever take notes? I watch her eyes. She givesnothing away.

Do I want to go through with this?Of course I do. I have two healthy children, one girl and one boy. And I

have to put them through college someday. I can’t afford to have any morechildren.

Through with this.Hmmm. . . . Diva with the genitaliave? Expression of agency? (With a note

of urgency.) Or is it an ablative of accompaniment? Perhaps it should be eijıwith the accusative. The idea of limit, extent, direction toward, is importantin this case.

“Yes, I want to go through with it.“Ouch!”The doctor’s needle pricks my skin at a very sensitive point.“Did you feel that?”“Yeah, whaddyya think?”


12 “The world came out of an egg. More precisely, the living creator of the life of the worldcame out of an egg: the sun, then, was at first carried in an eggshell” (Derrida: 87).

The doctor removes the sheet covering the triangular lower half of mybody, my “triplicity of death” as Jacques Derrida might say (Derrida: 24–26),and I lean forward, propping myself up on my elbows. I watch as the doctormakes an incision in my scrotum and pulls out two tiny threads that connectmy testicles to their ejaculatory ducts.

Ah, the vas deferens. Truly, I am the vine, and my Doktorvater is the vinedresser. He is removing

every living branch in me that bears fruit.I am still thinking of Derrida and one of his many books—was it in

Dissemination that he talked about the vastness of différance? I can’t remember.I’m having problems concentrating on Derrida. I have a weird sensation inmy anus, my derrière—

da . . . yes, right there—as though someone is pulling an enormously long stringnified from it. The doctor explains the surgery’s aftereffects in response to my unvoiced

anxieties.“You’ll be sore for a few days. “Don’t do any lifting.“Take pain pills.“Oh, and be sure to wear an athletic cup—you know, a Jacquestrap—for

at least forty-eight hours.”I am the vine.I am the eggman.

Clip.13

I will never be the same. I am forever differant.Clip.The penis . . . is . . . is . . . mightier than the sword.

Fragment Nine

“Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” (John 4:14)

I imagine a milky white, life-giving liquid seeping out onto the doctor’sfingers.

From my side are flowing rivers of living water.14

140 semeia

13 “Clip out an example, since you cannot and should not undertake the infinite commen-tary that at every moment seems necessarily to engage and immediately to annul itself, lettingitself be read in turn by the apparatus itself.

“So make some incision, some violent arbitrary cut. . . ” (Derrida: 300–1).14 “If one looks at the Fourth Gospel for signs of conception, one is initially disappointed.

From Jesus’ side comes not blood and a thick, white, frothy substance, but blood and water. If

For ages, fathers and sons have drunk from wells like this. Jacob and hissons, for example. This liquid is a man’s identity, the proof of his virility,masculinity, power. I have been cut off from the land of the living.

Come, all you who are thirsty. Drink of me before I disappear.A final drink.To death, then.Bottoms up. Derrière—da.I go home and my wife makes a careful inspection of my body.“Oh, my goodness, it has shrunk!” She is worried. “Is it supposed to look like that?”I look down. It’s true. My scrotum is black-and-blue, and my penis is no

larger than that of my four-year-old son.Within a few days, however, I’m a little kid, playing with myself again.

Every few weeks I masturbate and ejaculate into a little plastic cup.15

13________________________________________________.16

I put the top on the cup and take it to the hospital.See what I can do? I am still the eggman, yes I am.“Am I dead yet?”“No, not yet.”This well is deeper than I thought.Four months later the harvest comes, and I finally hear the

response I have been waiting for.“It is finished. You are dead.“Now you can go out and live again.”

Fragment Ten

“Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” (John 20:17)

Ascending is a particularly male problem. Every pubescent male lives inmortal fear of the spontaneous, uncontrollable ascension.17 Public showersand public beaches raise especially embarrassing problems for the adolescent


one realizes however, that in the first century the male semen was thought to be thick, whiteand foam-like because it was composed of water mixed with breath/spirit, the tool throughwhich the male principle worked, then the situation changes” (Fehribach: 130).

15 “Dissemination produces (itself in) that: a cut/cup of pleasure” (Derrida: 57).16 See note 10 above.17 “To be presented, that is, to stand upright. Uprightness always announces that a single

murder is in progress” (Derrida: 302).

male who is unfamiliar with the phenomenon. And every junior-highschoolboy has to figure out on his own how to handle these tissues whenthey arise. After all, no guys ever give other guys lessons on its many possible disguises. When you’re at the beach, for example, you have to learnon your own the importance of turning over on to your stomach every timea pretty girl walks by. And you often have to learn the hard way, not to getup until everything has calmed down. In gymnasium locker rooms, youhave to learn the art of meditation, how to be the master of your wanderingimagination. When you are naked and in the shower with twenty otherboys, think about baseball or what you’re going to eat for dinner, not aboutthe girl you’re going to meet in a few minutes in study hall.

As a graduate teaching assistant, I learned to use the classroom podiumas a defensive weapon. When there were cute coeds in cutoffs sitting in thefront row, I found that I could protect myself by not moving too far from thecomfort of the podium’s shadow.18

But now I am nearly forty. I have two children, and I have just been cutoff from the land of the living. So I worry. Do ascensions still happen thisside of the resurrection, two thousand years after the spear-thrust in Jesus’side? Will my ascensions be visible to the naked eye, or will they be onlyspiritual in nature?

My doctor says not to worry. The ascensions will be corporeal.I forget to worry, and nothing out of the ordinary happens.I have a theory as to why men can’t find things in refrigerators. My wife

says it’s genetic. It has something to do with a male’s defective Y chromo-some. But I don’t think that’s the origin of the problem. No, man’s inabilityto find things in refrigerators has its roots in male physiology. Think aboutit for a moment. Everyone knows that the male body is made in such a waythat its most precious commodity is right up front, in plain sight. So wemales are not used to looking behind other things to find what we’re lookingfor. What’s not up front and obvious must not exist—like the “hypothetical,”feminine hmkc or sofiva behind the lovgoı of John 1:1. Women, on the otherhand, are built differently. They learn at a very early age that the most important things are stuck back behind other things. So women keep look-ing, and they don’t give up until they find what it is they’re looking for.19

142 semeia

18 “You are beginning to follow the relation between a certain brandished erection anda certain head or speech that is cut off, the brand or the pole rising up in the manifestation ofthe scission, unable to present themselves otherwise than in the play, or even the laughter—the display of sharply pointed teeth—of the cut. To be presented, that is, to stand upright”(Derrida: 302).

19 “[S]uspicion exposes the androcentrism of the text itself which often—though notalways!—undergirds androcentric exegesis” (Lee: 141 [my emphasis]; cf. Derrida: 212–15).

Fragment Eleven

“How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second timeinto the mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4)

My father was my grammar-school teacher for four years, in the two-roommission school on the Navajo Indian Reservation. He was my Nicodemus, agenuine Nick at Nite, long before there was cable TV or Nickelodeon. Poor oldSaint Nick, leader of the Pharisees. He never did quite get things right.

Nicodemus tries to teach Jesus the meaning of Greek words in the sameway that I try to teach my children the etymologies of English words.

“From the Greek,” I say, with a dramatic, professorial swirl of myhands. And my kids groan, “Oh Dad, not again!”

It’s a ritual game we play, like Jesus and Nicodemus playing with themeanings of a[nwqen and pneuvma. It is the father’s task to teach his childrenabout origins, about the ajrchv of the lovgoı.20 I do it because I hope my children will remember their dad’s silliness one day when they are takingtheir SATs and college entrance exams.

“Oh yeah! Remember when Dad used to say, ‘From the Greek?’‘Heuristic’—from the Greek word euJrivskw, ‘I find’: hence, ‘helping to findan answer.’”

Harvard and Yale will be calling, thanks to my crazy little word games.My father taught me grammar and entomology, but not etymologies. From

him I learned how to chloroform insects and pin them to cardboard. I learnedhow to put things together in order, with appropriate nouns and adjectives, inorder to make sense. I learned how to cut apart sentences and insects and dia-gram them. Just like Nicodemus tries to open up Jesus and draw him out. Buta[nwqen and pneuvma don’t fit the proper grammatical constrictions. They scram-ble out of the egg of the mother language before the father has a chance to catchthem and push them back inside where they belong.

Seize the word! Neutralize it, cauterize it, sterilize it. Pin it to woodbefore it disseminates and degenerates into syntactical jibberish.

28__________________________________________.29______________________________________.30____________________________________________.21


20 “Logos is a son, then, a son that would be destroyed in his very presence without the present attendance of his father. His father who answers. His father who speaks and answers forhim. Without his father, he would be nothing but, in fact, writing. At least that is what is said bythe one who says: it is the father’s thesis” (Derrida: 77).

21 See note 10 above. “Edgar Allan Poe: Mallarmé called him the ‘absolute literary case’”(Derrida: 229).

Fragment Twelve

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” (John 5:39)

My son has decided to read my book, Reading with a Passion, for hissixth-grade book report. The class assignment is to read an autobio-graphy, and since part of my book is autobiographical, he wants to writeabout me. I am not crazy about his idea, since it is difficult reading andhe won’t understand much of anything he reads. But I am pleased thathe wants to read the book. After all, I gave him and my daughter Allison autographed copies when it first came out. I was hoping he would readthe book sometime before I died. I just didn’t expect him to try it whenhe was eleven.

Ben Staley3/5/97ReadingBook Report

Reading with a PassionI. Introduction. Have you ever dreamed of doing an autobiography bookreport on your own father? Well, I did. My father’s name is Jeffrey L. Staley.He comes from an immense family that consists of one father, Robert, twomothers Betty, and the step-mother is Esther. My dad also has two sisters,Brenda and Beth, and three brothers, Rob, David, and Greg. Some of hisfamous ancestors are: George Johnson, who rode horse-back in “BuffaloBill’s Wild West Show.” William Brewster is another famous ancestor of his,William was the founder of the Plymouth colony. On December 22, 1951, my dad’s body met the world. Surprisingly, Decem-ber 22 is the same day that the Mayflower unloaded its cargo at PlymouthRock. When my dad was born, doctors found nothing wrong with him. Butwhen his older, stronger brothers found out he was born without peripheralvision in his right eye, they would constantly try to coax him into playingbaseball. My dad has lived in many places in his life, these places are:Ramona, Kansas, Immanuel Mission, Arizona, and Berkeley, California. Jeffis currently living in Bothell, Washington. Before coming to Bothell, he wasliving in Portland, Oregon.II. Can an ordinary dad be famous? Although my dad is not really famous,he is to me. Famous to me is not always being the fastest in the world, orbeing the best known in the world. My dad is famous to me because he is responsible, loving, and caring to his family members. He is also coopera-tive. You would have to be if you had two older brothers. My dad hasbecome “famous” by accomplishing what he has done. He has taught at overfour different colleges, been a father, a younger brother, an older brother, a

144 semeia

McDonald’s employee, and a son! If you ask me, that’s a lot to be respectedfor. My dad has also been through peer pressure, and pressure in general.Just those two are some of the big things people have to overcome in a life-time. Jeff has also come over many hardships too. His brother has given himdrugs before, and he did not know what to do with them. So, being the goodcompanion he was, he passed them out after school.III. Although Jeff’s accomplishments do not affect us today (us not beingthe world or country), they have affected many. For example, his accom-plishment of becoming a teacher has affected his students. They areprobably now more “equipped” to go out in the world to teach othersabout Jesus Christ. Also, he has experienced being a younger and older sibling. This accomplishment lets him be a better father in a way. That experience helped him because it let him appreciate both sides of an argu-ment. It also let him be a younger child with his younger brother andsisters, but I also think it let him be an older child with his more maturebrothers. That is why I think my dad has made a difference to somepeople, but not necessarily everyone.IV. Now you may think that just because a dad looks old, he is old. Well,my dad is an old guy, but not too old. At heart he is still twelve years old.Now, at the age of about nine and ten, my dad liked two weird things. Heliked his brothers “girlfriends” and he liked butter, ketchup, and bolognasandwiches. Pretty strange, don’t you think? By now you probably thinkmy dad is pretty crazy. Well, he did some unusual things too, like in thesummer, he liked to burn up ants with a magnifying glass. He also liked topull the legs off of crickets or grasshoppers, then he would feed them to anearby black widow spider, and watch it slowly devour them.22 In the darkof night though, he and his brothers would pull the “flashlights” off ofharmless little fireflies, stick the lights on their fingers, and wiggle their fingers around!Jeff tells the story of his most embarrassing moment when his family wasnot so very wealthy. In fact, they couldn’t even afford to buy jelly for theirtoast. When they finally could buy a jar, they did. The next morning my dadwas having a “ceremony” in celebration of having jam. He was holding thejar above his head, then, he dropped it!V. What I really admire about my dad is how, as long as he has lived, hereally only remembers the good times and not his bad times. I hope one day


22 “A spider emerging ‘from the depths of its nest,’ a headstrong dot that transcribes nodictated exclamation but rather intransitively performs its own writing (later on, you will readin this the inverted figure of castration), the text comes out of its hole and lays its menace bare:it passes, in one fell swoop, to the ‘real’ text and to the ‘extratextual’ reality” (Derrida: 42; cf.Doniger: 60–62).

I will be like him, in some ways. I also admire how he has stuck to teaching,even though he has been turned down, and been “fired” by many colleges.Someday, I hope my dream will come true. My dad’s accomplishments havechanged my life because they have made me a better person. They havemade me a better person because I have someone I can look to when I haveproblems, someone with experience.

Benjamin asked me to proofread his essay when he was done, and Idid. I wrote at the top, “Good work! You’ve done an excellent job!” in big,round letters.

Now he is at my side, trying to get my attention.“Dad, do you have any clothes I can borrow?”“Why do you want my clothes?” I ask suspiciously.“Well, tomorrow I have to do a class presentation about the autobio-

graphy I read, so I thought I would dress up like you.”I go upstairs and rummage through my closet, finding a hat and shirt

that he can wear. I discover an old transistor radio that I bought when I wastwelve years old and show that to him, too.

“I used to listen to ‘Yours truly, KOMA, Oklahoma City!’ on this littleradio.” I pat it and sing their signature ditty from 1964.

“That’s where I heard the Beatles for the first time, you know. Out thereon the reservation, thirty miles from the closest post office, Navajo girls usedto come running over to listen to my Montgomery Ward radio whenever Iyelled, ‘It’s the Beatles!’

“KOMA was the only rock ‘n roll station we could pick up there innorthern Arizona. I would fall asleep with the earphone stuck in my ear,and wake up in the morning to static.”

“Cool, Dad. Does it still work?”“I don’t know; let’s try it. I haven’t used it in about twenty years.”We find a nine-volt battery, put it in the radio, and turn it on.Static.I turn the dial.Music. Maybe it’s KOMA.“She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!”“Come on, Dad! That’s not the Beatles! It’s a song by Alice in Chains!”“Oh.”“Hey, can I take this radio to school, too?”“Sure! Just don’t lose it. It’s one of the only things I have left from my

childhood.”“I’ll take good care of it. Thanks, Dad!”And he gives me a kiss.

146 semeia

Fragment Thirteen

“Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he seesthe Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19)

A poem for my son, at five years old.

Jigsaw Puzzles

So like the father is the son,23

matching color to color,shape to shape, with quickness and precision;with flashes of intuition. Surprises are interlocked with carefully crafted solutions:Sometimes he follows shadows to light,or bright hues to near whites;at other times, the slippery ferocity of gravitypulls pairs together.But, curiously, he does not begin with borders.He leaves without speaking,those straight edges that protect the slow-forming picture from the chaos creepingacross the dining room table,for another to shape and fit.

Fragment Fourteen

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out ofmy hand.” (John 10:28)

Cape Kiwanda juts two hundred feet high and two and a half miles outinto the Pacific Ocean, just south of Tillamook Bay, Oregon. It is a hazy, blue-green Memorial Day weekend, and my wife and children and I are hikingwith friends out to a point on the cape where the sea meets the sky. It is theend of the migration season for gray whales, and my son, who wants to be amarine biologist when he grows up, hopes to see at least one today. We make


23 “Without his father, he would be nothing but, in fact, writing” (Derrida: 77; cf. Lee: 146).

it to the end of the trail and sit on the edge of the rocky cliff, eating ourlunch, and scanning the ocean with binoculars. No whales.

My wife, my daughter Allison, and our friends decide to head back tothe campground. But Benjamin and I stay behind for a few minutes. Wewant one last look.

I notice a faint trail heading over the side of the cliff, beyond theguardrail, and out of sight below us. Forgetting about whales for themoment, and remembering my childhood on the Navajo Reservation, I hopover the guardrail and beckon for my son to follow. We will explore wherefew men have dared to tread. Deep sea caves, with fierce, fire-breathingdragons. Emerald-eyed sirens and frolicking dolphins. My son hesitates, butafter a few words of fatherly encouragement he decides to join me. Wequickly disappear from view of the hikers gaping at us from above andscramble down the steep, boulder-strewn path. Suddenly we are alone onthe cape, with nothing but a fuzzy blue sky above us and deep purplewaves crashing in the distance below.

We round a sharp switchback and find a twenty-foot cliff in front of us.I pause. Shall we go further? My son has never climbed before. He is a cityboy, unlike me. But I grew up in the wilderness of the Navajo Reservation. Ispent my summers dancing on cliffs ten times this height. My son is nearlyten years old. It is time for me to teach him the ways of a serpent on a rock.

I edge out ahead of him on the cliff and show him the moves I know byheart: hand hold, foot hold; hand hold, foot hold. Like line dancing.

My son follows, but he trembles.“Dad, I’m scared.”“Good! It’s a good thing to be a little scared. It’s when you get over-

confident that you have problems.”The cliff is only twenty feet high, but the ridge drops off steeply below

us. A person could tumble a hundred feet or more before coming to a stopin a tangle of prickly Oregon grape and wizened Douglas fir. I catch my songazing at the slope below.

“Don’t look down. Just keep your eyes on me.”He does. Right foot. Right hand.24

Left foot. Left hand. . . 25

His hand misses the outcropping of rock.He loses his balance.He begins to fall backward.

148 semeia

24 “Now, on the one hand …” (Derrida: 97, his emphasis).25 “On the other hand …” (Derrida: 97, his emphasis).

“Dad!”I am here. No more than two feet from him.On the ledge in front of him.My left arm grabs his shoulder and forces him up against the cliff.I am here. Now. Called alongside him, to help him. Like a pair of cleats

clamped into the cliffside. A solitary paraclete.We pause and catch our breath. We exhale slowly, then inch our way

down.Right foot. Right hand.Left foot. Left hand.We make it to a more level spot and relax for a while, alone on the cliff-

side, with the late afternoon sun, warm on our backs.“We should probably head back. Mom will be wondering what hap-

pened to us.”“Yeah. But Dad, don’t tell her about me on that cliff, okay? She would

have a cow.”We scamper up to join the main trail and scan the horizon one last time

for a glimpse of migrating whales.“Look, Ben! A giant gray!”And so it is. The behemoth lazily turns and flashes its immense side at

us before it dives beneath a shimmering wave.We head back to the campground in silence.Only once he looks up and grins. “Dad, you saved my life today.”“I know. You know I’d never leave you.”“I know. Thanks, Dad.”I take his hand and squeeze it tightly.My son must lead now, and I will follow. My eyes are watery. My vision blurs.I am blinded by a speck of dust suddenly caught in my eye.

Fragment Fifteen

“Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” (John 17:11)

He is my son. I am his father. I am in him and he is in me.But my daughter is different. She is the intruder, the one that upsets the

natural equilibrium. I am in her too, and she in me. But it cannot be thesame. Even though we occasionally still sleep together, it cannot be the sameas with my son. And I worry about that. I am hot and I sleep in boxer shorts.It’s the niacin. I take it to control my cholesterol. But it gives me hot flashes,and I have felt overly warm ever since I started taking it more than twoyears ago. So I sleep half-naked.


My wife is out of town, and my daughter sneaks into our bed at two o’clock in the morning.

“Daddy, I hear scary noises.”I mumble some incoherent words and turn over.

14__________________________________________,15____________________________________________________.26

Will she remember this night and other nights like it when she istwenty, and will she accuse me of unspeakable acts?

I have never touched her that way. But there were times before shewas born that I thought I might. And I was afraid. And so God gave me ason first.

I will not hold you, daughter of Abraham, for I might ascend. Eventhough I am old and you are my daughter, I might ascend. So I turn myback to you and hide the shame of my nocturnal ascensions. I feel safe withmy back to you, my daughter.27 And so I will show you only my backside,fleetingly, as I glide by in the night. Only our toes will touch. For no one hasever seen the father. But the son, who is close on the father’s other side, hasmade him known.

Fragment Sixteen

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

My daughter is eight years old when we move to Seattle. We have tofind new doctors for our children, and now we are in the process of inter-viewing pediatricians for Allison. This is one my wife likes, and she wantsme to meet her.

My wife and I are also somewhat concerned about the mole on Alli-son’s bottom, the one that she was born with. It is no longer round andsmooth as it was when she was a baby. It has grown larger. Now it isbumpy and asymmetrical.

“Allison is forty-nine inches tall and weighs forty-eight pounds. Herblood pressure is ninety-eight over sixty-eight. She’s a healthy girl!” The pediatrician smiles reassuringly. “Now, where’s that mole?”

“Right—or is it her left buttock?” My wife looks at me with a questionin her eyes. “I can’t remember.”

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26 See note 10 above.27 “He had written: ‘The text is (should be) that uninhibited person who shows his behind

to the Political Father’ (Pleasure of the Text)” (Barthes: 79).

“It’s on her left buttock,” I say without thinking. I know where it is. Ithas been mine for eight years.

——All things counter, original, spare, strangeWhatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how)—

The new pediatrician does a careful inspection. “We should really haveit removed. The sooner the better, just to be on the safe side. Strange thingscan happen to moles like this when girls hit puberty.”

The doctor doesn’t know that I have been saving this mark, this grain ofwheat, and it is not time to give it up.28

“Will it hurt to take it off?” Allison asks. A worried frown crosses her face.“Just a little. But not for long.”I want to tell the doctor, “You can’t have it. It’s not yours to take.” But

the seed is not dead, and I want my girl to live forever.

Fragment Seventeen

“In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you will also live. On that day you will know

that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:19–20)

He still kisses me on the lips occasionally, this son of mine who is elevenyears old. I thought the ritual would have ended long ago.

More and more often he just kisses me on the cheek. But there are timeswhen only a kiss on the lips will do.

He started kissing me on the lips when he was about a year old. Hewould watch my wife and me kiss. Then he would mimic us, and we wouldlaugh. Now I wonder when it will stop, when he will kiss me like this forthe last time. He has no idea where and when the kissing began. And whenit stops, he will probably forget that he ever did it. But I am his father, and Iwill not forget.

I don’t want this kissing to stop, but I am afraid. What if someone seesus kissing like this, at our ages? What will they think?

He still sleeps with a night-light on. Wrapped in San Francisco 49erblankets, he prays passionately each evening that God will keep him frombad dreams and that God will keep his parents safe and alive until they areboth one hundred.


28 “More precisely, there were two of us, now: the one whose intact skin could be shown toeveryone, the one whose outer envelope did not immediately provoke horror, and the other riddled with gashes and holes, the flesh cut to the quick, crimson and purple, skinned like asteer…” (Philippe Sollers, Numbers 1:29 [as quoted in Derrida: 301]).

When I am one hundred and praying on my deathbed, I want my son atmy side. I want to hold his head on my chest. I want to feel his warm lips onmine. I want to smell his sweet breath tickling my mustache.

I want my daughter to slip into the room and ask, “Dad, can I crawl intobed with you?”

And I will say “Yes, you may—just this once.” I will not turn away from her, and she will hold me as close as I held her

when we were both young. Then she will sing to me softly—swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim:

“I am she as you are he as you are me and we are all together.See how we fly like Lucy in the sky, see how we run.

We’re crying.”He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change. . . .

“Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come. . . . ”I smile and drift off to sleep with no fear of bad dreams.Even as the night-light dims, I fear no evil, for thou art with me my

daughter, my only begotten son.29

WORKS CONSULTED

Anand, K. J. S., and P. R. Hickey1987 “Pain and Its Effects in the Human Neonate and Fetus.” New England

Journal of Medicine 317:1321–29.

Arndt, William F., and F. Wilbur Gingrich1979 A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian

Literature. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Barthes, Roland 1977 Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. Trans. Richard Howard. New York:

Hill & Wang.

Denniston, George C.1996 “‘Modern’ Circumcision: The Escalation of a Ritual.” Circumcision 1:1

Online. http://faculty.washington.edu/gcd/CIRCUMCISION/v1n1.html#article1

Derrida, Jacques1981 Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.

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29 “What has become of the present here? the past present? the future present? ‘You’?‘Me’? ‘Us’ will have been in the imperfect of that echo” (Derrida: 232).

Doniger, Wendy1998 The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. New York: Columbia

University Press.

Ellis, Peter F.1984 The Genius of John: A Composition-Critical Commentary on the Fourth

Gospel. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical.

Fehribach, Adeline1998 The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary

Analysis of the Female Characters in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville, Minn.:Liturgical.

Gairdner, D. 1949 “The Fate of the Foreskin: A Study of Circumcision.” British Medical

Journal 2:1433–37.

Geller, Jay1999 “The Godfather of Psychoanalysis: Circumcision, Antisemitism,

Homosexuality, and Freud’s ‘Fighting Jew.’” JAAR 67:355–86.

Gosse, Edmund1983 Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. Ed. Peter Abbs. New York:

Penguin.

Hall, Robert G.1988 “Epispasm and the Dating of Ancient Jewish Writings.” JSP 2:71–86.

Hopkins, Gerard Manley1967 The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. 4th ed. New York: Oxford

University Press.

Howard-Brook, Wes1994 Becoming Children of God: John’s Gospel and Radical Discipleship.


Kitzberger, Ingrid Rosa, ed.1999 The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation. New York: Routledge.

Lee, Dorothy A.1995 “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in the Fourth Gospel.”


Lennon, John, and Paul McCartney1967 “I Am the Walrus.” Northern Songs Ltd. Online.

http://www.radiowavenet.com/beatles/bea/lyr-1iamthe.htmhttp://www.beatlefans.com/lyrics/i_am_the_walrus.htm

Levenson, Jon D. 1993 The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of

Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress.


Mlakuzhyil, George1987 The Christocentric Structure of the Fourth Gospel. AnBib 117. Rome:

Pontifical Biblical Institute.

Phillips, Gary A., and Danna Nolan Fewell1997 “Ethics, Bible, Reading As If.” Semeia 77:1–21.

Schneiders, Sandra M.1999 The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament As Sacred Scripture. 2d

ed. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical.

Staley, J. L., and Rebecca G. Staley1997 “Staley Family History.” Online. http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rstaley/

personal.htm

Yellen, H. S.1935 “Bloodless Circumcision of the Newborn.” American Journal of Obstet-

rics and Gynecology 30:146–47.

154 semeia

THE SOUL OF THE FATHER AND THE SON: A PSYCHOLOGICAL (YET PLAYFUL AND POETIC) APPROACHTO THE FATHER-SON LANGUAGE IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL1

Michael Willett NewheartHoward University School of Divinity

abstract

In this essay I apply a “soul hermeneutic” to the “father-son” language inthe Fourth Gospel. My “soul hermeneutic” is influenced by three elements:analytical and archetypal psychology, which reorients psychology to “thestudy of the soul”; reflection on African American cultural experience,which is often characterized as “soul”; and reader-response criticism, whichemphasizes that the reading of a text is shaped by the reader’s psychologicaland social location. After discussing briefly my method, I read “soulfully”two discourses (John 5:19–47; 17:1–26) in which Jesus repeatedly refers tohimself as the son and to god as the father. I first poetically and playfullyengage the images in these discourses, then I identify likenesses to theseimages in contemporary African American poetry, and finally I note like-nesses to these images in my own soul.

A Soul Hermeneutic

This essay comes out of both my academic and personal experience.(Doesn’t everyone’s?) For twenty years I have studied critically the Gospelof John, beginning with my first class of my first semester in seminary(“The Gospel of John” with Alan Culpepper) and continuing with a disser-tation (Willett: 1992), a number of articles (Willett: 1988; Willett Newheart:1995, 1996) and a work in progress. As some of these titles attest, I have particularly been interested in forging a psychological hermeneutic forreading the Gospel.

This essay is also grounded in my experience of fathering and being fa-thered. I am the only begotten son of the father (full of grace and truth? John

-155-

1 This essay is adapted from my work-in-progress Word and Soul: A Psychological, Literary,and Cultural Reading of the Fourth Gospel, to be published by Liturgical Press. The research wasmade possible by a summer research grant provided by the Wabash Center for Teaching andLearning in Theology and Religion.

1:14) Edward Willett, who died when I was 16 after a long illness. And I amthe father of two daughters: Anastasia, born in 1996, just after I sent off toprospective publishers the first chapter of my current work-in-progress, andMiranda, who was born in spring 1999, when I was working on this essay.

The personal and the professional meet in my experience of the FourthGospel. I have been drawn to this book over the years in part because of Jesus’ pervasive speech about the father and the son.2 Jesusclaimed an intimate relationship with god,3 referring to him as father andhimself as son. In this essay I explore the images of father and son in theFourth Gospel, using what I call a “soul hermeneutic,” and it is to that Inow turn.

I have discussed my soul hermeneutic in detail elsewhere (cf. WillettNewheart, 1999); I will only summarize here. It is composed of three elements: analytical and archetypal psychology, African American cul-tural experience, and reader-response criticism. First, analytical andarchetypal psychology, as developed respectively by Carl Jung and JamesHillman, attempts to bring “soul” back into psychology through focusingon images in dreams, literature, and society at large as the language of thesoul. Hillman, for example, contends that one must “love the image,”which means sticking with it, twisting it by doing wordplays,4 and makinganalogies, or likenesses, for the images (1977:81–82, 86–87). I therefore attempt to find the Johannine soul in the images and with what Hillmancalls “a poetic basis of mind” (1975:xi) I open up these images (and myown soul) by twisting them and doing wordplays with them. Further-more, I also open up the images by finding contemporary analogies, orlikenesses, for them.

Second, African American cultural experience is often referred to as“soul,” as African Americans have given us “soul music” and “soul food”and refer to one another as “soul brother” and “soul sister.” PsychologistsAlfred Pasteur and Ivory Toldson identify soul with black expressiveness,which is based in rhythm (4). Such rhythm or soul can be seen especiallyclearly in African American poetry. If poetry is the voice of the soul, thenAfrican American poetry can be seen as expressing the “soul of soul.” My

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2 I do not capitalize “father” and “son” because they are, strictly speaking, common nouns.Keeping them in lowercase preserves their metaphorical quality.

3 I do not capitalize “god” because it too is a common noun. Furthermore, the Gospel ofJohn sets out to describe the kind of god revealed in Jesus. For a similar approach, cf. Wright:xiv–xv.

4 In this way Hillman is similar to the psychoanalytic literary critic Jacques Lacan, whothrough his various puns and witticisms attempts to express unconscious discourse. For a briefsummary of Lacan’s work and his relevance to biblical studies, cf. The Bible and Culture Col-lective: 196–211.

poetic readings of the biblical images reflect the rhythms of this poetry, andI find the likenesses to these images in this body of literature.

Third, reader-response criticism focuses on the reader’s role in shapingthe meaning of a text (cf. Tompkins). A reader-dominant (as opposed to text-dominant) mode of reader-response criticism highlights the reader as anindividual subject, influenced by one’s personal narrative, or as a member ofan interpretative community, shaped by a certain “social location” (e.g., race,gender, and socio-economic status). In my soul hermeneutic I attempt to dojustice to both individual and community, considering the reader’s “soul-state,” which encompasses both psychological and social dynamics. Forexample, I am a European American heterosexual Christian male teachingin a predominantly African American, university-related divinity school. Istill grieve the death of my father, and at the same time I now celebrate myown recent fatherhood.

In treating this subject psychologically (a soul-word way) I first focus ontwo discourses in the Gospel (John 5:19–47; 17:1–26) in which the father-sonrelationship is especially prominent. In turn I translate the discourse and poetically play with its images. Second, I find likenesses to these images byexploring briefly father and son in contemporary African American poetry.Third and finally I briefly discuss the likenesses to the Johannine father-sonimages in my own soul.

So(ul) let us go fo(u)rth!

Playing with the Images of the Father-Son in the Fourth Gospel

The father-son relationship in the Gospel is primarily created throughJesus’ speech, through the word’s word. So I spotlight two discourses thatbring out the Gospel’s father-son relationship in bold relief. Both occupy keyplaces in the narrative. The first (5:19–47) is Jesus’ initial dispute with theJudeans surrounding his signs at the feasts. The second (17:1–26) is Jesus’concluding discourse with the disciples before his return to the father. In theformer speech Jesus binds himself with god over against the Judeans, and inthe latter he binds himself with god and the disciples over against the world.All this binds Jesus with the reader.

Since the word’s words define the father-son relationship in the Gospel(and after all, the words are “soul mines,” according to Hillman, 1977:82), Iset out these words, using my own translation and poetic structure, andthen I play with them. First, Jesus’ dispute with the Judeans5 following thehealing of the paralytic.

willett newheart: the soul of the father and the son 157

5 I translate oiJ jIoudaivoi as “Judeans.” Cf. Howard-Brook: 41–43; Malina and Rohrbaugh. Cf.also Pippin.

Like Father, Like Son (John 5:19–47)

Then Jesus answered them,6

“Amen, amen I say to you, the son cannot do anything on his own except what he sees the father doing,for whatever the father does, the son does likewise. The father loves the son and shows him everything that he is doing,and he will show him greater works than these,so that you will be amazed.Just as the father raises the dead and gives life,so also the son gives life to whomever he wants.For the father judges no one,but he has given all judgment to the son,so that all will honor the son as they honor the father.The one who does not honor the son does not honor the father who

sent him.

Amen, amen I say to you,the one who hears my words and believes in the one who sent me has

eternal lifeand does not come into judgment,but has gone from death into life.

Amen, amen I say to you,the hour is coming and now iswhen the dead will hear the voice of the son of god,and those who hear it will live.For just as the father has life in himself,so also he has given to the son to have life in himself.He has also given him authority to execute judgment,because he is the son of humanity.Do not be amazed at this,because the hour is comingwhen all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.Those who have done good will come out into the resurrection of life,and those who have practiced wickedness will come out into the resur-

rection of judgment.

I can do nothing on my own;just as I hear I judge,and my judgment is just,because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.

158 semeia

6 I have set out the discourses in verse form in order to highlight their poetic (or “quasi-poetic”) quality. Cf. Brown cxxxii–cxxxv for a discussion of “the poetic format of the gospeldiscourses.” Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

If I witness to myself, my witness is not true.There is another who witnesses to me, and I know that his witness to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he has witnessed to the truth. But I do not accept a human witness,though I say these things so that you might be saved.John was a lamp that burned and shone,and you wanted to rejoice for a time in his light.

But I have a witness greater than John’s,for the works that the father gave me to complete,which are the very works that I am doing,witness to me that the father sent me.And the father who sent me has witnessed to me.You have never heard his voice or seen his form,and you do not have his word abiding in you,because you do not believe in the one who sent me.You search the scriptures,because you think that in them you have eternal life,but they witness to me.Yet you do not want to come to me so that you might have life.

I do not accept glory from humans,but I know that you do not have the love of god in you.I have come in the name of my father,and you do not accept me.If another comes in his own name, you will accept him.How can you believe when you accept glory from one another,and you do not seek the glory which comes from the only god?

Do not think that I will accuse you to the father;there is one who accuses you: Moses, in whom you have hoped.If you believed Moses, you would believe me;for he wrote about me.But if you do not believe his writings,how will you believe my words?”

It was festival time (yippee!). What festival we don’t know, but a Judeanfestival, and after all, salvation is from the Judeans (4:22). (Right!) This is thefirst of several significant festivals in this section of the narrative, in whichJesus signs and discourses. Next comes Passover (6:4), Booths (7:2), andDedication (10:22). So for this unidentified festival Jesus leaves Galilee to goup (upUpUP) to Jerusalem (though actually Jesus has already come DOWN-Downdown from above, 3:13, 31). In Jerusalem (which is not much of the cityof peace for him) Jesus has already passed-over, fathers-house-cleaned, andsigned (2:13–23). This time the good shepherd (10:11, 14) goes to the Sheep


Gate (in search of his own sheep?) and by the pool gives living water (4:10)to a thirty-eight-year paralytic. But it’s a non-mat-carrying Sabbath (a highSabbath, 19:31?), and the Judeans decide to feast on Jesus. Thus begins theJudeans’ persecuting, kill-seeking of the Sabbath-working Jesus, who saysthat his father is a still worker (a steelworker? No, a still worker. Makingmoonshine? No, making sonshine—gloriously!), and he’s a still worker too(though the water that Jesus gives is flowing and gushing not still, 4:13). It’s“still” the sixth day of creation for Jesus and his father. No Sabbath rest forthem. Like father, like son. (But what about the son’s mother? Is she not a“working mother”? Is she a “stay-at-home mom,” and does Jesus not consider that work? Or maybe at the Cana wedding Jesus has divorced hismother: “Woman, what to me and to you?” 2:4. With this divorce the fathergets custody and thus becomes a single parent.) When Jesus says “myfather,” he’s not talking about Joseph (1:45; 6:42) or Jacob (4:12) or Abraham(8:39) but god. Jesus uses the “everyday language” of fatherhood in a specialway (cf. Petersen: 16–17). He establishes a “fictive kinship” with the sourceof all that is (cf. Malina and Rohrbaugh: 88–89). Jesus is attempting toground—or better, “sky”—his authority for Sabbath-working. (Now thatJoseph is no longer on the scene, has Jesus projected his “ideal father” ontothe heavens?7 Jesus has a “father complex,” or at least a complex father!)Jesus, then, is not just a Sabbath-breaker but a godfather-caller and thus agod-equalizer (though the Judeans themselves call god their father, eventhough Jesus says that it’s really the devil, 8:41–44). He must die!

Thus begins Jesus’ capital offense trial in the Judean capital (cf. Harvey:46–66; Neyrey: 9–15). Jesus of course defends himself (he is the first paraclete,14:16). He first amensamens (as he did to Nicodemus, 3:3, 5, 11) that the soncan’t do anything (no way, hunh-hunh) but what he sees (and hears, 5:30) thefather doing. (No more “my father/I” but “the father/the son.”) He is the ap-prentice learning from the master’s “sign” shop (cf. Dodd). (He has a ringsideseat because he is in the father’s bosom, 1:18.) The father does it, the son doesit. (Indeed, it is the son-abiding father doing his fatherly works, 14:10.) Thefather is a son-lover and thus a son-everything-shower (and son-everything-giver, 3:35). And this son-loving father’s going to show the son greaterworksthan these paralytic-healing (5:2–9), distance-fevered-son-healing (4:46–54),and water-wining (2:1–11) works, and you (the Judeans and the reader) willbe a-mazed (in a maze). (“How can these things come to be?” the a-mazedJudean ruler Nicodemus said, 3:9.) This amazing, greater-working father is adead-raiser and a give-lifer (not the make-deader and give-lifer of the Jewishscripture, Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; 2 Kgs 5:7), and the son is a dead-lifer and a

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7 This question is characteristic of Sigmund Freud’s early period, as shown in his TheFuture of an Illusion.

give-raiser too. (So hold on, Lazarus, the son gonna raise you, 11:43–44!Indeed he gonna raise himself, 10:17–18!) This dead-raising father is not ajudger, but he’s given all judging to the son (who says that he judges no one,8:15), so that the son will be all-honored (all people drawn to him, 12:32) asthe father is all-honored. (All rise, the honor-able son of the father now presiding as judge!) Those non-honoring son (i.e., the Judeans who want tokill/stone/crucify Jesus) non-honor father too. Hate son, hate father (15:23).

Jesus amensamens againagain and says that the Jesusword-hearer/Jesussender-believer is a non-judged death-to-life goer. (They to-the-lightcome and are from-above born as children of god, 1:12; 3:3, 21.) Amenamensay: Coming hour (the hour of truthful, spiritual father-worshiping, 4:23) IS,when dead (sheep) hear the (goodshepherding) godson-voice and come outinto (the green pastures of) life (10:3). The father is a life-in-himself (livinglight, light living, 1:4; 8:12) father, and he’s son-given that life, as well asPOWER to judge, because the fatherson is also the humanson, the descend-ing-ascending, lifted-up, glorified, dying lifegiver (3:13; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28;12:23; 13:31). Jesus tells them (and us) not to be (from-below) amazed at this(from-above word). (Be amazed at the coming greater works, 5:20, not the present living word.) The coming hour will be also the in-the-tombs coming-out hour (Ya listenin’, Lazarus?), do-gooders coming out into resurrected(eternal) life, do-badders coming out into resurrected judgment. (The Hebrewprophetic vision resurrected! Day of the Lord Isaiah: “Your dead will live,their corpses will rise,” 26:19. Valley of dry bones Ezekiel: “I am going to openyour graves, and bring you up from the graves,” 37:12. Day of DeliveranceDaniel: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some toeverlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” 12:2.)

Jesus the son can’t do nothing on his own (Nothing, nada, just like god-sent Moses, Num 16:28). His speech is now back to where it started, with the“do-nothing” son (cf. John 5:19). But this time it’s “I” again instead of “son”(cf. 5:17). While the son sees (5:19), “I” hears and just judges (as humanson,5:27). He’s not his own will-seeker but his sender’s will-seeker. (That’s thefood that nourishes him, John 4:34. That’s the reason he’s heaven-come-down, 6:38.) Now Jesus/god not “son/father” but “I/sender.” (Music, withSam Cooke singing: “Darling, yooooooou send me . . . honest you do.”)

But Jesus can’t be his own witness, for his self-witness is not true. (ThePharisees’ witness at this point is true for once, 8:13.) Hey, he needs at least twonon-self witnesses (Deut 17:6; 19:15). The first one that he calls is John, whogives true witness. (“Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but thetruth, so help you god?” “So help me god? I was sent from god!” John 1:9.) TheJudeans sent messengers (Jerusalem priests and Levites, 1:19) to him, and hetruly truthfully witnessed (IAM NOT Messiah, Elijah, or prophet, 1:19–21; JesusIAM the lambofgod/sonofgod! 1:29, 34). Jesus doesn’t need a human witness(he’s got a divine one), but he wants his listeners to be saved (for which he into


the world came, 3:17; 12:30). He says therefore that the human witnessing Johnwas a burning, shining lamp (but not the true light of the world, 1:8), in whoselight the Judeans wanted temporarily to whoop it up. But Jesus’ second non-self-witness is even better than John: his healing, wining works, which are theson’s homework from the father, done in the father’s name (10:25). They wit-ness that Jesus is fathersent (and that he is in the father as the father is in him,10:38; 14:11). And this sending father is also a witnessing father. Jesus thereforehas a third non-self-witness (he does the law one better), which is even betterthan his own works: his father. (Do they swear him in? “. . . so help you (gulp)god!?” “What do you mean? IAM god.”) The Judeans haven’t fathersvoiceheard (though they will later and think that it’s angelic thunder, 12:28–29), andthey haven’t fathersform seen (though Jesus the son has, 1:18). And they don’thave fathersword dwelling in them (though Jesus is the fathersfleshedworddwelling among us, 1:14), because they’re Jesussender non-believers, whoscripturesearch (searching for life, even though Jesus IAM the life, 14:6), butthe scriptures—like the father, like John, like Jesus’ works—are witnesses toJesus. (Philip had it right: Jesus is the one about whom Moses and the prophetslawfully wrote, 1:45.) The Judeans (who are dead) don’t come (out of theirtombs) to Jesus to be life-havers.

Jesus is a human-glory-nonaccepter (he accepts glory only from god) because they don’t have godlove in them (and Jesus knows what’s in them,2:24–25). Jesus the son in the fathersname comes, but they don’t accept him(even though they are his own, 1:11) anymore than he accepts their glory.They accept an own-name-comer and one another’s glory (because theyspeak on their own, 7:18), but they don’t god’s glory seek (instead they Jesuskill seek, 5:18; 7:19).

Jesus will not fatheraccuse them; he’s only the defense counsel. Their ac-cuser, their prosecutor, will be Moses the law-giver (1:17; 7:19, but notbread-giver, 6:32), the circumcision-giver (though not really, 7:22) and serpent-lifter (3:14), even though they’ve been in-him hopers. (The Mosaiclaw then serves as a witness against them, Deut 31:26.) But they neitherreally hope nor believe in Moses, because if they did they would believe inJesus because Moses wrote about him. (How so? When Moses said that thelord god would raise up a prophet like him, Deut 18:15?) They don’t believeMoseswritings, they don’t then believe Jesuswords.

Now to the second father-son discourse.

2.2. Father and Son Won/One (John 17:1–26)

After Jesus said these things, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said,“Father, the hour has come.Glorify your son,so that the son might glorify you,

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just as you have given him power over all flesh,so that to everything that you have given him he might give eternal life.And this is eternal life:that they might know the only true god and the one whom you have

sent, Jesus Christ.I have glorified you upon the earth by completing the work that you

have given me to do.Now glorify me, father, with the glory which I had with you before the

world was.

I have made known your name to the ones that you have given mefrom the world.

They were yours,and you gave them to me,and they have kept your word.I know that all that you have given me is from you,for the words that you have given to me I have given to them.They have received them and have known truly that I have come from you,and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them.I do not pray for the world, but for the ones you have given me,because they are yours,All that is mine is yours, and I have been glorified in them.I am no longer in the world,but they are in the world,and I am coming to you.Holy father, keep them in your name that you have given me,so that they might be one just as we are one.When I was with them, I kept them in your name that you have given me.I guarded them,and none of them was lost, except the son of lostness,so that the scripture might be fulfilled.But now I am coming to you.I am speaking these things in the worldso that my joy might be fulfilled in them.I have given them your word,and the world has hated them,because they are not of the world,just as I am not of the world.I do not pray that you should take them out of the world,but that you might keep them from the evil one.They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.Sanctify them in truth;your word is truth.Just as you have sent me into the world,I also send them into the world;


and I sanctify myself for them,so that they might be sanctified in truth.

I do not pray only for them,but also for the ones who believe into me through their word,that they all might be one,just as you, father, are in me and I in you,that they also might be in us,so that the world might believe that you sent me.I have given to them the glory that you gave to me,in order that they might be one just as we are one.I in them and you in me,so that they might be completed as one,so that the world might know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you loved me.

Father, I want the ones that you have given me to be with me where I am,so that they might behold my glory, which you have given to me because you loved me from the founda-

tion of the world.Righteous Father, the world does not even know you,but I know you,and they know that you have sent me.I have made your name known, and I will make it known,so that your love for me might be in them and I in them.”

Fast-forward (and things do go fast-for-(the)-word in this Gospel) pastthe disputes with the Judeans to the farewell discourses with the disciples(13:31–17:26). Jesus the world-conquerer (16:33) has said these farewell-discoursing things—these paraclete-promising (14:26; 15:26), love-one-another-commanding (13:34–35; 15:12), father-going (14:28; 16:10, 28) things,and then he heaven-lifts his eyes (as he did at Lazarustomb when he prayedso that the crowd might believe, 11:41–42. Is he now praying so that the disciples might believe?). Jesus addresses in prayer his “father,” the one towhom he goes, the one who is in him and the one in whom he is (14:10). Hesays, Hour come. Hour coming now is (4:23; 5:25). Hour not yet at Cana(2:4), at stoning (7:30), but coming and ising NOW—hour for true-spirit-worshiping (4:23), dead-raising (5:25), disciple-scattering (16:32). It’scome—with the festival-worshiping Greeks, the hour to fall into the earthand die and, as the true vine, bear much fruit (12:20–24). The hour has come,the hour to pray to father for glorification, son(ofhumanity)-glorificationand father-glorification (cf. also 13:31–32). GLORY, glory, GLO(w)ry, as ofan only son, fully gracious and true (1:14). Father glorifies son, son glorifiesfather. (Glorify, glory-fly—to heaven, to father, to above!)

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Father’s given son over-all-flesh power: power to childrenofgod make(1:12), power to judge (5:22), and power to lifegive (5:21)—eternally, for godsolovestheworld (3:16). Lifeternal means knowing the only true god (whohas sent the true light, 1:9, and the true bread, 6:32) and his sent one JesusChrist, through whom gracious truth came to be (1:17). Through the signs(water-wining, dead-raising, etc.) Jesus has fatherglorified and fatherswork-completed (for that’s his food, 4:34), so now he’s asking father to Jesusglorifywith before-world glory, in-the-beginning-word-with-god-glory (1:1–2).Glory in the beginning (creation), glory in the middle (signs, discourses), andglory at the end (death, resurrection, ascension).8 From glory to glory! (Yetthe final glory is gory glory! Deathly glory, glorified death. How oedipallycomplex! The father kills the son, or better said, he commands the son to killhimself, 10:17–18. But the father bathes the son’s dark death in glorious light,so that he not only dies but rises, ascends, gives the spirit, and reunites withthe father. It’s still death, but what a way to go!)9

Jesus has fatherglorified by makeknowing the fathersname (IAM?) to thefather-given-from the-world-to-the-son-ones. (Through the signs they havebelieved in Jesus’godgivenglory, 2:11.) They were the father’s, given to theson, so securely that the son couldn’t drive them away or lose them (6:37, 39;18:9) and no one could snatch them out of the son’s hand (10:29). Thesefather-given-to-the-son-ones have kept the father’s word (given to themthrough the son’s word, 14:24), because they love the son (and therefore loveone another, 13:34–35), and the father loves them, and the father/son homein on them (14:23). The son knows that the father loves him too (because hehas kept the fathersword to lay down his life, 10:17), and therefore he hasgiven him all things (cf. 3:35), including words for the word to speak, givenin turn to the fathergivenones, who have received (kept) the fathersonwords(and have become children of god, 1:12) and have known/believed that Jesushas from-god-come/been-sent (though it has taken them a while to come tothat belief/knowledge, 16:29–30, for throughout their time with Jesus theyhave received his words with misunderstanding, cf. 14:9–10).

For these believing knowers (these “gnostics”) Jesus prays, not for the dis-ciple-hating, word-rejecting world (15:18, i.e., the Judeans, who were trying tokill Jesus, 5:18; 7:1) but for father-given-to-the-son-ones, who are the father’sbut the son’s too because everything that’s the father’s is also the son’s (16:15),given from father to son (3:35; 13:3). In these father-given-ones the son hasbeen glorified (as they ask in Jesus’ name and do greaterworks, 14:12–13).


8 As Ernst Käsemann said in his profound meditations on John 17, protology is placedbeside eschatology (21).

9 For a clear, concise summary of Freud’s Oedipus theory and Paul Ricoeur’s restatementof it, cf. Hamerton-Kelly: 7–18.

(Glorified even in/through their misunderstanding?!) But Jesus not in theworld anymore. Left his fathergivenones behind, still in-the-world. Jesus notintheworld, going to the father. (Going, going, GONE!) Come from god-father/going to godfather, who’s greater than Jesusson (13:3; 14:28). Jesus issuspended between heaven and earth, between above and below; he’s already on his glorious way! From his going-to-the-father position, son praysthat holy father, sanctified father, will in his name keep fathertotheson-givenones, so that in IAM they are, they are one, father-in-son one, madepossible by the paraclete (14:16–17, 21). While with them, Jesus kept/guardedthem in the father-to-the-son-givenname, IAM, so that none might be lostexcept son-of-lostness (that satan-entered, gone-out-into-the-night Judas Iscariot, 13:2, 27, 30, who is a devil, 6:70), who is lost so as to scripture-fulfill.(Exactly what scripture is that? Presumably father knows because son is nottelling.) The scripture, like Jesus, is thirsty and must be filled full (19:28).

Son’s a’comin’ to father, these-things speaking in the world (So do hiswords remain in the world even though he does not?), so as to full-fill notjust the scriptures but also the disciples’ joy—abiding, birthing (from-above),asking/receiving, seeing-Jesus-again joy (15:11; 16:20–24; 20:20). (YIPPEE!)Jesus has given the fathergivenones the fathersword (and they have kept it).For that the world hates them (even though they love one another), butworld hated son (and father, 15:23) before it hated them because neither sonnor fathergivenones are of the world (not-of-the-world/not-of-the-world);they’re aliens, from above. Son has chosen the fathergivenones from theworld, and the world hates them (15:18–19). But son doesn’t pray that fathershould take them out of the world (as he is doing with son, who seems tohave an easier job than they do because he is returning to the loving fatherand they are staying in the hating world). Son prays that father would keepthem from the evil one, the satan (the accuser, over against the advocate),who is not only of the world but rules the world (12:31; 14:30) and is fatherof the murderous Judeans (8:44). He has no power over son or father-givenones because they are not-of-the-world. The non-worldly son praysthat holy, sanctified father might sanctify, holy-fy, the fathergivenones intruth, fathers-word truth (fathers-fleshly-word gracious truth, 1:14, 18; 14:6),spirit truth (that is in them/with them, 14:16–17). Just as father has sent soninto world not to judge it but save it (3:17), son sends the fathergivenonesinto world, breathing on them holy resurrection spirit (20:22). Son holieshimself (though father has already holied him in sending him into world,10:36); thus, holy father, holy son, so that the father-given-ones might beholied in the whole, sanctified, spirited, living truth.

Son doesn’t just pray for the father-given-ones but also for all into-him,through-their-word believers, who, not Thomas-like, believe without seeing(20:29). If the fathergivenones keep fathersword and receive sonswords, thenpeople will believe through their word. Wordwordword! Believers are of

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word not world, born from above. Son (word from above) prays that all theseword-not-world believers might one be (dispersed children-of-god gatheredinto one flock by one laying-down-his-life shepherd, 10:16; 11:52), just asfather in son and son in father and believers in father and son. Youinme andIinyou and theyinus. IAM/we are/we all are (cf. 10:38; 14:10, 20). So that, sothat the world, that disciple-hating, word-rejecting world, might believe thatfather sent son. Sent son’s given the wordbelievers glory, glorious words,worded glory, enfleshed worded glory (1:14), signed glory (2:11), father-givenglory, so that they one (through loving one another) as fatherson (we) one.Son in wordbelievers and father in son. Iinthem and youinme. So that com-pleted/fulfilled (filled full, joyfully and scripturally) as one ONE one (won:conquered world, 16:33). So that world might know (the world might becomegnostic)/believe that father is a son-sender and a believer-lover (coming tobeloved believer along with son to make a home, 14:23) as well as a son-lover(and son-all-things-giver and son-all-his-doings-shower, 3:35; 5:20).

Beloved son calls loving father: he wants/desires/longs that his father-given-ones (his servant/friends, 12:26; 15:15) be with him where he is. Hehas after all prepared a place in the fathershouse, and he plans to take themthere to be in the father with him and be one and be loved (14:1–3). Here allare family: disciples are Jesus’ brothers (not sisters?) and god is their father(20:17). (But does this happen in the world or not? How can believers bewhere son is if they are in the world and he is not?) In the fathershouse thefather-given-ones will see the sonsglory, father-given-to-the-son in lovebefore worldfoundation (and before worldrejection of the word, 1:10).Righteous and just (and holy) father is not known by the world (though theworld was founded by father through the word, 1:3), but son knows father,and father-given-ones know that he is father-sent. (He has father’s scent.)Son known-made fathersname (IAM, through signs, through discourses)and will known-make it (through going to the father), so that fathersonlovemight be in father-given-ones and therefore son might be in them, abidingin love through the truthful, fruitful, vining spirit (15:1–11). In the beginningwas glory; in the end love.10

So … how does the father respond to this prayer for glorification?Almost expect a heavenly voice to thunder again: “I’ve glorified it, and I’lldo it again!” (12:28). But this time heaven is silent, or is it? The earlier voicewas for the crowd not Jesus (12:30). The disciples apparently need no suchvoice, because they know/believe that Jesus came from god (16:30). Theyhave the heavenly word dwelling among them, and they see his glory (1:14).And the reader will too, sort of, by reading the story (20:30–31).


10 Cf. Stephen Moore’s eloquent Lacanian meditation on God’s desire in John (62–64).

Finding Likenesses to the Father-Son Images in ContemporaryAfrican American Poetry

I have played with the word’s words (father-son words) in order to bringthe images into the light. Images such as seeing doing, hearing speaking, glorifying, loving. Such images take us into the bosom of the father, where theson reclines. In order to deepen further these images, I will look for likenessesto those images in contemporary African American poetry. This literaturecomes out of the context in which I work, and it is the voice of the alien in oursociety, much like the Gospel of John is the voice of the alien Jesus.

So fast-forward to twentieth-century African-Americana, and cue it up topoetic likenesses to the Johannine father-son images. First, the father loves theson. Robert Hayden remembers “Those Winter Sundays” of his boyhood whenhis father would rise early to warm up the rooms and polish his shoes. Haydensays that he spoke indifferently to his father. He concludes, “What did I know,what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (Miller, 1994:130). Thefather loves the son and gives him all things (John 3:35), at least warmth andshine, love and glory. The son sees what the father is doing, but he has no wordbecause he does not know (is not a gnostic) love. He did not understand then,but now (after parenthood? after glorification? 12:16) he remembers.

Such love is evident in two of E. Ethelbert Miller’s poems. (So I guess it’sMiller time!) In one he stands next to the sink as “My Father Is Washing HisFace.” He admires his father’s young face and says, “I am happy whensomeone says / I look like my father or when my / father reminds me towash my face / and I reach for the soap in his hand” (1998:37). Similarly,Jesus says, “The one who has seen me has seen the father” (John 14:9). Hetakes the soap from his father’s hand and washes the believer’s face and feetso that one can see and be clean (13:1–5).

In another poem Miller shares with his mother the eucharistic “Bread”:

your father’s skinwas soft like buttermy mother tells meafter grace

the two of us sitat the kitchen table where he once sat

our food coolsand we count our blessings

share the bread between us (1998:38)

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Jesus says, “My father gives you the true bread from heaven” (John6:32). It comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Miller’sfather’s skin butters the eucharistic (blessed and graced) bread. His flesh,like Jesus’, is true food (6:55).

Lenard D. Moore uses agricultural images in two poems about fatherlove. In the first he remembers “My Father’s Ways” as teacher andshaper:

I.You perch me on a stoollike a blackbird on a branch,teach me time tablesthat multiply like rabbits.

II.You take me to football games,coach me, draw plays in symbolson metal bleachers.

III.You walk through your garden,farmer, witnessing crops;you name plants, show me how to harvest.

IV.You mold me intoa potter spinning clay in circles,shaping bowls and vases.

V.Now, full-grown,like a tree rooted deep,I bend forward into the lightof your voice in prayer. (Wade-Gayles: 201)

The father teaches the son “time tables” (the hour is coming and now is)and coaches him in playing with the symbols (light and darkness?). Thefather goes into the garden (tomb?) to witness, to name the vine IAM, and toshow the son how to harvest, for “the fields are ripe for harvesting” (John4:35). The father molds the son into a clayspinner, anointing people’s eyes togive them sight (9:6–7). The vine is now full-grown, deeply rooted in thefarming father, and he prays for glorious light.


In another farmer-father poem Moore celebrates “Black Father Man,”whom he calls “the supreme earth dweller” and “the word-music messenger.”He continues, “We are his ripe black crop / at the-beginning-of-the-harvest. . . .We are his grace black note / at the four-beating-of-the-song” (Steptoe: 8). Herethe role of the father takes on the role of the Johannine son, who, as the word(incarnate) messenger, is the earth dweller (John 1:14). Believers are harvestedcrop and experience in the son grace and truth, grace upon grace (1:14, 16).

The images of growing and harvesting continue in a poem in the samevolume. Javaka Steptoe, who illustrated the book, writes of “Seeds” that hisfather planted: “You drew pictures of life / with your words. / I listenedand ate these words you said / to grow up strong. / Like the trees, I grew, /branches, leaves, flowers, and then the fruit. // I became the words I ate inyou. / For better or worse / the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” (Steptoe:23). (It certainly doesn’t, for Steptoe is the son of children’s book artist JohnSteptoe.) Again, the son takes words from the father. These words are notonly heard but also eaten, and the son becomes the devoured words. Hegrows like a tree (the true vine? John 15:1–8), and abiding in the father, heproduces branches and fruit. (Must they be cleansed and pruned?)

The father plants the seeds and then dies. He lives on, however, in theson, not only in fullness but also in emptiness. Miller inhales “The GraySmoke of Clubs,” as he writes, “I live my father’s life / the absence of joy inthe / center of responsibilities / the dark streets of early mornings / whenhe finds his way home / to a life already lost” (1998:39). The son here is onlydoing what he sees the father doing (John 5:19), but his joy is not completed(16:24; 17:13) but absent. He has not seen light but darkness; he has lost hislife, not found it for eternal life, in the father’s house (12:25).

In the father’s house, the son receives the word from his father. And thisword strengthens, weakens, hurts and heals. Yusef Komunyakaa served asscribe for “My Father’s Love Letters” to his mother, in which his father“promised never to beat her / Again.” As he dictated, he “would stand there/ With eyes closed & fists balled, / Laboring over a simple word, almost / Redeemed by what he tried to say” (Miller, 1994:168). Almost, almost. Can hebe redeemed through the word? The flesh has been not only useless (John6:63) but violent. And the spirit? Can this word that he has spoken to his sonbecome spirit and life? Can it become enfleshed?

Flesh. Flesh of my flesh. And that flesh becomes weak, very weak, asCornelius Eady describes in his prose poem, “I Know (I’m Losing You),”which opens his book of poems about his father’s illness and death:

Have you ever touched your father’s back? No, my fingers tell me, as theytry to pull up a similar memory.

There are none. This is a place we have never traveled to, as I try tolift his weary body onto the bedpan.

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I recall a photo of him standing in front of our house. He is large,healthy, a stocky body in a dark blue suit.

And now his bowels panic, feed his mind phony information, andas I try to position him, my hands shift, and the news shocks me morethan the sight of his balls.

O, bag of bones, this is all I’ll know of his body, the sharp ridge ofspine, the bedsores, the ribs rising in place like new islands.

I feel him strain as he pushes, for nothing, feel his fingers grip my shoul-ders. He is slipping to dust, my hands inform me, you’d better remember this (1).

Eady remembers his father’s “weary body . . . slipping to dust.” He isnot only into the father’s bosom (John 1:18) but into his bones, back, bowels,and balls. This is the father who has in himself not life (5:26) but death.

Fathers die, and they live a ghostly, ghastly existence in the lives oftheir sons. D. J. Renegade writes of an unholy trinity, “Father, Son and theWholly Ghost.”

We meet onlyin the alleys of memory.Our broken smileslitter the ground.Although we wear the same name, identical scars, you can’t remember what day I was born.Anger spillsdown the sideof my face.This is what you have taught me: needles are hollowerthan lies,leave bigger holes in families, than arms.Now a prisoner in death’s camp, you grow thinner every day until I can count your T-cells on one hand.The phone ringsMama pleadsPlease buy a dark suit to wear.I tell herI wear black every day,all day,anyway.


The ghost that haunts Renegade, like Jesus’ paraclete, reminds him ofhis father’s words and all that he has taught him (cf. John 14:26–27). Thesewords, however, do not bring joy or peace (14:27; 15:11) but anger. (Hisheart is stirred up! 14:1, 27.) His father has taught him lies not the truth,holes and nothing holy.

The father dies, and/or the father wants someone else to die. RalphDickey’s “Father” beats the poet’s mother to death, and then says to him, “Iwant you to kill a man for me . . . / I’ll give you a hundred dollars / . . . / here’sa piece of paper / with the man’s name / . . . / I opened the paper my name /was on it . . . / what is this I said / some kind of goddam / joke I never joke/about money / he said” (Harper and Walton: 222–23). The word from thefather has the son’s name on it; he is to kill him. His payment is love and unionwith the father. It is no joke; the father doesn’t joke about resurrection.

Finding Likenesses to the Father-Son Images in My Own Soul

I have played with the images of the Johannine fatherson and their like-nesses in African American poetic fathersons. Now it is time to findlikenesses in my own experience of fatherson. I have long longed for thekind of father that Jesus had. This father loved the son, was one with him,and showed him what he was doing. My own father and I were very muchtwo, for much of the time I did not know what in the world he was doing.He worked in a large agribusiness firm “in the city,” which I rarely visited.He was an avocational carpenter, building cabinets, shelves, and desks, buthe did not take me to his workshop to apprentice me. And then he becameill and died. Who would then be my father? I have been looking for him therest of my life. At times I think that I have found him, in a pastor, teacher, administrator, or senior colleague, but ultimately these fathers have failedme, some more dramatically than others, probably because they were notmy father and could not make up for my lack.

Early in my graduate education the Gospel of John became my father.(Good news!) In reading Jesus’ words, I could vicariously experience his relationship with his father. I was the son, all-loved and all-shown and all-given by my all-powerful father. He illumined the darkness of my ignorance(through biblical criticism!) and put me in a community (professional soci-ety) of beloved disciples, whose eyes had also been healed of from-birthblindness. What a father (whose power was mediated through the fathers)!

But this father failed me too. As I became sensitive to feminist concerns,I was uncomfortable with the Gospel’s exclusive male language for god(always “father-son” never “mother-daughter”). As I became interested inthe religious experience of believers outside of Christianity, I found that thistext seemed to negate anything outside of Christ (“No one comes to thefather except through me,” 14:6b). As I became aware of the church’s role in

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anti-Semitism, pogroms, and the Holocaust, I saw how this Gospel had con-tributed (“You are from your father the devil,” Jesus tells the “Jews,” as it isusually translated, 8:44). The Gospel too had become a failed father.

Now I am a father. I attempt to show my daughters “all that I am doing.”I do much of my work at home (on the same computer where Anastasiaplays “Reader Rabbit”), and the girls frequently come to school. I take Anas-tasia to art class (my avocation). I realize, however, that I will fail these girls;indeed, I already have—in small ways, I hope. (“I’m sorry, honey; I don’tthink that I can fix that toy.”) But a father who sometimes fails does not afailed father make! Hillman reminds me that “failing belongs to fathering”(1987:280). The “all-things” that I give my children include my failures.

Knowing that I too will fatherly fail, can I then relate in a healthier, moreforgiving, more egalitarian way to my failed fathers? Can I accept my failedfathers, whether teacher, colleague, or even text? Can I see them as friendsand brothers, even fathers to a certain extent, without expecting them to bemy “ideal father”? Can I enter into a dia-logue with them, going “through theword” of the father, analyzing, critiquing, and appreciating it while speakingto them my own word, which is different from their word?11 Can I?

If so, then I think my father would be proud.

WORKS CONSULTED

Bible and Culture Collective, The 1995 The Postmodern Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Brown, Raymond E.1966–70 The Gospel according to John. AB 29 and 29A. Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday.

Dodd, C. H.1967 “A Hidden Parable in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp. 30–40 in More New Testa-

ment Studies. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Eady, Cornelius1995 You Don’t Miss Your Water: Poems. New York: Henry Holt.

Freud, Sigmund1953–74 The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.

Ed. and trans. James Strachey. 24 vols. London: Hogarth.


11 A provocative example of dialoguing with the Gospel is Segovia.

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert1979 God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus. OBT 4.


Harper, Michael S., and Anthony Walton1994 Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep: An Anthology of Poetry by African Americans

Since 1945. Boston: Little, Brown.

Harvey, A. E.1972 Jesus on Trial: A Study in the Fourth Gospel. London: SCM.

Hillman, James1975 Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: Harper & Row.

1977 “An Inquiry into Image.” Spring 39:62–88.

1987 “Oedipus Revisited.” Eranos Jahrbuch 56:261–307.

Howard-Brook, Wes1994 Becoming Children of God: John’s Gospel and Radical Discipleship.


Jung, Carl G.1957 The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. 20 vols. Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press.



Lacan, Jacques1977 Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton.

Malina, Bruce J., and Richard J. Rohrbaugh1998 Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Miller, E. Ethelbert1998 Whispers Secrets & Promises. Baltimore: Black Classic.

Miller, E. Ethelbert, ed.1994 In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry.

New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang.

Moore, Stephen1994 Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot

of the Cross. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Neyrey, Jerome H.1988 An Ideology of Revolt: John’s Christology in Social Science Perspective.


Pasteur, Alfred B., and Ivory L. Toldson 1982 Roots of Soul: The Psychology of Black Expressiveness. Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday.

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Petersen, Norman R.1993 The Gospel of John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization

in the Fourth Gospel. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International.

Pippin, Tina1996 “‘For Fear of the Jews’: Lying and Truth-Telling in Translating the

Gospel of John.” Semeia 76:81–97

Renegade, D. J.[2001] “Father, Son and the Wholly Ghost.” In Beyond the Frontier. Baltimore:

Black Classic (forthcoming).

Segovia, Fernando F.1997 “Inclusion and Exclusion in John 17: An Intercultural Reading.” Pp.

183–211 in “What Is John?” Vol. 2: Literary and Social Readings of theFourth Gospel. Ed. Fernando F. Segovia. SBLSymS 7. Atlanta: Scholars.

Steptoe, Javaka, illustrator1997 In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers. New

York: Lee & Low.

Tompkins, Jane P., ed.1980 Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Balti-

more: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wade-Gayles, Gloria, ed.1997 Father Songs: Testimonies by African-American Sons and Daughters.

Boston: Beacon.

Willett, Michael E.1988 “Jung and John.” Explorations: Journal for Adventurous Thought 77–92

1992 Wisdom Christology in the Fourth Gospel. San Francisco: Mellen ResearchUniversity Press.

Willett Newheart, Michael1995 “Johannine Symbolism.” Pp. 71–91 in Jung and the Interpretation of the

Bible. Ed. David L. Miller. New York: Continuum.

1996 “Toward a Psycho-Literary Reading of the Fourth Gospel.” Pp. 43–58 in“What is John?” Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel. Ed. Fernando F.Segovia. SBLSymS 3. Atlanta: Scholars.

1999 “The Soul in the New Testament: A Contemporary Psychological Per-spective, or Soul 2 Soul: A Post-Modern Exegete in Search of (NewTestament) Soul.” Journal of Religious Thought (forthcoming).

Wright, N. T.1992 The New Testament and the People of God. Vol. 1: Christian Origins and the

Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress.


THE SYMBOL OF DIVINE FATHERHOOD

Dorothy Ann LeeUnited Faculty of Theology, Melbourne

Symbol and Incarnation

The series of articles in this issue of Semeia outlines the importance of fatherhood in the Fourth Gospel and demonstrates the different ways inwhich this key term can be traced. Exegetically the articles reveal a pluralityof approach and raise significant hermeneutical questions about how theGospel is to be interpreted today. In this response, I want to focus on aniconic reading of divine fatherhood in the Fourth Gospel. I read the text as afemale reader, without claiming to speak on behalf of all women readers,who read far more diversely than is generally acknowledged (and as the articles in this issue demonstrate).

I take as a starting point the view that the term “Father” is a symbolrather than a literal description of divine essence, in line with contemporaryfeminist theological thinking that sees exclusively male imagery for God asidolatrous (e.g., Johnson: 33–41). The Christian tradition has tended to equiv-ocate on the gender of God. On the one hand, the iconography, both verbaland pictorial, has been overwhelmingly male, creating the impression thatthe God of Israel is a male deity. On the other hand, the first creation accountpresents both female and male as made in the divine image (Gen 1:26–27)and, in the Pauline baptismal tradition, the risen Christ is a universal, repre-sentative figure, incorporating and transcending both male and female (Gal3:27–28). Since biblical language is androcentric, the grammatically mascu-line gender is used to express not only specific maleness but also that whichis universal, cosmic, normative, and therefore “gender-neutral” (as opposedto the feminine, which is local, ever-specific, and “other”; see Spender). Theambiguity of androcentric language thus makes it difficult to unravel thetangled threads of generic and male.

Yet the Judeo-Christian tradition, at its most reasonable, knows that Godcannot be confined to the specificity of one gender, despite the weight of itstheological representation. In a homily on the Song of Songs (In CanticumCanticorum), for example, Gregory of Nyssa, while using masculine languageand imagery for God, concedes that Mother can replace Father as the namefor God, since “there is neither male nor female in the divine” (ou[te a[rrhn,ou[te qh'lu to; Qei'ovn ejsti). In effect, he argues (presumably with Gal 3:28 in

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mind) that no human label can adhere to the innermost being of God, including that of gender:

For how could anything of such a kind be apprehended to the godhead,when even for us humans, this [aspect of our humanity] does not continu-ously endure; but when we all become one in Christ, we are divested of thesigns of this destruction, together with our old humanity [tou' palaiou' ajnqrwvpou]? For this reason, every name which is found [pa'n to; euJrisovmenonojnoma] is of equal power in manifesting the [divine] incorruptible nature:neither female nor male defiling the significance [shmasivan] of God’s unde-filed nature. (916)

Here is an example of the tradition acknowledging the fundamentally sym-bolic nature of its own theology—without necessarily perceiving the radicalimplications of such a stance or allowing it to challenge its actual symbols.

In contrast, a number of neoconservative theologians have argued that“Father” is the literal and exclusive name for God. Fatherhood for them expresses the divine essence revealed in the incarnation, without genderovertones; it is “not an exchangeable metaphor” (Pannenberg, 1991:31; seealso Jenson: 95–109; Torrance: 129–30; Pannenberg, 1993:27–29). It is hard tosee how this argument works, except by conceding universalism to mascu-line language. More immediately, it ignores the intuitive dimensions oftheological language, assuming that it is enough to “know” rationally thatGod is not male—that the title “Father” is somehow gender-neutral—whileignoring the profound, affective power of the symbol.

This view, therefore, is based on a mistaken understanding of symbol-ism, as well as a failure to grasp the symbolic nature of the Fourth Gospel.Symbolism is not ornamental language decorating the plain truth; if it wereso, the symbols, as ornaments, would be arbitrary and external, chosen onpurely functional (i.e., pedagogical) grounds. Symbols, like metaphors andsimiles (which are their linguistic manifestation), bear within them the transcendent reality to which they point (Schneiders, 1977:223; Koester: 4–15;Lee, 1994:29–33). They are deeply enmeshed in human experience; they contain cognitive content; and they are vehicles for transcendence ratherthan mere signposts on the way. At the same time, symbolism by its verynature is elusive and nonspecific, giving rise, like texts themselves, to a “surplus of meaning.” The same multivalence means that symbols do not attempt to capture essence in a definitive way, but, like icons, they open windows on the eternal (Lee, 1998).

What this means for divine fatherhood in the Fourth Gospel is that, asverbal icon, “Father” is neither an optional picture of God to be arbitrarily discarded, nor a photograph of ontic reality that cannot be touched by humanhands. The Father symbol is a “core symbol” in the Fourth Gospel (Koester:4–8), primarily an expression of the relationship between God and Jesus

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(Meyer: 255–73), and its theological manifestation is the incarnation. In Johan-nine terms, the symbol is both divinely revealed yet also grounded in humanexperience: in the “Word-made-flesh,” divine revelation and material realityare fused, without losing identity; neither is devoured nor rendered obsoleteby the other. On the contrary, divine glory (dovxa) is now revealed, with trans-figuring power, within the flesh (savrx). In the words of Gregory of Nazianzus:

Oh the new mingling! Oh the blend contrary to all expectation! The onewho is [oJ w[n], becomes [givnetai]. The uncreated is created. The uncontain-able is contained through a thinking soul, mediating between godhead andthe thickness of flesh [sarko;ı pacuvthti]. The one who enriches becomes abeggar; for he begs for my own flesh, so that I might become rich in his divinity. The one who is full becomes empty; for he empties himself of hisglory for a little time so that I might share in his fullness . . . I received the[divine] image [thvı eijkovnoı] and I did not protect it; he received a share inmy flesh so that he might even save the image [th;n eijkovna] and make death-less the flesh. (In Sanctum Pascha, 633–36)

Gregory captures well the Johannine understanding of the divine enteringthe material world with transforming power, yet also permitting itself to beshaped by flesh. This dual dynamic has its origins in the language of the Prologue. Birth in the Spirit is the restoration, as well as transformation, ofthe creaturely world (1:10–14). The one who lies in the Father’s embrace(1:18) is gathered into flesh; God takes shape in human form, created fromclay, subject to death, mortal, vulnerable—radiant with deity, yes, but radiantalso with the promise of flesh renewed, refined, immortal. In the incarnation,the hidden image (oJ ei[kwn) is restored.

God As Father in the Fourth Gospel and Early Christian Writings

This iconic framework shapes the Johannine understanding of fatherhood.C. H. Dodd has argued persuasively that the underlying imagery of Father andSon in the Fourth Gospel is that of a son apprenticed to his father (30–40), arguably a common proverb in the ancient world (Culpepper: 152). Both Fatherand Son are at work on the same task, the Son learning by imitating his Fatherand not initiating his own independent work: “the Father is working and I tooam working” (5:17); “the Son is able to do nothing of himself, except for what hesees the Father doing” (5:19b); “for that which he does, the Son likewise doesalso” (5:19c); “for the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that hedoes” (5:20). This key christological text draws out the symbol pervading theFourth Gospel’s understanding of the Father-Son relation, emphasizing the wayin which, for John, divine revelation and human experience coalesce.

Elsewhere I have argued that the symbol of divine fatherhood in theFourth Gospel is antipatriarchal in a number of important ways (Lee, 1995).

lee: the symbol of divine fatherhood 179

In one sense, Gail O’Day is right to criticize this kind of study for its poten-tial insensitivity to the narrative structures of the Gospel. Nevertheless, itseems to me a legitimate (if limited) enterprise to study the symbolics of atext, providing that the limitations are acknowledged and the narrative context not ultimately neglected. The reformulation of divine fatherhood certainly unfolds through the narrative (see Tolmie: 61–75), yet its contours—as with a number of other Johannine symbols and motifs—are already laiddown in the Prologue.

The Johannine transformation of patriarchal fatherhood takes place intwo ways. First, the Johannine Father-symbol occurs in narrative contextsthat are concerned with the surrender of power. The Johannine language of“sending” is focused on mission and clusters particularly around the Father-Son imagery: God is frequently described by the Johannine Jesus as “theFather [or, the one] who sent me” (5:36–37; 6:44, 57; 8:16, 18; 10:36; 11:41–42;12:49; 14:24); as Son, Jesus is the one who is “sent” (ajpestalmevnoı, 9:7). AsPaul Anderson’s article makes clear, behind this language lies the image ofthe messenger, the prophet-like-Moses (Deut 18:15–22), who holds the authority, and something of the identity, of the divine Sender (5:23b; 6:38;8:26; 12:44–45; 13:20; 14:24; 17:8). Yet the sending of the Son by the Fatherdoes not protect either the messenger or the Sender from harm. Motivatedby love for the world, the sending costs the Father the death of the Son (e.g.,3:14–17; 12:27). The Son represents the Father’s bequest to the world, the giftof God’s own self (1:1) through identification, suffering, and death.

The Fourth Gospel also speaks of the Father handing everything over tothe Son (3:35; 5:22; 13:3; 16:15): for example, in the divine, sabbatical authorityof giving life and judging (5:16–17, 21–27). Unlike the Roman-Hellenistic pater-familias, who holds the power of life and death over members of the household,the power of the Johannine Father is handed over to the Son (5:21–22) and thebelieving community (15:15; 16:25–27). Authority is not held onto in the FourthGospel. The Father of the Johannine Jesus does not scheme to retain and increase power; on the contrary, power is given away again and again.

This does not mean power does not accrue to God. As Marianne MeyeThompson points out, the paternal imagery includes that divine authoritywhich calls for obedience and honor (see also Thompson, 1997:239–40). Nevertheless, the function of divine power in the Gospel is life-giving(Jacobs-Malina: 92–93): Jesus’ ministry exercised on God’s behalf brings freedom and wholeness, overcoming the darkness. The authority that Jesusexercises as Son of the Father contrasts markedly with both the religious andsecular authorities, as they are depicted in the Fourth Gospel. Whereas theyharass and destroy the flock (9:22–23, 34; 10:10a; 19:6–7, 15a) and succumb topolitical expediency (11:47–50; 19:8, 13–16a), Jesus the Sovereign Shepherdstands up for the needy and for truth at great cost (19:14–18). His willingmortality discloses the nature of true authority (ejxousiva): “to lay down my life

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in order than I might take it up again” (10:17). Divine power does not existfor self-aggrandizement but for self-surrender and self-giving (10:14–18;18:36–37). Similarly, the Johannine language of “glory” and “glorify” (Brown:1:503–4; Thompson, 1988:94–97; and Painter: 50–60), particularly in relationto the cross, unfolds the paradoxical dynamic of God’s divine glory/majestyas loving and self-giving (cf. 6:51c; 12:32). The self-giving of the JohannineFather is the source of life and salvation (3:16).

The second indication that divine fatherhood restructures patriarchalsymbolism is the intimacy between the Johannine Jesus and God. The basis ofthe Father-Son relationship is the love each bears the other (3:35; 5:20; 10:17;14:31; 15:9; 17:23–24, 26)—a love expressed in intimate and mutual termsrather than through duty and fear. The relationship of Father and Son is inclusive of others, unlike the ancient world where patronage structures arepredicated on elitism and hierarchy. In the Johannine symbolic world, creation is drawn into the relationship between Father and Son: the intimacythat exists within the being of God opens itself to others. All are invited toshare the same love, the same “filiation” that the Johannine Jesus possesses(Schneiders, 1977:228–32). In this sense, the divine circle of intimacy is an expanding horizon. The imagery of “abiding,” as the narrative moves towards the passion and the full revelation of the glory, unfolds the same pattern of love, mutuality, and community (6:56; 8:31; 14:10, 17, 23; 15:1–17;Segovia: 123–67; and Lee, 1997). Unlike patriarchal kinship, those outside theimmediate family are drawn into the paternal embrace (kovlpon, 1:18), aboveall in the opening of the divine arms on the cross (12:32). Paternalism and subservience are explicitly rejected in the model of friendship which decon-structs the master-slave paradigm (15:11–17; Schneiders, 1985:140–43).

The Johannine understanding of divine fatherhood thus involves a two-way movement. On the one hand, God’s fatherhood, symbolically portrayedin the Father-Son relationship, is an outward movement of giving awaypower, surrendering selfhood as autonomous and self-sufficient. On the otherhand, divine fatherhood draws others into the filial relationship between Godand Jesus, so that the Father-Son language becomes the fundamental icon ofGod’s relations with the world. Both movements, the inner and the outer,challenge patriarchal understandings of power and relationship. It is in thissense that we can say, with Karl Barth (whatever his precise understanding ofthe symbolics), that divine fatherhood is not merely the reflection of humanexperience, but rather challenges, at the deepest level, human projections ofauthority and sovereignty (229–30). As Anderson points out—though withoutspecific reference to patriarchy—the authentic power of the “having-sent-meFather” is divine and other-worldly in origin, challenging human structures:“imperial prowess and anthropic sufficiency are exposed as inauthentic illusions.” The Johannine symbolism is both iconoclastic and iconographic: inwriting the new, it demythologizes the old.


Origen and Athanasius

In his discussion of early Christian interpretation of the same symbol,Peter Widdicombe outlines a similarly iconic approach to divine fatherhood.According to Widdicombe, both Origen and Athanasius—the first theologiansto discuss God as Father in a systematic way—see relationship as lying at theheart of divinity, manifest in the kinship between Father and Son. Origen’sstress on mutuality (despite his hierarchical understanding) is one such exam-ple, along with the transformation of believers from servitude and fear to loveand friendship, and his eschatological vision of ultimate union (ajpokatav-stasiı). Athanasius’s view of the relationship between Father and Son is lesshierarchical than Origen’s; for him, the fatherhood of God reveals the personaland reciprocal nature of the deity, as against the philosophical abstractions andsubordinationism of Arianism. What is at stake here is the reliability of salva-tion as participation in the divine love between Father and Son.

In both early Christian writers, there are elements that are recognizablyJohannine —particularly Athanasius with his stress on the reciprocity of theFather-Son relationship and the centrality of the incarnation. Athanasius defends the fundamentally relational character of God, whose personhoodbegins in the “plurality and mutuality” of the divine being and extends to thecommunity of faith (and, ultimately, to all creation). As LaCugna has pointedout, the trinitarian theology of the Greek fathers contains an implicit critiqueof dominating, subordinationist structures—regardless of the extent to whichthe early church perceived the political implications of its own teaching:“[t]he arche of God, understood from within a properly trinitarian theology,excludes every kind of subordination among persons, every kind of prede-termined role, every kind of reduction of persons to uniformity” (400).

Reading Widdicombe’s article, with its clarity and conciseness, I findmyself drawn to his depiction of early Christian faith yet also troubled by it.The fact is that for women to enter this sublime world of divine mutuality andreciprocity, without serious loss of identity, implies something rather different—something that threatens to undermine the very vision it conjuresup. Women are required to take an extra step of identification—a sidewaysleap of faith?—in order to read themselves and their own humanity intoiconography that renders them invisible. If the community of faith is drawninto the divine “sonship” (uiJoqesiva), there to find freedom from fear and servitude, what happens to women’s place within the same circle of intimacy:linguistically invisible, pictorially absent, without sensuous representation inthe icons, except as additions or exceptions or wraithlike appearances on themargins? How is glorification (or qevwsiı) possible for women except by a kindof contortion of being that leaves them stranded, insubstantial, bereft?

It is hard to escape the conclusion that, whether consciously or uncon-sciously, women cannot be drawn into the intimacy of Father and Son

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without some loss of identity: that is, without identifying themselves withmaleness, either at the human or divine level. Alternately, while retainingtheir identity, women may choose to make an additional intellectual move—one that demands a sophisticated understanding of the intentionality behindthe icon and the inclusive vision it attempts to unfold. In either case, there isno easy access for women: the gate is never so open or welcoming for themas it is for men. Tragically, many women are not prepared to pay what theyperceive as the high price of entry. For them, the icon has become, not awindow on the eternal, but a barrier that excludes them. LaCugna’s vision ofwhat a revitalized trinitarian theology can mean for persons-in-communion—male and female—is lost in what seems like a confirmation of women’salienation and marginalization.

It must be admitted that Athanasius’s androcentric language is probablymore complex than this critique suggests. In his Epistola I Ad Serapionem, hedescribes the work of the Trinity in creation as deriving from a unifiedenergy. God is present to creation in three ways, dependent on three prepo-sitions: “above all things” (ejpi; pavntwn) as Father, “through all things” (dia;pavntwn) through the Word, and “in all things” (ejn pa'si) in the Holy Spirit(596). What is interesting here is that the image of Father, for Athanasius,seems directly linked to God’s role as “principle and source” of life (ajrch; kaiphghv; Latin: “principium et fons”), whether divine or created. This ties inwith the Aristotelian embryology outlined in Reinhartz’s article as underly-ing or at least influencing the Fourth Gospel, where the biological father isliterally the “principle and source” of human life. On the same basis, presumably, he is also the source of authority and sovereignty within familial and social structures. In this kind of worldview it is difficult for astrictly monotheistic religion to understand divine parenthood in anythingbut male terms.

Difficult but not impossible: the figure of Isis, according to Apuleius, isdepicted in language that verges on monotheism, despite its cultic prove-nance and syncretistic overtones. In the end, the goddess reveals herself to thetransformed Lucius as “rerum naturae parens” (“the Parent of the universe”)and “elementorum omnium domina” (“Mistress of all the elements”), bearingall divinity and creation within herself (Metam. 2.5). A number of feministshave noted the influence of Isis iconography on the picture of personalizedWisdom/Sophia in the later biblical wisdom writings (e.g., Schüssler Fiorenza:132–34; Johnson: 92–93), which is an influential part of Johannine christology(Scott: 36–173). Surely the same delicate care that the early church took to understand the symbol of fatherhood as parental yet nonsexual—the “is”and the “is-not” of the metaphor—could also have been extended to thesymbol of divine motherhood?

The end result is that the de-patriarchalizing of the Johannine Father,while challenging the male world, fails adequately to embrace the female


world, despite the obvious rationale for such a move. This is true despite theinclusive way in which women are dramatized in the Johannine text, to afar greater extent, it can be argued, than they are in later Christian writings.Unlike the church of the following centuries, women are beloved in thisGospel, established through the narrative as witnesses of faith, apostolicleaders, missionaries, and proclaimers (2:1–11; 4:1–42; 11:1–12:11; 19:25–27;20:1–18). The language to describe their presence within the Johannine community, in mutual relationship with men, is that of “children” (tevkna)and “friends” (fivloi); the term “sonship” is never found (cf. Rom 8:15). Nevertheless, in all the ancient texts—the Fourth Gospel as well as the earlyChristian writings that depend on it—women’s redemptive status as daughters and friends of God is diminished (to a greater or lesser extent) bythe paucity of icons reflecting their participation in, and restoration to, the“imago Dei.”

Hermeneutics and Divine Fatherhood

A hermeneutical appraisal of the Father symbol in the Fourth Gospelneeds to locate itself within two theological poles. On the one hand, weneed to begin theologically with the mystery and incomprehensibility ofGod (qeo;n oujdei;ı eJwvraken pwvpote, 1:18a) beyond all creaturely categories,including gender (LaCugna: 322–35; Johnson: 104–12, 241–45; McFague:145–92; Carr: 134–57). As Thompson points out, even though God is desig-nated “Father” in this Gospel, “the Johannine God has no name”(1993:189). At the same time, paradoxically, the Fourth Gospel also maintains that, in the incarnation, God chooses to be revealed within the“flesh.” As already noted, symbols articulate this paradox in a way that discursive language cannot, holding together the separability yet fusion ofdivine and human, spiritual and material, sacred and profane, mysteryand openness, glory and flesh.

In the light of this, what might a more nuanced theological under-standing of fatherhood in the Fourth Gospel look like? The first step is toconfirm the images of God that arise from a symbolic rather than literal understanding and that dramatically reconfigure the symbol of divine fatherhood. The advantage here is that, as an icon of divine and human identity, the Johannine Father symbol enables us to grasp, with stereoscopicvision, the intimate union of Creator and creation envisaged by the FourthGospel, and symbolized above all in the Johannine christology. The secondstep is to read “against the grain,” bringing gender to the fore in order to re-present the iconography of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ. Onlysuch a careful deconstruction of the idolatry of gender—along with otherforms of false worship—can restore women, without distortion, to thedivine image and the divine embrace.

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WORKS CONSULTED

Apuleius (b. 123 C.E.)1989 Metamorphoses. Trans. J. Arthur Hanson. LCL 44, 453. Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Athanasius (fl. 295–373 C.E.)1857 Epistola I Ad Serapionem. Ed. J. P. Migne. PG 26. Paris.

Barth, Karl1957 Church Dogmatics. Vol. 2/1. Trans. G. W. Bromiley. Edinburgh: T&T

Clark.

Brown, Raymond E.1966–70 The Gospel according to John. 2 vols. AB 29 and 29A. Garden City, N.Y.:

Doubleday.

Carr, Anne E. 1990 Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience. San

Francisco: Harper.

Culpepper, R. Alan1998 The Gospel and Letters of John. Interpreting Biblical Texts. Nashville:

Abingdon.

Dodd, C. H.1968 “A Hidden Parable in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp. 30–40 in More New

Testament Studies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Gregory of Nazianzus (fl. 329–389 C.E.)1857 In Sanctum Pascha. Ed. J. P. Migne. PG 36. Paris.

Gregory of Nyssa (fl. 330–395 C.E.)1857 In Canticum Canticorum. Ed. J. P. Migne. PG 44. Paris.

Jacobs-Malina, D.1993 Beyond Patriarchy: The Images of Family in Jesus. New York: Paulist.

Jenson, Robert W.1992 “‘The Father, He. . . ’.” Pp. 95–109 in Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trin-

ity and the Challenge of Feminism. Ed. A. F. Kimel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.


York: Crossroad.

Koester, Craig R.1995 Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community. Minnea-

polis: Fortress.

LaCugna, Catherine M.1991 God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. San Francisco: Harper.


Lee, Dorothy A.1994 The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and

Meaning. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

1995 “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in the Fourth Gospel.” Pacifica 8:140–54.

1997 “Abiding in the Fourth Gospel: A Case-Study in Feminist Biblical Theology.” Pacifica 10:123–36.

1998 “Touching the Sacred Text: The Bible As Icon in Feminist Reading.” Pacifica 11:249–64.

McFague, Sallie1982 Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. London: SCM.

Meyer, Paul W.1996 “‘The Father’: The Presentation of God in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp.

255–73 in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith. Ed. R. Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox.

Painter, John1975 John: Witness and Theologian. Melbourne: Beacon Hill.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart1991 An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

1993 “Feminine Language about God?” Asbury Theological Journal 48:27–29.

Schneiders, Sandra M.1977 “Symbolism and the Sacramental Principle in the Fourth Gospel.” Pp.

221–33 in Segni e sacramenti nel Vangelo di Giovanni. Ed. P.-R. Tragan.Rome: Anselmiana.

1985 “The Footwashing (John 13:1–20): An Experiment in Hermeneutics.” ExAuditu 1:140–43.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth1983 In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Ori-

gins. London: SCM.

Scott, Martin1992 Sophia and the Johannine Jesus. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Segovia, Fernando F.1991 The Farewell of the Word. The Johannine Call to Abide. Minneapolis:

Fortress.

Spender, Dale1980 Man-Made Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Thompson, Marianne Meye1988 The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress.

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1993 “‘God’s Voice You Have Never Heard, God’s Form You Have NeverSeen’: The Characterization of God in the Gospel of John.” Semeia63:177–204.

1997 “Thinking about God: Wisdom and Theology in John 6.” Pp. 221–46 inCritical Readings of John 6. Ed. R. Alan Culpepper. BIS 22. Leiden: Brill.

Tolmie, D. Francois1998 “The Characterization of God in the Fourth Gospel.” JSNT 69:57–75.

Torrance, Thomas F.1992 “The Christian Apprehension of God As Father.” Pp. 120–43 in Speaking

the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism. Ed.Alvin F. Kimel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.


READING BACK, READING FORWARD

Sharon H. RingeWesley Theological Seminary

Introduction

“God the father in the Gospel of John” names a significant problem forinvestigation as well as the current volume of Semeia. While the collection ofarticles published here under that rubric advance the conversation in signif-icant ways, they leave it still unresolved, both in general and in the foci oftheir various studies. This response, therefore, attempts to identify the way-stations that have been reached and to suggest some issues for the nextround of the conversation.

Gail O’Day provides the organizing framework for these comments. Shenotes a general silence in the commentaries concerning the implications oflinking the terms “God” and “father.” It has been simply taken for grantedand taken at face value: father is a title for God. Recently articles and mono-graphs have begun to explore the meaning and implications of that languagein connection with historical Jesus research (and in particular the use offather language in prayers and sayings about prayer); narrative critical studies of God as a character in the Gospel (albeit one who is talked aboutbut does not speak directly, and whose actions are known only through thespeeches of other characters); studies of the relationship between the FourthGospel and the development of Christian doctrine; and feminist criticism ofthe New Testament. Those avenues of renewed interest fall into two categories that, for me, define both the scope of this volume and avenues forfuture study. The first is critical work on the historical and literary factorsthat shape the meaning and function of “God the father” language in theproject of the writer of the Fourth Gospel. The second is the hermeneuticalagenda: What are we as modern readers for whom this Gospel is part ofScripture to do with this language in our theological and pastoral reflection?

Critical Concerns

At issue in the question about the critical significance of the phrase “Godthe father” in the Fourth Gospel is the question whether “father” has moresubstantive significance than simply a synonym for God. Mary Rose D’Angelo’s study of the language in the prayer traditions of the Fourth

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Gospel suggests that both “God” and “father” function principally to conveydeity, with “father” carrying a reverential or circumspect sense that found itsway into one of the primary theological image-systems of later Christianity.Her careful analysis of the specific occurrences of “father” language in theFourth Gospel demonstrates that the absolute use of the term (“the father”)clearly predominates over the more relational (“my father”); that the term“father” does not occur principally in conjunction with references to “theson”; and that the term occurs most frequently in the discourses of theGospel, rather than in the prayers or narrative traditions. In other words, it isprincipally a term to refer to God in rhetorical contexts of persuasion, ratherthan an invocation of relationship in prayer or in specifically familial imagery.

The debate over how literally the readers to whom we refer as “the Johannine community” would have understood language about God as fathercontinues through a number of articles in this collection. Adele Reinhartz’sexploration of the background of Aristotelian embryology comes closest toexploring how the cultural context in which the Fourth Gospel emergedmight have shaped a biological understanding of the paternal languageabout God. In contrast, Paul Anderson’s intertextual reading links languageabout God the father in the Fourth Gospel to the “sending” of the prophetlike Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He bases this conclusion on thefact that the principal description of the relationship between the father andthe son, especially in sayings attributed to Jesus, is not the father’s “beget-ting” the “son,” but rather “sending” him.

Marianne Meye Thompson, who also grounds her argument in a carefulanalysis of the specific forms and contexts of father language in the Gospel,echoes Anderson in exploring the connection between the term “father” andthe motif of “sending,” but she concludes that both the father’s sending andthe son’s response of “doing the father’s will” portray an intimacy of rela-tionship that makes the term “father” much more than simply a substituteor epithet for God. In fact, the paradigmatic activity entailed in both the sending and the responsive doing of the will is conveying the “life” that inheres in Godself, and that is given first to Jesus and through Jesus to thosewhom he chooses, in a continuation of the father’s specific identity andwork. Thompson concludes that the “familial relationship” that is encodedin the father’s life-giving role, and that grounds the Gospel’s christologicalclaims, is essential to the theology of the Fourth Gospel.

On the level of a critical understanding of the project of the Gospel writer,then, the issue of how to understand language about God the father still remains under discussion. Two avenues suggest themselves for further studyand reflection. Unfortunately, what seems to me the most intriguing oneholds out little promise of resolution. It relates to the issue of practices of pietyrelated to language about God in Greek-speaking Jewish communities of the late first century. Obviously the careful circumlocutions to avoid

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pronouncing the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew are not at issue when the com-munity’s language is Greek, and no Greek word to refer to the deity seems tohave moved into an equivalent place. The use of the phrase hJ basileiva tw'n oujranw'n instead of hJ basileiva tou' qeou' in the Gospel of Matthew, however,suggests that in at least some communities accustomed to such concernsabout language, the word qeovı might have been treated with reverence thatavoided its excessive or casual use. Clearly that word is not avoided completely, and there appears to be no way to recover an explanation of theviews and practices related to its use. The question that remains, then, iswhether one might see “father,” not as a name for God, but as a pious circumlocution to avoid using the word God—an indicator parallel in its respectfulness to “most high,” “holy one,” or even “lord” itself to refer to thedeity, and one that also conveys a sense of intimacy and relationality.

The patterns of use of the term “father” in relation to God suggest another avenue for exploration. The statistical evidence reviewed in several ofthe articles in this volume points to three factors. First, the term occurs almostsolely in the words attributed to Jesus (at least outside of the opening hymn).Second, despite the fact that it is principally Jesus who uses the term, the absolute use (“the father”) clearly predominates over the word with the personal pronoun (“my father”), even if one were to add to the latter categorythe vocative use in prayers. Third, “father” is a term used for God especially inthe rhetoric of persuasion and argument found in the discourses. In addition,while the actions of sending and giving life are attributed to “God thefather,” the image of fatherhood is not indelibly linked to either activity.Consequently, it seems that to substitute “God” for “the father” does notchange the content or meaning of what is asserted. In other words, function-ally and rhetorically the two terms appear to be synonyms. That hypothesiswould need to be investigated more fully within the rhetoric and literaryconventions of the Fourth Gospel.

When father language for God is coupled with “son” as a term for Jesus, relationship and intimacy between them are affirmed. It is not clear anywhere in the Fourth Gospel, however, that affirmation of a literally generative relationship is intended. Thus, there is no story of a miraculousbirth as in Luke and Matthew, for example. The word “son” is not found inthe opening hymn, which is often treated as definitive of the father-son relationship as foundational to the theology and Christology of this Gospel.Instead, the term used in 1:14 and 1:18 is monogenhvı, “only begotten one.” In1:14 it is used in a simile: the glory of the word-become-flesh reflects God’sglory as faithfully as an only child reflects the parent. Similarly, in 1:18 theconnection is that the only child reveals or makes known the parent whomwe have not seen. The point is the faithfulness of the revelation, not themeans of the connection: Jesus the lovgoı-become-flesh is a full and accuraterevelation of the God whose lovgoı he is.

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Perhaps, then, the Johannine community would have recognized in theGod-the-father language of this Gospel only a familiar way of speaking aboutGod without naming God, in keeping with their accustomed piety. The intimacy of the particular image would thus allow them to express the depthof the connection they recognize between Jesus and God, and the faithfulnessof his revelation of the One who can never be known face-to-face.

Hermeneutical Agenda

Clearly, though, the theological and doctrinal reflection of the Christ-ian tradition has heard much more than that in the language of the FourthGospel. Peter Widdicombe’s article demonstrates how, already in the workof Origen and Athanasius, theological seedlings were being cultivated thatwould bear fruit in the trinitarian formulae of the Nicene-ConstantinopolitanCreed and in the church’s systematic theologies ever since. For a personraised in the Christian church, it is almost impossible to read the FourthGospel without having its language invoke trinitarian affirmations, evenwhen the reader knows that the writing of the Fourth Gospel long antedated those debates. The general silence of the commentaries on theuse of “father” to refer to God may reflect the deep theological roots thatthat language has now in Christian theology and liturgy. We take “Godthe Father” for granted, and for many people and communities, “Father”is the divine name.

Against that background, the articles by Michael Willett Newheart andJeffrey L. Staley are especially helpful as they lift to visibility and examina-tion the language that familiarity and ecclesiastical history have renderedalmost invisible. Willett Newheart’s “soul hermeneutic” playfully and profoundly refracts affirmations about the father and son in the FourthGospel through language, literature, and experiences coming out of AfricanAmerican culture, and through his glimpses into fatherhood through his relationships with his children. Staley’s experiences of having and especiallyof being a father provide the principal device by which he opens the fatherand son language of the Gospel into the reality of the physical family ofwhich he is a part. Willett Newheart and Staley both recognize and addressexplicitly the role played by the reader in determining the meaning of texts,and thus both are explicitly autobiographical at many points in their essays.Both also use their own literary devices of puns, poetry, music, and journalwriting to free the text of the Fourth Gospel from the prison of doctrinal orhistoricizing interpretation, allowing the metaphors of fatherhood and sonship to metamorphose into new possibilities.

As different as they are, these two essays are linked by their being writ-ten by fathers. Although both authors recognize the ambivalence of that roleas they have experienced it and performed it, they both demonstrate their

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acceptance of “father” language as a means to reflect on and to encounter thedivine. That very posture of assent thus leaves important dimensions of thehermeneutical agenda unaddressed. One obvious aspect of the continuing silence relates to the gender of the interpreters. The repetitive and almost exclusive use of father as a metaphor for God in the Fourth Gospel makes itan alien text for many women readers. Our alienation has been accentuatedby the way that term has been elevated into privileged status as the principalname (no longer a metaphor) for God in subsequent interpretations of theFourth Gospel, as well as in the doctrinal affirmations and liturgical practiceof the Christian tradition. It is of course true that the word “father” is notunknown to us, and most women have known fathers or father figures inour lives. However, whether those who have mediated the term have been“good” fathers or not (by whatever definitions one would determine that),father is not a role with which women can identify or to which they canaspire. One hermeneutical challenge, then, is to address the issue of distanceand foreignness imposed by the very language of this Gospel, which strikesone category of readers more starkly than others. The result is that this is adifferent text for women than it is for men—not necessarily better or worse,easier or more difficult as a scriptural witness, but different. That differencemust be lifted to visibility and addressed as part of one’s hermeneutical engagement with the text.

Another dimension of the hermeneutical agenda related to languageabout God the father in the Fourth Gospel is the way that very language socentral to the text constitutes an obstacle for some readers or hearers. Oncewhen I was a pastor (about thirty years ago now, so I can somewhat excusemy lack of perception) I was teaching a group of children the Lord’s Prayer.When I explained that it seems from all the evidence we have that Jesus mayhave referred to God as “father,” one little boy began to fidget. I decided towait until he identified what was obviously troubling him, and finally hecould contain himself no longer. “Did God beat Jesus up?” he asked witheyes as big as saucers. “N-n-no,” I stammered, “What do you mean?” Hecrossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and replied, “Then God wasnever home.” I knew then what was going on. We talked about who theperson was to whom he would go if he were hurt, or frightened, or in trouble.That was easy! His grandmother, who also was resident grandmother to allthe other children on their block. “A God who is a lot like David’sgrandma” was something they all could understand. The language had tochange, though, from the usual signifier of “father” to a clearer statement ofwhat was being signified, before the biblical texts and content could be ex-perienced as a locus of hope and grace. The hermeneutical problem of whatto do with this Gospel in our contemporary interpretation and appropria-tion is as basic as the very rendering of the language that is the focus of thestudies in this volume.

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Concluding Reflections

The articles in this collection have thus moved forward both the criticaland the hermeneutical engagement of this important issue of God-languagein the Fourth Gospel. More work needs to be done, both to understand whatthe language is intended to convey in the project of the Gospel writer and tofind ways to convey that content through and around the language of thetext itself. Each time I find myself sliding casually over the Gospel’s identifi-cation of God as father, I see David’s huge eyes again, and I try not to hearhis question. Clearly, what he heard is not what the Fourth Gospel is intending to convey. But what language can fully and clearly bring to expression the God who is known in the one who is called the I AM—theway, the truth, and the life?

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THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AT THETURN OF ANOTHER MILLENNIUM

Pamela Dickey YoungQueen’s University

It is both a privilege and a challenge to respond to this collection of articles. Too often, I think, biblical scholars and theologians talk past one another rather than grappling seriously with the other’s issues. As a feministtheologian I am never surprised by patriarchy, but I sometimes lull myselfinto a false sense of hope that we might be on the way to “post-patriarchal”space and time. Yet, here we are facing the second millennium of using NewTestament texts, and I am confronted once more by the amazing adaptive-ness and persistence of patriarchy.

The articles in this collection bring into focus a number of importantquestions and issues for my work as a Christian feminist theologian. Whatdo I as a feminist theologian learn from these biblical studies? What is theauthority of scripture for theology and, within that, the specific place of theGospel of John? What kind of language is God-language, and who is theGod about whom this language purports to speak? What does it mean to bea child/son of God? In the Gospel of John is “father” language primarilyabout Jesus or about us, and what theological difference does the answer tothis question make? Is there a relationship between the Gospel of John and notions of “family values”? As I respond to the articles I will attempt to reflect on some of these questions.

The articles by Adele Reinhartz and Mary Rose D’Angelo do not shrinkfrom the difficulties that the Gospel of John poses for feminists. Reinhartzraises the possibility that John’s view of the relationship between Jesus andGod may be more literally than metaphorically intended and may dependon the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis. Certainly if she is correct this weavespatriarchy further into the very fabric of the Gospel. But, in my view, it doesnot really change or fundamentally challenge an interpretation of genderedlanguage about God as metaphorical. If today we do not think of God asliterally having male characteristics, then gender language about God ismetaphorical. This is so even for those who would argue that the metaphoris an appropriate one and intrinsic to Christian talk about God. Unless Godhas a penis, the language is metaphorical, and what remains then is to sortout the weight of the metaphor vis-à-vis other possible metaphors.

Thus, with epigenesis, even if John meant the relation between God andJesus to be literally that of father and son, we from our temporal perspective

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can see this as a clear instance of what Bultmann called “myth,” “that modeof representation in which what is unworldly and divine appears as what isworldly and human” (42). And myth needs to be interpreted. An additionalpiece of John’s imagery that Reinhartz notes but does not develop is theWisdom imagery embedded in this same first chapter of the Gospel. Although John takes the figure of Wisdom from the Hebrew Bible and turnsher into Logos, the allusions to Wisdom are still visible in and around thetext. Many feminist theologians have seen this allusion in John as one hope-ful place from which to develop Wisdom christologies (see Johnson;Schüssler Fiorenza). If Word and Wisdom are one, then the incarnation isnot the incarnation of a literally male son from an all-male Godhead, but an incarnation of one who can be described in images of both Wisdom andWord. Wisdom exists from creation and then dwells with humanity (see, forexample, Sirach 24), imagery parallel to that in the first chapter of John.Pheme Perkins sees the Gospel of John as giving “narrative embodiment toa christology in which God’s creative Wisdom/Word has become incarnate”(277). Although this does not totally mitigate the patriarchy of the Gospel,and indeed may create its own risks of devaluing Jesus’ humanity, it doesoffer at least some hermeneutical space for feminist interpretation of Jesus asthe incarnation of Wisdom, thus challenging the notion of the maleness ofJesus as an indication of the maleness of God.

A Wisdom christology does not depend on the Gospel of John alone, butalso draws on other connections between Jesus and Wisdom in the Synopticsand Paul. In Luke 11:49 Jesus says: “Therefore also the Wisdom of God said,‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill andpersecute.’” In Matt 23:34, these words of Wisdom are said to be Jesus’words. And in Matthew, the passage continues “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thecity that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How oftenhave I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her broodunder her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you,desolate” (Matt 23:37–38). This passage, found also in Luke (Luke 13:34–35),shows the summons of Jesus in parallel with the summons of Wisdom in thetradition of the Hebrew Bible.

The relation of Jesus to Wisdom is even more striking in Matt 11:28–30:“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and Iwill give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentleand humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke iseasy, and my burden is light.’” Here Jesus is seen in the very same terms as isWisdom in Sir 51:23–26, where it says: “Draw near to me, you who are uned-ucated, and lodge in the house of instruction. Why do you say you are lackingin these things, and why do you endure such great thirst? I opened my mouthand said, Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. Put your neckunder her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close

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by.” This explicit recalling of Sirach comes at the end of a chapter whereMatthew makes several allusions to Jesus as part of the Wisdom tradition.Jesus says, for instance: “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matt 11:19;Luke 7:35 reads “vindicated by all her children”). Jesus also thanks God thatthings hidden from the wise are revealed to babes (Matt 11:25). In Jesus is onewho is “greater than Solomon” (Matt 12:42; Luke 11:31). My point in drawingout the scriptural references here is that a Wisdom christology, partly but notsolely dependent on the Gospel of John, can be developed in a way that mightserve to challenge the patriarchy of the tradition, including the patriarchy oflanguage for God that concentrates exclusively on fatherhood.

The literal relevance of John’s language and its theological relevanceneed not be the same. One can see the patriarchal character of the literalfather-son/children language and yet still seek to interpret it nonpatriar-chally in terms of intimacy of relationship. Reinhartz already shows thatRoman Jewish authors used epigenesis symbolically to speak of God as “creator of wisdom, Hebrews’ souls, the virtues, and happiness.”

John’s Gospel is sometimes used to justify certain Christian theologicalclaims that one can only come to God or know God through Jesus Christ. Butas a theologian I have always read these claims in light of the prologue to theGospel of John wherein the Wisdom/Word that is present at creation is precisely the Wisdom/Word incarnate in Jesus Christ. Therefore, relationshipto or knowledge of God through Wisdom/Word is not confined to the incar-national moment. Further, I also read such claims as what Krister Stendahlcalls “love language” (14), that is, the language of those in whose lives JesusChrist has made a difference witnessing to that difference in the maximalclaims they know how to make.

Here, Mary Rose D’Angelo’s point that in John “father” language aboutGod is not unique to Jesus and God is not just Jesus’ father but the father ofother children is useful to push us to broaden the seeming exclusivity ofJesus’ sonship and thus of God’s revelation through him (D’Angelo; see alsoReinhartz). Thus, even within the bounds of “father” language itself is a hintof challenge to the theological problem of interpreting Jesus as the one whogives exclusive access to the father.

D’Angelo intimates in her conclusion that if “father” language for Godis more pervasive in early Jewish piety than is usually thought, that is, if it isnot “unique” to Jesus’ language about God, then this may further embed patriarchy into language about the deity (D’Angelo: 77). Whether from Jewishtradition or from the “mouth of Jesus,” “father” language for God is deeplyembedded in Christian tradition. If the image is a traditional one rather thanone exclusive to Jesus, however, this gives more theological weight to anargument that “father” is not the Christian deity’s “proper” name.

Likewise, the recognition that “On the whole, the Gospel of John seemsto use “father” (pathvr) and “God” (qeovı) interchangeably” (D’Angelo: 64)

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provides a biblical point from which to challenge the supremacy of “father”imagery for God. Even though this view is not shared by all authors in thisvolume (see Thompson), the discussion itself of when and where “God” and“father” might be interchangeable is sufficient to put on the theologian’sagenda the question of in what measure the supremacy of “father” languageis given in the New Testament texts themselves and in what measure our useof “father” language is simply the dominance of one single and particularmetaphor for divinity that can be placed alongside a host of other metaphors.The recognition of this interchangeability of “God” and “father” is alsouseful in discussions of trinitarian language, for it pushes us to see that thefirst person of the Trinity might also be named in a variety of ways and, inparticular, simply as “God” (Rahner), even while recognizing that “God” isitself an “attempt to name the ineffable” (D’Angelo: 63).

The essays of Thompson, Widdicombe, and Anderson, when taken together, serve to remind us that part of the task of the theologian is to sortthrough differing interpretations of the same texts with a view to their theo-logical import. The papers in this volume as a whole show the diversity ofinterpretation of God’s fatherhood in John’s Gospel, not just in the present,but from the time of the early church (Widdicombe). The theologian is left todecide on answers to a host of questions. Is “father” a term about role or func-tion (Thompson)? Is “father” the only possible way to describe that functionor will another parent-child relationship or some other relationship of intimacy do? Is Jesus unique as God’s son or are there other divine sons anddaughters (Anderson; Thompson; D’Angelo; Reinhartz)? Is John’s view of incarnation to be taken as the sending of a prophet like Moses (Anderson)?

The pieces by Staley and Willett Newheart, midrashic reflections on fatherhood in John’s Gospel, fascinating and evocative as they are, leave me,as a feminist, with a curious response. These reflections on fatherhood serveto draw intimate connections between the writers and God that reinforce andreinscribe my absence as a woman. Where am I in these reflections? Granted,neither writer portrays his reflections as the exclusive interpretation of fatherhood in John’s Gospel. And of course, particularity is necessary for anygood story to succeed, but the particularity of the metaphor of fatherhoodalso becomes its exclusivity when I cannot read myself there. This leads meto reflect once again on the power of metaphor and, therefore, on the necessity of using more than one metaphor of God so that we do not confusethe metaphor with the one whom we are seeking to describe.

For the remainder of this response I would like to move away a bit fromthe essays and reflect on some broader questions of theology they raise. Fatherhood language for God is persistent in Christianity, due in part to itspervasiveness in the Gospel of John, due in part to its enshrinement as theway to name the first person of the Trinity, due in part to an uncritical patri-archal acceptance of a single male metaphor as adequate to become God’s

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most common name. All the careful arguments in these papers about God as“my father,” “your father,” and “our father” and the varying ways thatthese ascriptions appear get quickly pulled into the Christian tradition as“the Father,” the “real” name of the divine. Clifford Geertz points out how a religious symbol once-created (and, as created, being a “model-of” reality)also becomes a “model-for” reality, reinforcing its own symbolic power. Interms of language about or descriptions of God, we are not surprised whenpatriarchal societies create a male God in the image of those who have thepride of place in society. Then, these images take on a life of their own andreinforce the idea that maleness is more God-like than femaleness.

As a theologian, however, I work not only with the texts of the tradition,which do contain both personal and nonpersonal alternatives to male imagery for God, but with a variety of other tools, including philosophicalreflections on the nature of God and feminist critiques of all-male imagery.As a feminist theologian seeking to name and describe God, I take father imagery seriously, but I also take seriously that never has “father” been theonly way to name God. As I mentioned above, I take “father” as a metaphorfor the God who in Christian tradition has been seen primarily as one whorelates to the world in intimacy and love. My own philosophical views ofGod are drawn largely from the tradition of process theology. And thus,when I draw out the metaphysical implications of defining deity, the God Idescribe is the God who encompasses and yet surpasses the world, a Godwho is the matrix within which we all live and move and have our being. Iam a panentheist. One image that particularly suits this view of God is theimage of God as mother of child in utero (Case-Winters: 220–30). And thisimage is, I would submit, consonant with the intimacy of the father-son/child relationship in John’s Gospel.

My feminist sensibilities say that using only male imagery for God hascontributed to a view of women as inferior to men by aligning men moreclosely with divinity than women. Using only or primarily the “father”metaphor for God reinforces views of patriarchal family with “father” at thehead. Once I recognize the “father” imagery for God as metaphorical I canthen place other metaphors, some of them female God-metaphors, some ofthem already drawn directly from biblical and Christian tradition, alongsidethe “father” metaphor. I am thinking here of such biblical imagery of God as awoman in labor or midwife (Isa 42:14; 49:15; Ps 22); images of God as Sophia,and medieval female imagery of God (Johnson: 212). Note that I am not sayingthat we should abandon all “father” imagery for God. I think it is possible thatuse of the “father” imagery in tandem with a host of other metaphors for Godmight actually serve as a vehicle to question or challenge patriarchal views ofGod and family. Not all fatherhood needs to be exercised patriarchally (interms of reinforcing the power-over of dominant males vis-à-vis the rest of thefamily). If the image of fatherhood becomes less of an idol (where we worship


the image instead of God), then we might look more carefully at the exercise offatherhood. And a simple unreflective substitute of a “mother” metaphor,imbued as it is with patriarchal views of motherhood, does not necessarilychallenge patriarchy either.

My own view is that we need a diversity of images to keep any oneimage for God from becoming an idol. This is not to say that any and allimages of God are fine. I would use a test of “consonance” with biblical andtraditional imagery as one norm for Christian God-language. That is, is thename or description of God that is being proposed one that reflects the samesorts of relationships and acts as the biblical and traditional images of God?But consonance with the tradition is not the only norm for contemporary imagery of God in the Christian context. We also need images that stand upto contemporary challenges to be credible. We need, among other things,images that will challenge the idea that one sex, race, class, or any othersingle group ought to think of itself as more God-like than others. In myview, these criteria offer a wide range of naming and descriptive possibilitiesfor God, all the while recognizing that no one single image used by itself canbear the whole weight of divine naming.

Feminist theologians have developed a wide range of approaches to thepersistent patriarchy not just of the New Testament, but of the whole Chris-tian tradition. When women stay in the Christian tradition even after theydiscover its patriarchy and its effect on them, they do so for a host of individual reasons. But one of the common reasons women stay is becausethey experience the tradition as multivalent. More is going on here than patriarchy, even if the explicit messages of the tradition sometimes belie this.Christian feminists reject patriarchy as the whole of the Christian message.Sometimes we do this by appealing to a view of the central message of Jesusthat sees it as prophetic or liberating, or by arguing for a nonpatriarchal community in which he had effect. Sometimes we do this simply by rejectingpatriarchy as the last word and seeking to claim nonpatriarchal space withinthe tradition wherever we can find or create it.

My own view of the authority of scripture is that scripture has authorityonly insofar as it reflects or portrays the grace and wisdom of God, which isavailable always and everywhere, but which is, for Christians, most tellinglyre-presented in an encounter with the life and teachings of Jesus. The tradi-tional Protestant way to express this is to speak of the Word of God incarnatein Jesus and expressed in the words of scripture (Barth: 88–124). As a feminist,and influenced by the use the Gospel of John and other New Testamentsources make of the Wisdom tradition, I prefer to speak of Sophia/Wisdomrevealed or incarnate in Jesus, and Sophia/Wisdom accessible through thewisdom of the texts of the tradition. Whereas the notion of Logos/Word hastended to reinforce notions of God’s “direct speech,” the notion of Sophia/Wisdom is more dynamic, less calcified, more open. We do not look for

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God’s “direct speech,” but for a chance to interact with and act in response toone who is Wisdom herself.

As a feminist theologian, then, I see the liberative-transformative powerof the grace of Sophia-God as more powerful than patriarchy. Such an experience of grace is based not just on the verbal expression of a patriarchalsymbol system, but on a whole integrated interaction with the tradition, aninteraction that involves personal experience as well as the message of “official” texts. It also involves looking for multivalent messages in the “offi-cial” texts. Of course the texts are often limited by patriarchy, but they maynot be totally devitalized by patriarchy.

I am not looking here for some “real meaning” of these texts as if patri-archy or the overcoming of patriarchy were just a matter of choosing how toclean up or re-dress the texts. The patriarchy is there and cannot be over-looked, and I appreciate the work of biblical scholars who face head-on thepatriarchy of the texts. I need this grappling to help me decide when theremight be meaning within or beyond the patriarchy and when patriarchy is allthere is. But for some women, at least some of the texts have given and continue to give meaning beyond the patriarchal and to give access to possibilities of integrity. Thus, I take the biblical texts seriously and look therefor possibilities of integrity. But when I interpret these texts as a feminist the-ologian, I do not consider myself constrained to make my verbal expressionsof the possibilities of grace and integrity absolutely identical to the verbal expressions of the New Testament. I am attuned to a variety of possibilities forexperiencing and expressing grace, those that already occur in the traditionand those that might be creative present or future expressions of that tradition.

WORKS CONSULTED

Barth, Karl1975 Doctrine of the Word of God. Vol. 1, part 1 of Church Dogmatics. Trans.

G. W. Bromiley. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

Bultmann, Rudolf1984 “New Testament and Mythology.” Pp. 1–45 in New Testament and

Mythology and Other Basic Writings. Ed. and trans. Schubert M. Ogden.Philadelphia: Fortress.

Case-Winters, Anna1990 God’s Power: Traditional Understandings and Contemporary Challenges.

Louisville: Westminster/John Knox.

Geertz, Clifford1973 The Interpretation of Culture: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.



York: Crossroad.

Perkins, Pheme1987 “Jesus: God’s Wisdom.” Word and World: Theology for Christian Ministry

7:273–82.

Rahner, Karl1974 “Theos in the New Testament.” Pp. 79–148 in Theological Investigations,

vol. 1. Trans. Cornelius Ernst. New York: Seabury.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth1994 Jesus, Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Theology.

New York: Continuum.

Stendahl, Krister1981 “Notes for Three Bible Studies.” Pp. 7–18 in Christ’s Lordship and Reli-

gious Pluralism. Ed. Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky.Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis.

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Documents

Adele Reinhartz Ed. Semeia 85 God the Father in the Gospel of John 1999