VINCENZO BELMONTE

YOU ARE GODS

AT THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY
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 VINCENZO BELMONTE

YOU ARE GODS

AT THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY

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Original Title: Voi siete dèi. Alle origini del cristianesimo, 2017.

Author’s translation

In the cover

Pieter Paul Rubens, Bellerophon, Pegasus and Chimera, 1635, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne.

© 2020 All rights reserved

[email protected]

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 CONTENTS

Introduction 7

ONE GOD, ONE LAW, ONE PEOPLE

A Manipulated God 11

Conflicting Judaisms 37

National Identity 51

THE CHRISTIAN PROPOSAL

The Creative Interpretation of the Sacred Texts 65

The Jesus of the Wise Faith 79

Divinization 131

HELP MY FAITH!

Doubt 141

Faith 147

Paradise Now 157

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 INTRODUCTION

The challenge facing Christianity today is unprecedented and threatens to blow it apart at
the seams. Views that may be traced back to the so-called biblical minimalism deny any
credit to 'Biblical History'. The narratives relating to the Patriarchs, Moses, David and
Solomon are labeled as legendary. In particular, the meticulous revelations of God to
Moses, which occupy a large part of the Pentateuch, are downgraded to mere late human
contributions. On the basis of this reconstruction, until the Persian period the Jewish
religion was not distinguishable from the polytheistic Canaanite one. Monotheism was
introduced in Palestine by self-styled repatriated exiles, perhaps Aramean settlers sent by
the Persians. The worship of the Mazdean "God of Heaven" was passed off as a reform of
the cult of the main local god, YHWH. The missionaries of the new creed tried to impose it
on the indigenous polytheists as a pretext to take control of the landed property. The
books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Miqra), written, with the occasional use of previous
materials, in the Persian, but above all, Hellenistic and Hasmonean, and in some cases,
even Roman epochs aimed, also through the creation of a national identity based on
myths, to ensure the predominance of the Yahwist group. With time, Jewish monotheism
assumed an increasingly rigid, exclusive and violent feature, centered on the holy
homicidal zeal attributed to characters like Phinehas and Elijah, so much so as to
legitimize, well in advance of the Qur'ān, the holy war.

These demolishing theses have given rise to a very lively debate in which, not
unexpectedly, a multiplicity of positions have emerged. Unfortunately, while the
inadmissible and never enough deplorable ignorance of Hebrew precludes me from
accessing the challenging arena, for want of prophetic attributes I am not even able to
foresee the outcome of a dispute that will surely drag on for decades, if not centuries. In
the meantime my Christian faith cannot, of course, be put on standby. An extreme
alternative remains: to assume as a research hypothesis that the Minimalists are in the
truth, and then to verify whether the acceptance of their point of view implies the end of
Christianity or, on the contrary, gives the cue to cleanse it of decrepit cultural legacies. On
the themes of faith a reassessment is, in reality, necessary, a new synthesis is urgently
needed that incorporates the most advanced results achieved in disciplines ranging from
biblical sciences to anthropology, from psychology to history.

[The Word] emptied himself (Phil 2:7) - And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years (Luke 2:52).
On the humanity of Christ, alluded to in the two verses, the central reflection of these

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pages takes place. Precisely by virtue of kénōsis [exinanition, emptying, self-limitation of
the Word], in an asymmetrical relationship, if the Logos had full knowledge of the human
consciousness of Jesus, the reverse did not happen: the human consciousness of Jesus only
progressively and always limitedly, until the turning point of his glorification, acquired
the cognitive treasure and self-awareness of the Logos, which in him acted as an infinite
unconscious unveiling itself over time. Therefore, a fundamental aspect, until now
disregarded, of the unsounded divine kénōsis is the ineludible need for the Logos,
determined to humanize himself, to embody his message ad modum recipientis in a fallible
and fallacious human culture: from the Son of the divine Father to the son of his time,
imprisoned in the cultural cage of the I century Palestine.

Jesus, as a man, felt not only our own physical frailties, but also our intellectual
weaknesses, in the sense that like us he suffered the conditioning of the surrounding
culture. He absorbed Essene religiosity, its way of interpreting the Scriptures, its faith in
the imminent coming of a Savior. Through prayer and continuous conversation with the
Father in him gradually developed the conviction that he was God’s envoy and possessed
a divine nature, in the wake of what the Essene Teacher of Righteousness had said about
himself. The climactic moment of this awareness was Baptism, which not by chance
marked the beginning of his mission. Aware that he was going to meet a painful Passion
following the example of the martyr Isaiah and the Suffering Servant, Jesus was certain
that God would resurrect him.

Jesus' self-awareness was born fundamentally from his personal relationship with the
Father, but it got hold of documentary support in the Tanakh, which was creatively
interpreted. From this we may infer a principle of general validity: the 'truth' of the sacred
scriptures of any religion resides not so much in their historical and scientific reliability as
in the effectiveness of their emotional and moral grasp in view of the experience of God
based on openness to the infinite. They are but fruitful instruments for setting up and
implementing the personal project of perfecting one's own humanity. As such, they
involve the interpretative intervention of those who ad modum recipientis, that is, in
keeping with individual needs, expectations and limitations, draw from them. Jesus (as a
man) and the apostles discovered new meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures, on the grounds
that, since they were already bearers of a more radical existential project, they could only
read them with new eyes. Regardless of the authors' intent, in them they sought and found
themselves, their own personal aspirations dictated by the Spirit.

To understand the Scriptures, we have to get into the mindset of their writers. The events
that, in the eyes of an ancient Jew, stood out on a stage well in view, the scene of imposing
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'objective' interactions between heaven and earth, today, in a process of internalization,
ought to be considered in their subjective or psychological truth, with God who comes into
contact with man (even with the man Jesus) in the sanctuary of consciousness. It will be
more appropriate to deem angels that appear and voices that are heard as 'objective'
transpositions of inner locutions. In the same way, thunder and lightning as 'objective'
clues of the divine presence ought to be shifted from the sphere of witness to that of
interpretation.

The need for 'objectivity' is also at the basis of the search for the historical Jesus, an
enterprise bound to fail, inasmuch as knowledge of the other can only take place ad modum
recipientis. Moreover, even if it were to be admitted, with certain reservations, that the
scholars have succeeded in pinpointing the authentic sayings, it would not be, in any case,
the complete repertory of Jesus' words, but a limited selection made by the tradents in an
assuredly partial and tendentious way, on the basis of personal motivations inherent in
their theological vision, therefore already within the dimension of faith.

The kērygma [the Christian message], in nuce, is contained in the enunciation: Jesus is the
incarnate Son of God, who, dead and risen, keeps on living through the Spirit in the community
redeemed by him. Without prejudice to this basic and inalienable truth of Christianity, in the
rest, for example in the interpretation of the Old Testament, one may clearly see the
unpreventable effect of the flawed mindset linked to the times, given that the first
inculturation of Christian truth took place in Judaism. The concept of revelation must
therefore be revised and its traditional scope drastically reduced.

The new dignity assumed by man who enters into a loving relationship with the Christian
God is expressed in the fundamental concept of divinization by which is meant that the
believer participates in Trinitarian life and in particular lets himself be guided by the
Spirit. Full humanization (the creation of the Superman) consists precisely in this.

To the skeptical deniers of faith I remind that, in order to live, man cannot forgo believing.
This is demonstrated by the thousand declensions of the secular faith, which, as far as
arationality is concerned, have nothing to envy to religion. In any type of faith the
voluntary aspect is overarching. In the strips of linen placed in the empty tomb the
disciples wanted to see the proof of the resurrection and the divinity of Jesus, while others
wanted and keep wanting to see only the proof of deception. Faith is not a theorem nor a
sequence of crystallized dogmas, but an act of love, an immensely ambitious life project,
anchored in infinity. The faith of St Thomas Aquinas wasn’t based on the 'five ways'.
These were only the rationalization of an already existing conviction, in turn based on the

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will to believe and the direct experience of God, that is, on a driving passion, capable of
changing and renewing its apologetic armamentarium over time.

Everything is possible in the risen Christ: so the Christian sums up his faith. But in the risen
Christ he believes precisely because he wants everything to be possible. Each one in his
firmament arrays and marshals the chosen constellations.

The Christian faith, in particular, is an interpretation that gives meaning to life by

providing order and harmony to an existential universe that is in itself chaotic and
incongruous. Only those who are passionate can understand it in its specificity, as it is
fundamentally a loving relationship with the person of Christ: not an unbearable yoke
imposed by the god Moloch, but the offering of wings to rise in flight, because to love God
is to love one's deepest self, the source of one's complete realization.

The proof of the truth of Christianity is not to be sought in tortuous metaphysical

arguments, but in religious experience, that is, in the experience of a personal dialogical
and loving relationship with God, a relationship that is authentic only if it reveals itself in
kénōsis, concealment, personal disinterest, spirit of sacrifice, serenity, inner joy, oblative
love; in practice, in the sequela Christi or, rather, in merging with Christ: It is no longer I who
live, but it is Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). Consequently, the loving disciple, dismayed
by the divine kénōsis, feels innate the awareness of his own cognitive and moral fragility,
but, on the other hand, he rates extraneous the refractoriness to doubt, the presumption of
infallibility, the fanatical and triumphalist attitude, the celebratory parades, the spirit of
crusade, the Te Deums of victory.

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 ONE GOD, ONE LAW, ONE PEOPLE

A Manipulated God

The traditional framework. The Christian Churches propose, interwoven with religious
doctrines, a 'Sacred History' modeled on the texts of the Bible: Genesis for Creation and
the Patriarchs; Exodus for Moses; Joshua and Judges for the conquest of the Promised
Land; the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles for the monarchy; Ezra and Nehemiah
for the return from exile. Every Christian knows, at least in their salient features, these
events, which for their emblematic value are now part of the common religious
imagination, also since they have been chosen over the centuries as the privileged subject
of the so-called Biblia pauperum or Biblia picta.

The Patriarch Abraham is the model of faith in the divine promise, a faith that induces him
to abandon his homeland and venture to an unknown land, in the certainty that he will
have an infinite offspring as a reward: Now the Lord said to Abram, ‚Go from your country
and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great
nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing‛ (Gen 12:1-
2). He is the model of obedience to God, pushed to the sacrifice of the only son: He said,
‚Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him
there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you‛. When they came to the
place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound
his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand
and took the knife to kill his son (Gen 22:2, 9-10).

Moses is undoubtedly the most famous character of the Old Testament, thanks also to the
numerous film adaptions of the vicissitudes of the Jews oppressed in Egypt and led by
him, after crossing the Red Sea and the Sinai desert, in view of the Promised Land: Then
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all
night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the
sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left (Exod 14:21-
22). The celebration of the Passover, shared by Jews and Christians, is traced back to
him: You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled

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congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they
shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. This is how you shall eat it:
your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it
hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall
celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual
ordinance (Exod 12:6, 8, 11, 14). The delivery on Sinai of the tables of the Law is considered
a founding event of faith: Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had
descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain
shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God
would answer him in thunder (Exod 19:18-19).

David and Solomon's military power is celebrated. The former wins the Jebusites, the
Philistines, the Moabites, the kings of Zobah and Maacah, the Arameans of Damascus, the
Edomites, the Ammonites, the Amalekites (list from 1 Chr, chapters 11-20). About the
latter is said: Solomon gathered together chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and
twelve thousand horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. The
king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the
sycamore of the Shephelah (2 Chr 1:14-15) - The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year
was six hundred sixty-six talents of gold, besides that which the traders and merchants brought;
and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land brought gold and silver to Solomon (2 Chr
9:13-14). Under these two sovereigns the Jewish Kingdom (better to say the Jewish
Empire) extended from the Mediterranean to the Arabic desert, from the Red Sea to the
banks of the Euphrates. Solomon is depicted as a record-breaking king: Thus King Solomon
excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. All the kings of the earth sought the
presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind (2 Chr 9:22-23). In any
field big numbers befitted David’s scion: Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and
three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3).

With the consecration of the Temple, Jerusalem is designated as the central place of
Yahwistic worship. The so-called first Temple emerges as the exclusive place of God's
presence: I have chosen Jerusalem in order that my name may be there (2 Chr 6:6).

The 'Sacred History' keeps up with the vicissitudes of the monarchy soon no longer
united, but divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, both bound, as they were
unfaithful to God, to fall prey to the Assyrians (722 BC) and the Babylonians (587 BC)
respectively. Having taken possession of Babylon, the Persian king Cyrus issued an edict
favorable to the Jews: In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of
the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King
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Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom, and also in a written edict
declared: ‚Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the
kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of
those among you who are of his people - may their God be with them! - are now permitted to go up
to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel - he is the God who is in
Jerusalem‛ (Ezra 1:1-3). Consequently, the Jews deported to Babylon returned to Judea1 and
under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple
and restored the traditional Yahwistic cult.

The shadow of doubt. The archaeologist William Foxwell Albright, with regard to the just
outlined 'Sacred History', fully supported the thesis of Werner Keller's bestseller2. In their
opinion, the archaeological excavations demonstrated in an incontrovertible way the
truthfulness of the biblical assumption.

Today the situation has changed radically3. The history of the Patriarchs has been
downgraded to legend. The exodus from Egypt and the conquest of the Promised Land
are looked upon as an evident forgery, due to the fact that at the time of these alleged
events Palestine was firmly under the control of the Egyptians and therefore talking about
exodus and conquest makes no sense. The new position of historians lets itself be summed
up as follows: at the time of the legendary Moses the Jews were slaves of Egypt, but not in
Egypt4. They were slaves without worrying about leaving their seat. Incomprehensibly,

1 The whole assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred sixty, besides their male and female servants, of
whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven; and they had two hundred male and female singers (Ezra
2:64-65). All biblical quotations come from the NRSV unless otherwise indicated. On Cyrus I point out M.
Rahim Shayegan, ed., Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore, Cambridge, Ma, 2019.

2 Und die Bibel hat doch recht - Forscher beweisen die Wahrheit des Alten Testaments, Düsseldorf 1955. English
translation: The Bible as History: Archaeology Confirms the Book of Books, London, 1956.

3 The new positions are represented by archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (The Bible
Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, New York 2001; David
and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition, New York 2006) and
biblical scholars Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical
Abraham, Berlin 1974; John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition, New Haven 1975; Giovanni Garbini,
History and Ideology in Ancient Israel, New York 1988; Philip R. Davies, In Search of "Ancient Israel", London-
New York 1992; Keith W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, New
York 1996; Niels Peter Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey, Louisville,
Ky, 2008; Mario Liverani, Israel's History and the History of Israel, London-New York 2014.

4
Frederick E. Greenspahn, The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship, New York 2008.

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the Bible is silent about the Egyptian rule over Palestine, which lasted for 400 years. The
sumptuous unitary monarchy of David and Solomon is qualified as a myth without
historical base, since it is well established that, at the time, Jerusalem was not a city, but a
village, while archaeological excavations show that, on the contrary, much more important
was Megiddo. Consequently, the unparalleled grandeur of the first Temple would be a
later invention, outright controverted by archaeological research that has not yet found
one single stone of that building. Of the glorious sovereigns, moreover, there is no
mention in extra-Biblical documents, apart from a reference to the house of David, that is,
to his dynasty. The countless Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions ignore them
altogether. Not even in Palestine has the slightest direct documentary or archaeological
trace been found. There is accordingly a well-founded suspicion that they were at most
clan leaders, if not even brainchildren.

Pre-exilic polytheism. The so-called 'Sacred History' is reputed by some to be a fragile

castle of pious fibs that under the mantle of fidelity to the covenant with God hid much
more concrete aims of domination. It is a fact that before the Persian period the Jewish
religion was not distinguishable at all from the Canaanite one. Archaeological finds
confirm on the territory of Palestine the continuity of polytheism. The male deity was
often associated with a female one.

Of the Canaanite religion, until the discovery of the literature of the city-state of Ugarit
(1928), only that much was known that was filtered through the polemical hints in the
Bible and the often late reports of classical authors. The texts of Ugarit, with all the
reservations due to the location of the city (a melting pot of different cultures in the far
north of the region) and the chronological distance (it was destroyed in XII century BC),
give us the most complete picture. It was a polytheism with the supreme El surrounded by
a pantheon of gods and goddesses (the Elohim). YHWH was one of them. In the heavenly
council a more important place was occupied by Baal, also known as Addad (the
thunderer) and Baal zbl (Prince Baal), whence comes the biblical Beelzebub5. Other names
for the supreme god were El Shaddai, El Elyon (the God Most High6), El Berith, all applied
in the Bible to YHWH7. Adored in phallic form (the poles, the high places) and often

5 In 2 Kings 1:2 he is the pagan god of Ekron; in Matthew 12:24 he becomes the prince of demons.

6 This is the common translation, but in the ancient theogony El was Elyon's nephew, so in El Elyon a fusion
of two originally distinct godheads is detectable. See Marvin H. Pope, El in the Ugaritic Texts, Vol. II, Leiden
1955, p. 15, n. 84.

7 At the beginning of Psalm 91, God is indicated by four different names: Elyon, Shaddai, YHWH, Elohim.

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mentioned in the Tanakh (e.g., Isa 27; Jer 7, 17 and 44; 2 Kings 13, 17, 18, 21 and 23),
Athirat (the biblical Asherah), later confused with Astarte (Astoreth), was the Great
Semitic Mother, wife of El and mother of 70 children 8. These gods (the sons of El) were
identified with the heavenly bodies, the heavenly army9.

Vestiges of Canaanite cults are traceable in the Bible. Some psalms10, such as Psalm 29, re-
adapt Ugaritic material and keep exalting El11. In 1 Kings 22:19-22 and Daniel 7:9-10 the
description of the heavenly council clearly depends on texts from Ugarit. Here the king
was esteemed divine and therefore it is not surprising that Psalm 45:7 celebrates the king
as elohim (god). In Ugarit, Baal rides the clouds; in Psalm 68:4 we find Lift up a song to him
who rides upon the clouds, hinting at YHWH; and in Daniel 7:13: As I watched in the night
visions, I saw one like a human being, coming with the clouds of heaven. In sundry psalms the
enthronement of YHWH is modeled on that of Baal, winner of the sea monster Yam. When
the Jewish prophets raged against the cult of the dead, with the attached ritual meal
(marzeach), they alluded to a custom documented in Ugarit. Symptomatically, the names
of some Jewish tribes (Dan, Gad, Asher) are derived from Canaanite deities 12. The literary
parallelism, so dear to biblical authors, is not without precedent.
In Elephantine/Yeb (Egypt), the Jews also worshiped the goddess Anath-Yahu. In Samaria,
YHWH was revered as Baal-Shamen with the paredra Asherah (inscription of Kuntillet
Ajrud). Nehushtan was the name of the bronze snake, raised by Moses in the desert and
worshiped by the Canaanites, as evidenced by finds from Megiddo, Hazor, Gezer,
Shechem. The biblical opposition Israel-Canaanan is therefore groundless. The pre-Persian
Jewish religion was but a subtype of the Canaanite religion. There is no clue that might

8 See Paolo Merlo, La dea Ašratum-Atiratu-Ašera: un contributo alla storia della religione semitica del Nord, Roma
1998; Steve A. Wiggins, A Reassessment of Asherah: With Further Considerations of the Goddess, Piscataway 2007.

9 See Aleksander R. Michalak, Angels as Warriors in Late Second Temple Jewish Literature, Tübingen 2012, pp.
43-53. Regarding the texts of Ugarit, in CTA (Andrée Herdner, Corpus tablettes alphabétiques, Paris 1963)
10.I.3-5 the stars are indicated as children of El; in CTA 15.II.4 El’s family is deemed to be an astral one. For
the Tanakh see Job 38:7. After being transformed in the Essene environment (11Q13) into diabolical entities,
the children of El (the minor gods of the divine council) will appear in the Letter to the Ephesians 6:12 as
kosmokrátores, evil astral powers that domineer the world.

10 As for the Psalms I do follow the Hebrew numbering.

11 On the other hand, Psalm 104 translates the Egyptian hymn to Aton.

12 Alan Silver, Jews, Myth and History: A Critical Exploration of Contemporary Jewish Belief and Its Origins,
Leicester 2008, p. 51, n. 22.

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suggest a previous monotheistic peculiarity13. Consequently, the alleged monotheism of
Josiah is a post-exilic invention, devised with the intention of conferring antiquity and
authority on Deuteronomy, which would have been the very book dug out by the high
priest and promulgated by the king at issue.

In Judaism YHWH takes a central role. In Gen 14:22 and Psalm 87:5 he is identified with El
Elyon, assuming his role as head of the divine council. He is now the God of the gods
(Deut 10:17; Psalm 136:2), superior to any other god (Psalm 97:9). As mentioned, the myth
of the divine assembly lives on in the Bible texts14. As attested to in Psalm 48:2, Mount Zion
is like the utmost heights of Zaphon, which in Ugarit was the seat of the gods. The pre-eminent
role of YHWH certainly does not lead to the denial of the divinity of the other members of
the council. Noll, for example, cites Deut 5:7-10, where YHWH forbids the worship of
other gods (elohim acherim) on the grounds that he is a jealous god. Which would make no
sense if the existence of rivals were not admitted15.

Incredibly, a relic of erstwhile polytheism emerges in Deuteronomy 32:8-9; not in the

Masoretic version, but in the one that survives in two fragmentary scrolls of Qumran 16:
When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries
of the peoples according to the number of the gods [that is, he gave each nation a patron god]17.
YHWH’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. Here YHWH is a lesser god.
When, in the polemical confrontation with the Kittim [the Greeks], the Jews wanted to
mark the peculiarity of their religion, then the text was suitably amended: When the Most
High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all the sons of man, he set the boundaries
of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel (bny yshr'l). For Yahweh's portion was

13 Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts,
Oxford 2001; Mark S. Smith, "Recent Study of Israelite Religion in the Light of the Ugaritic Texts", in K.
Lawson Younger Jr., ed., Ugarit at Seventy-Five, Winona Lake 2007, pp. 1-25.

14 Theodore E. Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature,
Chico 1980. Among more recent studies I point out Ellen White, Yahweh's Council: Its Structure and
Membership, Tübingen 2014.

15 Kurt L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction, London-New York 2001, p. 249.

16 4QDeuteronomyj,q. This reading is confirmed by the papyrus Rahlfs 848 (Fouad = 266) of the Septuagint
(LXX), dating back to around 50 BC.

17 Most LXX attestations read according to the number of God's angels, which is an ad usum Delphini
interpretation of the previous reading. Similarly, Daniel (10:13, 20) speaks of 'princes' (angels) of Persia and
Greece.

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his people, Jacob was the lot of his inheritance [Masoretic lection]. Here we no longer speak of a
patron god for each people, and El Elyon and YHWH are unified18.

Let us look over other texts that travel on the same polytheistic wavelength19. Psalm 89:6-8:
For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord,
a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him?
O Lord God of hosts, who is as mighty as you, o Lord? Your faithfulness surrounds you. Psalm
29:1: Ascribe to the Lord, o heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Psalm 97:7: All
gods bow down before him. Psalm 138:1: I give you thanks, o Lord, with my whole heart; before the
gods I sing your praise.

The analysis of the Hebrew text shows that some of the most common phrases that are
used to deny that there are gods other than YHWH appear in the very same chapters
where their existence is plainly admitted20. Therefore, more than the uniqueness of
YHWH, his incomparability with the other gods, his overt superiority, is proclaimed. Let
us collate the expressions of uniqueness with Isa 47:8, 10, where Babylon brags I am and
there is no one besides me. The sense is that no city can rival it, not that it is the only existing
city. While Moses asks rhetorically in Exod 15:11 Who is like you, o Lord [YHWH], among the
gods? and Jews in Deut 4:7 For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord
[YHWH] our God is whenever we call to him? the existence of other divinities is ad
abundantiam recognized21.

Over time the lesser gods of the divine council were downgraded to angels. Psalm 82:1, 6:
God rises up in the divine assembly, judges in the midst of the gods is remodeled as God rises up
in the divine assembly, judges in the midst of the angels in the Greek LXX version and later in

18 For this case of 'biblical censorship' see Mark S. Smith, God in Translation: Cross-Cultural Recognition of
Deities in the Biblical World, Grand Rapids, 2010, p. 195+. Deut 32:8-9 shows various thematic links with Psalm
82 (p. 210+).

19 For an overview I refer to David Penchansky, Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible, Louisville,
Ky, 2005.

20 For instance, Deut 4:35, 39; 32:12, 39.

21 "The ancient biblical statements which we characterise as 'monotheistic' are never meant in an absolute
sense... Thus, the juxtaposition of monotheistic and mythological polytheistic statements in one chapter or
one book [of the Hebrew Bible] is not puzzling" (Christian Frevel, "Beyond Monotheism? Some Remarks and
Questions on Conceptualising 'Monotheism' in Biblical Studies", in Verbum et Ecclesia, 34.2 - 2013, art. 810, pp.
4, 5).

17
the Syrian version. As patrons of the various peoples angels are indicated. The patron of
Israel is no longer, as in Deut 32:9, YHWH, but the archangel Michael (Dan 10:21, 12:1).

The Persians had no interest in stirring up religious antagonism with the subdued peoples
and therefore they simply made Ahura Mazda wear the clothes of the local god, whether
Marduk, YHWH or others, often preferring to use the neutral title 'God of heaven'22. In the
more enlightened layers of society prevailed the belief that the many gods might be
interpreted, in a higher perspective, as different manifestations of the supreme and unique
god. Proof of this is the attestation that in Babylon Marduk was invoked under 50 different
names23. It is a fact that, despite the efforts made by the Persian emissaries, at the end of
the V century it was still not possible to speak of perfect monotheism in Yehud [Judea],
since, otherwise, the Jewish polytheists of Elephantine (who worshiped - alongside
YHWH - Anath, Bethel, Ishum and Herem) would not have dared in 410 BC to turn to
Yohanan, the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple24. The introduction of the exclusive
worship of YHWH under the Persians took place very slowly, step by step.

YHWH means "he lives, he is, he is present" / "he brings into being, he creates". At the
beginning, in Ugarit, it was just an epithet of El (= El is present / El creates), especially in
the form El YHWH Sabaoth, El creator of the celestial army, that is, of the stars. Later
YHWH was distinguished from El and counted among his sons. The oldest testimony of
YHWH was detected in the temple of Ammon in Soleb, Nubia (1386 BC): YHWH of the land
of the [nomads] Shasu. From the names ending in -yeho, -yo and -yah one can deduce that
his cult went well beyond the borders of Israel. As reported by Porphyry, Yeuo was
adored in Berytus. Yahu was a god of the Syrian pantheon. Ultimately, the name YHWH
was spread over a vast area from Syria to Sinai and even Cyrenaica. It is a commonly
accepted opinion that this cult came to the Jews from neighboring peoples (Edomites,
Moabites, Midianites).

22 This designation is taken up several times by the Hebrew Bible: Gen 24:7 - Jonah 1:9 - Ezra 1:2; 7:12, 21 -
Neh 1:5; 2: 4, 20 - 2 Chr 36:23.

23 In the Enuma Elish we read: "Let the people of this land be divided as to gods, but by whatever name we
call him, let him be our god" (VI:119-120). Mark S. Smith calls (with a term coined by Eric Voegelin)
'summodeism' the particular type of theism in which a god is at the head of a pantheon of other gods that
are seen as aspects or functions of the main god (God in Translation..., cit., pp. 168, 169).

24 Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World, Cambridge, Ma, 1998, p. 130.

18
According to the biblical account, God first revealed his name to Moses on Horeb or Sinai
(Exod 3:13-15). But there is no lack of anachronisms. In Gen 4:26 we find: To Seth [the third
son of Adam] also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke
the name of the Lord [YHWH]. So at the time when Moses was yet in mente Dei. The Book of
Numbers (26:59) unwarily gives Moses' mother the name Yochebed ("YHWH is my
glory").

Mass exile and empty earth. On the basis of some biblical texts, the related theses of mass
exile and empty land have long held on: all or almost all the population of the kingdom of
Judah would be deported to Babylon, leaving the country empty as a result: He took into
exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his
sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of
Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept
sabbath, to fulfill seventy years (2 Chr 36:20-21)25.

Far from it, the assumption is contradicted by archaeological excavations and passages in
the Tanakh26. The exiles were a few thousand professionals, notables and their supporters,
who were given a treatment certainly not comparable to that wonted for slaves27. In exile,
the members of the Jewish ruling class had the chance to enter the conquering society with
managerial or, in any case, important roles. At home, the overwhelming majority of the
population remained, whose standard of living improved under the foreigners. The
prophet Jeremiah was not among the exiles. He abode in Judea until Godoliah, the

25 To be related to Leviticus 26:34: Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are
in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbath years.

26 The current reconstruction of the past that emphasizes the total exile and the 'empty' land is a theological
and ideological construction. So Ehud Ben Zvi, "Inclusion in and Exclusion from Israel as Conveyed by the
Use of the Term 'Israel' in Postmonarchic Biblical Texts‛, in Steven W. Holloway and Lowell K. Handy, eds.,
The Pitcher is Broken. Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström, Sheffield 1995, p. 104.

27 Note that Jeremiah invites to collaborate with the victors (the Babylonians, but, in reality, the Persians,
under whose occupation the piece was actually written): But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you
into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (29:7). This speech would
make little sense if Jews were treated as slaves. See Abba Solomon Eban, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews,
New York 1984, p. 69. The author's thesis is confirmed by the nearly 200 cuneiform tablets exhibited in the
Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem (February 2015). I refer to the exhibition catalogue: Filip Vukosavovic, By
the Rivers of Babylon: The Story of the Babylonian Exile, Jerusalem 2015.

19
Babylonian governor, was murdered. In the wake of this event, either by his own choice or
forced by conspirators, he passed into Egypt.

Returnees v remainees that is the so-called return. Once they had taken the place of the
Babylonians, also in view of the persistent conflict with Egypt, the Persian sovereigns
hastened to ensure the loyalty of the Jews and the regular payment of taxes. They, in
successive waves, over the course of more than a century, therefore sent to the province of
Yehud a few thousand settlers, who were not, as was long believed, the descendants of the
Jews. These, already well integrated into the rich Mesopotamian society, had no interest in
returning to a land that wasn’t certainly opulent.

Imaginatively, Ezekiel sees in the purported return a new dawn for Israel: The hand of
the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the
middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in
the valley, and they were very dry. Then he said to me, ‚Mortal, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely’. Therefore
prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you
up from your graves, o my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall
know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, o my
people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil;
then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord‛ (Ezek 37:1-2, 11-14).
This famous passage, later interpreted by Christians as allusive to the resurrection of the
dead, wants to pass off the presence of the new settlers as the return to Judea of the people
who worshiped the true God. A perfect propaganda operation aimed at presenting the
preachers of the new religion as descendants of the deported Yahwists28. In Ezra they are
called children of exile (Ezra 4:1; 6:19-21; 8:35; 10:7, 16).

The settlers were not returnees. They had no connection with Judea29. It was perhaps a new
class of Arameans30 from Harran and Edessa (Urfa) in northern Mesopotamia31. The

28 ‚The dirty secret of return is that it was never really a return but the formation of a new social-political
identity‛ (Jeremiah W. Cataldo, "The Radical Nature of 'Return' in Zechariah", in The Journal of Hebrew
Scriptures, 16.6 - 2016, p. 24).

29 Michael Nathanson (Between Myth and Mandate: Geopolitics, Pseudohistory, and the Hebrew Bible,
Bloomington, In, 2014, p. 346) wonders whether it was the return of Jewish exiles and their descendants or
rather the settlement of Babylonians in a Persian colony.

30 Deut 26:5: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. Other texts of similar content: Gen 11:32; 12:1; 24:4, 10;
25:20.

20
Aramean origin is confirmed by the fact that in this area the names Abraham, Jacob,
Ishmael, Israel were common32. The emissaries sent by the Persians were entrusted with
the reinforcement of their presence by restoring the walls of Jerusalem and rebuilding (or
building for the first time) a modest temple 33, which, besides being a place of worship,
probably had to serve as an administrative center34. All this came to pass about more than
a century after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. The acceleration of this policy was due,
under Artaxerxes I, to the Egyptian revolt (460-454) led by Inaros II, who availed himself
of the help of the Athenians. The rebellion was tamed by Megabyzos the Younger, and it
seems that the Jews in that circumstance leaned towards the rebels.

31
The two cities are now located in Turkish territory, near the border with Syria. However, whether true or
false returnees they were, it is precisely to the newcomers, according to a professor at the Pontifical Biblical
Institute in Rome, that we owe the invention of Abraham's pilgrimage, seen as a prelude to their own: "I
propose to see in Abraham cycle the hand of the returnees from exile... so Abraham became the ancestor not
only of those who remained in the land (Ezekiel 33:24), but first of all of those who came back from
Mesopotamia as Abraham comes from Ur of the Chaldeans" (Jean-Louis Ska, The Exegesis of the Pentateuch:
Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions, Tübingen 2009, p. VIII). One should not forget that in Harran, as stated
in Gen 11:31, Abraham tarried and it is no coincidence that the founding event of the Jewish religion took
place there: Now the Lord said to Abram, ‚Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land
that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will
be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed‛. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years
old when he departed from Harran. When they had come to the land of Canaan, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said,
‚To your offspring I will give this land‛. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him (Gen 12: 1-7).
32 See Walter J. Houston, The Pentateuch, London 2013, p. 150. The names of Abraham's immediate
ascendants (Serug, Nahor, Terah - Gen 11:22-26) correspond to those of settlements near Harran, while the
name of a brother of Abraham is almost identical to that of the city (cf David N. Freedman, Allen C. Myers
and Astrid B. Beck, eds., Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Grand Rapids 2000, p. 10). In any case, in the post-
exilic period the Jews must have felt a strong affinity with the Arameans, at least for the common use of
Aramaic, if in Elephantine the same individual (Meshullam, son of Zaccur) was qualified as an Aramean in
one document, as a Jew in another (Ehud Ben Zvi, "The Memory of Abraham in Late Persian/Early
Hellenistic Yehud/Judah" in Diana Vikander Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi, eds., Remembering Biblical Figures in
the Early Late Persian and Hellenistic Periods, Oxford 2013 p. 31).

33 While previously practicing their worship in open places, the Persians at a later time built temples under
Babylonian influence. Let us bear in mind that in Yehud the governor and the high priest were not the same
person (James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile, Minneapolis 2004, p. 118).

34 The Persians considered the Temple as the hub of economic activity and probably of tax collection itself.
See Philip R. Davies, On the Origins of Judaism, London-New York 2014, p. 67.

21
The Persian province of Judea (Yehud Medinata) was limited to a small area around
Jerusalem and had no more than 20,000 residents. From 587 BC (the date of Babylonian
conquest) to 445 BC the capital was Mizpah35. However, even when later it served as
capital city, Jerusalem had no more than 1500 inhabitants36. Similarly, the second Temple
was certainly not a model of magnificence. In such an environment it is difficult to
imagine that the Jewish Bible was composed. In the Persian Jerusalem, at most liturgical or
propagandistic texts and simple catechisms were written, which aimed to impose on the
loath majority of the population, with nominalistic virtuosity, the reformed Yahwist cult.
These short or embryonic writings were later inserted in wider compositions and
subjected to further remakes by the Alexandrian Jewish scholars of the Hellenistic period
and by the religious groups of the Hasmonean and Roman periods37. The Dead Sea Scrolls
attest to a still ongoing elaboration of the Bible.

A new religion in disguise. The Persian policy towards the occupied countries sought to
keep the populations subjugated by linking the respect for the king to the cult of the only
god of the Iranian religion, Ahura Mazda. It was therefore an inclusive or universalistic
monotheism, conceived as an instrumentum regni38. The missionaries of monotheism in
Judea, the so-called returnees (collectively referred to as the Golah), were a scanty minority.
They knew well that a foreign god not without contrast would be welcomed by the
population and, therefore, Ahura Mazda had to be smuggled in under the assumed
identity of the local godhead, YHWH39. So they had done in Babylon, whose main god,
Marduk, had been presented as the benevolent protector of Cyrus, who worshiped him in
public ceremonies, precisely because in him he recognized Ahura Mazda. The cylinder
named after him depicts Cyrus as the king chosen by the god Marduk to restore peace and

35 Jeremiah W. Cataldo, Breaking Monotheism: Yehud and the Material Formation of Monotheistic Identity, New
York-London 2012, p. 206, n. 73.

36 Oded Lipschits, "Persian Period Finds from Jerusalem: Facts and Interpretation", in The Journal of Hebrew
Scriptures, 9.20 - 2009, pp. 2-30.

37
‚Few would dispute that the Bible as we have it is a product of the Second Temple period. While its raw
material may often be earlier, it is in the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods that biblical texts took
on their final editorial form and were compiled into scriptural collections‛ (Eva Mroczek, "The Hegemony of
the Biblical in the Study of Second Temple Literature", in Journal of Ancient Judaism, 6.1 - 2015, p. 2).
38 From Ezra 6:10 it is plain that sacrifices and prayers for the king were incorporated into the liturgy, while
Ezra 7:26 threatens: All who will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly
executed on them, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of their goods or for imprisonment.

39 As proof of this, YHWH takes, as we have seen, the Mazdean name "God of heaven".

22
order in Babylonia. In the same way, with equal pro-Persian propaganda intent, in Isa 45:1
we read: Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue
nations before him and strip kings of their robes, to open doors before him—and the gates shall not
be closed.

In reality it was a sheer new religion, far from pleasing to polytheistic residents, since it
was a re-edition of Mazdeism from which the Jews gradually drew monotheism,
aniconism40, angelology41, demonology, immortality, the final judgment, the Messiah
Savior, that is, all the distinctive dogmas with respect to pre-exilic Yahwism. As the
biblical sources themselves attest, the relations between settlers and remainees were
strained. For Haggai (2:14) the remainees are impure, implying that only the pro-Persians
are pure (the 'holy seed' of Ezra 9:2). Hag 2:10-14 and Ezra 4:1-3 exclude the am ha-aretz
and the Samaritans from rebuilding the Temple. Ezek 33:24-29 even threatens that God
will destroy the remainees42. The exclusivist theocratic utopia was the weapon wielded by
the settlers in the attempt - unsuccessful in Persian times - to gain control of Yehud's socio-
economic base43.

When the Zoroastrian Ezra proclaimed the Law, he did so in his own language, so much
so that an interpreter was needed. The locals cried tears of anger, not of joy, for having to
accept unwelcome impositions (Neh 8:8, 9). The previous settlers who had meanwhile
married local women were forced by Ezra to repudiate them (Ezra 9:1-10:14). As language

40 The nomads had neither temples nor images (Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, Vol. II, Leiden-Köln
1982, p. 21). In addition, "aniconism is a typical feature of West Semitic open-air cultic sites (the 'high
places')‛ (Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, "The Absence of Images: The Problem of the Aniconic Cult at Gades and
Its Religio-Historical Background", in Studi epigrafici e linguistici, 21 - 2004, p. 95).

41 The 4 archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Phanuel) are only names and attributes of YHWH, as the
Amesha Spenta were of Ahura Mazda (Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God,
London 1992, p. 36).

42 ‚Consequently, the am ha’aretz was labeled by the golah community as profane and 'criminal'‛ (Jeremiah
W. Cataldo, Breaking Monotheism, cit., p. 80).

43 Of Jeremiah W. Cataldo see also "Persian Yehud Policy and the Community During Nehemiah" in Journal
for the Study of the Old Testament, 28.2 - 2003, pp. 131-143; A Theocratic Yehud? Issues of Government in a Persian
Province, N e w Y o r k - L o n d o n 2 0 0 9 ; "Whispered Utopia: Dreams, Agendas, and Theocratic Aspirations in
Yehud", in Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 24.1 - 2010, pp. 53-70. J. W. Cataldo scathes J.
Weinberg’s Bürger-Tempel-Gemeinde theory, arguing that the biblical texts of the Persian period
cannot be accepted as evidence of a theocracy operating at the time in Yehud.

23
of worship was chosen an outdated Canaanite dialect, Hebrew44, whereas in Judea, as in
the rest of the Middle East, the lingua franca, also used by the Persian administration, was
Aramaic.

It remains to be explained the strong intolerance of Jewish-style monotheism. It depended

on economic reasons. The pure monotheists wanted to expropriate land from the
indigenous polytheists45 (first up, the Tobiads: Neh 646). To justify the usurpation of other
people's property, what better argument than the covenant with the one God who would
have reserved for the faithful missionaries of his cult the exclusivity of the goods of the
cloud-built Promised Land? What made Jewish monotheism less and less inclusive and
more and more dogmatic and aggressive47 (a unicum within the Persian Empire) was also
the struggle of interests that led to the demonization of the adversary, portrayed as cursed
by God48.

As stated in 2 Macc 1:18, Nehemiah brought fire (in the form of a dense liquid, i.e., oil)
from Babylon and rekindled it in the Temple, in full consonance with Iranian customs. Of
Zoroastrian origin was the prohibition of marriage between Yahwists and idolaters,
recalled by Ezra49. It follows that, if in the book of Esther the Persian king Ahasuerus

44 In Isa 19:18 Hebrew is designated as 'the language of Canaan'. See Koert van Bekkum, ‚The
'Language of Canaan': Ancient Israel's History and the Origins of Hebrew‛, in Koert van Bekkum, Gert
Kwakkel and Wolter H. Rose, Biblical Hebrew in Context, Essays in Semitics and Old Testament Texts in Honour
of Professor Jan P. Lettinga, Leiden 2018, pp. 67-88.

45
The lands claimed by Abraham's true descendants were not limited to Persian Yehud, but went from the
Nile to the Euphrates (Gen 15:18-21). The expansion of the aims of possession was the product of successive
historical situations.

46
Cf Diana Vikander Edelman, ‚Nehemiah’s Adversary, Tobiah the Patron‛, in Mogens Müller e Thomas L.
Thompson, eds., Historie og konstruktion. Festskrift til Niels Peter Lemche, København 2005, pp. 106-114. Tobiah
was an Ammonite, as to say a pagan, who, as the theophoric name ('YHWH is benign') shows, worshiped,
among other deities, also YHWH.

47
Jerome F. D. Creach in his book Violence in Scripture, Louisville, Ky, 2013, of the violent passages of the Old
Testament attempts an interpretation compatible with Christian doctrine.

48
‛The monotheistic perception of God was initially defined in a reaction to the multiplicity of competing
authorities by a solitary community desiring authority for itself< At its origin monotheism was a
consequence of a material contest over land and authority< A monotheistic god is the ideational product of a
self-awaredly exclusionary community‛ (Jeremiah W. Cataldo, Breaking Monotheism, cit., pp. 3, 6, 9).

49
Bob Becking, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity, Tübingen 2011, p. 62.

24
marries the Jewish Esther, then Judaism and Zoroastrianism are basically the same
religion. It should be noted that Nehemiah, as the king's cupbearer, could only be a
Zoroastrian, if one thinks of the importance that the ritual rules of purity had in Persia. Of
Babylonian origin was the governor Zerubbabel himself ("seed [son] of Babylon"). In the
scribe Ezra is to be seen a Zoroastrian priest (the priest Ezra, the scribe of the law of the God of
heaven - Ezra 7:12) charged with introducing the new cult50.

In the spreading of monotheism the Persian settlers were joined by prophets. These in Neh
6:6-7 are described as an instrument of propaganda available to the holders of power: In it
was written, ‚It is reported among the nations—and Geshem also says it—that you and the Jews
intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall; and according to this report you wish to
become their king. You have also set up prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, ‘There is
a king in Judah!’ And now it will be reported to the king according to these words. So come,
therefore, and let us confer together‛ (Sanballat’s letter to Nehemiah).

The core of the message of the pro-Persian prophets mostly included a reproach, a call to
repentance, the threat of catastrophe (foreign conquest, exile). The threat found its
historical realization for the simple reason that they were ex eventu prophecies51, written,
well after the Babylonian conquest, by the new settlers or their successors. Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other prophetic books are best interpreted as pseudepigraphic
propaganda works written by pro-Persians to persuade Palestinian residents to adopt the
monotheistic religion. In this light the reason for the national catastrophe was pointed out
in apostasy from the cult of YHWH in favor of the abominable idolizing cults (Baal,
Asherah, Tammuz). The situation was the opposite. People indulged in the traditional
idolizing cults and balked at embracing a new religion imposed under a cover name. We
have also prophets without texts, such as Elijah52 and Elisha, who appear in the
Deuteronomistic History. These two characters, set in IX century BC and often limned as

50
It is a surprise that Sirach, while exalting Nehemiah, Governor Zerubbabel, and the high priest Joshua,
ignores altogether Ezra (49:11-13). This has led someone to deny the historical existence of the 'second
Moses'. Similarly, the same biblical author, while dwelling at length on the high priests Aaron, Phinehas,
and Simon (chapters 45 and 50), is silent on Melchizedek, giving rise to the suspicion that the character (Gen
14:18, Psalm 110:4 - also present in the Dead Sea Scrolls and, in the New Testament, only in the Letter to the
Hebrews 5:1; 7:28) was created later. The argumentum ex silentio, however, cannot be considered decisive.

51 The noble art of predicting the past and remembering the future was all the rage for centuries (Matthew
Neujahr, Predicting the Past in the Ancient Near East: Mantic Historiography in Ancient Mesopotamia, Judah, and
the Mediterranean World, Providence 2012).

52 The name Elijah contains the prophet's slogan: YHWH is my God.

25
struggling with rival idolatrous prophets (850 in 1 Kings 18:19; 400 in 1 Kings 22:6),
represent the difficulties encountered in missionary activity by the scant group of new
Yahwists53.

The ownership of the Promised Land. The foreign missionaries presented themselves as
the true Israel, the chosen people, a priestly people who by divine mandate claimed the
lands of Yehud. On the possession of the land the battle was fierce. What right did the
newcomers have to snatch the lands from the hands of the polytheistic rightful owners?
The biblical texts created ad hoc insist on the divinely sanctioned right of the Yahwists to
ownership of property54. In order to corroborate the claim, it was later regarded as suitable
to invent a model for the conquest of the Promised Land, a historical precedent placed at
the time of Joshua and the Judges55. Needless to say, the only real conquest was the one

53 In 1 Kings 18:40 Elijah brings 450 prophets of Baal down to the Wadi Kishon, and slays them one by one.
While Sirach (48:1-11) ignores, or prefers to ignore, the ferocious massacre (in 48:2 Elijah’s zeal is directed
against the unfaithful Israelites, reducing them to a few with the weapon of famine), the Talmud rabbis will
instead regard Elijah as Phinehas revived, a virtual reincarnation of the prototype of the Zealot (Hillel I.
Millgram, The Elijah Enigma: The Prophet, King Ahab and the Rebirth of Monotheism in the Book of Kings,
Jefferson, NC, 2014, p. 291).

54 For their part, the remainees rested their claims on Abraham: Abram passed through the land to the place at
Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said,
‚To your offspring I will give this land‛. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him (Gen
12: 6-7). See Isa 63:16 (For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, o Lord, are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name) and Ezek 33:24 (Mortal, the inhabitants of these
waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‚Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are
many; the land is surely given us to possess‛). The Jesuit Jean-Louis Ska thus elucidates the presence in the Bible
of two opposing traditions: "Now as we know, and this is a result of recent research, Genesis and Exodus,
Abraham and Moses, represent different traditions and different claims by different groups (A. de Pury, Th.
Römer, K. Schmid). I see in the Exodus tradition, with its insistence on law and covenant, cult and temple,
the mentality of the returnees< The people of the land, on the other hand, had in Abraham and the traditions
attached to him a basis for their claims against the returnees" (op. cit., pp. IX-X). In good vernacular English,
each group trotted YHWH out for the sole purpose of bringing grist to their own mill. See in particular
Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible, Winona Lake 2010, pp. 254-259.
For a Greek precedent see Katell Berthelot, In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty Between
Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy, Göttingen 2018, p. 196: ‚The myth known as the 'Return of the
Herakleidai' apparently served to justify the settlement of Dorian communities in the Peloponnese and the
domination of the Spartans, who saw themselves as a Dorian colony - i.e., 'newcomers' – but claimed they
were descended from the Herakleidai‛.

55 The most famous episode, devoid of any historical foundation, is the fall of the walls of Jericho: So the
people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great
shout, and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it (Josh 6:20). In
26
pursued by the self-styled returnees, who, in order to take possession of the lands,
proclaimed themselves unique and authentic worshipers of YHWH, the genuine nucleus
of the chosen people, the rest of Israel.

Thus Micah avers (2:12): I will surely gather all of you, o Jacob, I will gather the survivors of
Israel. Jeremiah promises (23:3): Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the
lands where I have driven them. Joel guarantees (2:32): For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there
shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom
the Lord calls. Thus also Obadiah (v. 17). However, it is in Isaiah that the concept is
expressed in its most developed form and has had the greatest influence on Jewish-
Christian culture. He gives a child the symbolic name Shear-Jashub (a remnant will return,
7:3) and in 10:22 specifies: For though your people Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a
remnant of them will return. The more detailed description is in 6:13: Even if a tenth part
remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when
it is felled. The holy seed is its stump56.

The doctrine of the rest of Israel sprouting from the barren stump reflects the numerical
disparity between the new Yahwists and the idolatrous majority of the resident
population.

In Deuteronomy a hundred times the land is promised forever to the false returnees, that is,
to the settlers. A single quotation is enough (12:10-11): When you cross over the Jordan and
live in the land that the Lord your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your
enemies all around so that you live in safety, then you shall bring everything that I command you
to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and
your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to
the Lord.

deference to the presumed command of God Keep away from the things devoted to destruction (6:18), the
Israelites took care to perpetrate an exemplary 'sacred slaughter': Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of
the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys (6:21). Ad maiorem Dei
gloriam, of course.

56 The theory of the 'rest of Israel' as a community of elect will be taken up by the Essenes of Qumran (1QS
5.1-3, 1Q28a 1.1-3) and Paul (Rom 9:27). In the latter, outside of any sectarian logic, the mission of the 'rest of
Israel' is to work for the universal salvation of mankind and, in particular, of the non-believing majority of
the people of Israel itself ("a saving remnant rather than a saved remnant", Kimberly Ambrose, Jew Among
Jews: Rehabilitating Paul, Eugene 2015, p. 176).

27
Ritual sacrifices were a boon to the priestly caste: No one shall appear before me empty-handed
(Exod 34:20); All fat is the Lord’s (Lev 3:16). To the priests were due the skin of the sacrificed
beast, the grain offerings, and the right thigh (Lev 7:8, 9, 32)57. The book of Judith58 pointed
out, for those who still had doubts, that the tithes for priests should be paid even in times
of famine (11:13)59.

A religion imposed with terror. The new religion spread and maintained itself with
terror60. The stories of the Pentateuch and other books, progressively created and
propagated over the course of centuries, had to arouse dismay in the people, inducing
them to tremble in obedience for fear of running into the hands of a ruthless God who did
not hesitate to kill by sword all the firstborn sons of Egypt and made the Levites Korah,
Dathan and Abiram, plus 250 of their supporters, be swallowed up alive by the mouth of
hearth for daring to challenge the superiority of Aaron's priesthood (Num 16), a glaring
signal sent to the present Levites. God himself invariably condemned to death those who
cultivated different religious ideas (Deut 17:2-7); those who did not obey a priest or a
judge (Deut 17:12-13); those who did not respect the Sabbath61 - with the convincing
explanation: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but
rested the seventh day. Exod 20:11 - and went so far as to exterminate not only men, but also
adult women and male children of the Midianites (Num 31:1-54), saving, so to speak, the

57 Other rights of the priests are listed in Numbers 5:9, 10; 15:17-21; 18:8-20 - Deuteronomy 18:3, 4; 26:1-3.

58 Not included in the Tanakh, it dates back to the Hasmonean era (Aaron Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish
Thought, Cambridge 2014, p. 138).

59 The priestly class could declare itself satisfied: The chief priest Azariah, who was of the house of Zadok, answered
him, ‚Since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat and have plenty
to spare; for the Lord has blessed his people, so that we have this great supply left over‛ (2 Chr 31:10). There was no
compromise on the tithe: You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me - the whole nation of you! Bring the
full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts;
see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the
locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says
the Lord of hosts (Mal 3:9-11).

60 For an in-depth discussion of this topic see Jeremiah W. Cataldo, Biblical Terror: Why Restoration and Law in
the Bible Depend Upon Fear, London-New York 2016.

61 When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. Those who found
him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. They put him in custody, because it
was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‚The man shall be put to death; all the
congregation shall stone him outside the camp‛. The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him
to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses (Num 15:32-36).

28
girls, who were taken slaves to satisfy the lust of the victors. For the idolaters there was no
escape: Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction
(Exod 22:20). And to pass from words to deeds, trampling on even the most sacred bonds
of blood: He said to them, ‚Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side,
each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your
brother, your friend, and your neighbor’‛. The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about
three thousand of the people fell on that day. Moses said, ‚Today you have ordained yourselves for
the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of a son or a brother, and so have brought a blessing on
yourselves this day‛ (Exod 32:27-29).

God burns alive Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons, for an unsolicited act of zeal, that is, for
the unforgivable guilt of presenting on a brazier an offering of perfumes that the Lord had
not ordered (Lev 10:1-2). The father and brothers are not even left with the comfort of tears
and mourning: And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, ‚Do not dishevel
your hair, and do not tear your vestments, or you will die and wrath will strike all the
congregation‛ (Lev 10:6).

The bride not found virgin by her husband must be stoned on the threshold of her father's
house62. The death penalty is imposed on homosexuals, adulterers, those who curse their
parents, those who have sex with their stepmother, daughter-in-law, mother-in-law (in
this case you go straight to the stake) or with a beast (Lev 20). Miriam is struck by leprosy,
as per the fact that with her brother Aaron she dared to criticize Moses for marrying an
Ethiopian woman, a union forbidden to Israelites. But God defends the incensurability of
Moses (Num 12:1-16), whereas Aaron, no less guilty than his sister, remains inexplicably
unpunished. Curses are wasted: But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently
observing all his commandments and decrees, which I am commanding you today, then all these
curses shall come upon you and overtake you. And he rattles off a string of curses that go far
beyond the most sadistic imagination (Deut 28:15-44). In 2 Sam 6:6-7 Uzzah stretches forth
his hand to steady the jolting ark and, though moved by the best intentions, is struck
down63. In 2 Kings 2:23-24 God sends two bears to eat 42 boys, guilty of the most heinous

62 If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the
young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she
committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your
midst (Deut 22:20-21). Music to the ears of Islamic extremists.

63 Some (and among them Nikola Tesla) physically explain the fact with a discharge emitted by the ark that,
in their opinion, would have been designed as a powerful electric capacitor. See Andrew May, Pseudoscience
and Science Fiction, New York 2016, p. 143+.
29
of crimes: calling the prophet Elisha 'baldhead'64. With no less than sudden death is
threatened even the high priest who does not scrupulously follow ritual rules as
meticulous as they are spiritually irrelevant65.

The invention of the past. On the authority of Napoleon's cynical saying, history is just a
fairy tale on which everyone agrees: a spot-on definition for the ingenious creation of
Jewish religious intellectuals. They, having to mould an identity, found nothing better
than to base it on a fanciful and far-fetched past, smuggled as historical. Certainly, they
did not lack the exact perception of the prodigious power of writing in order to generate
widely shared convictions, wrapped in the halo of sacredness. In passing off their texts as
venerable treasure troves of age-old divine revelations66 they were certain that the ploy
would work and run thanks to the continuous hammering of propaganda, made more
convincing by the threat of frightful punishment. The books of the Pentateuch were
attributed to Moses67 (set in XIII century BC): thus the whole of the remote history and the
Torah (the Law) became venerable and irrefutable68. As we have seen, the proven proof
that the monotheistic texts of the Bible are not prior to the Persian period lies in the fact
that no archaeological or documentary extra-biblical evidence of monotheistic worship
before the IV century BC has been discovered in Palestine.

64 See Thomas Römer, Dark God: Cruelty, Sex, and Violence in the Old Testament, New York, 2013. The author
thinks that each piece should be placed in its historical context and interpreted in the light of the
evolutionary development of Jewish theology. A criterion suitable to justify any aberration attested to by
cultural anthropology. Let us at least have the good sense to forswear the exclusive mark of divine
revelation.

65 Aaron shall wear it [the ephod with the golden bells] when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he
goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, so that he may not die (Exod 28:35). Another earth-
shattering prescription, addressed to the whole community of Israel: You shall not round off the hair on your
temples or mar the edges of your beard (Lev 19:27). Even today, alas, there is no lack of devotees observing the
obligation to ban tonsorial artists.

66 "The word about God became the word of God" (Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental
Composition of the Bible, Leiden 2015, p. 7). Human conceptions grew into divine revelations.

67 According to the Talmud, in bivouacs Moses would have had leisure to compose to boot the book of Job,
which is instead patterned after Babylonian sources (Takayoshi Oshima, Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers,
Tübingen 2014).

68 Specularly, Hermes Trismegistus, the alleged author of the Corpus Hermeticum (compiled by pagan authors
in the I-III centuries AD), would have been considered a contemporary of Moses, if not even prior to him.
Note, however, that the Jew Artapanus had ventured to identify Moses with Hermes/Thoth.

30
Names under the sand. An indirect evidence that lays bare the counterfeiting is offered by
the papyri (datable between 494 and 400 BC) of the abovementioned community of
Elephantine/Yeb, where, among the 167 Jewish names present, there is not one that recalls
a character of the Pentateuch. The pious forgers could certainly not presage that the re-
emergence, after thousands of years, of those papyri from the sand would have unmasked
the brilliant invention. Really strange not to find there a Noah, an Abraham, an Isaac, a
Jacob, a Joseph or at least a scruple of Moses. Zilch! Nothing at all!69. It means that, at that
time, these forefathers, these sacred ancestors, had not yet been born from the cornucopian
imagination of the manipulators70. That these are late innovations is also deduced from the
anachronism with which Abraham in Gen 11:28, 31 and 15:7 is said to be a native of Ur of
the Chaldeans, whereas the first attestations of this Semite population date, in Assyrian
texts, to the IX century BC, several centuries after the time of Moses, the purported author
of Genesis71.

The Alexandrian biblical bookwrights. In the Persian period the Yahwists began the
process of creating sacred texts, primarily prophetic, liturgical and catechetical ones. It was
only a beginning, since, as claimed by recent studies, the center of formation of the Jewish
Bible might not be Jerusalem, which remained at the rank of village for the whole Persian
period. This center should be sought outside of Judea. Alexandria under the Ptolemies
meets the requirements of a culturally active context, with a massive presence of Jewish
emigrants.

69 Russell E. Gmirkin, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the
Pentateuch, New York-London 2006, p. 30.

70 This certainly does not exclude the pre-existence of vague and confused legends about the conflictual
relationship with Egypt. "The interest of the story [of the biblical exodus] lies not in what really happened,
but how, by whom, when, in which form, and for what purpose it was told in the course of millennia. The
story is about the revolutionary birth of both a people and a religion. It has a political and a religious aspect
and both aspects are inseparably linked. It involves a great amount of violence that is both of a political
nature (Egyptian oppression of the Israelites, the 'plagues' against the Egyptians) and of a religious one (the
massacre after the cult of the golden calf) - the 'founding violence' that typically accompanies the birth of
something radically new" (Jan Assmann, "Exodus and Memory", in Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider and
William H. C. Propp, eds., Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and
Geoscience, Cham, CH, 2015, p. 3).

71 Cf Eugene H. Merrill, Mark Rooker and Michael A. Grisanti, The World and the Word: An Introduction to the
Old Testament, Nashville, Tn, 2011, p. 86, notes 27 and 30. The irreducible downgrade the specification 'of the
Chaldeans' to a simple explanatory gloss added in later times.

31
Gmirkin72 has shown that the fragment, set in the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus,
that attributes sacred books to the Jews does not derive from the Aegyptiaca of Hecataeus
(320-315 BC), but from Theophanes of Mytilene (62 BC). Therefore, once proved the
groundlessness of that previous attestation, the Septuagint (LXX - 270 BC) is the first proof
of a written Pentateuch. It may be said that this was crafted (from earlier documents and
legends) in Alexandria around 273 BC by Jewish scholars (the Greek translation would
have occurred at the same time73). The primary evidence is the dependence of Gen 1-11 on
the Babyloniaca of Berossus (278 BC), the dependence of the Exodus on the Aegyptiaca of
Manetho (285-280 BC) and geopolitical references to those years in the Table of Nations
(Gen 10-11). Furthermore, the curse of Canaan reflects situations identifiable at the end of
the First Syrian War (273-272 BC).

Gmirkin's thesis has been criticized because for Genesis and Exodus the sources cannot be
reduced to Berossus and Manetho. The story of Eden in Genesis 2, aiming at making man
aware of his own limits, derives from the Poem of Atrahasis (XVIII century BC), which also
contains a narrative of the deluge, later taken up in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In turn, the
different story of creation in Gen 1 comes from the Enuma Elish. Among the sources of
Genesis may be included Hebrew folklore tales derived from immemorial Babylonian
legends that in a millennium and a half had had a slew of time to spread. But this does not
break up the core of Gmirkin's assert. What is certain is that before the publication of the
works of Berossus and Manetho there is no trace of the Pentateuch74.

What induced the Alexandrian Jewish scholars to the enterprise? When Ptolemy II
Philadelphus wanted to collect texts on all the knowledge for the famous Library, a
significant part was assigned to the cultures of the diverse peoples. Given the
preponderance of Greek culture, the ethnic groups that were not able to compete with it
for literary, historical and religious baggage, thought well to invent it, relying on the poor
material already available, often consisting, more than in written texts, in myths and oral
stories. The final drafting of the Bible did not always lead to a coherent narrative. It was

72 Russell E. Gmirkin, op. cit., pp. 34-71.

73 The other books of the Jewish Bible were translated into Greek in different places and times. The
translation of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) should be placed at the beginning of the II century AD. See Martin
Hengel, The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century after Christ, Eugene 2003, p. 25.

74 See Niels Peter Lemche, "Is the Old Testament Still a Hellenistic Book?", in Ingrid Hjelm and Thomas L.
Thompson, eds., Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity: Changing Perspectives 7, London-New York 2016, pp.
61-75.

32
often preferred to accept and juxtapose different traditions: in 1 Sam, of ten episodes two
contrasting versions are given75; in 1 Sam 12:8, unlike in the Pentateuch, Moses sets foot in
the Promised Land.

Jewish authors wanted to rival Greek culture. With the canon closed, therefore centuries
later, the 24 books of the Tanakh (according to the calculation of 4 Ezra76) had to
counterbalance the Iliad and the Odyssey that counted the same number of books 77. Not
only Jews buckled down to inventing a glorious past. Dionysius Scytobrachion (III century
BC) in the Fabulae Libycae fabricated stacks of data to enhance the national image of Libya
and in particular of Cyrene. For example, he transferred the origin of the gods to Libya,
making it the center of a universal empire thanks to the conquests made by the Amazons,
indigenous to that region. The queen of Libya, Myrina, would make an alliance with Egypt
in the distant mythological past78.

The Pentateuch begins with Genesis, which describes the origin of the world and the
history of the Patriarchs until the settlement of the Jews in Egypt. The other four books
(Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) revolve around the figure of Moses and
the Law he imposed on the Israelites, a meticulous legislation that covers any aspect of
people’s life79. Leviticus and Deuteronomy claim to report ad litteram (notice the suspect
accuracy of the dates) the laws that, through Moses, God communicated to the chosen
people. In reality, these are norms of which it is not difficult to find precedents in the
neighboring societies, beginning with the edict of Hammurabi80. Many prescriptions on

75 "As for contradictions, these were looked at in a different way from today: consistency was not considered
essential" (Shimon Bar-Efrat, "Introduction to First Samuel‛, in Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler and Michael
A. Fishbane, eds., The Jewish Study Bible, Oxford 2014, p. 560).

76 To the 24 public books 4 Ezra 14:45-46 adds bountifully 70 esoteric or secret books.

77 Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most and Salvatore Settis, eds., The Classical Tradition, "Judaism", Cambridge,
Ma, 2010, p. 498.

78 Doron Mendels, The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, Grand Rapids, 1997, p. 43.

79 Lev 1:1-2: The Lord summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying: “Speak to the people of
Israel and say to them‛. Num 1:1-2: The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the
first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt. Deut 1:1, 3: These are the
words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan - in the wilderness. In the fortieth year, on the first day of the
eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded him to speak to them.

80 David P. Wright, Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of
Hammurabi, Oxford 2009.

33
purity betray the Persian influence81. To attribute these late laws, fundamentally aimed at
consolidating the power of the priestly caste, to a divine revelation reserved for Moses was
a rudimentary expedient to establish, without fear of denial, its authenticity and to assign
to the Jews an indisputable primacy.

The feast of Easter preceded the composition of the Pentateuch. As maintained by Bezalel
Porten and Ada Yardeni82, it is mentioned in the ostraca of Elephantine (probably V century
BC). The local Jews celebrated Easter, but without linking it to Moses and the exodus, a
sign that this myth had not yet been concocted. Easter had originated as a seasonal
canonical feast of fertility, in association with the sacrifice of firstborn babies. In the
Pentateuch the sacrifice of firstborns was forbidden (see Isaac's story) and only the
firstborn sons of the Egyptians and, at the hands of the Jews, the lambs were killed.

A staggering example of dependence on Greek sources stands out in the salient moment of
the exodus, the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea: Then Moses stretched out his hand over
the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry
land; and the waters were divided (Exod 14:21).

At the beginning of the expedition against the Persians, in the wake of a sudden change of
wind from south to north, the Sea of Pamphilia retreated so as to allow Alexander’s troops
to pass through a bottleneck cut into the rock and beaten by the stormy sea. The source is
the eyewitness Callisthenes (fr. 31), but the narrative is due to Eustace, in whose opinion
the sea recognized Alexander as its lord and bowed before him83. Already Flavius
Josephus84 noted the coincidence. An even earlier anticipation (711 BC) can be traced in the
Assyrian king Sargon II, who boasted: "I, Sargon, had my troops cross the Tigris and the
Euphrates in full flood, in the high waters of spring, as if on dry land"85.

81 Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, Vol. II, Leiden 1982, p. 190. More recently, Thomas Kazen, Second
Temple Purity Practices, SBL Annual Meeting, Baltimore, 23-26 November 2013.

82 Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt. Vol. IV: Assorted Ostraca and Inscriptions, Jerusalem 1999.

83 So Luisa Prandi, Callistene. Uno storico tra Aristotele e i re Macedoni, Milano 1985, p. 97. But Peter Bolt (Jesus'
Defeat of Death), Cambridge 2003, p. 140, attributes the supernatural interpretation to Callisthenes himself.

84 Jewish Antiquities III 348.

85 Charlie Trimm, Fighting for the King and the Gods: A Survey of Warfare in the Ancient Near East, Atlanta 2017,
p. 138. Even Sargon II, incidentally, had been exposed by his mother in a river. Note that the name Moses is
taken from the Egyptian language ('son').
34
The readers of the Exodus cannot but wonder what was the meaning of such a long and
twisted itinerary, involving the crossing of the Red Sea and the forty-year wanderings in
the desert, when instead to pass from Egypt to Palestine was available the shorter and
more comfortable route along the Mediterranean. Also in this option, if he had wanted to,
YHWH would have found no difficulty in worsting Pharaoh’s mighty chariots and
horsemen and, secondly, in routing the less fearsome Philistines86. The comparison with
Callisthenes' testimony explains emblematically that the itinerary was changed, as the
fabled and storied Jewish prophet could not allow himself to be outdone by the well-
chronicled Macedonian leader.

Sources of Judaism. If one looks at the basic features of Judaism, it is evident that on none
of them the Jews may claim a trademark. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Greek culture
exerted a sweeping influence not only on Philo of Alexandria, but also on the sacred texts
themselves87. In the chosenness is detectable a fancy shared by umpteen peoples, each of
which enjoyed trumpeting its own pre-eminence. The ancient Canaanite ideas about the
council of gods survive in the Tanakh. Two Babylonian versions of the creation are placed
side by side in Genesis. Monotheism had already been professed in Egypt by Akhenaten,
and even Marduk in Babylon was seen as a god with many names, not to mention the
unique god of the Persians, Ahura Mazda. The Sabbath was respected in Babylon as a day
unsuitable for business; the Jews added only their own motivations ad libitum.

86 The narrator/inventor of the Exodus, to justify the adoption of an aberrant itinerary (in both a proper and
figurative sense), reveals, and may well do so by virtue of his omniscience, that the divine choice was
dictated by the fear of a possible defection of the chosen people up against the threat of the Philistines: When
Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God
thought, ‚If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt‛ (Exod 13:17). A truly
unfathomable logic: the God who was bracing for the most prodigious of miracles, in order to take his
people away from the most superb of empires, would have felt incapable of trouncing the brontophobic
Philistines, something which, on the other hand, sooner or later he would have been forced to do anyway
(As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel; but the Lord thundered with a
mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion; and they were routed before Israel . 1 Sam
7:10).

87 See Philippe Wajdenbaum, Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible, Sheffield 2011;
Thomas L. Thompson and Philippe Wajdenbaum, eds., The Bible and Hellenism: Greek Influence on Jewish and
Early Christian Literature, New York 2014; Russell E. Gmirkin, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible,
London-New York 2016.

35
Circumcision, practiced by many peoples88, did not distinguish them at all. From
Zoroastrianism they drew ritual rules of purity and, as already mentioned, the key
doctrines so that, in essence, Judaism may be defined as a Zoroastrianism adjusted to
Jewish culture.

88 The Philistines, the uncircumcised ('arelim') par excellence (1 Sam 14:6; 17:26 - 2 Sam 1:20), ended up also
adopting the practice of circumcision (Avraham Faust, "The Bible, Archaeology, and the Practice of
Circumcision in Israelite and Philistine Societies ", in Journal of Biblical Literature, 134.2 - 2015, pp. 272-290).

36
 Conflicting Judaisms

The Enochian dissidents. The Zadokite priests, constituting the Jewish priestly
aristocracy, boasted of descending from Eleazar, son of Aaron. Against them a minority
group, excluded from power89, began, from the III century BC, an expansion of doctrine in
a sense more faithful to Mazdeism, thus giving rise to the Enochian literature90, not
accepted - and it is easy to understand why - into the Jewish Bible. Vying for the most
original and authentic revelation, the Enochian dissidents appealed to Enoch91, Noah's
great grandfather and father of Methuselah, considered the depository of divine secrets,
along the lines of the seventh predynastic Sumerian king Emmeduranki, as well as
Orpheus and Zarathustra. This faction of visionaries expressed their rejection of the
disappointing reality marked by social inequality, injustice and oppression 92, and therefore
shifted their hope into the future, approaching Iranian dualism and its eschatology: the
fallen angels have spread evil, so that the world, now lacking in harmony, tends to
catastrophe, which will be followed by a new creation93.

A hundred scrolls in search of an author. The Pseudepigrapha94, works falsely attributed

to venerated figures, claiming a primeval revelation, often in eschatological perspective,

89 In the Hellenistic period, beginning with the domination of the Ptolemies, the political and economic role
of the high priests became increasingly notable. See Mark R. Sneed, The Politics of Pessimism in Ecclesiastes: A
Social-Science Perspective, Atlanta 2012, pp. 102-107.

90 Richard Bauckham, The Jewish World Around the New Testament, Tübingen 2008, p. 271.

91 See Andrei A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition, Tübingen 2005.

92 Richard A. Horsley, Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing, Eugene, 2013, pp. 152, 153. For example,
the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 94-105) contains a sequence of "Woe to you", addressed to the rich and
powerful rulers and their scribes, which anticipates the invective of Jesus in Q 11:42, 46, 47, 48.

93 On the influence of Iranian doctrines on Jewish apocalypticism see Jason M. Silverman, Persepolis and
Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic, New York 2012. Other sources can be found in
Canaanite, Mesopotamian and Egyptian conceptions.

94 James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., Peabody, Ma, 2011 (first edition:
New York 1983-1985). The Charlesworth collection has 52 documents, but many others remain outside. A
monumental continuation/expansion was undertaken by Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila and Alexander
Panayotov, eds., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Vol. I, Grand Rapids 2013. A
37
are the living demonstration of the intellectual vitality, open to the most diverse
influences, of Judaism. Indeed, they show the existence, in the same breath, of many
Judaisms. In this case it may be said that the new wine of dissident and minority
conceptions was poured into the old wineskins of the traditional religious coordinates.

The false attribution95 was so widespread as to exceed the limits of religious doctrines. In
the Enochian literature the scientific ideas that abounded in it came from Babylonian
sources, but the authors were careful not to present them as imported novelties. They
thought it more opportune and nationalistically correct to trace them back to a long-
established Jewish tradition, and ultimately to the revelations that Enoch would have
received in heaven and then transmitted to men 96. The artifice of presenting science as
divine revelation had already been used by the Egyptians, Babylonians and other peoples.

The most representative pseudepigraphic text is certainly 1 Enoch, a collection of writings

by not coeval authors, present in Qumran in several copies, quoted in the Letter of Jude
14-15 and mentioned in the Second Letter of Peter 2:4. Altogether, more than 100 passages
of the New Testament recall it in some way 97. This book lacks scriptural quotations, there
is no mention of the Temple, the Law of Moses itself is not central 98, whereas fidelity to
Zoroastrianism increases. A characteristic doctrine is that of the rebellious angels, which
also peeps out in Gen 6:1-4. In addition to being a source of the world's evil alternative to
Adam's sin, they serve as a metaphor for the corrupt priestly class.

particular case of pseudepigraphy occurs when an author inserts his writings into a pre-existing text, as in
the case of the book of Isaiah, where the hand of subsequent prophets is detected.

95 On pseudepigraphy and other forgeries, see Bart D. Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary
Deceit in Early Christian Polemics, New York 2013. On the subject, in particular, of the false attribution of the
Psalms to David, Eva Mroczek avers: "I argue that rather than texts in search of authors, we have sometimes
characters in search of stories... Davidic attribution is not a piece of religious dogma that asserts the literal
authorship of the book of Psalms, but an aesthetic, poetic, and honorific act that celebrates an ancient hero
and lets him inhabit new literary homes" (The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity, Oxford 2016, p. 16).

96 Philip S. Alexander, "Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science", in Charlotte
Hempel, Armin Lange and Hermann Lichtenberger, eds., The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development
of Sapiential Thought, Leuven 2002, p. 233.

97 See Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Gabriele Boccaccini, eds., Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences,
Allusions, Intertextuality, Atlanta 2016.

98 For the wide category of 'Non-Mosaic Judaism' see John J. Collins, The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish
Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul, Oakland, Ca, 2017, pp. 62-79.

38
The pseudepigraphic works, ignored or condemned by the rabbis 99, have been preserved
by Christians, who deemed them important to understand and deepen their beliefs100. For
some specialists, they are at the origin of the whole Christian theology101. In 1 Enoch the
Messiah is described as a white bull with big horns. Called the Just One and the Son of
Man, he is also presented as a pre-existing celestial being who, splendid and majestic,
dominates the universe and sits as a judge on the throne of glory102. At the end of time he
will appear to bring into being his kingdom and build the new Jerusalem.

In the Parables of Enoch (chapters 37-71 of 1 Enoch – a later insertion), we hear about the
Messiah, but not about Israel, Abraham, Moses, Torah. This work underlines the variety of
Second Temple Judaism and challenges the centrality of the Mosaic Torah as a founding
and permanent element of Jewish identity103. The supernatural character of the Son of Man
in the Parables allows him to defeat the angelic forces devoted to evil, something that no
human Messiah could do.

99 For a more detailed view I refer to Annette Y. Reed, "The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and post-70
Judaism", in Claire Clivaz, Simon Claude Mimouni and Bernard Pouderon, eds., Les judaïsmes dans tous leurs
états aux Ier-IIIe siècles (les Judéens des synagogues, les chrétiens et les rabbins). Actes du colloque de Lausanne, 12-14
décembre 2012, Turnhout 2015, pp. 117-148.

100 Marinus De Jonge, Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament as Part of the Christian Literature, Leiden 2003. Eva
Mroczek goes so far as to say: "The apocryphal [pseudepigraphic] texts were superior to biblical Old
Testament literature, because they are a sign of spiritual progress that culminates in the New Testament.
Christianity inherits their ethical and spiritual richness, their apocalyptic energy, while rabbinic Judaism
regresses into a dead tradition" (The Literary Imagination..., cit., p. 131).

101 Ernst Käsemann, "Die Anfänge christlicher Theologie", in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, Vol. II,
Göttingen 1964, p. 108.

102 1 Enoch 62:5, 7: When they see the Son of Man seated on the throne of his glory ... Since the beginning the Son of
Man was hidden, and the Most High preserved him in the presence of his power, and revealed him to the elect. The
description of the Son of Man/Messiah in 1 Enoch as a pre-existing being seated on the throne at the right
hand of God sets a real precedent for the exaltation of Jesus, thus implying his pre-existence (Aquila Lee,
From Messiah to Preexistent Son, Eugene 2009, p . 281).

103 Gabriele Boccaccini, ed., Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, Grand Rapids
2007, pp. 12-13. James A. Waddell traces the Parables back to the second half of the I century BC (The Messiah
in the Parables of Enoch and the Letters of Paul: A Comparative Analysis, Ann Arbor 2010, pp. 20-27). Leslie W.
Walck in The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and in Matthew, London-New York 2011, elucidates the
specific features of the Son of Man shared by both the Parables and the Gospel of Matthew.

39
According to Boccaccini104, the presence of a supernatural Messiah was meaningless to
Qumran's predestinarians, who did not appreciate the development of Enochian thought.
If the Parables were not tracked down in Qumran, the reason was that Enochian Judaism
had separated from Qumranic Essenism. However, the Enochian group, urban Essenes
and Qumranites were part of the same trajectory of thought: "The Enochians were and
remained a single social group, while the term 'Essene' denotes the much larger
intellectual movement that historically manifested itself in a proliferation of different
social groups such as the Enochians, the Qumran community (perhaps the Therapeutae),
and later the Jesus movement"105.

Even the Pharisees did not find anything better but to pour their new wine into old
wineskins, that is, into the flow of a tradition that was supposed to go back to hoary
antiquity. They can rightly aspire to the Academy Award for Best Thrift for the crafty
wheeze that allowed them not even to bother to produce pseudepigraphic texts under
which to sell their legal innovations. Reaching the maximum result with the minimum
effort and avoiding exhausting exegetical squabbles, they went straight to the goal,
framing, next to the written one, a malleable oral Torah, also revealed by God to Moses
and since then for more than a millennium transmitted through channels unknown to all,
except of course to them106.

Hellenizers v Hassidim. Under Persian rule the Jews ended up identifying themselves
with or at least feeling very akin to the conquerors107. For the loyalty to the Iranian king
strove the priestly class that promoted the worship of the common "God of heaven".

104 Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways Between Qumran and Enochic
Judaism, Grand Rapids 1998.

105 Gabriele Boccaccini, Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection, Grand Rapids, 2005, p.
422-423. The same author in Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, From Ezekiel to Daniel, Grand
Rapids 2002, p. 103, had otherwise outlined the relationship between Enochians and Essenes: "Only the
Maccabean revolt caused the Enochian Judaism to grow into something different and broader - a movement
of dissent basically known as Essenism‛.

106 Martin S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE,
Oxford 2001.

107 "The Psalms abound in invectives against the Babylonian yoke (just think of Ps 137), while against the
Persian kings such a venom is not found in all the Hebrew literature" (Stephen J. Vicchio, Job in the Ancient
World. The Image of the Biblical Job: A History, Vol. I, Eugene 2006, p. 36).

40
Everything changed with the advent of the Greek sovereigns, successors of Alexander the
Great, first the Ptolemies of Egypt and later the Seleucids of Syria.

A part of the aristocracy willingly opened up to the Hellenistic lifestyle (learning Greek,
participating in parties and entertainment, use of a polytheistic greeting formula). At the
end of the Ptolemaic reign the cultic community of Jerusalem had sided with the Seleucids
and therefore, when these prevailed, they obtained tax privileges. With the change of
dynasty (198 BC) we witness the clash between Pious (Hassidim) and Hellenizers. From
175 the latter ousted the adversaries, causing a civil war. Their line-up, however, was not
unitary. If the moderates limited themselves to political reforms (Jason, 175-172), the
extremists wanted to do away with the peculiarities of Judaism (Menelaus, 172-162). In the
civil war, what was at stake was the integration of Judaism into Hellenistic society108.

The conflict began with political reformism, then moved on to a cultural-religious

confrontation and finally ended in a war of national liberation. The subordinate strata of
the capital and the poor rural population joined forces with the core of conservative
religious intellectuals who gave the struggle a theological legitimacy (zeal for the Law and
for the Covenant). These coalition forces, under the leadership of Judas Maccabee,
prevailed and on 14 December 164 BC, restored the cult of YHWH, removing the
abomination of desolation, the desecration of the Temple by Gentiles and Hellenizing Jews.
Having come to power in Antioch, in 162 Demetrius Soter recognized Jewish religious
freedom and appointed a high priest who was attached to traditions. This satisfied the
Hassidim. But the Maccabees went on fighting until Alexander Balas bestowed the title of
high priest on Jonathan, a title confirmed by Demetrius II, whereas later on Diodotus
Tryphon came into conflict with him and killed him. The successor of Jonathan, his
brother Simon, drove the Gentiles away from the Akra (the fortress of Jerusalem) and
became recognized ruler, setting up the Hasmonean dynasty (from his ancestor Asamon
or Hashmon)109.

The second book of Maccabees presents the clash as a dispute between Judaism and
Hellenism, terms it uses first. In reality, today we prefer to speak of an intra-Jewish civil

108 Justin Michael Motter-Hugenin, The Tobiads and the Maccabees: Hellenism and Power in the Ancient Judean
Community, Columbus, Oh, 2013.

109 For an overview of the dynasty I point out Kenneth Atkinson, A History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus
and Beyond, London 2016.

41
war between Hellenizing reformers and conservative orthodox reformers. In short, it was
an internal contrast within Judaism, or rather between two conflicting Judaisms, on the
value of tradition.

Unity was not found even after the victory of the Maccabees and the defeat of the
Hellenizers. On the contrary, further divisions arose. The Maccabees wanted to push on
with the war until political independence, while the Hassidim, pleased with the
recognized religious freedom, sought a compromise with the Seleucids. The Maccabees
aimed not only at independence, but also at the conquest of new territories, where they
intended to impose Judaism by force on the pagans. They also aspired to lay hold, in
addition to the political role, also of the religious one, taking away from the Zadokites the
office of high priest with annexed management of the Temple treasure. At that point the
Hasmoneans (and the Sadducees, who supported them) were accused of being the new
Hellenizers.

Within the anti-Maccabean Hassidim, opposed to the encroachment of religious struggle

into political and economic greed, the Pharisees ("the separate ones") and the Essenes
stood out. In the middle of the latter arose the even more rigorous Qumranites, hard and
pure extremists110, convinced of their divine election, meant as a clear-cut separation from
the rest of Israel and the world, and with a special predilection for the rules of ritual purity
that were the sign of their exclusivity111. In the service of Hasmonean ideology, the two
books of Chronicles, in order to justify the dual role of the Hasmoneans and to fight the
schismatic Samaritans, who around 330 had erected their own temple on Mount Gerizim,
emphasize the leading role of Judea and the cultic centrality of Jerusalem, mythologizing
King David and his son Solomon as successful rulers and initiators of legitimate worship.

110 John J. Collins in his Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Grand
Rapids 2015, pp. 84-88, in declaring the theory of schism between the Enoch tradition, the Essenes and the
Qumran community unfounded, maintains that the movement reflected in the Scrolls has operated a
synthesis of four traditions: Enochian, sapiential, Mosaic and apocalyptic. Surprisingly, the Qumran
community, according to Martin Hengel's well-known thesis (Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their
Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period, Vol. I, London 1974, pp. 243-247), was affected, albeit
indirectly and unconsciously, by Hellenistic influence at the level of ideas, structures and institutions. It can
be considered a version, adapted to Judaism, of the well-known voluntary Hellenistic associations (Per Bilde,
"The Essenes in Philo and Josephus", in Eve-Marie Becker, Morten Hørning Jensen and Jacob Mortensen,
eds., Collected Studies on Philo and Josephus, Göttingen 2016, p. 149).

111 The eagerness for differentiation will lead these sectarians to elaborate a peculiar type of Hebrew,
characterized by classicist purism and archaizing spelling (William M. Schniedewind, "Qumran Hebrew as
an Antilanguage", in Journal of Biblical Literature, 118 - 1999, pp. 235 -252).

42
The position of the Hassidim in the conflict is reflected in the book of Daniel (164 BC),
which in the downtrodden subordinate strata wants to raise hope for the final victory,
guaranteed by divine intervention: At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your
people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first
came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written
in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:1-2). In oppressed men faith in the
resurrection is an expression of the will of revenge. Hebrew Daniel comes from the quietist
wing of the Hassidim, whose model was the martyrs, not the victorious Maccabees.

The mechanisms of oppression of the Hasmonean society, with connected exploitation and
downgrading of the poor, transformed apocalypticism into a theology of social
resistance112. The poor built an alternative world of faith from which they drew the
certainty that soon YHWH, directly or through his Messiah or the Archangel Michael113,
would intervene to ensure justice and equality. This kind of apocalypticism was very
widespread in the lower strata until the time of Jesus, keeping alive the hope of social
redemption.

The Hasmonean sovereigns, in order to legitimize their political-religious power,

emphasized the distinctive features of Judaism - monotheism, antidolatry, aniconism114,
Sabbath observance, circumcision115-, engendering an exclusive and intolerant, xenophobic
and anticosmopolitan ideology116. It was they who eliminated all traces of polytheism with

112 Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, Vol. II, Louisville, Ky, 1994, pp.
595-597.

113 Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence, Leiden 1998; Darrell D.
Hannah, Michael and Christ, Tübingen 1999.

114 The decorations of the synagogue of Dura Europos show that, in spite of the Hasmoneans, a Jewish art
existed. "The development of Christian art and its very existence depended on now lost models of Jewish art.
Jewish art precedes Christian art and influences it" (Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd, eds., Complex Identities:
Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art, New Brunswick, NJ, 2001, p. 19).

115 See Nina E. Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, Tübingen 2010. In 1 Macc circumcision counts as a
sign of fidelity to the Hasmonean party: "Accepting circumcision meant identifying with the Hasmoneans"
(p. 11). Note that Moses, after leaving Egypt, refrained from imposing this practice (Josh 3:4-5).

116 On the Hasmonean ideology, in particular the concept of holy war, see two papers by Kai Trampedach:
"Zwangsbeschneidung und religiöse Säuberung. Der Heilige Krieg der Hasmonäer", in Birgit Emich, Ulrich
Gotter and Gabriela Signori, eds., Kriegs-Bilder I, Teil 1, H-Soz-Kult 2006; "Die Hasmonäer und das Problem
der Theokratie", in Andreas Pečar and Kai Trampedach, eds., Die Bibel als politisches Argument, München
43
destructions117, exiles, forced conversions, murders: a militant, warmongering Yahwism.
But the Hellenistic cultural influence kept up: Aristobulus (104-103 BC) was called
'philhellene'; in coins of his successor Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BC) stood out the Greek
inscription. Suffice it to say that both bore Greek names. The twofold role of the sovereigns
allowed them to intervene with complete impunity on the religious texts destroyed by the
Hellenizers and their patrons118. It is probable that to this hyper-nationalist editing may be
traced back the most hateful and intolerant biblical passages: the passages of the jealous
God and the holy homicidal zeal.

The Hasmoneans were ethnarchs (only with Aristobulus I did they attribute themselves
the title of king), subject to the Seleucids, to whom they paid a regular tribute and with
whom they skillfully coped and managed, taking advantage of the critical periods of the
Hellenistic dynasty. Proof of their subjection lies in the fact that in 132 BC John Hyrcanus
(134-104 BC) had to humiliate himself at the feet of Antiochus Sidetes. In this period the

2007, pp. 37-66. I also point out Gabriela Signori, ed., Dying for the Faith, Killing for the Faith. Old-Testament
Faith-Warriors (1 and 2 Maccabees) in Historical Perspective, Leiden 2012, containing, among other items,
another article by Kai Trampedach ("The War of the Hasmoneans", pp. 61-78).

117 Giovanni Garbini draws attention to the strange absence of monumental inscriptions in the hilly area of
Palestine. He states that the monuments of the past were destroyed by people who had an interest in
preserving from doubt the mythical history proposed by the Bible. The Hasmoneans would be the most
credible candidates. We can read the texts that escaped the clean sweep in Graham Davies, Ancient Hebrew
Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, Cambridge 1991-2004. It is astonishing that the only ancient inscription
in which individuals proclaim themselves Israelites was discovered outside Palestine, on the Greek island of
Delos. These Israelites from Crete (Knossos and Herakleion) expressly mention their attachment to the
temple on Mount Gerizim. They are therefore Samaritans, who nevertheless call themselves Israelites. Let us
remember that the name Israel is already present in tablets from Ebla and Ugarit.

118 In the same way Judas also collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us,
and they are in our possession (2 Macc 2:14). For Joseph Blenkinsopp, former president of the Catholic Bible
Association of America, a clear example of editorial intervention of the Hasmonean era can be found in the
reorganization of the chronology, designed to coincide the date of the new dedication of the Temple (164 BC)
with the year 4000 since the creation of the world, on the basis of the Zoroastrian conception of cosmic cycles
(Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1-11, London-New York 2011, p. 110).
Of different opinion, however, is Ronald Hendel ("A Hasmonean Edition of MT Genesis? The Implications of
the Editions of the Chronology in Genesis 5", in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel, 1.4 - 2012, pp. 448-464). For a
general discussion of the Hasmonean redaction of the Tanakh I refer to David M. Carr (The Formation of the
Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction, Oxford 2011, pp. 153-179), who indicates many cases of functional
alteration in the interests of the dynasty, as in passages alluding to the cultic centrality of Jerusalem, in the
context of the controversy with the Samaritans.

44
capital reached 30,000 inhabitants. Only then was Jerusalem119 imposed as the exclusive
place and seat of worship120, so that the rival Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim was
destroyed in 128 or around 111 BC121. At that time became established the custom to turn
to the capital in the act of praying, attested to only in 2 Chr 6:36-39 and therefore late122.
Pilgrimages (with the payment of more or less spontaneous offerings) were enforced. Then
the myth of the chosen people was strengthened, a psychological defense against the
specter of insignificance and cultural annihilation, in the words of the Jewish
psychoanalyst Avner Falk123. John Hyrcanus forcibly imposed Judaism on the
Idumaeans124 (the holy violence, a Compelle intrare ante litteram). According to Flavius

119 The name means "city of Shalem". Shalem (the patron Canaanite god) is also found in the name Absalon.
Ab Shalem = Shalem (the perfect) is my father.

120 The passages of Isaiah that highlight the centrality of Zion/Jerusalem find their more proper Sitz im Leben
in the Hasmonean period (Antti Laato, About Zion I Will Not Be Silent: The Book of Isaiah as an Ideological Unity,
Stockholm 1998; Ingrid Hjelm, Jerusalem's Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition, London-New
York 2004, pp. 7-9).

121 See Jonathan Bourgel, "The Destruction of the Samaritan Temple by John Hyrcanus: A Reconsideration",
in Journal of Biblical Literature, 135.3 - 2016, pp. 505-523. The author opts for the second date.

122 In the common opinion, Muhammad also remained faithful to tradition, until it was supernaturally
revealed to him in Medina (Qur'ān II 141-150) that it was more pleasing to Allah to pray by turning the face
to Mecca and the back, consequently, to the holy city, al-Quds. The name 'holy city' for Jerusalem is already
in Isa 48:2 - Neh 11:1, 18 - Sir 24:11; 36:11; 49:6 - Matt 4:5; 27:53. In reality, according to Dan Gibson's research
(Qur'ānic Geography: A Survey and Evaluation of the Geographical References in the Qur'ān with Suggested
Solutions for Various Problems and Issues, Surrey, BC, 2011), until 724 AD the mosques were oriented neither
towards Jerusalem nor towards Mecca, but, without exception, towards the Nabatean city of Petra, in
present-day Jordan.

123 A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews, Cranbury-London-Mississauga 1996, p. 11.

124 ‚Antiochus did not combat Judaism, which - as I said before – would be atypical, or even unparalleled in
the Hellenistic era. Rather his actions were based on cool, political and rational calculations to ensure peace
and obedience in the frontier region. As the consequences of this proposal, we will accept (as has already
been done in some older works) the king’s anti-Judaic edict as a fictitious literary feature. The depiction of
Antiochus’ prejudice should not be seen as the result of the unexplained bias of the king, but rather as the
result of the ideological and literary needs of the writer. The insertion of this tale, and the blaming of the
king for the entire confusion, served as justification for the violence and allowed silence about internal splits
and conflicts. Obviously, the creation of a religious cause for the uprising against the legal authorities helped
to justify the very act of rebellion. In such a way, the writer justifies the Hasmonean usurper and his heirs"
(Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spano, "Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Jews - A Reassessment", in Ingrid Hjelm and
Thomas L. Thompson, eds., History, Archaeology and the Bible Forty Years After "Historicity": Changing
Perspectives 6, London-New York 2016, pp. 137). ‚The way in which the first book of Maccabees (1:41+) bases
45
Josephus125, Alexander Jannaeus around 80 BC demolished the city of Pella "because the
inhabitants did not want to accept the Jewish customs‛126. An antecedent that laid the
ideological foundations to which might appeal much later, in 524 AD, Dhu Nuwas, the
Jewish sovereign of Yemen, the exterminator of 20,000 Christians who refused to convert
to Judaism.

An Essene Yahad: Qumran. In the context of political-religious dissent is to be placed the

community (Yahad) that, in the common opinion, met in Qumran. It had no more than 200
members and, according to Marcus K. M. Tso127, it flourished from 100 BC to 68 AD, with
an interruption at the time of Herod. The site, for Lena Cansdale, was only a commercial
hub; for Robert Cargill, a Hasmonean fortress occupied, once disused, by the Essene
rebels. The discovery of a supposedly Sadduccean text and a hymn in honor of a
Hasmonean sovereign raises some doubts, but the prevailing reconstruction suggests that
this group was a branch of the Essenes, whose hostility towards the Temple of Jerusalem,
when the figure of the high priest coincided with that of the sovereign, they would have
stressed.

At the dawn of the community there had been a Teacher of Righteousness, probably a
high priest dismissed and persecuted by the Hasmoneans128. The common view is that he

the story of the [Seleucid] persecution on the order - historically disputable - given by Antiochus IV that all
subjects should become one people, even at the cost of renouncing their own customs, recalls the policy of
Judaization of John Hyrcanus and his successors, who forced first the Idumaeans and then the Itureans of
Galilee to adopt the Jewish law, just at the time when the Chronicle of the Heroes Maccabees was composed‛
(Martin Hengel, The 'Hellenization'..., cit., p. 31).

125 Jewish Antiquities XIII 397.

126 The massacres perpetrated by this king against his political and religious adversaries, besides denoting
the extreme degeneration of intra-Jewish conflicts, dwarf even Herod's archetypal cruelty. As attested to by
Flavius Josephus (Jewish Antiquities XIII 380), he ordered 800 Pharisees to be crucified. To the pain of the long
agony was added the torment of the sight of relatives being slaughtered by the executioners. In the same
work (XIII 373 and 376) there is news of massacres even more relevant for the number of victims.

127 Ethics in the Qumran Community: An Interdisciplinary Investigation, Tübingen 2010, p. 5. On Qumran I point
out a volume by Devorah Dimant, containing 27 updated and partly rewritten articles published by the
author over the last three decades: History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Tübingen
2014.

128 A group of Zadokite priests ousted from the Jerusalem Temple would have founded the Qumran Yahad
(Heerak Christian Kim, Zadokite Propaganda in the Late Second Temple Period: A Turning Point in Jewish History,
Lanham, Md, 2014, p. 2). According to Richard A. Freund (Digging through the Bible: Modern Archaeology and
46
emerged around 150 BC, therefore before the founding of the settlement in Qumran, and
was the author of hymns inspired by the Psalms, Jeremiah and Job. Dupont-Sommer put
forward the hypothesis that it was the Essenes who inserted the passages relating to the
Suffering Servant into the text of Isaiah, transmuting the Teacher of Righteousness into a
symbol129.

The community, in dissension with the clergy of the Temple130 also for the adoption of a
new calendar, held itself to be the rest of Israel131, Israel walking along the path of perfection
(1QS 9 6), the pure and immaculate part of the nation132, the only one to have kept faith
with the Mosaic covenant and therefore to be able to aspire to salvation. In the imminent
war with the children of darkness (the Gentiles or Kittim133 in cahoots with the infidel Jews

the Ancient Bible, Lanham, Md, 2009, p. 287), the title Teacher of Righteousness was also attributed to later
community leaders.

129 André Dupont-Sommer, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Preliminary Survey, New York 1952. By the same author:
The Essene Writings from Qumran, New York 1962.

130 "The sect itself was seen as a sanctuary that replaced the actual physical sanctuary, the Jerusalem
Temple< The spatial sanctity of the Temple was transferred to the group‛ (Lawrence H. Schiffman, "The
Dead Sea Scrolls Sect as a Replacement Temple", in David Birnbaum and Benjamin Blech, eds., Sanctification /
Kedushah, New York 2014, pp. 314, 315). The Qumranites, however, did not renounce the cultic centrality of
the 'divine abode'. At the end of the usurpation consummated by the illegitimate clergy - therefore in
eschatological perspective - Jerusalem would return to its role as the privileged place of God's presence
thanks to a renewed Temple and priesthood. See Florentino García Martínez, "New Jerusalem at Qumran
and in the New Testament", in Jacques van Ruiten and J. Cornelis de Vos, eds., The Land of Israel in Bible,
History, and Theology. Studies in Honour of Ed Noort, Leiden 2009, pp. 277-289. The reference texts are 4Q177
(4QCatena A), 1QM II 1-5, 1QM XII 10-16. This last passage has relevant affinities with the Isaian exaltation
of the New Jerusalem (chapters 60-66).

131 In this respect the Qumranites inherit the ideology of the self-styled returnees of the Persian period. See
Stephen Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant to the Covenant of the Community: Literary, Historical, and
Theological Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Leiden 2007, esp. p. 213+.

132 Physical purity was of no less moment to them than moral purity. Some extremely strict standards still
arouse the bewildered admiration of hygienists today (see Ian Werrett, ‚A Scroll in One Hand and a Hatchet
in the Other: Latrines, Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls‛, SBL Annual Meeting, Boston, 22-25 November
2008). The considerable distance of the latrines from the city (3000 cubits) and the camp (2000 cubits) can
make sense of the ban on going to stool on the Sabbaths (Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War II 147), when it
was not permissible to travel more than 1000 cubits.

133 After the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey (63 BC) the Romans were perceived as the eschatological
enemy whose defeat would inaugurate the Messianic era (Brian Schultz, "Not Greeks but Romans: Changing
Expectations for the Eschatological War in the War Texts from Qumran", in Mladen Popović, ed., The Jewish
47
and a demonic horde at the command of Belial), the Yahad would have constituted the
small army of light trusting in victory, inasmuch as it was led by the archangel Michael134.
The Qumranites believed they had realized the bidding of Isaiah 40:3 (interpreted out of
context135, as later by the Baptist) In the desert prepare the way of the Lord for the imminent
final judgment (1QS 8:13-14). The enemies of the group were given code names: the house
of Absalon = the traitors of the Teacher of Righteousness; Ephraim = the Pharisees;
Manasseh = the Sadducees. By 'Judah' the Essenes meant themselves136. They were for
rigid predestination (1Q 7: Every being will carry out the plan prepared for him by God), even if
in some passage there seems to be room for human responsibility137. At Qumran an
esoteric doctrine was taught, hidden from the profane. There the revelation was
continuous and the doctrine kept evolving. The Essene Community Rule prescribes that the
new members must swear to hate the children of darkness for eternity138 and, on the
contrary, to love the children of light. In any case, hatred for enemies should not turn into

Revolt against Rome, Leiden 2011, pp. 107-128). The Psalm of Solomon repeatedly mention (2:1-13; 8:15-21;
17:5-14) the sacrilegious undertaking of the Roman leader, whose death in Egypt is interpreted as divine
punishment (2:26-29).

134 See Michael E. Fuller, The Restoration of Israel: Israel's Re-gathering and the Fate of Nations in Early Jewish
Literature and Luke-Acts, Berlin 2006, pp. 133-148; David Flusser, Judaism of the Second Temple Period. Vol. I:
Qumran and Apocalypticism, Grand Rapids 2007, pp. 140-158.

135 Isaiah was hinting at the return of the exiles from Babylon. A recent interpretation (cf Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer
and Hans M. Barstad, eds., Continuity and Discontinuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40-
66, Göttingen 2014) sees in the return from Babylon only a metaphor for the restoration of the true cult of
YHWH. This inevitably requires a later date. However, in the opinion of James C. VanderKam ("Sinai
revisited", in Matthias Henze, ed., Biblical Interpretation at Qumran: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related
Literature, Grand Rapids 2005, p. 48), the Community Rule shows that the Qumran Yahad was modeled on
Israel in the desert period and, more specifically, on the archetype of Israel camped at the foot of Sinai,
identifying the pre-eminent scriptural foundation in chapters 19, 20 and 24 of Exodus.

136 In Isaiah 9:21 (Manasseh devoured Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, and together they were against Judah) one
might see the hand of the final Essene editor.

137 The plurality of the theses should come as no surprise: "I am convinced that at Qumran divergent ideas
were supported at different times... and even simultaneously" (James H. Charlesworth, "Challenging the
Consensus Communis Regarding Qumran Messianism", in James H. Charlesworth, Hermann Lichtenberger
and Gerbern S. Oegema, eds., Qumran-Messianism, Tübingen 1998, pp. 120-121). For a comparison with
Zoroastrian texts see Mladen Popović, "Apocalyptic Determinism", in John J. Collins, ed., The Oxford
Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, Oxford 2014, pp. 255-270.

138 "Eternal hatred for the men of destruction" (1QS 9:21-2).

48
offense or violence (I will not return evil to anyone139) until the end of time and the decisive
clash, when sectarians would move from meekness to the inexorability of revenge140.

The Qumranites were sure they were already participants in the heavenly liturgy141. The
songs of the sabbatical sacrifice describe the divine throne (the Merkabah). The one of the
seventh Sabbath, with its intentional and emphatic repetitions, was to generate ecstasy and
vision142.

Essenism and Christianity are very similar in their vital structures. Philo and Flavius
Josephus do not speak of Christians, but only of Essenes. In turn, the Christian sacred texts
never mention the Essenes, but only the Nazarenes, a branch of them143. Also Jesus and
Paul are expressly called Nazarenes. Both Essenes and Christians believed in the
traditional God of Second Temple Judaism, in the establishment of a New Covenant144 and
in the coming of a Savior Messiah; both called themselves "children of light", "the Poor"145
and "the Way"146; both awaited the end of time with the cosmic battle between good and
evil; both preferred the same books of Scripture (Deuteronomy, Isaiah and the Psalms) and

139 David Flusser, Judaism..., cit., p. 198.

140 See Alex P. Jassen, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Violence: Sectarian Formation and Eschatological
Imagination", in Ra'anan S. Boustan, Alex P. Jassen and J. Calvin Roetzel, eds., Violence, Scripture, and Textual
Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity, Leiden 2010, pp. 13-44.

141 "In the case of Qumran the worship in the earthly Temple of Jerusalem was considered invalid and
therefore the heavenly liturgy in fact replaced it" (John J. Collins, Apocalypse<, cit., p. 168.

142 Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, Leiden 2000, p. 14.

143 "The Nazarenes and the Osseans were two ancient offshoots of the Essenes. The Nazarenes, living in the
north, on Mount Carmel, encouraged celibacy, the Osseans encouraged marriage" (Dianne Bergant, Israel's
Story, Part Two, Collegeville 2007, p. 94). For the relationship between Essenes, Osseans and Nazarenes in
Epiphanius see Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, The Revelation of Elchasai: Investigations into the Evidence for a
Mesopotamian Jewish Apocalypse of the Second Century and its Reception by Judeo-Christian Propagandists,
Tübingen 1985, p. 114+.

144 Both groups believed that the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:31 had been fulfilled in them: The days are surely
coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

145 This original name of the Christians did not turn into a mere scholarly curio in don Tonino Bello.

146 For the ‚Way‛ see Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Grand
Rapids 1998, p. 316.

49
attached particular importance to Isaiah 40:3; both followed charismatic leaders147, shared
property, despised the corrupt priests of the Temple, devalued the sacrifices offered there,
emphasized the purifying power of water, condemned divorce, held in high regard
celibacy, believed in a divine power called the Holy Spirit and in his guidance for the
creative interpretation of the Scriptures148.

Unlike the Essenes, Christians were open, inclusive; they spurned nationalism, preached
love even for their enemies, disregarded the strict rules of ritual purity, frequented sinners
and Gentiles, were dedicated to missionary work.

In conclusion, ‚the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament are the product of two similar
Jewish reform movements, two different expressions of the multiform reality that was
Palestinian Judaism‛149.

147 For the similarities between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus, I refer to Per Bilde, The Originality of
Jesus: A Critical Discussion and a Comparative Attempt, Göttingen 2013, p. 187+.

148 As for the Holy Spirit I point out Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, "Historical Origins of the Early Christian Concept
of the Holy Spirit: Perspectives from the Dead Sea Scrolls", in Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, eds., The Holy
Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Berlin 2014, pp. 167-240.

149 Florentino García Martínez, "Qumran Between the Old and the New Testament", in Florentino García
Martínez, ed., Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and the New Testament, Leiden 2009, pp. 1, 5.

50
 National Identity

E. Theodore Mullen argues150 that Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History aimed at the
creation of an idealized past, indispensable for the formation and preservation of national
identity. They addressed an audience of conflicting groups with the intention of
amalgamating them. A thesis taken up by Franz Volker Greifenhagen, who in his essay
Ethnicity In, With, or Under the Pentateuch151 notes that much of the Tanakh, including the
Pentateuch, serves to establish a particular ethnic identity based on a mythology of
common origin and affinity. Identity is more important for marginal peoples subject to the
domination and influence of imperial states.

From this point of view, it is essential to establish who is the other from whom to
distinguish oneself. For the Jewish Bible "other" is certainly the Canaanite people, but even
more so the Egyptian people, mentioned in the Pentateuch 376 times against 96 of the first.
By dint of insisting on the opposition with the Egyptians, the Bible raises the suspicion
that among the Jews more than one was not convinced 152. The reason for the rebellion in
the desert (Exod 16, 17 - Num 11, 14, 16, 20) recognizes Egypt as a seductive land. Such a
thought is condemned as revolting against the benefits received from God.
Understandably, in the Persian period anti-Egyptian propaganda aimed at disparaging the
former rulers and encouraging loyalty to the new masters and benefactors. Ezekiel 20:7-8
goes so far as to trace the idolatry of Israel back to its stay in Egypt. The learned
Alexandrian biblical authors maintained an anti-Egyptian attitude, for that was the only

150 Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations: A New Approach to the Formation of the Pentateuch, Atlanta 1997,
pp. 88, 126.

151 Appeared in the Journal of Religion and Society, 3 - 2001, pp. 1-17. More recently: David Goodblatt, Elements
of Ancient Jewish Nationalism, Cambridge 2006; Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People, London 2009;
Erich S. Gruen, The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History,
Berlin 2016. Not included in the Tanakh, Esther is the handbook of Jewish nationalism and military
triumphalism, flowing from the awareness of Israel’s indestructibility. See Jo Carruthers, Esther through the
Centuries, Malden, Ma, 2008, esp. pp. 41-43.

152 "The other is often almost indistinguishable from the us, but some traits are deformed by the us in order
to create an abyss between them... The us feels constantly at risk of being seduced by the other... The
description of the other is often unreal, distorted, monstrous, mythical" (Lawrence M. Wills, Not God's People:
Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World, Lanham, Md, 2008, p. 13).

51
way to buttress a Jewish identity. Even the Alexandrian Philo, when Egypt, firmly under
Rome's rule, was no longer a danger, kept on seeing the other in the Egyptians: "Philo
describes the Egyptians in the most negative terms. His exasperated and incessant
criticism plays a key role in his construction of Jewish identity. The Egyptians emerge as
the extreme 'other' whose perversions implicitly define the positive characters of the
Jews"153.

The sense of belonging to a given community and the consequent differentiation from
others is the result of a choice individuating the ethnic markers, by nature subjective and
arbitrary, depending on particular socio-political situations. On the authority of the
revolutionary thesis of the anthropologist Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth154, first comes the
choice of identity, then culture; not the other way around. Ernest Geller draws this
conclusion: "Two men are of the same nation if and only if they recognize each other as
belonging to the same nation", that is, only if they share the same self-ascription155. In short,
the keystone is not cultural difference, but ascription, the way people identify themselves
and are identified by outsiders. Confines are a social construction and therefore do not
coincide with cultural distinctive features. Group consciousness, the self-aware sharing of
a peculiar common heritage, is a social construction. The common belonging is then
highlighted by external symbols that act as boundary stones and reinforced by gatherings
and pilgrimages.

The theory of self-ascription (i.e., the arbitrary creation of ethnic markers) is ideal for
understanding the formation of Judaism. A small, piddling people, so kindred to
Canaanites, Moabites and Ammonites, so far from God and so close to rival imperial
powers, an earthen pot set amidst iron bowls, in any geopolitical situation swaying
between the devil and the deep blue sea, could only survive by recognizing itself as
different, because of its uniqueness, from the neighboring peoples in which in the
unfolding of events he saw a threat. In this light, history might only be deemed by biblical
authors as an instrument of propaganda and exercise of creative ingenuity.

153 Maren Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture, Tubingen 2001, pp. 45-46. Artapanus, on the other
hand, while exalting the Jewish cultural primacy, did not spill vitriol against the Egyptians (p. 74).

154 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, Oslo 1969.

155 Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca 1983, pp. 6, 7.

52
Jewish identity was, in the Hellenistic period, above all the product of the political-cultural
conflict with the Greeks156, a conflict in which the Jews were involved alongside other
peoples. Even centuries later, the Persians continued to nickname the Macedonian
conqueror 'gojastak' (cursed), since, in addition to ousting them from power, he was guilty
of a perhaps even more serious offence, the destruction of their sacred texts in the fire of
the palace of Persepolis. In this regard, scholars are divided. Some (such as A. T.
Olmstead, E. E. Herzfeld, H. S. Nyberg) deny that copies of the Avesta ('Foundation' or
'Law') existed at the time and that they could therefore have been burned. Others (K. F.
Geldner, A. V. W. Jackson, W. B. Henning) argue the opposite. However, even in the case
of the non-existence of written texts, the killing of sundry priestly authorities (the
repositories of the oral religious tradition) was of equal gravity in the eyes of the Persians.
Moreover, given the indissoluble link between the Achaemenid dynasty and the local
religion, a Macedonian king from a distant Greek province could not be accepted without
resistance. Echoes of the rebellion resound in an oracle that cannot have been written ex
eventu, since its predictions did not come true, and therefore must be prior to 323 BC: "The
wicked Alexander, the impious, will perish because of his false religion and leave the
world, defeated and lost‛157. The political eschatology is widely documented in the
ideology of resistance to Greece and, later, to Rome. The best known examples are, for
Egypt, the Demotic Chronicle and the Oracle of the Potter, and, for Persia, the Oracle of Istaspe
and the Bahman Yasht.

Quarrels and frictions between Jews and Greeks did not begin at home but in Alexandria,
where a very large Jewish colony flourished. The history of the Jews of Alexandria dates
back to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, at which they were
present158. Under the successors of the Macedonian sovereign they formed a significant
portion of the population, so much so that by the first Ptolemies they were assigned, in the
eastern sector, a neighborhood, so as not to be prevented in the observance of their
religious customs by continuous contact with the pagans. Anyhow, in Roman times
synagogues were available in each district.

Alexandria's Jews, some very rich, were traders, money lenders, craftsmen. The
community had regular relations with the motherland. With regard to Greek culture, the

156 Anathea E. Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism, Grand
Rapids 2011.

157
Handbuch der Orientalistik. Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten, Leiden 1991, p. 384.

158 Flavius Josephus, Against Apion II 4; Jewish Antiquities XIX 281.

53
Jews suffered from a serious inferiority complex that might make the weaker ones give in
to the temptation to integrate into that world. In order to prevent this ominous
eventuality, the intransigent had to invent a tradition, a series of identity myths that even
entailed their own cultural supremacy. The religion of the Kittim (the Greeks), adversaries
of their Persian friends and former patrons, was felt to be different and even offensive. For
the nationalists, YHWH was the only one, a god who did not abide rivals, let alone
superiors. The stiffening of religion, or rather its Taliban transmogrification, was a
consequence of the cultural and political confrontation with the dominating Kittim.

From the standpoint of the Greeks, the Jews with their customs, primarily circumcision,
seemed grotesquely outlandish. The refusal to attend the gymnasiums, showing
themselves in the bare scud, and the strict dietary and ritual purity rules estranged them
from the human consortium, hindering their integration into the civilization of the new
rulers. The tendency of Jews to treat the Gentiles as ritually impure and to forbid
marriages with them was considered a crime against mankind. In 133 BC the Seleucid
sovereign Antiochus Sidetes was advised by his collaborators to destroy Jerusalem and
annihilate the Jewish people, the only one in the world to refuse integration.
Agatharchides of Knidus in II century BC ridiculed the practices of the Jews and the
"absurdity of their Law", with an ironic reference to the occupation of Jerusalem in 320 by
Ptolemy I Soter, propitiated by the fact that on that day the inhabitants, intent as they were
to observe the Sabbath, did not defend themselves. On the basis of the anti-Jewish writings
of Manetho it seems that anti-Semitism, born in Egypt, was spread by the Greeks who,
under the Ptolemies, resumed the long-standing Egyptian prejudices.

In composing the Bible the Alexandrian Jewish scholars wanted to convey the view that
their people overtopped any other nation for civilization and knowledge. Later Jewish
writers extolled the culture of their homeland, proposing it as the oldest in the world159.
According to the Jewish historian Eupolemus, son of John and friend of Judas Maccabee,
ambassador to Rome in 161 with Jason (1 Macc 7:17 – 2 Macc 4:11), Moses was the first
legislator and the first sage of antiquity. He taught the alphabet to the Jews, who
transmitted it to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. The same historian did not doubt that the
foundation of Babylon was due to Abraham160. The Jewish philosopher Aristobulus of

159 See Erich S. Gruen, The Construct<, cit., passim.

160 The idea that Abraham was also progenitor of the Spartans emerges in the letter that, according to 1 Macc
12:20-21, the Spartan king Areus/Arius I (300-265) sent to the Hebrew high priest Onias I: King Arius of the
Spartans, to the high priest Onias, greetings. It has been found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews that
they are brothers and are of the family of Abraham. The same concept recurs in 2 Macc 5:9 about the exile (168
54
Alexandria and the historian of Jewish origin Artapanus supported the derivation of
Greek culture from Moses, a thesis condensed later by Numenius of Apamea (II century
AD) in the famous slogan: "Plato is none other than Moses translated into Greek".
Furthermore, Artapanus in a book On the Jews claimed that in Musaeus, a legendary seer,
wise man and poet, taken by the Greeks for the master of Orpheus161, we should see Moses
himself, described as the promoter of the cult of the gods in the guise of an animal 162 and
forerunner of Egyptian culture in areas such as military technology, philosophy,
navigation, agricultural hydraulics and construction 163. Another writer, named Cleodemus
Malchus (a Jew, as stated by Emil Schürer164), averred that three sons of Abraham and
Keturah had joined Hercules in his expedition against the Libyan giant Antaeus and that
the mythical Greek hero had ended up marrying the daughter of one of them. The
contestations of Aristobulus and Artapanus were taken up and divulged by Philo
especially in De opificio mundi and by Flavius Josephus in Against Apion and Jewish
Antiquities165, so it is no wonder that they were uncritically accepted, championed and
heralded by Christian authors such as Justin Martyr, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria and
Eusebius.

God-Inspired Flag-Waving
The holy zeal. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left
the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and
pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the Midianite woman, through the belly. So the plague

BC) of the high priest Jason: There he who had driven many from their own country into exile died in exile, having
embarked to go to the Lacedaemonians in hope of finding protection because of their kinship.

161 On the authority of the tradition opted for by Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 4.25.1-2, Musaeus was
Orpheus’ son.

162 Embarrassing primacy, attributable to the nationalistic obsession that animates 'competitive
historiography'.

163 See John J. Collins, "Artapanus", in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. II,
Peabody, Ma, 2011, pp. 889-903. According to Collins, the writings of Artapanus should be placed between
250 and 100 BC, with a greater probability for the end of the III century (p. 891).

164 The Literature of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, New York 1971, pp. 209-210.

165 In Jewish Antiquities I 166-168 Abraham is described as a Chaldean scientist who would teach the
Egyptians (and through them the Greeks) mathematics and astronomy.

55
was stopped among the people of Israel (Num 25:7-8). Phinehas becomes a model of religious
zeal that passes into violence. He is the progenitor of the Zealots166. Following his example,
Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees brothers, does not hesitate to suppress a
Hellenizing Jew in the act of sacrificing to an idol: When he had finished speaking these words,
a Jew came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice on the altar in Modein, according to the
king’s command. When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was stirred. He gave
vent to righteous anger; he ran and killed him on the altar. At the same time he killed the king’s
officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the altar. Thus he burned with zeal for
the law, just as Phinehas did against Zimri son of Salu (1Macc 2:23-26). In the presence of this
perfect parallelism, the question arises: was it Mattathias who inspired Phinehas or did the
Hasmoneans forge Phinehas’ gesture to justify Mattathias's behavior?167.

An exemplary text. When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter
and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you - the Hittites, the Girgashites, the
Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and
more numerous than you - and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat
them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no
mercy. Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters
for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then
the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But this is
how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred
poles, and burn their idols with fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your
God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was
not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and
chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the
oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and
redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore
that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who

166 See Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I
until 70 A. D., Edinburgh 1989. In the United States, members of the Phinehas Priesthood have spread
violence. See Danny W. Davis, The Phinehas Priesthood: Violent Vanguard of the Christian Identity Movement,
Santa Barbara 2010.
167 In this latter case, not without a practical outcome: "As for Phinehas (Num 25:11-13), so too for the
Hasmoneans, zealotry entitled them to the high priestdom" (Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, Berlin 2008, p.
13, n. 30) - "Referring to Phinehas as their 'father', the Hasmoneans implicitly entered the line of the pre-
Hasmonean high priests who boasted the 'descendance' from Aaron through Phinehas" (Vasile Babota, The
Institution of the Hasmonean High Priesthood, Leiden 2013, p. 291).

56
love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own
person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject
him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandment - the statutes and the ordinances - that I am
commanding you today (Deut 7: 1-11). This passage is the psychoanalyst's delight. God
serves as a justification for limitless aggressiveness unleashed by the inferiority complex.
The claimed chosenness168 engenders xenophobia.

No mercy. God orders the extermination of all enemies to the last, along with the whole of
their cattle. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in
opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox
and sheep, camel and donkey’ (1 Sam 15:2-3). Saul's soldiers spare the best sheep and oxen,
not to appropriate them, but to offer them in Gilgal as a sacrifice to the reluctant Lord. So
the prophet Samuel tells Saul about the repudiation: I will not return with you; for you have
rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel (1 Sam
15:26). Immediately thereupon (15:33) the inexorable man of God, in front of the sanctuary
of Gilgal, does away with Agag, king of the Amalekites, whom Saul had taken prisoner
and pardoned.

So they killed him [King Og], his sons, and all his people, until there was no survivor left; and they
took possession of his land (Num 21:35).

This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under heaven;
when they hear report of you, they will tremble and be in anguish because of you (Deut 2:25).

The Lord our God gave him [king Sihon of Heshbon] over to us; and we struck him down, along
with his offspring and all his people. At that time we captured all his towns, and in each town we
utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single survivor (Deut 2:33, 34).

All of its spoil you shall gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire,
as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be
rebuilt. Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick to your hand, so that the Lord may turn
from his fierce anger and show you compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to
your ancestors, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping all his commandments that I

168 Deut 14:2: For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; it is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples
on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Amos 3:2: You only have I known of all the families of the earth.
Zech 2:8, 12: Truly, one who touches you touches the apple of my eye. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the
holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.

57
am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God (Deut 13:16-
18)169.

So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes,
and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God
of Israel commanded (Josh 10:40).

On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot on a pile of wood, like a flaming torch
among sheaves; and they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples< And
on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem (Zech 12:6, 9).

O daughter Babylon, you devastator! What you have done to us! Happy shall they be who pay you
back. Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! (Psalm 137:8-
9)170.

169 Note the startling correspondence with 1 Macc 5:28, 35: Then Judas and his army quickly turned back by the
wilderness road to Bozrah; and he took the town, and killed every male by the edge of the sword; then he seized all its
spoils and burned it with fire... Next he turned aside to Maapha, and fought against it and took it; and he killed every
male in it, plundered it, and burned it with fire. The suspicion arises that the aforementioned brutal
commandment of Deuteronomy and the passages, strewn in copious biblical texts and formulaically
repetitive, which attest to its punctual fulfillment, have been artfully inserted to justify the cruelties of the
"warrior of God" and, generically, of the Hasmoneans. "Were the Israelites to become a holy nation through
the crucible of a holy war conducted under the aegis of a 'kingdom of priests' (Exod 19:5)? Are the warring
priests of the wilderness and conquest none other than a retrojection of the Hasmonean priest-kings? The
late authoring of the wandering and conquest narrative is betrayed by the Priestly obsession with holy wars
of annihilation‛ (Michael Nathanson, Between Myth and Mandate..., cit., p. 212). Similarly, Israel Finkelstein
("The Expansion of Judah in 2 Chronicles: Territorial Legitimation for the Hasmoneans?", in Zeitschrift für die
alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 127.4 - 2015, pp. 669-695) puts forward the hypothesis that the description of
the territorial increase of the kingdom of Judah present in 2 Chronicles, without any correspondence in the
Books of Kings, is nothing more than an addition devised with the intention of offering a plausible
legitimacy to the expansionist policy of the Hasmoneans. It should be noticed that the Jewish freethinker
Hiwi al-Balkhi (IX century AD) held the biblical concept of the divine as primitive and in fact unworthy of
God himself.

170 Psalm 137 is to be placed in a period of inflamed nationalism, most likely under the Hasmoneans. Ivan
Engnell considers it the last of the psalms by date of composition. Cf Armin Lange et al., Mythos in Alten
Testament und in seiner Umwelt. Festschrift für Hans-Peter Müller zum 65. Geburtstag, Berlin 1999, p. 167. To
save the salvageable, someone hazards supercreative interpretations: "In spite of the horrors of her
destruction, it was indeed a happy day when Jerusalem was destroyed, because it was that event that
provoked repentance. Just so, it will be a happy day when the children of Babylon are 'dashed' into union
with the Rock of Salvation‛ (James B. Jordan, "The Problem of Psalm 137", in Biblical Horizons, 3, April 1989).

58
Conversions propitiated by terror. Esther (Hasmonean era) 9:6, 15: In the citadel of Susa the
Jews killed and destroyed five hundred people. The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the
fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed three hundred persons in Susa. 9:16: Now the
other Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and gained relief
from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them. An anticipated
epilogue (8:17): Many of the peoples of the country professed to be Jews, because the fear of the
Jews had fallen upon them.

Dreams of glory. Megalomaniac fantasies triggered by frustration and supported by an

alleged divine promise, a product of a psychological defense mechanism. Monotheism as
privatization of God, jealous worship of a manipulated God.

Today the Lord has obtained your agreement: to be his treasured people, as he promised you, and to
keep his commandments; for him to set you high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in
fame and in honor; and for you to be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised (Deut
26:18, 19).

I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your
oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine (Isa
49:25, 26)171.

Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck
you down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you. Your gates shall always be open; day and
night they shall not be shut, so that nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in
procession. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be
utterly laid waste (Isa 60:10-12). I trampled down peoples in my anger, I crushed them in my
wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth (Isa 63:6). Those who sanctify and purify
themselves to go into the gardens, following the one in the center, eating the flesh of pigs, vermin,
and rodents, shall come to an end together, says the Lord (Isa 66:17)172. And the last verse, the

171 In Mesopotamia for several millennia it was thought that the gods manifested themselves in history,
especially in battles. Assurbanipal: "Not with my strength, but with that of the god and goddess I have
subdued the people‛. Bertil Albrektson in History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as
Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and Israel, Lund 1967, demonstrated the spread, in the Near East,
of the concept that it is the gods who direct history, going so far as to punish their own protégés, if they are
unfaithful. This is the message of the Mesha stele: the Moabites were humiliated by Israel, since the god
Chemosh was angry with them. Cf Psalm 80:5.

172 Classic example of cultural prejudice ennobled into alleged divine revelation, coupled with a threat no
less thundering than futile. I point out Max D. Price’s upcoming book, Evolution of a Taboo: Pigs and People in
the Ancient Near East, Oxford University Press.
59
worthy end of the book: And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have
rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be
an abhorrence to all flesh (Isa 66:24).

In the days of those kings [the Greek rulers of Syria and Egypt] the God of heaven will set up a
kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall
crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever (Dan 2:44). As I
watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And
he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory
and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an
everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed
(Dan 7:13, 14). As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy
ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever - forever and ever
(Dan 7:17, 18). The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole
heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an
everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them173 (Dan 7:27). Hegemonic
aspirations to compensate for political worthlessness.

May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. May his foes bow
down before him, and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render
him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him, all
nations give him service (Psalm 72: 8, 9, 11). Pious wishes on the occasion of the new king's
accession to the throne.

And the nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess the
nations as male and female slaves in the Lord’s land; they will take captive those who were their
captors, and rule over those who oppressed them (Isa 14:2). The descendants of those who oppressed
you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet (Isa
60:14). Don’t hold your breath!

I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‚You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask
of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You
shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel‛ (Psalm 2:7-9).

173 Exodus (23:31) held within narrower limits: I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines,
and from the wilderness to the Euphrates.

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Awesome is God in his sanctuary, the God of Israel; he gives power and strength to his people
(Psalm 68:35). God subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet (Psalm 47:3)174. The
optative of the human heart transformed into the tempus finitum, the certain, blissful ‚is‛
(Feuerbach).

Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and
the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread on their
backs (Deut 33:29).

Joel. Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit
to judge all the neighboring nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread,
for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great (3:12-13). The judgement
will consist of the final confrontation with a foregone conclusion: Egypt shall become a
desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in
whose land they have shed innocent blood. But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all
generations (3:19, 20)175.

Haggai. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and
the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all
nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts (2:6, 7). Speak to
Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to
overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the
nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every
one by the sword of a comrade. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel
my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,
says the Lord of hosts (2:21-23). The prophecy hinted at an immediate future, but
Zerubbabel has not been heard of since176.

174 Other translators shift to the present or the future the in itself timeless divine action: Mirabilis et vere
angelica loquela, Hebrew! For the multiple translation possibilities I refer to Samuel Edward Tesh and Walter
Zorn, Psalms, Vol. I, Joplin, Mo, 1999, p. 342; John F. MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, Nashville, Tn,
2013, p. 772.

175 As stated in Jubilees 8:19 (II century BC), Mount Zion is the navel of the earth. Ezekiel 5:5: Thus says the
Lord God: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. A naive
ubiquitous ethnocentrism.

176 Diana Vikander Edelman suggests the possibility of Zerubbabel's identification with Nehemiah ("Were
Zerubbabel and Nehemiah the Same Person?", in Duncan Burns and John W. Rogerson, eds., Far From
Minimal: Celebrating the Work and Influence of Philip R. Davies, London-New York 2012, pp. 112-131).

61
Micah. And among the nations the remnant of Jacob, surrounded by many peoples, shall be like a
lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which, when it
goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, with no one to deliver. Your hand shall be lifted up
over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off (5:8-9).

Nahum. Thus says the Lord, ‚Though they [your enemies] are at full strength and many,
they will be cut off and pass away (1:12)177.

Separating these prophecies from their context and interpreting them in an allegorical and
spiritual sense was harmless, indeed ultimately also helpful. But if they were taken for
what they actually were, calls for holy war178 addressed to Israel, the armed wing of
God179, they could lead to fanaticism and disaster, as occurred in the three anti-Roman
uprisings180, stirred up and enkindled by such predictions181, a product of the nationalist

177 For other prophecies cut from the same cloth see Zeph 2 - Zech 14: 5, 7, 12 - Amos 9:12 - Obad 15-16.

178 "Holy war is a common theme in the Hebrew Bible. Divinely legitimized through the authority of biblical
scripture and its interpretation, holy war became a historical reality for the Jews of antiquity. Among at least
some of the Jewish groups of the late Second Temple period until the middle of the second century, C. E.,
holy war was an operative institution. That is, Jews engaged in what is defined here as holy war" (Reuven
Firestone, Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea, Oxford 2012, p. 3). Jonathan Sacks,
emeritus Chief Rabbi of Britain, in his book Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence, London 2015,
launches an appeal for rejection of religiously motivated violence.

179
The concept is clearly expressed in Psalm 149, dating back to the Hasmonean period: Let the faithful exult
in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches. Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in
their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters and
their nobles with chains of iron, to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord! (vv. 5-9). Harm van Grol notes: "The universal peace envisaged by the book [of the Psalms] is
characterized by particularism. It is a Pax Judaica. The mother of all wars will not end with a universal
agreement, but with the subjugation of pagan nations... In Psalm 149 Israel has taken the place of the
Anointed One [of Psalm 2]" ("War and Peace in the Psalms: Some Compositional Explorations", in Jan Liesen
and Pancratius Beentjes, eds., Visions of Peace and Tales of War, Berlin 2010, p. 178). The prophet Zechariah
transposes the military role of Israel into plastic images: For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim
its arrow. I will arouse your sons, o Zion, against your sons, o Greece, and wield you like a warrior’s sword.
The Lord of hosts will protect them, and they shall devour and tread down the slingers; they shall drink their blood like
wine, and be full like a bowl, drenched like the corners of the altar (9:13, 15). An echo of Num 23:24: Look, a people
rising up like a lioness, and rousing itself like a lion! It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey and drunk the blood
of the slain.

180 The first one (66-70) ended with the destruction of the Temple, the second (115-117, known as the Kitos
revolt after the name of the Roman general, Lusius Quietus, who tamed it) mainly involved the Jewish
diaspora, the third (132-136) was led by Bar Kokhba.
62
resentment of a people looked on as trivial and footling in the international arena and, as
such, trampled upon with blatant impunity.

Emboldened by the wishful thinking of the prophets, the Jews dreamed they would turn
into overlords. Philo in De praemiis et poenis 95 warrants: "A man [the Messiah] will rise up
who will fight and make war, subjugating great and populous nations, on the grounds
that God will give the saints [the Jews] the suitable help". 2 Baruch 39:1-40:3 ventures to
foretell that the last Roman emperor will be cast into chains at Zion to be judged and
executed by the Jewish Messiah182.

181 Thus Flavius Josephus in reference to the first revolt: ‚But what more than anything else incited them to
go to war was an ambiguous oracle also found in their holy scriptures, which revealed that at that time
someone from their country would become ruler of the world. They took this to mean someone of their own
race‛ (The Jewish War VI 312 - trans. Martin Hammond, Oxford 2017, p. 330). On the relationship between
Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Jewish War investigates a research project elaborated and directed by Mladen
Popović: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish War against Rome (66-70): New Sources, New Perspectives.

182 2 Baruch is placed around 100 AD, in a period following the destruction of the Temple. However, in the
opinion of Géza Vermes ("The Oxford Forum for Qumran Research: Seminar on the Rule of the War from
Cave 4 (4Q285)", in Journal of Jewish Studies 43 - 1992, p. 89), an anticipation of the concept might be seen in
4Q285, dating back to the middle of I century BC, where the battle between the 'offshoot of David' and the
'king of the Romans' is described.

63
64
 THE CHRISTIAN PROPOSAL

The Creative Interpretation of the Sacred Texts

That Is New Wine from Old Wineskins

Biblical interpretation in Qumran. With respect to prophecies and, in general, to

Scripture, the attitude of the Qumranites may be summed up as follows: it is not enough
to elucidate what the sacred author seems to say (which, putting it in the appropriate
context, everyone can understand). One must discover what God wanted to allude to, and
this is work only for other prophets! The sacred text is read as if it were an enigma.
Whoever solves it is more a prophet than the prophet himself, who evidently wrote things
of which he did not grasp the deepest drift. The Qumranites were convinced that there
was a divine revelation going on amidst them in matters of faith and ethical norms. Hence
the obligation for each member of the community to share with other followers the gist of
personal revelation: Every matter hidden from Israel [the Yahad, the true Israel] but which has
been found out by the Interpreter, he should not keep hidden from them for fear of a spirit of
desertion (1QS 8:11-12).

The Qumranites held themselves as heirs to the established prophetic tradition (which
they sometimes rewrote), believing they were receiving messages from God now that the
world was entering the end of time. The Damascus Document (prior to Qumran or placed at
the beginning of that community) fixed it in a year of the I century BC. When the date
passed without wreaking havoc, then 1QpHab 7:7-14 interpreted Habakkuk 2:3 for this
purpose (For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it
seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay)183.

The Qumranic exegetical technique was not without precedent. For instance, Isa 9:14 (So
the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail; palm branch and reed in one day) is interpreted
allegorically by the following verse (elders and dignitaries are the head, and prophets who teach
lies are the tail), which sounds as a gloss. In addition, the contemptuous judgment of Sirach
on the Samaritans (Two nations my soul detests, and the third is not even a people: Those who

183 See Marcus K. M. Tso, Ethics<, cit., p. 149.

65
live in Seir, and the Philistines, and the foolish people that live in Shechem, 50:25, 26) sounds as
an actualizing comment of Deut 32:21c-d (So I will make them jealous with what is no
people, provoke them with a foolish nation), a comment borrowed by the Testament of Levi (in
Greek) and 4Q371-372.

The Essenes used artifices galore to propose their new ideas, always giving the impression
to remain anchored in Scripture as mere interpreters of it. In addition to commentaries, the
texts of the Bible were rewritten184 or paraphrased or subjected to further editing in order
to bring new theories in. ‚The dependence upon biblical compositions on the process of
creating new works is a product of the author’s desire to impute authority to his work; by
associating the composition with the holiest of texts, the new work is also granted the
same stamp of authority. The author’s worldview and his interpretation of biblical
passages are not presented as revolutionary ideas, created ex nihilo by the writer. The
inclusion of this material within the framework of the biblical passages under
interpretation transforms the ideas of the later writer into authoritative and accepted
beliefs< The rewritten texts ask the readers to accept the authority of their sources, but to
understand those sources according to the rewritten text’s interpretation‛ 185.

The sacred page was not considered something intangible. On the contrary, one can speak
of a veritable school of manipulation that resorted to the most ingenious gimmicks to
show a surface veneration of Scripture just in the act of overturning it. For example,
11QPsa 27:11 looks on David as the author of all the Psalms because of the 'spirit of
prophecy' given to him by God. And this bang as the psalter was still being formed and
new psalms were being added186. The same scroll credits David with the authorship of no
less than 4050 psalms, a number so big and uncontrollable as to allow without difficulty
the surreptitious insertion of late additions187. And in fact, in some texts, non-canonical

184 The expression 'rewritten Bible' is anachronistic, since at that time a biblical canon did not exist (Eva
Mroczek, The Literary Imagination..., cit., p. 8). Even the concept of 'book' is to be understood only
metaphorically (ibid., p. 10).

185 Michael Segal, "Between Bible and Rewritten Bible" in Matthias Henze, ed., Biblical Interpretation in
Qumran, Grand Rapids 2005, pp. 11-12. See also Frederick Fyvie Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts,
London, 1960.

186 David Flusser, Judaism..., cit., p. 281. Gerald H. Wilson ("A First Century C.E. Date for the Closing of the
Hebrew Psalter?", in Jewish Bible Quarterly, 28.2 - 2000, pp. 102-110) cautiously suggests that the psalter has
reached its final form only after the first Jewish revolt. On this subject I point out the volume of David
Willgren, Like a Garden of Flowers: A Study of the Formation of the 'Book' of Psalms, Lund 2016.

187 Similarly, 1 Kings 4:32 attributes to Solomon the composition of 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs.
66
psalms are attributed to David188. The authority of David was not enough. In the opinion
of A. Dupont-Sommer the Psalms of Solomon would in reality be of Essene origin, but
carefully attributed - not however by the various authors, but by a final editor - to the
wisest of kings in order to confer sacredness on them189.

The rewriting was not an invention of the Essenes. Inside the Tanakh the Chronicles
rewrite the books of Samuel and the Kings. The book of Jeremiah was also rewritten.
‚The active intervention of scribes in biblical texts was accepted in this period and was not
viewed as an affront to the sanctity of the text. The text was of secondary importance to
the composition itself, and thus scribes allowed themselves the freedom to 'improve' these
works‛190. The consequence is that the text of the Scriptures was presented in a plurality of
forms until a few decades ago difficult to imagine 191. To be rigorous, it would indeed be
anachronistic to speak of the Bible, given that the number of sacred texts was not sharply
determined and an 'authorized' version was yet to come192. The book of Esther has
survived in three different drafts193.

Apart from interpretation and rewriting, the doctrinal novelties peeped out as variations.
In this sense the texts in use at Qumran and the LXX translation are sometimes an
innovation. 4QFor 1:10-12 (I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. This is the

188 Howard N. Wallace, "King and Community", in Bob Ecking and Eric Peels, eds., Psalms and Prayers,
Leiden 2007, p. 268, n. 2.

189 See Robert B. Wright, Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, New York-London 2007, pp. 1-
11.

190 Michael Segal, op. cit., p. 16.

191 Molly M. Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch
Manuscripts, Leiden 2011, p. 1.

192 "At Qumran we do find biblical books, many biblical books - scrolls, strictly speaking - and in many
different forms, be it in clearly different textual forms or in different editions, or rewritten in the form of new
compositions, and all of them used indiscriminately" (Florentino García Martínez, "Rethinking the Bible -
Sixty Years of Dead Sea Scrolls Research and Beyond", in Mladen Popovic, ed., Authoritative Scriptures in
Ancient Judaism, Leiden 2010, p. 21). Therefore, the concept of "book of the Bible" is a pure abstraction
(Ronald Hendel, 'What is a Biblical Book?", in Cana Werman, ed., From Author to Copyist: Essays on the
Composition, Redaction, and Transmission of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Zipi Talshir, Winona Lake 2015, p. 296).

193 The scribes often wedged their revisions in the form of an introduction to a book or to a block of chapters.
See Sara J. Milstein, Tracking the Master Scribe: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian
Literature, Oxford 2016.

67
offshoot of David who will come forth with the law-abiding men and sit on the throne of Zion at the
end of days) gives a messianic interpretation of 2 Sam 7:11-14, not accepted by the rabbis,
because the parallel text of the Hebrew Bible is different194. The LXX text of Psalm 110:3 (ek
nyktós pro heōsphórou egénnēs{ se - before the morning star I have begotten you) is seen by
Christians as an attestation of the messianic king in the form of an angelic spirit waiting to
appear and become incarnated, while the related Hebrew text has a downright different
meaning.

The Pesher Habakkuk allows us to better understand the nature of this particular exegesis 195.
The term and concept of Pesher [commentary] derives from the explication of dreams,
which flourished in Babylon and Egypt. Daniel 9 (not for nothing Daniel is portrayed as an
oneiromancer) provides an allegorical interpretation, with the help of the archangel
Gabriel (Dan 9:21), of Jeremiah's prophecy (25:11) concerning the 70 years, meant as 70
weeks of years (a terminology taken from Leviticus 25), which is applied to the II century
BC (the last week would have begun in 170 with the murder of Onias III). On the contrary,
Zechariah and Chronicles believed the prophecy to have been fulfilled already in VI
century.

The Pesher in question links the prophecy of Habakkuk to the Kittim (the Romans, in this
case), although the prophet has made it clear that he is predicting the imminent
destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (the Babylonians). The commentary
does not dwell upon expounding what the prophet historically and philologically
intended. He had certainly recorded a sub rosa message communicated to him by God,
but its meaning remained sealed until God confided the correct interpretation to someone
else, in this case the Essene Teacher of Righteousness. The concept is explicit in the Pesher
Habakkuk: God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but
he did not make known to him when time would come to an end< Interpreted, this concerns the
Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants
the prophets (1QpHab 7:1-5). The Teacher of Righteousness knows, first and foremost, that
the time is now ripe. Therefore, if the prophecies of Habakkuk were actually an instruction

194 The underlined part is different in the Jewish Bible.

195 Paleographic examination has prompted some to ascribe the Pesher to the Herodian period, but traces of
two Vorlagen or earlier versions were found in it. Cf Stephen Llewelyn, Stephanie Ng, Gareth Wearne and
Alexandra Wrathall, "A Case for Two Vorlagen Behind the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab)", in Shani
Tzoref and Ian Young, eds., Keter Shem Tov. Collected Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Memory of Alan Crown,
Piscataway 2013, pp. 123-150.

68
for the end of time, then they had to be interpreted within that precise historical context.
At this point, "Chaldeans" might only be a code word for "Kittim".

The actualizing interpretation is not always unambiguous. A classic example of

hermeneutical polyvalence may be traced in the Pesher Nahum, where, in two successive
verses (2:11 - 2:12), the term 'lion' is understood as hinting first at 'Demetrius, king of
Yavan' (probably the Seleucid sovereign Demetrius III Eucaerus), then at Alexander
Jannaeus196.

Individual verses are atomized, that is, extrapolated and removed from their obvious
meaning, to take on a flat out different connotation. For example, verses 1:12 and 1:13 of
Habakkuk refer to the Babylonians and God, but the commentator devises a way to
interpret them, bravely coercing the text, as alluding to his community of elect or Yahad197.
In another passage we see not only the choice, between two variants, of the one more
appropriate to the intentions of the commentator, but also the use of allegorical
interpretation. Habakkuk 2:17 reads: For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the
destruction of the animals will terrify you. The commentator links the text to the Evil Priest,
the persecutor of the Teacher of Righteousness. In this allegorical interpretation Lebanon
stands for Essene community and animals for the simple men of Judah, the observers of
the Law (1QpHab 2:2-5). A further example of an interpretation out of context: Habakkuk
1:13b (Why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more
righteous than they?) is connected with an unspecified 'house of Absalon' that did not lift a
finger to save the Teacher of Righteousness. In some cases even anagrams are employed198.

"From a modern critical point of view, this exegetical method involves the manipulation
of the prophetic text to meet the needs of the community. As Silberman has put it, the text
provides pegs on which the commentator hangs his message, although he uses much

196 Markus Bockmuehl, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of Biblical Commentary", in Ruth A. Clements
and Daniel R. Schwartz, eds., Text, Thought, and Practice in Qumran and Early Christianity: Proceedings of the
Ninth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature,
Leiden 2004, p. 19.

197 On the basis of this criterion, if we read in a 'ndranghetistic key the well-known verse of Leopardi "Canti,
e così trapassi" (Il passero solitario, v. 15), it would be easy to descry in it a cryptic allusion to the fate
incumbent on collaborators of justice who tipped the police off. Cantare = to sing, but also to tip off.

198 From hykl (temple) of Habakkuk 2:20 yklh (will destroy) is drawn. See George J. Brooke, "Prophetic
Interpretation in the Pesharim", in Matthias Henze, ed., A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism,
Grand Rapids, 2012, p. 250.

69
ingenuity to justify the connections< What is manipulation to us was to them the
revelation of the mysteries hidden in the text‛199.

From the Pesher Habakkuk it overtly emerges that in Qumran the Teacher of Righteousness
was not only a spiritual leader, but also a figure of soteriological importance. The
acceptance of his teachings and the adherence to the path he had indicated guaranteed
eternal salvation. In fact, the famous expression of Habakkuk (later adopted by Paul) The
righteous live by their faith (2:4b) is thus reinterpreted, or, if you like, twisted: The
interpretation of the verse concerns all law-abiding people in the house of Judah, those whom God
will save from the house of judgment, because of their labors and their faith in [or fidelity to] the
Master of Justice (1QpHab 8:1-3). However, the passage from fidelity to God to fidelity to
the Teacher of Righteousness does not represent a case of Pindaric flight. There is a logic,
inasmuch as the Teacher of Righteousness was considered the guide that would infallibly
lead Israel's chosen ones to God. Therefore, if the Teacher of Righteousness is faithful to
God, he who is faithful to the Teacher of Righteousness will be faithful to God.

Christian biblical interpretation. The risen Jesus, first to the two disciples of Emmaus,
then also to the rest, in two passages with marked parallelism (Luke 24:25-27; 24:44-46),
spells out how the Scriptures concerning him should be interpreted, and remembers to
have already done so in life, but the disciples did not come to understand. Therefore, the
function of Jesus is practically akin to that of the Teacher of Righteousness: to find the
code of interpretation and decrypt texts that appear turned in other directions200.

In Acts 3:24 Peter speaks as per the guidelines of the Pesher Habakkuk, applying to the last
times the prophecies: All the prophets who spoke after Samuel have announced what has
happened in these days. And all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after
him, also predicted these days.

A little further on we come across a practical application of this principle, where the first
two verses of Psalm 2 are quoted: Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his

199 John J. Collins, "Prophecies and Fulfillment in the Qumran Scrolls", in Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society, September 1987, p. 276.

200 The canons of Christian biblical interpretation - modeled on the Essene one - are clearly expressed in the
Gospel: And he said to them, ‚Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master
of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old‛ (Matt 13:52). Cf Wayne G. Rollins, The
Gospels: Portraits of Christ, Eugene 20132, pp. 57-60.

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anointed. The explanation given in Acts 4:27 is in perfect Qumranic style: For in this city, in
fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together
against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. Here the historical references are
thoroughly explicit and not expressed in code. The fact is, however, that the context of the
psalm does not point to the future Messiah, but to the "anointed", consecrated king, to
whom God, further on, in verses 8-9 promises: Ask of me, and I will make the nations your
heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and
dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. A warmonger and imperialist text that might find its
most appropriate Sitz im Leben in the environment of the Hasmonean kings201.

Take Acts 1:20-22: For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his homestead become desolate, and
let there be no one to live in it’; and ‘Let another take his position of overseer’. So one of the men
who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among
us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us - one of these
must become a witness with us to his resurrection.
The first quotation, hinting at the suicide of Judas, in Peter's mouth gives the impression of
being an inexorable command of God against a traitor (in the singular). On the contrary, in
the biblical text it concludes a triplet of curses that a pious Israelite hurls against enemies
(in the plural) who unjustly persecute him. The second verse is quoted by Peter as if it
were an invitation from God to replace an unworthy and traitorous disciple (Judas) with a
worthy and faithful one (who will be, by drawing lots, Matthias). In the context of the
psalm things are really different. That verse is part of a long series of curses (vv. 6-19) that
wicked and deceitful mouths (v. 2) throw against the righteous who invoke YHWH: They may
curse, but you bless (v. 28).

Evidently the Old Testament was seen as a repository of sacred sentences from which the
most suitable one was drawn with great ease, even modifying it when necessary, without
any regard for the original intention of the author202. To quote Scripture in this way was

201 See David J. A. Clines, "Psalm 2 and the Moabite Liberation Front", in M. Daniel Carroll R., David J. A.
Clines and Philip R. Davies, eds., The Bible in Human Society. Essays in Honor of John Rogerson, Sheffield 1995,
p. 168, n. 33.

202 Similarly, Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics aspires to understand the text from what it tells us in our present
situation, beyond the author’s intentions. Meaning is a conquest of the interpreter (Daniella Iannotta, ed.,
Paul Ricoeur in dialogo. Etica, giustizia, convinzione, Torino 2008, p. 42). Thus, by relegating to a preliminary
role the biblical exegesis based on the critical-historical method (David E. Klemm, "Philosophy and
Kerygma", in David M. Kaplan, ed., Reading Ricoeur, Albany, NY, 2008, p. 49), the final interpretation is
entrusted to the reader's indisputable creative flair.

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seen as an utterly lawful, indeed crackerjack, art, as well as an effective expedient to break
through minds and hearts203. It was enough that the chosen clause, already charged with
sacredness, well suited the new situation, even if it was, as in this passage of the Acts, a
curse a far cry from evangelical spirit.

In preaching to the Jews, the apostles thought it appropriate to show that the new doctrine
was not so innovative, since it was already prefigured in the Scriptures of yore204. The
Essene priests, wont to imaginative interpretation, were converted in numbers (Acts 6:7)205.
Specularly Justin Martyr sought consonances with the pagans: "What we say of Jesus, your
myths say of the sons of Zeus". On the other hand, Paul in his speech at the Areopagus of
Athens had taken his cue from the altar dedicated to the unknown god and from the
quotations of the Greek poets Epimenides and Aratus, not from the stories of Moses.
When you want to convince someone, the most obvious tactic is to emphasize the already
existing points of contact.

If we consider his Childhood Gospel, Matthew proposes such a series of quotations that
some people are convinced that precisely from those biblical texts he created his fairy tale.

203 The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, fully aware that, in order to grasp the authentic message of
Scripture, it is necessary to overleap its literal meaning, does not hesitate to apply to Jesus Old Testament
passages that concern man in general (Psalm 8), the distressed believer (Psalms 22 and 40), a royal
bridegroom (Psalm 45), and the enthronement of a monarch (Psalm 110, the text of the Hebrew Bible most
frequently quoted in the New Testament, always in the light of a creative interpretation). Ronald R. Cox
frankly admits: "I know of no Old Testament teacher willing to approve our adoption of the New Testament
approach to the Psalms with its sovereign disregard for the form, setting and literary structure of the
Psalter... From the strong similarities that emerge from the comparison of exegesis, concerning the Psalms, of
the New Testament and that of the Qumran manuscripts, it appears that the New Testament is a product of
its time and its prophetic approach to the Psalms is not divinely endorsed" ("The New Testament Preaches
the Psalms: Problems and Possibilities", in Dave Bland and David Fleer, eds., Performing the Psalms, Danvers
2005, pp. 88, 89). On this theme and on the "human" and "incarnate" dimension of the Old Testament see
Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, Grand Rapids 20152.
One significant quote: "A completely inculturated Bible, as well as a completely inculturated Jesus: this is
precisely what God has given to his Church" (p. X).

204 Let us keep in mind that "the authors of the New Testament refer to the Septuagint and not to the Hebrew
Bible" (Niels Peter Lemche, The Old Testament..., cit., p. 273). For the Greek version of the LXX I point out
James K. Aitken, ed., T & T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, London-New York 2015.

205 In particular, the Letter to the Hebrews reveals a significant congruency with Qumranic exegesis and
conceptions. See Charles B. Puskas, Hebrews, the General Letters and Revelation: An Introduction, Eugene, 2016,
pp. 23-25.

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In reality the opposite is true. In order to give the facts he narrates a halo of sacredness, he
cannot help but insert them into the Scriptures and see in them the fulfillment of
prophecies206. Here lies his biased slant and not in the invention of facts that, as we’ll see,
have nothing so special. In order to create the myth of accomplished oracles, he might only
cite a biblical prediction or foreshadowing207. That it is an ideological maneuver may be
seen from the way prophecies are forced into the Procrustean bed of facts.

a) The genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1-17) is pure ideology. There is nothing historical in it,
since it responds to a purely theological demand: three series of 14 generations that lead
not only to David, but even to Abraham. The fact is that Joseph thought himself to be a
descendant of David. It was, however, necessary to prove it, what Matthew does (in
keeping with the loose criteria of the time) by forging a series of ancestors, mostly taken
from the historical books of the Bible. It was believed that the Messiah was to be born from
the lineage of David. And so, in the hope of generating him, the Jewish world was
swarming with genealogies208 starting from David, a thing, indeed, not difficult, due to the
fact that there was statistically a very high probability for each Jew to have had him as a
progenitor, if the faithful accepted as true - and it is indisputable that they regarded it as
certain as a gun - the news reported in 1 Kings 11:3 according to which Solomon alone, one
of the many sons of David, would have had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Bearing in
mind the high birth rate, on the basis of a simple calculation after a thousand years the
throng of David’s heirs would have far exceeded the number of all the Jews put together,
including those of the diaspora209.

Moreover, in descendants of Solomon (and consequently of David) one would also come
across in Ethiopia, whose kings, with their legitimate or natural great-grandchildren,

206 A perfectly successful operation, if Blaise Pascal could say: "The prophecies are the most solid proof of
Jesus Christ" (Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg 706). Precisely because it comes from a fervent believer, this apodictic
judgment represents, in the light of biblical criticism, the most solid proof that faith in Jesus does not need
such props.

207 Altogether, Matthew presents 59 Old Testament quotations (Mark 31, Luke 26, John 16).

208 1 Tim 1:4 and Titus 3:9 deprecate the Jewish custom to draw up unlikely genealogies.

209 Mathematician Robert B. Waltz calculated that already in 215 BC the entire population of Judea should
have been of Davidic origin (The Bible in History: A Chronological and Biological Guide to the Hebrew and Greek
Testaments, ebook 2013, p. 107).

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claimed the honor of flowing from David’s line210. 'Son of David' Joseph was called by the
angel. Whether actual or self-proclaimed, it was something else entirely. What matters is
to understand that for him it was not absurd that the Messiah was born into his family and
in this sense he was led to interpret the extraordinary pregnancy of Mary. As a descendant
of David, Jesus should automatically be a descendant of Abraham too, but this logical
inference does not satisfy Matthew, who bothers to draw the line from David to Abraham,
to highlight the idea that the Messiah Jesus rightfully belongs to the people of Israel211.

b) Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (1:23).
This prophecy is taken from Isaiah 7:14, which in the Hebrew text means the birth not
from a virgin, but only from a young woman212. In the LXX version the Greek word
parthénos (meaning both virgin and young woman) already before Matthew had given rise
to the erroneous interpretation, which cannot be justified by the ambiguity of the Greek
word, because the context excludes a physical miraculous event. Among the Essenes,

210 The Ethiopian tradition that fables about a son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba id devoid of any
historical or biblical basis. See Paul R. House, 1, 2 Kings, Nashville, Tn, 1995 pp. 162, 163; Alessandro Bausi,
"La leggenda della Regina di Saba nella tradizione etiopica", in Fabio Battiato, Dorota Hartman and Joseph
Stabile, eds., La Regina di Saba. Un mito fra Oriente e Occidente, Napoli 2016, pp. 91-162.

211 "The main function of Matthew's genealogy is to link Jesus with the founding Jewish myth of the common
ancestry, dating back to that glorious ancestor who was Abraham. For most of the Jews of I century this
ancestry must have been a physical reality, not a myth" (Philip F. Esler, "Rival Group Identities in the
Matthean Gospel: Evidence from Matthew 1-2 and 23‛, in J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen,
eds., Conception, Reception, and the Spirit. Essays in Honour of Andrew T. Lincoln, Cambridge, 2016, p. 26).

212 In the young woman of Isa 7:14 David Ould sees Sion (cf. Isa 37:22 She despises you, she scorns you, virgin
daughter Zion; she tosses her head behind your back, daughter Jerusalem.), while the son, called Immanuel ('God
with us'), would be none other than 'the rest of Israel', the small community gathering around the prophet
(See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells
on Mount Zion, 8:18 - the name Shear Jashub ['a rest will return'] of a son of Isaiah is enlightening). Although
it initially meant the Yahwist missionaries of the Persian period, the group of elect (in contrast to the
descendants of Jacob, from whom God hid his face, 8:17) must ultimately be identified, in my opinion, with
the Essene Yahad, the final editor of the prophetic text (see below). Note that the Immanuel of 8:8 indicates a
collective, not an individual (see Timothy D. Finlay, The Birth Report Genre in the Hebrew Bible, Tübingen 2005,
p. 172 - The author reasons that Immanuel is also a son of Isaiah with a symbolic name, pp. 178, 179). In 66:7
Sion generates in a portentous way, but on a spiritual level: Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain
came upon her she delivered a son. For Sebastian R. Smolarz (Covenant and the Metaphor of Divine Marriage in
Biblical Thought: A Study with Special Reference to the Book of Revelation, Eugene 2011, p. 298) both 7:14 and 66:7
allude to the birth or appearance of a faithful remnant.

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instead, circulated the idea, of Zoroastrian origin, that the Savior should be born of a
virgin213. Supported by this conviction, some Essene girls made vows of virginity.

c) And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for
from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel (2:6). Also in this case the
quotation is out of context, for Micah 5:2 is talking about the leader of the so-called
returnees and not about the future Messiah. It's not Matthew's fault. That was then the
current interpretation, so much so that he attributes it to Herod's learned counselors.

d) Out of Egypt I have called my son (2:15). Here it is Matthew who forces the connection.
Hosea 11:1 with 'son' means the people of Israel, but Matthew wants to imply an
innovation: the new Israel is Jesus. By adducing the Old Testament, he twists its meaning
throughout.

e) A voice was heard in Ramah (Matt 2:18 - Jer 31:15). Matthew, following an ancient gloss,
intends Ramah as Bethlehem. In any case, Jeremiah imagines that Rachel is weeping not
for her murdered children, but for her distant descendants led into exile. Here too we are
out of context, as well as out of place.

f) He will be called a Nazorean (2:23) The Old Testament ignores Nazareth and its
inhabitants. Matthew perhaps plays with the similarity between Nazareth and the Hebrew
word nezer in Isa 11:1 A bud will be born from the root of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his
roots. By branch he meant the Messiah. Some say, with Julius Africanus, that the name
Nazareth comes from nezer, but the question is open. This too is a sui generis prophecy, a
simple juxtaposition of names, a play on words, to convince readers not to slight Nazareth,

213 The expectation of a Savior was widespread in antiquity. According to James H. Breasted, Development of
Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, New York 1912, p. 212, the Admonitions of Ipuwer anticipated Jewish
messianism by a millennium and a half: some wise Egyptians adhered to a vision of social justice and
idealism and awaited a sovereign who would bring about the renewal of mankind. The Prophecy of Neferti,
composed in the first centuries of the second millennium BC, foretells the advent of a saving king. The
probable character of prophecy ex eventu did certainly not prevent it from raising messianic hopes over the
centuries. An Ephesus inscription of 49/48 BC (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 2957) depicts Caesar as "a
visibly appeared god and a universal savior *Sōtḗr] of human life". With Augustus' birthday (23 September)
in Asia Minor the year began. "His birth was for the world the beginning of the Evangelion [the happy
announcement of the renewal]": thus the inscription of Priene (9 BC – in Friedrich Wilhelm Karl
Dittenberger, ed., Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, 2 vols., Leipzig 1903-5, no. 458) in which the emperor
is also given the title Sōtḗr.

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a negligible village (John 1:46: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?214), since its name
already betrayed a link with the Messiah.

Matthew might have simply confessed: I have faith in Jesus, in him I recognize the
Messiah. For the Jews it was not enough, you had to produce historical and scriptural
proofs215. To obtain them, the evangelist does not hang back from tapping lavishly into the
available creative resources216.

In the eyes of his contemporaries, these daring exegesis seemed mind-blowing217. In

reality, it was the only way in which a new doctrine could come forward, both in account
of the narrow cultural horizon and the death threats addressed to the false prophets who
taught new doctrines (see below). That is why the Qumranites expressed themselves in
code, so that they could be understood only by the initiates 218. The risk of not dying a
natural death was not only theoretical in an unquestionably blinkered and intolerant

214 In Acts 24:5 the term nazōr{ios indicates the follower of Jesus, the Christian.

215 In order to show that the prophecies have been fulfilled in Jesus, Matthew comes to understand the sacred
text in a literal sense, even where the use of the expedient of parallelism is evident to us. For the entry of
Jesus into Jerusalem, while Mark speaks only of a colt (11:2-7), Matthew makes Jesus ride a donkey and her
colt (21:2-7), out of a mistaken fidelity to the prophetic text of Zechariah: Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant
and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (9:9). As for the price of Judas'
treachery, while Mark (14:10-11) and Luke (22:3-5) speak generically of "money", Matthew (26:15) specifies
that it was agreed upon for thirty silver coins (shekels), only to show the coincidence with a prophecy freely
taken from Zech 11:12-13 and Jer 18:2-3, 19:1-2, 32:6-15: Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the
prophet Jeremiah, ‚And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom
some of the people of Israel had set a price‛ (Matthew 27:9). See Keith Fullerton Nickle, The Synoptic Gospels: An
Introduction, Louisville, Ky, 2001, p. 110.

216 Sandra M. Schneiders (The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, Wilmington,
Del, 19992, p. 102+) speaks, in this regard, of theological or spiritual imagination, a peculiar form of
constructive imagination, which consists in our inherent capacity to build our world. See on the topic J.
Gordon McConville, "Figures in Isaiah 7:14", in J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen, eds.,
Conception, Reception, and the Spirit, cit., pp. 15-18.

217 Cf Robert J. Miller, Helping Jesus Fulfill Prophecy, Eugene, 2016. The author of this work with a telling title
proceeds to a meticulous analysis of the rich patrimony of 'creative' exegetical devices, which, although used
by Christian authors, cannot be traced back to their inventiveness: "The Christians of the first century
intended the fulfillment of prophecies within a properly Jewish paradigm. What is important to note here is
that little or nothing strictly Christian can be found in the New Testament's use of scriptural prophecies -
except that they are considered fulfilled in Jesus" (p. 105).

218 See Matthew A. Collins, The Use of Sobriquets in the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, London-New York 2009.

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society. Religious dissent and social protest itself could not, therefore, be uttered in the
open, but only in a veiled and camouflaged manner, always under the broad mantle of
tradition. Consequently, the Scriptures had to offer a supporting evidence for the most
different doctrines, a task which, thank the stars, they performed in a startlingly sterling
way. On the other hand, the preachers of the new verb possessed a flabbergasting
ingenuity in bending the letter of the sacred texts to their own requirements219.

Sometimes, sadly, prophecies were double-edged and could be pulled where one chose.
When in Acts 3:22 Peter quotes Moses saying The Lord your God will raise up for you from
your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you and applies the
prophecy to Jesus, he refers to Deuteronomy (18:15), which in verse 18 continues: I will put
my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Perfect,
in point. Too bad immediately thereafter the sacred text specifies at v. 20: But any prophet
who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not
commanded the prophet to speak - that prophet shall die. In controversy with Peter, the Jews
might have readily quoted this verse to justify Jesus' crucifixion. I think it's high time to
cut short these two thousand year old preposterous wrangles.

A further example of creative Old Testament exegesis concerns the Suffering Servant of
Isaiah. Jews mostly believe that he represents Israel itself as a collective, on the basis of 49:
3: [The Lord] said to me: "You are my servant, Israel." A few verses later (6) we read: I will
give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Luke in the
Canticle of Simeon (2:32) relates this promise to Jesus, calling him light to enlighten the
pagan nations. In Acts 13:46-48 Luke again introduces Paul and Barnabas who, up against
the protests of the Jews in Antioch in Pisidia, intend to apply to themselves what they
interpret no longer as a promise (as in the biblical text), but as an order to dedicate their
mission to the Gentiles, abandoning to their fate the wayward Jews, who must have
wondered how Paul and Barnabas could have the effrontery to apply the words of Isaiah
to themselves.

The explanation is simple. In Christian circles that one was judged a messianic prophecy,
and therefore bearing upon Jesus. Every apostle, indeed every Christian, is an alter

219 Commenting on John 5:39-40 and 2 Cor 3:12-16, Lidija Novakovic concludes: "Only he who already
confesses Jesus as the Messiah is capable of a true understanding of the Scriptures, because only he
recognizes that the Scriptures speak of Christ. Adequate understanding is only possible from the perspective
of faith" (Raised from the Dead According to Scripture: The Role of Israel's Scripture in the Early Christian
Interpretations of Jesus' Resurrection, London-New York 2012, p. 217). If faith turns into a discriminating
criterion, we might as well ban any hermeneutical discussion with those who do not believe.

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Christus: he identifies with him, feels elevated to his dignity, involved in his own mission.
What seems to the Jews an ungodly interpretation of Isaiah proclaims, on the contrary, in
Christianity the exaltation of the believer to the level of the Messiah himself. Once again,
the original intent of Isaiah (or rather of the self-styled Isaiah) to the Christian exegete did
not matter so much: that text was only the peg on which to hang a new concept. Once
again, new wine was being tapped from old wineskins. Paul was so convinced that he had
been invested with the mission of bringing the Gospel "to the whole world" that he
planned an apostolic journey to Spain (Rom 15:23), then thought to be at the far ends of
the earth, as in its extreme southeast the ancients set one of the pillars of Hercules (Calpe).

Little in keeping with what has now been said, in the same Letter (10:18), to the question:
But I ask, have they [the Jews] not heard [the messengers of the Gospel]? Paul had just
replied with a quote from Psalm 19:5: Indeed they have; for ‚their voice has gone out to all the
earth, and their words to the ends of the world‛. This is a perfect example of creative
interpretation, as the messengers of the psalm are the heavens, not the apostles220.

220 For other examples of Pauline creative interpretation see Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, The Old Testament
and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change - Maintaining Christian Identity, Grand Rapids 1999, pp. 30-37. In
1 Cor 10:4 ([Our fathers in the wilderness] drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was
Christ) the prefiguration is found not in the Tanakh, but in an orally transmitted legend.

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 The Jesus of the Wise Faith

Faith created the Gospels, and they are meant to convey faith221. The evangelists did not
want to describe an objective past; they had access to the past only as part of the present
and subsumed within it. Each Gospel is different because it is born of the way in which the
experience of Jesus was lived in a Christian community and inserted inextricably into the
fabric of the present.

There is no way to ascertain the pure history of Jesus. History is never a recording of
events, but a reconstruction. In Gadamer’s view, there is no objective past. Consequently,
any historical reconstruction of Jesus presupposes subjective elements and cultural
conditioning. Each one reconstructs him in his own image. The only Jesus we can find in
the Gospels is either the Jesus who generated faith or the Jesus who was generated by
faith, anyhow the real Jesus who is alive and acts in us through the Spirit, after having
been on earth: the Jesus of religious experience. In the words of Alun Munslow222, there is
no point in looking for the bare facts, since the truth transcends the event, being precisely
the meaning of the event. It is the historian's task to create meaning through the narrative
supported by a theory, for the disjointed facts are meaningless and the sense is shaped by
the narrative into which the facts are poured. The proof is offered by the devotees of the
historical Jesus, each of whom in the end presents his own Jesus, different from the others.
The reconstructed historical Jesus is also an interpretation.

The Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament can give us but the Christ of
faith. Each painting bears the signature of its author and reflects his way of seeing. Even if
we had the tapes of Jesus' sermons, it would be useless, owing to the fact that the apostles
might appeal to secret doctrines, revealed only to them, far from the crowd. The formation

221 I just point out Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the
Truth of the Traditional Gospels, New York1996; Sandra M. Schneiders, The revelatory Text..., cit.; Richard
Bauckham, Jesus and Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Grand Rapids 2008; James D. G. Dunn,
New Testament Theology: An Introduction, Nashville, Tn, 2009; Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory,
Imagination, and History, Grand Rapids 2010; Michael F. Bird, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church
Wrote the Story of Jesus, Grand Rapids 2014.

222 Among his works: Deconstructing History, London-New York 20062; Narrative and History, Basingstoke
2007; The Future of History, Basingstoke 2010; ed., Authoring the Past: Writing and Rethinking History, London-
New York 2013.

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of a conviction with regard to a person with whom one is in contact does not only take
place through recordable speeches, but also through the sharing of informal moments,
sibylline hints, allusions, jokes, gestures, aspects that require of necessity, no less than
speeches, an interpretation. "How could one personally follow Jesus of Nazareth, or any
other spiritual master or sage, and relate his teaching in a cold, detached, matter-of-fact
style?... In the case of Jesus, we would expect to see his teaching interpreted from the
beginning in the light of his followers’ attempts to understand and unveil perceived
eternal significances latent or implicit in even the simplest of their master’s statements‛223.

Whatever the source on a historical character, the presentation it offers is inevitably

conditioned by a strong subjective charge. With any character, whether contemporary or
distant in time, each of us measures himself critically, takes a position for or against,
considers it a cue to clarify himself and further develop his own vision of the world. Also
in this case the unquestionable but often disregarded truth summed up in the scholastic
adage Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur [Whatever is received, is received in
accordance with the characteristics of the receiver]224 is valid. Just to get it clear: those who
go in search of objective historical truth are, in my opinion, not unlike the ones who
firmly believe that water has its own natural form and do not surrender to the evidence
that it adapts instead to the shape of the container. Hayden White concludes from this that
every historical work is largely literature225. Others have called historiography a
guesswork. Perfect objectivity and balance do not exist in history. We arbitrarily cut out
what serves our purpose, because history is a magic mirror: instead of seeing things, we
see ourselves. The idea we have of the past is the engine of our actions226.

Add to this that history in antiquity was mostly didactic and moralistic, aiming at
educating future generations rather than faithfully reconstructing the past. This
conception is revived by Paul: For whatever was written in former days was written for our

223 Samuel Zinner, The Gospel of Thomas: In the Light of Early Jewish, Christian and Islamic Esoteric Trajectories,
London 2011, p. 44.

224 Reminiscence of my philosophy studies at Alma Mater Gregoriana.

225 "Afterword", in Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, eds., Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the
Study of Society and Culture, Berkeley, Ca, 1999, pp. 315-324.

226 In Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Chicago-London 1999, p. 209, Bruce Lincoln
acknowledges that the so-called 'scientific reconstructions' of the past are nothing more than myths with the
tinsel of footnotes. Of course, my own reconstruction does not escape the rule.

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instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have
hope (Rom 15:4).

It would be very wretched our faith’s destiny, if it had to wait for the consent of the well-
read people about Jesus, a consent that there will never be for at least two reasons: a) new
documents and attestations may come out again in the future and then the most logical
choice would be an epochē [suspension of judgement] lasting practically until the end of
time, since historical research can never be finished. b) waiting for the scholars -
quarrelsome by nature - to come to an agreement means putting off everything to the
doomsday. In any case, with these endlessly prolonged waits, there is no room left for
faith.

The historical Jesus is but a pipe dream and in any case his - entirely hypothetical - perfect
knowledge would not close the game once and for all, given that one might have very
different results: one might still rate him - by choice - an apocalyptic prophet, a
charismatic leader, a cynical philosopher, a social agitator, a charlatan, a magician, an
exalted man, an alleged Messiah, a self-styled God incarnate, a bore, a megalomaniac, a
hypocrite, a demoniac, an enemy of life, a gleeful frequenter of prostitutes and publicans, a
failed zealot, a creep of the Romans and much more. In reality, like and more than any
other man, Jesus possessed a personality consisting of many facets and it is up to the
historian to establish their individual relevance within his synthesis, which accordingly
can only be unique and unrepeatable.

Oral tradition. In oral tradition, the same story is narrated in various ways, with different
emphases and different details, while teachings are reformulated. The differences in the
proclamation of the Christian message were an integral part of it. The oral tradition about
Jesus was multiple and fluid. It, alongside the faith of the disciples, had begun when Jesus
was still alive. There is no original of this oral tradition: from the very beginning there
were multiple offshoots, as each disciple perceived the Master in his own way and thus
transmitted him. Notice that oral repetition always entails novelties deriving from the
experience of the narrator. Moreover, each one reconstructs the past in step with the
model of the hoped-for future. In the Churches the discourse was calibrated on the
expectations and problems of the audience.

Jesus often preached and later presented again the themes of his mission privately to his
disciples. They not only listened to, but also preached, taking up and repeating (certainly
not literally) Jesus' message. After Easter, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, they fully
understood its meaning, which until then had remained partly enigmatic, and this new

81
interpretation, linked to the story of Christ's life, passion, death and resurrection, was the
content of their sermons within the Christian communities that were being formed227.

At the beginning the transmission was only oral, but soon the need was felt to prepare
vade mecums for the new preachers (often itinerant) and for the new followers who had
not known Jesus. It is generally accepted that the first written texts were collections of
logia [sayings] of Jesus, but it is not excluded that there were also written stories (always
in Aramaic) about miracles and Passion, themes that were certainly not left out within the
communities.

Today the importance of oral tradition has been put in the foreground after the studies of
James D. G. Dunn228. Most scholars agree that it is the very foundation of the Gospels. Each
evangelist was in contact with the oral tradition extant in his community, without thereby
excluding an at least partial knowledge of the traditions of other groups of believers. So it
is not necessarily the case that a subsequent evangelist should have before him the written
text of Mark. It was enough that he knew the peculiar traditions that flowed into it. The
contamination of traditions was made possible precisely by itinerant preachers.

If you take into account the high rate of illiteracy, more than a people of the book, the Jews
were a people of reciting and memorization. The Gospels themselves were recited in
church and learned by heart. This was the common way of teaching. There is, however,
one phenomenon to note to which only recently due attention has been paid. It was
possible, and perhaps even common, that preachers attributed personal reflections and

227 "The salient features of the founding Christian experience furnish a remarkably complete archetypal
inventory: 1) an originating faith in the pending arrival of a supernatural deliverer; 2) expectations of a
cosmic cataclysm that will yield a new heaven and a new earth; 3) belief in a compensatory and vengeful
reversal of existing social hierarchies and injustices; 4) an upsurge and release of anticipatory joy and
ecstasies that are collectively expressed in ritual gatherings to expedite the advent of the end-time; 5) a
radical reconstitution of personal identities and communal bonds on the basis of divine election and
attending spiritual transformation; 6) the subordination of established status distinctions to the higher claims
of membership within the community of the saved; 7) the prominence of an egalitarian ethos of mutual
sharing and support; and 8) a constituency recruited predominantly from the ranks of the variously
disprivileged, the alienated, and the politically powerless" (Joseph M. Bryant, "The Sociology of Early
Christianity: From History to Theory, and Back Again", in Bryan S. Turner, ed., The New Blackwell Companion
to the Sociology of Religion, Oxford 2010 pp. 329, 330.

228 I refer mainly to The Oral Gospel Tradition, Grand Rapids 2013.

82
comments to Jesus. This might happen without scandal, because they thought they were
speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and therefore new pithy aphorisms or
wider comments were attributed not to them, but to the Spirit of Jesus and therefore to
Jesus himself. In other words, the Church held herself to be the spokesperson of Jesus even
when she did not repeat the ipsissima verba [the authentic words of Jesus], since it was in
any case the same Spirit that Jesus had promised and sent to speak through her. The
preaching therefore did not consist in simply repeating without comment the words that,
in any case, one remembered having heard pronounced by Jesus, but in transmitting the
true doctrine of Jesus that was present indifferently both in the ipsissima verba and in
comments and flashes of which the apostles felt themselves indebted to the dictates of the
Spirit. For them, there was no difference in authority between Jesus and the Spirit.229.
Exactly by reason of the doctrine of the revelatory Spirit they would sneer at the obsessive
concern of Crossan and his companions (the partners of the Jesus Seminar) to isolate the
precise words of the Master.

The Jesus whom the disciples proclaimed was not only the Jesus they had known on the
streets of Palestine, but also, and I dare say principally, the Jesus whom the Spirit
communicated to them, broadening their understanding and interpretation of what they
had experienced. Truth is that, even when the Master sent them to preach the kingdom of
God two by two (before, therefore, Easter), the Jesus they preached was already the Jesus
of personal faith, not the objective Jesus (which is inoperable), but a Jesus filtered through
their Jewish culture and personal expectations, a Jesus already interpreted, as claimed by
Samuel Zinner. Going to separate in the Gospel the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith
is like flogging a dead horse, as it is a sign of arrant incomprehension to make the apostles
responsible for preaching the Christ of faith.

Oral transmission certainly preserved the core of Jesus' teachings, but it enriched it,
commented on it, paraphrased it, adapted it to the varying circumstances of community
life. All this was bound to flow into the written works for which the same applies. The
Gospel of John would no less be the message of Jesus if the hypothesis, put forward by
some, that no speech contained in it may be attributed with certainty to the historical
Jesus, was proved true. John proposes the figure of the Master with keen and sharp

229 Let us also admit, with inventory benefit, that scholars have succeeded in pinpointing the authentic
sayings. In any case, these would not be the complete repertory of Jesus' words, but only a restricted
selection made by the tradents in a certain partial and tendentious way, on the basis of personal motivations
inherent in their theological vision, therefore already within the dimension of faith. In Christian terms, it was
the Spirit who suggested what to omit and what to pass on.

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insights that he himself reckoned (with the Church) as the work of the Spirit and, due to
this, no less reliable than the ipsissima verba.

The Synoptic Gospels. Today few people doubt that in I century Palestine there was an
individual called Jesus, a religious preacher executed under Pontius Pilate 230. The writings
of the New Testament give a coherent view of this character, even if each author naturally
stresses this or that aspect.

The unbelievers enjoy highlighting divergences between one sacred author and another.
When these works were written, the Church was in her infancy and it is no wonder that
each writer grasped and underlined certain aspects that he considered most important.
This is also true for the manifold oral traditions. The cultural background, expectations,
idiosyncrasies and vicissitudes of the various communities also converged to the same
end, as we will see in particular for the Gospel of Thomas.

Papias mentions a lost Gospel of Matthew in Aramaic, later translated into Greek. Among
scholars prevails today the idea that before the canonical Gospels, in the decade between
40 and 50 AD, writings in Aramaic containing only logia or even short narratives about
Jesus were circulating.

An indirect proof was attained by some experts who have endeavored to retranslate
problematic passages of the Gospels from Greek into Aramaic. This way came to light
quite a few errors made in the translation from Aramaic into Greek, mostly in the presence
of ambiguous terms that have been misinterpreted, thus giving rise to inconsistencies and
inaccuracies. I offer a few examples from José Miguel García231. Matt 1:18-19: His mother
Mary, having been taken as bride by Joseph, the morning they went to live together conceived by the
Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, who was just, but felt so lacking in justice that he felt unworthy
to have a relationship with her, decided to abandon her silently. On the base of this
reconstruction, Mary became pregnant when she was already living with Joseph, so
strangers would have found nothing to pour scorn on. Joseph's wonder was born from the
fact that they had not consummated the marriage, having devoted themselves to

230 The most irreducible adversary of the historical existence of Jesus is Earl Doherty, in whose opinion the
story of Christ for Paul is to be set not on earth, but in the celestial spheres (Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The
Case for a Mythical Jesus, Ottawa 2009).

231 Vida, Passion y Resurrección de Jesús segun los Evangelios arameos. The work is inserted in the series Studia
Semitica Novi Testamenti of Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid.

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virginity232. It was an Essene custom that survived for centuries in Christianity 233, if St John
Chrysostom still railed against the monks who lived with virgins for the declared purpose
of protecting their virtue. The reason that prompted Joseph was not the fear of scandal
(non-existent, as said) or the suspicion of betrayal by his bride, whose integrity he did not
doubt, but the feeling of inadequacy in the face of a miraculous fact. It is not the prophecy
of Isaiah that creates the fact of the virginal birth, but it is Mary's anomalous conception
that induces Matthew to seek the endorsement of Scripture, wrenching the prophetic text.

Luke was charged with an egregious inaccuracy when in 2:1-2 he had the census
celebrated at the time Quirinus was governor of Syria, i.e., from 6 to 7 AD. The numbers
just do not add up, since at that time Herod was already dead and therefore Jesus must
also have been born about ten years ago. The Aramaic text reads instead: In those days came
a decree of Caesar Augustus to make a census of all the cities. This is the first census, which was
made before Quirinus was governor of Syria.

The ambiguity of the Aramaic waw, a particle that is generally translated as "and", but can
also mean "that is", clarifies how the expression "Jesus' brothers" stands for "Jesus'
disciples". It is wrong to render As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation
with the elders and scribes and the whole council (Mark 15:1), inasmuch as the council or
synedrion was composed precisely of the enumerated categories. On the contrary, it must
be taken to mean: that is to say, the whole synedrion. Likewise in John 2:12, instead of reading
his mother, his brethren, and his disciples, one must understand his mother and his brethren, that
is, his disciples. The equivalence of brothers and disciples is evident in John 20:17, 18: Jesus
said to her, ‚Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to
my God and your God’‛. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples.

Mark's Gospel, the shortest of the four, is regarded as the first to have been composed,
although even today there are still those who support Matthew's priority. Matthew and

232 "A young woman who decided to remain a virgin couldn't live alone. The fact of being a bride gave her
the legal condition that would allow her to fulfill her will" (Jean Daniélou, I Vangeli dell'infanzia, Brescia 1968,
p. 21).

233 Paul would allude to it in 1 Cor 9:5, according to the interpretation of the Catholic theologian Ray Ryland
(Drawn from Shadows Into Truth: A Memoir, Steubenville 2013, p. 222.

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Luke would have drawn from Mark, as well as from a common source (Q = Quelle, source
in German) unknown to Mark and consisting of logia234.

Since olden times, compared to the 'mystical and theological' Gospel of John, the synoptics
have been considered more sticking to historical facts and therefore more reliable. In
reality, even in the synoptics, speeches and events are inserted into a theological plot. Each
author writes an ideological work and is well aware of it. This also applies to Mark,
apparently so bare and linear, but, on closer inspection, full of pathos and not untaught of
rhetorical technique235. Like Paul, he expresses his deep passion and from the beginning
hastens to declare that his is the Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God236. Martin Kähler (1835-
1912) was the first to see in the Gospels not a biography of Jesus, but sources for the
announcement of faith of the Christian community, for the kērygma.

The Childhood Gospels appear only in Matthew and Luke and, although coincident in
many details, they present many discrepancies. Mark and John omit the account of those
years, not because they were not acquainted with traditions in this regard, but because
they thought reporting them not necessary for the exposition of their proclamation of
faith. The Childhood Gospels respond to the need to figure out how the incarnation of
God could take place. The authors used the more or less certain data they held to propose
their theological vision, by eliminating, adding, revamping: in a word, by interpreting.
There was no need to invent facts, given that about an important man like Jesus the first to
be told were certainly the stories (difficult to verify) about his birth and the events that
immediately followed. These stories, different in details, circulated in every Christian
community. Mary, at least in the circle closest to her, had to make some confidences about
that period, even with all the caution typical of a Jewess, since they concerned her intimate

234 "Q and the Dead Sea Scrolls both reflect the eschatological expectations of marginalized Jewish
communities living in various villages and towns in Palestine, which disappeared around 70 AD... Their
authors felt they were prophets and interpreted the [Tanakh] prophecies as referring to contemporary
events... They believed their communities to be animated by the Holy Spirit and seem to have performed
exorcisms" (Simon J. Joseph, Jesus, Q, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Judaic Approach to Q, Tübingen 2012, pp.
28,32).

235 See Dennis R. MacDonald, The Gospels and Homer: Imitations of Greek Epic in Mark and Luke-Acts, Lanham,
Md, 2015.

236 Some say Son of God is a posterior addition. Even if that were true, however, it reflects the author's
thinking. By Mark, Jesus is often given this title to which a divine character will be explicitly associated in
John 10:33-36. See Herbert W. Bateman IV, ‚Defining the Titles 'Christ' and 'Son of God' in Mark’s Narrative
Presentation of Jesus‛, in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 50.3 - 2007, pp. 537-559.

86
life. After her death, these confidences were transmitted by the repositories, who in any
case had not been eyewitnesses. In passing from mouth to mouth, the facts were
embellished with details due to the tradents. You only have to read some apocryphal
gospels to understand how much unleashed was fantasy.

Luke does not report the adoration of the Magi and the flight to Egypt either because he
deems them uncertain or because he does not rate them imperative for the proclamation of
faith. Matthew proposes both, as he sees them as true and linkable to prophetic quotations
of the Old Testament.

The birth of the Baptist. I reconstruct it in this way. The priest Zechariah was racked by the
idea of dying without offspring. A son: this was his most ardent desire, conscious or not,
or, if you like, his regret; in any case, his worry. The Essenes of Qumran rigidly opposed
the priests of the Temple of Jerusalem, but other Essenes did not237 and among these were
also priests of lower rank, such as Zechariah. In the exercise of his priestly ministry in the
divine abode, in an atmosphere made mystical and frightening by the Shekinah [the
presence of God], he unconsciously plays his last card, expressing, albeit hazily, his desire,
asking for grace. Sparked off by faith, the promise of YHWH (who had solved sundry
desperate cases) appears to him, according to his cultural background, in the message
brought by an angel. The vision, to be configured in an ASC (alternate state of
consciousness) set off by the atmosphere of the place and the intimate psychological
turmoil, unsettles him to such an extent that he remains mute238.

It was quite normal for an elderly childless Jew, a priest moreover, nourished by the
examples of Isaac, Samuel and Samson, to hope for the prodigious realization of his
fatherhood dream. It is not to be ruled out that the discouragement following his failures
had led him to thin out or to interrupt his attempts with natural methods altogether. The
new hope, or rather the certainty that arose in his heart, although in the midst of an
understandable upheaval, led him to approach Elizabeth again, and without anything
miraculous (such cases are found in all times and cultures) he became a father.

God's intervention is in the inner voice (heard in a scenery of dramatic majesty) that makes
him go from despondency to daring. Notice that the angel describes the unborn child to

237 Joan E. Taylor, ‚The Classical Sources on the Essenes and the Scrolls Communities‛, in Timothy H. Lim
and John J. Collins, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Oxford 2010, p. 181.

238 A typical case of emotional shock mutism, triggered by vision as in Daniel 10:15. Another violent emotion
following the child’s birth will make him recover the speech.

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the father not only as a gift from God, but as a man of God, a saint sent with the precise
mission of making the sinners repent. This too is by no means an invention of the
evangelist, due to the fact that, precisely on the basis of the biblical examples already
given, the son born of elderly parents was seen kindred to Isaac, Samuel and Samson also
by virtue of a particular mission that God entrusted to him for the benefit of the chosen
people. Therefore, at John’s birth, the canticle of Zechariah reflects perfectly logical and
consistent ideas, if the cultural environment is taken into account.

Revelation or non revelation, Zechariah in this unexpected son could not fail to see a
prophet of the Most High. A conviction that, however, in the priest could not remain at the
level of a pious desire, but was converted day by day into an educational process aimed at
the formation of the man of God: while being raised and reared, the child was resolutely
instilled with the idea of a religious mission, which, in line with the expectations of the
Jewish people, consisted in preparing the way for the coming, considered in the offing, of
the Savior. John - even if from elderly parents - was born in natural way. The Savior,
instead, was to be born of a virgin. All of this had been disclosed to John by his father, so
much so that when he was asked about it, he flatly denied that he was the Christ (John
1:21).

For Zechariah, John's task was contained in the text of Isaiah 40:3, so dear to the Essenes.
Zechariah (like Mary and Joseph) was imbued with Essene culture and it is likely that
John's stay in the wilderness (where he fed on honey and locusts239) is an indication of his
sojourn in an isolated Essene community (not necessarily Qumran 240), inside of which he
was able to clear up even more the topics already set by the fatherly education241. God

239 Energetic as well as luscious, by the accounts of gourmets. Luckily, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with
valuable culinary instructions on the subject (Damascus Document XII 11-15).

240 As maintained by Alison Schofield (From Qumran to the Yahad: A New Paradigm of Textual Development for
'The Community Rule', Leiden 2009), perhaps another community operated in Bethabara, where the Baptist
was bred up. For the scholar, the Yahad was a consortium of local communities among which should also be
included Ein Feshkha, Ein El-Ghuweir, Jericho, Jerusalem. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls come from centers
other than Qumran (John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, Grand Rapids 2010, p. 69).

241 In support of what has been said, I quote the words of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI: "Not only
John the Baptist, but possibly Jesus and his family as well, were close to the Qumran community... It is a
reasonable hypothesis that the Baptist lived for some time in this community and received part of his
religious formation from it" (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, New York
2007, p. 14).

88
acted through his parents and the Yahad. When, within the latter (in the wilderness), he
became fully aware of his mission, he went out to preach: During the high priesthood of
Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went
into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins
(Luke 3:2-3).

Mary's virginity. Let’s try to understand the facts starting from the perception that the
protagonists, Joseph and Mary, had of them. According to a custom not uncommon
among the Essenes and later transmitted to Christians (it is the phenomenon of the
agapetae), a girl who wanted to consecrate her virginity to God without being exposed to
mockery and violence had to find protection in a male, much more mature than her and
seriously intent on guaranteeing her observance of the vow. From the beginning of her
living with Joseph, Mary becomes pregnant. In his devotion, Joseph is not struck by the
suspicion of infidelity, because he knows his bride too well. When Mary reveals the
novelty to him, Joseph (in line with the beliefs that the Essenes had got from Mazdeism242)
infers that in his family the miracle of a virgin birth is about to occur, which can only
concern the Savior243. Faced with the task of being his father, the man feels inadequate and
would like to escape, at the cost of breaking the covenant with Mary, but divine
inspiration encourages him to persist: While he was thinking about these things, an angel of the
Lord appeared to him in a dream and said to him: "Joseph, son of David, do not abandon Mary,
your wife, moved by sacred fear because of what is he who was begotten in her by the Holy Spirit"
(Matt 1:20, in the Aramaic text244).

Joseph stays with Mary. In the following months they have a load of time to question
themselves about the event and the betokening signs. Mary remembers that it was divine
inspiration or the authoritative suggestion of a wise Essene (transfigured, in compliance
with the current cultural canons, into an angel in her eyes) that made her renounce
marriage and initiated her in the risky and difficult choice of virginity in the which she

242 For the influence on Judaism of Iranian doctrines regarding the virginal birth of the Messiah I refer to
Andrew J. Welburn, From a Virgin Womb: The Apocalypse of Adam and the Virgin Birth, Leiden 2008.

243 Following the Roman conquest (63 BC), there had been a sudden surge in messianic expectations in
Palestine (John J. Collins, "Jesus, Messianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls", in James H. Charlesworth, Hermann
Lichtenberger and Gerbern S . Oegema, eds., Qumran-Messianism, Tübingen 1998, p. 106).

244 The previous Aramaic text of Matthew 1:18-20, whose translation I have taken from the cited work of José
Miguel García, has been reconstructed by Mariano Herranz Marco in La virginidad perpetua de María, Madrid
2002, pp. 41, 42, and 51-69.

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saw the premise for the fulfillment of a miracle, the birth of the Messiah from a virgin. One
may conjecture that the more or less conscious hope of an exceptional motherhood pushed
young women to embrace virginity. By the same token, the mature man who protected the
virgin blurredly aspired to become, though feeling unworthy, a putative father of the Son
of the Most High. This, to read the Gospel tradition well, is the way in which the facts
were lived by the protagonists, a way entirely congruent with their customs and mindset.

A malevolent objector might hypothesize behind the Gospel version a conscious violation
of the vow of chastity by the two virgins or by Mary alone. A more subtle disputant will
insinuate that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier and, as sometimes happens, removed
root and branch that nightmarish event245, searching later in her religious paraphernalia a
theological explanation of the fruit of violence. The story of the soldier Panthera or
Pandera246 (that is found in Celsus247 and rabbinic writings248, but must have been
propagated much earlier249) is based on a possible, very possible eventuality. We are at a
crucial crossroads. Which of the two accounts deserves to be believed? The supernatural
version or the pedestrian one? There is no possibility of mediation, since neither may be
proven and we must argue endlessly. One believes what one wants to believe. Joseph may
be labeled as a pious privileged man or, alternatively, as a gullible husband, always ready
to swear on the virtue of his wife. It depends on us, on the project we have about
ourselves; not only on what we are (background, prejudices, etc.), but, and primarily, on
what we want to be. To believe in God always means to elaborate an immensely ambitious
project about oneself and to aim tenaciously at its realization250.

245 The removal is configured in the context of post-traumatic stress disorder.

246 Archer Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera from an epigraph discovered in 1859 in Bingerbrück, Germany, was
identified by someone as the Pandera of the Talmud.

247 Origen, Against Celsus 1:28 32.

248 b. Šabb. 104b - b. Sanh. 67a.

249 A hint is perhaps found in John 8:41 (We are not illegitimate children).

250 "The mission of Jesus' crucified spouse on earth is almost over. Jesus will give her the most enchanting,
the most loving death. What glory for Portugal and for the whole world! What a feast and triumph in
Heaven! - There was never, nor will there ever again be a victim sacrificed in this form... You are the new co-
redeemer, who will be remembered as long as the world exists... Your life teaches more than the priests and
doctors of the Church; your martyrdom converts more souls than thousands, millions of priests"
(Alexandrina de Balazar, Diary 3 May 1942; 1 December 1944; 22 October 1948). St Thérèse of Lisieux also
thought big: in oblative love pushed to the extreme she felt she could realize her multiform vocation as a
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The Magnificat. Luke does not claim that it was Mary who composed it. He just says she
recited it. It was in all probability a hymn of thanksgiving that Essene women raised to
God when they got pregnant, when God fulfilled their desire for motherhood. That it was
an Essene hymn is evident from the emphasis on God's preference for the poor and
humble251.

The birth of Jesus. In point of fact, it is probable that some shepherds received news of this
needful birth and went to see the baby, perhaps even offering some small gift. For Jesus it
was not the well-to-do who moved, but the poor. They were given the announcement
through ordinary people who warned them of the fact. Only this must have been said by
Mary. The facts were transcribed by the receptors according to the visionary rules of
Jewish culture (angels, music, songs, light), because, within their cultural horizon, God
could not fail to manifest himself in this way. Mary's original narrative must have been,
roughly speaking, as follows: "When I gave birth in Bethlehem, the first to visit me and the
child were poor shepherds, cheerful and likable, who learned of my misfortune and were
surprised at the beauty of Jesus‛. When this certain fact is interpreted, then one beholds a
set of accretions: a) If the child was visited by poor shepherds, it was not by chance. It was
God himself who wanted to show his fondness for the poor (Mary and Joseph also
belonged to the category). b) For this to happen, God had to communicate the event to the
shepherds. c) As attested to in the Scriptures, when God has to send a message, he uses an
angel; therefore, this did happen with the shepherds. d) But God manifests himself in the
light, so the shepherds also saw a light. e) If God agrees to announce the birth of a child, it
means that something extraordinary matured: it might not be just an ordinary child, but
the one who is to become the Savior long awaited by the poor. Poor men were chosen, as

Carmelite, bride, mother, warrior, priest, apostle, prophet, doctor of the Church, martyr (Story of a Soul: The
Autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux. Manuscript B, 8 September 1896, trans. John Clarke, Washington 1996,
pp. 190-200). On this theme I refer to Chip R. Ingram, Holy Ambition: Turning God-Shaped Dreams Into Reality,
Chicago 20102.

251 The consonances with Anna's canticle (1 Sam 2:1-10), Psalm 113 (whose archaizing patina, rather than
concealing, reveals its late date - see Lawrence A. Hoffman and David Arnow, My People's Passover
Haggadah: Traditional Texts, Modern Commentaries, Woodstock, Vt, 2008, Vol. II, p. 101) and sapiential
literature (e.g., Sir 10:14 The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place.) are
striking. The religious value given to social opposition originates from Enochian circles: "The Epistle of
Enoch, the Testaments of the twelve Patriarchs and the Parables of Enoch identify the righteous with the
poor and sinners with the wealthy... Radical opposition divides the poor from the rich in this world"
(Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, cit., p. 181). See also George W. E. Nickelsburg, "First and
Second Enoch: A Cry against Oppression and the Promise of Deliverance", in Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C.
Allison Jr. and John Dominic Crossan, eds., The Historical Jesus in Context, Princeton 2006, pp. 87-109.

91
the child concerned them directly and to the highest degree. f) Consequently, the angel,
having to inform the shepherds of this momentous fact, what else could say but To you is
born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord? (Luke 2:11)? g) For such
a paramount event one angel was too little. It was not a personal event, as so many times
in the Bible. It was the decisive turning point in history, and if people were apathetic and
unaware, heaven was in celebration. This meant that the shepherds had to understand the
exceptionality of the case visually and aurally [auditively]. The most fitting way was the
appearance of many heavenly spirits announcing in song the glory of God and the coming
of peace for the poor252 and therefore for the shepherds themselves. In fact, the men who
enjoy the favor of God ({nthrōpoi eudokía/eudokías) are mainly the poor, the ebionim. Why
the coming of peace? But on the grounds that Isaiah had called the Messiah Prince of Peace
(9:5).

As we see, the sequence of passages obeys a rigid logic, within the anthropological vision
of the pious Jews. Each time we say, "It was no accident that...", we enter the realm of
interpretation. Here we start from a historical fact, but to record it would be too little, it
would mean nothing. Many other cases could have been noticed, a train of events, one
more irrelevant than the other, that happened in Bethlehem in those days. If a fact is
isolated, it means that it is worth investigating, inasmuch as one senses the possibility that
it conceals a profound meaning. Everyone develops his own interpretation in keeping
with his conceptual schemes, his cultural background, his own expectations. When the
historian (conditioned, in this case, by the prior acceptance of the divinity of Jesus) asks
himself the question "Why did poor shepherds visit the child?", he has already the answer
in his pocket, or at least he intuits it. And it certainly comes as no surprise that the
reconstruction of the facts is that of Luke. In any case, let us bear in mind that every
historian is ideologized and chooses some facts and not others, since he knows that
precisely those ones let themselves be included, once they have been properly interpreted,
into his ideological reconstruction of events.

The story of the Magi. There's nothing unbelievable about the Magi. To start with, the
Magi (not kings, but Zoroastrian priests) did not live only in Persia. Since the time of the
Achaemenids they had also emigrated to areas just north of Palestine and therefore one
did not have to cope with a long journey to get to Jerusalem. At the appearance of the

252 With the consequent end of social conflicts spawned by injustice: His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice
and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore (Isa 9:7).

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star253 some of them set off towards Judea, due to the fact that the star recalled this land254.
In fact, each people, on the authority of Daniel (10:13, 20 - cf. Deut 32:8, already discussed),
was assigned a patron angel255, but the angels were identified, basically, with the heavenly
bodies256. The Magi also were expectantly awaiting the Savior, the Saoshyant, and thus
they turned to King Herod and, through him, to the learned men of Jerusalem to know
where his birth was predicted. It is historically acceptable that they perceived the Jewish
religion as an offshoot of Zoroastrianism.

I am convinced that Herod, in addition to his notorious cruelty257, possessed also a baleful
intelligence that did not allow him to commit the slaughter of the innocent in the
gruesome and subtly parodistic manner in which we are used to seeing it portrayed.
Stories were made about 14,000 massacred children, including a son of Herod himself, put
out to nurse and evidently not recognized by the blood-drunk soldiers. On the contrary, in
a village like Bethlehem the children more or less the same age as Jesus were certainly
very few, and Herod must have started by getting rid of them by devious means, such as
kidnapping and poison. When the Gospel tells that Joseph was warned in a dream by an
angel, it only means that Joseph had a flash: he suddenly understood that the death or
disappearance, in rapid succession, of two or three children were not accidental and that

253 As for the real size of the celestial phenomenon, there is little point in consulting astronomers. I have no
qualms about the Magi getting the wrong end of the stick. What matters is not what came to pass, but what
appeared to be.

254 In this metaphorical sense the star led the Magi. They arrived in Jerusalem and then in Bethlehem in the
wake of a cultural preconception and not with their gaze fixed on a mobile trace of light. Certainly, the shift
from figurative to the more easily understandable and representable literal sense had taken place well before
Matthew wrote his story (2:9, 10). Cf Dwight R. Hutchison, A Sign Over Bethlehem: An Explanation of the Magi
and the Messiah's Star, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux 2015; George H. van Kooten and Peter Barthel, eds., The
Star of Bethlehem and the Magi: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Experts on the Ancient Near East, the Greco-
Roman World, and Modern Astronomy, Leiden 2015.
255 See Daniel I. Block, The Gods of the Nations: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology, Eugene 20132,
esp. pp. 25-33.

256 "The stars are already identified with the angels in biblical verses such as Job 38:7, and, implicitly, in 1
Enoch 86:1, 3 and 88:1. This identification is explicit in other texts from the Second Temple period" (Jonathan
Ben-Dov, Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in Their Ancient Context, Leiden 2008, p. 27).
The correlation between heavenly bodies and 'children of God' is maintained and documented on pages 29-
30 and in footnote 32 of Daniel I. Block's abovementioned work.

257 In a Greek pun, Augustus mockingly pointed out that a pig [hys] should feel safer than a son [hyiòs] of
this king.

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the next to suffer this fate might be Jesus. So he wasted no time in leaving, just as,
suspecting the king, the Magi themselves, who, not being foolish, had caught his
disturbance and were not deceived by his mellifluous words, had cut bait and run some
time before, taking another path. The reason for their hasty departure became clear to
Joseph when he intuitively connected the two things. He figured out that Herod was a
threat to the child, as he already had been to the Magi. What was only a well-founded
suspicion, which asudden cropped up out of the anguish wrought by those mournful
events and their recurrence in thought, may have been seen by Joseph as the content of a
message brought to him by an angel, according to the conception of those times and his
imagination that depended on it258.

It is to be remembered that journeys from Palestine to Egypt along the coast were then
very common. The unknown was not entirely unknown: in Egypt there was a large Jewish
colony that could serve as a point of support.

This reconstruction helps us overcome multifarious difficulties of the professional

objectors who have pointed out how Flavius Josephus ignores the slaughter of the
innocent, a heinous crime that, if it had happened in the manner long imagined, let itself
be carried as an emblem of Herod's cruelty. It went unnoticed instead. There were only a
few suspicions, rumors. Luke's story reworks indirect confidences of Joseph and Mary on
the way they lived and interpreted those events.

Skeptics turn up their noses at the finding of Jesus in the Temple, downgrading it to a
mere fable. Jesus listened to the doctors of the Law, discussed with them, gave intelligent
answers. Twelve-year-olds who showed an early interest in what later marked their lives

258 Those who believe in God and maintain a continuous dialogue with him perceive his voice as a warning
against doing something (as Socrates said of his daimónion) or as an advice, an invitation to act in a certain
way, as a sudden and convincing illumination. The message is unquestionable, but the form in which it is
conveyed depends on the imagination of the individual believer. Immediately after the Second World War,
numerous tales of Catholic and Orthodox veterans were made known who asserted they had been warned
of an impending mortal danger thanks to the dream apparition of the patron saint who - just in time -
ordered them to move. Protestant veterans, who had lived a similar experience, claimed to have also
received a warning of divine origin, with the expected variation that it was not a saint who told them what
to do. The essential thing is that God is speaking. Form differs ad modum recipientis. Some will be surprised
that apparitions of Jewish saints in critical wartime circumstances are also attested to in present-day Israel.
See Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, Bloomington, In, 2009, p. 415+.

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are certainly not lacking in history. Flavius Josephus boasts of having been, at the age of
14, a consultant to the priests259.

Luke offers us a far-reaching and irreplaceable theological teaching when, at the

conclusion of his Childhood Gospel, he tells us that Jesus increased in wisdom and in years
(2:52). To the physical growth corresponded an intellectual growth, an ever deeper
awareness of the world and of the way of getting through life260, thanks to the continuous
relationship with God in prayer and meditation, as is shown by the answer given to the
parents in the Temple: Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? (2:49). His
mission became clearer and clearer to him, and the family environment, the Essene
community of which he was a part or which he knew indirectly, the study of Scripture, the
most varied encounters, played a role. Everything stimulated his reflection and converged
towards a point that gradually became plain and distinct on the horizon: to spend himself
for the salvation of the world. In Jesus, knowledge of reality and awareness of the divine
nature developed by degrees261.

259 Autobiography II 9. Regarding the personality of the historian, I would like to point out Claude Cohen-
Matlofsky, "Flavius Josephus, the Man and His Ambitions: A Prosopographic Study", in The Polish Journal of
Biblical Research, 15.1-2 - 2016, pp. 99-117. For an overview: Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers,
eds., A Companion to Josephus, Chichester, SXW, 2016.

260 To use Stoic terminology, Luke describes the adolescent Jesus not as a sophós [wise], but as a prokóptōn
[proficient, advancing].

261 "Christ [as man] did not possess the beatific vision of God's essence, nor, consequently, the knowledge of
all things in the divine essence, precisely because Christ's humanity was preglorified, in via... My argument
is based on the broader Scriptural witness to Christ's weakness and intellectual limitations, his growth and
development, his participation in the life of a creature, and so on, so that a perpetual rapture [in
contemplation of the divine essence] would be non-human and even self-destructive on the level of
salvation" (R. Michael Allen, The Christ's Faith: A Dogmatic Account, London-New York 2009, pp. 66, 67). In
the opinion of the Belgian Jesuit Jean Galot, for more than twenty years professor of Christology at the
Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and author of prayers pervaded by an engaging mystical afflatus, to
think that Jesus possessed the perfection of knowledge, that is omniscience, would lead - in a re-edition of
the Monophysite heresy - to the denial of his humanity, subject instead to certain natural intellectual
limitations, even with regard to his own self-awareness, historically and culturally conditioned ("Le Christ
terrestre et la vision", in Gregorianum, 67 - 1986, pp. 429-450. See also Who is Christ? A Theology of the
Incarnation, Rome 1980). Similar concepts were expressed by Sulpician father Raymond Edward Brown
(Jesus, God and Man: Modern Biblical Reflections, Milwaukee 1967) and Hans Urs von Balthasar (Theo-Drama:
Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol. III, San Francisco 1992, p. 191+ - cf Alyssa Lyra Pitstick, Light in Darkness:
Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell, Grand Rapids 2007, pp. 158-160).
It is not to be forgotten that even a Father and Doctor of the Church like Cyril of Alexandria included the
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In an asymmetrical relationship, if the Logos had full knowledge of the human
consciousness of Jesus, the reverse did not happen: the human consciousness of Jesus only
progressively and always limitedly, until the turning point of his glorification, acquired
the cognitive perfection and self-awareness of the Logos, which in him functioned as an
infinite unconscious unclosing itself over time. "The Logos, the divine nature of Jesus,
revealed wisdom to his human nature in harmony with physical development"262. "What
did Jesus know? He knew, initially, what a village boy learnt, who listened to the Rabbis,
and made the best of his opportunities. But of this knowledge, scanty as we should think
it, he made a divinely perfect use. It became in his head the alphabet of ideas through
which the spirit within him spelt out the truth of what he was, and what he had to do. It
was not saved from factual errors in matters irrelevant. He was not prevented from
supposing that Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch, or that the world had begun five
thousand years ago. But he saw in detail day by day with an unerring eye how to be a true
Son to his Father, and a true savior of his people. He walked in factual darkness by
spiritual light. Where knowledge was not available, love and candor steered him through.
He never judged wrong in the evidence he had; he discerned between good and evil, and
marked us out the path of life. He started, like the rest of us, from nowhere - from a germ
in the womb. He found the whole truth, through death and resurrection"263.

As a man, he shared the intellectual limitations proper to humanity and in particular to his
cultural environment. This 'ignorance' of Jesus included Jewish religious conceptions
within which the first inculturation of Christian truth took place with the adaptation to the
traditional ideas of a particular people, since in his kénōsis the Logos was in consonance
with the limitations inherent in the culture where he preferred to incarnate himself. A
fundamental aspect, so far disregarded, of the unsounded divine kénōsis is the unavoidable

ignorance of Jesus in the kénōsis (Patrologia Graeca LXXV 369 - See Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus: Waves of
Renewal in Christology, New York 1990, p. 46). This is the voluntary exinanition or self-limitation of the Logos,
his spontaneous imprisonment in the cultural cage of I century Palestine. He emptied himself (Phil 2:7): from
the Son of the divine Father to the son of his time. "If we take the Incarnation seriously, Jesus is the son of his
people and his time" (Torleif Elgvin, "The Scrolls and the Jewish Gospel", in Mishkan, 44 - 2005, p. 4).

262 Telesphora Pavlou, Saggio di Cristologia neo-ortodossa, Roma 1995, p. 142. The quoted passage reports the
thought of the Greek theologian Panayotis Trempelas (1886-1977).

263 Austin Farrer, The Brink of Mystery, Eugene 20122, pp. 20, 21. See also Sergius Bulgakov, The Lamb of God,
Grand Rapids, 2008, p. 253+; Andrew Ter Ern Loke, A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation, Farnham, SRY, 2014;
and two volumes of David W. Brown: Divine Humanity: Kenosis Explored and Defended, London 2011; God in a
Single Vision: Integrating Philosophy and Theology, London-New York 2016.

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need for the Logos, determined to humanize himself, to embody his message ad modum
recipientis in a structurally inadequate particular human culture. With an expression
echoing Hegel, one might indicate as "cunning of the Logos" the divine predisposition of a
cultural tradition - realized mainly by leveraging multifarious frustrations - that let itself
be understood also by the man Jesus and the Apostles, in line with criteria linked to the
times, as a natural preparation for the coming of God among us. The Christian conception
did not appear ex abrupto, almost as if it were an ideological Deus ex machina portentously
intruded into the affairs of mankind, but came to light, in a supernally predetermined
natural way, from a complex evolution, whose stages, conditioned by the historical
circumstances, bear the mark of fragility and contingency. Jesus’s conviction of being the
Messiah and divine sprang up primarily from the personal relationship with the Father,
but it got hold of documentary support in the Tanakh, which was creatively interpreted264.

The Baptism of Jesus (an event passed over in silence by John, who speaks only of the
Baptist's testimony). The synoptics report a voice that was heard, without specifying by
whom (it is supposed by many people), and, more or less clearly, they suggest that it was
Jesus who saw the Spirit descend, while in John it is the Baptist who testifies that he saw
him descend on Jesus. Absorbed in prayer, Jesus sees a dove above him and regards it,
along the lines of a symbolism accepted at the time, but obscure for us265, as a sign of the
Holy Spirit. The dove is also seen by onlookers and there are those who, like the Baptist,
interpret it in the same way266.

264 From this we can infer a principle of general validity: the 'truth' of the sacred scriptures of any religion
resides not so much in the historical and scientific reliability of their theoretical framework as in the
effectiveness of their emotional and moral grasp on the experience of God based on openness to infinity.
They are but fruitful instruments for setting up and implementing the personal project of perfecting one's
own humanity. As such, they necessarily involve the interpretative intervention of those who ad modum
recipientis, that is, in character with individual needs, expectations and limitations, draw from them. After
half a millennium, Luther’s principle 'Sola Scriptura' is in its last legs.

265 Cf Isaiah 11:2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him. In Qumran the expression of Isaiah is further clarified:
On the Messiah will rest the Holy Spirit (4Q287 3, 13). The symbolism of the dove is certainly in connection
with Gen 1:2 The Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters and Gen 8:11 The dove came back to him in the
evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. I think that the flutter of the dove in flight might
symbolize the slight noise of the breath of the Spirit (in Pentecost it is instead a thunderous roar of wind, in
proportion to the number of receptors). In 1 Kings 19:12 God is manifested in the gentle whisper of the
breeze.

266 John F. MacArthur, taking up previous exegetical insights (cf Charles Milo Connick, Jesus: The Man, the
Mission, and the Message, Englewood Cliffs 1974, p. 150), interprets the like a dove of Mark 1:10 not as if it were
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I think it is probable that the course of events was as follows. As Jesus comes out of the
water, the heavens open, that is, a protracted flash of light is produced and a globe of light
descends on him with the graceful lightness of a dove (a case of globular lightning, which
can also occur in clear skies). This is followed by a thunder or the roar of the exploded
globe. The rest is an interpretation, in compliance with the canons of the time, of a sēméion
(sign, portent) that might not be accidental.

Thunder is accounted as the divine voice of assent (this function may be traced already in
Homer, Odyssey XX 103)267. Since in the Jordan, according to the expectations of those
present, the best candidate to receive the Spirit was precisely the Son of God, that roar
might have no other meaning: "This is my beloved Son".

Of a splendor speak the Gospel of the Ebionites (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.13.7: Immediately
a great light shone in that place) and Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 88 3: A fire was lit in
the Jordan). The codices Vercellensis and Sangermanensis to Matthew's account add
respectively Lumen ingens circumfulsit de aqua and Lumen magnum fulgebat de aqua268. In the
Eastern liturgy, on the initiative of St Gregory of Nazianzus269, the commemoration of
Jesus’ Baptism is styled ‚the feast of lights"270.

"in the appearance of a dove", but in a more nuanced way: "Mark simply meant that the Spirit descended
upon Jesus in a certain visible form with the same delicate gentleness as a dove that rests slightly on the
perch" (New Testament Commentary, Vol. V, Panorama City 2015, ad locum).

267 The thunder appears on another occasion (John 12:28-29): Then a voice came from heaven, ‚I have glorified it,
and I will glorify it again‛. The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‚An angel has
spoken to him‛. The interpretation of thunder was common practice at Qumran (Brontologion, 4Q318). "From
the perspective of the peoples of the ancient Middle East, the thunder was the manifestation of God’s voice"
(David N. Freedman, Allen C. Myers and Astrid B. Beck, Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, cit., p. 1306). In
Sinai, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder (Exod 19:19). In Revelation: He gave a great shout,
like a lion roaring. And when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I
was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‚Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not
write it down‛ (10: 3-4).

268 James H. Charlesworth, "Tatian's Dependence Upon Apocryphal Traditions", in The Heythrop Journal 15.1 -
1974, p. 14.

269 Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries,
Grand Rapids, 2009 p. 592.

270 On the neglected theme of light in the baptism of Jesus see Gabriele Winkler, "Die Licht-Erscheinung bei
der Taufe Jesu und der Ursprung des Epiphaniefestes. Eine Untersuchung griechischer, syrischer,
armenischer und lateinischer Quellen", in Oriens Christianus, 78 - 1994, pp. 177-229.

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The expression of Mark 1:10 Jesus saw the heavens torn apart recalls Ezekiel 1:1, 4 As I was
among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God< As I
looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire
flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. The
descent on Jesus of the Spirit in the form of fire was appropriate for him who, in the words
of the Baptist, would baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire (en Pnéumati hagíō k{i pyrí, Matt
3:11; Luke 3:16). The mention of fire, absent in Mark 1:8, comes from Q271, a source closer to
the facts. It is to be remembered, by the way, that the connection between Pneuma and fire
was a cornerstone of Stoic doctrine272.

An experience similar to that of Jesus in the Jordan would have been lived, according to
Dio Chrysostom (ca. 40 - 115 AD), by Zarathustra while meditating on the summit of a
mountain: "Zoroaster, caught up in his passion for wisdom and justice, left his
companions and retired to a mountain. It caught fire because of an impetuous flame that
descended from heaven and burned there unceasingly... Zoroaster came out unharmed
from the flame... and made sacrifices to testify that God had come down to that place"
(Orations 36 40). Martin L. West273 reasons that Dio's account is influenced by Stoic

271 Daniel Frayer-Griggs, Saved Through Fire: The Fiery Ordeal in New Testament Eschatology, Eugene, 2016, p.
138.

272 "The influence of Stoicism on Judaism would have inevitably led to frequent and fascinating
transformations in the Jewish conception of the spirit" (John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit, Grand Rapids,
2009, p. 137). In Seneca (ca. 4 BC - 65 AD) we read stunning expressions: "God is near you, with you, within
you... A divine spirit dwells within us" (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium 41 1-2). For the influence of Stoic
theories on the New Testament I refer to Troels Engberg-Pedersen, "A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in
Paul", in Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Henrik Tronier, eds., Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity, København
2007, pp. 101-123 (in the same volume there are other interesting contributions); Gitte Buch-Hansen, "It is the
Spirit That Gives Life": A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John's Gospel, Berlin 2010; Tuomas Rasimus, Troels
Engberg-Pedersen and Ismo Dunderberg, eds., Stoicism in Early Christianity, Grand Rapids 2010; Teun
Tieleman, "The Spirit of Stoicism", in Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, eds., The Holy Spirit..., cit., pp. 39-62.
Troels Engberg-Pedersen in John and Philosophy: A New Reading of the Fourth Gospel, Oxford 2017, proposes a
Stoic reading of the Fourth Gospel, centered on the identity of Logos and Pneuma. An enlightening quote:
"Jesus was fully a human being... On the other side, he was also identified as 'the Son of God' by John the
Baptist when he, Jesus, received the Spirit (or Pneuma) from God. From then on, as Jesus Christ, Jesus was
also the (bearer of the) Logos (God's plan for the world), which had been with God from the beginning, but
which was fixed in Jesus precisely when he received the pneuma" (p . 30). I agree, as long as "receiving" is
meant as "becoming aware".

273 "The Classical World", in Michael Stausberg and Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, eds., The Blackwell
Companion to Zoroastrianism, Malden, Ma, 20015, p. 447.

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conceptions and the biblical passage of the burning bush (Exod 3:2). The latter, however,
proves that the Shekinah274 materializes in fire.

Ultimately, what really matters in Baptism is the fact that at that moment, while absorbed
in prayer, Jesus intuits in the glow and the thunder the plain signs of the mission
entrusted to him by the Father. At that precise point of time he becomes fully aware that
he is God’s beloved Son275, the chosen one sent to redeem the world through preaching
and Passion276.

In the Transfiguration the apostles saw, next to Jesus, Moses and Elijah, two figures who
today are looked on as legendary. It is well known that vision is interpreted in harmony
with background and expectations277. The apostles recognized the two, for the reason that
they were culturally hardwired to see just them. Mystical vision has a strong component
of subjective interpretation: in other words, it is the product of a faith that already exists or
at least of a latent expectation278.

274 The term is found in rabbinical writings, but the concept of the manifestation of God and His Spirit to men
is undoubtedly biblical.

275 Naturally within the I century Jewish mindset, not in the light of later Christological disputes.

276 The addition Today I have begotten you to the voice from above, present in the ancient codices of Matthew
and Luke and in the Gospel of the Ebionites (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.13.7), alludes to the achieved self-
awareness of Jesus, who, at the sight of the unusual phenomenon, is convinced that he himself is the
recipient of the words of Psalm 2:7 You are my Son. Today I have begotten you. My thesis, far removed from
adoptionism, does not deny the pre-existence of the Logos, but emphasizes the awareness of the divine
filiation, which occurred on that day in the man Jesus. In general, the events that in the eyes of a I century
Jew stood out in a scenario well in view, the stage of imposing 'objective' interactions between heaven and
earth, today, in a process of internalization, must be considered in their subjective or psychological truth,
with God who comes into contact with man (even with the man Jesus) in the sanctuary of conscience.

277 "The society, country, or culture of origin influences the way in which the visionary interprets an
experience. In their ecstatic trance experience of Jesus’ Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), the disciples identified
the two men talking with him as Moses and Elijah, not Zeus and Apollo" (John J. Pilch, Visions and Healing in
the Acts of the Apostles: How the Early Believers Experienced God, Collegeville 2004, p. 3).

278 See Felicitas Goodman, Maya Apocalypse: Seventeen Years with the Women of a Yucatan Village, Bloomington,
In, 2001, p. 9. According to Bruce J. Malina ("The Transfiguration of Jesus: An Experience of Alternate
Reality", in Philip F. Esler, ed., Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its
Context, London-New York 1995, p. 61; "Assessing the Historicity of Jesus' Walking on the Sea: Insights from
Cross-Cultural Social Psychology", in Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Activities
of Jesus, Leiden 2002 p. 366), the perception that the three disciples had of Jesus transfigured "seems similar
to the current ASC experience of a person's 'aura'".
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As for Jesus’ prophecies about the end of Jerusalem, some consider them ex eventu. But let
us ponder on one point. In order to guess what would happen to Jerusalem, given the
situation of endemic revolt, there was no need for one to be a particularly inspired
prophet. It was enough to know the impatience spreading in Palestine to sense that sooner
or later the Romans would react with devastating brutality, consistent with a well-known
practice. Those who contemplated the splendor of Herod's Temple, whose construction
had already taken decades and which would be completed only in 64 AD, could not help
but grieve, foreboding its imminent ruin.

Jesus gazed at Jerusalem from afar and his eyes filled with tears. You may bet he wasn't
the only one. Rabbinic literature279 has left us with the memory of Rabbi Zadok, who in 30
AD (notice the date) began an ineffectual forty-year fast, feeding only at night, just to avert
the demolition of the Temple, an eventuality that was patently written in the stars.

Humanity of Jesus. Besides being born and dying, Jesus is hungry (Matt 4:2) and thirsty
(John 19:28); he feels tired (John 4:6) and exhausted (Luke 23:26); he is tempted by the
devil (Mark 1:12-13 - Matt 4:1-11 - Luke 4:1-13)280; he feels our own emotions, so much so
that he cries several times: on Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), on Lazarus (John 11:35); he loses his
temper in the face of his Father’s house turned into a market (John 2:15); he marvels at the
faith of the centurion (Matt 8:10); he broadens the perspective of his mission, letting
himself be convinced, near Tyre, by a pagan woman (Mark 7:24-30 - Matt 15:21-28)281; he

279 Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56a.

280 In order for temptations to make sense and not to result in a dull play with a predictable happy ending,
the man Jesus had to ignore that it was constitutionally impossible for him to fall into sin (Paul Copan, That's
Just Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith, Grand Rapids, 2001, p. 140).

281 "Although this appeared to be contrary to God's command attested to by tradition, Jesus changed his
mind. Because this woman's desperate need could not wait any longer, he changed the divine plan,
enlarging the Lord's table to include the Canaanite woman of vigorous and tenacious faith... Her faith was
proof of God's will to include the Gentiles in the congregation of believers, and it was through her testimony
that Jesus' capacity for understanding expanded. From that moment on his ministry was no longer the
same‛ (Helen Bruch Pearson, Do What You Have the Power to Do: Studies of Six New Testament Women, Eugene
20152, p. 83). Sundry scholars have poked fun at Mark's purportedly vague and incorrect geographical
notions when he brought Jesus back to Galilee from Tyre via Sidon and the Decapolis (Mark 7:31). In reality
this tortuous itinerary through pagan districts reveals a change of perspective, confirmed by the healing of
the deaf-mute in the territory of the Decapolis (Mark 7:32-37). See Kelly R. Iverson, Gentiles in the Gospel of
Mark: 'Even the Dogs Under the Table Eat the Children’s Crumbs', London-New York 2007, p. 57+.

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ignores the precise date of the end (Mark 13:32; cf Acts 1:7); he prays to the Father282 (Mark
1:35-39; 6:45, 46 - Matt 6:9-13 - Luke 3:21; 6:12, 13; 9:28, 29; 11:1-4; 22:32 - John 17:1-26); he
offers prayers and supplications accompanied by high cries and tears (Heb 5:7); he places
his trust in God (Heb 2:13); in Gethsemane he endures horror and anguish (Mark 14:33 -
Luke 22:44); on the cross he feels abandoned to himself (Mark 15:34 - Matt 27:46), but
entrusts his spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46)283.

Many critics argue that Jesus did not foresee the mission to the Gentiles (i.e., the
evangelization of the heathen), as he believed the end was close at hand. Jesus in Matthew
begins preaching in Galilee. The evangelist freely quotes Isa 8:23-9:1, where Galilee is said
to be inhabited by pagan people. Even if it is admitted that there was a majority284 of Jews
in I century AD, it might be defined in any case a multicultural region and, although
perhaps not fully intentionally, Jesus' message reached the local Gentiles to some extent285.
The target of Jesus' saving message, as we have just seen, had spread from the original
mission to the Jews286 long before Paul appeared on the scene287.

The preaching and death of Jesus was the prerequisite for the salvation of the Gentiles,
fulfilling the scriptural eschatological hopes. If we refer back to the Messianic passages288,
it is plain that Israel's future salvation will coincide with the salvation of the pagan
nations, who will recognize YHWH as their God and turn to Jerusalem and the Jewish

282 Jesus' prayer was often solitary and intensified in moments of crisis and decision.

283 On the humanity of Jesus see Patrick Henry Reardon, The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth about the
Humanity of Christ, Nashville, Tn, 2012; Bruce A. Ware, The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Reflections on the
Humanity of Christ, Wheaton, Il, 2013; Victor Copan, Changing your Mind: The Bible, the Brain, and Spiritual
Growth, Eugene, 2016, pp. 39-47. Finally, a text with a provocative title: Ken Evers-Hood, The Irrational Jesus:
Leading the Fully Human Church, Eugene 2016, esp. pp. 41-50.

284 See Mark A. Chancey, The Myth of a Gentile Galilee, Cambridge 2004.

285 In Mark 5:1-20 the story of the Gerasene demoniac, set in the Decapolis, is rich in theological implications:
"When Jesus entrusts the healed demoniac with the task of telling in his country what God has done for him,
he sends him to the Decapolis, a pagan territory, and thus validates the preaching of the Gospel to the non-
Jews" (David L. Bartlett, Fact and Faith: Coming to Grips with Miracles in the New Testament, Eugene 20072, p.
43). Jesus visited the Decapolis many a time.

286 Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.... I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:5, 6; 15:24).

287 See Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission, London 2008.

288 The Messiah will rule the pagan nations: Psalm 2: 4-9 - Psalm 110: 5, 6 - Isa 45: 21-23 - Dan 7: 9-27.

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Messiah for guidance. The whole world will worship YHWH. The salvation of the Gentiles
should not be seen as a mere appendage of Israel's salvation, but as an integral part of it.
In conformity with the Christian proposal, against the warlike proclamations of the
prophets, there was no need for a military defeat of the Kittim and associated peoples to
achieve it. The kingdom of Jesus is a domain of grace and truth, not a political-military
one289.

When Paul began to preach, the mission to the Gentiles was already underway. The
problem was on terms. Around 35 AD the Hellenistic Christians preached to the Gentiles
in Antioch. Peter proclaimed the Gospel among Samaritans and Gentiles. Christianity
reached Rome before Paul (the 40s). There were many missions to the Gentiles, with
different ideas and proposals.

The self-proclamation of the Messiah. The most important Gospel episode in this regard
took place in the synagogue of Nazareth, when Jesus took the scroll of Isaiah and read: The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has
sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go
free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Isa 61:1- 2, but also 35:5 e 58:6). Jesus announces
to the stumped audience: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Luke 4:16-30 -
cf Mark 6:1-6 and Matt 13: 53-58).

From imminent kingdom to immanent kingdom. April D. DeConick with this witty play
on words formulates the suspicion that some Christian currents, faced with the failure of
expectations, performed a perfect about-turn. Jesus would have only preached the
imminence of God's kingdom, connected to the end of the world. When a few generations
had passed to no avail, those Christians would have come up with the idea that the
kingdom, without thunder and lightning and other apocalyptic scenarios, had already
been established in the hearts and minds of the believers (immanent kingdom).

Jesus instead taught both things. The saying that not even the Son knows the hour of the
end of time is thought to be authentic, precisely on the basis of the principle of
embarrassment, as Jesus confesses an 'ignorance' of which neither he nor the disciples
could be proud. That of the end of time was a refrain that the Essenes had been repeating
for decades, and the return of the prophecy was proof of it, on the authority of the
creatively interpreted prediction of Joel 2:28-32: Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all

289 On this subject I would like to point out a volume by Simon J. Joseph that accentuates the non-violent
character of the revolution furthered and fostered by Jesus: The Nonviolent Messiah: Jesus, Q, and the Enochic
Tradition, Minneapolis 2014.

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flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your
young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, Lord is upon me, in those days, I
will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and
columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for
in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among
the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

The end of time was looming. The Baptist, Jesus and Paul shared this belief. As the crisis
deepened, the apocalypse seemed closer, but the date could not be fixed exactly. For Jesus,
though close, it was still placed after his death, since he himself had to appear in the
clouds of heaven. Let's say that it was expected for the near future, but in a fairly nebulous
way290. Rather, it was to be regarded as a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of
mankind, and capable, with the terror that it aroused, of pushing to repentance. As for the
precise time, Jesus does not hesitate to admit that only the Father knows it (an idea also
present in Zechariah 14:7, Psalms of Solomon 17:21, 2 Baruch 21:8) and that it is therefore
hidden from him.

Paul in 1 Thess first thinks that the end will come while he is still alive (4:17), but in 5:1-3
clearly confesses that he isn’t able to indicate the date291. What matters is that the Christian
is always awake and ready (So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and
be sober, 5:6)292.

As for the immanent kingdom, there is no doubt that Jesus himself taught it, without
waiting for the next disciples to do so after the failure of the prophecies about the end293:
The kingdom of God has come to you (Matt 12:28 - Luke 11:20) - the kingdom of God is among
you (Luke 17:21). The kingdom of God he preached made no sense if it was to be
established only after the doomsday. It consisted instead in the creation of a community of

290 Armed with patience, the Qumranites were bracing for a long wait: The final period will be prolonged and
will go beyond what the prophets have said, because the mysteries of God are surprising (1QpHab 7.7f).

291 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you.
For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‚There is
peace and security‛, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and
there will be no escape!

292 The refrain of the imminence of the end aimed tactically at shaking the conscience.

293 See Douglas W. Kennard, Messiah Jesus: Christology in His Day and Ours, New York 2008, p. 216.

104
the elect, which later had to be presented pure and upright to the Rhadamanthine
judgment. To build this Yahad, Jesus ground away. This could not be a short-term
prospect, if the final verdict was not to come across as an almost general condemnation, a
whacking, humongous and inhuman massacre worthy of a Moloch and not of a merciful
God as announced by Christ. He strove to change society before the judgment came and
the task could not be a matter of a few years. There is an interval between the life of Jesus
and the end of the world. It is represented in Matt 28:19, 20 by the mission to the Gentiles.
Eschatologists were also the Teacher of Righteousness and the Baptist. Yet they created
movements bound to last294.

Passages that demonstrate the expansion of the concept of the suffering righteous (even if
the idea of atonement is not explicit) may be found in the Martyrdom of Isaiah295, a work
with heavy Christian interpolations (even Jesus, the twelve apostles and the resurrection
are adduced). The oldest original parts are 1:1-3:12 and 5:1-16 and I will make exclusive
reference to them. Although no traces of the work have been discovered in Qumran, the
critics see the Essene mark in the accentuated dualism between the Holy Spirit and the
spirit of evil, in the names of the latter (Satan, Sammael, Beliar, Mekembekus or
Matanbukus), in the criticism against the false prophets and the ruling class of Jerusalem,
as well as in the intrusive allusion to the retreat of Isaiah to the wilderness296.

It is not hard to see in the Martyrdom of Isaiah the persecution suffered by the Teacher of
Righteousness and his community.

And Belkira297 accused Isaiah and the prophets who were with him, saying: ‚Isaiah and the prophets
who are with him prophesy against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that they will be laid
waste and also against Benjamin that it will go into captivity, and also against you, o lord king,

294 An interpretation advocated by Nicholas Thomas Wright (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. II:
Jesus and the Victory of God, Minneapolis 1996, p. 320+) coincides the threat of imminent judgment with the
prophecy of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. It would therefore not be a universal
cataclysm, but the easily foreseeable catastrophe of the Jewish world.

295 I abide by the text edited and translated by Michael A. Knibb, in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. II, Peabody, Ma, 2011, pp. 143-176.

296 See Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth, Princeton 1987, pp. 208-210. Isaiah would
seek refuge in the desert in a futile attempt to elude King Manasseh's persecution. In Qumran with this name
a group of enemies of the Essene community were labeled, probably the Sadducees, linked to the
Hasmonean kings.

297 In some manuscripts, Malkira.

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that you will go bound with hooks and iron chains. But they prophesy lies against Israel and Judah.
And Isaiah himself has said: 'I see more than Moses the prophet'. But Moses said: 'There is no man
who can see the Lord and live'. But Isaiah has said: 'I have seen the Lord and behold I am alive'.
Know, therefore, o king, that they are false prophets. And he called Jerusalem Sodom, and the
princes of Judah and Jerusalem he has declared to be the people of Gomorrah‛298. And he brought
many accusations against Isaiah and the prophets before Manasseh. But Beliar dwelt in the heart of
Manasseh and in the heart of the princes of Judah and Benjamin and of the eunuchs and of the
king’s counselors. And the words of Belkira pleased him very much, and he sent and seized Isaiah<
And Manasseh sawed him asunder with a wood-saw. And when Isaiah was being sawed in half, his
accuser, Belkira, stood up, and all the false prophets stood by, laughing and joyful because of Isaiah.
And Belkira, through Mekembekus, stood before Isaiah, laughing and deriding; And Belkira said to
Isaiah: ‚Say: 'I have lied in everything I have spoken; the ways of Manasseh are good and right, and
also the ways of Belkira and those who are with him are good'‛. And he said this to him when he
began to be sawed in half< And Isaiah was in a vision of the Lord, but his eyes were open, and he
saw them. And to the prophets who were with him he said before he had been sawed in half: 'Go to
the district of Tyre and Sidon, because for me alone the Lord has mixed the cup'. And when Isaiah
was being sawed in half, he did not cry out, or weep, but his mouth spoke to the Holy Spirit until he
was sawed in two [From chapters 3 and 5].

This work, perhaps mentioned in Heb 11:37 ("they were sawn in two"), was certainly known
to Jesus. In my opinion, an echo may also be caught in the Gospels, which emphasize the
parallelism between Isaiah and Jesus: the prophecy of his own death; the prediction of the
ruin of Jerusalem; the alleged superiority over Moses for having seen God without dying299
and therefore the proclamation of his divine nature; the tree connected to the execution;
the mockery of priests; the cup to drink; dying in prayer; the concern for his
companions300.

298 In Jer 23:14 the prophets and the inhabitants of Jerusalem are compared with Sodom and Gomorrah.

299 But, he said, you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live (Exod 33:20).

300
Bart J. Koet, "Isaiah in Luke-Acts", in Steve Moyise and Maarten J. J. Menken, eds., Isaiah in the New
Testament: The New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel, London-New York 2005, p. 98, wonders: "Might it be
that Isaiah and his death were one of the models for Luke's portrayal of Jesus' life?‛. On the contrary, I
surmise that Jesus consciously wanted to inspire his own life to the models known to him in the Martyrdom
of Isaiah and in the Songs of the Suffering Servant, just as he purposefully made choices that would accredit
him in the eyes of the Jews as the fulfiller of messianic prophecies (for example, entering Jerusalem
triumphantly on a colt, according to the prediction of Zechariah 9:9 - cf. John Schultz, The Gospel of John, Lula,
Ga, 2013, p. 115). Mordecai Schreiber asserts: ‚Jesus himself modeled his life after the life of Jeremiah<
106
Like Isaiah (6:8-10), Jesus felt himself to be sent by God to a people stubborn in their
disbelief from which he expected a violent end, like that of the son killed by the workers of
the vineyard (Mark 12:6). To accomplish the prophetic mission entrusted to him, he was
ready to give his life. For the Jewish establishment the prophecy had long since ended and
the new prophets might only be impostors deserving to be executed on the authority of
the aforementioned precept of Deuteronomy. The persecutions to which the Teacher of
Righteousness had been subjected constituted a precedent. Jesus therefore was bracing for
the worst301, since he was convinced, in accordance with a tradition of which the
Martyrdom of Isaiah was undoubtedly an integral part, that all the prophets had to die a
violent death302 and that it was impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of
Jerusalem303.

In 5:4-9 Belkira acts as if he were Satan in human form and tempts Isaiah as Satan will
tempt Jesus. Isaiah's death, his steadfastness, is a victory over Satan and this plays a role in
redeeming the world. The martyrdom of Jesus is the abyss of kénōsis and therefore the
climax of the triumph of the losers over the hýbris [overconfidence, foolish pride] of the
victors. It is a new world that begins, a new way of seeing and living, the exaltation - with
deeds and words - of values that are antithetical to those of the rulers of the world, the
demonic beings who hold the cosmos under their heel (the kosmokrátores of Eph 6:12304).
The resurrection is the visualization of the victory of kénōsis over the diabolical hýbris, a
victory that is implemented in the spread of a new conviction, of new means offered by
the Church to defeat Satan and above all thanks to the transmission of the Holy Spirit - the
engine of grace -, which took place precisely in the act of Jesus' death: parédōke to Pnéuma.
The salvation of the world is the Holy Spirit, his transmission in and through the Church.

using Isaiah chapter 53 as his guide‛ (‚The Real Suffering Servant‛, in Jewish Bible Quarterly, 37.1 - 2009, p.
43).

301 Luke 12:50: I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! See Craig
S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, Grand Rapids 2009, p. 301.

302 The end of the Baptist only confirmed this belief.

303 Luke 13:33. See Friedrich Avemarie and Jan Willem van Henten, Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts
from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity, London 2005, p. 93.

304 See Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul's Letters, Downers Grove 20092,
p. 53+.

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In my opinion, this is the most insightful interpretation of redemption. The terms that Paul
uses are those of the cultures (Hellenistic and Jewish) to which he belonged. Those were
the means then available. Now perhaps we are more mature to leave behind those
categories (of the 'wrath of God' type) that are not false, but insufficient, given that they
are linked to a certain stage of development of the human spirit, and to try to offer an
updated version that can touch the heart and mind of contemporary man. At the very
instant in which Jesus transmits his Spirit to us - with grace - we become new creatures,
victorious over the devil and his recurring manifestations.

Leviticus 17:11: For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making
atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. The
firstborn was killed by the Canaanites to propitiate Moloch. In the episode of Abraham
and Isaac, the young man is spared and in his place a ram is sacrificed, which prefigures
the scapegoat. This ancient concept, with some transformations, is the basis of
substitutionary atonement [vicarious expiation]. The offering of the life of the unconscious
firstborn saved the people. It was later replaced by the voluntary sacrifice of the martyr.
But facing martyrdom, both for Isaiah and for Jesus, means revolutionizing the world,
making it pass from subjection to Satan (ignorance, bestiality305, pleasures - in a word,
petty selfishness) to the ethics of sacrifice, which is the source of redemption for others.

Rather than laying stress on the sin of Adam and the wrath of the Father, on the
condemnation of the world at large, on the God on the one hand avenger and on the other
so good as to offer his Son as atonement, it may be said that Jesus (like Isaiah) undergoes
martyrdom to overwhelm Satan, the figure of blind egotism, and thus saves the world. He
spreads with his death a new current that with that announcement (which is the invitation
to aim higher, even at the cost of giving, following his example, life) saves humans, frees
them from the clutches of wickedness. If the doctrine of Jesus moved the apostles, the
example of his death dragged them to imitation, to become, in turn, redeemers of the
world, introducing, into that system of communicating vessels that is mankind, the blood
of martyrdom, the thrust upwards, towards the complete humanization of man.

The martyrdom of the prophet is seen in the Martyrdom of Isaiah as the supreme moment in
which two opposing powers face each other: Satan in the guise of Belkira and the Holy
Ghost who talks to Isaiah, comforting him in his trial. There a cosmic struggle takes place.
The Holy Spirit is the divine power (unleashed by the death of Christ) that gives us the

305 "The immense sea of blood that gushes from your heart is the place where sinners are immersed. It is in
the blood of your pain that they are purified" (Alexandrina, Diary 8 December 1944).

108
impulse to divinization, which is the meridian of the same process of humanization,
consisting in acquiring intelligent love. In Satan I see the spirit of brutal greed, of
ingenuity used as a noose to strangle oneself, of the conscious and unconscious forces that
keep us in the trenches of unhappy bestiality, of enjoying the misfortunes of others, of
psychological isolation, of disorder, of greed, of ambition, of hate, of pleasure as an
anesthetic antithetical to vision. Isaiah inflicts a partial defeat on demonic powers. Only
with Jesus the defeat is total, because in him God manifests himself and remains to
support us in our personal struggle through the Holy Spirit who animates his Church and
therefore each one of us.

The meaning of original sin must be reinterpreted in this light. It is the narrow natural
selfishness over which the awareness of unity with God, and thus divinization, must
triumph. With his sacrifice Jesus saves me, but not without my knowing it. He saves me,
whereas with faith (and any other gift of the Spirit) he offers me a chance. It is up to me to
seize it. Grace acts in profusion through the Church, inasmuch as it is precisely the Church
that proposes imitation of and fusion with Christ, the elevation to the divine, in the ways
most appropriate to each Christian. It is necessary to deepen our understanding of the
concrete ways of charismatic action, which are profoundly psychological and certainly
mysterious, but which take place in the meanders of our soul through the heft of words,
examples, readings306, trials of suffering, encounters: in all of this is present the salvific
plan of God that in the death of Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection had its Big Bang,
the universal explosion of which we still feel the effects. Not killing for the faith307, but
dying for faith; not talk and pomp, but sacrifice that saves us and others, for on the
shoulders of the believer weighs not only the guilt for which he is directly accountable, but
also the evil of the whole world, which demands atonement, and so in every personal
sacrifice is reflected and reverberated that one of the cross.

306 The action of grace is not comparable to the dragging of a corpse. Rather, it is an impulse towards the
conscious and convinced formulation of a new life project that can find rational justification and emotional
underpinning in the tendentious interpretation of the sacred texts. These, anyway, only offer the supporting
evidence to a drift already underway. Jesus (as a man) and the apostles discovered new meanings in the
Hebrew Scriptures, on the grounds that, since they were already bearers of a more radical existential project,
they could only read them with new eyes. Heedless of the authors’ intent, in them they sought and found
themselves, the justification of personal aspirations dictated by the Spirit. The case, already mentioned, of
Paul and Barnabas, who in Acts 13:46-48 interpret Isa 49:6 (I will give you as a light to the nations) in a way
functional for the planning of their mission in the world, is emblematic in this regard.

307 The Crusades were seen as Gesta Dei per Francos on the basis of the aforementioned Old Testament
passages inciting religious violence.

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 Isaiah, a fundamental text for Essenes and Christians. The more the research advances,
the more we understand the centrality of Isaiah for the origin of Christianity308, the heir,
also in this aspect, to the Essene movement. It is enough to take into account the large
number of copies of the prophecy found among the Dead Sea Scrolls to understand the
consideration in which it was held by those faithful who identified both the Teacher of
Righteousness and Israel (the "true" Israel, that is, the persecuted Yahad and therefore
each of its members309) in the Suffering Servant - perhaps a creation of theirs310. From the

308 John F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity, Cambridge 1996. Since ancient times,
Christians reckoned Isaiah to be more evangelist than prophet.

309 "The boundaries between the individual and the community appear fluid; the exemplary individual
embodies the community and this in turn can be represented by an ideal individual figure" (Martin Hengel
with Daniel P. Bailey, "The Effective History of Isaiah 53 in the Pre-Christian Period", in Bernd Janowski and
Peter Stuhlmacher, eds., The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Period, Grand Rapids 2004, p.
145). It should also be noted that, in the light of the interpretation presented in these pages, the Essene
Yahad, the "true" Israel, "my servant Israel" (49:3), could, without contradiction, assume the task of bringing
back to God Israel (49:5), that is, the totality, in a purely national sense, of that people. The Israel of 49:3 is to
be meant as a subset of the Israel of 49:5 (cf. Andrew E. Steinmann, Michael Eschelbach, Curtis Giese and
Paul Puffe, Called to Be God's People: An Introduction to the Old Testament, Eugene 2006, p. 522). On the atoning
value of suffering for the Qumranites see Nicholas T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. II:
Jesus and the Victory of God, Minneapolis 1996, pp. 581, 582.

310 The Songs of the Suffering Servant (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12) create four caesuras in the text of the
already pseudepigraphic Second Isaiah and constitute an evident insertion that interrupts the thread of
discourse. They describe the vocation and mission of the Servant (first two hymns) and the sufferings he
suffered (last two). Therefore, we may hold them as a prophecy only in the sense that the man, who
historically existed and was already dead at the time of the composition of the songs, acted, in the literary
transfiguration, as a foretelling and model for a future character who would choose to be inspired by him.
The only predictions - in the last song - concern the prize reserved for the Servant, who will be compensated
for the sacrifice and will see his community, the Yahad, perpetuate (he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong
his days, 53:10). A further confirmation of the pseudepigraphy: under the name of Isaiah hides itself the
Essene community that produced the four hymns, the same community that in the Martyrdom of Isaiah will
be projected into the final imaginary vicissitudes of the prophet. The Essene signature is, in my
opinion, to be found in Isa 53:9 They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich. The equalizing
between rich and criminals, accounted for by parallelism, leads back to the heirs of the Enochian tradition
who called themselves "the Poor" and considered the rich and powerful cursed by God (cf. Catherine M.
Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community, Leiden 2002, p. 45; David A. Fiensy,
Jesus the Galilean: Soundings in a First Century Life, Piscataway 2007, p. 113). Even an anagram pitched in: ‚*In
Hebrew], the consonants of 'wicked man' and 'rich man', are the same, though their order is reversed< The
assonance suggests ‚an association between wicked and rich‛ (Goldingay and Payne)‛ (David J. MacLeod,
The Suffering Servant of the Lord: A Prophecy of Jesus Christ, Eugene 20192, p. 108, n. 75). The exaltation, typical
of apocalyptic literature, of the poor, meek and oppressed (The People of God, Is 3:15), disseminated in
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persecution and death of the Servant of YHWH conjured up by the prophet the Essenes
passed to the paradigmatic persecution and death lived by the prophet. The variation is
realized in the Martyrdom of Isaiah, in which we no longer have to deal with the literary
character of the Suffering Servant, but it is the prophet himself who is presented as the one
who has incarnated in his life and death the destiny prefigured for any pious believer311.

Jesus' resurrection. The concept of resurrection - spread in Yehud by the Zoroastrian

conquerors - offered the righteous man a definitive justice, which would otherwise have
been denied to him. The passage 26:19 of Isaiah (Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.
O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will
give birth to those long dead.) is perhaps the first scriptural reference to resurrection. This
doctrine - though challenged by the Sadducees - caught on in Jewish consciousness in
various versions. The biblical predictions of the resurrection of the Messiah fall within the
creative interpretation312.

Psalm 16:10, 11 quoted by Peter in Acts (2:27-28) (For you will not abandon my soul to
Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of

numerous chapters, proves that the Essene manipulation of the prophetic text goes far beyond the Songs of
the Suffering Servant. On the other hand, it is untenable that the doctrine of vicarious atonement, so vividly
expressed by the most important of the prophets, after having been silenced by the later authors of the
Tanakh, as if by magic resurfaces in 2 Maccabees, an apocryphal text of the II century BC, not by chance the
same period in which the Teacher of Righteousness lived. In my opinion, the book of Isaiah in its nodal
points may be regarded as the self-representation, in a cryptic form, of the Yahad. To find the original core of
the prophetic text is today judged by scholars a virtually impossible task, as it lies buried under an avalanche
of expositive additions (Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary,
New York 2000, p. 90), having been repeatedly integrated and reinterpreted for centuries in the framework
of new historical developments (Richard L. Schultz, "How Many Isaiahs Were There and What Does It
Matter?", in Vincent E. Bacote, Laura C. Miguélez and Dennis L. Okholm, eds., Evangelicals & Scripture:
Tradition, Authority and Hermeneutics, Downers Grove 2004 p. 165).

311 In Acts 8:34, concerning the pains of the Suffering Servant, the eunuch asks Philip: About whom, may I ask
you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? "This would indicate that Luke knew the
interpretation that the prophet Isaiah, identified with the Servant, would be a model for Jesus" (Bart J. Koet,
"Isaiah in Luke-Acts", cit., p. 98).

312 See Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead<, cit. Of the same author: Resurrection: A Guide for the Perplexed,
London-New York 2016.

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life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence) does not certainly point only to the
Messiah, but generally to all hassidim313.

Misleading is the reference to Hosea 6:1-2, where the people, falsely repentant, says:
‚Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down,
and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that
we may live before him. This is the hope of the people, but from the context it seems clear
that God is unwilling to support it. Correctly, we have to see here the standpoint of
sinners, not the promise of God314.

When Matthew 12:40 creatively interprets the expulsion of Jonah, after three days, from
the belly of the cetacean as a prefiguration of Jesus’ resurrection, he makes a personal
addition to an older logion, as it is shown by the comparative analysis of the synoptics315.

Jesus, however, had often predicted his resurrection (Mark 8:31, 9:31; 10:33)316. In Mark
6:16 one wondered whether the Baptist had risen from the dead. Jesus' enemies also knew
that he had promised to rise (Matt 27:62-64). Jesus' forecasts are authentic, as the disciples
were flummoxed by the announcement (Mark 9:32). Only after the tomb was found empty
did the seed of faith deposited in their hearts by Jesus' words mature into the conviction
that the Master had risen.

From their faith is born ours. The risen Christ was and is present through the Spirit in the
community of the faithful. This is the fundamental experience for us believers. Jesus' death

313 In his speech in Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:16-41), Paul, apart from Psalm 16:10, appeals to two passages
(You are my Son. Today I have begotten you, Psalm 2:7 - I will give you the holy promises made to David, Isa 55:3)
from which it is hard to extract a hint at Jesus' resurrection without the talisman of creative interpretation.

314 It must be said that neither the New Testament nor the early Fathers of the Church explicitly link the
passage from Hosea with the resurrection of Jesus. The first to do so is Tertullian in Adversus Marcionem IV
43 1 and Adversus Iudaeos XIII 23 (W. Edward Glenny, Hosea: A Commentary based on Hosea in the Codex
Vaticanus, Leiden 2013, p. 111).

315 See Raymond E. Brown, "How Much Did Jesus Know? - A Survey of the Biblical Evidence‛, in Craig A.
Evans, ed., The Historical Jesus: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. Vol. III: Jesus' Mission, Death, and
Resurrection, London-New York 2004, p. 55.

316 Even if there were no scriptural attestations, it would be logical to assume them, because Jesus, convinced
of being a sharer in the divine nature, could not in the least think that the beloved Father would not save
him from the corruption of the tomb. Moreover, identifying himself with the Suffering Servant, he read Isa
53:10 (he shall prolong his days) and 11 (he shall see light) as prophecies of his own resurrection. See John D.
Barry, The Resurrected Servant in Isaiah, Colorado Springs 2010.

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was not the last page of the book for the disciples. After two millennia, we keep on leafing
through the book of his life, or better writing it, under the guidance of the Spirit.

Man shapes reality, or rather the perception of reality, in line with his personal cultural
assumptions. These act as an informing, shaping filter. It is a fact that the basic elements
remain firm, indeed very firm. In the Resurrection sticks out as certain the empty tomb
with the strips of linen lying inside. The rest is divine interpretative communication
emerging from the depths of consciousness, an inner voice, a lightning intuition, the
opening of a new horizon, enthusiasm that translates into vision317, into alternate state of
consciousness318, a state that is not illusory but revealing.

John. The Gospel of John319 by skeptics is considered the less valid in terms of history and
therefore the less reliable. On the contrary, there are many temporal markers320 and its
chronological reconstruction of the Last Supper and death is more precise. Spiritualization

317 Faith generates vision, and not contrariwise. Blessed are those who believe without seeing (John 20:29). The
believer will 'see' precisely by virtue of faith. God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all
the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses (Acts 10:40-41). The risen Jesus did not appear to the
unbelievers, given that in their stubbornness they would have devised pretexts of every sort to blot out the
value of the evidence: anyhow, they would not have seen him. The apparitions of the risen Jesus are
projections of faith, for the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). But purity of heart is already a
consequence of faith, as is deduced from Acts 15:9, where it is plainly stated that God purifies hearts with
faith (see Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts of the Apostles Through the Centuries, Chichester, SXW,
2017, p. 163). Biblical visions lend themselves to multiple explanations. Concerning Matthew 27:52-53 (The
tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they
came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many), I point out the trailblazing interpretation of
Kenneth L. Waters ("Matthew 27:52-53 as Apocalyptic Apostrophe: Temporal-Spatial Collapse in the Gospel
of Matthew", in Journal of Biblical Literature, 122.3 - 2003, pp. 489-515) who, rather than a historical account,
holds it to be an apocalyptic insert.

318 I do prefer 'alternate'/'alternative' to 'altered'. I use, however, 'alternate'/'alternative' in antithesis not to a

'normal' phantom state, but to other possible states.

319 On the Fourth Gospel I point out Mark W. G. Stibbe, John's Gospel, London 2002; Colin G. Kruse,The Gospel
According to John: An Introduction and Commentary, Grand Rapids 2004; Dwight M. Smith, The Fourth Gospel in
Four Dimensions, Columbia, SC, 2008; Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John's Gospel, Grand
Rapids 2008; James H. Charlesworth, Jesus as Mirrored in John: The Genius in the New Testament, London-New
York 2019; James H. Charlesworth and Jolyon G. R. Pruszinki, eds., Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in
Historical Inquiry, London-New York 2019.

320 For example, This temple has been under construction for forty-six years (2:20). We are in 27 AD, the beginning
of Jesus' mission.

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does not imply the repudiation of historicity321. John has his own geography. Bethany
beyond the Jordan, Aenon near Salim, Sychar, Gerizim, are names unknown to the other
Gospels. The description of the probatic pool with its five arcades has been substantiated
by excavations.

That of John immediately appears as a Gospel different from the synoptics. Only eight
disciples are mentioned in it and the term apostle (so dear to Paul, who proudly claimed
the title) is never used. Baptism, temptations in the desert, exorcisms, parables, the
Transfiguration, the confession of Peter You are the Messiah, the institution of the Eucharist,
the agony in Gethsemane, the cry of Jesus on the cross My God, my God, why have you
abandoned me? are lacking in the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, the wedding at Cana,
the episodes of Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the resurrection of Lazarus and the
washing of feet are exclusive to John, who moves the expulsion of the merchants from the
Temple to the beginning of Jesus' mission. This takes place more in Judea than in Galilee.
Jesus visits Jerusalem four times (only once in the synoptics). But the similarities are many,
even if the different tone of the exposition is undeniable. John wanted to make a selection
of the infinite things that could be said and authored a book in order to arouse or
strengthen faith (20:30-31; 21:25). Jesus makes long speeches within which, however, it is
possible to identify dozens of logia.

It is the Spirit that allows John to remember and live again in a true, insightful,
enlightening way the experience with Christ, so much so that he makes Jesus speak in his
own personal style. In fact, in his discourse with Nicodemus, strangely enough, Jesus
speaks of himself in the third person. It means that John puts in his mouth what he thinks
of him. Even the last six verses of chapter 3, assigned to the Baptist, are rather extensions
of the author. Scholars of Jesus Seminar have come to the conclusion that in all of his
Gospel there is not a single phrase historically spoken by Jesus. Even so, it does not mean,
however, that his reconstruction is false.

He draws on an oral tradition belonging to the beloved Disciple, presented as a witness

and author (indirectly) of the same Gospel. The Christ he gives us is that of the post-Easter
faith, an interpretation dictated by love.

He, more than facts, wants to give their meaning. For him the memory of the disciples is a
mixture of witness, remembrance, faith and Scripture. The Spirit is the living presence of

321 See the three volumes by Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just and Tom Thatcher, eds., Jesus, John, and History, SBL
Press, Atlanta, which appeared in 2007, 2009 and 2015.

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Christ in the community and it is by virtue of him that God's revelation in Christ is
available to all. John is not projected into the eschatological future. The eschatology is
already accomplished, eternal life is already here; eternity is now, immersed in history: the
hour is coming, and is now here (4:23). The Church is love, the place of God's manifestation.

Mutual indwelling is not pantheistic absorption or ecstatic condition, but communion with
God, fruitful of works. I quote the basic texts of mystical interpenetration in Paul and John:
you in God: Col 3:3; John 17:21; you in Christ 2 Cor 5:17; John 15:4-5; you in the Spirit Rom
8:9; John 4:23-24 - God in you Phil 2:13; John 14:23; Christ in you Col 1:27; John 14:18-20; the
Spirit in you 1 Cor 3:16; John 14:16-17. The Christian visionary receives divine glory by
suffering like Jesus on the cross, in order to be a witness (proclaimer). John's mysticism - to
be inserted in the framework of Jewish mysticism 322 - is communitarian, not personal:
achieved in common worship. For this reason his Gospel is esoteric, symbolic, allusive.
Often the truth is better conveyed by symbols, myths or narratives. The symbol in John is
a sensitive reality thanks to which the reader is personally involved in the transforming
experience of a transcendent mystery323. John's spirituality is contemplative, centered not
on institutions, but on life and union with God, beyond rituals, titles and formulas. The
theme of Jesus as the Lamb of God is encountered only in 1:29, 36 (words of the Baptist).
For the rest, Jesus is rather the good Shepherd than the sacrificial Lamb. More than the
Pauline theology of atonement, we find that of revelation, anticipated by Matthew 11:27:
No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to
whom the Son chooses to reveal him324.

The Acts of the Apostles. It is generally accepted that the author of the Acts is the same
author of Luke's Gospel and that the two works should be held as a whole. The history of
the early Church and her two main characters, Peter and Paul, is seen in the light of the
continuous intervention of the Holy Spirit who enlightens and enlivens the community of

322 Jey J. Kanagaraj, 'Mysticism' in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into Its Background, Sheffield 1998. Yet John, in
controversy with the Jewish visionary ascensions, sees in Jesus the earthly kavod, the manifestation of God's
glory in history (April D. DeConick, "John Rivals Thomas: From Community Conflict to Gospel Narrative",
in Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher, eds., Jesus in the Johannine Tradition, Louisville, Ky, 2001, p. 311). For
the relationship between John and Qumran I point out Mary L. Coloe and Tom Thatcher, eds., John, Qumran,
and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate, Atlanta 2011.

323 Sandra M. Schneiders, Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, New York
1999, p. 66.

324 Matthew here means Jesus as Wisdom personified. See Jon C. Laansma, 'I Will Give You Rest': The Rest
Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3-4, Eugene 20152, pp. 1-9.

115
believers and in particular its leaders. Someone defined the Acts as the epic of the Holy
Spirit.

According to Ernst von Dobschütz325, Pentecost must coincide with the last apparition of
the risen Jesus and the Ascension. A single fact would be divided by Luke - for the
convenience of the reader's understanding - into three distinct moments, which, however,
are logically interrelated: if Jesus appears for the last time, it means that immediately
thereafter he is no longer here, but reigns seated in the glory of the Father. On the other
hand, if Jesus has disappeared, that is not why he left us alone, since his promise to
continue to be among us through his Spirit cannot fail to be fulfilled326.

In the Ascension, the disciples saw Jesus rising to heaven until he was hidden by a cloud.
Luke transposes visually, according to the canons of the time327, a simple truth: since he
was no longer seen, Jesus had certainly ascended to the Father and someone from the
entourage comforted the apostles by reminding them that one day he would return. In
fact, the explanation given by the two men in white robes (two angels, or perhaps more
prosaically two Essenes328, given that, on the testimony of Flavius Josephus329, they wore
white) ‚Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been

325 Ostern und Pfingsten. Eine Studie zu 1. Korinther 15, Leipzig 1903.

326 Quite a few theologians maintain that in the experience of the believer no distinction may be made
between the exalted Christ and the Holy Spirit. Cf Ralph Del Colle, "The Triune God", in Colin E. Gunton,
ed., The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, Cambridge 2004, p. 125.

327 See Hans-Josef Klauck, Magic and Paganism in Early Christianity: The World of the Acts of the Apostles,
Edinburgh 2000, p. 6; Shelly Matthews, "Elijah, Ezekiel, and Romulus: Luke's Flesh and Bones (Luke
24:39) in Light of Ancient Narratives of Ascent, Resurrection, and Apotheosis", in George J. Brooke and Ariel
Feldman, eds., On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets through the Eyes of Their Interpreters, Berlin
2016, pp. 161-182. ‚Luke appeared to have composed his ascension story in antithetical parallel to the
apotheoses of emperors‛ (Peter Lampe, ‚Caesar, Moses and Jesus as 'God', 'godlike' or 'God’s Son':
Constructions of Divinity in Paganism, Philo and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World‛, in Francois
Tolmie and Rian Venter, Making Sense of Jesus: Experiences, Interpretations and Identities, Bloemfontein 2017, p.
23).

328 Most scholars allow that Jesus had Essene friends and disciples.

329 The Jewish War II 123; II 137. ‚The wearing of white clothes may have been part of an imitatio vitae
angelicae‛ (Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, ‚The White Dress of the Essenes‛, in Florentino García Martínez and
Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, eds., Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome: Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A.
Hilhorst, Leiden 2003, p. 312).
116
taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts
1:11) recalls Jesus' promise to return on the clouds of heaven as a righteous judge.

At Pentecost the Spirit of Jesus poured into the Church might only be perceived and
expressed biblically as wind and fire330, symbols of an exciting and life-giving force that
surmounts ethnic boundaries (the Apostles' discourse is translated into every language).
The transmission of the Spirit by Jesus - without wind or fire - is already attested to before
Pentecost: on the cross (Parédōke to pneuma, he handed over his spirit, NABRE/MOUNCE
John 19:30), in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday (He breathed on them and said to them,
‚Receive the Holy Spirit‛, John 20:22)331. At Pentecost did not occur the first outpouring of
the Spirit, but the first collective awareness, in a vibe of fervent mysticism, of his
indwelling power.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira evokes Essene communism. In this episode of
gruesome cruelty332 a message is hidden that has its counterpart in Matthew 12:31: People
will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
Luke (not coincidentally him) means that you absolutely must not lie to the Holy Spirit.

Thunderstruck on the road to Damascus. Besides some allusions in the Pauline Letters
(Gal 1:11-17 - Rom 7:7-25 - Phil 3:3-17 - 1 Tim 1:12-17), we have three accounts of Saul's

330 For a naturalistic explanation see Marek Szczerbiński, "Thunderstorm Electricity as the Probable Origin of
the Pentecost Kerygma", in Ruch Biblijny i Liturgiczny, 66.4 - 2013, pp. 317-319. The experience of Pentecost
should be set in the Greco-Roman literary context. See Heidrun Gunkel, Rainer Hirsch-Luipold and John R.
Levison, "Plutarch and Pentecost: An Exploration in Interdisciplinary Collaboration", in Jörg Frey and John
R. Levison, eds., The Holy Spirit..., cit., pp. 63-94.

331 For John J. Pilch, professor of Sacred Scripture at Georgetown University in Washington, the oldest
Catholic university in the United States, the disciples would have lived collective experiences of ecstatic
trance at Ascension and Pentecost (Visions and Healing, cit., pp. 18-27). The apparitions of the risen Jesus
would also be perceived by the disciples in an alternate state of consciousness, without being reduced to
hallucinations (John J. Pilch, Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Experiences in the Biblical
World, Grand Rapids 2011, p. 10, 11, 120). Preparatory elements for such experiences include isolation or
withdrawal from society, fasting, sexual abstinence, sleep deprivation, prayer and meditation (pp. 53, 54).
On visions and voices I point out Tanya Marie Luhrmann, Howard Nusbaum and Ronald Thisted, "The
Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity", in American Anthropologist, 112.1
- 2010, pp. 66-78; Tanya Marie Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical
Relationship with God, New York 2012.

332 James D. G. Dunn considers it "one of the most unnerving episodes in the whole of the New Testament"
(The Acts of the Apostles, Peterborough 1996, p. 62). A fresh bid to unravel the enigma is in my paper The
Expulsion Curse, 2019, academia.edu.

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conversion in Acts (9:1-9; 22:6-11; 26:12-18) with some variations. I try to give a
psychological explanation of the event. Paul, a proud enemy of the Christians, a fanatical
Pharisee, witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen, something repugnant even for the tastes of
the time, on the grounds that it was a) the stoning b) of a young man c) who died praying
for the murderers. Paul not only witnessed, but somehow took part in it, since he
approved the sentence and kept the cloaks of the witnesses (Acts 7:58-8:1)333. Such an event
made the doubt that he had long harbored in his soul more harrowing. Precisely to drive it
back, to prove primarily to himself the firmness of his convictions, he took the initiative to
ask the high priest for permission to arrest the Christians of Damascus.

Almost at the end of the march, which lasted for hours under a scorching sun, around
noon (Acts 22:6), when he was utterly knackered, the inner wrangle between the two
conflicting feelings (hatred and admiration) reached its climax. He saw a glow, that is, he
was dazzled by the sun, and fell to the ground, while the conflict was resolved in favor of
the new faith through the resounding of a thunderous inner voice: Saul, Saul, why do you
persecute me?... I am Jesus of Nazareth (9:4-5). The text points out (9:7): The men who were
traveling with him heard the voice but saw no one334. Notice that not even Paul had seen
anyone. Luke on v. 3 had merely observed: Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
The supposed voice of Jesus that his companions heard was actually the counterfeit voice
of Paul, which reproduced the interior locution (a kind of voice of conscience). Paul, in a
brief dialogue with himself, this time with his natural voice, answered Who are you, Lord?,
thus covering both roles335. This reconstruction is based on precedents that highlight the
psychosomatic aspects of inner conflicts. When these are brought to excess, the subject
impersonates both interlocutors336.

333 The overwhelming sense of guilt that arose in Paul's soul following the misdeed can account for the
pervasive centrality assumed in his preaching by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus and the rejection of religious
violence sanctioned in the Mosaic Law. For the latter aspect see Derek Flood, Healing the Gospel: A Radical
Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross, Eugene 2012, pp. 9-16.

334 The reverse in 22:9: Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was
speaking to me. However, some in this case translate the verb akouō not as "to hear", but as "to perceive
distinctly so as to understand‛.

335 "In alternative states of consciousness the subject sometimes changes his voice and it is possible that [in
the Transfiguration] the Father spoke through Jesus or one of the three disciples" (Bruce J. Malina, "The
Transfiguration...", cit., p. 60).

336 I quote Jung's psychoanalytical explanation: "Saul had long been a Christian without realizing it, and this
explains his fanatical hatred for Christians, because fanaticism is always rooted in those who have to stifle a
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God speaks to us in conscience. Sometimes the conflict takes place without being too
conspicuous; sometimes, as in Paul's case, it can take spectacular forms. Even the fact that
he remained blind for three days is easily explainable without having to resort to miracles.
To Ananias some Christians told the news of conversion. He was reluctant to go to Paul,
he was afraid. What is reported in the Acts is the dialogue between his fears and the inner
voice of divine origin that reassures him. All very simple, provided that the visions and
dialogues with God are placed inside the conscience.

To understand the equivalence between angel and inner voice (the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit) it is enlightening to notice that in two different episodes of the Acts337 we meet first
an angel and then the Holy Spirit, as if they performed the same function, to communicate
to the believer what to do. The perceived presence of the angel may depend on a cultural
conditioning that works like this: if there is the message, the messenger (which is the
meaning of the Greek word ángelos and the Hebrew malakh) cannot be missing. In a more
internalized cultural mindset, the vision of the angel is not indispensable, since the
believer recognizes beyond all doubt the origin of the voice that warns him in his
innermost self: God speaks to him without intermediaries.

The Letters of Paul. The Pauline Letters are a very precious document, because they
constitute the first authoritative proof of the existence of Jesus and the Church; the first
Christian writings, only few decades after the crucifixion.

Even the spurious letters reflect Paul’s mentality and are therefore the work of authors
who referred to his doctrine and teachings. Pseudepigraphists knew how to take their
good precautions. 2 Thess 3:17: I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark
in every letter of mine; it is the way I write. A suspicious excess of caution. Like in Revelation

secret doubt. That is why converts are always the worst fanatic. The vision of Christ on the road to
Damascus only marks the moment when the Christian complex unconscious burst into Paul's ego. The fact
that Christ appeared to him objectively, in the form of a vision, is explained by the fact that Saul's
Christianity was an unconscious complex that appeared to him in projection, as if it were foreign to him. He
could not see himself as a Christian and therefore, out of pure resistance to Christ, he became blind and
could only be healed by a Christian. We know that psychogenic blindness is always an unconscious refusal
to see, which in Saul's case corresponds to his fanatical refusal of Christianity" (Carl G. Jung, "The Structure
and Dynamics of the Psyche", in The Collected Works, # I-XX, London-New York 2014, pp. 3263, 3264).

337 Philip and the eunuch, 8:26, 29 - Peter and Cornelius, 10:3, 19.

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22:18-19, where there is a threat of severe punishment for anyone who dares to add or
remove anything. Precisely what the enigmatic final editor of the book had done338.

The thesis is well known that Christianity is an invention of the Christian community, in
contrast to the true Jesus, an unsuccessful anti-Roman zealot, a loser, a defeated. After the
drama of the cross the first Christians would have created a diametrically opposed Jesus,
detached from the world, preacher of love, willing to die to atone for the sins of men. Paul
is considered by many to be the originator of Christianity, almost as if he had introduced
unprecedented innovations. On the contrary, it may be shown that all the innovations
attributed to him were well present in the Jewish world - already itself imbued with
Hellenism and other influences - even before Jesus339.

As has been well said, Christianity brings nothing new, except the figure of Jesus, in
whom it embodies the idea, also in the air, of the manifestation of God. There was at one
point in history a man who became convinced that he was the angel of God, the Son of
God, with the mission to preach the new kingdom and to sacrifice himself. Each of the
elements of Jesus' doctrine finds its antecedent either in the Tanakh or the Pseudepigrapha
or the Essenes or even in Hellenistic and Iranian doctrines that had already pervaded
Palestine. The Teacher of Righteousness, placing himself above the angels and Moses (see
below), implicitly boasted at least a participation in the divine being. Jesus led to a sublime
synthesis factors that pre-existed disjointed. Here lies the uniqueness and not in each
individual element. The only novelty consists in claiming for himself a divine authority
stemming from the special relationship of communion with God340.

338 The formula is taken from Deut 4:2 and 13:1. The original source is the Covenant of Succession (672 BC) of
the Assyrian sovereign Esarhaddon (Bernard M. Levinson, "The Neo-Assyrian Origins of the Canon
Formula in Deuteronomy 13:1‛, in Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber , eds., Scriptural Exegesis:
The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination. Essays in Honor of Michael Fishbane, Oxford 2009, pp. 25-
45).

339 I point out on this subject Gabriele Boccaccini, Carlos A. Segovia and Cameron J. Doody, eds., Paul the Jew:
Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism, Minneapolis 2016. For a wider picture see two books
by Paula Fredriksen: Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, New Haven 2017; When Christians Were Jews: The First
Generation, New Haven 2018.

340 "Christian faith does not depend on uniqueness. Questions of parallels are historical questions, not faith
questions... Christians used the already existing title of messiah to interpret the significance of Jesus and in
the process modified the concept according to what was proclaimed about Jesus... Although Christianity had
points of contact with Stoicism, the mysteries, the Qumran community and so on, the total worldview was
often quite different, or the context in which the items were placed was different. Originality may be found
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Consequently, Paul's doctrines are nothing new341. Precedents may be easily spotted of
Christ's atoning death, of the openness to the Gentiles, of the refusal of circumcision.
Before the revolt of the Maccabees, due to the scarcity of sources, we are not able to
document the obligation of circumcision for the converts342. But even in the Jewish Bible
this practice did not seem so imperative. Circumcision of the heart was seen as more
relevant (Deut 10:16; 30:6 - Jer 4:4; 9:2-25). Against Hasmonean theory and practice, in the
Dead Sea Scrolls the circumcision of the Gentiles was judged negligible, as not even
through it would a foreigner ever become a Jew. Paradoxically, the result would be a
universalistic vision not unlike Paul's343. In Adiabene, the merchant Ananias, who
converted the future King Izates to Judaism in the first decades of the I century AD, did
not deem circumcision compulsory for the new converts. It was enough the devout
adherence to the ethical principles of Judaism344.

The Pauline idea of redemption and atoning death is already present in Jewish culture345.
Eleazar prays: Consider my blood a sacrifice for their purification and take my life in exchange for
theirs (4 Macc 6:26-29 - around the beginning of the Christian era). More explicitly: They
became a substitute, dying for the sins of the nation, and through the blood of these divine men and
their propitiatory death divine providence saved Israel (4 Macc 17:20-22)346.

in the way things are put together and not in the invention of a completely new idea or practice. So far as we
can tell, Christianity certainly represented a new combination for its time" (Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of
Early Christianity, Grand Rapids 20033, p. 3).

341 For example, it is surprising that passages, terms and expressions of the First Letter to the Thessalonians
of the 'Pharisee' Paul let themselves be understood in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Claude Coulot,
"La première épître de Paul aux Thessaloniciens à la lumière des manuscrits de la mer Morte", in Jean-
Sébastien Rey, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature, Leiden 2014, pp. 123-142.

342 Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism,
Jersey City 1985, p. 25.

343 This is the thesis of Daniel R. Schwartz ("Ends Meet: Qumran and Paul on Circumcision", in Jean-
Sébastien Rey, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls..., cit., pp. 295-307, esp. p. 303) .

344 Nina E. Livesey, Circumcision..., cit., pp. 35-40.

345 See Martin Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament, Eugene 2007; Jarvis J.
Williams, Maccabean Martyr Traditions in Paul's Theology of the Atonement, Eugene 2010.

346 See also 2 Maccabees 6 and 7 (Pierre J. Jordaan, ‚Ritual, Rage and Revenge in 2 Maccabees 6 and 7‛,
in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 68-1 - 2012, Art. #1271. As for Qumran, 4Q540-541 (Apocryphon
of Levi) alludes to the persecution and sufferings of a priest whose sacrifice will be expiatory. In addition, at
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Against the prevailing current of Judaism, Paul (like Jesus) believed that the prophecy was
not dead; on the contrary, he thought himself to be living proof of it. This concept is
already well attested to in Qumran.

The rejection, attributed to Paul, of the Law, as opposed to grace, is only an overstatement,
inasmuch as it does not concern the Law as a whole, but only the norms which the
Judaizers most cared about: the purity of food, circumcision and other arbitrary ethnic-
religious markers already condemned by others. For example, when in Luke 3:8 we read
that God can raise children to Abraham even from stones, the Baptist also implicitly meant
that circumcision was not necessary to enter the New Covenant. Paul, as has been
shown347, does not reject the halakhot, the rules of Jewish behavior. This may be inferred
from the First Letter to the Corinthians, where he strictly adheres to them. Therefore, faith,
with attached justification, does not exclude works in general, but only those distinctive
features thus treasured by mainstream Jews, whereas for him the faithful has to follow,
even in an austere way, ethics, for example in the field of marriage, and to demonstrate
through concrete action that he possesses the gifts of the Spirit of Jesus. So the alleged
Lutheran interpretation condensed in the Pecca fortiter, crede fortius, is only a parody of the
true thought of Paul, who was, if ever, a rigorist348.

A question that needs to be studied in depth is the supposed lack of hints at the life and
teachings of Jesus. For Paul acknowledgedly the central doctrine was that of salvation, but
it is simply weird and grotesque to think that he held forth for hours on end in Christian
communities on the saving death of Christ and his resurrection, without mentioning his
doctrine and his life before the Passion.

the beginning of Col. 8 of the Community Rule we read: "In the council of the community twelve men and
three priests will sit, perfectly versed in the questions of the Law. Their works should be truth,
righteousness, justice, loving kindness and humility. They shall preserve the faith in the land with
steadfastness and meekness and atone for the sins [of all] through the practice of justice and suffering the
pains of affliction‛. Let us bear in mind, in the classical world, the sacrifice of Codrus and the devotio of
Publius Decius Mus (George S. Goodspeed, "Atonement in Non-Christian Religions - IV: Atonement by
Substitution", in The Biblical World, 17, 4 April 1901, Chicago).

347 "Paul's letters contain an ethical code that is at least as demanding as those that are found in other forms
of early Judaism" (Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, Oxford 2016, p. 6).

348 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (Rom 6:15).

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Revelation. Written by many hands, made up of multiple compositional layers, this work
has become the fundamental text of apocalypticism349. Every honest reader cannot but
class it as a violent and ruthless invective, which bespeaks its Essene precedents in the War
Scroll and the Temple Scroll. In it prevails an attitude of abandonment to the most
malevolent fantasies, which might well have been the case with a Jew upset by the
destruction of the Temple and in search of revenge350. It is a book that conjures up the
vindictive God of the Old Testament351, while ignoring the sweetness and mercy preached
by Jesus. Not coincidentally its inclusion in the canon was long opposed, especially in the
Eastern Churches and among the reformers352.

There are evident different sources, repetitions and a certain illogicalness of construction.
For some experts (Charles C. Torrey, Robert B. Y. Scott) his barbaric Greek353 serves to
translate anyhow an Aramaic original354. Even the dense network of allusions to the Old
Testament - between 250 (Charles) and 700 (Staehlin) - denotes that it was a book written
by Jews for Jews. Today, the reader is stuck in ciphered language, in the secret code of the
Qumranic type.

349 By the final editor the identity of John is affirmed three times in the first chapter (1:1, 4, 9) and twice in the
last two (21:2; 22:8).

350 "The Apocalypse is a work clearly Jewish" (Loren L. Johns, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Apocalypse of
John", in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol. III: The Scrolls and Christian
Origins, Waco, Tx, 2006, p. 259).

351 Because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve! 16: 6
- Render to her as she herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double draught for her in the cup
she mixed. 18: 6.

352 See Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, Guiding to a Blessed End: Andrew of Caesarea and His Apocalypse
Commentary in the Ancient Church, Washington 2013, pp. 14-46; Larry V. Crutchfield, "Revelation in the New
Testament Canon", in Mal Couch, ed., A Bible Handbook to Revelation, Grand Rapids 2001, pp. 22-35.

353 The appreciation is due to saint Dionysius of Alexandria († 264/265).

354 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is of different opinion: "John, even possessing Greek very well, prefers to
write the whole book in a Hebraizing idiom that gives the sentence a hieratic and traditional character".
(Revelation: Vision of a Just World, Minneapolis 1991, p. 29). On the topic I refer to Laurenţiu Florentin Moţ,
Morphological and Syntactical Irregularities in the Book of Revelation: A Greek Hypothesis, Leiden 2015.

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The initial author had considered the end looming355. But the Jewish war, the long-awaited
cosmic battle, had resulted in defeat. Then everything moved into the future, after a
thousand years, in the wake of 1 Enoch 91-104. Revelation resumes the Essene theories
about the end of the corrupt world, which will be replaced by an incorruptible one. Satan
is imprisoned and tortured eternally, because he refuses to repent. The evil city, Rome,
indicated in Qumranic code as Babylon356, also collapses by reason of its obstinacy.
Following Iranian apocalypticism, the struggle ends with the triumph of good. The seven
torches (4:5), symbol of the seven spirits of God (3:1)357, and the seven angels (8:2) summon
up the Amesha Spenta of Mazdeism. The Christian editor adds the lamb (Jesus) to which
divine honors are rendered. Jesus will return at the end of time in the likeness of the
archangel Michael (see Daniel) to lead the heavenly hosts. In the white horse of 19:11 some
see the army of the Parthians, the enemies of Rome in whom Jews trusted358. In 10:4 we
read the interpretation of thunder, which recalls the Qumranic Brontologion. The concept of
the second death is Essene: after the first death the wicked suffer a further death, being
incinerated in the lake of fire and sulfur, inherited from Mazdeism (19:20; 20:15).

The prophecies of the end of time and the terror that preceded it have as their motivation
the sufferings of God's people359 that deserve fierce revenge. Against Empire, here we find

355 The passage 11:1-2 with the reference to the Temple shows that the initial core of the work is prior to 70
AD.

356 See the beginning of the Pesher Habakkuk, already examined. Babylon also stands for Rome in 1 Pet (5:13), 4
Ezra, the Revelation of Baruch and the Fifth Sibylline Oracle.

357 Mentioned also in 1:4, 4:5 and 5:6, in the wake of Zechariah 4:2, 10b (I see a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl
on the top of it; there are seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it... These seven
are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth”), Tobit 12:15 (I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who
stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord) and 1 Enoch 90:21 (the seven white ones), the seven spirits
symbolize God's activity in the world (Wilfrid J. Harrington, Revelation, Collegeville 20082, p. 46).

358 See David Andrew Thomas, Revelation 19 in Historical and Mythological Context, New York 2008, pp. 16,
111-145.

359 Rome is presented as a prostitute drunk with the blood of God's holy people and the blood of those who
died for faith in Jesus (17:6). Here the mention of the Christian martyrs sounds as a late addition by the final
editor (in the first century the persecutions were in fact sporadic and local), whereas previously the reference
was only to the Jews (the holy people of God), bludgeoned with unprecedented violence at the time of the
first revolt (the monster opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling,
that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. 13: 6-7).
[

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the opposite of the irenicism present in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles360.
Babylon, that is to say, Rome, is seen as the cesspit of vice and vileness, worthy of being
crushed with its ruling class and its merchants361. Of it, a web of corruption and
monstrosity, nothing is saved.

The fundamental message that can be drawn from the last book of the New Testament is
that one must always be ready for the end and that worldly values pass, but Christ with
his Church will triumph: a message present, with soberer theatricality, also in the Gospels.
But there is a distorted use of Revelation if the reader claims to apply those prophecies to
his own time362.

An interpretation, dating back to Charles-François Dupuis363, sees in the various visions of

John reference to the constellations and, in general, to the then dominant cosmological
theories364. Thus, the four beings (later taken for the four evangelists) would be the
constellations of Taurus, Aquila, Leo and Aquarius; the crown of twelve stars, the
zodiac365. The moon underfoot means that the constellation Virgo dominates a lunar

360 See Steve Walton, "The State They Were in: Luke's View of the Roman Empire", in Peter Oakes, ed., Rome
in the Bible and the Early Church, Grand Rapids 2002, pp. 1-41. For an overview of the relationship between
the New Testament and Roman Empire I refer to Adam Winn, ed., An Introduction to Empire in the New
Testament, Atlanta 2016. Revelation’s stance strikes in particular with 1 Pet 2:17: Honor the emperor.

361 An attitude well present in the Jewish literature of the time. In the Fourth Sibylline Oracle the eruption of
Vesuvius (79 AD) is interpreted as divine punishment for the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. In the
Fifth Oracle the return of Nero is foreshadowed, who, hungry for vengeance, at the head of an army of
Parthians moves against Rome. The same prophecy is outlined in Rev 17:16, 17 (Adela Yarbro Collins, The
Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, Eugene 2001, p. 175). For the legend of Nero redux or Nero redivivus see
Marco Frenschkowski, "Nero Redivivus as a Subject of Early Christian Arcane Teaching", in Michael Labahn
and Outi Lehtipuu, eds., People under Power: Early Jewish and Christian Responses to the Roman Empire,
Amsterdam 2015, pp. 229-248.

362 Hank Hanegraaff, The Apocalypse Code, Nashville, Tn, 2007, pp. XV-XVII, reports that Hal Lindsey in his
Apocalypse Code, published in 1997, argues that in the locusts of chapter 9 you should see Apache, Cobra and
Comanche attack helicopters. For a broader overview see Richard Kyle, Apocalyptic Fever: End-Time Prophecies
in Modern America, 2012 Eugene.

363 Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Religion Universelle, chapitre XII, Paris 1795.

364 Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch, Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Minneapolis 2000.

365
In Gen 37:9 the stars symbolize the Patriarchs (Joseph and his brethren).

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month. The dragon is the constellation of Hydra, which extends for four zodiacal signs
(His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven 12:4).

The Gospel of Thomas. When Jesus was alive and even more so after his death, there
were diverse ways in which his message was received and interpreted, that is, a multiple
Christianity, related to the peculiar sensitivities of the receptors366. For example, the
community that gathered around the Gospel of Thomas was interested in self-knowledge,
because it was pushed in this direction by its cultural background. For others, since Jesus,
like his apostles, was circumcised, circumcision was a critical aspect. Some followers
favored the preference given by Jesus to the poor and drew from it reasons for a social
revolt. Finally, others saw his messianicity realized rather in the war against the execrated
Kittim367.

The Kernel [original core] of the Gospel of Thomas, according to DeConick368, dates back
to 30-50 AD and is prior to Q. It would be the oldest testimony of the word of Jesus. It
makes no sense to say that it is a Gnostic Gospel, since this expression is used in an
improper and vague sense to mean different positions united by the rejection of the
material world. Nothing Gnostic, just a prelude to the spirituality of the Orthodox Church
(think in particular of Isaac of Nineveh369). The Kernel, written in Jerusalem, was

366 See Ron Cameron, "Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of the Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins", in
Ron Cameron and Merrill P. Miller, eds., Redescribing Christian Origins, Atlanta 2004, pp. 89-108. In support
of the polygenetic hypothesis we might invoke Mark 9:38 (Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your
name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us). ‚Multiple avenues for entrance into the empire
of God existed in the earliest period of the development and expansion of the divine empire inaugurated by
Jesus. These multiple ways speak of multiple movements among the followers of Jesus‛ (Richard Valantasis,
The New Q: A Fresh Translation with Commentary, New York-London 2005, p. 7). For a thorough review of
religious orientations (Gnosticism, esotericism, mysticism) parallel to 'Orthodox' Christianity and historically
shunted to the sidelines I refer to April D. DeConick, ed., Secret Religion, London 2016. The book is part of the
Religion series, within the MacMillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks.

367 Something similar happened, in due proportion, with the message of St Francis of Assisi, inherited in an
astonishing variety of motifs by rival or at least competing religious communities and even atheists and
revolutionaries.

368 Of the theses presented here I am mainly indebted to April D. DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in
Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel, London 2006. A more recent
work: Samuel Zinner, The Gospel of Thomas<, cit.

369 On the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and Orthodox spirituality see April D. DeConick,
"Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas", in Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes and Jens Schröter, eds., Das
Thomasevangelium. Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie, Berlin 2008, pp. 206-221.

126
composed of five speeches of Jesus with parallels in Q. Soon from Jerusalem this core was
brought to Syria and there were made additions linked to new circumstances, first off to
the overturning of the absence of the eschatological event into its implementation, when,
as claimed by the mentioned scholar, the immediate possibility to recover the primordial
divine image was realized (logion 84): from the imminent kingdom to the immanent
kingdom, to the eschatology already realized (logion 51).

Jesus is presented as he imparts the doctrine to his closest disciples in the form of
enigmatic sayings. It is not a matter of discourses for the masses, but of knowledge
reserved for the few, owing to the fact that it relates to esoteric mysteries370. This Gospel
reflects another way of understanding Christianity. It lacks the centrality of the
resurrection of the Savior, the eschatological apocalypticism, the violent end of the world.
One saves oneself thanks to personal effort, not to the merits of Christ's cross. When asked
whether it is divine in nature, Jesus sidesteps (as, then again, he does in John 12:16 and
Luke 18:34), but the title 'Living' is reserved for him and the Father. Surprisingly, the
Gospel of Thomas proposes a primordial Christian form of divinization. The believer,
becoming a twin of Jesus (the Aramaic name or nickname Thomas means twin, geminus,
dídymos), participates in his nature (soteriology of gemination). Since Jesus is presented as
a divine figure, the Thomasine gemination is to be understood as a deification371.

The basic message (addressed to the individual, not to the community372) is as follows:
Search your inner self. The experience of God not only takes place inside the ego fully aware

370 David B. Capes, Rodney Reeves and E. Randolph Richards, Rediscovering Jesus: An Introduction to Biblical,
Religious and Cultural Perspectives on Christ, p. 164. The esoteric aspect may be identified from the beginning:
These are the secret sayings that Jesus the Living One pronounced and that Didymus Judas Thomas wrote. He said:
"Whoever discovers the interpretation of these words will not taste death" (Prologue and Logion 1). On the other
hand, a mystery revelation is also mentioned by Paul in 1 Cor 2:6-13. Before Christianity, we come across
doctrines reserved for the initiates in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. See Julius Allsop, The Esoteric Codex:
Old Testament Apocrypha, Raleigh, 2015. About Qumran: Samuel Isaac Thomas, The 'Mysteries' of Qumran:
Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Leiden 2009.

371 Logion 108: Jesus said: Whoever drinks from my mouth will be like me and I will be like him. And what is hidden
will be revealed to him. See David M. Litwa, "'I Will Become Him': Homology and Deification in the Gospel of
Thomas", in Journal of Biblical Literature, 133.2 - 2015, pp. 427-447. Once again the Gospel of Thomas precedes
Orthodox theology, in a trait that is certainly not marginal.

372 In this Gospel, the community aspect is left in the shade (William E. Arnal, "Blessed Are the Solitary:
Textual Practices and the Mirage of a Thomas Community'', in Caroline Johnson Hodge, Saul M. Olyan,
Daniel Ullucci and Emma Wasserman, eds., The One Who Sows Bountifully. Essays in Honor of Stanley K.
Stowers, Providence, RI, 2013, p. 272).

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of itself (that is, its origin, destination and deepest identity - logion 3), but also includes a
heavenly ascension with the vision of the divine throne (logion 15) passing through the
celestial spheres (logion 50)373.

The disciple who has known himself and Jesus no longer needs a teacher (logia 3 and 13):
thus the function of the leaders of the Christian communities is drastically reduced 374. One
can experience God after having won the battle against inner demons, desires and the
body and having acquired impassibility (apátheia). Jesus crucified symbolizes the man who
crucifies his passions, fasting from the world (logion 27), that is, opposing worldly
pleasures375. The victory over sexual instinct leads to proto-Adamic purity.

Like other texts linked to Middle Platonism 376 and Philo (Acts of Thomas, Book of Thomas,
Odes of Solomon, Oratio ad Graecos of Tatian and perhaps the Gospel of Philip), the
Gospel of Thomas reflects - in its final version - the environment of Edessa (in Osroene,
beyond the Euphrates), an autonomous caravan city, a multicultural center where
Christians, not persecuted by the authorities, lived peacefully with the Jews. That is why,
in the absence of the experience of martyrdom, to the atoning death of Jesus little attention
was paid377. It should be added that, in contrast to the typical exegesis of the canonical

373 For the interpretation of logia 15 and 50 see April D. DeConick, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A
History of the Gospel and its Growth, London-New York 2006, pp. 137, 173.

374 See Richard Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas, London-New York 20092, pp. 43-44, 55-58. "The synoptic
tradition culminates in the central hierarchical role of the apostles, attested to by the Acts. The Church thus
becomes more dependent on the succession of the Apostles and their teaching than on any charismatic
guidance or revelation. The Gospel of Thomas, on the contrary, proclaims a direct relationship with Jesus the
Living One: every believer must concentrate on the word of Jesus living in the Gospel to find eternal life"
(Richard Valantasis, Douglas K. Bleyle and Dennis C. Haugh, The Gospels and Christian Life in History and
Practice, Lanham, Md, 2009, p. 247).
375 This is the meaning of the expression observe the Sabbath as Sabbath, present in the same logion in parallel
with fasting from the world. See Antti Marjanen, "Thomas and Jewish Religious Practices", in Risto Uro, ed.,
Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, Edinburgh 1998, pp. 175-178.

376 For this particular aspect I point out Seth A. Clark, Know Yourself and You Will Be Known: The Gospel of
Thomas and Middle Platonism, Claremont, Ca, 2014; Ivan Miroshnikov, The Gospel of Thomas and Plato: A Study
of the Impact of Platonism on the 'Fifth Gospel', Helsinki 2016.

377 Cf Isaac of Nineveh: ‚God became incarnate not to redeem us from sins, or for any other reason, but solely
in order that the world might become aware of the love that God has for his creation‛. Note that the Qur'ān
rejects the concept of vicarious atonement made by Christ on the cross. The Gospel of Thomas is counted
among the sources of Islam (Emran Iqbal El-Badawi, The Qur'ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions, London-
New York 2014, p. 48), which, as stated by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Volker Popp (Der frühe Islam: eine historisch-
128
writings of the New Testament, the Thomasine community was not prone to delving into
the Scriptures in order to link Jesus to the Jewish tradition 378. In Edessa, as a result, a sui
generis Christianity developed, adapted to the environment.

kritische Rekonstruktion anhand zeitgenössischer Quellen, Berlin 2007), began as a variant of Christianity, so that
in Muhammad a title of Christ ('the chosen'; according to others, 'the worthy of praise, the blessed') should
be spotted.

378 Milton Moreland, "The Twenty-Four Prophets of Israel Are Dead: Gospel of Thomas 52 as a Critique of
Early Christian Hermeneutics", in Jón Ma. Ásgeirsson, ‎April D. De Conick and ‎Risto Uro, eds., Thomasine
Traditions in Antiquity: The Social and Cultural World of the Gospel of Thomas, Leiden 2006, p. 88. A further
rejection of Judaism may be seen in logion 53: The disciples asked him: "Is circumcision useful or not?". He replied,
"If it were useful, the father would beget the children of the mother already circumcised. But true circumcision in the
spirit is useful‛. Only apparently does logion 12 contradict logia 52 and 53: The disciples asked Jesus, "When you
leave us, who will be our guide?". He answered, "Whatever your provenance, go to James the Just, for whom heaven
and earth were created‛. ‚Contrary to the view of some scholars [including DeConick], James cannot be seen in
this saying as a positive figure of leader. He finds himself in the same category as Peter and Matthew who
represent communities marked by an inadequate view of Jesus and his message. As a leader traditionally
associated with the Church of Jerusalem, James symbolizes the Judaeo-Christian community and those who
follow the prescriptions of the Law. Since Jewish practices and beliefs are harshly criticized in logia 6, 14, 27,
39, 52, 89, 102, this characterization of James cannot be positive. He must be considered in connection with
the Demiurge, the creator of the material world, responsible for Jewish Law" (André Gagné, "The Gospel
According to Thomas and the New Testament", in Jean-Michel Roessli and Tobias Nicklas, eds., Christian
Apocrypha: Receptions of the New Testament in Ancient Christian Apocrypha, Göttingen 2014, pp. 36-37). Again as
Demiurge is by Gagné interpreted the 'God' of logion 100. April D. DeConick, understandably, in the Gospel
of Thomas does not perceive any allusion to this Gnostic figure.

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130
 Divinization
The Father and I are one. The pivotal moment is that of Baptism, when Jesus attains the full
awareness of being one with the Father, of being animated by the Spirit. Some scholars
present Jesus' assertion of his own divinity as anti-historical and totally contrary to the
beliefs of Judaism, therefore an invention of Paul and John. Truth is that Pharisees and
Sadducees rated it a blasphemy, but other Jewish currents were of different opinion379.

The "polytheistic" passages of the Jewish Bible were already a breach. On the other hand,
in Gen 1:26-28 man is seen as divine because in him is realized the presence or
manifestation of God, which other passages of the Tanakh identify in the people of Israel
and, particularly, in the high priest380. From John 10:33-35 we learn that the sentence of
Psalm 82:6 You are gods381 is to be interpreted as concerning all of those who welcome the
word of God382. Indeed, in Judaism, even before Jesus, an extension of the concept of

379 On the subject, I'd like to point out Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism. Vol. I: Christological
Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond, Eugene 2015. The work will be developed in four volumes.

380 See Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, "Jesus' Divine Self-Consciousness: a Proposal", British New Testament
Conference, Manchester 2014, pp. 1-6.

381 The recipients of the title, who are also reminded of the impending fate of death (nevertheless, you shall die
like mortals, and fall like any prince, v. 7), are the minor gods of the divine council: "Psalm 82 presents a minor
deity of the divine council in revolt against his brothers, the sons of El. He kills them, as if they were simply
human, and inherits the peoples entrusted to them [cf. Deuteronomy 32:8-9]... The psalm records the myth in
which YHWH ascends from lesser god of the pantheon to the one God of the cosmos" (Kurt L. Noll, Canaan
and Israel, cit., pp. 255, 256). I speculate that the oldest layer of Psalm 82 consists of verses 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8.
Later, in the Essene environment (11Q13 or 11QMelchizedek) the minor gods in question were discrowned
and transformed into rebellious angels or demons (Belial and the spirits of his ilk - cf. Mark S. Smith, God in
Translation, cit., p. 213). In the same cultural context, in unjust judges and rulers it was not long before one
saw diabolical incarnations (in a passage from the Martyrdom of Isaiah we read: ‚Beliar [= Belial] dwelt in the
heart of Manasseh and in the heart of the twelve princes of Judah and Benjamin and the eunuchs and
counselors of the king‛). It was then that verses 3, 4 and 5 were added, where the claim, typical of the
Enochian tradition, of the rights of the weak, orphans, destitute, oppressed and defenseless, stands out. In
the Gospel of John there is a further creative interpretation, involving the expansion of the category being
awarded the divine title.

382 The quoted passage of John is recognized in Patristic times as one of the scriptural pillars on which the
Christian doctrine of divinization rests: "By the Spirit every saint is made divine, as God Himself declared: I
said that you are gods" (Saint Basil, Against Eunomius V [PG XXIX 772]) - "Man can become God and son of
God. We read: I have said that you are gods" (St John Chrysostom, Homily 32 on the Acts of the Apostles) - "Do
131
divinity is attested to383. In the Tanakh there was talk of an angel of YHWH who was none
other than God himself in his visible manifestation. Performing a divine function, Moses
was held to be a sharer in divinity: The Lord said to Moses, ‚See, I have made you like God to
Pharaoh‛ (Exod 7:1). In the words of Sir 45:2, God made him equal in glory to the holy ones. At
Qumran (4Q374 fr 2, col 2) one went further: YHWH [on Sinai] made him like a god384. In the
pre-Christian Pseudo-Orpheus (from verse 31) he is described as a god on the heavenly
throne385. Even by Artapanus he was given divine status386, while Philo considered him the
inspirer of mystical Judaism, a sort of incarnation of God, a man who became God, a
substitute for God: in him the abyss between mortal and immortal had been crossed.
Philo, alongside the Qumranites, endorsed the concept of a divinized Moses: ‚He went up
the mountain and saw God, becoming like him‛ (Moses 1 28 158)387. In the Exagoge of Ezekiel
the prophet is also portrayed on the divine throne388.

you love God? What will I say? That you will be God? I dare not say it, but let us listen to the Scripture that
says: I have said that you are gods" (St Augustine, In Epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos 2 14). For a wider picture I
refer to Panayotis Nellas, Voi siete dèi. Antropologia dei Padri della Chiesa, trans. Antonio Fyrigos, Rome 1993;
Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford 2006. As we have seen, the
doctrine of divinization is already found in the Gospel of Thomas.

383 In Qumran there is a revival of the theme of the divine assembly. See Jonathan Ben-Dov, "The
Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El in the Dead Sea Scrolls", in Andrea Ercolani and
Manuela Giordano, eds., Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. Vol. III: Beyond Greece: The Comparative
Perspective, Berlin-Boston 2016, pp. 9-31. The author states: "To the community of Qumran, verse 32:8 of
Deuteronomy [concerning the entrustment of each people to a minor god] was particularly dear, precisely
because it embodied the notion of a multiplicity of divine beings, perfectly functional for their demonology
and, in general, their theology" (p. 20).

384 In the Dead Sea Scrolls (11Q13) a divine status is also granted to Melchizedek. See Peter Flint, "Jesus and
the Dead Sea Scrolls", in Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr. and John Dominic Crossan, eds., The Historical
Jesus..., cit., pp. 122, 123. In turn, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (7:3) will deem Melchizedek the
perfect prefiguration of Jesus Christ: Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning
of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

385 But someone interprets otherwise. See John Lierman, The New Testament Moses: Christian Perceptions of
Moses, Tübingen 2004, pp. 229-246.

386 John G. M. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan, Edinburgh 1996, p. 129. The
divine status should of course be understood in a mitigated sense (see John J. Collins, "Artapanus", cit., p.
894, n. 37).

387 Erwin R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism, New Haven 1935, pp. 197-
229. This thesis was taken up by Wayne Meeks in the article "Moses as God and King", in Jacob Neusner, ed.,
Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, Leiden 1968, pp. 354-371. A
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Philo calls the Logos angel, archangel, son or firstborn of God, governor and administrator
of all, theós, déuteros theós (second god). His idea of the Logos, however, varies from one
work to another. Obviously, he is always ready to reaffirm the uniqueness of God, but
sometimes one hastens to deny precisely what one would like to say. The term 'second
god', whatever the author's intention, opened up a chink into which readers with other
motivations and less tied to the rigid monotheistic vision could penetrate in search of a
deeper and more articulated knowledge of the divine389.

Among the Essenes the leap had already been made. The Teacher of Righteousness in the
Self-Glorification Hymn claims to be superior to the angels390, what unequivocally means

fundamental text on messianic expectations, especially outside the Tanakh, and the precedents of
divinization: Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New
Testament Christology, Tübingen 2007.

388 According to Timo Eskola, Messiah and the Throne: Jewish Merkabah Mysticism and Early Christian Exaltation
Discourse, Tübingen 2001, pp. 217-250, Merkabah mysticism is of central importance in understanding the
Christology of Acts 2, Paul (Rom 1:3-4) and the Letter to the Hebrews, which present the risen Christ
elevated to the heavenly throne, exalted as high priest, the new Melchizedek offering sacrifice (Psalm 110).
This implies the idea of his divinity.

389 For the theme of the 'second God' see Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about
Christianity and Gnosticism, Leiden 1977; Margaret Barker, The Great Angel..., cit. "The pure Jewish
monotheism of Jesus and his earliest followers is chimerical, because Hellenism had already decisively
encroached into Palestinian Judaism well before Jesus" (Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God,
and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament, Oxford 2015, p. 19). Daniel
Boyarin (The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, New York 2012, p. 102) baldly avows: "The ideas of
the Trinity and the Incarnation, or at least the seeds of such ideas, were already present among Jewish
believers before Jesus appeared on the scene".

390 Who is like me among angels? (4Q471b 5). In the Self-Glorification Hymn (particularly in 4Q491c) a similarity
of language was noted with the Songs of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. Holly Beers deduces: "The speaker of
the hymn seems to identify with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah" (The Followers of Jesus as the 'Servant': Luke's
Model from Isaiah for the Disciples in Luke-Acts, London-New York 2015, p. 67). In my opinion, the anonymous
Essene author puts the hymn in the mouth of the Teacher of Righteousness, whose life had already been
alluded to in the Songs of the Suffering Servant. This thesis is supported by the fact that from a paleographic
point of view the fragments are dated to the late Hasmonean or Herodian period (Joseph L. Angel, "The
Liturgical-Eschatological Priest of the Self-Glorification Hymn", in Revue de Qumran, 96 - 2010, p. 586). This is
in line with Joseph Blenkinsopp's standpoint: "I find it tempting that 4Q491c was composed and recited by a
disciple of the Master as a celebration of his life, death and post-mortem exaltation. If, as I have shown, the
Master's profile is modeled on that of the equally anonymous Suffering Servant of Isaiah, we would have an
impressive parallelism with the panegyric uttered by a disciple after the violent death of the Servant (Isa
53:1-11). The most obvious difference, the use of the first [singular] person instead of the third, might imply
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participation in divine nature391. The faithful who recited that prayer certainly felt inclined
to extend the divinization to themselves, as they tended to identify with the Teacher,
participating in the heavenly liturgy, at the side of, if not above, the angels. The
eschatological goal had already been reached. This attitude involved the rehabilitation of
the figure of the rebellious angels and in particular of Lucifer392, who had aspired to sit on
the throne of God: "In Isaiah and Ezekiel, the divine or semi-divine Lucifer is a figure of
hubris, cast down to earth and death. At Qumran, Lucifer’s sense of hubris is totally
neutralized: Isaiah’s villain or victim, dethroned and humiliated, was authorized as a hero;
assumption of the promised heavenly throne is cited as a model by the sectarians in their
liturgy‛393.

Classic precedents. "I don't think there is anything in the world more beautiful than the
countryside where Sybaris was. There you'll find everything: the charming open spaces of
the surroundings of Naples, the grandeur of the most majestic alpine landscapes, the sun
and the sea of Greece". This enthusiastic description, due to the pen of the French
archaeologist François Lenormant394, vividly depicts this northern Calabria plain, enclosed
between the Ionian Sea, the Pollino massif and the foothills of the Greek Sila. After the
affluent city was in 510 BC defeated and destroyed by rival Croton, in 444/443 the
Panhellenic colony of Thurii was founded on its ruins on the initiative of Pericles. The
philosopher Protagoras was the writer of the constitution. The historian Herodotus and
the orator Lysias were among the citizens. Here, in two mounds ("timponi", in the local

that the Hymn of self-glorification was intended to provide a model, a proleptic vision, from which the
Master's disciples could draw inspiration" ("The Servant of the Lord, the Teacher of Righteousness, and the
Exalted One of 4Q491c", in Duncan Burns and John W. Rogerson, eds., Far From Minimal..., cit., p. 51).
391 As has already been expounded, in the Essene Martyrdom of Isaiah the prophet (a double of the Teacher of
Righteousness) was accused of having declared himself superior to Moses and therefore implicitly endowed
with divine nature, for having dared to aver: I have seen God and continue to live (3:9) against God's warning to
Moses: You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live (Exod 33:20). The bold asseveration put in Isaiah's
mouth will be taken up by Jesus: Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen
the Father (John 6:46).
392 The myth of Lucifer (Isa 14:12-14, Ezek 28:2) is of Canaanite origin: Athtar (male deity, personification of
the morning star) unsuccessfully attempts to usurp the throne of Baal.

393 Seth L. Sanders: "Performing Exegesis: A Study of how a Biblical Myth Became a Mystical 'Experience'",
in April DeConick D., ed., Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism, Atlanta 2006, p. 79.
Similarly, in the Greek world, if Bellerophon was unsaddled by Zeus, while riding on Pegasus towards the
summit of Olympus, the religion of mysteries proclaimed, on the contrary, the divinization of the initiate.

394 François Lenormant, La Grande-Grèce. Paysages et histoire, tome I, Paris 1881, p. 223.

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dialect) were discovered in 1879 by F. S. Cavallari and L. Fulvio tablets with orphic
inscriptions regarding the journey of the initiate into the Netherworld395. In them we read
two memorable and unfading asserts: You will be god instead of mortal - From man you have
become god396.

In the Mediterranean basin and in the Middle East, as well as in India, these concepts were
widespread long before Christianity. Beginning with Alexander the Great, the Greeks
borrowed from the Egyptians the cult of the sovereigns. Demetrius Poliorcetes was hailed
as the "living god" in a hymn studied by Hans-Josef Klauck397. The title Epiphanēs, assumed
by various sovereigns, means "(god) manifest". In Rome deus and divus had been
synonymous until the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. From that moment divus meant
'divinized man'398. According to Suetonius, on his deathbed Vespasian announced the
impending end with cruel self-sarcasm: "I am about to become a god".

A common theme in antiquity was the desire to achieve similarity with God.
Empedocles399 says of himself: "immortal god, no longer mortal"400. Plato401 teaches that the

395 On the orphic tablets and, in general, on orphism I point out Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San
Cristóbal, Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets, Leiden 2008; Radcliffe G. Edmonds, ed., The
'Orphic' Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further along the Path, Cambridge 2011; Stamatia Dova, Greek Heroes
in and out of Hades, Lanham, Md, 2012; Vishwa Adluri, ed., Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Philosophy, Berlin
2013; Giovanni Casadio and Patricia A. Johnston, Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, Austin 2013; M. David
Litwa, Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture, Eugene, 2013. For the differences
between mysteries and Christianity: James R. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior?, Grand Rapids 2005.
However, in the sacraments (called mystēria in Greek) Christianity reveals a link with esoteric cults. See Scott
Hahn and Mike Aquilina, Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians, Huntington, In, 2003.

396 Θεὸς δ'ἔσηι ἀντὶ βροτοῖο - Θεὸς ἐγένου ἐξ ἀνθρώπου.

397 Hans-Josef Klauck, Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions, London-New
York 2000, p. 257.

398 Watson E. Mills, ed., Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, Macon, Ga, 1997, p. 752.

399 DK fr B 112.

400 Dag Øistein Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity, New York 2009, p. 100, is of the
opinion that the very presence among the Greeks of the belief in immortality and divinization (at least in
some philosophical schools and in followers of the mysteries) explains the easy spread of Christianity in the
Mediterranean basin. See also John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, Tübingen 2018.

401 Theaetetus 176a-b.

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flight from the world assimilates us, as far as possible, to God. For Aristotle 402, the
philosopher, contemplating God, becomes, even if only briefly, kindred to him. The cynic
feels to be divine since he needs nothing. For the Stoics we are God's children. Wisdom
makes the Epicurean as serene as the gods. Identity with God was the aim of the mystery
cults. Plutarch, who lived between 46 and 120 AD, deduces that all of us tend to approach
God through immortality, power and virtue403. Referring to pagan doctrines, Justin
Martyr, among those who were dead, resurrected in body and assumed into heaven, i.e.,
divinized, includes Asclepius, Dionysus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Perseus,
Bellerophon404. It is hardly surprising that such ideas influenced Judaism. It is now
commonly accepted that in the last centuries BC it has been deeply permeated by
Hellenistic and Iranian doctrines405.

The Christian Superman

You will become like God.

The Jews answered, ‚It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy,
because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God‛. Jesus answered, ‚Is it not
written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods'? If those to whom the word of God came were called gods
- and the Scripture cannot be annulled<‛ (John 10:33-35).

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us (John 17:21).

402 Metaphysics XII 7 1072b 13-30.

403 Life of Aristides 287.

404 As for this hero with a Luciferine aspiration, Justin passes over the consequent punishment inflicted on
him by Jupiter. Bellerophon who kills the Chimera soon becomes a Christian symbol of victory over the
forces of evil (Marcel Simon, "Bellérophon chrétien", in Mélanges d'archéologie, d'épigraphie et d'histoire offerts à
Jérôme Carcopino, Paris 1966, pp. 889-903). In the mosaic of Hinton St Mary (early IV century AD), he stands
alongside Jesus. Later, the iconographic module of the pagan myth in the Palmyra mosaic (discovered in
2003 and datable to around 260 AD) was adopted to represent St George, an exemplary figure of the
Christian hero, in the act of killing the dragon.

405 Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, eds., Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary
Contexts for the New Testament, Vol. II, Leiden, 2013. William D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount,
London 1963, p. 207, n. 5, affirms: "It must be recognized, however, that in I century Iranian and Hellenistic
concepts had been assimilated by Judaism to such an extent that they merged with it in an inextricable way,
becoming part of a syncretistic Judaism". See also Mary Boyce, Zoroastrianism: A Shadowy but Powerful Presence
in the Judaeo-Christian World, London 1987.

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Participants of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). And to clothe yourselves with the new self, created
according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:24).

He disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness (Heb 12:10).

We have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16); we are God’s offspring (Paul in Acts 17:29); For those
whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he
might be the firstborn within a large family (Rom 8:29); we are children of God, and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom 8:16-17).

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and
length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19).

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the
Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18)406.

The statement God became man so that man might become God with minor variations is found
in Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, ch. 1 - Origen, Against Celsus III 28 - St
Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 54 3 - St Ambrose, De Virginitate I 11. St John
Chrysostom in the Homily on the Letter to the Philippians VII 2 5-8 assures: "Nothing
supports the noble and philosophical soul in doing good works as the prospect of
becoming like God".

New nobility. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away;
see, everything has become new! (2 Cor 5:17)

Among the privileges bestowed on the believer stands out the access to the presence of
God. We read in Heb 10:19: Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the
sanctuary by the blood of Jesus.

The Christian becomes a child of light and of the day (1 Thess 5:5), salt of the earth (Matt 5:13),
light of the world (Matt 5:14), created for good works (Eph 2:10), cell of the body of Christ (1 Cor
12:27), the habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph 2:22). The Letter to the Hebrews 6:5
speaks of Christians as those who have a foretaste of the age to come.

406 See David M. Litwa, We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul's Soteriology, Berlin 2012.
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Miracle workers.

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do
greater works than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12). And Jesus said to them,
‚Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and
is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will
accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new
tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt
them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover‛. So then the Lord Jesus, after he
had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they
went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and
confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it (Mark 16:15-20).

Victory over the world.

Thus, he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through
them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become
participants of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4).

I am writing to you, young people, because you have conquered the evil one (1 John 2:13).

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession (2 Cor 2:14).

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not
withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything
else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It
is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed
intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‚For your sake we are
being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered‛. No, in all these things we
are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth407, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:31-39).

407 Height and depth are astrological terms (Siu Fung Wu, Suffering in Romans, Eugene 2015, p. 197).

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A new creation. The special feature of Christianity is the elevation of man, as far as
possible, to the level of the divine408. Put another way, the creation of the Superman: son of
the Father, brother of Jesus, animated by the Holy Spirit. The proposal or offering that
Christianity makes to man is precisely this: to rise above nature (flesh and blood), not to
deny it, but to incorporate it dialectically into a fuller life. "Grace awakens and amplifies
attitudes and inclinations that would otherwise remain buried in us. The supernatural of
the mystics is in reality our truest and deepest natural"409.

This means losing one's limited, selfish, coarse, individualistic vision, linked to the Ego
and the immediate place and time (the here and now), to live in a fullness that is the result
of accepting a higher point of view, the divine one. Whoever reaches that goal sees the
world and human events with the eye of God, sub specie aeternitatis, greatly widening the
perspective, the horizons. In short, he lets himself be guided by the Spirit, like a light sail
driven forth by divine breath. Christianity is just that410.

We do entrust others with the task to merrily operate subtle and penetrating distinctions
on the nature of divinization (enthronement, deification, angelication). It is enough for us
to know that from it comes out the Christian Superman, in the wake of an elevation to the
superhuman to which the Greco-Roman culture and Hellenistic Judaism aspired. Of
course, there is no doubt that this Superman is not God himself, he is only akin to God in
certain functions. Only in this mitigated sense may he rightly be called divine.

The Christian lives fundamentally on the Spirit of God. Life in the Spirit is recognized by
its fruits: love, joy, peace, understanding, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control
(Gal 5:22-23). Which, otherwise said, is to lead an angelic life already on earth, to foretaste
heaven in spite of adversities (perhaps precisely by virtue of them). It is a long strain, due
to the fact that an authentic sign of holiness is to recognize oneself every day inadequate to
the model and therefore to ask God for help to improve, to take another step forward. But
the Christian is not selfish: he does not aim only at his own salvation or, better, he knows
that this is linked to the promotion of the salvation of others.

408 ‚The believer is not God by nature, but becomes God by grace‛ (St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the
Gospel of John 111).

409 Paolo Arrigo Orlandi, I fenomeni fisici del misticismo, Milano 1996, p. 6.

410 All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into
fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‚Abba! Father!‛ it is that very Spirit bearing
witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:14-16) - If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the
Spirit (Gal 5:25). "To acquire the Spirit of God is the true goal of Christian life" (St Seraphim of Sarov).

139
A physical sign of life in the Spirit of God is the irradiation of divine light. The
Transfiguration of Jesus acts as the archetype of the transfiguration of the saints.

St Seraphim of Sarov
and His Disciple Nikolai Aleksandrovič Motovilov

Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said: "We are both in the Spirit of God
now, my son. Why don't you look at me?". I replied: "I cannot look, Father, because your eyes are
flashing like lightning. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and my eyes ache with pain".
Father Seraphim said: "Don't be alarmed, son! Now you yourself have become as bright as I am.
You are now in the fullness of the Spirit of God yourself; otherwise you would not be able to see me
as I am".

Then, bending his head towards me, he whispered softly in my ear: "Thank the Lord God for His
unutterable mercy to us! You saw that I did not even cross myself; and only in my heart I prayed
mentally to the Lord God and said within myself: 'Lord, grant him to see clearly with his bodily
eyes that descent of Thy Spirit which Thou grantest to Thy servants when Thou art pleased to
appear in the light of Thy magnificent glory'. And you see, my son, the Lord instantly fulfilled the
humble prayer of poor Seraphim. How then shall we not thank Him for this unspeakable gift to us
both? Even to the greatest hermits, my son, the Lord God does not always show His mercy in this
way. This grace of God, like a loving mother, has been pleased to comfort your contrite heart at the
intercession of the Mother of God herself. But why, my son, do you not look me in the eyes? Just
look, and don't be afraid! The Lord is with us!".

After these words I glanced at his face and there came over me an even greater reverent awe.
Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling light of its midday rays, the face of a man talking to
you. You see the movement of his lips and the changing expression of his eyes, you hear his voice,
you feel someone holding your shoulders; yet you do not see his hands, you do not even see yourself
or his figure, but only a blinding light spreading far around for several yards and illumining with
its glaring sheen both the snow-blanket which covered the forest glade and the snow-flakes which
besprinkled me and the great Elder411.

411 In Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Cambridge 2005, pp. 228, 229. At the
beginning of this work Lossky states: "The whole history of Christian dogma develops around the mystical
pivot of the divinization of man" (p. 10).

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 HELP MY FAITH!

Doubt

Hanging by the thread of billions of favorable coincidences. I sit and think about the
contingent character of my being. If I hadn't been favored by an incalculable number of
coincidences, I wouldn't be here. It would have been enough to obliterate me if any one of
my countless ancestors had passed away before he had secured a lineage. I’m hanging by
a thread, not only for the past, but also for the present. What keeps me alive is the set of
favorable conditions that make up my living environment. Then I feel unsubstantial, a
feather at the mercy of any breath, a shaky house of cards.

The fog of incertitude. The opponents of religious faith do not realize that alongside it
there are a thousand other undemonstrated convictions that allow us to live. Without the
light of faith we would grope in uncertainty. We trust that the laws of the physical world
remain unchanged, that past experience is valid for the future, that the world exists and is
not a bleary dream, that tomorrow the sun will rise, that we are not on the eve of a
cataclysm. It is an irrational faith in the future that induces us to procreate, to attempt bold
undertakings. It is faith in ideals (homeland, love, nation, culture) that urges us to act, to
endure hardships, to face death. Even the newborn baby shows off his inbred faith. It is an
irrational faith in himself and in his future, in his right to live and, consequently, to be
accepted and loved.

If you do not believe, you lose any prod to action and get lost in the labyrinths of doubt. If
you want to live, you must believe. Faith is a leap into darkness that enlightens life. In our
children we instill, even before they are born, our personal beliefs, almost never supported
by scientific certainties. Above all, it is the wholly irrational faith in ourselves, in our
value, in our destiny that makes us compete every day animated by instinctive
determination. Those who do not believe in God then again believe uncritically in
themselves and in a peck of values, where the rational basis is lacking.

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Faith without the comfort of facts is a practical necessity of daily life, not a peculiar
characteristic of theology412. Hume has clearly taught us that if we had to wait for
irrefutable proof of everything, we would not be able to take a single step413. The same
distinction, fundamental in practice, between normal and abnormal is the result of
entrenched beliefs no less shared than arbitrary, consensually accepted by members of a
cultural or professional group. So is this, because so it seems to us. After all, there is not
even the certainty that our much vaunted reality is not a long dream containing other
dreams.

I wander through the mists of incertitude: nothing is entirely certain, nothing is without
objections. But I must unblock myself and decide swiftly414. In the game of life gambling is
a must.

Every proof reveals itself as a belief, based on rules full of unproven assumptions. It is a
circular thought on a large scale. Believing means leaning towards what in a given
situation - which may last for years - seems to us the most likely option. There is no
absolute and shared certainty. But then even science is reduced to belief: what seems most
probable to scientists today is science; tomorrow it will be replaced by something else. No
science can be proven exhaustively415. Kurt Gödel argues that any mathematical or logical
system will always be incomplete and will contain at least one indemonstrable
assumption. Everything is based on postulates, therefore on beliefs. In order to avoid
recourse to infinity with proofs to be proved in turn, it is necessary to suppose a self-

412 See Reginald O. Kapp, Facts and Faith: The Dual Nature of Reality, Los Angeles 2010. On the 'naturalness' of
religious faith: Eugene G. D'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of
Religious Experience, Minneapolis 1999; John J. McGraw, Brain and Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul, Del
Mar, Ca, 2004; Dean H. Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes, New York, 2005;
Andrew B. Newberg and Mark R. Waldmann, Born to Believe: God, Science and the Origin of Ordinary and
Extraordinary Beliefs, New York 2007; Michael Shermer, The Believing Brain: From Spiritual Faiths to Political
Convictions - How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths, London 2012.

413 There is no logical guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow or that the bread that fed me at lunch will
not poison me at dinner (David Hume, Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, London 1748,
essay IV, part 2).

414 In the context of concrete decisions, where the absolute certainty of the premises is lacking, Card. John
Henry Newman in his An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (London 1874) introduces the concept of
'illative sense'.

415 Mathematician Morris Kline argued: "A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts".

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proven truth as the basis of knowledge, an immediate original evidence of an intuitive
nature.

The rationalists, always ready to denounce someone else’s paralogisms, do not realize that
their whole armored kit and caboodle of arguments rests on the most striking petition of
principle. In fact, abhorring, at least in words, any irrational belief, they will not be able to
base the certainty of the validity of reason except on a demonstration entrusted to reason
itself, which in this anomalous trial would act as both defendant and judge, deeming as
demonstrated precisely what is to be demonstrated416.

The rationalist skeptic who doubts everything and makes sport of the certainties of others,
if he were really consistent, would have to shut himself up in the most impenetrable
autism. He has no conclusive evidence in his hands to have faith in his parents, in his
partner417, in his children, in his friends, in his nation, in science, in history, in progress, in
mankind, in today's world, in tomorrow's world and above all in himself. All beliefs in this
regard stand on brittle stilts, falling into the category of easily dismantlable myths. The
dignity of man as such is no less indemonstrable than the existence of God. Atheistic
Marxism has developed into a secular religion with its commandments, its unprovable
assumptions, its utopian project418, its appeal to the irrational and poetical flair:
‚Communist society will write on its flag<‛. God has been replaced by the people, in the
wake of the age-old belief that the future Messiah will coincide with the Jewish people, the
savior of the world. A surreptitious religiosity. In conclusion, the call to the irrational is
present in any choice419.

The first thing all of us instinctively do (and Heaven help us if we don’t do it - we would
be considered in need of psychiatric counseling) is to believe in ourselves, the most
irrational of all beliefs, which indeed find in it their unaccountable basis. But in this way

416 By lepidly comparing the enterprise of investigating with reason the validity of reason itself to the claim
of those who want to learn to swim without plunging into the water (Enzyklopädie der philosophischen
Wissenschaften im Grundrisse I, § 41, Zusatz I), Hegel ends up elevating the validity of reason into an
indisputable postulate. On the other hand, the validity in question might certainly not be inferred from the
results, because this empirical criterion is invoked precisely to establish the validity of the diverse beliefs.

417 Not a few, in fact, to avoid any nasty surprises, take care to warn in case of coming back home
unexpectedly.

418 The term must be understood in the sense given to it by Ernst Bloch.

419 Nothing prevents a secular faith from being matched by its distinctive alternate state of consciousness.

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those who have been branded as depressed are deprived of the possibility of competing
on the level of rational discourse with the so-called normal. Then it is evident that
pessimistic reasoning, sometimes subtle and convincing, or at least shocking, is
invalidated, for it is thought to be damaged by illness, by psychic disorder, and this is due
to an irrational choice, removed from discussion and falsely scientific. The so-called
normal people start from the unproven assumption that life is beautiful, life deserves to be
lived, and so on420. The drug addict, who knows that in drugs he finds a weapon of self-
destruction, however such that he does not feel the weight of that squalid and unsolicited
experience that for him is life, might well shore up his view with references to ancient and
less ancient bywords: "It is better to die than to live", "Death is the best one might wish for
those who have had the misfortune of being born", "Suicide is the highest act of human
dignity". Conversely, the latter statement in particular is held to be the result of mental
disorder by psychiatry, aligned on basic irrational positions in defense of life 421. Therefore,
when we axiomatically proclaim "human life is sacred", "life is beautiful", the nonrational
cornerstone of a new religion, not unlike the revealed ones, is already being laid.

My contention plays up one single point: precisely on the grounds that it is impossible to
identify irrefutable bases of any cognition or idea, then you have to come up with a belief,
a set of principles to cling to, because you need them, because it is good to believe in them,
because believing in them exalts your (always questionable) idea of humanity. This is our
limit. We cannot do without a set of fideistically accepted beliefs, whether we want to
admit it or not, but, recognizing that they are mostly just the best guess of the moment, we
remain open to other ideas. Rather than into rational or irrational, beliefs should be
distinguished into functional and dysfunctional, depending on whether or not they prove
to be suitable in practice in order to make our existence fuller and more meaningful 422.
Each one in his firmament arrays and marshals the chosen constellations.

420 From the disasters we committed against planetary life it would not be difficult to argue that our species
is a pest to be wiped out as soon as possible, in order to allow nature to resume its course undisturbed. See
Michael Pollan, Second Nature, New York 2007, p. 112: "Weeds are not the Other. Weeds are us‛.

421 Having noted that the concept of mental disorder varies from one culture to another, Marie L. Thompson
wonders: "Is the diagnosis of mental disorder attributed to most suicidal tendencies based on objective
diagnostic criteria or on moral or ethical principles?" (Mental Illness, Westport, Ct, 2007, p. 94).

422 Arie W. Kruglanski, Lay Epistemics and Human Knowledge: Cognitive and Motivational Bases, College Park,
2013, p. 197+.

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Providing reasons, churning out reasons. The most recent neuropsychiatry has shown
that any decision is impossible without emotions and feelings423. I go even further. It is not
enough for me to say that every decision is impossible in the absence of feelings. As I see
it, it is love and aversion that decide. We first issue the sentence (which is after all a
product of our emotionality) and then we calmly elaborate its motivation. In doubtful
cases we do not sway between one reason and another, but between one feeling and
another. Once the decision has been made, it is easy to provide gazillions of motives. Proof
of this is the endless dispute between Christian denominations. If I hate the other, I shall
not find it hard to descry the demonic mark in all of his traits. To make me believe that he
is the incarnation of evil is not a chain of reasoning, but a string of feelings or rather
resentments, so much so that, if we love a person, we are ready to forgive even the most
monstrous betrayal, pinning the blame to others, to circumstances, to congenital weakness,
to having neglected him or her. No one is short of excuses and pretexts. Those who hate,
condemn without appeal and drool out a myriad of reasons. Those who love, forgive, and
are able to find shedloads of whys and wherefores. It is the law of the infinite cornucopia,
formulated by Leszek Kołakowski, which explains the process of rationalization (rational
justification of feelings)424.

To argue and debate at this point amounts to beating the air and milling the wind. The
Christian churches have been doing so for ages with the result of fanning the flames and
adding insult to injury425. If the heart (i.e., the feeling) changes, the miracle happens that
only love can operate. That is why one must take the initiative to love one's enemies and

423 See Sharon R. Krause, Civil Passions: Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation, Princeton, 2008, p. 3.
Specific books: Joseph LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, New York 1996; Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Phantoms
in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, New York 1998; Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error:
Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, New York 2000; Kevin S. Seybold, Explorations in Neuroscience,
Psychology and Religion, Aldershot 2013; Luiz Pessoa, The Cognitive-Emotional Brain: From Interactions to
Integration, Cambridge, Ma, 2013.

424 In Religion, New York 1982, p. 16. Cf Blaise Pascal: ‚Tout notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au
sentiment< On aurait besoin d’une regle. La raison s’offre; mais elle est pliable à tous sens et ainsi il n’y en a
point‛ (Pensées, Paris 16713, p. 121, par. 310). Obviously there is no denying the irreplaceable role played by
reason in the establishment of Bacon’s Regnum hominis on the physical world.

425 In third-millennium Greece a spirited debate blazes on the crucial question of whether the denomination
'Christian Church' is appropriate for the Catholic 'heretics'.

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not only one's neighbor (in the Old Testament, the fellow countryman or co-religionist426).
It is not with pamphlets that problems are solved, but with forgiveness, with love. The one
who loves, marks his excellence, rising to a level immeasurably higher than that of the
petty person who, loved, does not love. To love and forgive, moreover, is convenient, in
view of the fact that hatred is a worry that hurts those who brood over it, blocking them in
a narrow horizon.

Imagine God as a sun that enlightens and warms. If you hate, you make yourself opaque
and create behind you a cone of shadow into which you would like to banish the guys you
frown upon so that the divine light does not reach them. The commandment of love
enjoins instead that you must not absorb the light that comes to you from God, but, on the
contrary, let it penetrate you, spread and expand it, once you have become perfectly
transparent and therefore invisible427.

This booklet does not consist of a compact series of incontestable arguments. Underneath
the sequence of laborious lucubrations, I hope you feel the passion that enlivens it, even
though the poet's verses428 and the mystic's serene gaze are more apt to disclose such a
personal worldview.

426 Marcus J. Borg, "Jesus and the Quest for Holiness: The Alternative Paradigm", in Craig A. Evans, ed., The
Historical Jesus: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies. Vol. II: The Teaching of Jesus, London-New York 2004, p.
305.

427 Balt' urrèj, / sharrnjèj / për drit', / got' e kristàlt'. I abhor mud, I thirst for light as a crystal cup does.

428 VARGU. Flake / ngallìmë / mlutas / në damàrët. VERSE. Seed of occult flame in the veins.

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 Faith

I believe that Christian doctrine is true because Jesus is risen, but I believe in the risen
Jesus because I take Christian doctrine as true. It is a vicious circle (pistilli versatio) only for
those who do not understand that one falls in love with Christ and that in our case it
makes no sense to distinguish between resurrection and message. They are welcomed as
one. This is faith: letting oneself be seduced. An atheist entered like one a church and came
out a fervent believer. The mystical atmosphere was enough to make the impetuous
current of faith - the certainty of a new vision centered on the cross of Christ and his
resurrection - burst into his soul, particularly predisposed at that moment.

Without love one cannot live. We need God like air. The mean, stingy and begrudged
loves of the world are not enough for us. We aspire to an infinite love. This is the need that
justifies faith. To renounce it is a suicide, since instead of it we attribute infinite value to
money, pleasure and power. One creates idols that are more within reach, but in the long
run they reveal themselves unsatisfactory.

We might establish a parallelism between bodily and spiritual needs. Both, if not satisfied,
create unhappiness. From the most primitive hominids to present-day humans we have
developed a distinctive heightened sensibility that goes beyond material needs. Food and
sleep are not enough for us. We demand the approval of others, gratitude, affection, love.
This changes self-awareness. We become more refined, more demanding. Sometimes we
love loneliness, restlessness, melancholy. Nothing is enough for us. What a difference
between the prehistoric beast who, once sated, fell asleep blissfully and the unrestful man
who aspires to an infinite good! A new hierarchy is created, independent of success in the
world, in contrast to the values of the 'winners'. The thirst for infinity429 makes us more
aware of ourselves, prods us on into something noble and eminent, mobilizes our energies
in view of higher goals, becomes the spring of the further process of humanization.

We say God the object of aspiration to infinity. Even if it were the fruit of a progressive
refinement of sensitivity, it would still be in spite of everything a splendid blunder. Faith
in God and the aspiration to God that bolsters it are for people who are never satisfied,
selective people, perhaps dreamers, assuredly provided with a high sense of self, if they

429 The sense of infinity is powerfully conveyed in Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
(1818).

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dare to do without things that others yearn for. They are the true happy few, eagles flying
over flocks intent on grazing. After all, the privileged ones. An aristocracy of the spirit.
This is enough to give a different tone to life.

The realm of art borders on that of faith430. It is useless to argue with those who lack the
taste for beauty and ignore the value of intuition contained in the poetic word 431. For the
grubbing greedy boar, vain waste will be the nightingale’s warbling melody. If he decides
to demolish even the Bard’s verses, the skeptic will certainly have no shortage of
arguments. If he sees me admiring the rainbow, the sunset, an aurora borealis, for the
rationalist it is easy to elucidate these phenomena with deviations of light rays, different
wavelengths, and the like. All true. But let me have the freedom to be stunned and
touched. Gorgias asseverates as regards the theatrical performances that stage mythical or
otherwise unreal events: "The man who let himself be deceived is wiser than he who does
not"432.

When faith and poetry merge433, then the sublime is born.

In praise of the useless. Free gesture is the capstone of our evolution434. In the mists of
time, every action was aimed at profit, first and foremost at survival. With the evolution of
the human psyche we passed to seemingly useless purposes: the cult of physical beauty,
visual arts, literature, music, knowledge without practical upshot, an impossible love
cherished for decades, setting a record, suffering for others, giving oneself to others in
anonymity.

430 Cf Wessel Stoker, Is Faith Rational? A Hermeneutical-Phenomenological Accounting for Faith, Leuven 2006, p.
14.

431 FJALË. Për rret' / e së pathënshmes / lëvàre / kur e tek. WORDS. Along the paths of the unspeakable, traces
every now and again.

432 DK 82 B 23.

433 Faith and poetry are interwoven in Giuseppe Serembe (San Cosmo Albanese [Stergario] 1844 - São Paulo
of Brazil 1901), an emblematic figure of star-crossed loser with a wandering life. The poet was struck by
death on the eve of the proclamation of his "spiritual Christianity". The manuscript setting out its principles
has been lost, but a partial reconstruction is made possible by hints strewn in publications and letters. His
sonnet Night Vision presents an extraordinary consonance with Enoch's 'heavenly journey', culminating in
the contemplation of the Merkabah (1 Enoch 14:8-20).

434 The renowned French climber Lionel Terray entitled his memoirs Les conquérants de l'inutile (1961). In
1967, the film Le conquérant de l'inutile was based on them.

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For those who have faith is valuable what appears useless or insane in the eyes of the
masses: concealment, renunciation of the world's delights, unknown sacrifice, immolation
for an ideal, faith in an invisible God, the wager on eternal life.

Hiding, not in the desert, but in the crowded city. Not clothes or symbols of recognition,
not spectacular actions, not to be in the limelight, not weird penances, not fasting records
where the demon of pride lurks435. Rather, perfect camouflage in the environment. The
true religion is, in the eyes of the obtuse, the triumph of pointlessness.

There is no convincing evidence for those who do not want to believe. One believes with
the heart (Rom 10:10). Faith is an act of love, not a theorem capable of imposing itself with
such inexorable logic as to extort the assent436. The believer is rather similar to the lover437
who sees in the beloved a perennial source of inspiration for life, a motor of action, a
turning point that paints the world with the most varied colors. Yet that same woman is
for the rest of men an inconsiderable, anonymous being.

Those who do not want to believe will never be convinced, even if a deceased person
comes back from the afterlife (Luke 16:31).

The apostles wanted to believe438 in the risen Jesus and for them were enough the available
facts - which to the skeptics did not demonstrate, do not demonstrate and will never
demonstrate anything -, just because in those questionable facts they wanted to see the
clincher of a new spiritual order in which they already believed, albeit a bit nebulously,
while Christ was alive. They wanted to believe in the risen Christ (like us, after all), not on

435 So as not to be like or more than the Master, St Nilus of Rossano († 1004) broke up one of his austere fasts
on the thirty-ninth day.

436 "Rather than as certainty, faith may be described as an attitude of trust adopted in the face of our
ignorance of God... Faith always goes beyond the evidence... Certainty is the opposite of faith. The quest for
certain knowledge is one of the surest ways to destroy authentic Christian faith... When the nature and
limitations of faith are forgotten, Christianity easily becomes an irrational and dogmatic creed claiming
absolute truth for itself and engaging in a power drive to suppress or destroy all alternative points of view
and those who hold them" (Jeremy Young, The Cost of Certainty: How Religious Conviction Betrays the Human
Psyche, Cambridge, Ma, 2005, p. 6). ‚In matter of faith, uncertainty is unavoidable. Without uncertainty there
is no reason to believe, for then we would know and there would be no risk in believing‛ (David Crump,
Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture: Reading the Bible Critically in Faith, Grand Rapids 2013, p. 66).

437 St Augustine (In Evangelium Ioannis 26 4) has well understood and expressed the similarity: "Da amantem
et sentit quod dico". - Give me a lover and he will understand what I say.

438 About the will to believe, see Scott F. Aikin, Evidentialism and the Will to Believe, London 2014.

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account of an irrefutable proof (which for those who do not want to believe will never
exist), but since they thought it preferable and exciting to throw themselves into a spiritual
adventure that would transmute them into convinced bearers of a series of new values,
beginning with their own divinization, which finds its seal in the faith in the risen
Christ439.

Everything is possible in the risen Christ; but I believe in the risen Christ, because I want
everything to be possible440.

Faith is a life experience. One believes not by dint of arguments441, but inasmuch as one
falls in love with a person who embodies an idea. Faith, therefore, is not propagated by
theological disquisitions, but by example, by a flame that passes from one heart to another,
by the light that emanates from the believer's countenance. I do not love Jesus because I
know him, I know Jesus because I love him442.

Those who live in a Christian family are fascinated by the conviction with which their
parents live the Gospel. The disciples fell in love not so much with Jesus' doctrines as with
the way Jesus incarnated them in his life. To believe is to listen to one's deepest aspirations
and to objectify them in a person443.

439 Similarly, they believed in Christ crucified, because in him they saw (or rather wanted to see) the model,
worthy of love, of the self-sacrificing life, therefore inasmuch as, following his example, they were willing to
sacrifice themselves for others. Even an atheist may admit the historical fact of Jesus' crucifixion, but its
expiatory and revolutionary value can only be grasped with the eyes of faith; it makes sense only for those
who believe, indeed for those who want to believe.

440 On the other hand, of wanting everything to be possible, as a prerequisite of faith in the risen Christ, we
are indebted to the same elevating Spirit. Thus, the circle is closed: even in the remotest sources faith is
revealed as a gift from God. No one can say ‚Jesus is Lord‛ except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). I have already
dealt with the problems that consequently affect free will in Anceps Necessitas, Stergario 1976.

441 Therefore, more silent witness supported by prayer is needed and fewer sermons crammed with well-
wrought arguments and humdrum erudition.

442 Only a loving spirit can know God: Love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John
4:7). "Per amorem agnoscimus" (St Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 10 8 13). "In mysticism we know through
love... The mystical theology or secret science of God is learned through love" (St John of the Cross, Spiritual
Canticle A, Prologue 3; 18 3).

443 It is not proofs that generate faith, but faith, for mainly apologetic purposes, builds proofs that it does not
actually need. The economist Stuart Chase (1888-1985) effectively summarized the question in the well-
known aphorism: "For those who believe, no proof is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no proof is
possible‛. The faith of St Thomas Aquinas did not stand on the 'five ways'. These were only the
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Money, power, pleasures - deceptive goods inserted in the whirling pinwheel of routine
flattered by the prospect of death - do not satisfy me. I aspire to something higher.
Ordinary life has no meaning or has one only for people with torpid sensibility. I need
something greater. I am a realist: I want the impossible - to revive the slogan of the French
May. I want to be a brave man, get off the high road, say goodbye to the anonymous and
intoxicated crowd, face the unknown, fight against witches, monsters and giants that
mainly prowl within me, defy death and smash it up, triumph where so many have been
put to route. It is the same taste for the extraordinary that pushes the climber to challenge
the summit through a path never attempted before. The woodworm of dissatisfaction
pushes us up: higher and higher, always leaving behind what until a moment ago satisfied
us. Excelsius!

The experiential proof of God’s existence is offered by the Sehnsucht, the disease of desire,
the unquenchable aspiration444. The grey, toxic and mephitic muddy swampland in which
so many men swallow doesn’t befit me. I want to give meaning to life, feel the strings of
the soul vibrating madly, feel the thrill of flight. I feel all the misery of an existence turning
into the quicksand of short-sighted selfishness. I am insatiable. I want to give everything
to have everything. I'm ready to climb the cross to crush death. I just want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection. I want to suffer and die in communion with him, so that I too
may attain the resurrection of the dead (Phil 3:10-11). I believe in God without proof, in order
to dispel despair; for, in spite of the most depressing sophisms, I have the audacity to
stake my all and gamble445.

God presents himself as a life project. Faith is the translation into concrete life of our
aspirations and the experiential proof of hidden realities (Heb 11:1)446. Jesus is the character in

rationalization of an already existing faith, based on the will to believe and the direct experience of God. The
logical demonstrations fall within the scope of the law of the infinite cornucopia, which also explains the
corresponding confutations. The same applies to the proofs of his own particular status, found by Jesus in
Scripture. The awareness that he was the Son of God was inculcated in him by the inspiration of the Father,
with whom, in a continuous relationship of loving communication, he felt as one (John 10:30). The fragile
scriptural proofs, on the other hand, were of a thoroughly incidental nature, as part of a questionable
rationalization. Hence, the ancillary role of theory with respect to sentiment.

444 Correspondingly, religion is nothing more than openness to infinity.

445 I suggest listening to the song Credo by Giorgia (2017).

446 In the interpretation of the verse, lapidarly pregnant in the original text, I follow Gareth Lee Cockerill, The
Epistle to the Hebrews, Grand Rapids 2012, p. 521.

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whom our deepest needs are incarnated, the archetype to which it is wonderful to
conform. I believe in his atoning death, my way to full life that no longer fears death. I
believe in his resurrection, since I myself want to resurrect and in his resurrection I see the
archetype of the certain resurrection of those who are inspired by him. I believe that God
became man in Jesus, for as a man I want to become God. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
because Jesus is not for me an unreachable model lost in a far-flung and inaccessible
heaven, but he is already within me, engaged, through his Spirit, in a continuous dialogue,
inspiring my ascent, companion in my journey through life, consoler in hardships. In a
word, God presents himself to me as my deepest self. There is no need to look for him
outside. Each one of us is a tabernacle that carries him around the world.

The aim that the Christian religion proposes to us is precisely to become aware of this
(partial) identity, of this friendly divine presence in the recesses, unknown to us too, of our
ego. This is the doctrine of mutual indwelling: God is in us, and we are in God. God is
always the infinitely other, shrouded almost throughout in darkness, but fortunately, even
if only for that smidgen that we can catch on, he manifests himself in our innermost self
and makes us one with him. The Christian religious experience - a special zest for life -
may only be understood in terms of love, feeling, elation, vibration447, dialogue, hug, cry448,
joy, intuition, light449.

The kērygma, in a nutshell, is contained in the statement: Jesus is the incarnate Son of God
who, dead and risen, keeps on living by the power of the Spirit in the community he redeemed450.

447 Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures
to us? Luke 24:32. Cf Henry L. Novello, Passionate Deification: The Integral Role of the Emotions in Christ’s life
and in Christian Life, Eugene 2019.

448 In the opinion of the Byzantine mystic Simeon the New Theologian (949-1022), a monk cannot approach
the sacraments without shedding tears.

449 "The poetic texts of the New Testament represent the attempt of early Christian writers to create
numinous experiences for their audiences.... These texts were aimed not at convincing, but, rather, at
inducing ‚ekstasis‛, literally, transport, carrying their listeners into an alternative realm of reality, an
experience that would fundamentally change their orientation in the physical and social worlds in which
they lived‛ (Gary S. Selby, Not with Words of Wisdom: Nonrational Persuasion in the New Testament, Grand
Rapids, 2016, pp. 16, 17). It stands to reason that the thrill of music boosts the suggestion.

450 Without prejudice to this basic and inalienable truth of Christianity, in the rest, for example in the
tendentious interpretation of the Old Testament, one can see the ineluctable reflection of the defective
mindset linked to the times, as per the fact that the first inculturation of Christian truth took place in
Judaism. The concept of revelation ought therefore to be revised and its traditional scope drastically
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Yesterday as today, each Christian is called to make a personal synthesis of Jesus' message,
naturally fluid, as it is exposed to the rhythms of love relationship451. And this experience
cannot be judged with cold mental quibbles. It's not by formulating sterile theories about
sounds and keeping our ears plugged that we can let ourselves be overwhelmed by the
wave of a symphony. For the believer, the proof that Jesus has risen and lives consists in
an uninterrupted dialogue with his Spirit. Those who want to keep their hearts extremely
close to absolute zero will never be convinced of this. Of the objections of the skeptical
rationalists the believer is not afraid. He does not respond to them with learned
lucubrations, but with life, with the light emanating from the furnace that, hidden away,
burns in his heart, since he knows well that faith is not transmitted with logomachies,
inexhaustible by definition452, a convenient shield for the man unwilling to throw himself
into the fray. I believe, for the reason that I have fallen in love with a set of values, but,
foremost, I have fallen in love with Jesus, who is the bearer of values that raise me to levels
previously unimaginable to me. I believe in Jesus, because I believe in an exciting life
project. Faith is the bursting of an energy capable of mobilizing every fiber of mine453.

The founder of the Neocatechumenals, Francisco (Kiko) Argüello, embraced Christianity

at the height of a hellacious existential crisis.

I saw that all this gave no meaning to my life. I had died inwardly and I knew that my end would
surely be, sooner or later, suicide. And I was actually amazed that people were able to live, but I

reduced. In the tradition of the Apostles, the inalienable nucleus of revelation must be distinguished from
the cultural superfetations and incrustations, which constitute the toll they had to pay to the culture of their
time. As a consequence, the inessential nature of the Jewish element sticks out.

451 Each Christian feels that the messages contained in the Gospel resound in his or her soul unlike from
other believers and in tune with the diverse stages of life. Proof of this is the different charisms, furthermore
developed over time, of the founders of religious orders. If adherence to Christ will be seen not as a registry
status, but as an exclusive and inimitable path, linked not only to the historical climate, but also to the
nature, culture and vicissitudes of the individual, then the variety of Christian experiences, attested to from
the beginning, will not cause scandal.

452 Faith cannot be reduced to the acceptance of a list of theological formulas. "Believing in God: so easy even
a demon can do it": this is the heading of chapter V of a recent book by Peter Enns, whose title already says it
all (The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our 'Correct' Beliefs, San Francisco 2016).

453 ‚And in the luck of night / in secret places where no other spied / I went without my sight / without a
light to guide / except the heart that lit me from inside. / O guiding dark of night! / O dark of night more
darling than the dawn! / O night that can unite / a lover and loved one, / lover and loved one moved in
unison‛ (St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, trans. A. Z. Foreman, verses 11-15, 21-25).

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wasn't. People deluded themselves with football, with cinema, things senseless for me. Living was
just suffering. Every day the same thing. Who am I? Why get up? Why earn money? Why get
married? And so everything made no sense to me... plunged into a chasm, I felt the sky like an
overwhelming burden of gloom... I asked the people in my neighborhood: "Excuse me a moment, do
you know why you live?". They couldn't answer, and yet they kept on living. I couldn't do it... I
ran away from myself and an abyss opened up in front of me.

Then I was helped by a philosopher, Bergson, in whose opinion intuition is a method of knowledge
superior to reason. God wanted to strike the first spark: I realized I was, after all, a rationalist who
was ruining himself with his own hands. Thanks to intuition I came to recognize that everything
made sense, that there was a God. But I didn't know how to find him... I went into my room and
invoked this God I didn't know: "Help me! I don't know who you are". At that moment the Lord
took pity on me, because I had a profound experience of encounter that frightened me. Tears flowed
in torrents. I felt like someone sentenced to death, to whom, in front of the firing squad, you
announce "You are free!". This was for me to go from death to the awareness that Christ was inside
me454.

The dramatic experience of the eruption of faith cannot be traced back to a logical
demonstration. It is, on the contrary, a personal interpretation of reality, it is a painting of
the world with one's own colors, just as it happens with falling in love, when a desolate
desert is metamorphosed into a boundless sweep of flowers. To believe is to give, in the
first person, a sense to the enigmatic and unlivable ravel and jumble surrounding us from
all sides455. The world (kósmos, order) is not something already given: it is what we want it
to be. To interpret the world means to shape it. Harmony and symmetry are absent from
the chaos in which we find ourselves thrown at birth. It is we who generate them with our
demiurgic power456.

In Jesus the danger of disappointment does not exist, because for the believer the dialogue
with him is as continuous as his presence is uninterrupted, his voice is heard at every
juncture of life, his help is clearly visible in a web of joys and sorrows that only the loving

454 The passage reported is taken from a testimony of Argüello (Assisi, 1 November 1996), later merged into
the autobiographical volume Il Kerygma. Nelle baracche con i poveri, Cinisello Balsamo 2013.

455 In the novel La Nausée by Sartre, Antoine Roquentin, sitting on a park bench, lives with revulsion the
senselessness of the world.

456 Nga vija të hèqura skandrèsha / màndalan stisa, shëmbëlltýrë / të rrokullìs', kalà. From lines drawn haphazardly
I built the mandala, an image of the universe, a stronghold. - Zgamth, / mbaj frymën, piks / metërthorì, / piks
horë. Chest, hold your breath, engender symmetry, engender harmony!

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soul can perceive. The believer has not met an idea, but a living and real person, Jesus,
and, precisely inasmuch as he believes him to be God, he knows that with him there are no
diaphragms of space and time, no communication problems arise, while recurring trials of
love follow one another in an ascent that makes the soul sprout eagle wings.

In a word, faith is a sui generis experience, which cannot be declared madness or

abnormality. Let us say that the believer - like the creative artist - lives in an alternate (but
not abnormal or delusive) state of consciousness, in a kind of calm exaltation. This is the
category of enthusiasm, a word that not by chance initially indicated divine possession457.

The pure vision of things and the exact perception of time are learned in the school of
suffering and love. Whoever manages to give thanks under the cross, gets to the point of
experiencing the highest peak of human wisdom. The main obstacle to the sequela Christi
lies in its being a shocking experience, which radically changes life's routine and its
comforts. "I could not stop loving the cross. I saw and felt that only it was life. What
unspeakable secrets my soul saw in such great suffering, in such painful journeys and,
finally, on Calvary! The black darkness of the night did not prevent the soul from
fathoming all those secrets that only the wisdom of a God can reveal. They were secrets,
mysteries of redemption. United to this wisdom of which I can say nothing, I felt obliged
to suffer and agonize" (Alexandrina, 1904-1955).

A virtuous circle (vicious for those who do not believe) is traceable in the Fourth Gospel
regarding the Holy Spirit. The fundamental text is John 16:12-15: I still have many things to
say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare
to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare
it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you.

The 'authentic' words of Jesus are understood correctly by translating them into life in the
Spirit through the enlightenment offered by the Spirit himself. One does not come to the
truth except through the Spirit. Understanding is not the premise of faith, but its fruit.
Only those who believe understand. Faith is self-feeding458. If they had not believed in the
Spirit, the disciples would not even have spotted him. They sensed him in the roar of the

457 I mean an inner enthusiasm, averse to splashy displays of faith.

458 By virtue of it we cross over into a new dimension that subverts the logic hinging on Barbara Baralipton
Fapesmo Frisesomorum.

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wind and in the tongues of fire in the light of a faith at least in germ, whereas an
incredulous one in those phenomena would have recognized unusual natural events or an
exhibition of surprising magical abilities, if not the malignant hand of Satan. This is the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him (John
14:17).

No matter how much effort is made to demonstrate the reasonable basis of our beliefs,
adhering to faith, or, as they say, embracing a faith, is no more the result of a complex and
articulate argument than embracing a woman.

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 Paradise Now
The tendency to perfection. Everyone is convinced that his action, at a given time and in a
specific personal situation, is the best, the one from which he expects the greatest possible
advantage. Even the suicide justifies the self-harm gesture with the prospect of a higher
happiness, which he sees in the cessation of pain or unbearable distress.

An ineluctable consequence is the impossibility of selfless action. I may throw myself into
the fire for others, suffer the most excruciating throes for religious or patriotic reasons, or
even just in a fit of pique, for mistaken pride, but what in any case I promise myself is still
my elevation. Not being able to love selflessly both God and other men was the worry of
the saints who, despite their best efforts, could not cross the horizon of their own ascent 459.
We love God as we love, thirsty, the fresh spring water. Only God loves unselfishly, since
he gives without needing the other: he is already perfect. Spreading the being and the
good is in his very nature, since he is a sun that cannot hold back its rays. Accordingly, the
saint is not the masochist who enjoys suffering in order to appease the Moloch who
terrifies him460, but, on the contrary, the one who devises and realizes the most appropriate
project for the purpose of his human realization. Christianity is only a hand outstretched
to us in the steep slope that leads us to full happiness. It is of no use to God. It profits and
benefits man461.

Deus absconditus. Ethologist Fritz Franz Heinz von und zu Schweifenburg462 has
meticulously transcribed with Teutonic meticulousness a pacey dialogue between three
ants who, having lost their way at the first cold weather of the season, had found refuge
and warmth between the interstices of the always-on supercomputer in Kaiserlautern

459 "Non enim sine praemio diligitur Deus, etsi absque praemii intuitu diligendus sit". - Loving God always
involves a reward, even if it is not to be done by calculation. St Bernard, De diligendo Deo VII 17. Ad maiorem mei
gloriam is the unconfessed motto that underlies all our actions.

460 So the Christian God is conceived by José Saramago, who, in strictly alphabetical order, draws up an
interminable list of saints who faced the oddest and grimmest trials of martyrdom (The Gospel According to
Jesus Christ, London 2008, pp. 290-294).

461 Sin must be interpreted as our resistance to full humanization.

462 "Lethal Metaphysical Temptations: The Strange Case of the Arguing Ants", in Transactions on Animal
Communication, XCVII - 2013, pp. 745-779. Fritz is considered by the experts the only savant in the world able
to understand that abstruse dialectal variety of 'ant language'.

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(Rhineland-Palatinate). While one of them limited itself to expressing satisfaction for the
contact with that unknown continent, without asking further metaphysical questions, the
other two engaged in a silly argle-bargle about its nature, function, self-reproduction,
voluntariness or not of its kindness, sensitivity to chemical messages, possible fall into
hibernation, willingness to welcome inside a colony of ants and amenities of the sort. The
dispute did not take long to degenerate and the argumentum baculinum prevailed463 to such
an extent that both ended up being mortally wounded, while the first one watched
helplessly and incredulously the unfortunate epilogue of the academic skirmishes.

What could the ants catch on of such a daedal contraption, altogether alien to their
understanding? In distinction to God we are immensely more ignorant than the emmets
thus dear to our von und zu in comparison with the supercomputer. On closer inspection, if
we take into account the infinity of God, we are almost entirely in agreement with the
agnostics. What we know is barely an ounce of it and yet it is enough to give a plausible
meaning to our lives. Of God - to me well-nigh totally incomprehensible - nothing else I
know except that he has slightly revealed himself to elevate me, that he warms my heart
and launches me into an exciting adventure. This is enough. It's only a glimmer, but it's
sufficient to set me on fire and in motion towards the best. Let us leave further insights to
those who on obscure lucubrations intend to build fame and career.

St Teresa of Ávila did not anguish over not understanding so many aspects of the
Trinity464. About it the only thing to ken is that God has manifested himself in his Son
Jesus and that, after the departure of Jesus, the Spirit of love of the Father and the Son lives
in us. In other words, of God we only know how he has acted and goes on acting to our
advantage, in the way ants can understand regarding the computer only that it gives light
and warmth, not what it is in itself, its internal structure, the uncountable functions it
performs. We blather about the essence of God, whereas at most we are apt to
communicate the experience of his love. If we dare to probe what he is in himself, we

463 Viz., they came to blows.

464 "I do not rack my brains on it... The less I understand it, the more I believe it, the more my devotion
increases" (Relaciones 5 8 / 33 3). "Theologians, on the other hand, are able to muddle through", the saint
points out, alluding with ill-hidden and biting irony to their rash forays into the most impenetrable realm.
But let the silent adoration of mystery not be upstaged by the clamor of a raucous and unavailing
donnybrook.

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inevitably get entangled in an abyss of darkness, because we presume to grasp what by
definition is precluded to us465.

God reveals himself. God manifests himself in all peoples and cultures. It is divine -
willed and programmed by God - the same process of humanization, of raising man from
bestiality to the most self-denying and sublime ideas and feelings. In Rom 2:10-16 Paul
states that God has revealed himself to the Gentiles in their hearts and concludes: This is
the message I have received. We may be convinced that God's revelation in Christianity is
more effective for the reasons abovementioned, but this does not detract from the fact that
in other religions, and even in atheists, God unveils his greatness. Why not see a divine
seed in the selfless act of the girl who, faithful to the collectivistic ethic of communism, ran
at the first earth tremor to get the herd out of the barn and almost at the end of the
operation was overwhelmed by a second, more powerful shock? This does not mean to
put all things on the same level, but to underscore the positive aspects, all linked with
God, which stand out in every human group and in every conception.

Wars of religion do not make sense, since, as Cusanus has well taught in De pace fidei466, the
infinity of God will never be comprehended. In the perspective of infinity the divergences
that seemed insurmountable are smoothed out and tend to disappear, the varying
conceptions appear to differ hardly at all, even if one faith should not be swapped for
another. I am a Christian and proud to be so, not willing to change my faith, on the
grounds that it offers me a more opportune way to get closer to God. That doesn’t mean
nevertheless that I may despise others who believe dissimilarly or who do not believe in
anything.

If a canon of sacred books is good as a general orientation, it must be admitted that, within
the Church, God keeps on manifesting himself in the saints and to the saints. But he also
manifests himself to each man in a mysterious and personal way. Mankind in its most
advanced stages carries forward the revelation of God, regardless of faith, because if an
atheist attains moral dignity, there is present the vestige of God. Even intellectual

465 Thus St Augustine (Sermones LII 6 16): "Si comprehendere potuisti, aliud pro Deo comprehendisti". - If you
think you understood God, then that means it was something else entirely. It is senseless to transfer into the Infinite
Being the typical categories of the limited and contingent world. In the case of God it is not ignorance that
disturbs us, but the illusion of knowledge, a deplorable delirium of presumption, an inexhaustible
inspiration for unreasonable and inconclusive rhubarbs, which too often lapse into persecutions and
massacres.

466 The work was composed in 1453, immediately after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks.

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achievements, what are they if not legs of the march towards God, this end of ends, this
unreachable goal of the whole process of humanization?

The wind [of the Spirit] blows where it chooses (John 3:8). Everything that is properly human
cannot become an object of dispute, but must be considered a common heritage. Let us
strip ourselves of our short-sighted perspective and admire mankind launched into this
elating progression467.

Man's self-awareness is the gradual unveiling of God. Every reflection that man conducts
on himself, every broadening of our human horizons is a revelation of God. Whatever
humans have produced on the most varied levels - the ideas of philosophers, poets,
scientists, mystics, even simple men and women in the face of the hard trials of life -,
everything must turn into a subject of meditation if we are to take a step ahead towards
perfect human fulfillment468.

We hear an inner voice that expounds, admonishes, exhorts. It is the voice of God. To
believe that YHWH on Sinai gave Moses the tablets of the commandments may only be a
sensible way to give a divine seal, an indisputable authority, to truths that have gradually
arisen in man through a divine revelation from heart to heart, in the true way God
communicates with us469.

Everything in consciousness. The progressive revelation of God in prehistory and in the

history of mankind comes to coincide with the process of humanization and divinization

467 "Quidquid verum, a quocumque dicitur, a Sancto dicitur Spiritu" (Ambrosiaster, Commentarium in
Epistolam I ad Corinthios XII 3) - Every truth, whoever enunciates it, comes from the Holy Spirit. St Thomas
Aquinas was so convinced of the validity of this maxim that he quoted it, slightly retouched in form, 18
times in his writings (Gerald O'Collins, Rethinking Fundamental Theology, Oxford 2011, p. 174). With regard to
the multiform and irrepressible presence and activity of the Spirit I point out Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Spirit
and Salvation, Grand Rapids, 2016. This is the fourth volume in the series A Constructive Christian Theology for
the Pluralistic World.

468 Thus Don Tonino Bello invoked the Holy Spirit: "Give us the joy of understanding that you do not speak
only from the mikes of our churches. That no one can boast of possessing you. And that, as the seeds of the
Word are spread in all the flowerbeds, it is also true that your moans are expressed in the tears of the
Mohammedans and in the truths of the Buddhists, in the loves of the Hindus and in the smiles of idolaters,
in the good words of heathen and in the righteousness of atheists".

469 The Ten Commandments were drawn from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The initial word is a clue:
Anokhi - I am. See Abraham Joshua Heschel, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations, New York-
London 2006, p. 483.

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of man. Man gradually becomes conscious of God and himself. The energy of the elevating
Spirit is displayed in the progressive consciousness, which is not only abstract knowledge,
but motion of heart and action. The fruit of the Spirit is a conviction capable of steering us
towards new noble purposes.

When we love God, when we feel to be one with him, our consciousness no longer has the
impression of being led from outside, because then it opens itself to the deepest mystery:
God is its foundation470. The so-called voice of conscience is the voice of God himself. What
Freud called Superego, we may call it God, Holy Spirit. It is nothing other than what we
can perceive, receive, of God. It informs and conforms us in the image of God, it
assimilates us to him. It is not a permanent and immutable fact, but a long strain, a
dialectical action that takes place between ups and downs, errors and misperceptions,
thanks to a work that eliminates the dross, the ballast, and brings out the true face of God
and the Ego, which, for its part, is all the more itself (the realized self) the more it
assimilates itself to God, welcomes him, lets itself be guided by him and with him merges:
It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20)471.

This appears overtly in the saints. To realize this, let us read the Story of a Soul of Saint
Thérèse of Lisieux. Love, only love: this is the message. Love of God, full devotion to
someone who knows how to offer us on the cross delights unimaginable for weak and

470 For an overall discussion of mysticism I refer to Richard H. Jones, Philosophy of Mysticism: Raids on the
Ineffable, Albany, NY, 2016. Regarding Christian mysticism see Louise Nelstrop and Simon D. Podmore, eds.,
Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology: Between Transcendence and Immanence, London-New York 2016.

471 Ben C. Blackwell (Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria,
Tübingen 2011) calls chrístōsis (christification, fusion with Christ) the Pauline version of théōsis. ‚Since Jesus
is the Image of the invisible God, the indwelling of his spirit has a powerful transformative effect on the
possessed. Its presence within the believer works to transfigure him or her into the same Image of God"
(April D. DeConick, "Early Christian Mysticism", in Glenn Alexander Magee, ed., The Cambridge Handbook of
Western Mysticism and Esotericism, New York 2016, p. 74). "On the cross my whole being was transformed
into Christ. I was so pervaded by it that there was nothing in me that was not his. It seems to me that Jesus
entered into me with more intensity than the rays of the sun through a stained glass window. I had no eyes,
no hearing, no thoughts, no lips, no heart that were not Jesus'. I suffered with him, or rather, it was he who
suffered in me: only he suffered... This love was in my heart, but it did not belong to me: it was the love of
Jesus. He was the one who loved, sacrificed himself and gave life... My whole being became Christ, the
suffering life of Christ. And so, all Christ, I fell on the ground of the Garden" (Alexandrina, Diary 30 March
1951, 15 August 1952, 5 September 1952).

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cowering spirits and makes us climb the steepest crests, pushing us from peak to peak,
elevating our humanity to the point where it is bordering on the divine 472.

J'adore adorer. What in the reader's eyes is a derisory play on words, incapable of coloring
hours upon hours of dull and fluctuating recollection, sums up for the spunky soul the
adoring ecstasy that it would never want to end, the spring that drives us on, the dizziness
of a flight into the boundless space of daring, of overcoming the force of gravity inherent
in the transient and mean, the thrill of the realization of the Superman, a fusion obtained
at a temperature that dissolves any lump, lightens us, evaporates the boundary between
lover and loved, human and divine.

By loving God, we love our innermost self. Conversely, in the words of Spinoza, the
mind’s intellectual love towards God is part of the infinite love by which God loves
himself473. "This lovable Heart [of Jesus] will make up for everything that may be lacking
on your part, since he will love God for you, and you will love him in him and for him"
(Margaret Mary Alacoque, 1647-1690). "When we praise God, it is not we, but he who
praises himself" (Gemma Galgani, 1878-1903). "The divine Heart of Jesus did not cease, in
me, to love. It was in my heart that he loved all humanity" (Alexandrina).

The most sublime wisdom is within everyone's reach. "The soul knows, sees, understands,
without knowing, seeing, understanding. It is all concentrated in one point, an infinite and
eternal point, a point of uncreated love. Only there it does breathe life, it is calm and
happy, out of time" (Conchita Cabrera, 1862-1937). "Enter the treasure room within you
and you will see the room of the heavenly treasure. They are one and the same and there is
only one entrance for both of them" (Isaac of Nineveh, † about 700). "The heart is a small
vessel, but everything is contained in it: God is there and also the angels, life, the kingdom,
the city of heaven and the treasures of grace" (Macarius the Egyptian, 300-391).

472 ‚The science of Love, ah, yes, this word resounds sweetly in the ear of my soul and I desire only this
science‛ (Story of a Soul, cit., Manuscript B 1 r). ‚To live of love, ‘tis by Thy life to live, / glorious King, my
chosen, sole delight! / Hid in the host, how often Thou dost give / Thyself to those who seek Thy radiant
light. / Then hid shall be my life, unmarked, unknown, / that I may have Thee heart to heart with me, / for
loving souls desire to be alone, / with love and Thee< To live of love, ‘tis without stint to give<‛ (To live of
love!, vv. 17-24, 33 - trans. S. L. Emery).

473 Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata V 36. Spinoza was preceded by St John of the Cross: "The will of the
soul is transformed into the will of God... The soul therefore loves God perfectly, with the same love with
which he loves himself... God loves nothing outside of himself. Therefore, when he loves a soul, he in a
certain way puts it into himself and makes it equal to himself, so that he loves the soul with the same love
with which he loves himself" (Spiritual Canticle A, 37 2-3; 23 5).

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When challenged with such mystical summits, sound narrow-minded the reserves of
rationalist intellectuals, who, pleased idling away the time with theirs whims in the cage
cooled by circuits in which roam stale skeptical formulas and comfortable alibis copiously
bestowed by the captious reason, know how to keep themselves safe from an adventure
that would launch them into the flames of unusual experiences; not unlike the kook who,
instead of listening to a symphony, carried on following its graphic representation on a
screen. Let them warm themselves by painted flames. Let us, by contrast, throw ourselves
without hesitation into the furnace, where, as if in a crucible, our humanity is purified, and
we are reborn, more than men, heroes who enjoy shining in an infinite darkness,
regardless of the fact that mortal eyes do not perceive their daily metamorphoses. This is
the mystery to whose sublimity we are to be initiated.

The worshiper sees, in the white host, a cross drawn and imagines that in the center of the
host is the heart of Jesus, manifested by the gash in the side. His attention is fixed in that
spot where all the pains of the racked man are gathered and from which a divine power
radiates. There is virtually enclosed the world with its history, time and space. There
everything is summed up. A lifetime is not enough to understand the implications of that
ideal pivotal point, but it is certainly not difficult to understand the elevating potential it
holds for the contemplative474. So Jesus to Margaret Mary Alacoque: "Here is the plague of
my side, where you must dwell forever. Here you will be able to keep the white stole of
innocence of which I have clothed your soul, so that you may now live only the life of the
Man-God. Live as if you were no longer living, so that I may live perfectly in you; or work
as if you were no longer working, but it is I who work in you, because I want to be
everything for you. Let it be your task to love and suffer blindly; one heart, one love, one
God".

Every wretched believer, however ignorant, is offered the chance of transcending himself,
of taking flight, on one condition: that he loves God, that he directs all his affection
towards him, that he enjoys conversations with him, like a true loving spirit. This is the
miracle. Our confession, precisely because it implies a personal relationship with a God-
Man, Jesus crucified and risen, allows the full elevation of the faithful. In fact, to love is to

474 After the Eucharistic ecstasy of 6 December 1273 St Thomas Aquinas cut short the writing of the Summa
Theologica, because, compared to what he had contemplated, every one of his works seemed to him a vile
stuff. On this theme I point out the profound and penetrating reflections of Bruno Forte (Il silenzio di
Tommaso, Casale Monferrato 1998).

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be transformed into the beloved, to blend in with him, to become one 475. The théōsis is the
great prodigy operated by love476. This goes beyond imitation, which still implies the
difference between imitator and imitated. In love, the conformation of the lover to the
beloved takes place without him being aware of it or proposing to imitate him 477. Spending
hours in front of the host may be sickening only for those who do not know the excellence
of the one who in this case is the beloved and whose attractions one is never weary of
considering and treasuring478.

The saint who burns with love for God actually loves his deepest self. Lover and beloved
are identical: the lover loves the self that he does not fully know, but that he glimpses and
discovers as he goes along. It is a long story of love, as long as life; it is the exploration of
the self, of the region of the spirit whose boundaries are not well-fixed, but move further
and further in a crescendo of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, in an ever-changing contrast
of light and darkness. The God that we depict may only be the ideal image of the self, the
planned self, the self that we intend to realize and that changes from one era to another
becoming increasingly self-aware. God is absolute perfection, beyond our reach. We can
only know his function quoad nos [in relation to us], that which, rooted in our spirit, reveals
a certain affinity. To develop our thought, that is, self-awareness, means to know him
better, to come closer to his unattainable perfection. In this sense, thought is what is divine

475 This is how St Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c. 1241 - 1298) in her Book of Special Grace describes the experience
of God: ‚[Jesus said to me:] «I give you my eyes so that you may see all things with them, my ears that you
may understand what you hear, my mouth I also give you, so that all you have to say, whether in speech,
prayer or song, you may say through it. I give you my heart, so that through it you may think everything
and may love me and all things for my sake». At these last words the Lord absorbed my soul entirely,
uniting it to himself closely, and I saw with his eyes, with his ears I heard, I spoke with his mouth, and I had
no heart but that of God" (II 34).

476 Kénōsis is the condition for God to become man and, conversely, for man to become God. See Sigurd
Lefsrud, Kenosis in Theosis: An Exploration of Balthasar's Theology of Deification, Eugene 2020. The crucifix is the
incomparable book to meditate upon in order to conform ours own to the kénōsis of the Logos. The visual
transposition of this concept can be admired, although the original has been lost, in the painting Bonaventure
shows Thomas Aquinas the Crucifix by Francisco Zurbarán (1629).

477 "As kiln fire burns the stone, so turn me too into flame‛ (Giulio Variboba, 1725-1788).

478 "Christian contemplation is born of love, tends towards love and is the work of love... It consists in the
pati divina, that is, in the interior experience in which the soul does not act, but is guided by God through the
gifts of the Spirit" (Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the
Present Time, Eugene 2011, p. 220).

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in us. By knowing ourselves, we know God, we become like him: it is a project of self-
surpassing, through ever higher levels, which is also a project of self-realization.

Man participates in God through a progressive clarification of his own being479.

Consciousness develops, patrols areas of shadow. Our dignity gradually reveals itself to
us and leads us more and more away from the innumerable forms of abjection. Our task is
to discover the god who is in us, or rather God himself who is within us480 and is revealed
to us over time481. However, without the charismatic aspect (grace, sacraments, prayer as a
continuous dialogue with Jesus, mutual indwelling) Christianity is distorted into
philanthropy or rationalist humanism.

The God who loves us is the God who has put into the spirit the goad that gives us no rest,
who demands every day the death of the old man and his transfiguration into the new
one. In the Jesus whom they loved wildly, even to the cruelest sacrifice, and who in reality
(as he is absolutely perfect) does not need any of our torments as much as our love, the
saints saw two things interrelated: the ideal of our humanity and the spur (through grace)
to achieve it. God has revealed himself: he is not a question mark, an impenetrable wall of
darkness. God has become like us: in Jesus he has shown us the way to follow for self-
realization, for the supreme elevation of the self, for divinization.

Mysticism. Religion was certainly born from fear, from the need for protection, from a
sense of insecurity. Unbelievers are not wrong when they lay bare the vile and petty
foundation of a religious behavior of someone who tries to ingratiate himself with God,
who even prays for the ruin of his adversaries (who, needless to say, are always devilish
and therefore deserve the most vicious punishments), who pacifies the conscience with
ritual gestures and thus does have his way and make his way. There is no shortage of
those who practice faith out of vanity, willing even to be laid in the coffin to attract
people's gaze482. At the end of the day, this religion is a quid pro quo in which little or
nothing is given, and immense profits are promised already in this valley of tears. Stuff fit
for weathercocks and whited sepulchers.

479 In this sense he can term himself a tendential God.

480 "Tu autem eras interior intimo meo". - You were more inside me than my deepest recess. St Augustine,
Confessiones 3 6 11.

481 See Victor Emil Frankl, The Unconscious God, New York 1978.

482 So many who stand up as defenders of the last would never accept to confuse themselves anonymously
with them.

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To this inferior religion (or caricature of true religion) Bergson contrasts the animose
religion of the mystics483, who do not pursue such contemptible rewards, but find their
happiness in union with God, in silence, in concealment, in atoning sacrifice for the
salvation of all484. To welcome the will of God, to abandon oneself to it, means to come out
of the shell of the limited personal vision, to embrace something greater and higher, more
universal, even if it seems to destroy or at least maim us. The most striking example that
unites the two exposed attitudes (readiness to sacrifice for the salvation of others -
surrender to God’s will) is in Paul, who in Rom 9:3 hopes: For I could wish that I myself were
accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
This is the ultimate sacrifice - one's own eternal perdition - for the benefit of the erring
brothers. Paul reasons like this: if God subordinates the salvation of Israel to my
damnation, well, at this point his will may be done, I am ready to accept this also from
God. A peak of unselfishness485. But, dialectically, the reasoning is reversed, because
adhering fully to God's will is precisely what Paradise consists of.

The mystic, like Paul, renounces even the need for justice, although in any case the
extreme altruistic impulse cannot fail to have a positive outcome in the process of
perfecting for those who sacrifice themselves for others. Some hypothesize that the final
judgment has been devised on the impulse of the need to re-establish the right trampled
on by bullies, to give the good a reward, the bad a punishment. The mystic, on the other
hand, loves so much to forget even this, to renounce the eternal reward. He prefers to be
detached from Christ, to be damned, in order to see saved the others he cares about.

Here we have reached an extreme where the current logic is subverted, for the simple
reason that the logic of love, governed by the old saw "You don’t give anything, if you

483 A witty and pungent etymology: Mysticism begins in mist, has an I in the middle and ends in schism. The
mystical experience is not reserved for the privileged few. See the book by the Jesuit Edward Carter, The
Mysticism of Everyday, Kansas City, Mo, 1991. Karl Rahner, another Jesuit, has foretold: ‚The Christian of the
future will be a mystic or will not exist at all‛ (Theological Investigations, XX, Chestnut Ridge, NY, 1981, p.
149).

484 For the Christian mystic, the experience of God (mainly of his love) and abnegation are two sides of the
same coin. An illiterate monk of Grottaferrata (Rome), Brother Damiano da Plàtaci (1919-2009), practiced his
own personal version of simple prayer, consisting of thinking 'God' in the act of inhalation and 'Fire' in that
of exhalation. A perfect action-oriented meditation, within everyone's reach.

485 "I long for my fearful darkness to turn exclusively into light for all mankind, even if I, alone, were to
remain for the rest of my life in the boundless abyss of my darkness" (Alexandrina, Diary 1 August 1952).

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don’t give everything‛, braves the most daring, the most insane trials486. The summit of
humanity is in the oblational love, ready for atoning sacrifice, renunciation, immolation, as
it came to pass in Damiaan De Veuster (the apostle of lepers), Maximilian Kolbe and
countless others487. Here we are on the level of the Superman. Here I see the crown of
human evolution, the true big leap from animality and watchful utilitarian selfishness.
With the Crusades, in the name of God, non-believers were killed. With oblational or
sacrificial love, it is we who are ready to die for the salvation of the unbelievers. Through
his blood Jesus sealed the apex of his message.

Isabelle Prêtre488 speaks of the supreme intelligence of love. Yes, it is precisely in love that
we reach the highest degree of understanding, given that only by loving can we see reality
with the eye of God. Love is empathy, mysterious identification with the other,
overcoming of the abyss that separates subject and object.

Yet faith knows the torture of doubt489. When St Thérèse of Lisieux got the cross she was
craving for, consolations faded away, perplexities milled around, she feared to be wasting
her life and came to the brink of suicide. Jesus himself felt on the cross that the Father had
abandoned him490.

Faith doesn’t befit lazy and pusillanimous people. It's only for the extremists, for the
daredevils. Religion was certainly born out of petty utilitarianism, but human evolution

486 "Amore amoris tui facio istuc". - For the sake of your love, I'm induced to do so. St Augustine, Confessiones 2 1
1; 11 1 1.

487 "I am a mother weeping tears of blood that bathe all mankind. I can't give myself a break. I want to save
the world; I want to suffer every pain, to give my life for it" (Alexandrina, Diary 8 March 1945).

488 Thérèse de Lisieux ou l'intelligence de l'amour, Paris 1997.

489 Every authentic Christian, dismayed by the divine kénōsis, feels innate the awareness of his own cognitive
and moral fragility, but, on the other hand, he considers extraneous the refractoriness to doubt, the
presumption of infallibility, the fanatical and triumphalist attitude, the celebratory parades, the spirit of
crusade, the Te Deums of victory.

490 "In this life without life, in this night without stars, in this frightening darkness my heart and soul cry out
to Heaven... Poor soul who cries out to Heaven with the doubt that God does not exist... I went up to
Calvary without faith, without believing in eternity, and in such temptation I felt I wanted to commit
suicide" (Alexandrina, Diary 15 January 1954, 15 October 1954).

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and the divine example of Jesus have led far beyond, to the audacity of men who, instead
of describing fire, choose to burn491.

Church visible and Church invisible. From the beginning, the Church holds a structure
with a gradually developing hierarchical order. This is the visible Church, the guarantor of
authority, apostolic succession, right faith, administration of the sacraments492. But, in
addition to it and not necessarily coinciding with it, we must admit an invisible Church in
which there are no degrees and the only distinction is made by right conscience and
intensity of faith. Abscondita est Ecclesia, latent sancti [The Church is hidden, the holy ones
are kept out of sight]: so Luther in De servo arbitrio [1525]493, where he elaborates the
doctrine of the Verborgenheit der Kirche [invisibility of the Church], which counts among its
precursors St Augustine who already distinguished between Domini corpus verum and
Domini corpus permixtum494.

The authentic Church is known only to God, and she is made up of hearts docile to the
impulse of the Spirit495 and sincere believers who strive, although naturally sinners, to
follow in the footsteps of the Master. In consequence, no one among those who don the
stole is allowed to bask in the certainty of belonging to the flock of the chosen ones.
Nevertheless, it is not up to us to determine who is living in grace. Jesus bans the vain
speculations about the fate of others and invites, conversely, each one to strive rather to

491 Zjarrin u' nuk përshkrùaj, / në zjarr përshkrëndem. I do not want to tell of fire, myself in fire I empty and burn
- Ahjt në mua frymën tënde / ëm' t' pështìllem me flakë, / humbmë që t' bëhem dritë. Breathe in me your spirit, wrap
me in flame, annihilate me so that I may turn into light.

492 The time-honored structures of the visible Church must be adapted to a profoundly changed society, or
else they will be at risk of growing antwackie. Christians who accept the challenge of the times are called
today to imagine more effective ways of transmitting the Spirit. See Pete Ward, Liquid Church, Eugene 20132;
Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements, Grand Rapids 20162.

493 Weimarer Ausgabe 18 652 23.

494 De doctrina Christiana 3 32 45.

495 "Even those who blamelessly ignore the Gospel of Christ and his Church, but sincerely seek God and
under the influence of grace strive to fulfill his will, known through the dictates of conscience, can achieve
salvation. Even those who through no fault of their own have not yet come to an explicit knowledge of God,
but strive, not without divine grace, to lead a righteous life, divine Providence does not deny the help
necessary for salvation. In fact, all that is good and true in them, the Church sees it as a preparation to accept
the Gospel, as a gift granted by the one who enlightens every man so that he may finally have life" (Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium II 16).

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climb up the steep slope of sacrifice: Someone asked him: Lord, will only a few be saved? He said
to them: "Strive to enter through the narrow door" (Luke 13:23-24).

Silence, the sacrament of the world to come. This aphorism of Isaac of Nineveh, thus
cherished by St Seraphim of Sarov, warns us against the blather and the vain agitation
hankering after spotlight496. If there is no interiority and prayer, even in the most active life
dedicated to others there is no Christianity. Silence anticipates the ineffable
contemplation497, hides us from the eyes of others, allowing us to source in peace from the
divine well498 what later will flow in manifold ways on others. The contemplative saves the
world at large and mankind, because the spiritual sphere is a set of mysteriously
communicating vessels499.

The last horizon. Every authentic Christian lives in time with his heart and eyes focused
on eternity, on true life, on the city that is his ultimate goal. The privilege by virtue of
which on earth he tastes Paradise does not make his nostalgia any less burning.

Cordis atras peramantis

more noctes vigila.
Milvi solem inhiantis
instar i per aethera.
Lacus luminis flammantis,
late lucet patria500.

496 See Robert Sarah with Nicolas Diat, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, San Francisco
2017.

497 Maj' e malit të fjàlëve - heshtja. Peak of the mountain of words - silence.

498 Në humbòre kullòt qìell të kullùar. In the desert I feed me on clear skies.

499 "Acquire inner peace and thousands will be saved around you" (St Seraphim of Sarov).

500 Keep awake in night’s darkness, as an ardent heart does. Like a sun-thirsty hawk, soar up into the welkin.
A realm of flaming light, widely glows the homeland.

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