Handing out the “remission of sins” in this way was totally unheard of. And what was even worse, he addressed God as “Father” (Abba). This was absolutely unprecedented in the Jewish community at that time. It was therefore not long before there arose a wave of protest against him among the scribes.
So here was the situation: a great many people at the time of Jesus were waiting for a Messiah who would reestablish the Kingdom of God with a great flourish of trumpets (in other words, with fire and sword). The expression “Kingdom of God” was indeed a recurring theme in the preachings of Jesus—but in a much broader sense. Jesus said that the “Kingdom of God” is loving thy neighbor, compassion for the weak and the poor, and forgiveness of those who have erred.
This was a dramatic shift in the meaning of an age-old expression with warlike overtones. People were expecting a military leader who would soon proclaim the establishment of the Kingdom of God, and along comes Jesus in kirtle and sandals telling them that the Kingdom of God—or the “new covenant”—is that you must “love thy neighbor as thyself.” But that was not all, Sophie, he also said that we must love our enemies. When they strike us, we must not retaliate; we must even turn the other cheek. And we must forgive—not seven times but seventy times seven.
Jesus himself demonstrated that he was not above talking to harlots, corrupt usurers, and the politically subversive. But he went even further: he said that a good-for-nothing who has squandered all his father’s inheritance—or a humble publican who has pocketed official funds—is righteous before God when he repents and prays for forgiveness, so great is God’s mercy.
But hang on—he went a step further: Jesus said that such sinners were more righteous in the eyes of God and more deserving of God’s forgiveness than the spotless Pharisees who went about flaunting their virtue.
Jesus pointed out that nobody can earn God’s mercy. We cannot redeem ourselves (as many of the Greeks believed). The severe ethical demands made by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount were not only to teach what the will of God meant, but also to show that no man is righteous in the eyes of God. God’s mercy is boundless, but we have to turn to God and pray for his forgiveness.
I shall leave a more thorough study of Jesus and his teachings to your religion teacher. He will have quite a task. I hope he will succeed in showing what an exceptional man Jesus was. In an ingenious way he used the language of his time to give the old war cries a totally new and broader content. It’s not surprising that he ended on the Cross. His radical tidings of redemption were at odds with so many interests and power factors that he had to be removed.
When we talked about Socrates, we saw how dangerous it could be to appeal to people’s reason. With Jesus we see how dangerous it can be to demand unconditional brotherly love and unconditional forgiveness. Even in the world of today we can see how mighty powers can come apart at the seams when confronted with simple demands for peace, love, food for the poor, and amnesty for the enemies of the state.
You may recall how incensed Plato was that the most righteous man in Athens had to forfeit his life. According to Christian teachings, Jesus was the only righteous person who ever lived. Nevertheless he was condemned to death. Christians say he died for the sake of humanity. This is what Christians usually call the “Passion” of Christ. Jesus was the “suffering servant” who bore the sins of humanity in order that we could be “atoned” and saved from God’s wrath.
Paul
A few days after Jesus had been crucified and buried, rumors spread that he had risen from the grave. He thereby proved that he was no ordinary man. He truly was the “Son of God.”
We could say that the Christian Church was founded on Easter Morning with the rumors of the resurrection of Jesus. This is already established by Paul: “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain.”
Now all mankind could hope for the resurrection of the body, for it was to save us that Jesus was crucified. But, dear Sophie, remember that from a Jewish point of view there was no question of the “immortality of the soul” or any form of “transmigration”; that was a Greek—and therefore an Indo-European—thought. According to Christianity there is nothing in man—no “soul,” for example—that is in itself immortal. Although the Christian Church believes in the “resurrection of the body and eternal life,” it is by God’s miracle that we are saved from death and “damnation.” It is neither through our own merit nor through any natural—or innate—ability.
So the early Christians began to preach the “glad tidings” of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Through his mediation, the “Kingdom of God” was about to become a reality. Now the entire world could be won for Christ. (The word “christ” is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word “messiah,” the anointed one.)
A few years after the death of Jesus, the Pharisee Paul converted to Christianity. Through his many missionary journeys across the whole of the Greco-Roman world he made Christianity a worldwide religion. We hear of this in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul’s preaching and guidance for the Christians is known to us from the many epistles written by him to the early Christian congregations.
He then turns up in Athens. He wanders straight into the city square of the philosophic capital. And it is said that “his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.” He visited the Jewish synagogue in Athens and conversed with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. They took him up to the Areopagos hill and asked him: “May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.”
Can you imagine it, Sophie? A Jew suddenly appears in the Athenian marketplace and starts talking about a savior who was hung on a cross and later rose from the grave. Even from this visit of Paul in Athens we sense a coming collision between Greek philosophy and the doctrine of Christian redemption. But Paul clearly succeeds in getting the Athenians to listen to him. From the Areopagos—and beneath the proud temples of the Acropolis—he makes the following speech:
Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent:
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Paul in Athens, Sophie! Christianity has begun to penetrate the Greco-Roman world as something else, something completely different from Epicurean, Stoic, or Neoplatonic philosophy. But Paul nevertheless finds some common ground in this culture. He emphasizes that the search for God is natural to all men. This was not new to the Greeks. But what was new in Paul’s preaching is that God has also revealed Himself to mankind and has in truth reached out to them. So He is no longer a “philosophic God” that people can approach with their understanding. Neither is He “an image of gold, or silver, or stone”—there were plenty of those both on the Acropolis and down in the mark
etplace! He is a God that “dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” He is a personal God who intervenes in the course of history and dies on the Cross for the sake of mankind.
When Paul had made his speech on the Areopagos, we read in the Acts of the Apostles, some mocked him for what he said about the resurrection from the dead. But others said: “We will hear thee again of this matter.” There were also some who followed Paul and began to believe in Christianity. One of them, it is worth noting, was a woman named Damaris. Women were amongst the most fervent converts to Christianity.
So Paul continued his missionary activities. A few decades after the death of Jesus, Christian congregations were already established in all the important Greek and Roman cities—in Athens, in Rome, in Alexandria, in Ephesus, and in Corinth. In the space of three to four hundred years, the entire Hellenistic world had become Christian.
The Creed
It was not only as a missionary that Paul came to have a fundamental significance for Christianity. He also had great influence within the Christian congregations. There was a widespread need for spiritual guidance.
One important question in the early years after Jesus was whether non-Jews could become Christians without first becoming Jews. Should a Greek, for instance, observe the dietary laws? Paul believed it to be unnecessary. Christianity was more than a Jewish sect. It addressed itself to everybody in a universal message of salvation. The “Old Covenant” between God and Israel had been replaced by the “New Covenant” which Jesus had established between God and mankind.
However, Christianity was not the only religion at that time. We have seen how Hellenism was influenced by a fusion of religions. It was thus vitally necessary for the church to step forward with a concise summary of the Christian doctrine, both in order to distance itself from other religions and to prevent schisms within the Christian Church. Therefore the first Creed was established, summing up the central Christian “dogmas” or tenets.
One such central tenet was that Jesus was both God and man. He was not the “Son of God” on the strength of his actions alone. He was God himself. But he was also a “true man” who had shared the misfortunes of mankind and actually suffered on the Cross.
This may sound like a contradiction. But the message of the church was precisely that God became man. Jesus was not a “demigod” (which was half man, half god). Belief in such “demigods” was quite widespread in Greek and Hellenistic religions. The church taught that Jesus was “perfect God, perfect man.”
Postscript
Let me try to say a few words about how all this hangs together, my dear Sophie. As Christianity makes its entry into the Greco-Roman world we are witnessing a dramatic meeting of two cultures. We are also seeing one of history’s great cultural revolutions.
We are about to step out of antiquity. Almost one thousand years have passed since the days of the early Greek philosophers. Ahead of us we have the Christian Middle Ages, which also lasted for about a thousand years.
The German poet Goethe once said that “he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” I don’t want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.
“It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape…”
Sophie sat for a while staring into the garden through the little holes in the hedge. She was beginning to understand why it was so important to know about her historical roots. It had certainly been important to the Children of Israel.
She herself was just an ordinary person. But if she knew her historical roots, she would be a little less ordinary.
She would not be living on this planet for more than a few years. But if the history of mankind was her own history, in a way she was thousands of years old.
The Middle Ages
…going only part of the way is not the same
as going the wrong way…
A week passed without Sophie hearing from Alberto Knox. There were no more postcards from Lebanon either, although she and Joanna still talked about the cards they found in the major’s cabin. Joanna had had the fright of her life, but as nothing further seemed to happen, the immediate terror faded and was submerged in homework and badminton.
Sophie read Alberto’s letters over and over, looking for some clue that would throw light on the Hilde mystery. Doing so also gave her plenty of opportunity to digest the classical philosophy. She no longer had difficulty in distinguishing Democritus and Socrates, or Plato and Aristotle, from each other.
On Friday, May 25, she was in the kitchen fixing dinner before her mother got home. It was their regular Friday agreement. Today she was making fish soup with fish balls and carrots. Plain and simple.
Outside it was becoming windy. As Sophie stood stirring the casserole she turned toward the window. The birch trees were waving like cornstalks.
Suddenly something smacked against the windowpane. Sophie turned around again and discovered a card sticking to the window.
It was a postcard. She could read it through the glass: “Hilde Møller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen.”
She thought as much! She opened the window and took the card. It could hardly have blown all the way from Lebanon!
This card was also dated June 15. Sophie removed the casserole from the stove and sat down at the kitchen table. The card read:
Dear Hilde,
I don’t know whether it will still be your birthday when you read this card. I hope so, in a way; or at least that not too many days have gone by. A week or two for Sophie does not have to mean just as long for us. I shall be coming home for Midsummer Eve, so we can sit together for hours in the glider, looking out over the sea, Hilde. We have so much to talk about. Love from Dad, who sometimes gets very depressed about the thousand-year-long strife between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I have to keep reminding myself that all three religions stem from Abraham. So I suppose they all pray to the same God. Down here, Cain and Abel have not finished killing each other.
P.S. Please say hello to Sophie. Poor child, she still doesn’t know how this whole thing hangs together. But perhaps you do?
Sophie put her head down on the table, exhausted. One thing was certain—she had no idea how this thing hung together. But Hilde did, presumably.
If Hilde’s father asked her to say hello to Sophie, it had to mean that Hilde knew more about Sophie than Sophie did about Hilde. It was all so complicated that Sophie went back to fixing dinner.
A postcard that smacked against the kitchen window all by itself! You could call that airmail!
As soon as she had set the casserole on the stove again, the telephone rang.
Suppose it was Dad! She wished desperately that he would come home so she could tell him everything that had happened in these last weeks. But it was probably only Joanna or Mom. Sophie snatched up the phone.
“Sophie Amundsen,” she said.
“It’s me,” said a voice.
Sophie was sure of three things: it was not her father. But it was a man’s voice, and a voice she knew she had heard before.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Alberto.”
“Ohhh!”
Sophie was at a loss for words. It was the voice from the Acropolis video that she had recognized.
“Are you all right?”
“Sure.”
“From now on there will be no more letters.”
“But I didn’t send you a frog!”
“We must meet in person. It’s beginning to be urgent, you see.”
“Why?”
“Hilde’s father is closing in on us.”
“Closing in how?”
“On all sides, Sophie. We have to work together now.”
“How…?”
“But you can’t help much before I have told you about the
Middle Ages. We ought to cover the Renaissance and the seventeenth century as well. Berkeley is a key figure…”
“Wasn’t he the man in the picture at the major’s cabin?”
“That very same. Maybe the actual struggle will be waged over his philosophy.”
“You make it sound like a war.”
“I would rather call it a battle of wills. We have to attract Hilde’s attention and get her over on our side before her father comes home to Lillesand.”
“I don’t get it at all.”
“Perhaps the philosophers can open your eyes. Meet me at St. Mary’s Church at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. But come alone, my child.”
“So early in the morning?”
The telephone clicked.
“Hello?”
He had hung up! Sophie rushed back to the stove just before the fish soup boiled over.
St. Mary’s Church? That was an old stone church from the Middle Ages. It was only used for concerts and very special ceremonies. And in the summer it was sometimes open to tourists. But surely it wasn’t open in the middle of the night?
When her mother got home, Sophie had put the card from Lebanon with everything else from Alberto and Hilde. After dinner she went over to Joanna’s place.
“We have to make a very special arrangement,” she said as soon as her friend opened the door.
She said no more until Joanna had closed her bedroom door.
“It’s rather problematic,” Sophie went on.
“Spit it out!”
“I’m going to have to tell Mom that I’m staying the night here.”
“Great!”
“But it’s only something I’m saying, you see. I’ve got to go somewhere else.”
“That’s bad. Is it a guy?”
“No, it’s to do with Hilde.”
Joanna whistled softly, and Sophie looked her severely in the eye.
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