Concordia Seminary - Saint Louis Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary Master of Sacred Theology Thesis Concordia Seminary Scholarship 6-1-1967 KOSMOS in John Donald Heinz Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, ir_heinzd@csl.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.csl.edu/stm Part of the Biblical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Heinz, Donald, "KOSMOS in John" (1967). Master of Sacred Theology Thesis. 330. https://scholar.csl.edu/stm/330 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Concordia Seminary Scholarship at Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master of Sacred Theology Thesis by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. For more information, please contact seitzw@csl.edu. KOSMOS IN JOHN A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Department of Exegetical Theology in partial fulfi I lment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Sacred Theology by Donald Heinz June 1967 4927 5 Approved _-, BIi '-/070 C(p't f'/13 1<:J(p1 v'lo.11 TABLE OF CONTENTS C' "2- Chapter I. II. Page I ~TRODUCTION • • • • 1 KOS}10S IN THE Ul'-fv\"ELT OF JOHN • 6 .. Non- Biblical Greek • 6 Classical Greek to Plotinus , including Philo • Gnosticism • • • • The Her r:\etica • • • • • • , , The Mandean Li terature The Septuagint • • • • • • , • Judaism . . • . . . 33 38 . •• 40 Old Testament , apocryphal, apocalyptic, rabbinic tl1ough t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 QUJ,1ran • • • • • 46 The New Testan1ent Smmr,ary • • • • • • • • • • • ... . . ... . ... III , 6 15 26 48 60 . . .. ...... . KOSi'•-:OS IN JOHN • 65 65 Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . , • , • , , , , , , • , , , • . •••. 65 I , Meanings of Kosmos , , , , , , , • • Special Problems Relative to Kosmos , , , , , • , • 72 83 Acti ve and passive verbs Anarthrous. , •• , • , Oblique cases, without a With a preposition , •• Conclusions • • . . • • Creation. • . , , • , • • , • , • , , , , , , preposition • • • , , , • , •• , • • • • • . . . • . . . . • . • • Co smolog;J" • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • DualisrrL • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Houtos Kosmos , • • , , • • , , , • , , , , Ar chon t au kosmou • , • , , , , , , • , , , , Kosmos,God's love, the believers' love •• , , • The Choice of Kosmos. , • • • • , •• • • • • , , • • , GONCORDIA SEMINARY UBRAR'l BL LOUlSa MISSOU.R& 00 66 67 71 83 87 89 93 99 102 108 ·-- --- ----- Chapter IV . Page KOS1-:os IN JOHN: KOS~OS DEFINED THROUGH KOSMOS-NEN • Ju stification for this Procedure The Jews Ko smos Conversation. Kosmos thinking. Kosmos misunderstandings Kosmos Action • Kosmos and Non-Kosmos Personified. Pilate, kosrr.os-man • John the Baptizer, non-kosmos man. Kosmos Antitheses. v. KOS ·;OS IN JOHN : JESUS AND THE KOSMOS logos , Sent-One, Savior . Life- Death . Light--Darlmess • Truth--Lie Fulfiller--Incompleteness. • Dependent Son--Independent Kosmos. Doxa Division Judgment VI. SUNMARY AND CONCLUSIONS • BIBLIOGRAPHY • 111 111 111 . 114 • 114 118 120 121 122 123 124 130 130 135 138 141 143 145 146 149 150 153 160 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to determine what John1 aims to say with the word kosmos . What understanding of man underlies John's se- mantic signal kosmo s? Why did John choose this particular word to signal the thought he wanted to convey? What role did this term play in the Uimvalt of John? Is the idea behind the term kosmos effectively and accurately signalled by the English term "world"? Such a study is necessary for several reasons. The usage of ko smos in John is unique, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in relation to Synoptic usage. The fact that John uses kosmos seventy-eight times and the Synoptics together use kosmos fifteen times2 indicates that the ~"Ord plays some major role in John's presentation and theology. When the Synoptics do use the word, it lacks the theological overtones of Johannine usage. Nor do other New Testament documents, except the Pauline corpus, reflect John's extensive and theological usage. Past studies of the word kosmos in John have paid insufficient attention to the broad scope of Johannine usage. Sasse has written an 1Throughout this study "John" means either the Fourth Gospel or the author of the Fourth Gospel, whoever that may have been. 2v1. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden, t Concordance to the Greek Testament (Fourth revised edition; F.dinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 196JY:° p. 556. Synoptic u sage is as follows: Matt. 4:8; 5:14; 13:35,38; 16:26; 18:7; 24:21; 25:34; 26:13; Mark 8:36; 14:9; 16:15; Luke 9:25; 11:50; 12:30. - 2 instructive ar ticle on ko smo s ,3 but his consideration of Johannine usage is not comprehensive. Conunentators give no extended consideration to John's usage, although most make some remarks, varying from a few sentences to a few pages.4 Instructive studies on this subject are 5 those made by Bultmann and Schlier. 6 Two American doctoral disserta- tions deal with kosmos in John, but the one'l is too schema.tic, penetrating nei ther the depth nor viewing the breadth~of Johannine usage, 3He~ n Sasse, 11 kosmos, 11 Theological Di ctionary 2f. ~ !ifil! Testai ent , edit ed by Gerhard Kittel and translated by Geoffrey w. Bromiley Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., c.1965), III, 868-895. 4c. K. Barrett, The Go snel Accordi ng !:£ St. ~ (London: SPCK, 1965), p. 135. Walter Bauer, Johannes , in Handbuch Zum Neuen Testament ZHeiter Band: Die Evangelien, II (Tuebingen: J.C. B7°Mohr, 1912), p. lj. Ray.ro.id E. Brown, The Go spel According !:£ John (i-xii), in The Anchor Bib1:_~, Volume 29 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., c. 1966 ), pp. 508-509 . Brovm cites the following articles as bibliography, which have not been examined in this study: F. M. Braun, 11 Le ' monde' bon et mauva is de l' Evangile johannique, 11 I&. Vie Soirituelle, 88 (1953), pp. 580-598 ; 89 (1954), pp. 15-29; P. Benoit, 11 Le monde peut-il etre sauve? 11 La Vie Intel lect uelle, 17 (1949), pp. 3-20. Rudolf Bultmann,~~p.:elium des Johannes (14 Auflage; Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), pa ssi m. H.J. Holtzmann, ~ Evangeliu.m des Johannes, in Hand-Commentar ~ Ne~ Testament, Vierter Band (Zweite, verbesserte und vermehrte Aufl age ; Freiburg : J.C. B. Mohr, 1893), oassim. Edwyn Hoskyns,~ Fourth Gospel , edited by Francis Noel Davey (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1947), £.e.§_si m. R.H. Lightfoot, St. John's Gosnel, edited by C. F. Evans (London: Ox.ford University Press, 1966), pp. 74-76. R.H. Strachan, The Fourth Go soel: I t s Sil!nificance and Environment (Third edition; London: Student Christ ia~ovement Press, 1955), pp. 100-101. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannes-evangelium, Erster Teil (Frei.burg: Herder, c.1965), PP• 231-232. 5Rudolf Bultmann, "Das Verstaendnis van Welt und Mensch im Neuen Testament und im Griechentum, 11 Glauben und Verstehen: Ges&"Ill'!lelte Aufsaetze, Zweiter Band (Tuebingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1952), pp. 59-78; Theologv of the Ne~, Testament , translated by Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1955), II, passim. 6Heinrich Schlier, "Welt und Mensch nach dem Johannesevangelium, 11 Besinnung ~~~Testament (Freiburg: Herder, c.1964), II, 242-253. ?George Walker Redding, 11 Kosmos in John's Gospel and Epistles 11 (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 1938). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - ~ ~ - - - - - ~ - -~ · .111 . .•1.;.1 1 a..:1 3 and the other8 deals only with the "ethical" idea of the kosmos, and fails to integrate its conclusions sufficiently into Johannine theology. In the current groping after proper approaches of the church to the world and an understanding of the relation of Christ to the world, several approaches could be made. One might rebel against a past "Puritanism" and, urged on by conscience or environment, seek to make new approaches to the world. Such an effort might be undertaken in despair of any help from the New Testament, or non-theological bridges might be built to the world, which would disregard the witness of the New Testament and bypass the very kosmos-problems which the New Testament refuses to ignore. The latter mission would fail to hear God's questions addressed to itself and would fail to address these questions to the world. But one might also take the term "world" of the English versions as a literal and realistic equivalent for ko smos and thus find theological justification for aloofness from the world. Such an approach would favor the cliche "in, not of the world II and assume that such an expression, so worded, is faithful to the witness of the New Testament. A study of kosmos in John may indicate which approaches are unacceptable and may open the way for new ones as well. In the approach to the definition of kosmos in John, the usage of kosmos in the Umwelt, including; Greek, Hellenistic, Oriental, and Jewish ~rritings, is examined, but the historical problems of this literature 8Willia."tl Griffin Henderson, 11 The Ethical Idea of the World in John's Gospel" (Unpublished Doctor's Thesis, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 1944). 4 are not considred in detail. 9 Then account is taken of the usage of kosmos in the New Testament outside of John, followed by an intensive and ext ensive investigation of the usage of kosmo s in John. References . ' but l John does not and comparisons to l John are occasionally made, r eceive any major consideration. 10 Special attention is also given to dat a which appear to reflect John's concept of men of the kosmos, but which do not incorporate the term ko sir.os. Isagogical, historical, and special theological problems in John are considered only to the ex.tent necessary for an understanding of the usage of kosmos. The second chapter of this study takes up the usage of kosmos or its equivalent s throughout the Umwelt of John, with reference to classical and Hellenistic Greek, Gnostic, Hermetic, ¥.andean, Septuagintal, and Jewish usages, as well as the usage of the New Testament outside John. The third chapter offers a detailed study of John's usage of the word kosmos . Special problems relating to this usage are also considered. In chapters four and five data are examined in which the word kosmos is not used. The subject of chapter four is men of the kosmos in conver- sation and action. In chapter five kosmos-men are studied as John de- velops and defines them in their relation to Jesus. The sixth chapter 9The Umwelt of John is defined as the total secular and religious t hought world in which John conceivably wrote. Much of the literature examined from this Urnwelt has been written later than the Fourth Gospel, but it may still express the thought world of John's day. Histori~al questions do not significantl:y affect the understanding of ko smos in the Umwelt. 10i.fuile 1 John appears to come from the "school" of the Fourth Gospel and much of its vocabulary and theological thought are similar, it cannot certainly be stated that they have the same author •. Further, t~e usage of kosmos in the Fourth Gospel can profitably be studied as a unit. 5 contains summary and conclusions. Primary sources for this study , are Gnostic, Hermetic, and Jewish documents, the Septuagint, and the New Testament. Secondary sources are word studies, especially Sasse's article, monographs, and major commentaries. The following methodology was used. Representative literature of the Umwelt, including Gnostic and Jewish literature, the Hermetica, the Septuagint, and the New Testament, was examined,· where possible, by means of a concordance. This examination was supplemented with word studies, monogr aphs, commentaries, and studies of the history and thought reflected in the literature of the Umwelt. Every use of kosmos in John was then studied and evaluated, with attempt at a solution of special problems r elating to John's usage of kosmos. Finally, a study was made of all data which fur ther elaborate and define the understanding of man behind John's usage of ko smos. Data were examined in which John narrates the conversation and actions of men of the kosmos. These data do not ordi- narily contain the word kosmos, but an attempt was made to discover what contribution they make to the picture of kosmos-men and the concept of men which John elsewhere signals with the term kosmos. -------CHAPTER II I KOSMOS IN THE UMWELT OF JOHN Non-Biblical Greek Cla ssical Greek to Plotinus, including Philo Although ko smo s had an "established place in the vocabulary of the Greeks from the time of Homer, its etymology is uncertain. 111 Combining the idea of building or establishing with that of.. order, ko smos crune to mean: that which is well assembled; order between men; order in a gen- eral sense; adornment--because the beautiful is inseparable from the order ed. 2 ¥.ore important in view of the subject of this study is the development of the usage of ko smos in the sense of world. As previous usage merges with the denotation "world, 11 kosmos becomes an important term in Gr eek philosophy. An uncertain tradition ascribes the first use of !s.2.§.- m21!. in the Ionian natural philosophy of the six.th century. The Greeks had come to assert an order of things corresponding to the order of law exist ing between men. things. The world was a macrocosm, an ordered society of Thus kosmos came to signify the order by which the sum of 1 Herman Sasse, kosmos, 11 Theological Dictionary of the New Testa'Ilent, edited by Gerhard Kittel and translated by Geoffrey Bromiley--COrand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966), III, 868. 11 2.n&9.., pp. 868-869. I 7 individual things is gathered into a totality, cosmic order.3 At least by the end of the fifth century kosrnos crone to denote the totality held together by this order, the world in a spatial sense. Plato uses kosmos. _in the sense of "universe, 11 because in it all individual things are brought into unity by a universal order. The kosmos is the spatial manifestation of the Idea, a rational creature with body and soul. Because of a merging of the sense of cosmic space and heavenly space kosmos and ouranos were used interchangeably at the time of Plato and ~ristotle. For Aristotle kosmos is a spherical body, with the spher- ical earth at its heart. Having no beginning or end in time, Aristotle's kosmos embraces everything bound to time and space. In Aristotle clas- sical Greek thinking reached its termination; further development in the Hellenistic and Roman period took place under increasing Oriental influence and religious emphasis.4 Unique for the Greek view of kosrnos are the following: unity; an immanent norm integrating the individual things into a perfect totality;5 beauty; a deep natural relation between man and the kosmos. 6 Philo- sophically, ideas about the kosmos ranged from Heraclitus' affirmation 3rbid., pp. 869-870. 4Ibid., pp. 870-873. 511 Heraclitus LProposes as this normJ his discovery of the logos which is the supreme norm of the thinking and conduct of men and which is also the norm which integrates the varied and opposing elements into cosmic unity. It is no accident that after the magnificent concepts of Plato and Aristotle concerning the subjection of the universe to divine reason Stoicism returned to the idea of the logos in its attempt to u.."lderstand the divine nature of the immanent law of the world 11 (lfil.g,., p. 873). 61!lli!.., pp. 873-874. , 8 t hat the kosmos is eternal; to Plato's view of the ko smos as a creation of t he demiurge, a demonstration of God's existence, and itself a God; to Aristotle's assertion, more specifically material than that of Heracli tus, that the world is without beginning or end; to the Stoic conception of the coming into being and passing of the kosmos as an eternal recurrence. 7 Significant differences developed betwen the Platonic and Stoic t radit i ons. In Platonic thought the world of sensible experi ence, kosmos aist~etos ,. is the copy of a higher world of eternal forms, kosmos noetos. The Stoics recognized no such supramundane existences. For them the logos is the rational principle immanent in the universe. The world exis t s because the active principle, logos, acts upon the passive principle, hule, and gives it fonn and meaning. cause logos is in him also. Man can know the kosmos be- While the Stoics can call the logos God, since t here is no other God than the immanent rational principle, the Platonists seek God beyond the world. Either God is----identifi~d with the highest of the Ideas which make up the kosmos noetos or he is the cause 8 and ground of the kosmos no etos. When the Platonists introduced a third element, that of form or patt ern, to complete their two principles of God and matter, a new fusion of conceptions arose. The Platonic forms in the mind of God, often con- ceived as causes operating outside him, became identified with the Stoic logoi. The ~round was laid on which Philo built. 9 ?llig_., pp. 874-876. 8C. H. Dodd, ~ Interpreta. tion University Press, 1965), PP• 65-66. 2£ lli Fourth %d,·rin Hatch, The Influence 2!. Greek Ideas York: Harper and :Br others, 1957), PP• 181-182. Q.!l Gospel __( Cambridg~: Christianity (New 9 In every case kosmos had beconie a term invested with the highest religious dignity. Its very literal meaning of order expresses a posi- tive evaluation of the object. The attitude toward the all is not neu- tral, but the whole is seen through. the ennobling quality of order. While countless other common usages of kosmos as order continue, . the universe is the widest instance and most perfect exemplar of order. The bounded physical universe is a divi.:ne entity, however differently .viewed by Platonic or Stoic eyes. 10 Veneration of the kosmos is veneration of a whole of which man is a part. 11··; :Bultmann .·writes: Die Welt ist dabei nach Analogie des ergon der texne verstanden, als das Kunstwerk, in dem die 1-faterie geformt ist, Gestalt gewonnen hat. Die Gesetze der Gestalte:n und alles Gestaltwerdens gilt es zu er kennen. Dami t versteht d Er Mensch sich selbst, naemlich als'; einen Teil des grossen kosmos, organisch eingegliedert in den objektiven Zusammenhang der Welt, sich selbst gegenstaendlich fuer die Betrachtung wie die anderen Naturobjekte. Solches Wissen ist seine Weltanschauung: der Mensch verseht sich als einen Fall des Allgemeinen, under verseht diE Raetsel seines Daseins, wenn er die Gesetzmaessigkeit des Ganzen verseht. Was dem Ganzen Sein ~nd Gesetz gibt, gibt es auch ihm. Er selbst ist ein Mikrokosmus. 1 How seriously the Greeks took the kosmos may be seen in their doctrine of a r ete, "the actualization in the mode of excellence of the several faculties of the soul for dealing w:ith the world. 1113 Cicero could say that man is born to contemplate the kosmos and to imitate it. Though he 10 Ha ns Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Second edition; revised,· Boston: Beacon Press, c.1963)"; pp. 241~21+2. 1 1 Ibid., p. 246. · 12Rudolf Bultmann, "Das Verstaendnis von Welt und M Testament und im Griechentum, 11 Glauben und Versteh . ensch im Neuen (Tuebingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 195<), II, 6~ en. Gesanunelte Aufsaetze lJJonas, p. 267. Such a '1/irtue Jonas remarks absurd, but positively irreligious t~ the Gnostic. , would appear not only ----10 is f ar from being perfect, he is a little part of the perfect.14 Yet, 11 a strain of pessimism was always latent in the Greek attitude toward the world. 1115 The material world can easily be an obstruction to man's true relation to the divine. Disparagement of the vrorld received fur t her impetus from the independent growth of astrology.16 The decline of the polis and the rise of monarchies also alter the positive valuation of man, society, and the kosmos. s ent a position of retreat. The later Greek view comes to repre- While formerly man's relation to the kosmos ,~as only one special case of the part-whole relation fundamental to all classical thought, the later Stoic rha.n is no longer a part of anything except the universe. 17 Jonas notes that the ontological principle survived the conditions of its concrete validation. Stoic pantheism, and generally the physico-theology of t he post-Aristotelian thought, substituted for the relation bet ween citizen and city that between the individual and the cosmos, the larger living whole. By this shift of reference the classical doctrine of whole and parts was kept in force even though it no longer reflected the practical situation of men.18 Now ko smos has become the great city of gods and men and to be a cosrr~politan is the goal by which otherwise isolated man can set his course. Man is asked to adopt the cause of the universe as his own and identify with it, relating his logos to the logos of the whole. His role is to act in the place and station accorded him by cosmic destiny. Heimarmene 14cicero De Natura Deorum, ii, 14, quoted in Jonas, p. 245. , - =.,...;.a..- - - - - - - 15c. R. North, "World, the," The Interpreter's Dictionary o f ~ Bi ble edited by George Arthur Buttrick (New York: Abingdon Press, ---' c.1962), r:v, 875. 16J!2ic!. 17Jonas, pp. 246-248. 18,Thi&., p. 248. --.• - ....... 11 has been equated with uronoia. Man's integration with the whole is maintained only by a strained fervor. The Stoic wanted to preserve the 19 dignity of man and save a sanction for positive morality. This effort to succeed in what formerly was inspired by civic virtue represented a heroic attempt on the part of the intellectuals to carry over the life-sustaining force of that ideal into fundament ally changed conditions. But the new atomized masses of the Empire, who had never shared in that noble tradition of arete, might react very differently to a situation in·which they found themselves passively involved: a situation in which the part was insignificant to the whole, and the whole alien to the parts.20 The Stoic began to withdraw, to turn inward, believing that concentration on his inner nature--which is spirit--would make him free. Lord in his inner self over his thoughts and will, he has lost control of the outside world. But it has no control over him either, if he does not 21 misunderstand his true nature. Yet the order of the universe as something divine remained a pervading public validity and represented 22 the religion of the intellectuals. The development of kosmos usage from the Ionian thinkers to its climax in the Athenian schools ended, as did Greek philosophy generally, in Aler..andria. Here the last thinkers of Hellenism concluded philoso- phical work on the Greek view of kosmos. Here Philo was active, using 23 ko smos more than any other thinker of antiquity. How significant the Greek idea is, Philo shows in his concern to harmonize Jewish 19Jonas, PP• 24B-249. 20,;Q&g_., p. 249. 21Bultm~nn, Glauben ~ 22Jonas, p. 250. 23sasse, p. 877° Verstehen, II, 65. 12 Biblical faith and Greek philosophy in the problem of God and the world. He wants to remain loyal to the truth of the Old Testament and to the main principles of Stoic:-Platonic philosophy.24 Philo makes the distinction between kosmos noetos as the spiritual model of t he empirical world and the kosmos houtos or kosmos aisthetos or kosmos ora.tos , as the empirical world itself. Philo believes he finds in the Septuagintal text of Genesis 1:1 the creation, on the first day , of a world of Ideas. copy to original. The perceptible world stands to this world as Philo follows Greek thought regarding the kosmos as order, a thi ng of beauty, and a living creature with a soul. He finds it neces sary to reconcile the doctrine of the divine transcendence, increasingly stressed since Plato and Aristotle and now represented by the Neo-Py.thagoreans; the Stoic pronoia that governs the world; and the Old Testament belief in God as Creator. He goes at his task by way of the logos. 25 The logos is the mediator between God and the world; through it the transcendent God of philosophy becomes the Creator of the world. Generally, Philo seems closer to Plato's Timaeus than to Genesis. In De Opifici o ~ , Philo writes: "When he designed to found the Great City, he first conceived of its types, and from them composed a world of the mind (kosmos noetos), and then using it as a model completed the world of the senses. 1126 Dodd remarks: "Consequently, the kosmos noetos is simply the logos in the act of creating a world. 1127 24sasse, p. 877. 25Thig,., pp. 877-878. 26 Dodd, p. 67. 27Thig_. Philo tries to 13 · show that the world of ideas is not localized. 28 The kosmos which con- sists of ideas has no other location than the divine logos, which is 29 the author of this ordered frame. God made the kosmos because he is good; he gave of his own nature to something which otherwise would be worthless by itself.JO The intellect discerns the kosmos noetos and this archetypal seed is non~ other than the very logos of God.31 Philo concludes on the basis of Genesis that the Deity is and has been from eternity, that God is one, that the world came into being, that the world too is one as well as its Maker, who made his work like himself in its uniqueness, that God used up for the creation of the world all the material that exists, that God also exercises forethought in the world's 32 33 Elsewhere in Philo, the logos is the shepherd of the kosmos behalr. and the ko smos is called the only and beloved son. 34 The history of ko smos in ancient philosophy ends with Nao-Platonism. The Platonic duplication of the kosrnos which reappeared in Philo's kosmo s noet os and kosmos aisthetos finds its culmination in Plotinus' doctrine of the two worlds, the kosmos ekeinos, the intelligible world, and the ko srnos houtos, the phenomenal world. Plotinus lauds the beauty 28Philo, !2£ Ooificio ~ ' chapter 17, translated by F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949):--f'.~rther references are to the chapter in Philo. 29Ibid., 20. 30-b"d LL•, 21. 31Ibid., 20-25. 32~., 170-172. 33nodd, p. 136. 34Hugo Odeberg, ~ .Fourth Gospel (Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksells Boktryckerei [i929.J), p. 119. D U I 14 of the ko smos noetos and emphasizes its perfect unity over against the empirical world. Yet, in true Greek manner, Plotinus avoids any logical dualism and extols the beauty, too, of the phenomenal world. Its beauty consists in the fact that it is a copy or reflection of the kosmos noetos.35 The phenomenal world maintains its beauty and glory whenever the Idea really has domini on over matter, the soul over the body. is an image of the upper world, though a shadowy one. The lower world In point of fact, however, the unity and harmony in the phenomenal world disappears in st rif e and opposition. The original cause of this appears to be matter, which is evil when devoid of form and idea. something i ntermediate~capable of form. Yet it can be considered The kosmos, then, does not equal matter and so is not intrinsically evil; to the extent that it loses 36 ·t b ecomes evi. ·1 · f orm and meaning J. Import ant for Plotinus' view of man is the unity of all being in the universe. Man in his essence is kindred to the whole ko smos, even to the macrocosmic entities, though they are incomparably superior to him. tat e. But their very superiority lies in reason, which man is to imi"The better he i s, the more he actualize·s his kinship with the "cosmic powers, that is, the more he increases the original generic com1137 This i· s a far munity of his being and tha t o f the t o t a 1 cosmos. crJ from Gnosticism, and Plotinus himself shows his antipathy to any 35 sasse, p. 879. 3 6Adolph Harnack, History 2f. ~ , translated by Neil Buchanan (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1961), I, 344. · 37Jonas, p. 263. 15 kind of hatred of the world in his writing: "Against the Gnostics, or agains t those who say that the Creator of the World is evil and that the world is bad. 1138 Meanwhile, in the later Koine kosmos has acquired the sense of earth, i nhabited world, humanity, the totality of creatures existing in 39 the world. The birthday of the divine Augustus, for example, is the beginning of good news to the world; Nero is called the lord of the whol e world. 40 Gno s ticism The usage of ko smos from the Milesian thinkers to the last NeoPlatonists was not confined to philosophy. When Platonic and Stoic idea s of the kosmo s began to influence the outlook and religion of wider circles, the word ko smos made its way into religious and cultic speech. Sas se writes: In earlier times the concept had vanquished the nature myths which cont r ol led the view of early Greece (Hesiod, the Orphics). But the anci ent theogonic and cosmogonic speculations were never completely bani shed. Wi th the penetration of oriental religions into the Hell enistic world, the nature speculations and creation myths of the Babyloni ans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Persians came also. How powerf ully these speculations, long since overcome by Greek learning, dominated the minds of the time, may be seen in the flowering of syncretistic Gnosticism. This adopts even the term kosmos ~rith i t s rich content and varied meaning, and brings it into the vocabulary of syncretistic nature mythology.41 38Plotinus, El~1 . ii, 9. 39sasse, p. 880. 40James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, .Till:, Vocabul ary o f ~ ~ Test ament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, 1952), p. 356. 41sasse, p. 879. 16 Gnosticism is an overwhelmingly complex subject, and it does not lie within the scope of this study to duscuss the numerous historical problems connected with the subject. Whatever conclusions may be dra~m regarding the sources, influences, dating, and origins of Gnostic thinking , two facts are pertinent here. In all the so-called Gnostic writings that use the term, the view of kosmos is nearly uniform; and, Gnostic documents provide a usage which certainly plays a significant role in the thought world of John. In this section the usage of kosmos in th~ Gnostic documents, 42 as well as significant analyses of this usage by Gnostic scholars, is e.-x:amined. Possibly the one exception to the typical world view of Gnosticism is the early Gnostic system of Si.monianisrn, in which Simon Magus and Menander are the first two leading figures. Whether setting , its hope on Simon and Helen or on Menander, early Simonianisrn sought to live on in this world and overcome the evil angels here, having received a baptism which makes the disciples deathless, ageless, and immortal. The very use of the word magician to describe both Simon and Menander indicates the this-h~rldly emphasis, for magical art seeks to give power here and now.43 Indeed, compared with later major Gnostic systems, was an optimistic, this-worldly religion. 11 44 11 Si.monianism To be sure, Simonianism sees the state of the world as bad, so .bad that it can be set right only by divine intervention. Evil angels made the world and now are 42Most of the significant Gnostic ~tritings of the first and second centuries are compiled in Robert M. Grant, Gnosticism:~ Sourcebook 2f. Heretical Writinas f.!:Qm. ~ Early Christian Period (New York: Harper and Brothers, c.196lj. 4JR. M. Grant, Gnosticism~ Early Christianity (Revised edition; New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, c.1966), p. 108. 44Thig_., p. 97. 17 45 responsible for its present condition. Saturninus, the third member of the Simonian school, emphasizes only the latter points and there is no t hought of this-worldly salvation. He is militantly ascetic and re- ject s all this-worldly magic, seeking only escape from this world in the divine spark of life. 46 He is hostile "toward the world, toward the world- accepting Jews, toward the world-creating, sex-creating god of the Jews. 11 47 In all other Gnostic systems polemicized by Irenaeus, hatred of t he ,-;orld and redemption through escape stand out among an otherwise varied and confusing array of speculations. Gnostic the world is really hell. 11 48 Grant remarks: "For any Indeed, Grant is able to assert that the one element which binds all the various Gnostic systems together i s the view that the world is bad, that it is under the control of evil 49 or i gno r ance or nothingness, that it cannot be redeemed. Carpocrates follows the Simonians. inferior angels. For him the world is made by Jesus is born naturally of Joseph, becomes righteous, attains a vigorous and pure soul, remembers his former life, and so escapes the world-creators by means of divine power sent to him. through all, he is free and comes to God. Passing The moral of the story is that any soul can do the same if it learns to despise the world-creating archons.50 Jesus plays a similar role in Marcion's thought. 45~., p. 17. 46Grant, Gno sticism, p. 32. 47Grant, Gnosticism~ Early Christianity, p. 107. 48Thi£., p. 150. 49Grant, Gnosticism, P• 15. 5oill.Q.., P· 36. He 11destroyed 18 the prophets and the law and all the works of that God who made the world, 11 the Cosmocrator. 5l The Barbelo-Gnostics investigate the origins of the kosmos and find that Sophia, driven by simplicity and kindness, generated a work in which were Ignorance and Presumption; this work is called Proarchon, the fashioner of this universe. Stealing power from Sophia, Proarchon makes the firmament and all the powers beneath, generating Wickedness, Jealousy, Envy, Strife, and Desire.52 A similar view is expressed by one of the leading Valentinians, Ptolemaeus. Sophia gives birth without father to a shapeless mass; Matter has its primal origin in her ignorance, grief, fear, and consternation. 53 More s ignificant is the exegesis of John found in Ptolemaeus: John the Lord's disciple, desiring to tell of the origin of the universe, by which the Father produced everything, posits acertain Beginning, which was first generated by God, which he called Only-Begotten Son and God, in which the Father emitted all things spermatically. By this the Logos was emitted and in it was the whole substance of the Aeons, which the Logos itself later shaped.54 Then follow amazingly inventive cosmogenies based on the Prologue. Re- garding John 1:5 and the light shining in darkness, Ptolemaeus concludes: "even when he shaped everything which came into existence out of passion, he was not kno,·m by it. 11 55 Another Valentinian, Heracleon, composed notes on parts of the first eight chapters of John. 51~., p. 45. 52~., p. 50-51. 53ill§_., p. 166. 54Ibid., P• 182. 55lli,g_., p. 183. In a comment on John 1:29 he concl:udes that Lamb ----· 19 refers to Christ and "takes away the sin of the world" concerns him who was int.he body. "As the lamb is imperfect in the genus of sheep, so the body is imperfect by comparison with him who dwells in it. If he had wanted to ascribe perfection to the body, he would have spoken of a ram which was to be sacrificed. 11 56 On John 4:21, he says mountain means the devil or his world, since the devil is one part of the whole of matter and the whole ,-rorld is the mountain of evil which all Jews prior to the law and all Gentiles worship. the J ews worship. Jerusalem is the creation of the Creator, whom But the spirituals "will worship neither the creation nor the Derniurge, but the Father of Truth. 11 57 Barrett believes that Gnostic interest in John was almost entireiy cosmological and was concentrated upon the Prologue, which supplied or confirmed the titles of several aeons, such as Arche, Logos, Zoe, and the like. It is difficult to resist the view that the gnostics used John because out of it, by exegesis sound or unsound, they were able to wi~ support and enrichment for preconceived theories and mythologies. 8 Granting variations in 11Gnostic 11 thought, for there is no~ Gnostic viewpoint, what is the common goal, if any, toward which Gnostic thought aims, and what role does its view of the world play? Irenaeus reports that gnosis is the redemption of the inner, spiritual man, not of the body or the soui.59 The most famous description of the Gnostic religious goal is that in Clement: 56 roid.' "Who we are and what we have become; where we p. 197. 57rbid ., p. 200-201. 58c. K. Barrett, ~ p. 55. Gospel According ~ ~ (London: SPCK, 1965), 59Adv. Haer. i, 21. 4, quoted in Grant, Gnosticism~ Early Christianity, P• 7. ___ - ....... 20 were or where we had been made to fall; whither we are hastening, whence we are being redeemed; what birth is and what rebirth is."60 Often the Gnostic religious concerns appear to get lost in cosmology and some writers on Gnosticism have failed to see anything more in Gnosticism than mythological speculations. view. Dodd takes an intermediate Gnosticism, he believes, is not so much knowledge of God in a:ny profoundly religious sense, as knowledge about the structure of the higher world and the way to get there. This knowledge includes cosmo- logy, but the Gnostic special interest goes beyond the kosmos. Gnos- ticism wants to attain access to the realm of being beyond sense experi ence through communication of detailed knowledge of that world, rather 61 than through religious attitudes and activities. "He who knows what he is and whence he is can find the way home. He who knows the nature of the world and its governing powers can overcome these powers. 1162 Bigg, however, believes it would be a mistake to approach Gnos- ./ ticism on a metaphysical side. The Gnostic interest and meaning lies entirely in an ethical motive. "It was an attempt, a serious attempt, to fathom the dread JI\YStery of sorrow and pain, to answer that spectral doubt, which is mostly crushed do~m by force--Can the world as we know it have been made by God? 116J In a similar vein, Galloway concludes that it is true in a certain sense to say that the church I s failure to · :. 60Excerpta ex Theodota 78.2, quoted in Grant, Gnosticism ~nd Early Christianity, p.-;;. 61Dodd, pp. 101-102. 62...2L•, I' ·ct p. 113 • 6Jcharles Bigg, The Christian Platonists Q!Alexandria (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886), P• 28. ·• 1 1 • 11X 21 interpret by emphasizing cosmic redemption the apocalyptic eschatology of t he Bible contributed largely to the rise of Gnosticism.64 Grant takes up the problem of eschatology and apocalyptic. Main- taining that some of the most significant early Gnostic systems have J e~rish roots, he asserts that these Gnostics must have been ex-Jews, r enegardes from their religion. calyptic. wer e open: They arose through the failure of apo- When apocalyptic predictions were not realized, three courses postpone the time of fulfillment and rewrite; ;.abandon reli- gion entirely; seek escape rather than victory and then reinterpret the r evelati on to show it had been misunderstood·. course. 65 11 The latter was the Gnostic The essence of their religion had come to be knowledge of the nature of the self and of the way in which the self could escape from this world to another. 1166 The dualism which thereby arose was often I r anian in origin, but had filtered through ·Judaism into Gnosticism.67 Much of this dualism was present in apocalyptic. The Gnostics only magnified the world as the battleground of good and evil angels into the world as the product of evil angels from whose power only escape 64Alan Galloway,~ Cosmic Christ (I.ondon: Nisbet and Co., Ltd., 1951), p. 77. 6 5Grant, Gnosticism ~ Early Christianity, pp. 26-35. 66 Ibid., p. 35. 67I bi d. Grant, i bi d., p. 113, quotes K. G. Kuhn: 11 The ethical and eschatological dualism of the prea~hin_g of Zarathustra and of th 7 later Iranian religion found acceptance in LQwnra:Jl7 • • • and was combined wi th its Old Testament foundation, while gnosis represents a later stage of the infiltration of Parsee dualism. In this stage it was revised under the wholly different influence of Greek thought, into a physical dualism of substance. In this way for the first time there arose the notion, decisive for gnosis, that matter, the world in terms of its physical substance, is the enemy of God. 11 22 could be provided, and that through planetary spheres. 68 Grant finds Jonas agreeins that the anti-cosmic aspect of Gnosticism, which was coupled with the eschatological dualism, arose out of a "belief that the God of this cosmos has failed to act on behalf of his people.1169 What purpose, then, did all the cosmology and mythology serve? The self-centered Gnostic is concerned with mythological cosmology .only because it expresses and illuminates his understanding of himself, Grant thinks. In his passionate subjectivity he counts the world lost for the sake of self-<iiscovery.70 ¥.iythology is significant because it represents an attempt to explain the present situation and how to get out of it.71 Gnostics were devoted ultimately not to mythology, but to freedom. Myth- ology was an aspect of this freedom-freedom from astral spirits, from the God of the Old Testament, from the tyranny of creation and law.72 Working through mythology, then, Gnostic speculation "recapitulates the journey of the fall, the odyssey of ignorance, in the form of knowledge117.3 and thereby raises the individual existence which is the victim of ignorance out of that very depth of ignorance whose origin it describes. In the Valentinian "pneumatic equation" the event of human knowledge is the inverse equivalent of the pre-cosmic event of divine ignorance. In its redeeming effect it belongs to the same ontological 68 Ibid., p. .39. 69~., p. .37. 70Ib"d --1,._., pp. 8-9. 71 Toid., p. 10. 72~., p. 12. 73 Jonas, p. 194. • 23 order.74 It would appear, then, that Gnosticism is interested in the ko smos only with a view to disinterest in it-to express the view that salvation can come only from beyond the kosmos and that salvation itself means going beyond the ko smos. Significantly, the Gnostics retained the name kosmos with its Greek characteristic of order. The very features of order are enhanced in their power and impact on man, but the order is now rigid and inimical, a tyrannical and evil law, devoid of meaning and goodness, alien to the purposes of man. It is an order empty of divinity, an emphatically nega- tive concept. 75 "There is a basic experience of an absolute rift between man and that in which he finds himself lodged, the world. 1176 The pas- sionately felt dualism between man and the world posits as its metaphysical counterpart that between God and the ·world.77 "As the world is that which alienates from God, so God is that which alienates and liberates from the world. 11 78 a vengeance. The order of kosmos has become order with Far from being chaos, creation is a comprehensively bind- ing system governed by law, a cosmic law which thwarts freedom. Stoic cosmic logos is now oppressive cosmic fate.7 9 The Never before or after this time, Jonas believes, had such a gulf opened up between man and the world, between life and its begetter. Hence it was possible to speak so rebelliously and contemptuously about the world, and a felling of 74Jonas, p. 176. 75lli.g_., p. 250. 76Ibid., p. 251. ??IQig_. 78111!4., 79111!4. p. 252. 24 co smic solitude, abandonment, and transcendental superiority of the 80 "The music of the spheres was self took hold of men's consciousness. no longer heard, and the admiration for the perfect spherical form gave place to the terror of so much perfection directed at the enslavement of man. 1181 But t h e ~ view of life, Jonas believes, is neither optimistic nor pess~-nistic. If the kosmos is bad, there is the goodness of the outer-worldly God; if a prison, there is an alternative; if man is a prisoner, there is salvation from the kosmos. 82 But if this is to be true, man must be acosmic in his inner nature. There must be an ultimate otherness of his origin; his kinship can be neither with the whole nor with any part of the universe. 8 3 The new positive, then, is a trans- mundane deity, not mere~ extra- or supra-mundane, but contra-mundane.84 Man's home in the outside, the beyond, is his very salvation, for the limiation of the beyond deprives the kosmos power structure of its claiJr, to totality. Because of this radical limitation, the kosmos has become merely~ kosmos. The other world is the habitation of Life. Seen from beyond, man's world becomes ~ world. The important 80~., p. 254. 81~., p. 251. 82~. 83Ibid., p. 263. How close the Gnostics camel They got to the inner nature,l)ut then solved the problem by postulating a certain cosmological origin of that nature~instead of dealing with the historical-ethical rebellion of that nature against God, as John did. 84Ibid. p. 251. Unlike the kosmos noetos of Plato and the world-Lord of Judar;;- this radica~ transcendent deity stands in no positive relation to th~ sensible world. He is not the essence, but the cancellation and ~egation of the sensible world. There is more nihil than fill§. in this concept of God ( ~ . , p. :·27J.) • 25 demonstrative pronoun becomes closely related to the primary concept of the Alien. 8 5 In some Gnostic systems, when all men are restored to that sphere in the Beyond, when the deity• s pre-cosmic wholeness is restored, then the kosmos, deprived of its elements of light, ~rill come to an end. 86 A whole new view of man in the kosmos has developed, then, in Gnosticism... Jonas writes: The self is kindred only to other human selves living in the world~ and to the transmundane God, with whom the non-mundane center of the self can enter into communication. This God must be acosmic, because t he cosmos has become the realm of that which is alien to the self . Her e we can discern the profound connection which exists bet ween the discovery of the self, the despiritualizing of the world, and the positing of the transcendent God.87 Hostility toward the world, the body, and man's physical existence in the world raises the problem of ethics. Ptolemaeus maintains that the psychis are of the world and must practice good conduct so that through it they may make it to the Middle. The q:iirituals, however, are only in the world and continence is not necessary at all. It is not conduct that leads to the Pleroma anyway, but the seed sent out from the Pleroma at birth.88 Epiphanes took a different approach, providing a philosophical justification for promiscuity. Making all things for man to be common property, God showed righteousness to be a universal sharing, he asserts. Commandments regarding the neighbor's wife were 89 regarded by Epiphanes as comic words and a great jest. 85Ib"d _1:_., P• 51. 86~., p. 45. 87~., pp. 263-264. 88Grant, Gnosticism, P• 176. 89Ibid., p. 40. 26 Al though contempt for mundane ties sometimes led to asceticism, much Gnostic thought expresses more vigorously than Ptolemaeus or Epiphanes a strident libertinism. Laws are just one more form of cosmic tyranny exercised by the Creator, and sanctions affect only the body and psyche . 11 Through intentional violation of the demiurgical norms the pneumatic th,·:arts the design of the Archons and paradoxically contributes to t he work of salvation. u90 This intense antinomianism forcefully exhi bits t he nihilistic element in Gnostic acosmism.91 Thus libertinism ac- t ually becomes a program to be conpleted, since laws set the seal of ser i ousness on kosmos involvement. The last thing the Gnostic wants to do i s a ssi st the kosrnos to function smoothly and himself become a compliant part of the whole compulsory system.92 All the realties between the Gnostic and his wholly other God are either fetters and obstacles or i r rel evant to his direct relationship with that God. intervening r ealiti es is the ko smos . The sum of these "The surpassing interest i n sal- vation, the exclusive concern in the destiny of the transcendent self, 'denatures ,' as it were, these real ties and takes the heart out of the concern with them where such a concern is unavoidable. 1193 The .Hermet,ica The Hermetica are the literary products of a Hellenistic religious 90Jonas, p. 46. 91~. 921lli., p. 272 •. 93~., pp. 267-268. 27 thought which mi ght be called semi-Gnostic, but is certainly different from much of Gnostic thought. These documents were written primarily in the second and third centuries, A.n.94 This lit erature uses kosmos frequently, but without complete consistency. The Greek view is recognized when the kosmos is declared rishtly named since all things in it are vrrought into an ordered whole.95 All matter is set in order through necessity and providence and nature, which are the inst~11ents by which the ko srnos is governed. 96 The ko smos is a great and perfect life.97 Even kalos is used of the visible universe;98 94rn Gnosti cism and Early Christ ianity, p. 148, Grant notes that Festugicre i nsist s on the eclectic Middle-Platonic character of the H rmetica and derives them from the milieu of popular philosophy rather t han f ~om mythological gnosis; van Moorsel believes they are not Gnostic a t all; Quispel calls them Gnosticizing and van Moorsel is willing to call t he:n semi-Gnostic; Grant agrees. In 'rll.£. Di ble ~r.!-.1 the Greeks .. .(london: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954), pp . 244- 245, C. H. Dodd write s that the Hermetica are a reaction against r ationali :-,."'il; that they use philosophy as a handmaid of gnosi s which has been pre~erved in ancient religious traditions and comm-..uiicated through prophets; t hat they show a Platonism with the mystical and theistic elements emphasized. Dodd believes that philosophy has been employed to r at ionalize or interpret Eastern religions and mythologies in an effort to att a in a divinely communicated gnosis. The Hermetica presuppose a higher synthesis of all religions. 1 95corpu.2, Hermeticum 9.8. All quotations and citations are from the edition of i'Ialter Scott, Hermetica. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924-1936), f our vol umes. Thi s edition contains an introduction, the Greek text, an English translation, and extensive notes. All quotations and citations have been comoared with a more critical edition of the Greek text: A. D. Nock and Ji. . Festugiere~ Corpus Hermeticum (Paris: Societa D'F.d.ition Les Belles Lettres, 1945-1954), four volumes. Hereafter, the common abbreviat i on Q..E,. will be used. J: 969..!i• 12.ii.14b. 979..fi. ll.i.4b. 98Q..E,. ll. 7. 28 else,,;hcre it is used only of the invisible. 99 The differentiation between ko smos noetos and komnos aisthetos, pro~~nent in Philo, occurs in the Hermetica also. The kosmos noetos encompasses the ko smos aisthetos and fills its material mass 'With many forms of everiJ shape. 100 The kosmos aisthetos came into being when God beheld the beauteous ko snos noetos and copied it. 101 The ko smos noetos is a vi·orld without bounds. 102 In a hierarchy from God to ir.an, the ko smos noet os seems to occupy second place, after God, and the kosmos aisthetos, fourth place, after the sun.lOJ The kosmos is soma and moves in a great incorporeal space, which is mind; God is the cause of the mind's existence.l04 Mind encompasses the kosmos aisthetos.l05 Sometimes kosmos is distinguished from earth. In one place the home of evil is the earth, and not the whole kosmos, as some will blasphemously say in days to come. 106 When the demiurge had made the kosmos, 99Dodd, 11!£ Bible ~ ~ Greeks, p. 127. 100Q..!:!_. 1 6 .12. 101Q..!:!_. 1.8b. 102Q..!f. 1.7. This depends on Scott's conjecture, II, P• 27, that the ko smos aisthetos is perioristos. lOJQ..!:!_. 16.17. 104Q..!:!_. 2.13. 1059..fi. l'.9. 106Hans Jonas, Gnosis ~ spaetantiker Geist (Dritte, verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage; Gocttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964~, P• 1~4, thinks this may be an anti-Gnostic gloss-part of a Greek reacti~n against the Gnostic deprivation of the kosrnos. He notes that the Hermetica do, however, represent a newer feeling toward the world. 29 he willed to kosmesai (set in order, embellish) the earth also and so he sent dovm man to be an embellishment (kosmon) on the divine body. l07 It is man's function to contemplate the works of God. He was made to view t he k o smo s with wondering awe and come to know its Maker • 108 In t he same tractate, however, there is a warning to reject the corporeal in order to a ttain the incorporeal. The corporeal is only an encumbrance in God' s kosmos . Ko smos is often connected with the sun or the heavenly bodies. maintains the undying mere tou ko smou (heavenly bodies). Father o f all : 109 God God is the the Sun, the demiurge, and the kosmos, which is the in- strument, by which the demiurge works. whole system of spheres. 110 In this usage, ko smos means a The sun is in the midst of the ko smos above and b elow, wearing the ko smos as a wreath around it.ll.l The sun lets the ko smo s go on its course, but never lets it separate itself from the sun; l est the ko sm.o s should rush away in disorder, the sun binds itseil to the l07.Q.. li_. 5.2. This may mean that God needed something more for the ea:::-thl:v part of the ko smos and so put men on earth, or it may imply man's function to beautify the ea rth. Dodd, Interpreta tion, p. 27, believes there w~y be a hint here that the honorable term kosmos belongs to the univer se only as com.P..l eted by the presence of divine humanity. Note the pun on kosrr..o s as universe and as ornament. l08.Q.. fl. 4.2. The text is corrupt; Nock-Festugiere do not support Scott' s conjecture. 109 Q..g. 1 6 .8. llO_g_. !i. 16 .18. 111 .Q..fi. 16. 7. 30 chariot of t,he ko•,mos . 112 Tho whole kosmos. is a great God, ·an image of the God who is greater, maintaining its order with the Father's will, a pleroma tes zoes, a liv. 'oeing. • llJ ing • the second God , an J.IllIJlOrva • ,L 1 b eing. • 114 The 1ne )<0 smos is m• sense a.~d thought of the kosmos are occupied in accomplishing God's will. 115 The ko~ receives seed from God and develops it into a perpetual succession of living beings. The bodies of these beings are composed of the co~'llic elements; their qualities are imposed by the heavenly bodies; their life is breathed into them from the life-breath of the kosrnos. God is the Fa- ther of the ko smos and the kosmos the father of those in the kosmos. 116 The kosmos is the son of God and the things in the lcosmos are the sons of the kosmo s. Man is, so to speak, the grandson of Goct. 117 The Icrd mani- fests himself ungrudgihg_I..y through the whole kosmos. Man can behold 118 God 1 s image with his eyes and lay hold on it with his hands. But Scott believes that the emphasis here is on seeing with the mind, rather than with bodily eyes. 119 112At aktos is used for disorder, and not a pun on kosmos. 113Q..!f. 12.15b. 114Q..!J.. 8.lb. 115g_.£i. 9.6-8. 1169..a. 9.s. 117f.•!i• lO.l4b. 118 Q..£i. 5.2. 119Scott, II, p. 155. .31 L"'l a f ew tractates the enthusiasm for kosmos is tempered. The point is made that t he kosmos is not, in the same sense as God, the author of . good •120 wha ,.u 1.s If the kosmos acts as an author of life it does so only under t he compulsion imposed on it by God's will. vlhatever good the kosm~s has it ha s received from God. 121 The kosmos is not evil, but it also i s not good, si nce it is material and subject to perturbation.122 Though it i s f irst among all things subject to perturbation, it is second a.'1\ong thi ngs t hat are. pr ocess of becoming. The kosmos is ever-existent, but always in the The kosmos is a head, with an outermost cerebral membrane being immortal, but with things at a greater distance from the outer membrance being mortal~having more body than soul. The pupil seeking rebirth is advised that he must first alienate his heart from the world.' s deceptions.12.3 Purification is putting away the ear thly taberna cle. 1 24 As Tat, the pupil, answers, "Father, by your song of praise to God you have put into my world also," he is interrupted by Hermes, who says, "Nay, my son, say rather 'my incorporeal world~ 11112 5 In other tractates the body is seen as an enemy126 and as· a :.. cloak of darkness, a web of i gnorance, a prop of evil, a bond of corruption, living death, 120£..Ji. 10.2. 121£.. g. 10 .3. 122 £..Ji. 10.11. 123£..Ji. 13. 124£..Ji. 13.15. 125£..fl. 1.3.21. l26g_.Ji. l. 32 a conscious corpse, a tomb, a robber in the house, an enemy who hates the things one seeks after and grudges the things one desires, a garment which grips one and holds him do.-m that he may not look upwarct. 127 But it is important to note that the only unambiguous contemptus mur.di in the entire extant Hermetic literature is that in the sixth tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum. Only here is hostility expressed toward the ko s1r.os, with express use of the term kosmos. The writer of this tractate grants that since the world of matter participates in the ideal archetypes and in the good, to that extent the kosmos is good. 128 But in all other respects the kosmos is not good, being subject to perturbation. evil. It is impossible for things in the kosmos to be pure from The good in the kosmos is that which has the smallest share of evil, and in this kosmos the good becomes evil. 129 There is not room for the good in a material body.lJO The kosmos is a pleroma kakias. even as God is a plcrorna of good. 131 Indeed, it is impossible for the good to be 1 2 present in the kosmos. as it is impossible for any evil to enter God. 3 l27g_.li. 7 .2b. 126 C.H. 6.2b. Scott, II, p. 175, thinks this is a concession to the ~ajority-view of the Hermetics. 129 f.•li• 6.Ja. 130f..!f. 6 .3b. 131 f.•li• 6.4a. 132scott, II, 169, notes that this tractate must be distinguished from most other Hermetic writings by its intensely pessimistic tone. In his s-;reeping condemnation of the kosmos and all in it, the writer goes . beyond Plato and agrees rather with some of the Neo-Pyth~goreans and G~ostics. Ernst Percy, Untersuchung ~ Ursprung der Johanneischen Theologie {lllnd: Hakan Ohlssons Buchdruckerei, 1939), p. 134-135, appears to overemphasize this tractate in his discussion of the Herrnetica. 33 It is difficult to disagree with the conclusions reached by Dodd after his study of the Hermetica . There is no absolute dualism. AlJr.ost always the ko Sillos is in one way or another a revelation of God. 133 opposing tendencies appear in the Hermetica: 'l\-ro somewhat an emphasis on God's tran- scendence, leading to further grades of being between God and the kosmos; and an emphasis on man as something more than the mere offspring of the kosmo s , not wholly dependent on it for his knowledge of God. 134 Despite the kosmo s noetos and kosmo s aisthetos, Dodd believes the Hermetica do not generally employ Platonic or Philonic conceptions, that the kosmos as cosmic soul is more congenial to them than the kosmos as a reflection of a transcendent world of Ideas. 135 The transcendent God is able to rel ate h:i.r.iself to the ko smos through dunameis or energai, which pervade the ko smos . These are often compared to rays strearrd.ng from eternal light. Dodd sees a concept of aion occasionally mediating between God and kosmos, but more often nous plays this role. 136 The Hermetica contain cosmologi~-~ cal dualism to the extent that they find a universe originating in darkness, but forced to submit to a divine order and definition. . non-d."1.vine, . stuff of the ko smos 1.s 1.·t s f Though the • d"1.vine....., . ,.... l.Illpose . d • 137 orm is The Mandean Literature 133Dodd, Interpretation, p. 22. Dodd conjectures that knowledge of God through the Son would be acceptable to the Hermetists if Son=kosmos. 134lli£. 135]2;isi., p. 23. 136ill£., pp. 23-24. 13?1J2.isi., p. 36. 34 The position of the Mandean literature in the ancient world is not yet clear. While its affinities with Gnostic thought are clear, the dating of this literature is quite difficult. The language is Semitic, a form of Aramaic which developed in lower Babylonia. For t he Mandeans, world denotes a collective demonic family rather t han a unity. The world is a labyrinth for the wandering soul. role is ini."nical and obstructive, anti-divine and imprisoning. Its All of spa ce has a malevolently spiritual character and even the time dimension is demonized . t emporal. There is cosmic terror in view of the spatial and the The worlds of the Mandeans may be compared with the aeons of . l3S - 1oni. s t·ic Gnost·1c1sm. H.e~ The wor ld is an enclosed cell and man is only a stranger in it. come from outsi de" and 11 to get out" are standard phrases. "To Someti.-iies the world appears as an inn in which one lodges, the body being a tent or a gar ment. To the redeemed come the words: "Thou wert not from here, and thy root was not of the world. 11139 Generally the Mandeans see a pre-cosmic fall underlying the genesis of the hUrld and human existence. the powers of darkness. Sometimes the process is initiated by Elsewhere there appears a volunt ary element, a guilty inclination, curiosity, sensual desire causing the origin of the world and man 1 s ex.istence.140 138Jonas, pp. 51-53. 139Ibid ., p. 55. l40ib .d __1_., p. 62 • The quotation is from Ginza. 379. 35 Jonas asserts that the Mandeans have an attitude of "thrownness"s~uilar to that of contemporary nihilism. This is not merely a descrip- tion of the past, but it qualifies the given, present situation as one determined by the past. A dramatic image of the genesis of the world has been projected into the past from the painful experience of the present situation, Jonas believes. 141 The redeemed cries: the affliction of the world? 11142 and again: of t his ,-rorld into which we are thrown. 11143 "Who has cast me into "Save us out of the darkness The Mandeans also evidence attitudes of forlornness, dread, homesickness, fall, sinking, capture, t'ion, numbncss, seep, l · t oxica · t·ion. l44 . a l icnn in The world itself has taken tho place of tho traditional underworld and is already the realm of the dead, of those who must be raised to life. 145 The only hope for man in the world is that the transmundane will come to man within the world. So fundamental is this call from without that the Mandean religion may be called a "religion of the call. 11146 The call typically awakes, reminds of heavenly origins, promises redemp1 tion, and gives practical instruction. 47 The Messenger from without comes to take believers away from this world and to make them strangers ll;.lib. __i d_., pp. 63-64. 1.42 . Ginza , 457, quoted in Jonas, p. 64. 143Ginza , 254, quoted ill&· 1.44ill,g_., pp. 65-68. 145Ibid., p. 68. 146Ibid ., p. 74. 147lli,g,., p. 81. 36 to this world of darkness. 1 48 Under the dominant power of the Messenger, the lOl·rer world is destined to perish. 149 Because the Messenger comes to bring life, it can occasionally be sai d that the human world (meaning the spirits of the tribe of Adam) is ai.;akened. Similarly, Adam can be called the King of this world. T'nis i'lorld , then, can be used in a good sense, as a world that good has ent ered. Over against this htunan world lying in darkness stands Life- in a r el ation that might be expressed as friendship, mercy, or even love.150 There ar ises mutual love between life and the believers dwelling in the world. \·ihatever good there may be in the world, it does not really be- l ong t here. 151 Life is related to the world in love only in that Life wills to cause human beings to return to the world of Life and Light. 1 52 ?I.or e common is a thoroughly hostile view toward the world. The entirety of the lower world is a place of darkness. Even when world means man, the same expression of darkness is used. The whole world is not hing and untrust ~~rthy; it is full of sins; it is like a wild beast, not knowi ng left from right. world. 11 The evil ones call the world "this our The world as men is a house ready to fall.153 The believer feels greatly antagonistic to the world; he considers 148odeber g , p. 126. 149Ibid . 150Ibid., p. 127. 151Ibid., p. 128 . 152Ib:i.d. , p. 129. 153~., pp. 123-124. 37 himsel f very superior. 1 54 He haughtily rebukes the world.155 believer who has just left the world the words are spoken: To the "You have left decay and the stinking corpse in which you lingered, the dwelling of evil, the place where is nothing but sin, the world of darkness, hate, j ea lousy , and discension. 111 56 The world the believers hate is full of fa l sehood and i llusion, beset with thistles and thorns, a world of disorder and confusion without firmness, darkness without light, stench without a good smell, persecution and death without life in eternity. 1 57 Bultmann finds parallels between the Mandean literature and John. Of the t wenty-eight parallels he studies, five have to do with the wor ld . (1) The Sent-One is sent from the Father into the world. 1 58 (2) He has come into the wo~ld. 1 59 (3) The Sent-One appears as a stranger to the power of t he .world; it does not know his origin since it is differe~t f rom its own.160 world. 161 (4) The Sent-One is abandoned and hated in the (5) His ascension is the catastrophe of the worlct. 162 1 54Percy, p. 127. 155__Q;L_., Ii ' d p. 129 • 156Rudolf Schnackenburg, Di e Johannesbriefe (Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1953), p. 118. 157Ibid . 158"Di e Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandaeischen und manichaeischen Quel l en fue r das Ver staendnis des Johannesevangelium, 11 Zeitschrift ~ fil Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24 (1925), 105. 159roid ., p. 106. 160Ib .d __l:__·, pp. 119-120. 161Ibd p. 123. ___:_•, 162r oid., p. 136. 38 The Septuagint Ko~~o s occurs frequently in the Septuagint to denote host (of heaven), adornment, and universe or world. Generally the Hebrew wri- tings use ko smos for adornment and host (of heaven). Kosmos translates the Hebrew c;aba'. and earth (Gen. 2:1). God creates the host of heaven He brings out his host by number (Is. 40:26). The ho st of heaven is distinguished from the earth (Is. 24:21). Man is wa rned agai nst looking up to the host of heaven and worshipping them (Deut. 4:19; 17:3). 163 Kosmos is corru~only used to denote adornment. terms underlie this usage of the word. Eight different Hebrew In addition, kosmos occurs a few times with this meaning where there is no Hebrew original with that sense. Kosmos is also used to denote adornment in the original Greek writings of the Septuagint. This is especially true in Sirach, although the sense there occasionally is closer to order or array. · Most important for this study is the use of kosmos for world or universe. The Hebrew Old Testament has no word for the universe, nor- mally :usi ng heaven and earth~ or the 11all. 11164 Apparently the translators chose ko smos for world (in the rare instances of its occurrence with that meaning in the Hebrew writings of the Septuagint) because of:. 163while ko smos is used for paba' of heaven, it is not used for YIMH ciba'oth. Kuri os t on dunameon translates that expression. This may indicate that kosmos waschosen because it was thought a good word to convey the idea of heavenly bodies--not as an equivalent for the general meaning of host. Indeed, Sasse (p. 880) thinks the phrase h2. kosmos tou ouranou would connote the ideas of order, adornment, world, heaven, and stars to Septuagint readers. 164Ibid., p. 881. The Hebrew is kol or hakol. 39 its wide and co:mmon usaee in Hellenistic Greek. has kosmos i nst ead of ~ of Genesi s : For ex.ample, Symma.chus (Job 38 :4), and Ale.xandrinus has as the title genesis ko smou. The usage of kosmos to denote world is very conunon, however, in the Greek writi ngs of the Septuagint. Sasse notes: I ndeed , the J ewish Hellenistic writers, especially those influenced G~eek philo sophy, seemed to have a liking for the t erm and brought it into their religious and theological vocabulary. It denotes the world in t he spatial sense and replaces the older 11 heaven and earth.11165 by Host signi ficant is the usage of kosmos in Wisdom and 2 ¥.accabees. God is the Kin~ of the kosmos who will raise up to everlasting life those who died fo r his l aws (2 Mace. 7:9). Men call upon God as the great ~ soverei gn of t he kosmo s (2 Mace. 12:15). God is the creator of the~- (2 1.fo.cc. 13 :14; 4 Mace. 5 :25), who shapes the beginning of man and devises t he or i gins of all things (2 ¥.ta.cc. 7 :23). God creat es the kosmos (Wisdom 9:9). Wisdom is present when God's powerful hand created the kosmos out of formless matter (Wisdom 11:17). Kosmo s appears to mean universe in Wisdom 13:2, where it is observed t hat men equate the luminaries of heaven with the gods who rule the ko smos. The men upon whom God spread heavy night are contrasted with the whole~mos , illumined with brilliant light (Wisdom 17:20). In the eschatological conflict the ungodly perish, for the ko smos defends the righteous (Wisdom 16:17). The ko smos joins God in fighting against mad men (Wisdom 5:20). Ko smos can mean the earthly world over which man is to rule in holiness and r ighteousness (Wisdom 9:3). For the sake of God man has come into the kosmo s (4 Mace. 16:18). rhrough the vanity of men idols (AS: death) entered the kosmos (Wisdom 14:14). There is one entrance for 40 all who come into the ko smo s (AB : ~ ) (Wisdom 7: 6s). kosmos t hrough the devil's envy (,·lisdom 2:24). Death enters the Since God created all t hings t hat they might exist, the generative forces (or creatures) of the kosmos are wholesome (Wisdom 1:14). Ko smos may also mean mankind. tion of t he ko smos (Wisdom 6 :24). of the ko smos (Wisdom 10 :1). The number of the wise is the salvaWisdom protects the first-formed father The hope of the kosmos takes refuge on a r aft during the flood (Wisdom 14:6). God is able to strike down those coming against his people, even the whole kosmos (2 Mace. 8:18). The obvious preference for kosmos in the Greek ~Titings of the Septuagint suggests that Greek-speaking Judaism had adopted the word as a fixed e.x.-pr essi on for the world. Current Hellenistic usage was probably the pri- mary influence, and among the more educated the philosophical doctrine of t he ko &1nos may have had effect. Here Philo played a mediatorial .r.ole • . In a formal way the various nuances of kosmos in Wisdom and 2 Maccabees (universe, earth, inhabited earth, humanity) correspond to New Testament usage. The use of kosmos in such divine titles as Creator, Lord or King of the co smos , which are alien to the NT, enables us to conclude t hat among t he Jews the word had found its way not only into cultic speech but also into liturgical usage, and that it was be!~g in some cases to oust such terms as ouranos ~ and aion. m The adoption of kosmos into Septuagintal usage was, then, an incisive event i,n the history of the word. From that point on the concept has a Biblical and philosophical development; there is an interaction which 167 effects its future history both in antithesis and relationship. Judaism 1661bid·. , p. 882. 167~., p. 880. 41 Old Test ament, apocryphal, apocalyptic, rabbinic thought For I srael in the Old Testament the world does not have any selfcontained uni ty, nor unity "in principle"; its unity lies only in its rel ation to God, to its origin in his creative will, to his continued pre168 . . t ed f or i · t. The understanding of servation, t o the goa1 h e has appoin the ,-rorld in t he Old Testament ~s constantly in flux, and any given interpr etation may be held at any time by only a few prophets. advances and never a complete picture at one time. There are many The Old Testament man had to master the ,-rorld f rom a lmowledge of its Creator and Controller, not from any concept of nature or history. 169 Steps along the ~ray included the view of the world as the sphere of Yahweh's historical action (against mythology);l?O master ing the world outside man through Wisdom which derives from experience ; 171 prophetic t earing open of the world to see the non-sacral secularity of other nations; 172 Deuteronomic secularization of Israel's life. 173 The view of the world in Judaism is inevitably linked with the word 1 olam. Dalman seriously doubts the use of 'clam for world in pre-Christian t imes, f i nding it impossible that the use of kosmos for world should have 168 Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theolog.y, translated by D. M. G. St alker ( Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, c.1965), Volume II: The Theology: 2.f. Israel ' s Prouhetic Tradi tions, p. 338. 169Ib.d ---1-•, p. 341. 170Ibid. l7li bid ., p. 342. 172Ib. d _l..•, P• 343. 173Ib .d _l..•, p. 344. I 42 11 prematurely modified the phraseology of the Syrians and the Jews. 11174 The older sections of Enoch , Dalman believes, do not use '5larr. in the sense of world , but in the sense of time or duration. Melek ha 'olam, for in175 stance, means he who controls infinite time, not king of the world. The later editions of the Similitudes 2f. Enoch do, however, speak of a 176 creation of the world. 2f. Jubilees is ambiguous in its usage. The ~ Reference is made to the generations of the world, but also to the God of the ages. He is called Creator of all things, but heaven and earth, not the ·w orld, constitute his creative work. In the flood the water fills the whole world. 1 77 In i Esdras the Syriac 'alma ' definitely occurs in the sense of created world, but in some of the mar.y instances of its usage, the idea of aion is not to be excluded. On the contrary, Dal.man believes a Greek original would necessarily have had aion throughout. 178 The last portion of Enoch speaks of a created world. are rr~re difficult: Other expressions King of the glory of the world may be eternal King of glory; Lord of the world may be eternal Lord; to all the generations of 179 the world may be to all generations in perpetuity. The Assumption of ~ speaks of the world only in the chapters (l; 11; 12) which frame the prophetic part of the book (2-10). God is l74Gustav Dalman, -~ Words of Jesus, translated by D. M. Kay (F.ciinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), p. 166. 175 Ibid ., PP• 163-165. l76 Ibid ., p. 166. 177~., p. 171. 178~. 179~., p. 170. 43 creator of the world (1:2); he is lord of the world (1:12); he rules the world with compassion and righteousness (11:17). There is an earthly world (11:16) and t he "foundation of the world" is used as a time refer ence (1:13,14). 180 In t he AnocalyPse of Baruch, world occurs in one of the three parts dating before 70 A.D. God knows the deep things of the world (54:1); the world is his creation (56:2); he made it (56:3); it is the place of evil human af f airs (73:1,5). much ffiOre f r equent. In later sections of Baruch, world is There is an earthly world (3:7; 4:1; 14:2; 85:100; God creates the world (21:24); there is a world of mankind (J:l), which men enter at birth (48 :15); the world is God's world (8.3:2). ¥la.n is warned not t o be in bondage in both worlds (8.3:8), and there clearly appears the idea of a future world. mised (14 :13). It is the world which God has pro- The question is posed whether the world will be changed in God 's f i nal day (49:J). God has made man administrator of his world, and t he wor ld is ma.de on account of man (14 :18). 181 There occur even a few instances of a "new world. 11 A new world is coming which does not turn to corruption those who depart to its blessedness (Baruch 44 :12). There is hope of a world to be renewed in the Messianic t ime (Baruch 57 :2; also a few Targums). looked f o r ( ~ 72:l; Jubilees 1:29). creation (Baruch 32:6). A new creation is The Mighty One will renew his 182 Dalman readily concedes, then, that later Jewish literature abounds in instances of 'ola.m as world. 180Ibid. 181Ibid. 182~ . , pp. 177-178. A clear distinction among meanings of 44 aee, eternity, and world is not everywhere practicable, he believes. As soon as the geographical idea of kosmos gets transferred to 1 olam, the writer can at will apprehend it as a magnitude of space or time. 183 From the end of the first century A.D. 'olam is so commonly used for world that it cannot be doubted that this name for the idea was then in general use. I- b the older Targums also world is widely used. through God I s word; God created the world. end of the world to another" occurs. 11 The world is made The expression "from one Destroy 11 comes to be "put out of the world"; "fa thers of antiquity" becomes "fathers of the world"; "primeval mountain" becomes "mountains of the world"; "mighty ones of old II becomes "great ones of the world. 11 Other expressions are pious of the world, prophets of the world, come into the world, be in the ·world, go out of the world, judge the world. people . 18 4 Finally, world can mean simply The Tareums also define God's relati on to the world as Lord, King, God of the w~rld. 18 5 The fourth century Samaritan author Marka . 186 also speaks of the Lord, King, God of the world. World is used often by the rabbis, but it is impossible to speak of any unified world-view. 187 Generally, 188 the world is God's possession, it is sinful and fallen, it is yet not rejected or accounted essentially 183Ib .d p. 171. _i_., 184~., p. 172. 185I1: .d P• 174. -2l-•, 186Ibid.' p. 173. 187Hans Beitenhard, ~ himmlische Welt im, Urchristentum ~ Spaetjudentu.~ {Tuebingen: Verlag J.C. B. Mohr, 1951), p. 256. 188The following relies on Odeberg, p. 115. 45 evil, nor viewed as the antithesis of the holiness of God. It is a world of impe~fection and blindness, that some day will become perfect and a worthy abode of God's Presence. But the relation of the Holy One to the 189 world is never expressed with the term love. The world is created in justice and mercy. An attitude of love is expressed toward man qua man. There are frequent dicta regarding God's love for Israel or the righteous. There is an inherent evil aspect usually attached to the expression 'clam hazeh , in contrast to the expression 'olam habo•. 190 Attention is often fixed on the human element and world almost equals humanity.191 In all the cases where "coming into the world" occurs, humanity rather than space is the thought, Bietenhard maintains. 192 Apocalyptic writers show much greater pessimism toward the world and appear, at least on the surface, more confident of the imminence of God I s action. Many believe God will destroy the world and substitute a new one. 193 For the apocalyptists, cosmology itself becomes a part of the apocalyptic kerygma. 194 ~ - speaks of a world of unrighteousness (4B:7) and contrasts the good things of the world with God and heaven (108 :8). ___ L, Esdras shows the world lying in darkness (14:20) and full of :::;. sorrow, hastening to its end (4:26). 189Odeberg, p. 115. 190I!&£.., p. 116. 191Ib.d p. 115. --1::....•, 192Hietenhard, p. 85. l93Grant, Gnosticism~ Early Christianity, P• 27. 1 ~~ietenhard, P• 255. 46 Judaism does not have any single view of the world. The world is God's creation, but stands under judgment and needs redemption. These t .~'O lines of thought, both resting on Biblical foundations, are never brought together. The optimistic openness of the Alexandrians and the profound pes simism of apocalyptic confront each other irreconcilably. The one rests on the Biblical belief in creation and incorporates a Hellenistic joy in the world in its system; the other rests on the Biblical thought of judgment and incorporates a Persian dualism in its system. Judaism va cillat es between these extremes, but is not able to U."lite Indeed, good and evil seem to exist simultaneously in the world. 195 them. Qumran The Qumran community confesses the Biblical doctrine of creation, 196 occasionally in a way similar to the Prologue of John. Yet it sees the present world under the Lordship -of Belial, and the elect seek to 19 withdraw from it. Here occurs a complete devaluation of the world. 7 Yet the corranunity awaits a new creation. Yearning for redemption, it desires a new world and firmly believes in the imminent restoration of the world in a new aeon. 198 There shall be continued light and darkness "until the determined end and until the new creation" (Manual _of filfilpli ne 4: 25). Quroran "cherished the hope of a re-ordering of the cosmic l95sasse," p. 891. 196Raymond E. Bro.-m, "The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,"~ Scrolls~~ llilli Testament, edited by Krist:r Stendahl (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, c.1957), PP• ..L.86-187. l97schnackenburg, p. 120. 198Kurt Schubert, T h e ~ ~ Community, translated by John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, c.1959), P• 104. 47 \·thich would r emove all the imperfections of the present aeon forever. This new order was the goal of their apocalyptic speculations. 11199 There are not one, but several kinds of dualism at Qumran, but they all attest an ethical interest. 11Alle zusanunen stehen sie der 1·1ertenden Beurteilung der vorhandenen Welt. 11200 is et hical. i.m Dienst (1) The basic dualism The fundamental commandment is to exercise righteousness and truth in a world full of unrighteousness, because God demands righteous acti on. Concretely this means fulfilling the Torah as a member of the conu~unity. 201 (2) There is also a physical-metaphysical dualism, in which there is a strict separation between Creator and creation. Over against God there is the spiritual world which is God-fearing and good and the earthly world which is godless and evil. On the other hand, the spiritual world is both righteous and godless and so is the earthly world. 202 (3) There is a cosmic dualism, in which are spheres of light and dark- ness. But interest in cosmic origins was always subordinate to ethical action. 203 (4) There is a mythological dualism, in that cosmic princi- ples are personified, for example, Belial. 204 (5) Finally, there is l99Ibid., p. 112. 200Hans Walter Huppenbauer, ~ Mensch zwischen ~ (Zuerich: Zwingli Verlag, c.1959), P• 103. 201~., p. 104. 202ill£!.., pp. 104-106. 20.3Ibi d., pp. 108-109. 204roid., p. 110. Welten 48 eschatological dualism. Qumran stands waiting for God to create anew, to assert his Lordship in place of the rule of the godless.205 One may conclude that~ the Qumran dualism is a relative, ethical dualism, . th a cosmic . orien . t a t.ion. 206 wi. For Qumran, this means an emphasis on God 1 s transcendence and predestination and on man's responsibility. 207 The New Testament In the New Testament ko smos never means order, and means adornment only once (1 Peter 3:3). 208 sense. Everywhere else kosmos means world in some Kosmos may mean world or universe and is synonymous with the Old Testament "heaven and earth" (Acta 17:24). Parallel to this are the passages which speak of the panta !& ~~(Acts 4:24; 14:15). The indication of the world by an enumeration of its constituent parts , like the distinction between the kosmos and its contents, may be attributed to the influence on the NT of the olde GT concept which did not yet envisage the world as a unity. 20 20 5Ibid., p. 111. 206Ib:i.d., p. 113. 207Ibid ., p. 114. Although much terminology and the interest in man are similar, Gnosticism evidences a different feeling toward the world "Wo der Gnostiker sich aus der boesen, ihm fremden Welt der Materie heraussehen, weiss der Glaeubige von Qumran um seine Erdenverbundenheit. Wo der erstere sich zwei Substanzen denkt, da sieht der andere zwei Tatbereiche. Wo der erste seine Heimkehr zum Licht sucht, da sehnt sich d er andere nach Gottes Sieg ueber alles Boese. Und wo der jener zwei a nfaengliche, ewige Prinzipien erkennt, da weiss dieser um das Geheimnis der Schoepfertaetigkeit Gottes, der sich ueber Staub und Fleischerbarmt.11 ( ~ . , pp. 117-118. 208Sasse, p. 883. Kosmeo means put in order (}1att. 25:7) and adorn (women: l Tim. 2:9; 1 Peter 3:5; Rev. 21:2; house: Matt. 12:44; temple: Luke 21:5; graves: }fa.tt. 2.3:24). 209~., p. 884. 49 Sometimes kosmos seems to mean the sum of all created being (l Cor. 3:22); God creates t he kosmos through Christ (Heb. 1:2). The most explicit New Testament statements on creation, outside John, use panta rather than 210 kosmo s (l Cor. 8 :6; Col. 1:16). The kosmos has a limited duration. 211 The expressions "from the begi nning" or "f rom the foundation " of the kosmos are conunon (Matt. 24:21; 25:34 ; Luke 11:50; Rom. 1:20; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 4 :3; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; Rev. 13:8 ; 17:8 ). (1 Cor. 7:31). The kosmos is transitory. Its form is passing away In contrast to the future of eschatological expectation, the kosmos i s kosmos houtos (l Cor. 1:20; 3:19; 5:10; 7:31). Kosmos is not u sed for the age to come, probably because of its common pejorative s ense . Nor does the New Testament speak of God as King and lord of the 212 ko srros , as did Hellenistic Judaism. Whi l e the New Testament speaks of ta stoicheia ~ : ko smou (Gal. 4:3; Col. 2:8 ,20) and makes other cosmological statements, Sasse insists 210on kosmos as creat ion, Ethelbert Stauffer, New Testament Theology, translated by John Yiarsh (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1963), p. 59, notes: "The Gresk 3peaks of a cosmos and for him the reality of the world is absolute. But the Bible speaks of a creation. With this one word the r eality of t he world is reduced to a relative order that goes back to, and points back to, an absolute subject who has established the world as an object over against himself, precisely as, and precisely as long a s, he pleases. 11 In this way, Stauffer believes, man ceases to be caught up in the stream of events and also stops sinking into complete despair. In view of creation, everything that can be meant by world is conditi onal. 211The following relies on Sasse, pp. 883-886. 212The reason may be different from that conjectured by Sasse: the secularity of the kosrnos (p. 886). Such usage may arise simply from a preference for .panta , because of Old Testament familiarity, or from the fact that God in Jesus Christ is reestablishing his lordship over the kosmos. Sasse does say that the New Testament realizes that t he fulfillrr,ent of God's rule over the kosmos is the object of eschatological expectation (p. 886). 50 that these cosmological notions never become the object of proclamation, that there are no distinctive New Testament cosmological conceptions, that it is quite impossible to present a coherent cosmology of the New Testament, 213 and that the canon of the early church confirms the decision of apostolic proclarriation that cosmology is no part of the message of t he Gospel. 214 Bietenhard, too, strongly insists that unlike apocalyptic the New Testament has no cosmology as part of its message. 11 Die christliche Botschaft haengt nicht an einem bestimmten Weltbild. 11 215 He cont inues: "Die kosmologie ist nicht--auch in.der positiven Wertung nicht--ein integrierender Bestandteil der biblischen Botschaft. Darum ist das \'!eltbild der Bibel von ihrer Verkuendigung grundsaetzlich ablo esbar. 11216 Bietenhard concludes: "der Kreuz ist die Ueberwindung des kosmologischen KeriJgmas der Apokalyptik und des Rabbinats, es ist die Befreiung der christlichen Botschaft von der Bindung an ein besti.mmtes Weltbilct.11217 Drawing very different conclusions, Bultmann also notes: der Gla.ube ist keine Weltanschauung. Eine Weltanschauung will auf Grund ei nes allgemeinen Versta.endnisses von Welt und Mensch auch je mein Schicksal verstaendlich machen als einen Fall des allga~einen Geschehens. Na.ch der Meinung des NT entliehe ich damit gerade meinem eigentlichen Sein, da ich nicht im Allgemeinen meine Existenz gewinne, sondern im Konkreten, im Hier und Jetzt, in meiner individuellen Verantwortung und Entscheidung, in der ich mich wa.gend gewinnen oder verlieren kann; d.h. ich stehe als Einzelner vor Gottes Augen.218 213Bietenhard, p. 257, heartily agrees. 214sasse, pp. 887-888. 215Bietenhard, p. 256. 216Ibi n., p. 259. 217Ibi d., p. 263. 218Glauben ill:!!! Verstehen, II, 69. 51 Ko~mos also means the abode of men, the theater of history, the 219 inhabit ed \·rorl d, the earth. Ko smos means earth (Hatt. 4:8; Luke 12:JO). Kosmos means everything that man can control (Matt. 16:26; 22 ~fark 8 :36 ; Luke 9 :25). Ko smos means the inhabited world (Matt. 26 :13; ° Mar k 16 :15; Rom. 1:8; 4:lJ). Certain common expressions are closer to the sense of "humanityn: J esus Chr i st (1 Tim. 1:15; Heb. 10:5), sin and death (Rom. 5:12) come into the kosmos . Christian behavior (2 Cor. 1:12) and many languages (1 Cor. 14:10) are in the kosmos . One would need to go out of this kosrnos t o avoid some kinds of people (1 Cor. 5:10). Kosmo s, then, can . proc 1.a1.me · d t o t he kosmos ( Matt. mean humani vy i· t se lP~. 221 A message is " L 26 :lJ ; Mark 14:9; 16:lf). Jesus calls the disciples the light of the komr,os (Mat t. 5:14); he calls the kosmos a field (Matt. 13:38); he pronounces woes on the kosmos (Matt. 18 :7). Kosmos is the ancient ·race and the ungodly (2 Peter 2:5); it is humanity condemned (Heb. 11:7). Paul wri t es of the dregs of the ko smos (1 Cor. 4:13) and the kosmos of men and angels (1 Cor. 4:9). hUi~anit y agai nst God. Kosmo s as humanity before God tends to become Thus Paul writes of the weak and foolish and low- born t hings of the kosmos (1 Cor. 1:27). The kosmo s is unworthy of 219The f ollowing r elies on Sasse, pp. 888-889. Herman Cremer, Biblischt heologisches Woerterbuch der Neutest amentlichen Graezitaet (Zehnte, voellig durchgear beitete und vielfach veraenderte Auflage herausgegeben von Julius Koegel; Gotha: Verlag und Druck der Friedrich Andreas Perthes A.G., c.1915), p. 620, believes that even though instances of kosmos as ordered whole and creation are not uncorranon, the attention of the New Tes t ament is always focused on kosmos as man, because there lies the problem of t he broken relationship between heaven and earth. 220Dalma.n, p. 167, believes that there is some degree of certainty t hat Jesus employed 'clam in the sense of ko smos only in one instance: kerdainein ton kosmon halon. He also believes that for Jesus the sense of worici.hadri"ot attained to any importance (p. 170). 221The remainder of this paragraph relies on Sasse, p. 890. 52 God 1 s faithful people (Heb. 11:38). Once t h e ~ ~ is related to the living God who creates and judges , a particular nuance results. 222 Sasse notes: \·.'hen the term no longer denotes merely the dwelling-place of man or the t heatre of human history, but the setting of God ' s saving work , then i t takes on a new significance which is distinctive in the NT and fo r which t her~ are no parallels either in the Greek world or in the J ewish.22J Besides John, only Paul develops this distinctive connotation of kosmos. peculiar to the New Test ament. Seen as the theater of salvation history and t he locus of r evelation in Christ, the ko smos appears in a wholly new light . Paul ident i fies the kosmo s with aion houtos and so radically distinguishes between God and the ko smos. The pneuma ~ kosmou and the pneuma to ek tau theou are mutually exclusive (l Cor. 2:12). The wisdom of t he kosmos i s foolishness before God (1 Cor. 1:21; 3:19). God's s tandards are different from those of the world (1 Cor. 1:26-30). The sorrow of the koSJilos leads only to death, while godly sorrow brings repent ance and salvation ( 2 Cor. 7:10). Paul traces the gulf between God 222Rudol f Bultmann, Theol ogy of the ~ Testament , translated by Kendrick Grabel (NeH York : Char l es Scribner's Sons, c.1955), II, notes t ha t when t he kosmos changes f rom a cosmological term to a historical t erm and becomes. the 11quintessence of earthly conditions of life and earthly possibilities" (p. 254), it carries definite theological judgment (p. 255). As an eschatological rather than spatial concept, the power of the kosmos "does not come over man, either the individual or the race , as a sheer curs e of fate, but grows up out of himself" (p. 256). The kosmos is "constituted by that which the individual does and upon which he bestows his ca r e" and "itsel f gains the upper hand over the individual. The kosmos comes to constitute an .independent super-self over all individual selves" (pp. 256-257). 223sasse , p. 889. Of course, it is the 11,-rorld 11 not the term kosmos which is viewed in a fresh light. But kosmos is applied to kosrnos-men u nder judgment. Cremer, p. 622, emphasizes that the order of all things actually becomes disorder, as it actualizes its opposition to God. 53 and the ko">r.os ba ck to sin, which crune into the ko smos through Adam (nom. 5:12). 224 Now all humanity (pa s ho kosmos) is guilty before God (Rom. 3:19); t he kosmos (man) has fallen under God's judgment (Rom. 3:6; 1 Cor . 6:2) and is condemned (1 Cor. 11:32). While sometimes Paul fol- lows Je,·rish usage and distinguishes Israel and the nations of the kosmos ( nom. 11:12,15), he also expressly includes Israel in the whole kosmos (all humanit y ) guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). Only the hagi oi are disti ngui shed from the kosmo s (1 Cor. 11:32), and they shall judge the kosmos ( 1 Cor. 6 :2). As the antithesis between God and the kosmos is seen mo st clearly vrith reference to Christ, so the reconciliation of God and the ko smos (all humanity) occurs oni.y in him (2 Cor. 5:19;225 Rom. 11 :15). It is always man in need of God's action in Jesus Christ who stands at the center of Paul's attention. Sasse notes, however, that when salvation history is the context, Paul' s u sage extends beyond the sense of humanity (Rom. 8:22; Col. 1 :16), just a s el sewhere i n connection ~rith sin Paul mentions those who rule the ko smos (1 Cor. 2:6,8; 2 Cor. 4:4). Yet while salvation history tran- s cends t he framework of human history, this history does not cease to be true human history. Paul's view yields a full unity.:. The univer se and all individual creatures, the visible world and t he invisible, nature and history, humanity and the spirit world, are all brought under the single term ko smos. The kosmos is the sum of the divine creation which has been shattered by the fall, whi ch stands under the judrient of God, and in which Jesus Christ appears as the Redeemer.22 22~ultmann, Theology, II, 258, notes that spirit powers serve no nurpose of cosmological speculation, nor do they relieve men of responsibi l i ty and guilt. Paul clearly ties the entry of death into the world with Ada.."11 1 s sin. 225The word uaraptomata in this verse makes it clear that 11men, "all creation 11 is meant. 226sasse, p. 893. 11 not 54 There r emains the problem of the response which the kosmos will make to God' s action in Jesus Christ. Are the kosmos-,~en who respond in faith st i l l kosmos-,"T\en? What is their relation to kosmos-men who turn in on t hemselves, away from God's gracious action towards them? Sa sse argues: ~lhen the kosmos is redeemed, it ceases to be 1 kosmos . 11227 The reconciled and redeemed world is not kosmos o r ~ houtos, but basileia t ou theou , a i on erchomenos, ouranos kainos fil ~ kaine. 11 1·l hile the new world is described in terms of these expressions taken from apocalyptic and the OT belief in the Creator, the term kosmos, which derives from pagan philosophy, is reserved for the world which lies under sin and death. 11228 When Christ comes to the kosmos to save sinners, then the saved sinners are taken from the authority of the powers of dar kness and set in the Kingdom of his beloved Son (Col. 1:13). Hence t he ekkl esia does not belong to the ko smos. The saints live in the kosmo s (1 Cor. 5:10), cannot leave it (Phil. 2 :15), obey the orders s et up by God in the kosmos (Rom. 13:2), and are forced to care for the t hings of the kosmos (1 Cor. 7 :32-34). But their true life is no longer a l i fe in the kosmos (Col. 2:20), and the kosmos is crucified to the beli ever (Gal. 6:14). Sasse concludes: Hence there arises the distinctive nuance which has ever after clung to the word kosmos in the NT and the Church. The world is t he epitome of unredeemed creation. It has become th229nemy of God. It is the great obstacle to the Christian life. Sa sse finds James in material agreement with Paul in his insistence 227sasse, p. 892. The follo~ring relies on Sasse, pp. 892-894. North, 878, agrees at least with the quoted statement. 228Ibid., p. 893. The reason given is certainly only conjecture. 55 t hat the bel i ever keep himself unspotted from the kosmos (James 1:27), which i s hostile to God (James 4 :4). Sa sse•s discus sion, however, suggests that he is perilously close to a misunderstanding of Pauline theology. infeli citous. At least his argumentation is Certainly his reference to an "unredeemed creation" does not do j ustice to the data of the New Testament, for Paul states unequivocally t hat God ha s reconciled the whole ~rorld to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). Furt hermor e, the r emainder of Sasse•s statement cited above may rightly be assert ed onl y if one is rigorously aware that ko smos is being used in its hi ghly theological Pauline sense--a sense which is not conveyed in t he cont emporary English word 11world. 11 Nor does he allow for the pos- sibi lity that Paul may be using kosmos in different ways. Bultmann's emphasis on the necessity of 11 Entweltlichung'! appears much closer to Pauli ne thought, for the problem of the kosmos is not only or even primarily "out there"-in the 11world." lizat ion11 of ~ · This would agree also with Paul's Luther might have said 11 11 interna- simul iustus et kosmos 11 ! So.sse 's empha sis, to a certain degree appropriate to the New Testament witness, is one-sided. Wendland, for example, insists that the New Testament witness to the Lordship of Christ over the kosmos has seriously been neglected. That the Redeemer is the Creator has cosmic significance, · Lo rdship · must no t b e spiri · . t ua1ize. · d 230 and his If J esus Chris . t i. s Lord , Head , Creator , and Re-Creator of the kosmos, then one cannot view the Christian and the Christian community in their relation to this creation a s if they had to live and act in it outside 2£ Christ. One dare not 230Heinz-Dietrich Wendland, "Die Weltherrschaft Christi und die zwei Reiche," Kosmos ~ Ekklesia; Festschrift fuer Wilhelm Staehlin, edited by Heinz-Dietrich Wendland (Kassel: Johannes Stauda Verlag, 1953), pp. 24-25. 56 construct a Christian ethic which does not see the cosmic Lordship of . t 231 C. nris. If Christ's victory is the realization of the redeemed hu- manity through the second Adam, then the boundary between world and Church falls. What they had become in opposition to one another as representa- tives of the t;.ro aeons is now overcome. 232 Bornkamm believes that in the cross the world finds its end. 233 Christ's Lordship means the Gospel of reconciliation, and this means that the i·iorld receives its boundary as creation. The redeeming lDrdship of Christ returns the kosmos to its essence as creation. 234 To this thought of creation the early church held fast with renewed energy. 235 The Christian leaves no unfinished business in the kosmos, for he is called to the unending responsibility of love. \'/hat makes a Christian different is that he no longer is in bondage to the kosmos, no longer seeks his in terms of the kosrnos, but views himself in terms of the Lordship 2 6 of Christ's love in the kosmos. 3 ~ 2311, "d p. 26 • ...EL•' 232I'-?id ., p . 27. \·lendland cont inues his argwnent with a plea to thi nk through the aeon theology of the Synoptics and the· eschatological world view of the Apocalypse. The chief object of his attack is the abuse he sees of Luther's doctrine of the t wo kingdoms. The point he makes in this particular citation ma.y be essentially correct, but his exp:-ession appears somewhat fuzzy. The opposition he sees and laments between church and world of course did not arise until after the Christ event . When does the boundary between the two aeons arise? Not until the Christ event? Then does the Christ event simultaneously raise the boundary and remove it? 233Guenther Bornka..i1Ill, "Christus und die Welt in der urchristlichen Botschaft 11 Das Ende des Gesetzes, in Gesammelte Aufsaetze (Vruenchen: Chr. Kais~r Verlag, 1963), I, 167. · 23l~Ibid., p. 168. But it is now a illlli creation (2 Cor. 5 :17) • 235Ibid., p. 169. 236Ibid ., p. 170. Faith in the Lordship of Christ also defines the course and goal of the Pauline mission (p. 160). Cf. 2 Cor. 5:17. 57 Reminding the church that Christ accomplished his redemption when there was only kosmos and not yet church, Schweizer notes that the church which wants to count itself worthy because of its faith and separate itself from the kosmos throws off the Lordship of Christ and returns to the Lordship of the world-powers. The Church which lives by grace con- fesses Christ as her Lord in t h e ~ way that she confesses Christ as the world's Lord. gr eater po-..1er. Nor can this be in the abstract, neutral sense of Rather the church must recognize that Jesus Christ has taken the kosmos as his possession, for he has died and rose for it and wants to lead it to peace in faith. Church and kosmos are distinguished therefore only through the mystery of faith, which is not our mystery but God's mystery. 237 Sur.unarizing and contrasting the unique New Testament view of kosmos with the Greek view, Bultmann writes that for the New Testament God is not the answer to the question about arche; he is not the principle from which the kosmos becomes understandable. Having no theory of the origin and formation of the kosmos and no concept of natural law, the New Testament confesses God the Creator. life-force and law. t he ko smos •. God does not belong to the kosmos as its The New Testament does not know this Greek idea of Rather, God stands beyond the world, over against it. He has, according to his o~m will, created it out of nothing; he rules it 238 and gives it its end. Both the New Testament and the Stoics use the term logos. While 237Eduard Schweizer, "Jesus Christus, Herr ueber Kirche und Welt," Libertas Christiana: Friedrich Delekat zum 65. Geburtstag, im Gemeinschaft mit E. Wolf besorgt von W. Matthias (Muenchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1957), p. 185. 238Glauben und Verstehen, II, 66. 58 for Stoicism the logos is the life force and law of the kosmos, for the New Testament the logos is God's address to man, which teaches him to underst and himself as creature and demands obedience from him. 239 God the Creator stands as Lord, giving life to nothingness and receiving honor in the ful filling of his will .and in the recognition of his grace.240 Ko s~os comes to mean men, often men strange and hostile to God. Ko smos is the sphere of all that men think, plan, and want in their cares and wishe s , lusts and pride. Es i st di e geistige Sphaere, van der j eder Mensch van vornherein umfangen ist, mit ihren Urtei len und Vorurteilen, ihren Wertungen und Str ebungen, van denen sich jeder mitnehmen laesst, beeinflussen l aesst, van denen sich der Einzelne nur schwer losreisst zur Selbstaendi gkeit, wobei er ihr a~ch dann noch, im Widerspruch, eigentuemlich verhaftet bleibt.24 · If the Greek understands himself as one instance of the universal, t he New Testament man understands himself as an individual before God.242 The kernel of man's sin is Angst--before his task in the kosmos. Uncertain, man grasps hold of what he himself can bring about. So misuses the created kosmos by trJing to live out of his own works. he In- stead of the created kosmos existing as the gift of the Creator, the gift out of which the Creator's question is addressed to man, the kosmos becomes the field of man's achievements, by which he creates his own life and certainty. Then the things at hand in the kosrr.os, neutral in them- selves, become~ as man wants to win his life on the ground of his own certainty. From this same self-seeking certainty arises all lack of 239llig_., p. 66. 240~., p. 67. 241~., p. 68. 242Ibid., p. 69. 59 l ove and concern for the neighbor . 243 Basic t o the difference between the Greek and New Testament view is that for the Greek the r eal world is not the sphere designated by the New Testa.."llent a s this world, and the real man does not live in this sphere, but in the sphere of the eternal Ideas. he needs only a reminder. If the Greek forgets this, For the New Testament man's real life is not co smic, but i s played out in the present and individual moment, in the sphere of history. Its essential reality is that which is only appear- ance to the Greek. Precisely in this life man's fate is decided for good or evil. That God is not visible in the timeless Ideas of the eternal world i s scandalous to the Greeks. But timeless thoughts are ambiguou s and may veil God as well as reveal him. God rather meets man i n t he hist orical happening; that is his free choice of action.244 Man and t he kosmos , then, find themselves in a terrible schism. The ko smos i n which man lives out his life is the true kosrnos, and it stands over man a sking for decisions. But at the same time this kosmos is unreal, delusion, and appearance, because its conditions close to man the future 2 out of which alone he is to live. Reality for man is being bound. 45 The only way out is God's forgiveness. from k.osraos bondage, God can. If man cannot free himself The New Testament does not witness to a trans-historical idea of ' a forgiving God. Rather, the New Testament proclaims that God's freedom of action is documented precisely in the 21.;.JIQ.ia.' pp. 71-72. 244r·d ...2.L•' P• 73. 245Ibid-.·, p. 74. 60 concrete hi stori cal Jesus, in whom God has acted decisively for all the kosno ~ and all time . Through him each man is addressed and asked if he ,,·.:ints t o hear the word of forgiveness and receive God I s grace. When man responds in fai t h, t his means the F,nt wel t l ichung of man; it means he is set i nt o eschatological existence. t ance toward the world. So the believer gets a proper dis- And in this eschatological perspective, the kosmos once again becomes visible as creation.246 Summary Kosmos had a glorious early history in Greek philosophy. Always carrying the idea of order and beauty, kosmos came in time to mean the perfectly ordered universe, the whole world, in which man lived as a perfect part. ·whether the ko smos was a model of God I s perfect Idea or God inher ed in t he kosmos itself, God was very much a part of the koSJT~s. unnat ur ally, great reverence was due the kosmos. enthusiasm of the Greeks for the kosrnos waned. Not In time, however, the It became clear to the Platonists t hat the extent to which the kosmos was distant from the genui ne eternal Idea was the extent to which it was less than perfect and less than the fulness for which ma.n could hope. To the Stoic dawned the uneasy f eeling that all was not as well in the ko smos as one might expect. Nan's relation to his immediate society and to the world became less t han what it had been. The kosmo s was no longer the perfect whole in whi ch existed the perfectly adjusted parts. Philo followed the Pla- tonic distinction between the real world of Ideas and the still-not-tobe-despised sensible world, but attempted to mesh this Platonism with 61 Hebrew creation theology-the Timaeus winning out over Genesis. Plotinus ended the period of Greek thought. Finally, While in his emanations he distinguishes among different strata of perfection and reality, with the kosmos at a considerable distance from the ultimate Center, Plotinus never let himself take an anti-kosmos stance and went out of his way to oppose those who did. With greater and lesser enthusiasm, the Greeks ever saw the kosmo s as a positive good, if not always the highest good. They never became so disillusioned as to turn their backs on the kosmos, rejecting and despising it. In this respect they shared the world-affirming view of most of the Old Testament. Under strong influence of the East and the crushing burden of reality as they experienced it, the Gnostics did an about face on Greek kosmos theology. What lines there were in Greek thought which focused attention on an ultimate reality beyond the kosmos, the Gnostics extended to the nth degree. Overwhelmed by the problem of evil and man's life in this ~~rld, they attached their present bondage to the physical world and came to despise whatever is material. Fleeing this world, whose origin and present condition they explained and explored in endlessly elaborate mythologies, they sought escape in peaceful reunion with the pure and ethereal Light from which they had long ago been separated. Taking offense at all that is merely human in the kosmos, despising the material ,-.~rld and the God who created it, sometimes terrified at the aweful order arrayed against them, they turned from the last stages of Greek kosmos piety and found hostility toward the kosmos a religious requirement. Explaining the real problem of their existence in terms of mythological cosmology, they themselves found it necessary to be totally acosmic and anti-cosmic; accordingly they posited a wholly I 62 t r.1nscendent God or Ultimate. Thus they sought to escape their present condition. The popular philosophy of the Hermetic literature shows that even in t he second and third century A.D. Greek kosmos piety had not ceased to exist. Although the Hermetics emphasize God's transcendence and furt her grades of being between God and the earthly world, they are not absolute dualists. The kosmos as universe is still a vehicle of God's revelation and goodness and their literature is full of positive statements about the beauty and order of the kosmos and its appropriate relation to God, with little evidence of Gnostic hostility toward the world. But man himself appears to be more than an offspring of the kosmos, and his rebirth or salvation involves a departure from material and purely earthly concerns and an ascent to the true home of his proper being in God . The earthly world itself has indeed come under divine order and definition, but is not an ultimate good and hinders man from realizing his true home with God. Man' s salvation depends on a divinely com- municated lmowledge of himself and the world. It appears that the positi ve valuation of the ko smos in this literature adheres to an idea of kosmos as cosmic soul, rather than as material world. The Via.ndean literature possibly carries the Gnostic kosmos antipa thies even further. The Mandeans have drunk deeply in Eastern dualism and become intoxicated in frenzied kosmos rejection and revulsion. They live in dreadful bondage to the earthly world and long for the call f r om without which will enable them to escape. Together with all the called ones they live in hostility towards the world, whose origin and condition they eA-plain in mythological cosmologies. All that is of this world is despicable and stinking and the believer haughtily rejects it. The Sent-One finally gathers all those he has called and leads them 6J out of the world and past the powers which control the world. Their departure is catastrophic for the world. 'l'he most significant Septuagintal usage of kosmos occurs in the Greek writings, especially Wisdom and 2 Maccabees. universe, earthly world, and even men. Kosmos here means Here for the first ti..~e the Greek kos:nos comes into contact with Old Testament theology--and ultimately wi t h New Testament theology. The valuation is always positive, for the Hebrew Old Test ament creation theology gets tied inseparably to the usase of ko smos in the Septuagint. Indeed, God as King, Sovereign, and Creator is synt actically connected with the word kosmos. The apparently natural choice of kosmos for the Septuagint suggests how conmion a role ko smos had come to play in Greek-speaking Judaism. The Old Testament gave to Judaism a view of the world standing in r el ation to God as creation to Creator. Its origin depends on his creative will, its existence on his continued preservation, and its goal on his rulership. The view of the world may be traced via the gradual evolution of the usage of 'clam. From the first century A.D. 'clam appears clearly to have the sense of spatial world, inhabited world, man. Judaism yields no unified world view. It holds in tension, not always successfully, the world as creation and the world as under God's judgment. The optimism of the Alexandrians and the pessimism of the apocalyptists confront each other irreconcilably. Judaism wavered be- tween these two extremes, but was never able to unite them. Pessimism toward the world is much more pronounced in the dualism of Qumran, but even there the dualism is ethical and the Biblical doctrine of creation is confessed. This community completely devaluated the present world and awaited a new creation. 64 rf.uch of the New Test ament usage of kosrnos relies on Old Testament and Judaic precedent. God neither inheres in the kosmos nor is he its f i rst princi ple or life-force. He stands over it as Creator, addressing kosrr~s- men and calling them into question-the question of their relationship to him. Quite naturally, then, the New Testament ~litness is both optimisti c and pessimistic. It sees the world as transitor,J and pa ssi ng away; God is not called the King or Lord of the ko smos, as in the Greek writings of the Septuagint and of late Judaism. Yet the kosmos is the sub ject of God's address and his redeeming activity in Jesus Christ. What is distinctive for the New Testament view is that all cosmological considerations fall by the way and attention is fixed on men-the subj ect of God 's action in Jesus Christ. The New Testament is rigorously theological i n i ts consideration of the kosmos-problem. mythological speculations, it comes quickly to the point. Disregarding The ko smos and kosmos- men owe their existence to God the Creator; yet kosmos-men have t urned t he kosmos into the field of their own activities and have r efused t o derive their existence in the kosmos from God who created them and continues to address them in his kosmos. \'lhile the origin of the kosmos l ay in God's creation, its subsequent history is the history of the r ebellion and fall of kosmos-men. As they have in history caused the pre sent condition of the kosmos, so history is the scene in which God s ets about to recall man to his true relationship to God and the created kosmos . The redeemed continue to live in the kosmos and they take their cues from the historical fact that the entire kosmos now stands under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Thus the kosmos is ultimately viewed eccle- siologically, and Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 is the classic expression of this view. CHAPTER III KOSMOS IN JOHN Ko smos is at the center of theological thinking in John in a way not true of any other New Testament writing or group of writings. kosmos i s the set t ing of John's drama of redemption. The All the meanings of ko smos come together in his usage.l Syntax Although the Johannine syntactical usage of ko smos presents no great gr arrunatical difficulties, a study of the usage of kosmos in the sentenc e structure is significant for an understanding of John's idea of kosmo s . Active and pa s sive verbs In seventeen of the seventy-eight instances of kosmos in John, kosmos i s t he subject of an active verb. In three of these seventeen i nstances , kosmos is the subject of a subjunctive verb in a ~ clause. Jesus does somet hing so that the ko smos may know (14:31; 17:23) or believe (17:21). The remaining fourteen instances are all uncomplimentary in their predication. t he Father (17 :25). ovm (15:19). Jesus (15:18). The kosmos knows neither the Logos (1:10) nor It cannot hate its own (7:7), but rather loves its The kosmos does hate the disciples (15:18,19; 17:14) and It cannot receive the Spirit (14:17), rejoices at Jesus' lHerman Sasse, 11 Kosmos:,' " Theological Dictionary;.·££~ Nfil:! Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c.1965), III, 894. 66 departure (16:20), and cannot see him thereafter (14:19). its own kind of peace (14:27). It gives It could not contain all the books ne- cessary to tell everything about Jesus (21:25). At one ti..~e, the kosmos goes after Jesus (12:19), though evidently for the wrong reason. Three times k:osmos is the subject of a passive verb. The kosmos was made (1:10; 17:5); it is to be saved by the logos (3:17). Anarthrous Ko smo s is anarthrous only once (17:24), where it is used as a time · designation. Q.E£ In all authors kosmos is regularly anarthrous in the formula lrn.t aboles kosmou . 2 Oblique cases, without a preposition Kosmos occurs seven times in the accusative without a preposition. God loves it (3:16); Jesus does not come to judge it (3 :17; 12:47), but to save it (12:47). Jesus overcomes it (16:33) and leaves it (16:28); the Holy Spirit convicts it (16:8). Kosmo s occurs four times in the dative without a preposition. bread from Jesus gives life to the kosmos (6:33). His brothers advise him to show himself to the kosmos for approval (7:4). openly to the ko srnos (18:20). The Jesus has spoken After a while he no longer will manifest himself to the kosmos (14:22). Ko smos occurs eleven times in the genitive without a preposition. It has a beginning or foundation (17: 24), judgment (12:31), its own ruler 2F. Blass a..'1.d A. Debrunner, ~ ~ Granunar of ~ Nfil! Testament, a translation and revision of the ninth-tenth German edition incorporating supplementary notes of A. Debrunner{ by Robert W. Funk (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, c.1961), P• 133, paragraph 253.4. 67 or prince (12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and sins (1:29). But Jesus is the Savior (4 :42), life (6:51), and light (8:12; 9:5; 11:9) of the kosmos. With a preposition Kosmos occurs fourteen times with ill• The Father sends Jesus into the kosmos (3 :17; 10:36; 17:18); Jesus comes as a light into the kosrnos (1:9; 3:19; 12:46); Jesus or the Son comes into the kosmos (9:39; 11:27; 16:28 ; 18 :37); Jesus declares the Father's words to the ko smos (8:26) and sends his disciples into it (17:18). Kosmos occurs with~ also in t he case of t he coming of a prophet (6:14) and the birth of a man (16:21). Kosmos occurs eight times with fill• Jesus or the Logos is in the kosw.os (1:10; 9:5) and speaks in it (17:13). The disciples are in the kosmos (13: 1; 17:11), have tri bulations in .it (16:33), and are to hate t heir l i f e in it (12:25). Jesus is f i nally no longer in the ko smos (17 :11). Kosmos occurs fourteen times with~. The Jews are of this kosmos (8 :23) ; J esus is not (8:23; 17:14,16), nor is his kingship (twice in 18:36), nor ar e his disciples (t~rice in 15:19; 17:14,16). Jesus has chosen his discipl es from the kosmos (15:19); the Father gaV"e him men from the ~ (17:6). J esus does not pray that the disciples be taken from the ko smos (17 :15). J esus finally departs from the ko smos (13 :1) ~. One problem arises in the translation of John 15:19: exel egamen humas ek tou kosmou. ~ English !s2.2.- fillli translate: 11 ~ · ego The Revi sed Standard Versi on and the I chose you out of the world. 11 This trans- l ation is ambiguous at best, and at ~~rst is easily misconstrued by Christi ans who find their proper role to be out of the world. The prob- lem, it is true, may be with the word "world," since few seem to understand 68 that ~~rd correctly. For several reasons, however, the transla- t ion "from the world" would be preferable. "From" would preserve what- ever intentional ambiguity there may be in John's use of ek .3 More important, t here is a very frequent partitive use of ek in John, occurring about fift y times . The thought may then be: I chose you as ones who wer e of t he kosmos , or as ones who did belong to the number of the kosmos. h'hile t he present passage may not unambiguously present a partitive usage, part i t i ve connotat i ons cannot be ruled out. The partitive idea also ef fectively excludes any metaphysical or predetermined dualism. 10 :16 , 26 the phr ases "sheep of this fold" and those "not of my In John sheep" seem t o ex-press a partiti ve idea , and there is no thought of "out of." I n John 17:6 t he disci ples are men whom the Father gave Jesus ek !&1!, kosr:i.ou--cer tainly not "away from. 11 4 Most important, however, is the fact t hat t he disci ples do indeed remain in the kosrnos, and Jesus does not pr ay (17:15) that they should be taken out of it.5 of John 1 5: 19 would seem to be this: The thought, then, If you drew your existence from (or bel onged to) the kosmos, then the ko smos would love you as its own ki nd of peopl e . But because you do not draw your existence from (or .3The t r anslat i on "out of" may convey the meaning "from," but it may also convey t he meaning "away from." 41n 6:70 ; 1.3:18; 15:16 ekl ego occurs with simple accusative, with no i dea of "away from." In Luke 6:13; 10:42 eklego has a partitive i dea . So also at 1 Cor. 1:27. Most clear is the partitive idea of ekl ego in Acts 1:24; 15:22. 5It i s true, of course, that ek can mean "out of" or "away from": John 12:17; 13: 1; · 20:1,2. But it is precisely the idea of "away from the ko smos 11 that Jesus negates in his prayer. This should have alerted transl ators to the dangers of the translation "out of. 11 The stone may be taken away, Mary may think the body of Jesus has been taken away, but the disciples must not be taken away from the kosmos! 69 belong to) the kosmos , although I chose and elected you from among those who were (or when you were; compare Eph. 2:1-5) drawing existence from the kosmos, therefore the kosmos hates you. This paraphrase leads to the next problem in John's use of~- What is its significance when used with einai or verbs of origin? Ek in John seems to connote origin or a partitive genitive idea. Where the idea of origin predor.rinates, the thought may accent local origin or material origin. The following might be consi dered the ~ of material origin: whip of cords (2:15), clay from spittle (9:6), and crown of thorns (19:2). The following seem to eA-press locality: dove descending from heaven (1:32) , something good coming out of Nazareth (1:46), rivers of water flowing from the belly (7:38 ), Christ coming from Galilee (7:41), Lazarus fro~ the village (11 :1), and many instances of going from one place to another . 6 It is more difficult to say whether "from heaven" conveys the idea of l ocal origin or what might be called qualitative origin: that is, an idea of an origin which defines and qualitatively distinguishes present existence. In many cases it eJo..-presses both ideas. Jesus descended from heaven (J:13); God gave bread from heaven (6:Jl); Jesus is bread which ca.'l\e dm·m from heaven (6 :41); but also Jesus is lifted up from t he ear th (12 :32). following: The qualitative idea of origin is expressed in the The Jews insist that they are not born of adultery (8:41). O.n e must be born of water and the Spirit (J: 5). Whoever is of the earth belongs to the earth .and speaks of the earth (J:Jl). passes from death to life (5:24). The believer Teaching is from God (7:17). 6There is also an~ of temporal origin: 9:1,32; 16:4. The Jews 70 arc from bel ow and Jesus i s from above (8:23). (8 :l~2 ), but t he J ews are from the devil (8 :41+). hear God' s ,-rords (8:47). Jesus comes from God Those who are of God There are sheep not of this fold (10:16), and t he J ews are not of Jesus' sheep (10:26). Works which are good are f rom t he Father (10:32). All these examples lead to an understanding of what it means that J esus and t he disciples are not ek tou ko smou (although the disciples wer e cho sen ek t ou kosmou). The emphasis is on much more than local ori bin (being from the place of the earthly world). Rather, the point i s t hat J esus and the di sciples (and Jesus' kingship) do not belong to t he kosmo s , do not derive their existence from it, do not partake of what it means to be ko smos, do not live out of the resources of the kosrno s , do not find .truth in the "realities" of· the kosmos-and are differ ent qualitatively from those who do. What must always be kept in mind , of cour se , is that ko smos in these instances does not mean the spatial world. Failure to note this fact leads to confusion and erroneous thinking about what it means to be "not of the kosrnos."7 7cr. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology 2.£ the New Testament, translated by Kendri ck Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1955), II, 20, who notes that the one who tries to live out of his own resources (rather than r ecognizing God as the Creator and the one who alone can live from his own r esources), who in f ace lives from falsehood, from Nothing-this is the one who lives or is ek tou ko smou . Si nce man always comes from a Whence and since he re jects(}od the Creator as his Whence, he lives out of an uncontrollable origin which has power over hi."ll. He gives power over himself to Nothingness, rather than to God. The phrases "to be from" and 11 to be born from" have ther efore lost their cosmological sense, which they have in Gnostic mythology, and now "denote the individual's essence which asserts itself in all his speaking and doing and determines the Whit her of his way." Bultmann applies this thought existentially: "This means a man is deternrl.ned by his origi n and in each present moment does not have hi.~self in hand; he has only one alternative: to exist from God (reality) or from the world (unreality). By man's Whence, his Whither is also determined." 71 Conclusions The predication connected with kosrnos leaves no doubt that~ ar e intended. The only things which the kosmos is able to accomplish on its own are unacceptable or hostile to God. If the ko smos is to know God , r espond to him, believe in him, turn its attention from 'itself, God will have to make this possible. The kosmos not only originally was acted upon (created) by God, but is continually the object of God's attention (accusative and dative usages). to it . God loves it and brings life He attempts to provide for the incompleteness of the kosmos. So J esu s comes t o t he kosmos ( eis ), brings life and light to it, speaks to i t of the Father, and even sends his disciples into it. Jesus and the di sciples are very much in(~.) the ko smos. Indeed, both It is in the kosmos that God I s salvation is worked out, not away from it. While the kosmos can boast only judgment, enslavement to a ruler, and sins as its Ol·m, God acts so that J esus becomes the Savior, the life, and the light of the kosmos (geni tive usages). Although tou theou and 12£ ko smou stand over against one another, Jesus as light and life of the kosmos bridges the gap. There is no doubt in John that without God, without what he sends and offers in Jesus, the ko srnos is hopelessly lost. t he kosmos tries to live on its own (ek ), it only ruins itself. vlhen But i n God's call, the kosmos gets the chance to live from God (ek), to derive i t s life and existence and meaning from him. And this is the sal- vation of the kosrnos_;. the chance to stop living on its own, to see its el f for what it is and what it needs to be, to know and see its existence derived from God. 72 Meanings of Kosmos There are several shades of meaning in John's usage of kosmos. In the primary sense in which he uses the term, John has in view all men-.nen who are God's creatures, who mu~t know their relation to God but do not, who live in a situation without God, who try to make it on their o,,m in an inferior existence, who act as if they were autonomo.u s and self-controlled and able to make their own life for themselves, who are accordingly lost in darkness. Generally, John uses the semantic sisnal kosmos to convey this concept. 8 Just as often, however, he pic- tures such men in action and conversation; he shows them up by antitheses; he epitomizes them in specific individuals or groups. He also defines their situation by means of his Christology.9 8As such, kosmos becomes a dynamic term, subject to different nuances as the kosmos-men encounter Jesus. It is not precisely the term ko srros which develops in the Johannine drama, but the ~ whom kosmos s i6nals . But the term kosmo s is taken up and involved in the on-marching drama of the Fourt h Gospel--a.s men of the kosmos encounter Jesus and are challeneed to response by him. Rudolf Schnackenburg, The ~ Teaching £f. the New Testament, translated by J. Holland-Smith and W. J. 0 11 Hara (New York: Herder and Herder , 1965), p. 337, writes: "The world does not mean God I s creation, no r the sum of existing things and conditions which man is called upon to car e for, to administer in due order and to shape, but it means the world as an historical factor, existing in a particular historical condition, and precisely as the world of men in its relation to God and the moral order e stablished and intended by him. Even more does it signify ' this world' in its attitude to God's eschatological envoy Jesus Christ 1·rho was intended most profoundly to heal its shattered order, brina life and r edemption to men, but against whom it shuts itself in unbelief and hatred. 11 Schnackenburg may be going too far, if he intends to exclude any sense of the world as creation, for it is the Creator-God h0 addresses men and calls into question their ~-centered existence.w . 9rt would, then, be an ui:iwar:anted restriction to consider th 1 inguistic history of the semantic signal kosmos and go no farth t his study has primary importance, one cannot neglect John' er. lthough men ( kosrnos~~en), which has vital Signi£icance here In oths concept of • er words , I • 73 John want0 t o empha size that God created all men, including those who a.:re without God and do not know him (1:lOc; 1 John 3:J.,). 10 Indeed, their whole sphere of existence crune into being through the k>gos (l:lOb),11 ,·1ho has been among them by virtue of his creative activity12 and is now ther e is much data to be mined where the term kosmos is not even used. The approach of ifostcott, for example, is too restrictive and, as a result , has some weaknesses. He is overly concerned to maintain kosmos as an or dered whole relative both to God and to ffian . He doe s note that fallen man impr esses his character upon the order and that ko smos then corr.es to r epr esent humani t y itself. Cf. Brooke Foss Westcott, !h!:. Go snel According i <?.. St . J ohn (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), I , 6l~-65. In John the attent ion is on man and then on his inextricable i nvol vement i n his total sit uation. The "ordered whole" is, of course, a part of thiG situat ion. But kosmos describes the entire situation, with man at t he center. This is not always clear in Westcott and many others. 10 c. K. Barrett, The Gosnel AccQrdi ng to St. John (k>ndon: SPCK, 1965), p . 136 , notes that t he Old Testan1ent idea of humble obedience and trust are decisive for J ohn' s conception of knowledge. As Jesus' knowing the Father issues in a r elation of love, obedience, and mutual indwelling, so a slJlll.l ar r el ation comes about when men know God through Jesus. The Greek emphasis on seeing, observation, objectivity is also not absent. The point seems to be that the kosmos refuses to a cknowledge God. It should know God (ethical), but it chooses not to. As in the Old Testament man ' s knowing God is correlative to God's knowing man, so in John God again t akes t he initi ative and approaches man in love. John's emphasis here i s clear indicati on that men's present situation did not arise f r om t heir nature or origin, but from themselves. "It is interesti ng , though, t o note with Franz Mussner, ZOE (Muenchen: Karl Zink Verlag, 1952), p . 62, that John has no Unhei lsses chichte against which to develop He:i.lsgeschichte , a s does Paul in Romans 5:12-24,. The reason, no doubt, is that John i s concentrating only on the present Heilsdrama between Christ and t he kosmos . If one wanted a theological history of kosmos,. it mi3ht be something l ike the following: the kosmos created by God (Genesis ) ; an ordered whole with God in the center and so not the Creat or (Greek); an ordered whole which good men must escape (Gnostic); an entit y with a demand on God (Jewish); men and their world created and addressed by God (John). llAl an D. Ga lloway, The Co smic Chri st (k>ndon: Nisbet and Co., Ltd., 1951) , p . 54, conunents on John's use of logos here: 11When s~en again~t its m·m syncretistic ba ckground this is tantrunount to the assertion that in and t hrough Christ the whole universe is reaching its maturity and returning to its perfection." 12cf. for this understanding M. E. Boismard, St. John' s Prologue, t ranslated by Carisbrooke Dominic (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1957), pp. 33-39. 74 among them in a unique way ( 1: 10a; 9 : 5). 13 set, The stage for the drazna is Jesus comes as a light for men, a light into the darkness in which they have enwrapped themselves {3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46). The Son of God comes among men (3:17; 11:27) because the Father still loves all of them (3:16) 1 4 and has sent his Son among them (10:36; 1 John 4:9). Jesus corr.es not to judge, but to save men (3:17; 12:47). 1 5 Men could not really live on their o~m. They need what God can give. 16 Jesus comes from God as the genuine life-giving bread for all men (6:33). his o~n flesh for the sake of life to men (6:51). 1 7 He gives I Jesus tells all men without God all that he has heard from God his Father (8:26). 18 Jesus 13Walter Lowrie, The Doctrine of Saint John (uondon: uongmans, Green, and Co ., c.1899), p . 95, notes that John "needed no intermediary to bridge the gulf between the invisible God and the sensible world; for this was not the contrast which occupied his mind. Even human nature itself as it is physically constituted is not evil; and therefore the uogos, who is God and not a being of intermediate grade, can become flesh." 14 rt is important to remember that the usage here is profoundly theological, that it includes precisely all men, including all those who go into action against God's Son. Such men cannot be considered separately. 1 5Bar r ett, p. 181, notes on 3:17: "The parallelism here (cf, 10:9; 11:12; 12:27) shous that the meaning of sozein is substa.-itially the same as t hat of zoe aionios . No stress is laid here upon anything from which the world i;--;-aved; it is in fact saved from being itself," 16cf, the great frequency of didomi in John. 1 71r.ussner, pp. 62-63, sees the essence of kosmos as Todeskosmos. To recognize God and his Sent-One would mean eternal life, but the kosmos does not know him. The sins of the kosmos lead to universal guilt which leads to dying in sins. As light is tied to life, so the darkness of the kosrr:.os means its death. The devil rules with a lordship of lies and death. The light which causes the judgment of the kosmos illuminates the deadness of the kosmos. But Nussner's emphasis is one-sided. Kosmos is a broader term and his point is stretched. The data simply do not support any view of kosmos which only fits under the rubric of deathsignificant as death may be as a qualification of the kosmos. 18 H. J. Holtzmann, ~ Evangelium des Johannes, in Hand-Commentar I 75 comes t o show the l~osmos God's realities (18:37). He comes as God's Sent-One, without any effort to gain approval or recognition from these men on their 01,m terms-which would be a typically kosmos approach (7 :4) since kosrr.os- men never hate their own kind (7:7). Men in the kosmos situation have enslaved themselves in a whole system of attitudes and actions and concerns, which also can be called kosmos (1 John 2:15-16). 19 There is no question that Jesus• mission is to all men, nor that there ar e any not in need of his mission, for he takes away the sins ~~Testament (Zweite, verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage: Freiburg : J. C. B. J:fohr, 1893 ), IV, 132, notes that here is the universal meani ng of Logos. He finds this passage parallel to Mark 13:10 and Luke 24 :47. \~nere the Johannine Christ speaks, he notes, all the nations and generations stand before him. l9A . E. Brooke, fl. Critical~ Exegetical Commentary 2!l the Johannine E~istles ( Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1964), p. 47, notes that the conc eption here is ,-rider than the ethical view of man fallen away from God. This passage refers t o the whole system, considered in itself, apart from its ~faker . The t hings of the world are the individual obj ects which excite admiration and l ove . Ed'l'Tin Kenneth Lee, The Religious Thought of St. John (London : SPCK, 1962), p. 110, c~ndlues from this passage that kosrr:os means the whole system which answers to the circumstances of man's present life, though it is usually limited to men and society as organized apart from God. More perceptively and with greater care, Rudolf Schnackenburg, Die Johanne sbriefe ( Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1953), p. 117, notes that this usage is not otherwise found in the Johannine writings. It means not the creat ed world, but the material world, and the judgment is n~gative. The view is not of its created character as the world of God, but of its danger as an occasion of sin. The very substance of the kosmo s is not damned, as in the 1'1andean literature, but the kosrnos is filled with evil.'. desires and therefore dangerous (p. 118). The kosmos here offers evil desires only a living place and a Turnmelolatz. The kosrnos becomes evil through what happens in it. Whoever makes a pact with the kosmos falls into its noose. The opposition between God and the kosmos is moral, not metaphysical. Love for both God and the kosmos is simply impossible (p. 119). 76 of all men (1:29; 1 John 2:2), 20 and is the Savior of all men (4:42).21 A sDnilar thought may be present ironically in John 12:19. 2 2 20 Barrett , p. 147, suggests "the totality of sins" or "universal sinfulness .11 Ro longer shall the Jewish sins of ignorance be removed by sacrifi ce, but all the sins of the whole world shall be removed. Herman Strack and Paul Bill erbeck, Ko~menta r zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und lfiidrasch (Muenchen: C. H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1924), II, .370:note that a lfossiah who t akes away all r.1en' s sins (including the sins of non-Israelites) is unkno'l'm in the older rabbinic literature. The works of the Hessiah count only for the good of Israel. In fact, on the basis of Isaiah 4.3 :3 the rabbis thought that the heathen should be given up as an expiation for Israel. Xussner, p. 109, includes this passage, as well a s J:16 ; 6: 5lc; and t he use of oantes . ~n 3:15 and 12:.32 under his heading: 11 universale 1 Lebens 1 ·Bedeutung des Todes Jesu. 11 F.d.wyn Hosl:C'Jns, The Fourth Gospel , edited by Francis Noel Davey (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1947), p . 176, notes that the obedience of the Son leads to the guilt of sin being removed . Since his obedience is ultimate, the consequences are universal. If, as the Jews thought , the uniqueness of the Temple sacrifices made them universally significant, then the far greater uniqueness of the obedience of Jesus would imply the sins of the whole world and the necessity of for3i veness for all men. 21William Hendriksen, ~ Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids : Baker Book House, 1953), p. 79, is very disturbed that no one seems to notice that in kosmo s there is an "additional idea that no distinction is made \·! ith r espect t o race or nationality; hence men from every tribe and nation; not only Jews but also Gentiles, 4:42 and probably also 1:29; J:16;17; 6 :J.3,51; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46; 1 John 2:2; 4:14,15." He finds it strange that standard lexicons have apparently missed it entirely. His point is certainly worth noting, especially in the Samaritan context of John 4:42. 22sarrett, p • .350, notes that the Pharisees may only mean, "Everyone is on:- his side. 11 But John may ironically be stating through them two truths: J esus is sent to save the world; representatives of the Gentile world are at present approaching (12:20). C, H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the t'our t.h Gosoel (Cambridge: University Press, 1965),p • .371, notes that since kosmos for John has a broader meaning the thought here may be that the cr01·.'Ci acclaiming the coming King is a prolepsis of all mankind united under the sovereignty of Christ. R.H. Lightfoot, St. John's Gosoel ( London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 251, believes that John wants the Pharisees• words understood in two ways: Jesus has the crowds on his side; yet many in the same crowd will shout for his death as they now shout welcome . The crowd unconsciously welcomes the conqueror of death (lazarus' death) and makes the results of his work available for all men: the Greeks come seeking Jesus, 77 l:!hen openly confronted (18 :20) with the emptiness, incompleteness, and inadequacy of their life apart from God, kosmos-men go into action against the Sent-One. They hate anyone making agitating comments about their present situation (15:18). They prefer to think of themselves as perfectly able to live on their own. Actually these men have no know- ledge of what really matters in life. They have their own inadequate kind of wholene ss (14:27), and they love only men who conform to their 01·m inadequate situation (15:19). manifestation (14:22). Rejecting Jesus, they cannot see his As they are, they will no longer see him (14:19). 23 They cannot receive t he Spirit (14:17), 24 but that Spirit will convict t hem of the sin of preferring their own existence when confronted with the life of God (16:8). They now no longer are just all men who have been living out of their own resources, but they are men who have responded negatively to God's address. The emphasis shifts from men who 2 need to live out ·of God to men who refuse to live from God. 5 23Barrett, p. 387, believes that crucifixion and resurrection are suggested by the context. When Jesus is dead and buried, the world will see him no rr.ore , but the disciples, to whom he will appear in his risen body, will see him. The same applies to all of history, in which the Church is united to Jesus while the world does not know him. Barrett's point may be good as far as it goes. Yet the vital theological point may be t hat the kosmos cannot see beyond death because it cannot see beyond i ts o~m standards. To the kosmos, death is the end and Jesus is a failure. 21+westcott, II, 177, remarks that the kosmos cannot receive the Spirit because sympathy is the necessary condition for reception. The soul can apprehend that only for which it has affinity. They who stand auart from Christ have neither the spiritual eye to discern the Paraclete n~r the spiritual power to acknowledge him. This Platonic approach weakens t he radical call to decision in John. 2 5Heinrich Schlier, "Welt und Mensch na9h dem Johannesevangelium, 11 Besinnung ~ 9f!:.2. ~ Testament (Freiburg: Herder, c.1964), II, 251, notes that 8:12; 1:9 and other 111ight 11 passages assume that the kosmos 78 Jesus, of course, never did belong to all the men livin~ without God (17:14,16 ), nor does his rule derive from them (18:36). When John wants to heighten the difference between living from God, as Jesus does, and l iving on one's own without recognition of God, as kosrnos-men do, he uses the term houtos kosmos (8:23). 26 This expression may include not only the men in opposition to God, but everything about them. they insist on their judgment (9:39 ). 011m As situation, God's good news for them turns to Their whole existence personified, the epitome,of their situation, is the ruler of this kosmos (14:30), 27 who moves against Jesus. But the ruler is judged (16:11) and cast out (12:31) because understands what light is and has been seeking the light. The same is true of life: not just that the kosmos does not want to die, but that it has Lebendurst and Lebenhunger. Further, lies, sin, and death do not make absolute darkness for the ko smos. For not just unbelief greets Jesus, but a height ened, questioning unrest. Behind the uncertainty of t he crowd lies a quest after transcendent fulness (p. 252). Yet kosmosmen hold on too strongly to the kosmos interpretation of reality, the essence of which is Selbst-Herrlichkeit. They are wrapped up in their own interpretation of truth. Despite its Wissen and Verlan&en, the kosmos cannot fr ee itself from its Selbst-Verhaengnis cler Finsternis. "Das kann allein der neue Anfang des \'fortes mitten in dieser Menschenwelt, die Gegem:ort des urspruenglichen \fortes im Fleisch gewordenen Wort, und der Glaube, der hoerend und sehend sich ihm oeffnet 11 (p. 253). 26Barrett, p. 282, sees a contrast between the lower world and heaven, whence Jesus crune . "The thought in this verse is not so much that of a world of appearance and a world of reality, as of a primitive 'threestorey' universe, in which heavenly beings may come down from their proper abode to visit the earth." Barrett's interpretation, of course, is influenced by 8 :23a, but it is certainly possible that a more profound theological point lies behind John's usage here. 27Max Meinertz, Theologie ~ Neuen Testaments (Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1950), II, 286, notes: 11An sich besagt das Wort kosmos nur den Bereich der geschaffenen Dingen, w:i.e sie aus der Schoepferhand hervorgegangen sind oder wo der Mensch lebt. Aber eben weil diese Welt durch die Suende unter den Einfluss des Teufels gekommen ist, darum ist sie mit ih.u eng verbunden, ja recht in seiner Macht." 79 Jesus has overcome the kosmos (16 :33; 1 John 5 :4, 5). 28 Some men of the kosmos see God's love and begin to hate their present existence out of their ovm resources (12 :25). Numbered with the kosmo s, t hey are elected by Jesus (15:19) and God gives them to Jesus in discipleship (17:6). Jesus manifests himself to them (14:22). hnd they cease to belong to that situation of living without God '(15:19; 17:14,16). They do not cease to live among such men who try to live on their own ( l J:l; 17:11; l John 4:17), nor does Jesus vrish this for :them (17:15). The believers live with all men, but they derive their existence and life from God, not from men--or themselves. No longer belonging to the kosmos, they are hat ed by kosmos-men (17:14; 15:19; 1 John 3:13), just as they f irst hated Jesus (15:18). Their life among men who want to live without God will not be easy (16:33), and the kosmos actually will rejoice at t he believers' distress (16:20). The drama , then, has been the entry of God's Son into the sphere of exi s tence of and among all men who need to, but do not, live out of t heir relation to God, the relation they have as his creatures. Con- fronted with the Revealer, many hardened themselves in their own existence, but some took hold of the existence offered from God. Much of the second half of John (chapters lJ-17) deals only with the believers. Yet Jesus has never given up trying to .show the kosmos-men his relation to the 28schnackenburg, ~ Teaching, p. JJ8, notes that there is not the sliohtest doubt that Jesus Christ will bring to conclusion on the cosmic scale the victory won on the cross over the prince of this world. In fact, he will do so through his Church, despite all resistance. Unquestionably, faith can overcome the kosmos because it can see through the ko smos, or it can see the kosmos once again as creation. Faith grasps God's action and lives out of it, so overcoming an existence lived out of the ko smos. 0 80 Father (14 :.31). While his prayer (chapter 17) is only for the believers and not .for the kosmos as such, he clearly and intentionally sets the entire rl r ama moving :>.11 (13:1). ~ again, 29 for he is soon to leave this kosmos He cane from the Father into the kosmos and now he leaves the kos:::os to return t o the Father (16 :28). These kosmos-men have not knovm God is for them (17:25), as Jesus knows God. Therefore just as God sent Jesus among men, so Jesus sends the belivers among all men (17:18). intention is sti ll the same: The that all men might believe and know that God is behind Jesus and see what that means for their existence (17:21, 23 ). The prayer is for k.o smo s-men after all I One cannot deny that John occasionally uses the term kosmos with- 0 · min. · d JO u~. t h.i s concep t o f kosmo s~~en in To mark a point of time Jesus speaks of his glory before the foundation of the kosmos (17:5,24). Even t hi s "non- theological " usage bear·s witness that man's dwelling place is seconda ry to the envoy of God who comes into it. Indeed, the entire created universe first came into being through God's Logos (1:lOb). This usage in John l:lOb may mean "all men," who owe their being to God, or "the entire sum of created existence," including, then, the men who 29A careful observation of John's progressive use of the sigr.al kosmo s will show that the word increases in intensity as the dramatic encount er between men and Jesus heightens. The usage picks up momentum and in t he Farewell Discourses the height of active opposition to God is signalled by this word. Then, suddenly, kosmos appears to revert to its sense at the beginning of John, as Jesus prepares for a new mission to the ko smos through his disciples • .30one could write a word study ca refully listin~ the various meanings of ko s:nos . Yet it must be insisted that since the Incarnation is overwhelmingly predominant, it would be difficult for any usage of kosmos not to take on some theological significance. Many word studies also fail to take account of the dynamic of the drama which John sees. At all times , t wo of the definitions (men; men hostile to God) must be held together--both inseparably subjects of God's address and love. 81 are living without their Creator-God.31 Fittingly, this same kosmos could not contain all the records of what Jesus did (for the kosmos), were they to be written (21:25). The use of kosmos in John 11:9 seems to be a simple parable of hu.~an life. Men can work as long as the sun is shining. 32 One can 3ls chlier, p. 245, notes that the ko smos gets its existence from the Logos; it exists through the Logos; the Logos is its ground. The kosmos is i n this Logos, the Logos is its life. Called into existence through t his 1dorci at the beginning , standing in its life, the kosmos 11 ist nun f uer ir..:ner Offenbn. rung und Aus-legung dieses \.fortes. 11 Only in the Prologue is this f a ct so clea r, but it is the basis for John's whole view of kos~os . Schlier co~tinues (p. 246) that although the theme of John is another, i t is led step by step against this background in the Prologue. Schlier finds 1:3 and 1:10 pa rallel (p. 242). The kosmos is all that ::;tands before :m.:m I s eyes, all that he dwells on. "Sie ist die Zeit und der Rau.~, in denen sich der Mensch aufhaelt, der Umkreis und Schauplatz seines Lebens. 11 Han not only lives in, but has a special relation to the J.:o sro~ and the kosmos to him. "Welt ist also a.uch das, von ,,·oher und woraus der Mensch l ebt, der ihr zugehoert. 11 Man and kosrr.os have an inner connection . 111tlel t i st das, was da s Dase in des Henschen und seine 'Sprache 1 bestim.rnen kann, und was, so wie der Mensch in der Welt vorkorr.mt, beide auch ' fakt i sch ' bestimmt. 11 Schlier continues (p. 24.3) that man lingers in the ko~, takes hold of and understands himself from -it, exists out of it . The mor e intensively man understands and uses it as a Life-principle t he more intimate it appears. Yet kosmos appears in strangeness as a power which is master of man and indeed of itself. The kosmos is not just the alienated l;foher of man. "Nicht nur aber ist die Welt das Worin und das Woher des ~ h-e n, sondern wngekehrt ist der Mensch auch das, in dem und von dem her Welt ist. 11 Man sees, hears, and understands the kosmo s; the kosmos sees, hears, and understands man. The kosrnos has its . a cc ess to itself always only through the understanding of man. The kosmos is in the light and the word of man. All of Schlier 1 s remarks above are important, for he has sho1>m that kosmos is both that which owe s everything that it is or could be to the Logos and that which has com.rnitted and involved itself in a denial of that Logos. Kosmos and kos~-men are inextricably involved with one a nother and are one another. But the kosmos is also inextricably involved with the Logos, and God's address will continue to call it into question and remind it of that fact. Since kosmos-man owes his existence to God, he is called into question in terms of that origin which he shares vTith the kosmos . Barrett, p. 1.35, emphasizes the difference between 1:3 and l:lOb. He believes the sense in the latter is the responsible world~men • .32westcott, II, 8.3, finds a hint of times of darkness and failure which in due time must come (Hatt. 24). Ultimately, that stern necessity vTill be removed (Rev. 21:25). 82 hardly fore et, though, that if ever there were a light shining from God, it wa s surel y his Son.33 J.n a few of the instances cited above, kosmos may simply mean the inhabited world or the theater of human life. "To come into the kosmos" is a very corr.man expression and there are rabbinic parallels both num- ?4 Yet only one of the many instances of this expression erous and exact •.) in John cannot refer to Jesus: kosmos (16 :21). there is joy when a man is born into the When the people speak of the prophet who is to come int o the kosmos, they say Jesus is that prophet (6:14). In John 1:9 the subject may be a man (as in 16:21) or the light (Jesus). instances, Jesus, Christ, Logos, Son of God are subjects. In all other Considering John's Christology, one cannot feel corr.fortable with Sasse's remark that these expr essions have no specific theological content.35 Similarly, the expression~!&, kosmo may mean nothing more than "in the sphere of hurren life." But when it is Jesus who is in this sphere, all the men in that sphere get addressed by God, find their ver-y existence in that sphere called into question. logical (l:lOa; 9:5; 17:11). And that is highly theo- That the disciples are also in the sphere of human life (13:1; 17:11) is a matter of no small consequence, either to them or to the kosmos . Finally, it is very possible that John 13:l and 16:28 simply mean that Jesus is leaving the sphere of human life. This is a common 33This passage may also serve as a warning against making Joh."1 1 s usage of houtos kosmos too consistent. Cf. also 13:1, where the expression kosmos and houtos kosmos seem to be used interchangeably. 34strack-Billerbeck, II, 358. 35sasse, p. 889. 83 r abbinic e~-pr es si on, 36 though of course Jesus is not leaving the kosmos in t he usua l way or even, in fact, leaving it at all. Special Problems Relative to Kosmos Creatiq_n Barrett, Lightfoot, Dodd, and Hoskyns, among other commentators, stress no significant creation theology in John. Certainly such a theo- logy would be hard to document without the Prologue. A few commentators find a strong and clear Creation (or New Creation) emphasis in the Prologue . Lee beli eves John sees the kosmos as the dwelling-place of man- kind , thrown into a state of spiritual chaos by sin. Under the power of darkness and of the Evil One the ko smos is the object of salvation-the new creation . Parallel with Genesis, John begins with the commencement of t he New Creation. Lee writes: As i n Genesis, t he Only God is represented as consulting himself. I n Genesis "the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep," so in the Gospel there lies before us a spir itual chaos which is enveloped in spiritual darkness. As in Genesi s the first moment of creation is the creative Word, Let there be light, so in the Prologue the Word is the personal creator, and he also wa s light--a spiritual light, the light of men. By him a separation is effected between the different elements of the world, and order is brought out of chaos. But not only was he light; "in him was life. 11 He brings eternal life to men, and this· is thought of not a s mere prolongation of physical existence, but as an entirely new and superadded gift, which has its beginning in the new birth. This new birth ••• is parallel to this first divine gift of physi cal life in Gen. 2:7. This life consists in the knowledge of and f ellowship with God; it is truly possessed from the moment of new birth, and there is a development of it corresponding to the growth in knowledge. The detailed process of psychical life recorded in Genesis has its counterpart in the development of this spiritual life described in the Gospel. Furthermore, the separate moments 36strack-Billerbeck, II, 556. 84 of creation in bot h accounts are blended in the continuous operation of the Personal i'lorct.37 Le.e ' s sug3estions a r e not wholly convincing. Genes i s in John 1 seems clear enough. wit h a 11 That there are echoes of That John i s consciously working new cr eation" theology remains to be proven. Boismard a t tempts to show that there are seven clearly marked days a t t he opening of Jesus ' public life and Messianic ministry, correspondi ng t o the seven days of Genesis. But even further·, he finds the whole of Chr i st ' s l ife parceled out into seven epochs, "all connected with the principal feast s of the Jewish year, severa l of which last for exactly a weeK. 11 38 His appr oach, i n a ll i ts involvement, seems forced. Of course, any attempt to find creation theology in John involves J?Lee , pp . 115-116 . P. Hugolinus Langkarroner, 11 Zur Herkunf t des Logos- ti tels m. Johannes-prolog ," Biblische Zeitschrift, Neue Falge, 9 (1965 ) , 91- 94 , notes that behind t he logos, which i s personal, lies the c!'eative i•ford of God, as well as Wisdom, Torah, and John's ovm creative i nterpretation. 38Boi mnard , p . 107. Boismard divides Jesus' ministry in this way: ( 1 ) t he f irst week mentioned above; (2) the events of the first Pasch, 2:13; L~:54; (3 ) the events of the second Pasch, chapters 6 and 5; (4) the seven or ei ght da.ys of t he Feast of Tabernacles, 7-9; (5) Jesus' discourses at t he Feast of Dedication, followed shortly by the cure of Lazarus, 10-11; ( 6 ) Holy Week, the thir d Pasch, 12-~9 ; (?) the pa schal week, the time between the appar i tions of Christ to t he Apostles at an interval of eight days, 20 . Boismard wants to conclude that "the structural scheme suggests to us that the i'-1:essianic mini stry is harnessed bet ween l i nes parallel · t o t hos e of t he creat i on i n its fi r s t days" (p. 108 ). Nor does he stop t he~e, but goes on t o find the specifi c t asks of the seven days of creation reflected in Jesus ' ~ctivit y . He then (pp. 110-113) elabor ates theologically on thi s scheme by a sser ting that John i s dealing with t wo worlds, one follovring t he ot her, t hat a new one will ar i se over which Christ can truly r ei gn . He proceeds to buttress this thought of the worl d to come wi th t hought which is wholly Pauline . The first conception of t he new world occurs a t Christ ' s r esurr ect ion, he concludes. In time, the two worlds exist simultaneously, but the new world will come into its own at the r esurrection of the body. Hi s really significant argumentation is Pauline, however, and he does not document that John is working rrith the idea of two world s . 85 t he question of J ewish backr,round. Buechsel remarks that the Johannine thought in connect ion with kosmos is clearly Jewish-informed, rather than Hellenistic. Kosmos means everi.rthing that is not God. that matters fo~ the Greek conception is missing: Everything not only is there no joy in the 1,-o rld I s beauty and harmony, but the beauty of the world is to John onl:r tempting and seductive. 39 Buechsel I s remarks may misinterpret40 John , but t hey are i nteresting for their insistence on the Jewish background of John 's kosmos usaee. I n an article on the church's proclamation to the world, Eicholz shows t he fuL~ess of the Prologue theology. He stresses the recognition of the Creator as one vital facet of Johannine Christology.41 J.. profound use of creation theology~in Johannine interpretation is that of Bultmann. In the Johannine theology, Bultmann maintains,42 God do es not belong to the kosmos, nor is he the kosmos as a whole. he stands over against the kosmos, having created it. Rather Kosmos is not an 39Fr iedrich Buechsel, ,Joha nnes und der hellenistische Synkretismus (Guetersl oh : Druck und Verlag von C. Bertelsmann, 1928), p. 101. 40A super f i cial interpretation and misunderstanding of Johannine t heol ogy is especially evident in George Johnston, 110ikou."Ilene and kosmos in t he New Testament," New TestamE?nt Studies, 10 (April 1964), 352-360. Johnston is sorry to find a Puritan strain in the attitude toward kosmos. L,1 11 Die Verkuendigung der Kirche an die Welt, 11 Theologische Existenz Heute (};uenchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1939), Heft 65, 21-29. 42 11 Die Eschatologie des Johannes-Evangeliums, 11 Glauben und Verstehen: Gesairmelte Auf saet ze (Tuebingen: Verlag J.C. B. Mohr, 1954), I, 135-138. 1~ni l e Bultmann's attempt seems more sane and more easily documented than some of those cited above, it is sometimes difficult to determine if and where he crosses the border from exegesis to existential interpretatio:p •.• That question is not so easily answered, precisely because it is not a problem easily -solved by the exegete. 86 existent aris i ng from another existing cause (God). fied as cre~tion; i t has this character. Kosmos is quali- Ultimately kosmos means men. Men do not st~nd over against kosmos, but~ kosmos: that is, kosmos is not a being in itself over against which man could stand in theoretical examination . To be kosmos means for man to be creation. That man is kosmos (creation) includes according to the Prologue that h e ~ understand himself in his creatureliness. l ight of men. For the Word that made the kosmos is the This is not the light of reason or conscience that the Light brings , but r ecognit i on, knowledge of one's creatureliness. But this knowledge the ko smos has throvm away in favor of its own knowledge, ~·r orld view, ethic, and orthodoxy. self. The kosmos no longer understands it- It turns into what kosmo s-men make of it. kos~os , and t he kosmos , men . as creation. Men constitute the Yet the kosmos does not lose its character Indeed, therein is its possibility to understand itself and t o misunderstand itself, to stand against God. And because it is crea- tion, i ts blindness takes the character of rebellion against God. "Far from beine grounded in a cosmological theory, the peculiar dualism of John grows out of his creation thought. n4J does as one who is himself kosmo s. Now man comes to all that he T'ne kosmos has forgotten its boundaries and no longer Jr.nows anything about them. Anything lying outside the boundaries it recognizes appears laughable and absurd. Man considers this his kosmos must have an upper storey (he believes in God), but he has no conception of what it means that in his very existence he is bound and limited by God. Man no longer knows God, for if he did he would see him as Creator and let himself be determined through him. 4JIE.i£!.., p. 1J6. The kosmos 87 as such is const ituted by the men who belong to it and they are answerabl e for it. The kosmos cannot free itself from itself. But in the possibility to kno,·r itself as God's creature the kosmos always has the possibility t o grasp the Word to itself. Cosmology Is it possible that John uses kosmos seventy-eight times and yet is unconcerned with cosmology? It may unequivocally be stated that cosmology has not the interest for John that it does for John's Umwelt. John knows perfectly well that God created the world. The kosmos as creation exercises a controlline influence in his theology, but his chief conc ern is with what the kosmos has become, what God in Jesus Christ is doing about it, and how the kosmos will respond to what God is doing . The Incarnation has set all thinking about the kosmos on a new course . That God addresses men, calls them into question, demands recog- nition of who it is who sends his Son--all this shows the heart of the ko srr.os problem, where the central emphases must lie. The last thing kosmos- men need is a new cosmology; already they .have done too much navel-contemplating. Indeed any further effort of man to determine the source and course of his depravity or the way out would be the epitome of ko smos thinking. While for the Umwelt everything may hinge on the proper cosmological secrets, nothing of the sort matt~rs for John. Even if it be eranted that some Gnostics sought self-understanding and only u sed speculative cosmology as an aid, the point is the same: only in answer to God's address can man find the meaning of his existence. If the Greek valued the kosmo s as an order to be imitated and the Gnostic 88 devalued the koi::mos a s a hostile order to be escaped, John denies both approaches . co smology. For the Incarnation has put God's finger on man, not on It is man who must hear the Creator's address; it is man who must come to know the realities of God which the Revealer brings. It is man who must answer in faith, not with cosmological speculation. Not the kosmos __J1or cosmology needs to be proclaimed, then, but Christ, the Sent-One. Because God took his kosmos so seriously that he sent his Son into it, John t akes the kosmos s eriously. He takes it more seriously than the Greeks, for he sees it directly responsible to its Creator, who stands over against it. And he takes it more seriously than the Gnostics, for he finds the root of its dovmfall not merely in its material, but in the very men who call the kosrr.os home. John takes the kosmos seriously by showing that ko~?-:nos- men must stop taking themselves seriously-except a s God ' s creation and subject to his address to them. That "higher powers" play no role in John may result from his focus on God's pointed address '.:.o !!@:!!.• For the Greek, the eternal Ideas showed a way beyond this world which was better; for the Gnostics, the higher spirits had to be tricked .as the redeemed fled by them on their escape from the kosmos. But the Johannine Christ demands and offers openness and response to God in this ·world . If John keeps t he kosmos in view and if believers are still very much involved with kosmos-men, this may be to show the permanent tension in which the ko smos exists, the eschatological address always demanding its decision. Even when men see themselves as living from the Creator, they remain very much in the kosn:os-and John may be suggesting that the kosmos , like the Pauline sarx, remains very much in them. ambiguity of life, of existence in the kosmos. This is the There is no perfection 89 in the ko s~1os , though &2..£ aionios has already entered it. John• s r ete!"ltion of kosrnos may point to further eschatological expectations. There is no new kosmos ; in the kosmos, even the believers st ill wait. As there are always kosrr.os-men , t here are always believers in the kosmos (who have the ko1::n1os i n t hem). The life in the kosmos is God I s life amone men , but also life i n ambiguity. Dualism Zvery cow.ment ator f eels the necessi ty to deal with t he problem of Johanni nc dualism. Is John 's dualism metaphysical, cosmol ogical, ethi- cal, historical? !,;ussner thinks John I s dualism arises from his historical experience in his overview of t he l ife of J esus. As he saw a specific people re- latin~ t o a specific hist ori cal person, so his writing r eflects not an iron law of fate , but the deci si on of kosrnos-men.44 Schnackenburg e;r,phasi zes t hat John I s per spective derives from a historical concept of the 1<0 smos which ha s shut i t self off from God, developed avta.y from hL~ , and placed i t self under the rule of the evil one.45 Percy is i nter ested i n di stinguishing John's dualism from that of Gnosticism. He not es that t he disciples are never said to be from above, but onl y Jesus. Any dualism is between God and man. But even such a duali sm ha s no or i gin in a heavenly and earthly substance, but in the view of J esus as the one who stands on the side of God over against men and t her efore has his origin in God in a wholly different manner from men's. I n Gnosticism, the Redeemer and the believers from the beginning 41..Mussner, p. 70. 45s chna ckenburg, Horal Tea ching, p. 310. 90 belong together in their common origin in a higher world. 46 Bratsiotis compa res John 's dualism to the Pauline~ and finds no similarity to Gnostic dualism in either of these apostolic approaches. Kosmos is man acting in history, even as the Synoptic anthropos opposes God in history.47 Wikenhauser48 and especially Schlatter call John's dualism ethical. Sci1latter writes: Not a single sentence of John employs naturalistic categories. On the contrary, it is et hical categories which are used when the opposition i s at its sharpest, and it is precisely these categories whi ch , a ccording to John, gi to the antithesis against the world its uncompromising severity. 49 Similarly, Bultmann sees the cosmological dualism of Gnosticism become a dualism of decision in John.50 thus demythol ogized Gnostic dualism. Voelkl believes that Joh.~ has He has escaped the ascetic-libertine t endencies of Gnostic dualism as well as Gnostic indifference. Voelkl finds the breadth and greatne ss of John's conception in the fact that with the help of Gnostic t erminology and thought ,..rorld John has formed anew the message of salvation and above all the relation of salvation to the world--wi thout succumbing to Gnostic dangers.51 V;oelkl also carefully 46Ernst Percy, Untersuchung Heber den Ur sprung der Johanneischen Theolo~ie (Lund : Hakan Ohlssons Buchdruckerei, 1939), pp. 136-138. 47P . I. Bratisiotis , 11 Das Henschenverstaendnis des Neuen Testaments," Man i n God ' s Design Accordinp; to t he New Testament (Newcastle: Studiorum Novi"""fe stamenti Societas, 1953"f," p. 34. 48Alfred Wikenhauser, Das Evangel i um nach Johannes (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, c.1948J, p. 143. 49A . Schlatter, Die Theolosie der Apostel, p. 172, quoted in Werner GeorJ'J' Kuemmel Man in the New Testament, translated by John J. Vincent (Revised and enl;rged edition; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, c.1963), P• 80. 50Theology, .II, 21. 51Richa r d Voelkl, Christ ~ Welt~ dem Neuen Testa.uent (Wuerzburg: 91 show:; t ha t the God-hostility of the kosmos lies in its inner worldl iness, not i n i ts matereality.5 2 Odeberg taKes a different approach. Defining kosmos as the human world he cont ra sts it with the lower, physical realities, which by nature and necessity belong to epjgeia. God's love for the kosmos wills t hat it should not remain identified with the epigeia. Not of one es- sence with the earthly world, the human world has the latent potential of receivine the divine gift. tur e . This latent something is man's true na- The human wor l d in its ideal state belongs to the divine world; its object i s to return to the divine. That only a few are saved means that only a. few actuate the spiritual element in themsel;es.53 While Odeber g r ightly denies a metaphysical dualism in respect to man, he very definite l y descr ibes a dualism of man and the earthly world. His Platonism cannot find support in the Johannine data and disregards the creation framework of John's theology. Barrett notes on John 3:21: l i ght . "Such a man naturally comes to the His deeds have been wrought in God • • • and when he comes to the l i ght he only r eturns to his own origin. 11 54 Barrett further remarks in this connection that men are divided into two classes, those doing evil and those doing the truth. The former inevitably reject Christ and the Echt en-Verlag, 1961), p. 439. Voelkl's description is correct. Whether John arrived there by demythologizing Gnosticism is open to question. 52Ibid ., p. l~J7. The Christian, Voelkl notes, fights not the world, but the ko smos within himself. 53Hugo Odeber~ The Fourth Gosnel (Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksells Boktryckerei Ll-929.f), pp. 145-146. 54Barrett, p. 182. 92 l atter inevitably acc ept him. This distinction appears to exist before they are confronted with Christ himself and there appears to be no question of the evil men being changed into men who will do the truth. Barrett finds such a conception derived from the Old Testament doctrine of election, Hellenistic religion, and the primitive Christian faith. 55 It is difficult to see how t he total Johannine theology could support such conclusions , at least as Barrett states them.56 John's dualism is rather a dualism of terminology and approach, in a manner anticipatory of dialectic theology. He wants first of all to show the r adical difference between God and man. The most significant way to do this is to show what God is able to accomplish (light, life) and what man can accomplish (death, darkness). Even in God 1 s radical otherness and over-againstness he keeps the kosmos as his o~m, since he created it . There is no ultimate dualism. Further, John's zoemay be equivalent to the "age to come," an expression which John does not use.57 The significance is that instead of this age over against the age to come, John shows a kosmos into which zoe58 has already entered. is no real dualism. Still there Indeed, the dualism can be worked out dialectically: 55Bultmann , Thcolo~v , II, 23, remarks that the Father's drawing does not precede the believers' coming to Jesus; it does not take place before the decisi on of f aith . "John's predestination formulations mean that the decision of faith is not a choice between possibilities within this world that arise from inner-worldly impulses, and also means that the believer i n the presence of God cannot rely on his own faith." 56Disagreement expr essed here with Barrett's latent Platonism is not mea~t to imply that John could not or did not employ Platonic thought cateoories to aid the uresentation of his message. 0 • 57Dodd, Interpretation, p. 146. 5Bsynoptic parallel: Kingdom of God. 93 (A 2 ) (;..l ) Life is supposed to be happening in the kosmos, historically; but the ko :.mos has turned itself away from real life. (Bl) Into the kos!:l£2_ comes the Logos to bring life which is to be lived historically; (B2 ) as ko smos } men reject this true life. as are B1 and B2. Al and A2 are antithetical, But God holds both sides together in the kosmo s; that is , the unrealized goal is a goal for the kosmos, not beyond the kosmos • . 1 and D1 are God's intentions for the kosmos; A2 and B2 are the inten- J\ tions of the kosmos fo r itself. Thus there is a twofold dualism: that between God and the kosmo s and that in the kosmos itself (proper and improper life and response in the kosmos). Only God can solve this dualism in his kosmos , even though he will always retain his over.a.againstness toward all his creation. Two things are significant here: (1) There is no Greek metaphysics in the dualism between God and men, but only the facts of Creator and creature; (2) in the kosmos itself, there is neither met aphysical nor material dualism, · ror in God the antitheses within the kosrros are held controlled :i.n the kosmos. The ko smos lives under the Creator, but always also under the Creator's critical question. But the question is addressed and properly answered within~ kosmos. Hout os Ko smos Not unrelated to Johannine dualism is the problem of John's expression houtos kosmos . have few followers today. The strong assertions of Bauer and Holtzmann Bauer insists that this kosmos necessarily implies the thought of another kosmos. He finds this part of the Hel- lenistic impact on John's world view, that not the sensible appearances are truly real, but the super-earthly essences, whose reflected images 94 o::ly a r e i n the t emporal world,59 Finding the Johannine atmosphere ~-,holly Ale,<,-:i.ndrian, Holtzrnann sees the reigning Weltanschauung to be Philo' s 11 Doppel ~aengerei von Idealwelt und Naturscheinung, geistigen ko srros und sinnen~aelligen Dasein, Himmel und Erde. 1160 The material wor ld fo rmed t hrough the Logos is houtos kosmos, which according to John 11 :9 i s underst ood as the sensible world, This kosmos necessarily i ;r.:91ies another world and the words above ·and below in John 8:23 bear t his out, Similarly, existence in the kosmos means existence on earth ( 9 :5; 17: 11,13; 12:32 is parallel to 13:1). The world above (Philo's kosrr.o s noetos ) is the Father's house (14:2), which is distinguished from t he dwelling place of humanity. Ever'Jthing spiritual in the lower world co~es f r om above (3:3) and returns there again (14:3), the above and below are locally conceived. are f or John patterns of the heavenly. t rasts heavenly and earthly things: procrea t i on (1:12-13; 3:3-7), As with Philo, Similarly, earthly things In Platonic fashion John con- wind (3:8), water (4:10; 7:38-39), Only what is from above has worth. 61 While these observations may at first seem to reflect the thought of John, a closer look r eveals a much deeper theological .outlook--one that eoes to the heart of the kosmos problem in a way which the superficial .t.lexandrianism never did. The view of Bauer and Holtzrnann does not bear up under scrutiny of Johannine theology. 62 rn 59\'lalter Bauer, Johannes, Vol. II: Die Eva ngelien II, in Handbuch Neuen Testament (Tuebingen: J, C. B. Mohr, 1912), p. 13, 60Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Lehrbuch ~ Neutestamentlichen Theologie (Zwei te neu bearbeitete Auflage herausgegeben von D. A. Juelicher und W, Bauer; Tuebingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1911), II, 416. 61Ibid., pp. 416-418. 62Kue~.mel, p. 73, rejects Holtzmann's metaphysical dualism. 95 I n contrast, is Buechsel's contention that John's expression houtos kosrr.os .. is the most obvious indication of the Jewish subsoil of the Fourth Go spel . While John may use the expression in a Christian way, it depends " on ~ne ~ ·-1- hazeh of Judaism. 6J Odeberg, too, believes that houtos ko sr.,os i s undoubtedly the literal translation of the Hebrew 1 olam ha.zeh_•. I ndeed , he finds thi s a more literal translation than the Synoptic b2. ajcn houton ; for the Hebrew term, in his opinion, has the sense both of ko s'":1os and aion, with a frequent emphasis on kosmos.~4 Billerbeck notes that the rabbinic l iterature has an antithetical parallel for "come into the world": "go into that ·1-.,rorld. 11 65 Hartingsveld affirms that John's houtos kosmos has the same characteri stics as the a ion houtos and the rabbinic 'olam ha.zeh. While John does not use ho a.i on houtos , the Synoptics do not use ho koSTilos hout os. ~ Paul uses both interchangeably (1 Cor. J :18-19). Hartingsveld notes that in the Old Testament is a temporal concept, and heaven and earth are the correspondents for a spatial world. He argues that th~ local use of 'olara is first demonstrable at the end of the first century A.D. He concludes that houtos kosrr.os is a translation of 'olam hazeh and that it 6 · · J ohn • 6 1.n simp1y t akes the place o f ..."h e hou t os ~ · - 1ac k 1.ng 63Buechsel, p. 103. 640deberg , p. 117. 6 5str a ck- Billerbeck, II, 536. 661.odewijk van Hartingsveld, Di e Eschatolog~e des Johannesevangeliums (Assin, Netherlands : Van Gorcum & Vomp, N.V., 1962), p. 17. To bolster his ar guments against Bultmann's interpretation of Johannine eschatology, Hartingsveld tries to show that John's addition in 12:25 of ~ t o ~ touto/ en zocn a i onioh to the Synoptic parallels (Hatt. 10:J9;Luke 17:33; Hatt. . 16:25/Nar k 8 :J.5/Luke 9:24) is highly significant f o r ~ since he is supposed to have eliminated the old eschatology. He concludes that 96 Noting the origin of the term in apocalyptic eschatology, Bultmann very decidedly rejects any temporal interpretation of houtos kosmos. He finds John using it to express the radical opposition between God and the world of men . Except in John 12:25 the contrast is never between two ages and John accordingly never speaks of this age, present age, future age , co~ing age .67 Following Bultmann's lead, Voelkl insists that~weltJ.ichun~ for John is accomplished in faith and a complete turning toward life, toward the strongly ·realized eschatological Heilsgut. contrast cannot, then, be temporal.68 The Noting Oliver Prunet's comment that the kosmos is what it is not through a tragic fall in the Urzeit, but through man 's inner worldliness, Voelkl finds the opposition between houtos kosrr.os and God I s world sharply expressed not in temporal terms, but exist entially.69 Mussner also notes that the lack of aion terminology and USeS the ,Judaic terminology 1018.m hazeh/ 1ola:n nabo I and in a Wc-.y deviating from other New Testament usage. But there is abundant variation in the Ifow Testament . The fact which remains is that John places eternal l ife over against houtos ko~. When one consider·s that t he standing formula for eternal life is nayeh ha'olam ha bo'' then this concept fits very well as the opposite of houtos kosmos . All this corresponds to the above/below of Johannine theology and one may conclude that houtos kosmos is the world below and eternal l i fe is in heaven (p~. 21-23)-. Hartingsveld notes further that time is horizontal in John and space is vertical. On the horizontal time line are the foundation of the world, the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and the last day. But there is a verticality of space : The Son comes down from above in the Incarnation. At t he concl usion of his earthly life, he returns up from below. At the l ast day it seems that he comes down again from above and then returns u p from belm·r, with his disciples (pp. 25-27). The weakest point in Hartingsveld 's argument is his failure t o see the depth and fulness of John 's use of zoe aionio s. He relies only on 12:25. John knOWS 67Theology, II, 15. 68Voelkl, p. 437. 69~., p. 398. 97 in John proves that John's concerns are not temporal, as in late Judaism but are w~th t he essence of hout os kosmos--opposition to the Sent-One. 70 Cremer, 71 1·/estcott, 72 Lee, 73 and Percy74 find houtos kos:nos cont rasted with the Kingdom of God. However, Westcott and Cremer seem to define the significance of the Kingdom of God as a higher order of things. Hestcott and Lee emphasize a contrast between what is eternal and what is transitory . Sassc75 also emphasizes the transitoriness of houtos kosmos. Percy sees a parallel between God and satan, God's Kingdom and houtos kosmos. 70;.ius sner , p. 58 . The use of aion in John and elsewhere in the New Tes·;:,aJ:ient i s to be noted in this connection. John uses aion thirteen t imes . :i:n all cases it means simply "forever," or, witha"riegative, "never . 11 This usage has no affinity with the usage of kosrnos. -If John has no "this age, 11 he does have fifteen times zoe aionios (all in chapters 3- 12) . The "ageless" life has already entered into John's kosmos. Revel ation has the CA"J)ression eis tous aionas t on aionon thirteen times, but never use s aicin for "this age. 11 Matthew uses aion once in the sense of "ever, " but ei ght times with the sense "age" (this .. age in comparison t o t he age to come; ca r es of the age; close of the age) . Mark uses aion twi ce wi th the sense "ever," once for the cares of the age, and once for the age to come , Luke uses aion four times in the sense "ever" and t hree t ime s in the sense "age"{sons of this age; age to come; attain that age) . Aion is common in the Pauline corpus both in the sense "ever" and i n t he s ~ "age ." In 1 Cor. 1:20 Paul uses aion and kosmos interchangeably. The Pastorals also reflect this dual usage. The same is t rue of Hebrews, where aion i s even used with creation (1:2; 11:3). Gustav Dalman, The Word s of Jesus , translated by D. M. Kay ( &iinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902~ 153, thinks that kosmos eventually displaces aio:1 in the !Jew Testa.'llent . He thinks the correlative of John's hm.ttos ~ s is eternal life (p. 148). Sasse explains that aion progresses from t he sense of eternity, to the time of the world, to the world itself ( TDNT, I, 202 ). The contrast of this age and the age to come may have been borrowed f r om Jm·r.i.sh apocalyptic , rabbinic usage occurring only after 70 A.D. (J12!.IT., I , 206 ) • 71Herman Cremer, Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentl i chen Graezit aet (Zehnte, voellig durchgearbeitete und vielfach veraenderte Auflage herausgegeoen von Julius Koegel; Go_tha: Verlag und Druck der ! Friedrich Andr eas Perthes A.G., c.1915), p. 621. 72westcott, II, 123. 73 Lee, p . 164. 74Percy, p. 141. 75s asse, III, 885. 98 Barrett i s either unabl e t o deci de what John means or believes John conveys a va r iety of meaning with hout os kosmos . In John 12:31 oarrett sees ko smos hou7,o s as t he whole organized state of human society, secular a nd r eligiou s.76 In John 12:35 he finds the primaI"J meaning to b e t emporal (the present age), "but it is not wi thout a quasi-spatial el ement . 1177 I n John 18 :36 he t hinks the metaphor is spatial rather t han t emporal, especiall y in vi ew of the enteuthen at the end of the verse. The poi nt is t hat t he kingdom is not "of the fold (rather than period) i n which humanity and t he spi ritual world are organized over against God . 11 78 On John 1 :10 Barrett notes that the world of men and human affa irs i s not onl y contrasted with the future world, as in rabbinic theology , but a lso wi t h a worl d already existing, a world above. "John seems to combine these i deas deliberately, so that Jesus appears both a s the means by which an eschatological future is anticipated (as i n . 79 t he synoptic gospel s ) a nd al so as an envoy from the heavenly world. 11 On John J:3 he notes t he early Christian belief that the Kingdom of God ir. Chr i st has a l ready bro ken i nto this a ge. Such language Judaism had rie;idl y avoided be caus e "i t spoke in direct terms of the invasion of present human l i fe by t he power of God and thus annihilated the disti nction 80 bet ween thi s age and the age to come . " The Alexandrian theori es of Holtzmann and Bauer do not pay suffici ent 76Barrett, p. 353. 77rbid . 78 Toid ., p. 447. ·ct p • 135, 79r ...£1_,, 80 ibid ., p. 172. 99 attention t o t he uniqueness of Johanni ne theology. While there is a ce~tain parallelism of express i on, significant Philonic thought finds no i mportant pa r allels i n John. Nor does a simple derivation f rom r abbi ni c sources explain John's usage . While John may very likely derive ko s1r.os houtos from I olam hazeh , the role this term plays i n his theology is what matt er s . I t i s clear t hat John is not primarily i nterested i n t emporal di stinctions and def i nitions. If the conclusions about kosffio s r eached in t he f i r st section of this chapt er are correct, then i t would appear most t rue t o the data to conclude that t he term kosmos hont ~ i s s i mply par t of the dynamic involved in John's concept of man wi t hout and against God. I f he has chosen kosmos to signal this con- cept , and i f man moves i nt o action against God when God moves i nto action to,,:ard men, and if man t hereby shows how drastically self-centered, finite , and a rti~ical he has become, then kosmo s houtos ~escribes ver-y v:ell t ne utterly na r row- minded onesi dedness of t he creat ure who has forgotten v:ho he is and given himsel f up to navel contemplation, in the belief t hat there lies t he meaning of his life, religion, and existence. What is necessary i s not that man should move up to another world, but that , in Old Test ament terms , ~ and ouranos should get together again, as at creation. And precisel,y this is accomplished when in Jesus Christ true lif e comes back into t he kosmos--now. Archon t.ou kosmou This t erm is more diff icult. If, as seems likely, the archon ~ ko smou i s t he devil, the di f f i culty of the origin of the expression still r emains. In the Martyrdom 2.£ Isaiah 2 :4 Belial is the prince of 100 unr i ghteousness who rules over the world, and in rabbinic material of about 1 50 A. D. God says to the Tod0,sengel, Satan: "Although I have given you power to be world-ruler over men, you may have nothing to do with Isr ael, my children." The difficulty -is that the term prince of this wor ld is also common, b u t ~ means Satan, but the Engelfuersten who stand for the natural life of the whole creation.Bl The question a rises whether an absolute dualism is involved in this expr ession. Voelkl insists that the devil is not a dualistic opponent precisely because he belongs to the kosmos and the kosmos is transitory. ?'urther, there is no thought of an evil nature from all eternity; the intere st i n the archon is in Heils ~eschichte, not in the Vorwelt. Also, his power continues only over those who give up to him. 82 Bietenhard notes that in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs Bel i a r is not simply the world-ruler. under hi m, but 11 die Menschen sind nicht He does have a kingdom of demons ~ ipso ihm unterworfen, sondern nur insofern sie suendigen; der Gerechte ist ihm entzogen. 116 .3 On the other hand, Matthew 4 shows Satan as the highest Voelkeren~el, to whom power over the kingdoms of the world has been given. Before the eye of J e sus the kingdoms appear as a unity, over which evil has power. That the devil is called a liar and murderer in John 8:44 is highly significant: Beide Bezeichnungen miteinander verbunden zeigen, dass der ~ der Nenschheit nicht etwa wie in Voelkerengel der Juedischen -- - - ·- - - 8lstrack-Billerbeck, II, 552~ On this basis, Barrett, p • .355, concludes that this expression does not derive from Hebrew or Jewish thought. 8 2voelkl, p • .397. 8.3Hans Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum ~ ,judentu.-n (Tuebingen: Verlag J.C. B. Mohr, 1951), p. 114. Spaet- 101 der i hnen unterstellten Voelker, hier dann al so de~· !}'tnzen ;1ienschhei t, vertritt, sondern da.ss Eder Menschh e -JJ:_ .feh td lich gesj.nnt ist.84 J_r_;-i.rli t,fon ci.i.e ~ The origi n and derivation of the term is still in question, even if t he above com,~ents about the meaning of the term are accepted. Har t i ngsvel d notes that Beelzebub is ho archon ton daimonion (Matt. 12:24; £'1ark 3: 22; Luke 11:5), but that this cannot be conclusive, since John knows no i n8tances of casting out demons. hi s demon "hat seinen Sitz im Luftraum. 1185 Nor can Paul be of help since To P. Volz's suggestion that Sat an is used as a vehicle of contrast to the revelation in Christ, Har t i ngsveld ob j ects t hat there is no proof for any personifying of the opposition . Hartingsveld also believes that Bauer's and Bultmann's con jecture of Gnostic influence does not give sufficient attention to the fact that the three New Testament usages are not congruent (Paul, Syn- optics, and John) and neither are gnosis and the New Testament congruent.86 Ba r r ett, however, takes up the suggestion of Gnostic influence. He notes t hat in Gnostic texts the ascen~ of the Messenger means the destruction of the world and its rulers. But, he admits, the defeat of Satan by 8 J esus i s al so an essential element in the older Christian tradition. 7 Biet enhard mentions Schlatter's conjecture: The political and re- ligious t nought of the time contributed to John's expression. Rome had conquered the whole world, and its Engelfuerst was considered Lord over 8 4Ibi d . 85Hartingsveld, p. 20. 86roid., pp. 19-20. 87Barrett, p. 355. 102 t• ""'c 1 ~~.:.;..':...~~ o f everyone e1 se. T' .CO • It became prince of the world. Rome I s r elation to Judaism and Christiani ty led to an identification of Rome's prince with Satan. In John the unbelieving Jews are put among the people of t he world and under the Lordship of Satan. 88 certain conclus ions seem possible. lfo That the ko smos or its essence or its prince is def eated in the lifting up of Jesus is clear enough in John. Exact ly who the prince of this ko smos is, or what precisely it r epresents and whence this term is derived--these questions cannot in tne l i ght of pr esent knowledge be resolved. That God's movement towards t he komr.os t urns to judgment when the ko smos refuses to answer God I s address is undoubt edly connected with John's thought on the a r chon t au £ ~. The theological point may be clear, then, even if the above questions are unanswered. It is possible that a step in the right direc- t ion would be t aken if more concentration were given to the words tou ko smou , which is really the important qualification in the phrase archon ~ kosmou and most likely to yield the theological significance of Jor.n I s usage. Kosmo $, God 1 s love , the believers' love God loves the ko smos . versal . His love is Heilsliebe. 8 9 His love is uni- The fact that some men do not respond in faith does not detract f rom God 's love . The very nature of agape demands universalism. In Gno stic texts, love is a selection of those who are by nature pneumatic. 88Bietenhard, p. 115. 8 9voelkl, p. 396. 103 'l'he ~ approaches only the holy and pure. 90 Yet, of the thirty-seven occurrences of agapao in John, twonty-five are in chapters 13-17. the seven occurrences of agape, six are in chapters 13-17. Of Barrett believes this corresponds to the fact that while God loves the world, "hi s love only becomes effective a.-nong those who believe in Christ. the r est love turns, as it were, to judgment. 11 91 reciprocal r el ation. For Love in John is a There is love between the Father and the Son; bet,·reen the Son a nd his ovm ; and, among his own, for one another. John develops love as the nature of God himself and the means whereby the divine l ife is perpetuated in the community.92 To this same point, Voelkl notes that since John looks back on the decision of the kosmos aeainst Christ and writes especially for Christians, he naturally speaks most often of God's love toward those whom the Father has given Jesus from the ko smos . 93 How does this affect the difficulty in John 17:9? That Jesus prays not for the kosmos need not mean a retreat from John 3:16. The dynamic involved in John's thought about men without God becoming men against God is caught in Barrett's comment: "The world cannot be prayed for because, as the kosmos, it has set itself outside the purpose of God. The disciples on the other hand belong to God as they do to Christ. 11 94 The exclusion of the kosmos is no limitation of God's love, but arises 90ibi d . 91i3arrett, p. 180. 92 Toid . 93voelkl, p • .396. 94Barrett, p. 42.3. 104 f rom the i JT1medi ate circumstances of the prayer. Westcott notes that Christ 1 s wur k is fulf illed in ever-increasing circles of influence; at t he prese:it he i ntercedes for those who have been prepared to continue his wor!<: . 95 The more important point, however, is that chapter seventeen is an oblique prayer for the entire world, since the salvation of the world or the scattered children of God will arise from the disciples' . . mission . 96 Bar rett find s clearly expressed in chapter seventeen a mission of the apostolic church to the world, in which men will be converted and attached t o the community of Jesus. The hope for the kosrnos is that it should cease to be the kosmo s.97 The que::;tion is one of mission. How does the church, or how do the ·oelievcrs, act over agai nst the world? Jowett notes on John 17:9: "The a pparent exclus ion· is only a loving design for an ulti.Inate benediction • • election of some for the benediction of the whole •• The elect are not call ed t o a sphere of exclusion, but to a function of transmission . 1198 Wi th perhaps l ess reli ance on Johannine theology he goes on t o remark : 11 T:1e unworldliness of the believer is to make the world be- lieve i n the dependableness of the lord. Our moral elevation is to be the initial ministry in the world's salvation. 11 99 The Christian conduct should lead to the conviction, Jowett asserts, that it is possible to 95westcott, II, 248. 96Hoskyns, p. 500. 97Barrett, p. 422. 98John Henry Jowett, "Saving the World," Interpretation, 5 (January 1951), p. 77. 9911 . d p. 78 • ...!?L•, 105 resist the gravit ation of the kosmos. The strength of the Christian's r esistance pl a cards God's dependableness. 100 More to the point, Hoskyns notes that "the church is the call of God to the world, because it is the manifestation of the love and glory of God in the world. What the incarnate Son of God had once been to the Jews, the Church is now to the world-the incarnate glo!""J of God." 101 Just as Jesus is sanctified by God for a mission (10:36), the dis102 ciples are set apart for a mission to the world. In John 17, the apostol ic mission is "taken up into the supreme moment of the mission of the Son in which the t ask appointed him by the Father is completed."lOJ Through the witness of the Holy Spirit and the disciples the world is to 104 be invited t o enter this circle of prayer and love. Indeed, the love shovm in the Christian body has as its supreme task the manifestation of the divine life to the worlct. 105 Barrett notes the pattern of divine activity: The Father sends the Son, and in his works the love of the Father for mankind is manifest, because the Son lives always in the unity of l ove with the Father; the Son sends the church, and in the mutual charity and hur.ri.lity which exists within.the w:iity of ~he Church the life of the Son and of the Father is manifest. 0 Of course, there is inevitable imperfection in the church's witness, l OOibid . 101Hoskyns, p. 505. 102Barrett, p. 426. lOJibid . 104,.b .d d:...1-.• l05Ibid., p. 81. 106 Ibid. , pp. 427-428. 106 an ir.ipe1~f cct response from the world, and both must remain under the judgment and mercy of God.l07 Voelkl notes that there are no Gnostic parallel s f or a Tiedeemer who sends the chosen out into the kosmos. The Gl1ost.,_~c ·-,i.ed eemer is · in · t eres1.,e ... d on1yin · h.is f rien · ds. lOB Voelkl insists that the Johannine ethic is not ascetic or worldfleein£;;109 Joh::1 has no "ascetic program." Rather, Voelkl insists, Die Reinigung des Chri sten bedeutet weder juedische noch gnostische Reinie;unc; , sondern die Befreiung von den Suenden. Die Bewahrung die s e;.~ Reinheit ist daher ei n Sichbewahren von der Suende, inr Zi el i st das 11 Fruchtbringen, 11 d.h. aber ein Leben in der Erfuellung Gebote Jesu und besonders des Liebesgebotes. Die Reinigung fuehrt also nicht aus der Welt heraua, sondern verpflichtet zur lauteren Lebensfuehrung in der Welt.11 Jesus never fled the world, but only the claim of worldly men who wanted 111 hirr. for a Kinsship of this world. l07Ibid ., p. 428. 108 voelkl , p. 417. 109voelkl finds in 1 John 2:15 a prohibition against inner worldlines s. He secs a No pronounced against a God-oposed self-understanding of men, a No to man 's 11 Selbstherrlichkeit und seinem letzlich teuflischen 1Beeeheren 1 ge{jenueber Gott 11 (p. hlO). He sees a difference between material t hings not bad in themselves and an ~-concentration upon them. The thing s of t he kosmos are always earthly and transitory in comparison with the 1-;orld of God, he states (p. 410). Voelkl adds: "Wenn sich der Mensch der Welt hingiot, wenn er ihr 1dient' statt Gott und den Bruedern, dann will er--ents-orechend der 'Selbstliebe des kosmos'-i..ill'Iler das Seine, 'dient' er l etzlich n~r sich s elbst • • • • Die wesenhaft vergaenglichen, 'sinnlichen1 Schoenheiten und Freuden und die materiellen Gueter gehoeren zwar zur Welt und sind in einer gefallenen Welt keineswegs 'harmlos, 1 aber nicht sie , sondern die I in.vi ere Weltlichkeit' macht das Wes en des kosmos aus. Das Verbot der Weltliebe beinhaltet dann nichts anders als der schon e:::'l·1eahnte I Entscheidungs-Dualismus 1 ; der Christ kann sich mit seiner ganzen 1Existenz' nur fuer Gott oder fuer die Welt entscheiden 11 (p. 411). 110Ii ~'d . , p. 412 • illIbid. Richard Loewe, Kosmos !:llli!. ~ (Guetersloh: Verlag C. Bertelsmann, 1935), p. 73, notes on 1 John 2:15: 11Der kosmos ist nicht 107 ~, "':1'"'~ ;.c.._ .:.J t 'n en J• J 1· s '·h 1,. e "Wesengesetz der johanneischen Lebensmystik.11112 The Johnnnine rczy-::;ticism is ethical, not visionary. I <icnt.H.aetsr'TYst :i 1.-: . There is never an Resting on the historical action of God in Christ, t he Johar.nine mysticism ha s to ·work itself out in the 11 history 11 of the Cnri sti an l i fe and can hardly be world-fleeing. ticism, not an eros mysticisrr.. 113 John has an agaoe mys- 11 Das Interesse kreist nicht um das Verhaeltnis zwischen 1meiner Seele und meinem Gott,' sondern um das Vernalten gearde zum 'Bruder' in der Welt, in dem sich die Liebe zu Gott bewaehrt . 1111 4 John's mysticism is inner-worldly.115 n1,;,r der Ort der ~;chaecilichen Lust, sondern bring sie auch hervor, so wie der Veter anderseits Glauben und ewi ges Leben hervorbingt. 11 (One might say t hat t he kosmos not only displays its wares, but even hawks them!) To be komr:os is simpl y t he 3ystematic substitution of creatures for the Creator . w ewe sees "di e syst ematische Verdichtung des Weltbegriffes von objekt iven Dingen zu subj ektiven Strebungen in der Klill'la.x: h2. kosmosg ~ :t,o ~ - ta ek to kosmo'--!:, epi thumia tou kosrnou" (p. 75), the latt er being a subjective gentivie. 112 voe11,{1 , p. 413 • llJibi<l . 114Ihid ., pp. 413-414. ll5Ibid ~, p . 414 . J3ut what of 1 John, which, if not by the same author , cer t ainly belongs to the theological sphere of the Fourth Gospel? Does not the author of 1 John appear to encouraee love only toward fellow Christians? It is clear t hat 1 John does not, like Qumran, demand hatred t o·,,ard t he sons of dar kness, Voelkl t}?.inks (p. 405). Schnackenburg, Nora l Teachin~, argues t hat for John love is the completely u.~iversal characteri stic of the children of God, in contrast to the world I s hatred. 11 If he i s r eproaching the wor ld f or its hatred towards the Christians, it would be unintell i gible of him to limit the Christian's love to the circle of the coir.munit y of t he Church" (p. J28). Schnackenburg believes that John's love of t he brother i s parall el to the Synop:.ic love of the neighbor (p. J28). Voelkl notes t hat i n 1 John to love is to be born of God who sends his Son i nt o t he kosmos ; that 1 John speaks of love generally and brings bro t herly l ove only as a concrete ex.ample; that the contrast between invisfole God and visi ble brother tends toward a Menschenbruder concept. 1 John i s working with the specific problems of a given Christian community. The problem is not brotherly love or neighborly love, but brotherly 108 The Choice of Kosmo s Why did J ohn choose kosmos to signal what he wanted to say about man ? I t is probable that the Hebrew Old Testament has no equivalent for kosr..os because f or t he Greeks kosmos was not originally simply 11world, 11 but a concept of natural philosophy, elements, systems, and metaphysics. The Hebrew Old Testament only wanted to assert God as Creator. cle&r t hat John, too, makes that affirmation. It is John's choice of ko smos, then , repudiat es all pantheism in the Stoic sense of 11 immanencen of God and the Greek view of God as a "principle" of the world.116 John therefo r e uses a \•rord which was extremely common in the !!fil~ . Kcsrr.os was an opening for John's message. As the word is drawn into r elati on to the Incarnation, John can use it both in affirmation and denial. . With ko smo s John aff irms the universal meaning and address of God's l ove or brotherly hate (p·. 414). More important is Voelkl' s argument that hate drm·rs one out of the i nner-cor.imunity conception of love, for hate is ,the great Verweltlichung, the ethos of the ko smos. Hatred of brother or neighbor is the same . 11 \for die Nichtchristen aus dem Bereich der Liebe ausschliessen woll te, wuerde sich auch darin dem 'kosmos' angleichen, weil er nur das i hm ' Wesense;leiche' lieben, d.h. aber wieder, weil er wie di e ' Welt' alles 1 Fremde I hassen wuerde 11 (p. 415). The ·world not to be l oved is not t he ,~or ld of men, as in ~umran. John's love is different also f rom the Gnostic, who loves only the 11unwelt lichen Kern, 11 not the concrete individual. Such a love is basically ero s , based on a conmen unity in a s trange world, using the other as a vehicle for one's own Ent welt lichung (p . 415). For John, the Christian loves his brother in the world, i n a wholly concrete, here-and-now manner, in humble service and helpful action (p . 415). But Voelkl warns: "Die Weltaufgabe der Kirche ist eine missionari s che , nicht eine im innerweltlichen Sinne sozialreformerische oder kul t urelle" (p. 438 ). One might add that whenever any "social Gospel" wants to meet the ko smos on kosmos terms, that Gospel has been subj ected t o a kosmos approach. Voelkl remarks that the Botschaft is never angenehm (p. 416). 11~•/illiam Henderson, 11 The Ethical Idea of the World in John's Gospel, 11 109 Se:1t-One . \•!i t h k0smos John affirms creation and God I s continued love and intc:it fo'!." his wor l d . With kosmos John affirms that the light and life f~om God sha.J.l be :;:-ealiz ed !12.::f, within God's world. With kosmos John affi rms a cont i nued mission in and to the world and an in-the-world ethic. l:.'ith kosm:)s John a ffirms that God addresses men in his world and calls them t o l :i.ve t heir lives f rom God, in God 's world. I3ut John deni es that the kosmo s is self-contained, a perfect whole, i n harmonious and natural relation with the gods (classical Greek and Hermetic writing s ). John deni ·a s that the true realities and the real call- i ng of men are i n t he !cosmos noet os (Philo, Hellenistic Greek, Hermetica), by showing t hat t here is only one kosmos and all that is kosmos falls un- der God 's address and questioning. John denies that the world is intrin- sically evi l and s hould be escaped, that the solution to man's problems lie::; in co smology (Gnosti cism, Mandeism). John denies by using kosmos instead of ~ that the Old Testament~ is perfectly adjusted to God and that man can automatically lay claims to God's blessings by tying him t o the 11 land 11 (Jewi sh ). No privileged status exempts one from God I s ques tion addressed t o man in Jesus Christ. The mo st irnportant thing John could say about the kosmos was that God loved i t and entered it in Jesus Christ. 117 Because of that event (Unpubli shed Th .D. thesi s, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 1944), p . 98 , notes: "The Greeks began with the idea of a perfect ·w orld and ended wi t h the idea that the world was evil because they had no doctrine of human sin. The Hebrews with an innate sense of personal sin began ,vith a good world peopled with evil men and ended with a good material world and a human world largely evil and apart from God." 117odeberg, p. 129, contends that John's usage is not dissimilar from t hat of J ewish, Hermetic, and Mandean literature. He sees John merely adopt ing t he language of the times, which shows the kosmos both as the object of God's attention and as opposed to God and under judgment. 11 He 110 t:1e ':0 <~:£.§. i·10.:.J.d never be the same. si~pl y adopts , and f ind s appropriate, the duplicity in the current use o.f t!1e world . " John I s u sae e , Odeber g thinks, best corresponds to Jewish usaGc . If Odeoc:-g only war"t s to show t hat John is not the first writing i n hi:::;t or y t o claim t hat t he world is both under judgment and under God's ( lovin,, ) a t tenti on, he rnay be correct, although whatever dual attitude the P.c!·metic and r1andean literature may show is quite different from that of t he Old Testament . But Odeberg 's remarks seem to slight the overwheJminG r ole t hat the Incnr:iation plays in Johannine theology and the i nevi table ef fe ct it must have in shaping John's usage of kosmos. CHAPTER IV KOSHOS I N JOHN: KOSMOS DEFINED THROUGH KOSMOS-MEN Justification for this Procedure The evidence submitted in the third chapter indicates that John, with reason, chose ko&111os t o signal his concept of men without God, men in need of God , men in r ebell i on and decision against God when confronted with God 's Sent-One . The purpose of this chapter is to show how John develops and defines these men without God, in action against God. Such a procedure is requi red because John is not primarily i nterested (or at lea~t not only i nterested) in the word he chooses to signal a human reality, but in that human reality itself. 1 John is writing about a problem of men , not a cosmological problem. Therefore, with no little subtlety and skill, he shows humanity in conversation and action. The implication of the Pr ologue was that when the Logos came to what belonged t o him, his own should respond to him. spond , t o recognize his claim. Yet they failed to re- What follows (at least 1:14-12:50) is the st?ry of kosmos- men in thought and action against God's Sent-One. There is also the story of men from the ko smo s who in faith answer God's address . This i s the real stuff of John's "concept" which he usually si gnals with koSJ'l".o s. To interpret John theologically is precisely to see this ko smos i n action i n the face of God's address. The Jews l Kosmos, therefore, is used t hroughout this chapter, even though t he t errr, itself does not occur in the data examined. 112 John ' s treatment of the Jews is the best example of the procedure o,itlincd ·above. They a.re "representatives of 'the world' in general which refu ses to respond to Jesus with faith. 112 they are merged with the world. In John's perspective The opposition of kosrnos-men to Jesus is r,~ost clearly and readily seen in the open opposition of the Jews. 3 r".ussner shows how the Christusgeschichte of John gives rise to this concentration on the Jews. He notes that the word kosmos increases in frequency as the confrontation of Jesus with the Jews grows more acute. ,·I'nat bee an in t,he Prologue as a non-recognition4 has developed into a 1 f ull-fledged hate. While the Jews are only a part of the kosmos , the s en se of kos~os over against God is especially sharp with respect to them. 5 "Die Geschichte der ersten Christenheit hat die Erfahrungen der Christusgeschichte nur weiterhin bestaetigt; gerade diese Erfahrungen duerften dem Ton, der bei Johannes auf dem Begriffe hoi Ioudaioi teilweise l iegt, die Faerbung gegeben haben. 11 6 Schlier shows that John is using the Jews as a type of kosmos-men. For instance , the whole kosmos which goes after Jesus (12:18) is really 2Rudolf Bultmann, Theology_ of the New Testament, translated by Kendr i ck Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1955), II, 5. 3Edwyn Ho sl0.{Tls , The Fourth Gospel, edited by Francis Noel Davey (London : Faber & Faber Ltd., 1947), p. 173. 4There ha s been much debate about John 1:11. Does it refer to the J ews, Christ 's ovm people, or the whole world, which belongs to Christ as his possession havin~ been made by him? The question cannot certainly ' the ~Jews appear as a paradigm . of the kosmos, no grea..,... be answered, but if difference r esults from either interpretation. 5Franz Mussner, ZOE (Muenchen: Karl Zink Verlag, 1952), p. 59. 6 I bi d ., p. 60. 113 the Jews, and the Jros:nos to v:hich Jesus hn.s openly shovm himself (18 :20) ac'.;ain is t he Jews . Schlier might also have mentioned that when the Jews demand a King for themselves, Jesus makes it clear that he is no king of this kosmos . The Jews are a paradigm of kosmos-men. The Pharisees and priests a re authoriti es and as such are designated the representative~- of ...L,'ne v...osm,os . Th• e crovrd 1· s ..."h e ko~~ ' not knowing wher e it belongs. · unknowing represen t a t·1 ve o f .,_h " e So much do the Jews appear under the Vie·.v of typical r epresentatives of the kosmos that when some have distanced themselves from the kosmos in faith they no longer appear as John the Baptizer, for ex.ample, does not really appear as a Jew, Jev:s. and Jesus himself speaks to the Jews of "your law. 11 7 7 ·Heinrich Schlier, "Welt und Mensch nach dem Johannesevangeliwn," P.es:i nnT)"' a l f rln_:i .Jeue. Tes7,;:i;nent (Frei burg: Herder, c .1964), II, 244. Gre~o:-y Bat:m, Is the New Test<1ment /J.nti- Semitic (Revised edition; Glen Rock , ifo ,; JE:rscy : Paulist Press, c.1965), has treated at some length the alleged anti- Semitism of John. He calls attention to the great abuse of John by ecclesiastical authors who were vlI'iting for and shaped by a given social or religious situation in a particular Christian community, but he insists that any anti-Semitism in John itself is only apparent and that to find John justification for any contemptuous attitudes toward the Je,..;ish people i s to misread John. He finds not anti -Semitism, but the juderr:ent of God on all that is wickedness, falsehood, hatred (pp. 136-138). Yet one can only wonder at Baum' s con_c lusion: "Whatever the reason for the Jewi3h ur,willineness to acc ept the Gospel today, it is certainly not the blindness or stubbornness that characterized the original conflict. Cons cious of t he development on both sides the Christian Church today can.~ot r egard itself, as it was able to 1900 years ago, as the fulfillment and continuation of J ewish religion. For this reason the Christian must learn to respect and honor contemporary Judaism not as a stage to Christianity, but a s an independent, though related religion existing in its own right 11 (p. 178 ). While the demand for historical ·perspective and understanding is necessariJ, Baum does not appear to view the problem t heologica.1.1y. Failing to interpret theologically, he has missed the solution to the-problem. To the extent that Jews or Christians or anyone else are ~ , they need to hear God address them in Jesus Christ. The question i s not whether Judaism is incomplete without modern ecclesiastical Christianity, but whether anyone is complete without answering God's questions addressed in Christ. vn1at is the ko smos-malady in John? Who of us still suffers from that malady? This is the approach to take. The problem may be that we want John to be neither anti-Semitic nor anti-kosmos! 114 Kosffio s Conversation Kosmo s thinkj_ng Az men come into dialogue with Jesus and converse with one another about Jesus , John pointedly shows what it means to be kosmos. The 1<osr;:os wants a guarantee before it believes. a losine cause . It will not risk Its cha racteristic posture is the demand for a sign. A:-:iazed at Jesus ' spring-temple-cleaning, they demand a sign which shall prove J esus • right to do this (2:18). With proper insurance and a no- risk guarantee , the ko smo s might have let Jesus get away ..rith anything. The ko..,m0s ho.d a good thing going with Moses, a guaranteed bread allowance from heaven. Willine to try a new prophet, the kosmos wants to know wha t inves tment the prophet demands (6 :28). Challenged outright to believe in Jesus 1·rhom God has sent, the kosmos wants a sign of good faith , an a ssurance of further performances (6:JO) and continued benefits. If the si8ns are present, the kosmos offers belief (2:23). The ko srrns wants full explanations to religious questions. Its quest for the how is actually a ..till to be master of its own situation. If the religious quest is reasonable and the results a sure thing, the kos~os is r eady to act . Confronted, however, with a Spirit as uncertain as the wind , the kosmos wants instead to find out how (J:9). Excited about food for the body, the kosmos misses Jesus I food for thought, and concerns itself with the how of getting a ma.n's flesh for food (6:52). The kosmos knows the facts .of life. The kosrnos knows .,what ·to ex- pect from Nazareth (1:46), how long it takes to build a temple (2:20). It knows a good meal when it smells one (6:26), and it knows how God will 115 and wil l not r a ise up the Messiah (7:27,41,52). The ko smos knows how God spoke t o if.oses and expects him to keep on speaking t hat way (8:29). It knows that the Chr ist will live forever and certainly not get involved in any l osing causes (12:34). The kosmos considers itself fully it knows his father Joseph (6:42); 8 it info rmed about J esus (7: 28 ); knows Jesus has not studied enough to speak so well (7:15); it knows wher e he came f rom (7: 27); it knows how much one can expect of a man of his age (8 :57 ). I n a ctual f act the kosmos cannot see beyond its own nose; it is hopel essly confused by the way things look to i ts crossed Judging a ccording to the flesh (8:15), the kosmo s concludes that eyes . J esus is a Samaritan and ha s a demon (8:48) or that he is mad and has a demon (10 :20 ), that he breaks the Sabbath and cannot be from God (9:16), that he is a sinner (9:24). Blinded i tself, the kosmos cannot see that because of J esus a bl ind man can see (9:18). The l-:os:ro.o s wants an apoealing prophet, its own kind of man. It l i kes someone it can underst and in its own terms and who asks_ for. simple approval as a kos:-nos- rr.an (5:44). The kosmos wants a man who will fit i n vrit h the kos~os , not challenge it, a man who will talk like a kosmosman and ask for recognit i on as a kosmos-man (7 :18). its Oi·m The kosmos values approval and assumes that any religious peddler will want to take out a license wit h it (7:4). 9 8Elsewhere the kosmo s is more sure of its own paternity (8 :41). 9Hoskyns, p. J ll, notes: "Their supreme misunderstanding l i es in their dist i nction between glorious and inglorious, bold and cowardly. There will be a publ ic ministry of Jesus in J erusalem • • • but it consists i n the nubli c eJ\.-oosition of the sin of the world and the provocation of i ts hatred·. • • . • There i s also a glorious display of power, but it consists i n secret obedience to the will of the Father and in the transmission of the truth to the disciples in private • • • and is displayed completely in the death of the Christ." 116 ° Called into ques- The ko.,:"'!1':)S has an intere st i n religion (5:39). 1 t ion by o. prophet f rom God and offered living water, the kosmos suggests &. fo1·ur., on the doct rine of worship (4:20). 11 The kos-:nos is scrupulous about l aw and fe els threatened when anyone tampers with the Sabbath (9:16).12 It wants t o squeeze its life from the law. It has turned God's Word into its own l aw and forced it to be the security for the religious life.13 The kosmos also love::; its kinship with Abraham and makes the most of it (8:JJ). 14 The r eligious leaders of the kosmos are absolutely certain that the best g1...ide s t o approved belief are religious leaders, who are in the know ( 7 :48 ). Just as surely the religious leaders know that the opinions of a man who has not mastered the niceties of canon law cannot be worth consicerinG (9 :34; 7:49). Indeed, the religious leaders like to run every new r eligious upstart through a colloquy (1:19-28) and occasionally; lORichard Voelkl, Chri st und Welt Nach dem Neuen Testament (Wuerzburg: Echter-Verl ag , 1961), p. 422, mentions the studies of EiTJnanuel Hirsch in whi ch he shows the J ews in John as representatives of that serious and zealous chur chlines s which "immer in Gefahr ist, seine Mitgliedskarte mit der Einlass karte in den Himmel zu verwechseln." llBult mann, Theology, II, 19, notes that in John l~:23 there is a he:1diadys which means t hat true worship of God is oolel.y such worship as i s br ought about by God's power and his own revealing of himself." 11 12voelkl, p. 425, notes: "die Selbstaendigkeit gegenueber Gott wirkt s ich i n der 'Ethik' aus, ~ Vertrauen auf die das Leben sichernde Gesetzerfuell ung • • • " 13Bult mann, Theol oeY, II, 27, remarks: "The decision that arises from t he will to exist of and by one's self perverts truth into a lie, perverts the creation into the world. For in their delusion men do not let their quest for life become a question ' about themselves so as to become av:are of t heir creaturehood, but instead they give themselves the answer so as to have a security of their own. They take the temporal for the ulti."?la te. 11 14voelkl, p. 424, compares the Jews who rely on their kira hip with Abraham and r efuse to do the works which belong to the new existence with the Gnostic Pneumatics, who have an inner-worldliness of self-justification resting not on works but on their special chosenness. 117 if necessar'J, offer one up on the altar of expediency (11:50). No man i s ,-10rth a t c.11ple, and sometimes one has to give up a prophet to save the est ablishment (11:48). Kosmos. religion is prepared to go all out, when necessary, to uproot improper religious attitudes and destroy upsetting r eligious figur es, but it is careful to do so without transgress i ns its o·wn canons (18 :28; 19:31). 1 5 The kosrr;os has a heart conditi on and is unaware of it. to know t he one whom the Father sends (1:10). It refuses It does not know the Father either (7:28 ; 16:J) and never did (8:55). The kosmos rather pre- fers t o define its spiritual condition in terms of the past: sons of Abraham, indebted to no one (8:33) and loyal disciples of Moses (9:28). Finall y , in a sudden stroke of spontaneous insight, the kosmos diagnoses its 01,m condit ion: i t has no ruler but Caesar (19:15). Even t he beli evers are not unaddicted to kosmos-thinking. Forgetting t hat J esus has food they do not even know of (4:32), Philip and Andrew speculate before the gathered five thousand how far two hundred denarii, l52ichard Loewe , Kosmos und Aion (Guetersloh: Verlag C. Bertelsmann, 1935 ), p . 61, notes that unlike the Greeks, the Jews should have been prepared by the Ol d Test ament for the New Testament dialectic between God and man : "der Grieche sucht Gott in der ewigen Welt, entwickelt ihn als inneF,roltliche I dee , der Jude weiss den ewigen Gott ueber der '\<!elt als deren Schoepfer, Lenker, Richter und Ziel. 11 But the Jews had hardened themselves f or their response into a p01·:erless nomism. 11 Die Waffe des Ka.11pfes und Protest es gegen die Verweltlichung wird zum Instrument der 1-iechan:i.sierung und Rationalis i erung der Gottesbeziehung, also wiederum einer Verweltlichung " (pp. 61-62). Loe,-1e continues {p. 62) that with such an att i t ude t hey damned the heathen and hurr.anized and externalized t hei r el ection-consciousness. As divine grace was more and more misunderstood i n separatist ic Judaism, the hope of a divine break-through was changed in t erms of a hu.ilan 11Wunschbilder und Welterneuerungstraeume, irrmer glu ehender i.11 Wuenschen und trotz aller Apokalyptik ferner von der Er kenntnis wirklicher 1 0ffenbarung. 111 Challen,,,ed to become free in their life in God 1 s world, they bound themselves more securely-taking offense at Jesus' new approach to the kos~os problem. 0 118 i'iYe loaves, and two fish will go (6:7-9). One the way to Bethany T'norr,as decides they should take things into their own hands, loyally join a lost cause, and die with Jesus (11:16). Before the Son of God who gives life to the ko smos, Martha worries about the odor of death (11:39). Later some who saw that Life would not admit it because they wanted to keep up their kosr.:os-reputation (12 :42-43). Certain that he knows what is pro- per, Peter denies Jesus the opportunity to wash his feet (13:8), then bl~steringly misses the point again and asks for a bath. Relying on i nner ( ko i:::nos ) strengths, he asserts he will lay down his life for Jesus' sake (13:37), but all he can do is lay dovm his confession of Christ for Peter 's sake (13:38; 18:17-27). ko~rr.os 0::1 its 01-m Meanwhile, he had thought to meet the terms by drawing his sword (18:10). Thomas' kosmos- mind cannot understand the way Jesus is going (14:5), and Philip thinks a vision of the Father would clear everything up (14:8). Just when the disciples claim to have everything figured out (16:29-30) Jesus warns tr.at their clear "belief" will soon turn to flight (16 :31-32). After the resurrection, Nary thinks the kosmos has :made off with the body of the Life-Giving Son (20:2), and Tho~as demands proof of the resurrection that will stand up in the kosmos .(20 :25). Ko swns misu..~derstandings Seeing everything with a closed mind in a closed world, kosmos-men cannot understand one who comes from the outside. terI:ls, the kosrnos cannot fail to misunderstand. Limited to its own The kosmos cannot dis- tinguish between a living body and a temple (2:20-21), wonders how the water of life can be dravm without a bucket and rejoices at the elililination of trips to the well (4:11-15), thinks being born from God's 119 resources will mean a return to the womb (3 :4) • 16 Symbols of life l i ved f r om Goel are l ost on the ko smos , which curves everythin~ in on ·. 17 itself . It is kosrnos-like to wonder how a man could be satisfied 1·rithout a trip to the store (4:32-33), and it is kosmos-thought to see i n Jesus O::'.lly free meals for life (6:34), wondering how he will do it ( 6: 52). The ko smo s cannot ir..agine how anyone could get beyond its reach and as sumes a journey to the Dispersion is as far beyond the local kosrr.os a s one could get (7:35). When Jesus says they cannot come along, kofrr.os- men decide he must be going to Sheol (8:22). In a moment of spl endid i rony , t he kosmos decides to call in Jesus' father as a witnes s, but cannot locate hirn (8:19). It turns out that they did not under stand which f at,her he was talking about (8 :27), which is not surprising i n view of the paternity Jesus suggests for them (8 :44). Jesus sucges t s that the kosmos misunderstands hirn because it does not care to heo.r God 's words (8 :43,47). The kosmos still does not understand and finds it highly ridiculous that Jesus should talk of life forever when even Ab:::-a.ha.'11 dies: who in the world does he think he is (8:52-53). 16c. K. Barrett, The Go snel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1965), p . 172, notes: 11 The novelty of John ' s thought when compared with Judaism is not accidental, since the point of this paragraph is to bring out the fact that the Old Testament religion and Judaism • • • is inadequate; it cannot move forward continuously into the Kingdom of God. A. moment of discontinuit y, comparable with physical birth, is essential. lfan as such, even the Israelite, is not by nature capable of the Kingdom of God. 11 Barrett continues that the unusual mention of the Kingdom of God may be John's "criticism of that Judaism which was content to await the miraculous vindication of Israel in the Kingdom of God and to ignore the necessity for inward conversion or rebirth" (p. 173). Finally, Barrett notes (p. 175) that the flesh-spirit contrast at John 3:6 is not a contrast between lower and higher, but between human nature as such and the divine action and its orbit. Each produces results corresponding to itself. 17c. H. Dodd, · The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1965), p. 304, suggests that kosmos-n1en think on a lower level of existence. '120 Completely b efuddled by a ma:1 whom they know to be under fifty, but claimin~ to have seen Abraham, the kosmo s decides that a good stoning is the final solution (8 :57-59). When Jesus describes two kinds of shepherds to t he JeHish religious leaders, they are unable to penetrate the obscurity of a parable pointed directly at them (10:6). The crowd cannot under- stand hot·1 a Christ who lives forever would ever disappoint them by sub-. mitting to being lifted up (12:34). They are twice wrong, knowing neither wha t Chr i st must do for them nor what the crucifixion means for them. Kosmos Action Chall enged by the Sent-One from God, who addresses God's questions to t hem and calls their present existence into question, the kosmos first balk::; a nd then, like a bull before a red flag, .~charges into frenzied action . In the Prologue Jesus' ovm situa t i on then becomes explicit. cause i t does evil (3:~9). people do not receive him (1:11). The The kosmos prefers darkness to light be- The kosmos, which has turned religion into a pr ofit-~aking (fund-raising) enterprise (2:16), seeks to kill Jesus because God could not possibly be like what Jesus claims to be (5:18). This is the signifi.cant point in the Jews' rejection: not that Jesus blasphemes and blasphemers must be killed, but that if Jesus is right t hat God personally sent him, then their ideas about God have been complet ely ,...rrong . \foo have they been worshipping all this time? It will be ea sier to put Jesus out of the way than to answer that question. \vben the kosmo s is not trying to kill Jesus for calling the kosmos into question before his truth (7:1; 8:37,40), it tries forcibly to make Jesus into kosmos, insisting that he be king of the kosmos (6:15). The presence 121 of Jesus again and again drives the J<0smos to action. The kosrr.os- J.eaders try to arrest Jesus when there is danger he may gain a following (7:32; 11:57; 10:39); they plot to kill Jesus (11:53); they threaten eA-pulsion from the Synagogue to followers of Jesus (9 :22) and they plan to kill Lazarus (12:10); kosmos-men try to stone Jesus (8:59; 10:Jl). Je sus has e;.__yect ed all t his , for he knows the kosmos wants to do the devil ' s desir es (8 :4h ); he warns his disciples that the kosmos will persecute them just as it persecuted him (15:20,2.3,24). To excommunicate ar.d kill t he followers of God's Sent-One will seem a religious service (16 :2) , liltimatcly the kosmos eoes into action by seizing and binding Jesus (18 ; 12 ) · scoureing, crowning with thorns, mocking, and striking him (19 :l - J ) ; demanding hi s death rather than that of Barabbas (18:40); cr,rine for his crucifiY.ion (19:6,15); and finally nailing him to the cross (19 :18 ). Even then they want it made clear to all that this man cocs not represent the kosr.:os (19:21)! Let this prophet speak for him- se:i.f and die for himself, not the establishment. With a last effort the kosmos t akes from Jesus the only thing he has that is worth something to t he kosmos , his clothes (19:23-24). Kos~os and Non-Kosmos Personified In this section two characters are examined who, it is usually thought, play very different roles from those considered here. ¥.ia.ny scholars believe that John's portrait of John the Baptizer is a polemic against followers of the Baptizer around 100 A.O. and that Joh.'1 uses Pilate a s a foil to show the guilt of the Jewish leaders. Neither agreement nor disagreement with these considerations is intended--onl.y a look at these two figures in a different light. 122 Pil ate is kosmos- man in bondage to the kosmos: unable to reach a f ree decision. trapped, hemmed in, He sees his future closed. risk hi msel f ,·n.thout some guarantee, and he is afraid. He cannot He wants to do anything t o avoid making a decision and getting more deeply involved in the very ko srr.os- bondage which he epitomizes. As soon as the Jews bring Jesus, Pilate tells them to take him away and judge him b;>' their own l aw (18:.31). Cynical about Je'tn.sh politics and angry over beinc disturbed, Pilate sceptically asks if Jesus is a Kine ( 18 :33 ). Convinced that there is no Truth in the kosmos and enslaved because no Truth has freed him, Pilate dismisses Jesus• vn.tness to him 'l·:ith a rhet orical question (18 :.3.3-.38). Finding no crime, and anxious to be out of his predic~7.ent, Pilate suggests Barabbas as an exit, putting more confidence in kosrr.os-decision than it deserves (18:.39-40). Losing his first round , Pilate then fails in his chance to act in an un-ko smos wa;:r-he gives in and has Jesus scourged (19 :1). Still proclaiming Jesus 1 innocence Pilate presents him to the Jews, guessing this sight vn.11 satisfy their thirst f or blood (19:4). ko 3,1'los . Pilate has again underestimated the A little blood is not enough and they cry, 11 Crucify him 11 (19:6). Pilate has no room to move in his kosmos-situation and in a feeble effort to extricate himself, he attempts to pass his responsibility to the Jews (19: 6). They pass it back to him with good measure, adding another charge (19:7). decision facing him. Now Pilate is more afraid at the weight of the What if this is ~.supernatural being? 11 Who knows 123 i n what fom. di vi:i.ity might confront one? 1118 Now he needs a sign, a cuare.ntee , so t hat he can be sure as he makes his decision: he asks J esus the same quest ion the Jews asked, "Where are you from" (19:9). When Jesus offers no prop fo r his decision Pilate becomes angry and desperate. In a classic over statement he claims to have power over Jesus' life (19:10). Pi l at e han in fact no power over anything, especially over his o,·m kosmossituation . Anger ed at the Jei rs for crowding him into this bad situation, Pilate agai n tries to release Jesus, still putting off an absolute decision (19 :12). Confronted with a direct threat to his standing with his kosmossuper i or s , Pilate succumbs. With a last feeble attempt to thumb his nose at the ko::;mos , which has him secure in its grasp, he presents Jesus t o the J ews as King- neither he nor the Jews being remotely aware that t hey are bandying about the Lord over the kosmos. Finally, Pilate gives J esus up t o the kosmos (19 :6), and himself as well, for he has been unable t o be anything but kosmos . In a final effort to scoff at the petty people who have forced hi m into this predicament, Pilate insists on placarding J esus as King of the Jews (19:19,22), not realizing that it is not he over aeainst the J ews and their king, but he and the Jews in the same kos.no s- situat i on over against Jesus. John t he Bapt iz er, non- kosmos-man John i s the ex.ample of the non-kosmos response. pendent status. He claims no inde- He proclai ms not himself, but only witnesses to God's 18Rudolf Bul tmann, Das Evangeli um ~ Vandenhoeck & Rupr echt, 1956 ), p. 512. Johannes (14 Auflage; Goettingen: 12l~ action . All n:an ' s accor.1plishments come through the Logos. John is thus He is sent from God (1:6) and lives to bear witness (1:7) not to himself; for :ie is not the Lis ht (1:8 ), but to him who ranks before him and is before him (1:15). Uninterested in personal claims (1:20), John only calls attention to another, the Lamb of God (1:29), before whom Jor.n is utterly um·rorthy (1:27). Like the kosmos John does not know Jesus (J:?.9 ,33), out ,-,nen he sees (1:32,34) he witnesses that this is God 1 s Son (1 :34) . (1 :31). Throu~h John's witness Jesus is to be revealed to Israel Instead of r ejecting God's Sent-One and preferring to witness to hinself and t o rouse the kosmos to do away with this un-ko smos man, John sees, believes, and points to Jesus. John's whole posture speaks as eloquently as his 1·10rds when he tells his disciples, No one can receive a:-iythine except what is given him from heaven--a. reversal of kosmosthinking which finds itself complete (3:27). filment in another, God's Son. John rather finds his ful- John is only the friend of the groom (3:29 ). He rej oices at this breaking in of the new, rather than preferring the old . Freed from kosmos- thinking, John finds it natural that he should decrease and the Christ should increase (3:30). Jesus reminds the kosmos t}1at John .,,.ritnessed not to his o,m reputation but to the Truth (5:33). Kosmos Antitheses Throughout John men are making the response to God's address in his Son which the kosmos _refuses to make. Such figures highlight the inept- ness of the kosmos-response and further define, by negation, what it means to be kosmos . Already in the Prologue appears the typically un-kosmos response. 125 Those who beli~ve are born from God's will, not from flesh and blood or 19 from men ( 1 : 13) • Unlike ko smo s-men with eyes riveted to their o;,m reputation, these have Jazed at the doxa of the Logos (1:14). Sorr.etir.le s lost in chapters 1-12 are the men who answer by believing J esus who comes ai11ong them. 20 Two disciples hear John I s testimony and 19 It is important to note that nothing evil is here predicated of men . The point is that alone man is incomplete, insufficient, and needs to live from God , not from himself. 20 ... 3ultmann, 'T'heo] oe,v, II, 86, calls faith desecularization, devachi..ent l·:ithin the \·rorld from t he world . Voelkl, n. 438, notes that a .L ' ...., l1ough for both John and Paul Sntweltlichnne is faith, • for Paul f aith is cc,,t.rasted with L;OOd works and self-tru::it and for John, it is contrasted \·:.:.th Jc~w:i_sh and Gnostic t heoloeY and means knowing. For both faith is the recoc ni tion of Goct I s action for salvation. For both love is an essential wcapo:. i n t.ne Chri::;tian arsenal, and their ethic is not world-fleeing nor ascetic . One m:i.ght question Voelkl's di stinction between Pauline and Johannine faith . If for John faith is seeing oneself as creature by seei r.g God ' s creative action i n Jesus Christ, this will mean giving up tryi::1g to live on one 's own, trying to find religious security through lawmeni pulation. This does not appear far distant from Paul's concern that rr.en do no:, 1:1anufacture their standing before God by reliance on good works. Voelkl discus ses the believer's victory over the kosmos through fai.th (!) . 430 ). He notes that faith and love work together in overcoming 1,;orldliness (p . /+JO ). Above all, the believer's fight is against innerworldliness (p . 431 ). But this does not come through cultivation of the etni cal l ife, thro~gh Stoi c virtues , through Hellenistic civic ideals. "Der Siee ueber dj_e 'tlelt ist ••• grundsaetzlich errungen und muss doch irrt-:ier 1·r ieder errungen werden im Glauoen, in der Liebe und auch in der Hoffnung . In seinem Kaeir,pfen und in seiner Ueberlegenheit darf sich der Christ :niemals der ' Welt' anBleichen, d.h . vor allem, er muss in Liebe ueberleg en sein, gruendet doch sein Sieg ueber die Welt in der Gemeinschaft mit <iam Gott, der die Liebe ist und der die Welt geliebt hat" (p. 437). Alf Corell , Consum.mat um est: EschatoloBY and Church~ the Gospel 21. §i. ~ , translated by The Order of the Holy Para clete (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958 ), pp. 128-132, summarizes his study of pisteuo in John and 1 John . Faith is a work of God (1:12; 6:44; 1 John 5:1,4). Faith i s kindled throucrh the words of Jesus (4:41; 8:30), the works of Jesus ( 2 :23 ; 4:53; 6:36 ; 10:38; 14:11), the words of the disciples (4:39; 7 :38; 17 :20; 19:35 ). Faith's content is the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (16:27; 17:8; 20:31; 1 John 3:23; 5:5). Faith gives eternal life to men (.3:16,36 ; 6:47; 7:39; 11:40; 1 John 5:13). Unbelief i s sin (3:18; 5:37; 8 :24; 9:L~l; 10:38; 14:9). Faith has great possibilities in the new life (14:12-13 ). 126 follow (1:37); Andrew r ejoices at finding the Messiah (1:41) and brings his orother Peter t o Jesus (1:42). Philip finds Nathanael and tells him he has found him of whom Mo ses and the prophets wrote (an exactly opposite respons e from the J ews who used religious books to protect themselves from God ' s address to them) and asks him to come and see (1:46) • • athanael confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, the King of Israel (1: 50 ), although the Jews found Jesus the negation of all they held dear. ·,·.1r,en J esus r.i.anifests his doxa the disciples, not coui-1.t.ing their own ~ important, believe (2:11). He who answers J esus' call gets new life from above (J:J), of water and the Spirit (J :6 ). 21 By contra st, the kosmos recognizes nothins beyond itself , The believer does what is true, comes to the light (J:21), and sets his seal that God is true by receiving Jesus (J:JJ). Believing, he has real life--eternal life (3:36). Those ,1ho ans....,er God I s call in Jesus cease fighting over getting God into their establishment and worship him in spirit and truth (4:23). And J esus abides 1·rit h them (4:39-42). The official does not ask for Jesus ' credentials, but believes him and goes his way (4:50). The man sick for thirty-eight years asks not for a certificate from the Synagogue, a how or a 1·; hy, but takes up his pallet and walks (5:9). To the crowd which gathers, Jesus says that the believer hears his word and sees that God sent hi..--:i (5:24). The healed man sees that Moses pointed to Jesus as I srael 's fulfillment (5:46). The only real 1·10:rk of God is believing in Jesus whom God sent 21Barrett , p. 173, notes that in the Corpus Hermeticum 13, the puzzled disciple inquiring about rebirth learns that the will of God acts as Father, the saed is the true Good, and the mother is the Wisdom of the Hind. (The disciple gets cosmology, not proclamation?) 127 (6:20 ); all who are taught of God come to Jesus (6:45), eat the living bread he offers , and live for ever (6:51). The disciples do not wish to return to bein8 kosmos , for Jesus has the words of eternal life (6:68). The bel iever f ollows J esus and thereby avoids the darkness (8:12); he knows J esus and t he Father (8 :19). Continuine in Jesus' words, he knows t he truth and i s set f ree by it (8:31-32). The blind man responds with- out question t o J e::::us ' command (9:7) ; he believe.s (9:38) and confesses t hat this mnn is f rom God (9:30-34). The believers are like sheep who hear the shepherd's voice (10:27); they k:-iow Jesus i s the Son of God (11 :27) and that what he asks from God will be gr a nted (11 :22). Even from afar, men come seeking Jesus (12:21). All ,·rho hat e their fo rmer kosmos-life receive eternal life (12:25); they serve and follo1·1 J esus (12:26) and do not remain in darkness (12:46). Long before Isaiah saw J esus' glory and spoke of him (12:41)-in marked contrast t o those who now manipulate the sacred writings in defense of the stat us quo. I n chapters 13-17 is descri bed the intense kind of life lived out o f God . EverJthing t hat the kosmos is not and needs to become, this circle of beli ever s is or can be , as they live from the Father. They are r eady hurably to wash one another's feet (13 :14) and to love one another in imitation of their }{aster (13:.34). Truly knowing the Fa- ther a s they have knovm the Son (14:7), they will be able to do the wondrous works that only come from God (14:12). They love Jesus, keep his conunandments (14:15),22 know the Spirit and experience his indwelling 22voelkl, p. 418, notes that love to God and Jesus documents itself i n keeping the corranandments, whi ch action is "die Hingabe des Geschoepfes an seinen Schoepfer und damit die Absage an jeden Eigenwillen." The , 128 (14 :17) • U:nl:i.ke the kosmos , the believers will see Jesus beyond the crucifixion and w:i.11 live as he does (14:18). loving him, they will see hi s manifes tation, the manifestation denied to the kosmos (14:21). Indeed , the Fa t her and the Son will make their home with the believers (14 :23) and the Spirit will teach them all things (14:26), reminding t hem always of Jesus, who leaves his peace with them (14:27). Cleansed by J esus' wo;:-d (15:J), the believers bear fruit as they l ive in Jesus (15 :1.), and this fruit abides forever (15:16). Their joy ,·:a l be f ull because it will be Jesus• joy in them (15:11; 17:13), a joy t he kosrms cannot t ake away (16 :22). love one another (15:12). Sharing Jesus• love, they will They are fortunate to have come to lalow all that Jesus bri nes them from the Father (15:15; 16:25), and they lalow that all he brine s them is from the Father (17:7-8). The whole l i f e of the believers is a witness to him who has been their l i f e (15:27), and the Spirit aids them (15:26), guiding them into all t r-~th (16 :13). in J esus (16:33). Though troubled in the kosmos they will have peace They will find eternal life as they know of the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (17:J). They are made one with the Father t hrough tha t oneness which exists between Jesus and the Father (17:11). They are kept f rom the evil one (17:15) and sanctified in the truth (17:17). As Jesus has given them the doxa he received from the Father in order that they may be one in the oneness of Father and Son (17:22), so one day they will be with him eternally to behold his doxa (17:24). The very love the Father had for the Son shall live in the believers, even as Jesus lives in them (17:26). All their lives the believers may believer has turned from the world of "geistig-willentliche Eigenma.echtigkeit des Menschen." Ultimately, Voelkl shows (p. 421), the Jews responded in the opposite way: murder not faith was their answer to God's address. 129 sho.re t heir Jo:r by '!;ringing it to the kosmos , for Jesus sends the:n 1 1 n to +11 " e ~·o-....,,..," ~ ~' .., eve n c,.S the Father sent him (20:21). alone, however, but with the Holy Spirit (20:22). / They go not CHAPTER V KOSHOS IN JOHN: JESUS A ND THE KOS1t.OS No comprehensive Johannine Christology is presented in this chapter, nor n.re the munerous problems connected with John's presentation of Je:ms taken up. Instead, the komnos is eY..amined in its relation to Jesus because the Incarnation focuses the ko smos over against God, ex.a.mines and addresses it, defines it by antithesis, shows its fundamentally wrong situation, complete s it, saves it, judges it. 1£>gos, Sent-One, Savior The logos1 has been from the beginning, has been ~Tith God, and is , thorouGh discussion of the 111.ogos problem" is Biven in C. H. Dodd, 1;~~4nterprE!_t~tio.n of the Fourth Gosnel (Cambridge: University Press, l,io) J, pp . 26.3- 285; The mo::;t important meanings of logos in Greek are 11 11 thouGht and 11,,:ord, 11 which are not distinct as they are in other languages. 11 1 :·!ord: is t hat determined by a rr.eaning and conveying a meaning; 11 thought 11 is a:1 articulate unity of thought capable of intelligible utterance. In the Septuagint I.Dgos al.1.ost always renders davar, which is God's word of revelation to men . Revelation is considered under the analogy of speaking and hearine, as distinct from vision. Logos i :1 John may be words; a saying, statement, or discourse; a collecti ve for t he whole of what Jesus said (the word uttered with its meaning or rational thought--john considers the uttered words of Christ to have l ife- giving power); or the Word of God as self-revelation to men. In Christ the Logos has become incarnate. Is the logos to be translated word and the entire conception to be understood in terms of Hebraic thought or has logos a sense approximating the Stoic rational principle as developed in Philo? Deriving from Hebraic thought the Logos v.rill be that which God's utterance (in Genesis) brought into being and which exists substantively, mediating creative power. This word existed with God and was distinguishable from him. This word i s light or revelation in all of creation. T'nis word came through Hoses and the prophets to Israel, and Israel rejected it, though a faithful rem...~ant received it. With the word become flesh is associated the typically Hebrei·r 11glory 11 of the Lord. The orderly progression of thought may then be: 11By the word of the Lord all things were made. It was manifested in the world as life and as the light of revelation, which is open to m, _ ....A . - 131 God , Through t he Lo~os God brought the kosmos into being; in the Logos God has ah,ays been in the kosmos, addressing the ko srnos; now as the logos beco:nes fl esh, God uniquely and ultimately addresses the koSli1os, every man born . But mankind as a whole failed to recognize the word of God . He then sent his word to Israel through the prophets, but again Isr ael rejected t ne wor d, apart from a faithful remnant, to whom the word of C-od gave the r ight t o sonshi p. Finally, the light which is the word of_C~ci Has fo cused i n an indi vi dual who was not one of a community of ch_lQren of God , but his unique Son, monorrenes para uatros " (n. 272). 1·fithout great difficul t y the Logos doctrine can be interpreted from Hebraic thou,:ht- ex cept for two propositions: theos en ho logos and ho logos ~ egeneto , T:1e Loco s usage may derive from the Wisdom literature as well, since t},ere are so many s i gni fi cant parallels. Logos may resemble the concept of '.·!iscom, the hypostatized thought of God projected in creation and remaininp, as an immanent power within the world and in man. \-lhile the Inca: nat i on i s indi sputably unique, in the 'Wisdom literature there is a ;r,a trix fo r t he cor..ception: ho logos ~ egeneto. Dut i·rhat of t h~ en ho l ogos ? Philo may clarify this usage. Any :·eader of John who belonged to that age would find inevitably suggested in John ' s Logos the Philonic conception of the "meaning, plan or purpose of the universe , conceived as transcendent as well as immanent, as the thought of God , formed wi thin the eternal Mind and projected into objectivity " (p . 277). Only in Greek has a term been available meaning both thought and word . 11 The ambiguity which (from our point of view) enters into the Johannine conception of the Logos could be understood if we assumed that the author started from the Jewis h idea of the Torah as being at once the Word of God and t he divine Wisdom manifested in creation, and found, under the guidance of Hel lenistic J ewish thought similar to that of Philo, an appropria t e Greek expres sion which fittingly combined both ideas" (p. 278). It may be ob ject ed that nowhere else is logos used in a Philonic s ense . But John deals with cosmology only in the Prologue. Elsewhere the Logos is not merel y ut tered word, but word with rational content. The use of symbolism and especially alethinos implies a metaphysic not unlike that of Philo. Christ is spoken of as Son of Man, which may replace the Philoni c usage of Logos since the emphasis is on God's mediation t o ~ - A Logos-doctrine similar to that of Philo, then, is present throughout t he Gospel and the Prologue usage falls readily into place in the r e st of John. The opening statements of the Prologue, then, may be saying that the Logo s is 11 the rational pri nciple in the universe, its meaning , plan or pur pose , conceived a s a divine hypostasis in which the eternal God is r eveal ed and active" (p. 280)--suggesting associations with the Old Testament Word of the Lord, Stoicism modified by Philo, and the Wisdom literat ure . The I ncarnat ion is prepared for "in the thought of the logos inlmanent 5.n man, as the equivalent of the divine, essential humanity, a1ethinos ant hropos , a s well as in the doctrine of that divine Wisdom who, passing 132 Pollar d insists that t he eP,eneto (1:3) is not cosmological, but the meaning is : Everythi ng happens through him. The logos is the into holy souls, makes them to be f riends of God and prophets , t he Wisdom ,,,;-:i ch , like be Logos here, 'tabernacles' wit h men" (p. 281). Jor.n l :9- 13 may be predi cated of t he pre-incarnate logos and mean t:iat t:ie divine Wisdom pervading t he wor ld was unr ecognized except by a f ew. "If this be the intention of verses 9-11, then the incarnation of the I..o.:;os appears as the final concentration of the whole creati ve and reveo.Jing t.hou6ht of God , which i s al so the meani ng of the univer se, in an :;ndividual ·.-,ho is ·.'lhat hurr:anity was de signed t o be in the divine purpose, ar:d therefore is r ightly called the ' Son of Han,' that i s to say, ~')- <'~Jt.0'.nos ;, nt.ht,or,o ~" (p . 282). But verses 11-13 might j us t as well refer t.o t:- e incarnate L:>gos , who comes t o hi s own peopl e, the Jews, who co :1ot r eceive Mm . Those who do r eceive him become his children a nd adhere to hL~ (as t he Christian Church). Indeed, verses 9-10 might also just as well refer to t he incar nate logos. In fact, the historical ministry of Je sus could be pushed back through verse 4, so that only verses 1- 3 refo r to the pre- inca:-nate logos. Thi s is improbable since a Hellenistic .:i.dclressee would ha ve no clue to interpret these verses thus unti l :-1e rc:achcd 1 : 11+. Yet John n:.:i.y be written on t wo levels. The solution may lie in the fact tha t t he .k>gos became ~ · "The life of Jesus therefore is the history of the L:>gos , as incarnate, and this must be, upon the stage of 1~"11:.ted time, t he same t hi ng a s the history of the logos in perpetual relations witn men a!'.ld t he world . Thus not only verses 11-13, but the whole passage f~om ver s e 4, is at ~ an account of the relations of the i.o 6os with the world , and an account of the ministry of Jesus Christ, which in every essent ial par t icul ar reproduces these relations" (p. 284). Suc:1 double s ignificance is qt;i'.:.e characterist ic of John I s method. The sip,nificant point, wnich di sti nguishes John from Philo and all other cosmologists, i s t hat the eternal logos is apprehended on the basis of tr.at life which is r ecorded i n the Gospel-not otherwise. Tha t life ex::iresses i,;hat the eternal t hought of God is, what the meaning of the universe is. John starts no t wi th cosmology but with f aith in Jesus, "which involves the recognition t hat t he meaning which we find in Him is the meaning of the whol e uni verse--that, in fact, that which is i ncarnate in H:ira is the logos . • • • Only he who knows God in Jesus Christ knows what the .k>gos is, by which the world was made" (p. 285). Unlike the Gnostic, who sets out to communicate cosmology as the way to knowledge of God , John is saying: "Let us assume that the cosmos exhibits a divine meani ng which constitutes its reality. I will tell you w:iat that meaning i s: i t was embodied in the life of Jesus, which I wil l now describe " (p. 285). One may conclude , t hen, that "the Prologue is an account of the life of J esus under t he form of a description of the eternal logos in relations with t he world and with man, and the rest of the gospel an account of t he loeos under the form of a record of the life of Jesus; and the proposition ho l ogo s ~ egeneto binds the two together, being at the same t:irae the f i nal expression of the relation of the logos to man 133 i,; ediator of all God ' s activity ad extra. This places Christ not in a co sr..oloci cal setting but in the widest possible setting as the ll,ediator of all God ' s acti vity toward the kosmos. emphasis of John itself . 2 J erve..... ; 13 'na s This, after all, is the s hown t·na t a Red eemer4 who ca11s t h e kosmos his own po ssession is i n di rect contradiction to Gnostic thought. ~ The use of r esults f rom creation, and here the Creator and Redeemer are inseparably linked.5 a!ld his wor ld , and a s\unmary of the significance of the life of Jesus" ()) . 285) . John fills in with concrete detail the Weltanschauung of the Prologue present in barest outline. 2T. Evan Pollard, "Cosmoloe,y and the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel, 11 \ i ''.i1:i,1.e Cf,-risti anae , 12 (1958 ), 147-153. Pollard finds an emphasis on the co - eternity of God and t he Word in verses 1-2; the Word mediating all God ' s activity, verse 3; the work of the Word revealinB God to men, ver ses 4ff . He ment i ons l:lOb only in passing. One rr~ght note that God's first action a d ~ was the creation of the kos:r.os . It would, then, seem difficult to eliminate any creation idea from the epeneto in 1 :3. But Pollard's point is still important: throughout history God has continued to move toward the kosmos in the LoGo s ; in ~act , all his ruovement toward the kosmos has been through the Loi;o s. 7 3Jacob J ervell, "Er kam in sein Eigentum," Studia Theologica, 10 ( 19 56 ) , 14-27. 4Richard Vo elkl, Christ und Welt Nach dem Neuen Testament (Wuerzburg: Echter - Verlag , 1961 ), p. 395, remarks that the Incarnation of the Redeemer i n Gnost i cism is not itself a revelation which addresses man here and now and enlightens, but onl y a cosmic occurrence. The Gnostic Redeemer is no historical person at all, but the "Urmensch, der streng genommen nicht sei nen Leib und sein F'leisch, sondern das Fleisch ueberhaupt traegt." Ee does not r edeem man where he is, but collects the scattered particles of l ight, l eads them upwards and away, and frees their real selves. 5voel kl, p. 394, notes: "Nicht erst als Erloeser, sondern auch als Schoepfer bring er diese Erkenntnis. Die Schoepfung ist daher urspruenglich verstaendlich in dem Sinne, dass der Mensch um seinen Schoepfer wissen, dessen Anspruch an ihn erkennen und sich als Geschoepf verstehen kann . 11 Voel kl follows Bultmann in insisting that John will admit of nothing but a creatio £2£ nihilo. nudolf Bultmann,~ Evangelitun ~ Johannes (14 Auflage; Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), p. 20, 134 As t he dra1:>.a of John develops, the emphasis shifts to the Logos as God ' s \ 'ord of addre ss to the ko smos, the personal Word, Jesus Christ, the So 1 of God, ~ t by God. 6 Himself love, life, light, and truth come into t he \·rorld, Jesus is the witness that there ~ t ies \·;hich do not take their origin from God. _none of these reali- God addresses men and calls t hem to r~nge themselves on the side of the realities embodied in Jesus 7 or agai nst t hem. While the Jews are frequently represented as sitting i n j udgment on t he Sent-One, they are far from being his judges. They are in f act on tri al in his presence. 8 Welcome would be the proper res;,onse t o Jesus , i f the ko mno s followed the origin of its being. 9 Yet t he kosn:os does not care to welcome Jesus, but rather takes offense at h:i.Jn , A s t he kosrnos exists from Nothing, "the encounter with the Re- vealer calls i nt o question whether this existence-from-Nothing is exist ence a t all. 1110 a s sert~ on John 1:3: "ueber das Wie und Wann aber fehlt jede Reflex.ion. Das e::cn('lto i st reiner Audsruck des Schoepfungsgedankens und schliesst den s.i.anationsgedanken ebenso aus wie die Vorstellung von einer urspruengl ichen Dualita et von Licht und Finsternis und von der Entstehung der Welt a us ei nem traeischen Zusam.~enstoss dieser beiden Maechte. Ausgeschlossen i st auch die gr i echische Ans chauung, die die Welt aus der Korrelation von Form und Stoff begrei f en will; die Schoepfung ist nicht die Ordnung einer chaot i schen Materie, sondern die katabole kosmou (17:24), creatio ~ nihilo , 11 0 That J esus i s God's own emissary is clearly shown by the continually recurr ing u sages of anostello and pempo. John uses these verbs about f i fty t irnes as an official designation of Jesus. 7R, H. Lightfoot, St, John's Gospel, edited by C. F. Evans (London: Ox ford University Press, 1966), p. _118. 8 I b" ' ..:....19.·, p. 130 • 9;...Q1_., r · d p. 83. lORudolf Bul t mann, Theology of the New Testament, translated by Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1955), II, 23. 135 . . Sent -One is called ~ Onc e .vne (4:42; compare 1 John 4:14) • :·.'hile fo ;.~ t he Old Te0tament this title has the sense of deliverer and fo r Hcl l e!1istic thou[;ht it is a common title of pagan gods, it seems best t o fo lloi·l Dodd' s conclusion that since John offers no explanation, the r eader is left to eather from the tenor of the work as a whole in wha t sens e J esus is Savior. 11 What the soter tou kosmou means for t he ko8~os will become clearer in subsequent sections of this chapter. Lifc--Death Cor ell concludes from his study o f ~ in John: l ife ,.,_· s God or C'nr i· st (1·4· . ' 5·26· . ' 1 John 5·11 . , 20) . (1) The origin of Zoe is not opposed to pr.ysical life , but it is life in its perfection, including physical life. There is onl y one life, the life given in creation. 11Doci.d , I nt0rpret ation, pp. Birth from above, 238-239. &iwyn Hoskyns, 'i'he Fourth Qos~ l , edited by Francis Da vey (Londo~: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1947), p. 248, insists tha t soter i s not mer ely borrowed from Hellenism, but shows John's capacit y fo r crystallizi ng the Christian tradition into a short and pregnar.t phrase . Such a phr a se ha s its roots in the earlier Christian tradit ion . Freidr i ch Buechsel, Johannes und der helleni stische Synkretismus (Gueter sloh : Dr uck und Ver lag von C. Bertelsmann, 1928), pp. 44-45, notes the comr.:on occ~r r ences of sot er in Hellenism (Zeus, Asclepius, and Apollo ,·rnre so called ; Eg'J Pt ian royalty and Roman ceasar cultists used it as a t itle; Isis, Osi r is, Ser apis wer e so called; it belongs to the general t!eilanc:s,·rar tung a s i n Vergil I s Fourth Ecologue), but concludes that the content of John I s usage necessar i ly places ~ in a Jewish context. 11Auch bei i hm wi rd hinter dem soter das alttestamentliche-juedischen goel stehn. Aber er wird da s i'lor t mit der Absi cht brauchen, dass die 'Griechen' in J esu die Erfuellung ihrer Heilands-erwartung finden" (p. 46). One should f irst, of course, speak of t he Samaritan expectations. C. K. Barrett,~ Gosoel Accordin!" to St. tTohn (London: SPCK, 1965), p. 204, believes John's t er:ninology is dr-;:--mfrom Hellenistic usage, but that he has in view the Old Testament concept ion of and hope for salvation, as well as the primitive Chr istian concepti on that the hope was fulfilled in Jesus. Through J esus God wills to save the world. 11 This is not a rank enjoyed by him i ndependent l y of his action in obedience to God's will. In the Old Test ament God is characteristically a God who saves his people •• " 136 for exam;)le, j_s the r ealization and fulfillment of created life. is a continuity between created life and redeemed life. given in Ci1rist ( 5 :21 ; 10 :10,28 ; 17:2; 1 John 4:9). cept th1·0u,1h Chri st. 6 :40, 47) . There (2) Life is T'nere is no life ex- (3) Life is given to those who believe (J:15,36; (4 ) Thos e who do not possess life are given over to death (5 :24; 8 : 51; 1 John J:14 ; 5:16). Death is not considered over against i mmo:.· tality, for neither athanasia nor auht ha rsi a are used in John. Zoe is not a metaphysical or philosophical term but a purely theological one. ( 5) Jesus is the light, water , and bread of life; he is thus the necessity without which there can be no life. t o the present nor the fut ure. Zoe as eternal is limited neither Zoe appears to be present (J:36; 6 :47; 5 :40; 6:JJ; 10:10, 28; 17:J), future (14:19; 5:29; 12:25), either present or ~uture (6 : 51, 57; 12:50; 1 John 2 :25), both present and future (11:25, 26; 5 :24,25 ). Zoe i s not spi ritual life contra physical life, but life. contra death , a ccording well with life both present and future. As the resurrection of Chri st links inseparably his earthly life and glorified life , so the Christian lives an eschat ological life, possessed in the present and fulfi lled i n t he future. 12 Dodd has noted that t he word aioni os, used so frequently with zoe, is qualitative13 and t hus is applied to life already. 14 ~ The thought of is never t he abstract static quality of Greek or Hellenistic nwsticism, 121i.1r Corell, Consurnrnat um est: Es chatology a nd Church in the Gospel by The Order of the Holy Paraclete °{New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958 ), PP• 140-143. 2£ St . John, translated 13nodd, Internretation, p. 149. 14Ibi<l ., pp. ll.?-148. 137 ou!; Hchraic a ction, rwvemcnt , and enjoyment. 1 5 Such a life is indeed accessible- here and no,·r, though it implies for its fulfillment an order of existence beyond space and time. 16 In contrast t o ~ is the condition of the kosmos, to which Jesus must brin13 ~ · The antithesis is not primarily to be seen in apothnesko, n~i..~·os , or t r:s>na.tos . Generally, these words refer to a physical death, as of Laz~rus or the official's son, though they take on theological significance when it is said that Jesus must die (12:33; 18:14,22; 19:7), is raised f rom t he dead (2:22; 20:9; 21:14), and that the Father raises from the dead and gives life (5:21). No doubt there is also a theologi- c::tl pofot t o the fact t hat the f a thers who ate manna in the wilderness died , while Jesus offers a life-giving bread (6:49-51). The real contrast, however , is between the~ which Jesus brings and the existence out of no thing:ncso i·:hich now characterizes the kosmos. seeks its life from God," the Creator of life. The kosmos no longer Jesus gives to the kosmos the l ife originally given in creation, the life from which the kosmos r.ad t urned away to its own emptiness. Schlier notes that the kosrnos had ente::--ed on a s elf-powerful and self-lording existence, which had dragged ~t into nothingness. This self-chosen existence has torn kosrnos-man away from the reality of life made certain through the logos, who already was in the beginning . John further develops this picture in terms of darkness and falsehood. 1 7 l5Ibid ., p. 150. l6Ibid ., p. 201. l7Hei:nrich Schlier, 11 Welt und Mensch nach dem Johannesevangelium, 11 Be~i nnung auf das Neue Testament (Freiburg: Herder, c.1964), II, 250. 138 Light--Darkness Jesus, the incarnate Logos, is light (1:4,5). He has come into the kosF.,oi:: a s a light (1:9; 3:19; 12:46); calls himself the light of the :•:l")r,~ .... s (8 :12); o:!'fers the light of life to those who follow him (8 :12 ), and sonship in light to those who believe (11:36). John the Bap- tizer i s not r eally the light (5:35), but witnesses to the light (1:7,8). :·ihile Jesus is in the ko sr.,os, men are confronted with a choice between licht a nd darkness (3:19,20; 9:5; 11:9,10; 12:35,36). Fo r the Greeks light was a coJ'l'lmon predication of God himself and a metaphor for his relation to the universe (radiation, emanation). 18 The :-lebr ew used light of God; a single man, especially Adam; Israel; Torah a~d Temple; and Jerusalem. 19 is God 's t;ift to rnen. 20 Light was the ultimate blessedness which The archetypal light of God, which shone :L, the dar imess of not-being, ignorance, error, and resisted the assaults of dar kness , became mani'fest in Jesus Christ, who is the light in which we see light . 21 The glorious manifest.a tion of God's presence, his doxa, is inescapably connected with light. 22 The Jesus in controversy with the Jews (8 :14) claims to be the light of the kosmos, the genuine light. Light is ~-novm by itself alone; it is self-evidencing. The claim to be 18Dodd , Interpretation, p. 202. 19Herman L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Konunentar ~ Neuen Testament ats Talmad und Midrasch (Muenchen: C.H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlune, -192W-:-L" 236. 20nodd, Interpretation, p. 202. 2lroid ., pp. 203-204. Dodd's language here seems closer to Hellenistic metaphysics than to Hebrew cosmology. 22roi d., p. 205. 139 li[.ht could onl y be substantiated by shining. 23 In the same connection, 1i3htfoot notes that Jesus is the light of the kosmos not by showing men how to discover ti1ings which they wish to find, but by himself irradiating huraa.n existence with knowledge of its nature, meaning, and purpose. 24 ~-.'hatever t he significance of light in the Um.welt. of John, the description of Jesus a s the l ight does not convey cosmological status, but soteriologjcal fun ction . 2 5 To this same point Barrett remarks: Light is not a metaphysical definition of the person of Jesus but a description of his effect upon the cosmos; he is the light which jud[;es and saves it. In him only the world has i ts day in which men may walk safely; in his absence is darkness.26 The ~0s11os into which Jesus the light comes lies in darkness. The lir;ht shines in dar!mess and the darkness is not able to comprehend or overcome it (1 :5). 27 The followers of Jesus shall not walk in darkness ( 8 :12; 12 :/-i.6 ), and he who walks in darkness does not know where he is goine (12 :35) . Jesus warns men to walk while they have the light (12:35), out wany have loved darkness rather than light (3:19). Lee finds Genesis motifs in the Johannine darkness and sees a new creation ei-:-,phasis . John, he believes, sees the world as an object re- quir:; nz salva.tion out of the evil into which it has fallen, and this ethical conditi on arose historically as described in Genesis. Con- ceiving the darkness after the analogy of the chaos which preceded the 23Ibid ., p. 205. 2 L~.L~ . d -2.L•, P• 1~9. V 25J:}arre ~ tL,., , p. 279 • 26 Jbid ., p. ··296. 27Hoskyns , p. 143 , notes that two nuances can be present: grasp with the mind and grasp with the hand. The point seldom noticed is that this is a Gospel statement. ,i,:-.t,erial creation, John 3hows the present world as the object of God's :.avine i·mr!( , the matter of a new creation. 28 vI'nether or not a Genesis motif i s clear, it is certainly true that John wants to offer in his light - -darkness antitheses no insight into the metaphysical structure of the k'o s~~, but only the Person and Work of Christ. 29 Schlier believes John wants to predicate darkness as the actual factual condition of the historical ko smos, in contrast to the kosmos wh::..ch shcl:.ld oe l i vine by, in, and from the Logos of the Prologue. While John does not use the concept of powers of darkness, the "dark..'1ess very clea::--ly :,nows itsel f as exercising itself over men, 11 30 as lie, sin, and dc&.th . Yet the darkness is not impo sed on kosmos-men, Bultmann writes. Darkness is the peculiar nature of the !cosmos in which it is at ease and at J-,ome . "Just this--that the world appropriates to itself its darkness- can come to eA-pression in the judgment that men are blind, blin~ without k~owing it and without wanting to acknowledge it •• i n essence eY..istence in bondage . rrJl Kosmos, then, is To love darkness is sin; to be blind is to be left stuck in one 's sin; and this is to be under the sway of death . The bondage to death is enmity to life, and this is the opposite of love . 3 2 28Edw:i.n Kenneth Lee, The Religious Thought of St. John (London: SPCK, 1962), p. llJ. 29Franz Mussner, ZOE ( Muenchen: Karl Zink Verlag, 1952), p. 66. 30schlier, p. 246. JlBultmann, Theology, II, 15-16. 32Jhid ., p . 16. By this sequence Bultmann is able to show the ethical meanino of-darkness and fit this thought pattern into the entire Johannine ethic of love. Bound to death man is not free and open to make the response of love in the world and among his fellow men. 0 141 Truth--Lie 'l'ruth i.s God 's reality as revealed to men--either the reality itself or the revelation of it.33 Corell concludes : !f5 ) , From his study of aletheia in John (1) Truth is the message which Jesus delivers (8:40, The opposite is sin, not lies. (2) The r~essage and the Nessenger are identical (1 :14; 5:33; 14:6; 18:37). chosen ones (3 :21; 18 :37). (3) Truth is received by the (4) Truth is the mark of the Church (4:23, 24; 8:32; 16 :7, 13; 17:17,19; 8:44; 1 John 5:7).34 In sharp disagreement with Bultmann's ident ifi cation of truth as divine reality, Corell finds it to be the truth about the death and resurrection of Christ. He wa:1ts t o show that such truth is revealed and comprehended only within the sphere of the life of t he Church, the eschatological situation in which t:ie risen Lord reveals himself to the faithful.35 Bultmann is not necessarily saying something wholly different from this when he finds truth to be divine reality. Truth is different from the reality in which man first finds himself and by which he is controlled . Truth discloses itself and is thus revelation. Bultmann notes 33Dodd, Interpretatjon, p. 177, 34corell, pp. 159-161. 35Ibjd ,, p . 161. Corell goes on (p. 162) to reject the interpretations of Pilate's question which sugBest scepticism, scorn, or the neutrality of the state before the r eligious question. The question is not left unanswered by John. There is no verbal answer, but action making clear for a ll men what truth is--the Cross. This is not an unimportant quest.ion, but the most important of questions: it is the real question about life and redemption. It is no coincidence that the Roman governor asks the question. He represents not only the Empire with all its political and cultural resources, but humanity seeking redemption. He, of course, does not realize the significance of his question nor understand the answer given to it. 142 that the reality of Cod i s opposed and inaccessible to human eY..istence as it ha :~ constituted itself through the Fall. in obedient faith . Truth takes place only :vhat is not detennined by truth leads to death. That JeGus Gpeaks truth means both that he speaks the truth and that he brings r evel<-'-tion in ,;ords.36 As revelation, truth is the object of ginoskein or e;dcnai . Not cosmological or soteriological speculation, truth is an ~ddress ful filled in concrete encounter; it cannot be separated from the nerson of J esus and the events fulfilled in his history. Jesus brings trut h in himself and is not just a means to that end.37 The kor.mo s lacks God's truth, which Jesus brings in his work and person . The opposite of truth is not just wrong facts, but~ lie, the fi:-;.al and ultimate denial of divine reality.38 Schlier snys the kosmos is ruled by an appearance, and this appearanc e is the wilful pretence, which it allows itself, that it is a world powerful out of and in itself.39 In contrast to the secure reality of l ife opened up by the logos who was in the beginning, the devil's way is the untruth of F.:ir,en- MMchti,1;keit and Eip;en-Sucht. The lie is that exis- t er.ce is po s s ible out of self and that one can achieve a certainty not made through the I.ogos. Schlier writes: Die h'elt, die sich doch dem \·!ort schuldet, erhebt sich in angeblich ungeschuldeter Selbstherrlichkeit, im maechtigen Glanz eines Willens J 6Rudolf Bultmann, "Aletheia, 11 Theological Dictionary Qf. the New Testament , edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c.1964), I, 245. 37Ibid., p. 246. J8nodd , Internretation , p. 177. J9schlier, p. 247. 143 aus sich sclbst und zu sich selbst, ctar ein Selbst-sein-koennen und Selbst- scin- muessen vortaeuscht.4 Schlier sl·.oHs that t his Lie shows itself in works. While the form of sin is concr etel y adikia (or, in 1 John, anomia), the essence of sin is di ffe r ent ly des cr ibed . The kosmos loves its ovm. 11 Die Suende ist selbst- ::meci1tige Bindur.s der Menschen an sich selbst als an das Zu-Eigene, und darin Bindu::-,g an die Ur.wahrheit und Unwirklichkeit. 11 41 The essence of sin is sla.ve:::-y--not having the freedom to be, to do the truth. \foile truth frees , sin binds one to the life of Sel bst-sein- wollens, expressing it ~lf in unfaith or disobedience. In view of the truth, man refuses to aoandon his tie to the Eieenmaechtige . 42 Fulfiller--Incornpleteness ? he kosm~ appears totally inadequate and incomplete, incapable of living God 1 s l i fe on its own, 1~ .J• .J..). C) "''n'·I., , and truth • .L - -i ~ l::, It.needs to have and does not have God's To the insufficiency of the kosmos comes Jesus, ,-.-l-,o i s full of grace and truth (1 :14). ceive (1:16). And from his fulness all may re- In the actions of the One Sent from heaven the Scriptures ~re fulfi lled (2:17; 12:38; 13:18 ; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24,36), for t hey have \·r::.tnessed to hir,~ (5:39); Abraham looked for his day (8:56); and John t~,e Baptizer ' s j oy wa s fulfilled in him (3:29); already Xoses wrote of God 1 s Sent-.One (1:45; 5:46) • . Jesus i s the King of Israel (1:49), the fulfi lJJnent of Samaritan hopes (4:25); he is healing for the man who had L~O.,.., ~ . ' ·) p . 2L ~ 8 • 41 Thtd ., p. 249. 4.2I b::.d . 144 wait.cc! th:i.rty- cieht year s (5:8,9) and the voice of lifo to those who have been dead ( 5 : 25). \·roen Jesus sets table, the crowds eat their fill (6 :12), and he bestows bread which makes all other see;n inadequate (6 :33) . For t hose who find their fulfillment in him there is no longer hunGer and thirst (6 :35); indeed, rivers of living water flow from those who 'ocl:i.eve i n h:i.m (7 :37-38 ). But for those who prefer their own (in-) completr:mess, there is no life ( 6: 53). Jesus puts new light into blind eyes (9 ), invi gorat i ng wine into Jewish water pots (2:1-11), and fresh life into stinking tornbs (11). All this J esus doe s because he is from above, from beyond the kosmos of incompleteness; kosmo s-men in their present state of incomplete and unrealized e;dstence can only be described as "from below" (8:23). They must f ind their life given to them from above (.3:3), from that one alone \·:ho has seen heavenly life (3: 13), who, lifted up, will draw all men to h~ (12:32 ). As on the Cross he unites the below with the above,4.3 the bel ievers from the kosr.-:os too shall see the heavens opened for them (1:51) and they shall find freedom to live in God's reality (8:32). They shall be filled by the Hol y Spirit (14-16) and, grafted to him who is God's fulness, they will truly bear fruit (15:2). What is required of kosmos~~en? They must see beyond themselves; they must see their incompleteness and the fulfillment God intends for them. But the kosrnos instead only wants to be self-compl ete .44 43nodd, Interpretation , p. 439. 44Barrett, p. 169, notes: "Judaism cannot simply move forward over a l evel plain t o achieve its goal in the Kingdom of God. This goal cannot be reached either by learned discussion between its distinguished teachers ( such as Jesus and Nicodemus), or by waiting for an apocalyptic denouement in which the kingdom shall suddenly appear." 145 Dependent Son--Independent Kosmos J cs;,rn derives his exi ste:1ce from the Father. Everywhere he is the a~tithesis to t he self- procla ~~ed independence of the kosmos. l i ves f rom the Father, t he kosmos lives on its As Jesus o'lm. Davey has examined in detail the "dependence of Christ." Whatever one may think of his ul timat e conclusions or of the other problems which continually get his attention in this study, he does present a case for t he dependence of Chr ist on God, in John. He notes Christ's dependence for power , for knowledge , for his mission and message, for being, destiny, nature , fo r authority and office, for love, for glo:-y and honor, for disci:;:,le s , for testimony, for the Spirit and other gifts, for guidance, hi s dependence illustrat ed by his obedience, seen in his relationships with C-od and men, and i llustrated by his prayers and his titles.45 Others have not failed to note this emphasis. Manson, for example, notes that John uses Father for God one hundred seven times. He states: The whole system of hi s thought centres in the experience of God as Fatl1er . It is this experi ence which becomes the central and creative dogma of hi s Chr isti ani ty. It is in the light of this experience that he sees what light is and what darkngss is, what is truth and what lies, what love is and what hatred.4 ,fa.nson insists that this Fatherhood· of God is no abstract "belief. 11 the-?ather i s a datum in this theology, not a conclusion. God- In sharp con- trast to t he filial consciousness stands the condition of the kosmos. 47 45J. Ernest Davey, T h e ~ of St. ~ c.1958 ), pp . 90-157, (London: Lutterworth Press, 46T. W. Manson, "Introduction," On~ fill9. John (London: SCM Press, Lt d ., c,1963), pp. 90-91. 47Ibi<l ., p. 91. 146 ' Simila rly, Barrett noteci : "The ministry of Jesus has no significance a;.:,nrt from the Hill of the Father; it is not the independent achievement or numnnity , but the fruit of submission. 11 48 Throughout John the words and ~-:o'!"ks and authority of Jesus are not those of a learned, influential, or distin.r:;uished. man, but a re of the Father.49 In poor contrast stands the kosmos in its proud, self-proclaimed independence . and The ko smos is, in fact, slowly dying from lack of light ::m:rture , having cut itself off from the vine. Preferring to go its o:\n way, the ~o::m:os is stumbling in its blindness and dying in its sin. Ultinately, one might say, the confrontation between Jesus and the ;_n[:'."".n~ is .;. confrontation between God's glory and the honor and reputa-.:-- ~ion man claims for himself. For the Old Testament kabod was the bril- liance of Yahweh 's revelation and also the divine power whereof this bri lliance was an expression . This majestic splendor, revealed in the Zgyptian :mir a cles , the giving of the Law, the tabernacle, and at other 3re2.t moments in Israel's history, the prophets hoped to see exalted above all the earth and seen by all nations.50 That doxa is now seen in J esus Christ. This glory which Jesus had before the foundation of the kc smos (17:5) is being manifested to those who believe (1:14); it is the elory of the only-begotten of the Father. 48Barrett, p. 201. 49Ib:i d. ., p. 262. 50Ho sk-yns, p. 148. Already Isaiah saw it lh7 ( 12 :l..l) and now the discipl es see it (2:11). One day the believers \·1ill see J esus I glory in i ts fulness ( 17: 24). Rut kosrios- men , t oo , clai m glory. They like to rr1ake their reputa- tion 1.i.th one another (5:44), and so do not seek the glory which is from God alone . Je sus does not r eceive glory from men (5:41), but seeks the e:.or y of him ,rho sent hi m (7 :18 ). Jes~s ' ministry. A basic conflict continues throughout The kosmos wants to go after its own glory (8:50), but J e ::;us never seeks f;lory fo r himself wit h the kosmos. Even the 11 be- licver::; 11 often l ove honor among men above the glory of God (12 :43). What the kosmo s cannot understand is that only the Father can glorify. ;·.1 herever doxazo occurs, either the Father is the subject or Jesus is i:.he subject--being glor ified by t he Father or glorifying the Father. Co ell notes that John 1 s use of doxa points to the union between Father a!"ld Son and refers t o t he work of Jesus on earth, especially his death and r e surrection, a s at once the expression of the power and glory of the Fat'her and the fulfill."nent of all eschatological expectations. 5l sees John developing t oget her the meanings of glory and honor. Dodd The cru- cifixio~ then both honors God by complete obedience and ga i ns honor for Christ; but the honor whi ch he gains is the glory with which the Father has invested him : t hat is, the revelation of the eternal majesty of God in his love for mankinct .52 Odeberg notes t hat the Son is the Gif t of God to the k<)Smos . There are no divine gifts apart from him, for the Father gave him all t hings. Even in the past all divine gifts came through 51 corell, p . 155. 52nodd, Interpretation, p. 208. 148 the Son ~nd so all hea rts are directed to the~ perfect and true gift, the Son .53 But pr ecisely t his is t oo much for the kosmos. someone to r eflect their ovm doxa. Kosmos-men want They reject the incarnate Christ be- cause they have too high an opinion of themselves. They deserve better. If Gno s:.ic ko :=;mos- men yearned for an eternal spark frorr, the world beyond, kosr-,o s- ;;ien in John clamor for something impressively powerful, wonderworking , nnci l,:o,,rr.os- pleasing . mere~- But neither will have anything to do with The supreme event of the cross is both the moment of Jesus' elory a~d t he judgment on all the glory which the kosmos seeks. notc3: Lightfoot "Since He is not the embodiment of those ideas of divinity which are co~~only held among men and are natural to them, much vrill depend on r.wn ' s ability to abandon in His presence their preconceived notions of £;reatness . 11 54 But kosmos- men do not care to be called into question. t 'hile they sh ould seek approval or standing before God, they take honor f ror;; each other, i n their need for standing. 55 If someone came offering his ov:n credentials , they would welcome him because of his likeness to themselves . 56 They will not seek God's glory and renounce their own personal security.57 Instead of rejoicing in God's glory and finding in it fulnes s of j oy, t he kosmos only sees i ts own honor at stake. 53!-iugo Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel (Uppsala: Almquist and Wisells Boktryckerei, {i929j'), p. lJO. 54-Li· g htf t p. 8 5 • . . oo, 55BuJ.tmann, Theology , II, 31. 56 Lig~tfoot, p. 147. 57Dodd, Inter pretation , p. J80. Voelkl, p. 424, describes a Gnostic thinking which instead of being an Entweltlichung is in fact a thorough-going 149 Division The decision over t he glory of God or the honor of the kosmos divides men . ·r.-1er.ever the 1<0s:.1os is confronted with Jesus, the necessity of de- cision d~v:i.'d es :i.· + (7·43 - V • ; 9·16 • ; 10·19) • • Barrett notes that already at Jo~n 3 :16 the kosmo s is split into components. As kosmos-men make the wrong decision, they turn salvation into judgment.58 marizes the r esult of Jesus ' mission. Schisma sum- Division is the inevitable effect o f his word , 59 Dodd relates the "book of signs" to the "farewell discourses" as t he story o~ r eject i on t o the blessedness of those who receive Jesus. He notes t ha t wit h the departure of Judas the sifting is finally com. 60 pl c-c.e . .!otine t he ultimate significance of the separation of the church a nd the world, Ba rrett says : "it means, since the world's attitude to the chur ch discl ose s its attitude to God, the judgment of the world. 1161 Fur therreore, t he church can expect the same twofold response in its missi on t o the ...-orld . 6 2 Lee sees this division as the first and fundamental effect of Christ's work of salvation, and asserts that John emphasizes t he communi t y in which salvation takes place, the community separated 1fo r ·.·re 1 t J.:i ~h'mr.: , "ei ne Korrektur des Glaubens aus dem Geist der Welt und i i1rer nerrschers, die letzlich auf der innerlich-weltlichen Grundhaltung beruht , in der sich der Mensch arunasst, das fuer ihn aergerniserreigende Handel n Gottes mit seinem 1 Denken ' zu 'verbessern. 111 But Jesus demands s i,~ ply f ait h, the givi ng up of all inner-worldly reserve over against the action of God . 58 Barrett , p. 135. 59roid., p . 273. 60 oodd, Interpretat.ion , p. 402. 6lBar rett, p. 403. 62Ibid ., p. 401. 150 from the world anc adheri ne to Christ.6.3 c:dstin"', irniependent entity, The kosmos, then, is no self- When the kosmos comes under God's address in his Son, it goes into action~some men responding to the call to be God ' s !'nen and eome men all the more vigorously lining themselves on the side of existence without God, Judgment For many kosmos- rr.en the ministry of Jesus ends in judgment. The ~ebre,·rs t!-,ought of judgnent as an act of God's sovereignty, rewarding and punishing . The Greeks stressed separation, discrimination. Dodd fi :-;ds a Greek connecti on to judgment in the usage of light, the medium of d::.scri.-;,.j_nation . While the light has a positive purpose, its shining bri;-,Gs into view the ul t imate distinction between truth and falsehood. Hence judg;r.e~1t r esul t s. In the presence of revelation, the powers of evi164 declare t hemselves by their rejection of the light. 65 In John 9- 10, Dodd finds t he domi nant theme not the coming of light as such, but .... ~" ,. . . d t l. v S e J. J.e C1, l.n JU gmen • 66 Prom a different point of view, Barrett notes that the Son of Man forms t:ie connecting link between the earthly and heavenly spheres: "his eartnly eY..istcnce i s t he place where heavenly things become visible and 6.31ee , p . 164. In so ea s i ly speaking of the separation of church and ~orld , Lee and Barrett seem to neglect the theological use of kosmos in John , On the ot her hand, this separation idea is undoubtedly present in John--though perhaps not in the terms "church and world." 64occasionall;,,' non-Johanni ne expressions (and thoughts?) creep into Docid ' s pr esentation of Johannine theology. 6 5nodd, Interoret ation, pp. 208-210. 66Ib ~ · · ·, p . .358 • I 151 al so the place ~-:here heavenly thing s are reject ,ed by mankind. 116 7 Barrett t:1i:.,<s the 11 0lrc~d.:r judGed II of John 3: 18 means -that the absence of faith calls do':.:'1 condemnation upon itself or is .i;tse.1f an aspect of condemna- .... v::l.On . Unbelief sentences itself.68 1,. d::.fficult problem arises with John 9 :39: the world . 11 " f o r ~ I came into This appears to contradict John 3: .17, where God sends his Son !,ot to judge the world . We stcott notes tha-t Jesus did not come to exccu te l".-c:i.s:i.s , but that kr ima. may issue from h :i.s presence. not found acain in John . 6 9 Krima is Broym writes: :':cvertheless, the statement t hat J esus did not come to condemn r.ot exclude the very real judgment that Je .sus provokes. • • • idea in J oh~, then, s eems to be that durin.g his ministry Jesus no apocal;?ptic jud6 e like the one expected at tht end of time; r.is pr esence does cause men to judge themsElves. 70 does The is yet Co r ell summar izes the use of krisis , krirna , and krinein in John. ( 1) Judv:1ent is opposed to salvation (3:17; 12:,47). judge ( 5 : 22,27,30 ; 8 :16,26). (3: 18 ; 5 : 24; 12 :48 ). 16 : 11) . (2) Christ is the (3) The crucial tEst in judgment is faith ( 4 ) Jud8ffient i s in the prEsent (3:19; 9:39; 12:31; ( 5) There is a t t he same time a final judgment ( 5 :29; 12 :4$; 1 John 4 :17 ). Krisi s always mea...--is katakrisis-<:ondemnation. ' .,_ 1ogica · 1 • 7l escnavo Judgment is J udgment i n John "is becomin,g pronounced already now de facto , and will one day at the Second CoDU.flg of Jesus be pronounced 67Ba rrett , p. 177. 68 r~id ., p . 181. 69Brool~e Foss Westcott, ~ Fo:ir;'~ Qslspel Accordin to St . ~ ( Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pubhsning Company, 1954, II, 44. ~ 1 70Rayrr.ond E. Brmm , ~ Gospel Accor~H ng_ !£. g,. John (i-xii) in A~chor Bible, Volume 29 (Garden City, New Yc:,rk: Doubleday and Company, Inc . c.1966 ), p. 345. 7lcorell, pp . 162- 164. 152 · lli:_ . ~ 72- . 11 Al thoueh the term j udlJ1ilent is not used, the best swranary of this concept in John may be in John 3:34-36 and the total context: The Father l oves t he Son, t he Son speaks his words, and the Spirit rests on him. Fat l'1er loves the kosmos, the ko smos loves its 72 Ibid ., pp. 164-165. O"vm The deeds, and God 1 -s wrath CHAPTER VI SUJt,l'tiJ\ RY A ND CONCLUSIONS FolJ.owing an examination of the usage and understanding of kosmos in tl~ e Uw·.~l t of John , includine the New Testament, 1 an intensive study ,ras mc.1.dc of t he usage of kosmos in John • . 0~~0s is at the center of theological thinking in John. t act:i.cal stud:r yielded the following conclusions: A syn- kosmos generally means r..en ; the kos:::os on its own cannot accomplish anything acceptable to God; t he •:o:-:rro::; 1·,as originally acted upon by God and is still the object of his attcntfon ; i::. his kosrr.os God works out the salvation of the kosmos; in God ' s call through Jesus the kosmos gets the chance to live from God. Fundamentally, John uses kosmos to signal men who are God's creatures , v:n.o rr,ust know t heir relation to God but do not, who live in a si tuation without God , who act as if they were autonomous and able to make their o,:,m life for themselves, who accordingly are lost. All these men whom God created through the Logos God addresses in his Son, offering them authentic life from God. Confronted with the emptiness, incomplete- ness , and inadequa cy of their life apart from God, kosmo s-men go into action against God 's Sent-One. Kosmos comes to signal not just all men ,·:ho ha ve been living out of their mm resources, then, but men responding neeatively to God 's addr ess . Some kosmos-men who see God's love hate their pre sent existence from their own resources and accept a life lived from God . They are called from their kosmos-situation and cease to be 1For a summary of chapter two, kosmos in the Umwelt of John, see stroy,a , ;,p . 60-64. l5L~ - ~~2.:i· The :m::n:os answers such men with hate. Yet these very believers co:-it i nue to live in th e kosr-,os , and Jesus sends them into the kosmos just a ..,, - .._" 'n c ,•a P t·ner ' . t o t'ne ~· I scnc.' 'ni. m J.n < While occasionally John may use :-o~ 1·:ithout this concept of kos;nos-men in mind, the predominance of the T:-:car;-iation make s it difficult for any usage of J:.:osmos not to take on theol ogical s i enifi cance. Sever a l questions arise in connection with John's usage of kosmos. ? he extent of cr ea tion t heology in John is debatable, but it is clear t hat God is not derived from the kosmos. Instead, he stands over the kos,:os a s its Creator, calling it into question. The kosmos is qualified as cr c~tion and God wants men to understand themselves as his creatures. CosmoJ.oey i s not John 's concern, but what the kosmos has become, what God i n Jesus i s doinc about it, and how the kosmos will respond to God's address . Jn t he Incarna t ion God puts his finger on man, not cosmology. John ' s duali::;n i s a dualism of terminology and approach. John wants t o a cc ent t he differ ence between God and the kosmos; yet God in his r adi cal othe rness keeps the ko smos as his m-m, for he created it. The dual i sm bet ween God and the ko smos and within the kosmos is never metaphysical nor materi al , but is held controlled by the same Creator God. J ohn uses ko smos hout os to heiehten the utterly narrow-minded onesidedne s s of the creature who· has forgotten who he is and sought the meaning of his lif e , religi on, and existence in terms of himself. It is not now possible t o det ermine the origin of the expression archon tou kosmou, but t he qualification tau kosmou indicates its place in Johannine theology: all t hat the ko sro~s is falls under judgment as it rejects God's address in Jesus. God's love for the kosmos is indisputable. Through the 155 beli evers God con tinues his address to the world; the mission of the believers is preci sely t o be God's call to the kosmo s . Hardly, then, c:in t:18 Joh"'-nnir,e ethi c be world-fleeing, for aeaoe is its essence, :i.s it is i ;ifor :ned by God 's mission in Jesus. John may have chosen the com.11on word kosmos as an opening for his messa5e . l'lith kosm0s John affirms the universality of God's love and address , God ' s creation of and continued love for his world, the realizat i on now of l ight and life from God, a continued mission in the world and a:. i n- the- i·rorl d ethic, and God's call to men to live their lives from God i'!'1 the wo .. ld . V!ith kosmos John denies that the world is a self-contained whole i n harmonious relation with God, that the true realities and real ealhne of men are in a wor ld beyond this visible world, that the world is i ntrinsical l y evil and s hould be escaped, that cosmology is the solution to man ' s situat i on, t hat a nation can automatically lay claim to God by tyinc; him t o the "land." The most important thing John says about t he kosmos is that God loves it and enters it in Jesus Christ. The kosmos will never be the same . J ohn percept ively pictures the real problem of the ko smos by showing kos;';'lo~- men (usine the J e·,,s especially as a paradigm) in conversation and ac t ior. . Kosmos- men demand guar antees before they believe, full explana- t i ons to r el i gious questions, and an appealing prophet; they claim to know the facts for judging their own situation; they have a vested int er est i n r el igion; they are unaware of their own condition over against God . Nor does such kosmos-thinking leave the believers untouched; they cont inue t o struggle in the kosmos with the kosmos in them. Limited to i ts own t erms and insisting on them, the kosmos cannot fail to misunderstand 156 God ' s addr ess i n Jesus. the point . Jesu~ . Wher.cver the Revealer speaks, the kosmos misses Nor can the kosrnos si mply contain itself in the presence of I f ,Je st~s i s truly God's Sent-One and his challenging and upsetting que r,tions a r e authentic \·Jord of God, what religion is it that the kosmo s ha s been pra ctic ing ? Easier than answering that question is going into act ion against J esus . But throughout John are men responding in faith t o J esus in ways whi ch highlight the ineptness of the kosrnos-response. Such men ans1-1er God's address ar:d find their life coming from God. They a r e abl e to re joi ce in God 's action for them and find in Jesus what their life i:1 t he world was meant to be. They live the life of believing-seeing God once ~G~i n a s Creator and themselves as creatures and children, as they sec God ' s creative action in Jesus and Jesus' Sonship. t o t he !<0 $1TO S , In contrast the believers know who God is and what he is doing in the \•;orJ <i , who Jesu s i s and that he derives his life from God. Everything the kos~~s needs t o become the believers can be as they enter on a life of a ct i ve s er vice in the world. They live out of the fulness of their relation to the Father i n and through Jesus and witness to the glory they have seen ~eyond the cro ss . The Incarnation focuses the kosmos over against God, ex.a.mines and a ddresses it , defines it by antithesis, shows its fundamentally wrong s itua tion, completes i t , saves it, and judges it. As God uniquely ad- dr esse s the ko smos through the logos, the kosmos is called into question by t nat Logos through whom God brought the kosmos into existence and in whom he ha s always spoken and acted toward the kosmos. t w0en Jesus and the kosmos is: istence at all? The question be- Is the kosmos-existence-from-Nothing ex- In Jesus God lets the life and light given in creation 157 once a.zai,1 break i :1to the kosmos , which has tur ned from God to an e.xist <~nc e i n d eath . I nto the self-appropriated darkness of the kosmos- ::;it:J.1.t:;.on Goel in ,Je sus comes and gives the kosmos its day once again by s .1i nint:; w:i.th a l ight which cannot be overcome. The kosmos which has tricrt t o give the Lie to God's truth, God in the death and resurrection o f Jesus r eca lls to his m-m reality. Not allowing the kosmos its pre- tt, nce o f ::;elf - power and self-existence, God comes in Jesus to give fulness fo1· all; in ti1e cross he brings man below the fulness from above. In his obedient Son God wants to let the kosmos see again what it is to live f rom God , for the kosmos in its self-proclaimed independence is stumbJ inv in blindne ss and dying in sin. Ultimately, God in Jesus con- front s t he ~or.rros with a choice between God I s glory and the honor and rep~tation ~en clai m for themselves. Thus division results: some re- j oice i n God ' s glory and find in it fulness of jpy; others see only the hono r of the ko smos at st ake . For those who must reject God's address, the mi ~istry of J e sus turns to judgment. The di fficulty and genius of Johannine usage is that kosmos is used both for "world" a nd for "world of men without and against God. 11 The preeminence of the Incarnation will not let "world" have merely nontneolo8i cal significance . It is always a world standing under God's l ove and hi s addr e ss in Jesus. Whatever pejorative sense attaches .t o KOs~o s , then, is directly related t o ~ as they constitute themselves without their Creator God and, ultimately, men as they answer with hostility and rejection the question God addresses to them in Jesus. It is doubtful whether this is conveyed by the English term "world . 11 Indeed, this term fails adequately to represent Johannine 158 t heoloc_y on s evera l counts . The focus of John's usage of kosmos is ma n and ,n.'.a' n is t he focus of the kosmos-problem. Supremely the kosmo s is t he obj ect of God ' s love, for the kosmos means all the men who should be a cknowJ.edgi :-ie God n.s Creator. And the whole world itself, as the s cene of man ' s situati on, is l aid claim to by God, the Creator. 11 But ?ur i t an 11 and other such ethi cs have seldom been able to affirm pre- ci sely the no 1.d , and t here is reason for that failure. Such an ethic f a i ls t o loc~te the sour ce of distorted creation in every man; it deprecates God ' s crea tion by its rigorous puree of all "out there" (outside the believer ' s self-assured inner self) in its hunt for the malady; and, finaJ J y , it mu st fail t o see God I s love addressed to !!!!:11 and to the sjtP,"ti.o:., of men- -all the men of the world who are the world. Yet it is clear i n John that the believers (the Church) live in and a ;-:-.on.:; .-mc~o s r..en , that they a r e sent among kosmo s-men and into the kosmos a s envoy s of God 's love. na tion . The "world" as such never comes under condem- Indeed, it is possible only for the believer once again to affirm the ,,:orld as creation, for hearing and answering God's question he has stepped bacK from the world and seen it properly for the first time. Af- firming t he world as God's creat i on and precisely the sphere of God's activity, he then get s busy with the problem of the kosmo s. He sets about to bring God ' s love (or be an agent of God's love) into the situation of man t urned in on himself and shutting his ears to God's address, man livine in open disacknowledgment of his Creator. In the Johannine dramatic cycle God i n Jesus affirms his creation and addresses in love the kosmos, throueh his Son . Some men, called believers, answer the call from the situation of being ko snos . Now knowing for the first time what their 159 exi3tencc in the wor ld is all about, they are able to affirm in freedom this exi.stencc i n the world , as ,Jesus did, and let God's love be addressed t hrou3h t:,cm::;elves to other men still in the ~osmos-situation. The· world is ,ecl.iimed as God 1 s world , and man is called in that world to live responsibly and address his fellowmen with God's love in that world. BIBLIOGRA PHY Barrett , C. K. 'i'h~ Gosnol Acr.ording .!:Q. St. ,John. London: SPCK, 1965. -----, edj to r . 'J'he _1iei·1 T13st.::nr.ent Backr:ronnd: Selected Documents . ~e~·i York : Harper and Row, Publishers, 1966. Bauer, \faJ.ter . ,j ohRnnes . Vol. II: Die Evangelien II in Handbuch Elm ~ 'l'est,im<mt . Tuebingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1912. i3aum, Gre~o:..7 . Js the ifow Testament /inti- Semitic . Glen Rock, New Jersey :-Paulist Press, c.1965. Revised edition. Bernard , J . rt . ~ CrHir.,:l anci E..'<'egetical Commentary 2!l the Gospel l:.££2.rd i."1~1. to St • .o!_o hn , Edited by A. H. 1'4cNeile. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons , 1929. Bi ete:--,hard, Hans . Die hiTllmlische Welt im Urchris tentum und Spaet,i11ricnt11m . Tuebingen : Verlag J. C. B. Nohr, 1951. BiBG, Gha. les , The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. 1,:acmillan and Co • , 1886. New York: Blass,? . a nd/\ , Debrunner. A Greek Grarr.mar of the New Testament. A translation and revision-of t he ninth-tenth~r~ edition incorporating supplementary no te s of A. Debrunner by Robert W. Funk. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, c.1961. Beecher, Otto. !?££. joh.:i.nneische DuaHsmus im Zusammenhang des nachb:'..hliscr.en ',;ud entums . Guetersloh: Guetersloher Verlagshaus Gerd ?,;ohn , c:I"965 . '9ornk;:..rr:m, Guenther . "Christus und die Welt in der urchristlichen Botschaft , " Da~ E!1<ie des Gesetzes . Vol. I of Gesarr.melte Aufsaetze. Muenchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag , 1963. Bratsiotis, P . I. "Das Menschenverstaendnis des Neuen Testaments," I-:an in God ' s DesiPn a ccordin~ to the New Testament. Newcastle Upon 'l".fne 3: St udiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, 1953. Brooke, A. E. !::_ CriticaJ. and Exegetical Commentary 2!l the Johannine Enistles . Edinburgh: T. & T. Clar~, 1964. Bro1·rn, Raymond E. The Gosoel According to .!!Qbn (i-xii). Vol. XXIX of The Anchor Bible. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc ., c.1966. 11 The Qu.'11.ra:i Scrol l s and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles," The Scrolls and the New Testament. Edited by Krister Stendahl. ~ York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, c.1957. -----. 161 :3,~ecl: seJ., i"r iedrich . ,To!",annes und ricr hellen:i.stische Synkretismus . Ct ct,;r~;l oh : Druck und Vcrlae von C. Bertelsmann, 1928. · Bult:r.:'.nn , Rudol . 11/\letheia," '!'heoJ.og:i.cal Dict ionary of t he New Tes tami:!nt. I. $it c d by Gc r,1ar d Kit.tel. Translated from the German by Geoffrey ':.' , P.:r·omilcy . Gra:1d Rapids: 1,'im. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c , 1964, Pp . 238 - 247 , 11 Dic I3cdeutani d er neuerschlossenen rnandaeischen und manichaei::; ,i1en ~uellen f uer das Verstaendnis des Johannesevangelium, 11 Zc,tt.sr.hri.rt. .fne:r_ di e Neutestamentliche Wissenscha ft, 24 (1925), ::.vO- J.l:-6 , 11 Die Eschatologi c des Johannes-Evangeliums ," Gl auben und Ver~·t,::, be n : Gesa:-!l'!lelt.c i\ufsaet z e. I. Tuebingen: Verlag J. C. B. Mohr, 31+- 152. 1954:- ?~ ----. D~s 1':vnn!;elh un rlcs Joh<'! nnes. Vancicnhocck & Ruprecht , 1956 , Fourteenth edition. Goettingen: • TnMl.Of'!:T of the Nc\·T 'I'e:,tament . Vol. II. Translated from the Gcrrl'..'.l1 by Kendric k Grobel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1955. ---. "Das Vcrs taendni s von Welt und Mensch im Neuen Testament und i.""!I Gt icchentum, GJ.a 1ben und Verstehen: Gesal'Jlmelte Aufsaetze . 1uetingcLl : J.C. B. Mohr, 1952. Pp. 59-78, 11 II. Ch3.l."ile:rs , 11 . C. "Some lfote s on the Biblical Doctrine of the World," r.ar,adi&.n Jour-nal o f 'i'hcolog;v, 7 (1961), 222-231. Char l es , R. H., editor . 1'.h e i\nocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of t he Old ':'cs: .a...,E:'"l t , Vol. I : Aoocrypha . Vol. II: Pseudepierapha . Oxford: The Clc.r endon Press, 1913 , Corell , Alf . Cons;;rrm;,.tur:1 est : Escha tology and Church i n the Gospel of St . ,John . T1·anslc1ted f rom the Swedish by The Order of the Holy Paracl ete . New York : The lfacmillan Compan;}T, 1958, Cremer , Hcrr:-,ann . Bi.hJ.isch- theoloi;isches Woerterbuch d er Neutestamentlic!1en G.rae?.i t act . Zeh.'1t e , voellig durchgearbeitete und vielfach vera endc:r-te P. ufla ge herausgegeben von Julius Koegel. Gotha: Verlag und Druck der Friedrich Andreas Perthes A.G., c.1915. Cross , Frn.nk 1:oore . The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical St,1dies . Revised edition . Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Compa ny , L'"lc., c.1961. 1 Dalman, Gustav . 'I'he 1'.'ords of ~ . Considered in the Light of PostBiblical Jewish Writings and the Aramaic Language. Translated from the German edition of 1898 by D. M. Kay. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902. 162 Davey) J . ?::~r.est . 'T'he .Jctius or St . John . Historical and Christo logical S,~udie:s in Lhe Four t:.~';ospcI:" London: Lutter-worth Press, c.1958. Dai sc.. 1:m ; f: doJ.f . ~ht From the Ancient &st. New and completely re':'" v.i.:;c;rl et:~ tior1 w.d ,h oir,iit:.y- i'ive illustrations from the latest German edition . TransJ.ated by Lionel R. M. Strachan, New York: Harper and 13rot~e. s , [l.92?}. Dodd , C. H. Th8 nible and the Gre eks , London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954, T'1e Td,C'r".:lretat.ion of t he Fourth Gosnel. Pr ess ,- :i..96 5. ----- Cambridge: University Di~ Vcrln:endigunl! der Kirche ~ di e Welt: Versuch einer cl0.5. P-olo:.:i Z02:2 Joha r.nesevanqclium . Heft 65 of Theologische Ji'xi.st.enz };G'J7,r: , i".uenchen : Chr . Kaiser Verlag, 1939, Eicnolz, Geor g . .:·;,~r:r-~~ ?c::.ne , ?aul. 'i'hr:nJ.orr,.i~ des ~fo1ten Testaments. 8. durchgesehenen Auflage. Berlin : Ev~nr,elische Verl~gsanstalt, 1953, Ga2.lo·.-:<'.y, /\lc.n D. Gra::t , n. 1·,:. 'Ph~ Cosmic Christ . London: Nisbet and Co., Ltd., 1951. Gnost jcism : 6_ Sourcebook o.f Heretical \".'ritings from the New York: Harper and Brothers, c .196L '>, J v Ghri:, tian ?cri.od . Gnosticis:n and Ea rly Chdstianitv. Harper and Row, Publishers, c .1960 . i-Iar nac:{, /..dolf . [ i.stou Q..:[ Dogma , Seven volumes bound as four. Translated .;,~rom the third Ger man edition by Neil Buchanan. New York: Dover Publication s , inc ,, 1961. narri s ) J , ~endel . The Odes and Ps~lms of Solomon. s i ty Press) 1.909 , Cambridge : Univer- P.o.rtir.:;svel d , L. Van . Die Es~ha to lo~ie des Johannesevangeliums. Eine Ausei nanden;etzun8 mit Rudol f Bultmann. Assen, Niederlande: Van Gorcur.i & Comp , N.V., 1962. Hatch) &:hdn. The Influence of ~ Harper and Br o thers , 1957, ~ Q.!l Christianity. -~--, and Henry A. Redpath. ~ Concordance to the Septuagint. Austria: Akademische Druck--U. Verlagsanstalt, 1954, New York: Graz, Henderson, Will iam Griffin. 11The Ethical Idea of the World in ~ohn's Gospel. 11 Unpublished Doctor's Dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 1944. Hendriksen , William. New Testament Comment~ry: Exposition of the Gospel According to John, Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1953. 163 i-iolt7,~;:-.nn; ii. J. )l,:; 1.:v;,.nr:e:.i.um d0s Johannes , Vierter Band of Hand·'.-2:;:;·-'---~:...::. ?,:.'L.:. _'..::~!::.'l ','cs\,,m"nt . Zwei te , verbesserte und vermehrte 1, ci.i. b,·.; . :·'re:;.:;u t·1;: J . C. B. 1-;ohr, 1893, J.r·"r' ·~1' d<? r:_ r!81tt~st;imcntli.chen Th<:?oloP.j&. Zweiter Band. Z,·:ei i..c ,.cu bea rbei t.ct..c1 t~uflage he rau sge3cben vo:1 D. A. Juelich er unc ·:: . Bauer . Tuebingen : J . C. B. ~1:ohr, 1911. 1 Hosky-:1s, Ed,-:yn . I.he Fourth Gospel. F.dited by Francis Noel Davey. L:mdo n : Faber & Facer ~td ., 1947. The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism ~ Third edition. London: The Epworth Press, 1945. Eow~ ·d, :;ilher t Francis . :;::ttet· orcl.·1.tfon . riumph!j_cs; A. Le~ris . 11A fl!ote on eis ta idia (John 1:11), 11 The Expository ~ ' 53 (,\ u.1ust 1942 ), 356-.- - - - ..,-.u:,per:oaue ' , '.a ns i"ialter . Der 1':ensch zwischen zwei Welten. Zwing li Verlag, c . 1959 , Zuerich: Jervc::.l , ,Jacob . 11 Er kam in sein Eigentum, 11 Studia Theologica, 10 (1956 ) , 14- 27 . Johnsto:1 , Georg . 11(lj kow:;en e and Kosmos in the New Testament, 11 New T<3sta::,c; t Sturiies , 10 (A pril 1964), 352-360. Jonas , P.nns . G~osi s und spaetantiker Geist. Erster Teil. 3, verbcsnert.e u nd verrnehrte Auflage . Goet tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964. ----. The Gno3tic P..elir:fon . The Message of the Alien God and the Beginning:, of Christia:.ity. Second edition, revised. Boston: Beacon Press , c . 196J • .7owett , J ohn Henry . "Saving the World, 11 Interpretation, 5 (January 1951), 76- 79. Ku emmcl , Werner Georg . 7'':an in the New Testament . Revised and enlarged edition . Translated f rom the German by John J. Vincent. Philadelphia: The i·iestrr-inster Press , c.1963. Langkam"7ler, P . Hugolinus. 11 Zur Herkunft des Logos-titels im Johannesprolog , 11 Biblische Zeitschrift, Neue Falge, 9 (1965), 91-94. Lee , Ed.win Kenneth. 1962. The Religious Thought of St. John. London: SPCK, Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott. ~ Greek- English Lexicon. Reprint of 1940 new (ninth) edition. Revised and augmented by Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. 164 I..ig:,t.foot, i1. . H. s+.• ,Tohn ' R Gosnel. Ox.ford (;niversity i'rc; ;, 1966. Edited by C. F. Evans. London: Loewe, ?.ic'.1.1.rd . Yosr:1ns 1inrl /,. i.on . l!.:t.n Be itra.g zur heilsgeschichtlichen Di "'-~.':!~·t:.k de s .;, chr i;tlichcn \-.'elt:.verstaendnisses . Guetersloh: Verl.J.f; C. Berteh mann , 19J5 . Lowr:. e , b·o.1 tc r. Theology . 'l'he Doct r ine of Saint John . An Essay in Biblical lonct'an : J..ong sma:;;'s , Greek, & Co., c.1899 . l'ianson , T . W. "Introducti on," On Paul and John . Ltd ., c. 196J . ?p . 85- l OJ. - - - -1·~einc. tz , 1fox. Theal.ogie de s rJeuen Testament . Pct.el' l-ians tc i n Verlae , 19 50 . London: SCM Press, Zweiter Band. Bonn: 1':ou lton , Ja!:'les 1-iope and George Milligan. The Vocabulary of the Greek ?e;si.?~.,cnr, TJ.J.ust, c·Jtcd .from the Papvr:i. and other Non- Literary Sources . i..ondon : liodder and Stoughton, Limited , 1952. I·:oi..;l ton, 1'! . f . and A. S . Gedcn. A Concordance to the Greek Testament. Fot::.~th edition . Edinbureh: & T. Clark,--r96J. ~ T. J.'.u::;sner, ? ran z . ZOE . Die An s chauung vom "Leben" im Vierten Evangelium. :-:uenchen : Karl Zink Verl a g , 1952. :ock, ,\ , D. o.nd A. J . Festugiere . Corous He rmeti cum . Paris: Societa D- mitio n Les Belles Lettres , 1945-1954. Four volumes. iforth , C. R. 11:·.'orld , the , 11 Interor eter' s Dictionary of t he Bible . :::di ted by George J'. r t hur Bu Urick . Vol. H--Z. New York: Abingdon Press , c . J.962 . Pp. 87J-87S . Odeber e , Hugo . 'ft:!_:';, Fon th QosoeJ.. Interpreted in its Relation to Co~tcmporaneou s Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hel l enisticOrien t.:?.l i'lorl d . Upp sala : Almquist and Wiksells Boktr'Jckerei, (1929]. Percy, Er.::est . Unt.P.~' 8Uchu.1 gen ueber den Urspru.'1!{ d e r Johanneischen Theolon;ie . Lund : Hakan Ohlssons Buchdruckerei , 1939. Philo. De Aet e r ~i tate Hundi. Translated from the Greek by F . H. Colson. Vol -. - IX of The loebelas sical Library. Cambridge , Nass.: Harvard Univer sity Pr ess , 1941. ----- . De On ificio Mundi. Translated from the Greek by F. H. Colson and G. H. \vni t a ~ Vol. I of The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, r1ass . : Harvard University Press, 1949, Pollard , T. Eva n . 11 Cosmology and the Prologue · of the Fourth Gospel," Vigiliae Chr istiana e, 12 (1958), 147-153. 165 Raci , GP.rl:a:rd Von . 9].-..1 '1'c~st!'i;P.n t Theolo~y. Vol. II The Theol ogy of Ts:::-e.d ' ~ P··nr,~i~ :~ic 'i'r;,.<i:i.tions . Translated from the German by D. ~.: . G. Ct.:ili<er. Edinbureh : Oliver & Boyd, c .196 5. i1ahlf3 , Alfr ed , editor . [>E=!otu<1.?,i nta . Two volumes. Sevent h edition. Stuti..Gart : 1,·,·ue:-ttembcrgiscr:e Bibelanstalt, c.1935, Hergestellt, 1962. Reddin.:;, Geor f.e \'ialker . "Kos~ in John's Gospel and Epistles." Unpubl.ishcci Ph . D. thesis , Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville , 1938 . I Sa s se, :-ie::-;na.n . "Aion," 'I'heol0r;ir:al Dict.fonary of the New Testament. 21:ii ted by Gerhard Kittel. I. Translated f rom the German by Geoffrey 1:1 . Bromilcy . Grand Rapids: Wm. D. Eerdmans Publishing Compa.ny, c . 196 5. Pp . 197-209 . ---"Kosr:.o s, 11 'i'h~oloni.cct],,_ Dictionary of t he New Testament . :i:~j.t-~d Ojr Gerhard Y.ittel. III. -Translated from the German by Geoffrey.-: . 13rorr.iley . Grand .ilapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Con:na~jr, c . 196 5. Pp . 868-396. Schlier, heinrich . "l•lelt und r~ensch nach dem Johannesevangelium," i-ksin-.un;z au f rla s Neue Testament . II. Freiburg: Herder, c.1964. Pp . 2/,2- 253 , (' ' , b urg, Rt~d.olf. ->Cnnac;.::e;-i cierder, c . 1965. Da s Johannesevangelium. Die - ohannesbriefe . Erster Teil. Freiburg: Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1953. The ~oral 7~aching of the New Testament. ·Translated from the Germ~n by J . Hollard- Smith and W. J. 0 1 Hara. New York: Herder and Herder , 196 5. Schubert , Kurt . ThP. Dead Sea Community. Its Origin and Teachings. 'i'rannlated f rom the German by John W. Doberstein. New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, c.1959. Schweizer , Eduard . "Jesus Christus, Herr ueber Kirche und Welt," Libertas Christiana . Fri edrich Delekat zum 65. Geburtstag . Im Gemeinschaft mit .E . 'dolf besorg von W. :t,iatthias. Muenchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1957 . Pp . 175-187. Scott, E. ~. The Fourth Gospel : Its Puroose T. & T. Cla r k, 1920. ~ Theology. Edinburgh: Scott, '.:falter . Heri:lctica . The ancient Greek and Latin writings which ·cont ain religious or philosophical teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. F,diti on with English translation and notes. Four volu.~es . Completed by A. S. Ferguson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924- 1936 . 166 Swuffer , Et.J:clher t . ~Jew Testmnr?nt TheoloF,y, Translated from the !':..ft.ii Ge:·mn.n edition by J ohn Nar~h. London: SCN Press , Ltd. , 1963 , StP.:·m'.~t, Roy:\ . R,:'bh:lnic 'i'ht;?olo,~y: An Introcluctor.v Study . Oliver & 30;,rd0 -1901 , &iinburgh: Strachc>.n, !i. , H. The Fo~Jrt.h Go::oel : Its Significance and Environment. Third editi o ~ London : Student Christi an 1,;over.ient Press, 1955, Strac::, lierm;1:.n L. and Paul Billerbeck. Kommenta.r ~ Neuen Testament ans ''°:} l mud und l·'lidrr~sch . Zweiter Band . Muenchen: C. H. Becksche Vcrla,g::;buchhandlung , 19211-, VoeJ.Kl, Richard . Chri.st und Welt Nach dem Neu en Testament . Sc11ter- Verlae , 1961.- - - - - - - - - - - - - viuerzburg: ~·:endland , Heinz- Dietr ich . 11 Die \'!eltherrschaft Christi und die zwei :leiche, 11 [ ~ und i~kklesia . Festschrift fuer Wilhelm Staehlin. Ed.itc:d by P,einz- Die trich Wendland . Kassel: J ohannes StaudaVerla3, 1953 , :·.' .c:stcott , Brooke Foss. The Gospel Accordi ng to St . John . ~-;n, . i3 . lerdmans Publishing Co . , 19 54. :!ikenhau ser, :\ .lfred . Das Evam:elium nach Johannes . Fr iedrich Pustet, c . 1948 . Grand Rapids: Regensburg: Verlag