The Fourfold Gospel, Volume 2: A Formational Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: From Summons to Signs

By John DelHousaye

In the spirit of Ludolph of Saxony (c. 1295-1378) and Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), The Fourfold Gospel invites the reader into the mystery of God's redemption in Jesus Christ. All the parallel passages in the Gospels are glossed together, along with the unique material, using a medieval interpretive approach called the Quadriga or the acronym PaRDeS in Hebrew. Meditating on the literal, canonical, moral, and theological senses of Scripture offers a scaffolding for the spiritual formation of the reader. This volume focuses on the summoning and purgative stage of discipleship--the Sermon on the Mount--as well as participating in Christ's healing of creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Oct 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781532683695

John DelHousaye

John DelHousaye (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the professor of biblical and theological studies at Arizona Christian University and a scholar-in-residence at the Spiritual Formation Society of Arizona.

Book preview

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Summons

In chapter 4 , at the end of the first volume, we saw the Father call the Son to ministry at his baptism. Tested in the wilderness and with the Spirit, Christ now summons others to his path. ¹ Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, mercy us sinners. Amen.

What Is an Anecdote?

With reason and will, memory is a constituent of the soul that reaches its fullness in community, knowing and being known, from which emerges a wholesome desire to communicate meaningfully. As we attempt to share memories, they take on general forms.² Perhaps we remember something our grandmother said and want to share it with our daughter. If the significance is contained in the saying, the memory may be expressed that way, like a proverb. But if some context is required, the recollection may expand into an anecdote or condensed narrative.³ A progymnasma (preliminary exercise for teaching rhetoric),⁴ attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus (c. 160–225), defines an anecdote (chreia, χρεία) as "a recollection (apomnēmoneuma, ἀπομνημόνευμα) of a saying or action or both, with a pointed meaning, usually for the sake of something useful."⁵ Like larger stories, a full anecdote has a beginning, middle, and end. There is usually a memorable moment—an unusual action or insightful response to a problem (exigence). The dramatis personae are usually not more than two but with other witnesses.

The anecdote is often short for ease of memorization and communication.⁶ Rhetorical training in the Greco-Roman world began with the chreia before advancing to more sophisticated forms of communication.⁷ Teachers used the anecdote to inculcate virtue, encouraging the student to identify with and imitate the subject.⁸ Training in the aphorisms of wise men, notes Theon (first century), produces a certain power of speech but also a good and useful character.⁹

Disciples of Confucius (551–479 BC) and Socrates (469–339 BC) remembered their teacher with anecdotes. Like Jesus, these founders of two great intellectual traditions did not write down their own teaching, so that these little stories also served to form subsequent generations of disciples, who, through imagination, could go back into history and sit at the feet of their master.¹⁰

At this level, anecdotes do more than merely remember or encourage virtue—they convey the meaning of life.¹¹ We hear masters in the world as their disciples saw them.

Geographically and culturally closer to Jesus are chreiai about Socrates, who transformed education—from the merely sophistic transference of information and skills between a teacher and student to the common pursuit of elusive truth. He did not teach through a curriculum, but famously asked questions. He loved his disciples (Xenophon, Mem. 4.1), framing the teacher-disciple relationship as friendship (2.4–6) and fostering intense loyalty. His student Plato founded the Academy where the same questions were asked, to be discussed among the junior and senior members.¹² Aristotle eventually broke away from Plato to develop the Lyceum.¹³ According to legend, he preferred to teach while walking—his disciples were called Peripatetics (walkers)—and encouraged cooperative research, anticipating the scientific method. The school was governed by the students. Platonic and Aristotelian approaches to reality have haunted the West ever since.

There was no one like Socrates in Judaism, until Jesus. Among Jews, there were self-proclaimed disciples of Moses (John 9:28), who, according to Philo, was the greatest of philosophers, Pharisees (Mark 2:18; Matt 22:16; Luke 5:33; Josephus, Ant. 13.289; see m. Avot 1:1), John the Baptist (Mark 2:18; Matt 9:14; Luke 5:33; John 1:35; 3:25), and others.¹⁴ So when Jesus began to call disciples, there would have been a cultural backdrop for understanding the relationship. But Jesus himself was not merely a disciple of Moses, David, or the other Prophets. He was opening an ancient yet new path, calling others from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

Diogenes Laërtius claims Xenophon (c. 430–c. 354 BC) was the first to write down recollections (apomnēmoneumata, ἀπομνημονεύματα) of Socrates, which, along with Plato’s dialogues, sourced later biographers.¹⁵ These writings had a unique, if not canonical, authority because Xenophon and Plato knew Socrates.¹⁶

Entering Anecdotes

Anecdotes about Jesus were popular at the earliest stage of the church. Martin Dibelius (1883–1947), an influential form critic, describes them as paradigms (παράδειγμα) or exemplary acts of Jesus that originated in preaching the gospel.¹⁷ As we shall see, these anecdotes or paradigms often operate at two levels: they are remembered occasions in Jesus’s ministry, serving as examples for later disciples, but they also point to the cross and resurrection and therefore cannot be fully grasped outside the kerygma.

As we noted in the first volume, Justin Martyr (c. 110–165) describes the Gospels as recollections (apomnēmoneumata, ἀπομνημονεύματα) of Jesus (1 Apol. 66.3), alluding to Xenophon’s presentation of Socrates.¹⁸ He presents the weekly gathering of Christians as opportunity to imitate Christ’s virtue (1 Apol. 67.3). Justin may have been influenced by an earlier father, Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130), who relates the circumstances behind the composition of Mark’s Gospel:

Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter [or translator], wrote accurately what he remembered, but not in order, the things either said or done by the Lord [or Christ]. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him [as a disciple], but later, as I said, Peter, who would teach in anecdotes [or according to needs], but not [with the thought] of producing an orderly arrangement of the sayings of the Lord . . .¹⁹

Peter either taught according to the needs of the situation or, more likely, with anecdotes (chreiai).²⁰ The citation is full of rhetorical terminology.²¹ Instead of sophisticated rhetoric, the apostle told anecdotes about Jesus, which Mark, like a biographer, weaved into a larger narrative.

Disciples may often return to these anecdotes to ground and direct their way of life. They are little stories within the great story of the gospel—bite-size and suitable for a morning or evening meditation.

The pedagogical background to the chreia offers some insight into the differences between the Gospels. A chreia could be expanded according to a student’s capacity. Luke was able to remain faithful to what Theophilus had learned while deepening his education.²² The same may be said for John. Both elaborate Mark’s chreiai of Peter’s recollections for more advanced levels of discipleship.

Call Anecdotes

Some chreiai feature a well-known philosopher, often Socrates, drawing a would-be disciple. By the first century, the gadfly had become archetypal because of Atticism and the moral turn in philosophy.²³ Most philosophical schools, despite their conflicts, claimed him as their founder.²⁴ Arthur Droge calls these anecdotes philosophical call stories.²⁵ Charles Talbert sees two variations of the call story: summons and attraction.²⁶ A would-be disciple is initially attracted to a philosopher’s way of life, or is directly summoned.

Summons

The rise of direct democracy in Athens required the rhetorical training of more young men for public life, leading to the curriculum of sophists like Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus, and Hippias. (Albeit in a monarchical context, we find a similar motivation behind the biblical book of Proverbs.) Teachers pursued young talent, often in competition with others. Socrates is remembered against this background.²⁷ Diogenes Laërtius presents a summons call story featuring Socrates and Xenophon:

Socrates, meeting (Xenophon) in a narrow passage, stretched out his staff and prevented him from passing, while enquiring where each kind of food was sold. But when he answered, (Socrates) again asked, Now where do men become good and honorable? But when he became puzzled, he said, Follow me and learn. And from that time on he was a disciple of Socrates. (Lives

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The pattern of speech involves a short setting featuring an encounter between teacher and would-be disciple whose ignorance is exposed, revealing the need for instruction, a summons to discipleship, and a resolution into the new relationship. Diogenes offers a similar resolution to Plato’s encounter with his teacher: after hearing Socrates, from that time onward, he "was the hearer (diakouō, διακούω) of Socrates" (Lives 3.6).²⁸ We also find pedagogical language: follow me (epou toinun, ἕπου τοίνυν), learn (manthanō, μανθάνω), and disciple (akroatēs, ἀκροατής). Some call stories of this type emphasize the decisive break the would-be disciples had to make with their past, abandoning family and wealth.²⁹ For many, this was a temporary departure; a few left for good like a religious conversion.³⁰

We find the same form in the Jewish historian Josephus (37–after 100), who retells the biblical summons of Elisha through this schema:

And when he found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, plowing, and certain others with him, driving twelve yoke of oxen, he came to him and cast his own garment upon him; upon which Elisha began to prophesy presently, and leaving his oxen, he followed Elijah. And when he desired permission to say goodbye to his parents, Elijah gave him leave so to do; and when he had taken his leave of them, he followed him and became the disciple (mathētēs, μαθητής) and the servant of Elijah all the days of his life. (Ant.

8

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353

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; see

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Kgs

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The resolution is similar to our examples. There may also be elements of the form in the Old Greek translation of the Scripture itself, which has Elisha respond: I will follow after you (akolouthēsōhpisō sou, ἀκολουθήσω ὀπίσω σου)—a detail not in our Hebrew text.

Attraction

Socrates also attracted disciples, the quality of a charismatic leader.³¹ Some attached themselves to enhance their reputations and did not morally improve from his presence. Alcibiades became a traitor. But others genuinely sought to imitate his life. Xenophon admired his self-sufficiency and discipline—virtues he also found in the Spartans.³²

According to someone writing for Socrates in the Cynic Epistles, the burden falls on the would-be disciple to find a wise teacher.³³ Diogenes claims Plato did not initially seek out Socrates, but was introduced by his relatives Critias and Charmides. However, after hearing Socrates lecture, he burned his own poetry (Lives 3.5–6).

Josephus tells a similar autobiographical story. About the age of sixteen, he studied with Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, which he describes as schools (hairesis, αἵρεσις). Discontent (apparently over their lack of rigor), he became a follower (zēlōtēs, ζηλωτής) of a desert ascetic named Bannus (Life 11).³⁴ Also, near the end of Herod the Great’s reign (ca. 5 BC), he relates an uprising instigated by two teachers, who encouraged their students to pull down a golden eagle over the temple gate:

And along with his [Herod the Great’s] other problems, an uprising of the people occurred. There were two teachers (sophistai, σοφισταί) in the city, who have a reputation for being extremely accurate interpreters of the (laws) of the fathers. And for this reason, they are considered worthy of great honor by everyone in the nation. (One is named) Judas, son of Sepphoraeus, and the other, Matthias, son of Margalus. (J.W.

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Josephus highlights their training of the youth and how day after day everyone who made a practice of virtue spent time with them (Ant. 17.149).³⁵

I focus on Josephus because, like the Gospels, he stands somewhere between the Jewish and Greco-Roman social worlds—writing for a Roman audience but as a committed Jew.³⁶ The Gerousia, which preceded the Sanhedrin as a power center, was a Greek export with an oligarchic foundation; there was a fairly thin pool of wealthy, prestigious families in Jerusalem, which fostered competition between schools and teachers (m. Shabbat 1:4).³⁷ Students were attracted to the prestige of teachers at the center (Judas and Matthias) but also the radical at the margins (Bannus and John the Baptist).

We find interplay between summons and attraction in rabbinic literature, although the latter has received the most attention.³⁸ The House of Shammai (bet Shammai) accepted disciples who were talented and meek and of distinguished ancestry and rich—Socratic ideals (’Abot R. Nathan A 3). But the House of Hillel (bet Hillel) sought to teach every man, in order to win all Israel back to the Torah (A 3).³⁹ Hillel (fl. end of first century BC–beginning of first century AD) himself is said to have had eighty disciples.⁴⁰ Many were drawn to his winsome, gentle personality (b. Shabbat 31a). There is also a tradition of Hillel sending Johanan throughout Galilee on an unsuccessful mission.⁴¹ Johanan attracted disciples but also suffered rejection. In the Hillelite tradition, Rashi (1040–1105) brought Scripture and teaching to the people.⁴² He wrote a commentary on the Hebrew Bible and Babylonian Talmud. His concise, lucid glosses attract beginners and yet nourish the mature disciple. His work was appropriated by Nicholas de Lyra (1292–1340) in Postillae Perpetuae that informed Martin Luther’s popular translation of the Bible.

The call stories in the Gospels are remarkable in light of this background. After reading Xenophon’s recollections about Socrates, Zeno wants to study with a teacher of that caliber. Seeing Crates walk by, a bookseller says: Follow that one.⁴³ Socrates is dead, and can no longer teach except through the way he was remembered and imitated. However, the early church did not emphasize the role of the human teacher but Christ’s enduring presence by the Spirit—he continued to speak through his sayings.⁴⁴ Augustine preaches, from the day they adhered to him so resolutely that they did not depart . . . Let us, also, ourselves build a house in our heart and make a place where he may come and teach us.⁴⁵ Justin writes:

I would wish that all, making a resolution similar to my own, do not keep themselves away from the words of the Savior. For they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe; while the sweetest rest is afforded those who make a diligent practice of them. (Dial.

8

)

Luke presents the summons of Peter and Paul as divine encounters.⁴⁶ The former is overcome by his sin, an element of prophetic call stories in Israelite Scripture (Luke 5:8); the latter is confronted by the resurrected, glorified Lord. John has Nathanael confesses Jesus as the son of God (John 1:49), setting the stage for Thomas’s ultimate confession: my Lord and my God.

Whatever recollections these chreiai may be based on, their ultimate form is intended to validate the unique authority of the apostles, like the earlier prophets. However, we also find a pervasive claim that all believers are called.⁴⁷ Albert Schweitzer ends his famous study of the historical Jesus accordingly:

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: Follow thou me! and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.⁴⁸

Augustine hears the call of a child, tolle lege, and turns to Scripture (Rom 13:13), sharing the experience with his friend Alypius and mother, Monica, for further confirmation. Simone Weil, who was Jewish, describes how Christ himself came down and took possession of me at the Abbey at Solesmes in 1938.

History

The British scholar James Dunn (1930–2020) suggests the events and sayings of Jesus’s ministry which called them to discipleship, which shaped the character of their discipleship, or which provided the model for their discipleship will have been among the Jesus traditions which the first disciples were most eager to preserve and pass on.⁴⁹

Our study suggests the biographical stories in Diogenes are ultimately dependent on the recollections of Xenophon and Plato about Socrates. These memories were chiseled down and adapted into chreiai for speeches, rhetorical education, and recruitment (evangelism) for philosophical schools, including (but not limited to) the Cynics. The call story was part of the Jewish lexicon before and at the time of Christ.⁵⁰ The form was appropriated by later rabbinic schools but presumably also their ancestors, the Pharisees. If Papias and Justin are basically correct, Mark adapted and wrote down Peter’s memories of Jesus into chreiai. Except for some possible echoes in Paul’s letters, Mark is the earliest expression of this written tradition. The American scholar Vernon Robbins (b. 1939) plausibly suggests Mark is imitating the Greco-Roman motif of disciple-gathering teachers whose integrity leads to their death whose teaching survives through their disciples.⁵¹

As we shall see, the settings of Mark’s anecdotes are historically plausible, suggesting a close relationship to Peter’s memories. The imbedded sayings are memorable—short, paradoxical, and repetitive. Many call stories feature proper names. The diversity and breadth of the call story in the Jesus Tradition suggest a pervasive memory that the historical Jesus, in fact, summoned disciples.

Ignatius of Loyola developed the Spiritual Exercises to help novitiates in his order to discern their call. We have adopted his approach by allowing the call stories to form God’s will in the reader. We begin with Christ’s general summons to discipleship and then review the call stories.

30a: Cross Summons (Mark 8:34–38)

⁵²

[34] And summoning the crowd, along with his disciples, he said to them: "If anyone wants to be following⁵³ behind me,⁵⁴ he must deny himself and take up his cross⁵⁵ and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his psuchē will lose it. But whoever loses his psuchē because of me and the gospel will save it. [36] For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his psuchē?⁵⁶ [37] For what can a man offer in exchange for his psuchē? [38] For whoever is ashamed of me and my words⁵⁷ in this adulterous and sinful generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory⁵⁸ of his father with the holy angels." [Dan 7:13–14; 12:2]

P: And (kai, καί) continues from Jesus’s first disclosure of suffering, death, and resurrection (v. 31) and the disciples’ misunderstanding (vv. 32–33).⁵⁹ They are partially blind like the man at Bethsaida (8:22–26), which is perhaps inevitable for novices along the path, but Jesus has also radically escalated the cost of discipleship: repentance and faith (1:15) now require a shameful death. Except for perhaps some verbal barbs and loss of livelihood, they had not suffered for the gospel or their association with Jesus.

Jesus summons disciples (3:13; 6:7; 8:1; 10:42; 12:43) and crowds (3:23; 7:14), but only here in Mark are they called together. Anyone potentially widens the discipleship circle, including the reader, but the open invitation is matched by a seemingly impossible condition.⁶⁰ There is also an element of attraction: If anyone wants . . . Imbedded in the loss is the greatest of prizes—immortality.

In the first part of the saying, Jesus speaks in a way that is easy to remember, employing chiasm:

A If anyone wants to be following behind me

B he must deny himself and

B' take up his cross and

A' follow me.

A For whoever desires to save his psuchē

B will lose it. But

B' whoever loses his psuchē because of me and the gospel

A' will save it.

Parallelismus membrorum was intended to inform the psuchē in moments of testing and trial, focusing on the cost and reward of discipleship. It probably served the role of an intentionality statement.

Jesus follows with two rhetorical questions:

For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to lose his psuchē?

For what can a person offer in exchange for his psuchē?

They lead our minds to the inevitable conclusion that nothing is more precious than the psuchē, and nothing on earth can be exchanged for it.⁶¹

The saying culminates in parallelism:

A For whoever is ashamed of me and my words

B in this adulterous and sinful generation,

A' the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes

B' in the glory of his father with the holy angels.

The psuchē will be saved or lost before the son of man by the disciples’ willingness to bear the shame of associating with Jesus and the gospel in the present. The destruction of the second temple marked the judgment of this adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 13:30; 14:62), but there is also a third and final temple of Christ’s body that will perish and rise again (14:58). (Commentaries often miss the significance of this verse, leading to confusion in eschatology.) Our salvation is contingent on our union with his death and glory.

R: Jesus alludes the divine son of man in Daniel who is given authority to judge the nations (7:13–14). He speaks in the third person, not to distinguish himself from the biblical character, but to emphasize the distinction between this humble season of his ministry, when it would be shameful to associate with him, and his glorious end. Jesus employs an implicit gezerah sheva: at the end of the book, Daniel looks forward to a resurrection from the dead leading to salvation or judgment (12:2). From the perspective of Mark’s readers, this salvation, as Jesus just prophesied (8:31), had already taken place in Christ’s resurrection, so that everything hinges now on their following his journey from death to glory.

D: Paul, who probably influenced the language of Mark’s Gospel, places this tradition at the beginning of his gospel:

I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation for (the benefit) all who believe—both for the Jew first and for the Greek, because in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith, just as it stands written: Now the righteous one will live by faith. (Rom

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16

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He often boasts in the gospel (Rom 5:2; 1 Cor 1:31; Phil 3:3). We are saved by faith, which involves sharing the stigma of following a crucified Messiah. An apostle, he was nevertheless not above the Lord’s command and could himself be disqualified (1 Cor 9:27).⁶² Yet, by this time, long into his apostleship, Paul could take some assurance in his history with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Mark is probably addressing the same churches in Rome, who recently had witnessed the apostle’s martyrdom.

It was almost inevitable, given the popular philosophical current of the day, for Jesus to say something to this effect. Socrates describes philosophy as a rehearsal for death:

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death. If this is true, and they have actually been looking forward to death all their lives, it would of course be absurd to be troubled when the thing comes for which they have so long been preparing and looking forward. (Phaedo

64

a)⁶³

The Stoics embraced the good death as their life’s work. Seneca (c. 4 BC–AD 65), who was part of Jesus’s generation, after being ordered by Nero to kill himself, calmly slit his veins and bled out in a tub. He rebukes his friends, ‘Where,’ he asked again and again, ‘are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years’ study against evil to come’ (Tacitus, Annals 15.62).⁶⁴ In the garden variety of discipleship, this summons of Jesus may have been surprising, but not from within the philosophical schools—all of whom looked to Socrates as their founder. We even find a Jewish emphasis on this in martyrdom literature of the period like 4 Maccabees.

Jesus speaks to a great fear—vulnerability of self. Nothing about us, apart from God, is safe, not even our psuchē. We face a holy God who can "destroy both psuchē and body" (Matt 10:28). At conversion, Justin Martyr had to learn that, contrary to Plato, who claimed that the psuchē was immortal and had life in itself, Jesus presented it as a gift from God, the source of life.⁶⁵ There are times when I am with those I love that I am reminded of the great fragility of the moment, how one or more of us is soon departing, and how this sadness has touched every generation. Staring at old photographs of people, I know that they stood before the camera aware of this fragility, wanting to capture something of their short time. I must confess an alienation from my body as it ages into the form of my grandfather. I no longer feel strong; everything, from the sun to regret, attacks my psuchē.

Everything in us, all that has life, strains towards survival.⁶⁶ It is the primary mission of our brain stem, while the cortex may invite altruism. Love complicates our biology. The effect is an unwanted fear that is almost always gnawing at the edges of our consciousness, shadowing every virtue with vice. Unless profoundly broken, people fundamentally desire to love and be loved, but we are also almost always feeling attacked. The Persian poet Hafez taunts:

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,

Love me.

Of course, you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.⁶⁷

Our self-protections alienate us from our own wholesome desire and from one another. Jesus addresses this division by inviting a death before dying. We surrender ourselves, which is another way of saying our need to be loved, and face a cold, indifferent world with a defiant love. The need for daily rehearsal makes this a summons to discipleship. The higher part of our brain must subordinate the lower, which usually requires a re-habituation. Unlike children, adults have had a lifetime to build up their defenses, so that they are now part of our implicit memory, surfacing as looping, unwanted thoughts. Like irritating flies at a picnic, we swipe at them but they keep returning to distract from the moment. The psuchē is wondrously complex: will, memory, and reason are always spinning out reasons to be hurt and afraid. However, unlike God, our psuchē is finite. At our resurrection and salvation, the unwanted loops will cease because there will no longer be any reason to fear. As disciples, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can embrace in faith this reality now, so that we refocus on love every time we become aware of distraction.

If we lose ourselves for Jesus and the gospel, we will be saved. Jesus gave up his own psuchē at the cross (John 15:13); the Father raised up Jesus in body and psuchē, and we are in Christ.

And yet, sadly, many refuse to pick up their own cross and follow Jesus. Because of hardness of heart, a history of refusing to respond to our God awareness, people cannot grasp the conditions that make the gospel their only hope (see Mark 4:10–12). We can only understand when we can understand. The necessary alignment in the universe that allows the simplest understanding is the mind of Christ.

Nevertheless, Jesus offers a seed argument that may sprout in good soil. What if we were able to grab all the world’s treasure—pleasure, power, possessions—but lost ourselves in the process? The crowds only had to remember Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC), who, at the age of thirty-three, died from a fever after getting drunk at a party. Julius Caesar was betrayed and assassinated by a flurry of daggers. In fact, seven of the first twelve Caesars met violent deaths. Herod the Great would have been a local moral tale. Will, by nature, is insatiable. It will either destroy the ambitious or spill into the infinity of God. Jesus does not reject the will to survive—indeed, he himself is moved by it—but offers more than a tragic quest. As a kind of biography, the Gospels offer a different paradigm for an ultimately successful life.

Today, some may demur from the invitation because of scientific confusion about the soul. The book of creation (liber naturae) is able to trace the effect of the psuchē, but cannot observe it directly. It is therefore not surprising to find anthropologies that reject the reality of the psuchē or whatever other word that points at the signified. On the other hand, God has allowed people from all walks of life to have out-of-body (OB), near-death experiences (NDE).⁶⁸ We often encounter these motifs in testimonials: floating up and seeing one’s body, passing through a tunnel of light, entering an Edenic space, meeting angels (spiritual beings) and departed relatives, being shown a review of one’s life, feeling connected to everything and overwhelmed by love, and, reluctantly, returning to the body and this life. Those who undergo these experiences often claim they are more real than real—super-reality or the reality behind the scenes of our reality. Especially relevant is the potential for empirical verification: when a disembodied person perceives what is physically impossible. For example, a patient experiences the equivalent of brain death on an operating table and yet can describe objects and conversations at that time.⁶⁹ Some have used these stories as proofs of the gospel. Indeed, many encounter Jesus in the light. However, non-Christians also find validation for their beliefs, which is not surprising because memory is a constituent of the psuchē, so that one is experiencing what one has imagined. The book of creation cannot prove the domain of the book of Scripture, special revelation, but may problematize doubt. These survivors may not prove the gospel, but they witness to a soul that is not dependent on the body for survival. They also speak to what is essential about the human soul—a focusing awareness, our principle activity or intellectual cognition, which is different from the sense cognition of animals, which only know this instance of a particular thing. The intellect, however, grasps the natures of things as universal essences, thereby becoming what is grasped intentionally. Perceiving a tree, the intellect becomes treeness to our understanding. This operation cannot be reduced to any particular organ, which only offers sensory information, but is ultimately a spiritual activity (Aquinas).

Nevertheless, it is unnatural for the soul to be separated from the body, which is death. For this reason, the complete salvation of the psuchē requires the resurrection that reunifies the psuchē with the body, as Daniel and Jesus prophesied.

This teaching encouraged disciples facing persecution, even martyrdom.⁷⁰ While not all have this calling, every disciple is called to self-renunciation. Our flesh, an impulse contrary to the Spirit, encourages us to forget this calling, and so Mark recorded the teaching for our constant rehearsal and benefit. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226)

sought continually for wild and solitary places, where with tears and unutterable groans he poured out long and fervent prayers, until at last our Lord was pleased to hear him; for being one day engaged in fervent prayer, according to his custom, in a lonely place, he became wholly absorbed in God, when Jesus Christ appeared to him under the form of a Crucifix, at which sight his whole soul seemed to melt away; and so deeply was the memory of Christ’s Passion impressed on his heart that it pierced even to the marrow of his bones. From that hour, whenever he thought upon the Passion of Christ, he could scarcely restrain his tears and sighs; for he then understood (as he made known to some of his familiar friends not long before his death) that these words of the Gospel were addressed to him: If you will come after me, deny yourself, and take up your cross and follow me.⁷¹

Francis was the first to undergo stigmata. Only a few, and only in the western side of the church, have bled out the literal wounds of Christ, but The Gospel of Barnabas remembers Jesus saying: Those who desire to see me and to gain my kingdom must receive me through affliction and suffering (7:11; see Acts 14:22).

While the summons is very personal, between the disciple and Jesus, it is also necessarily communal. From Francis’s surrender came the Franciscans, the largest order in the Catholic Church, who, like the other mendicants, went to the people. Aparneomai (ἀπαρνέομαι), translated deny, requires acting in a wholly selfless manner or prioritizing the needs of others.⁷² This, of course, is another word for love. Jesus is summoning disciples to what came to be called the active life, a life of devotion and service.

The psuchē of any human being is worth more than the whole world. The presupposition here contributes to the great question Why? If Jesus is God, why would God be willing to make this journey of demotion, suffering, and death?

With all creation, Francis made peace with his body, calling his flesh Brother Body. This wisdom grants both a kinship and difference, allowing the body to become our first neighbor to be cared for and nourished, although we will inevitably be hurt by the relationship until new creation.

S: Jesus calls us into a deeper union of death and life, a participationist Christology we also find at the center of Paul’s gospel (see Rom 5—8; Eph 2:1–22).⁷³ Jesus joins in our death for sin, and, in a glorious exchange, we join in his justification, resurrection, and glorification. But there is no glory before the cross (9:33–37). Lord Jesus, help us not to pull away from your shame but to enter more fully into your humility, to cleave to your life through our alienation and death from this world. Amen.

The Psuchē

Jesus mentions psuchē (ψυχή) four times in the previous teaching, foregrounding what it signifies; the word occurs only four other times in Mark (3:4; 10:45; 12:30; 14:34). Other translations prefer life (KJV, NIV, ESV). The Greek substantive, as we noted in the first volume, does not invite simple word-for-word translation. Aristotle registers the term’s ambiguity: "To attain any assured knowledge about the soul (psuchē) is one of the most difficult things in the world."⁷⁴ When philosophers investigated the signified behind the signifier, endless debate began, but the almost poetic origin of psuchē suggests an inaccessibility to human reason.

In Greek literature, psuchē emerges as signifying the animating breath of the body, a life force that escapes through the mouth at death (Homer, Iliad 9.408), and is similar to the Hebrew word nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ), which can be rendered breath. Psuchē, in fact, often translates nephesh in the Septuagint: "God formed the man as dust from the earth and breathed into his face (the) breath of life, and the man became a living psuchē (Gen 2:7 LXX) or, in Hebrew, a living nephesh."⁷⁵ Jesus touches this sense in the famous ransom saying: "For the son of man did not come to be served but to serve—that is, to give up his psuchē as a ransom in the place of many" (10:45).

In Jewish literature, psuchē may also signify the immaterial form of the body (sōma, σῶμα). There are no clear examples in Mark, but Jesus presupposes this sense in The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). Both characters have died. The rich man recognizes Lazarus and wants him to dip the end of his finger in water to cool his tongue (v. 24). According to this story, not only do they look like they were in life, they feel as if embodied.⁷⁶

Aquinas unites these senses, approaching the soul (anima) as the form or information-bearing pattern of the flesh that animates the body, bringing inert matter to life, actualizing its potential. The soul is the first principle of life in those things which live (ST 1.75.1).⁷⁷ Anything alive, then, by definition, has a soul.⁷⁸ Dallas Willard (1935–2013) similarly describes the soul as that dimension of the person that interrelates all of the other dimensions [thought, feeling, choice, body, and social context] so that they form one life.⁷⁹ A similar word is organism, a whole with interdependent parts. The psuchē, then, is the focal point of integration, allowing the entire wellbeing of a person. The systems of the body reflect this reality: an imbalance or dysfunction in one area affects others. A healthy psuchē is like a car engine firing on all cylinders. Jesus says something to this effect in the first occurrence of psuchē in Mark’s Gospel, in reference to the man with the withered hand: "Is it lawful on the Sabbaths . . . to save a psuchē or to kill it?" (3:4). Jesus was not technically saving the man’s life, which would have been allowed on the Sabbath, but a broader reality that includes his livelihood, emotional health, and standing in the community. In the present passage, Jesus uses the reflexive pronoun himself in parallelism with psuchē (v. 34), suggesting more than existence is at issue.

Other Christians are less specific, emphasizing mystery.⁸⁰ The Franciscan Bonaventure (1221–1274) presents the soul (mens) as the image of God in the depths of the person, the most profound dimension of man’s spiritual being.⁸¹ It follows that it is unknown in essence yet revealed in person.⁸² The Dominican Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) notes, The soul is far more closely united with God than are the body and soul that form one man. This union is far closer than if one were to pour a drop of water into a cask of wine.⁸³ These more Platonic sounding descriptions are intended to protect the psuchē from reductionism.

We are not merely a psuchē but have a psuchē. Jesus quotes a version of the Shema: "You shall love (the) Lord your God from all your heart and from all your (psuchē) and from all your thinking and from all your strength" (Mark 12:30). The psuchē is distinct from the I of our self-consciousness, being the seat of our feelings and emotions. We may therefore become alienated from our psuchē: "Why are you cast down, my nephesh, and why are you in turmoil within me? (Ps 42:5, 11). This may be a momentary dysregulation, as expressed by the psalmist, or a chronic hardening of the heart. The Rich Fool addresses his psuchē before God takes it from him (Luke 12:19–20). In the word’s final occurrence in Mark, Jesus says, "My psuchē is very sorrowful unto death" (14:34). We may access our psuchē through the Trinitarian-like relationship of memory, understanding, and will. We cannot know the nature of the psuchē, but as it presents itself to our awareness. As the Shema intimates, the psuchē may be regulated through love.

In sum, all that matters to us is bound up with the psuchē—not just life, but the best life possible. Apart from Christ, not only are we attempting to save what cannot be saved, we may never have had an integrated psuchē to begin with. Paradoxically, we must renounce our psuchē with Christ to save it.

30b: Cross Summons (Matt 16:24–27)

[24] Then Jesus said to his disciples: "If anyone wants to come behind me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [25] For whoever wants to save his psuchē will lose it. But whoever should lose his psuchē because of me will find it. [26] For what will a man profit if he gains the whole world but loses his psuchē? Or what will a man give in exchange for his psuchē? [27] For the son of man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he⁸⁴ will repay to each according to his praxis. [Dan 7:13–14; Ps 62:12 or Prov 24:12]

P: The teaching occurs in the same context as Mark, but Matthew narrows the invitation to Jesus’s disciples and there is no mention of shame.⁸⁵

R: Mark united two passages in Daniel; Matthew also employs gezerah sheva but relates a different Scripture—either from Psalms (62:12 [OG 61:13]) or Proverbs (24:12). The line, ἀποδώσεις ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ (he will repay to each according to his work), is the same in the Greek translations as we have them. Jesus more often appropriates the Psalter, but Matthew emphasizes Wisdom as a type of Christ.⁸⁶ Despite the ambiguous reference, the sense is straightforward: reward or loss based on performance. However, Jesus’s wording is slightly unique: instead of work (ergon, ἔργον) he says praxis (πρᾶξις). The word does not occur elsewhere in the first Gospel, and may simply reflect Matthew’s own translation. Yet it is more distinctive than ergon, referring to a whole course of action over a period of time.⁸⁷ Whereas the gezerah sheva in Mark’s presentation emphasized the willingness to share in Jesus’s shame, the device here focuses on obedience. The Ancient of Days gives the Kingdom to the son of man, so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him (Dan 7:13–14 ESV).

D: Following Jesus includes what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction.⁸⁸ Praxis entered English with the sense largely intact, describing the process by which a truth or skill is appropriated and expressed. Mapping this course engenders curricula across various fields of knowledge. The signifier has survived because of perennial interest in its signified, from Aristotle to Arendt. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has already given praxis in the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5–7), which occupies nearly two chapters of this volume. The Sermon ends with an urgent warning to hear and practice this curriculum. Citing Macarius the Great, Evagrius integrates this teaching, along with the love commandment concerning self, into a praxis: the monk should always live as if he were to die on the morrow but at the same time that he should treat his body as if he were to live on with it for many years to come (Praktikos 29). With Jesus, there is no distinction between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice); Truth cannot be separated from Goodness, if the disciple is to participate in the glory, that is, the Beauty of the Triune God.

S: Lord Jesus, teach us by your Spirit every day the rest of our lives, so that your angels will bring us rejoicing to you. Amen.

30c: Cross Summons (Luke 9:23–26)

[23] Now he was saying to all: "If anyone wants to come behind me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily⁸⁹ and follow me. [Ps 44:22] [24] For whoever might want to save his psuchē will lose it. But whoever might lose his psuchē because of me—this (one) one will save it. [25] For what does it profit a man, after gaining the whole world but loses or forfeits himself? [26] For whoever might be ashamed of me and my [words],⁹⁰ that (one) the son of man will be ashamed of when he comes in his glory and (the glory) of the Father and of the holy angels." [Dan 7:13–14; 12:2]

P: Luke simplifies Mark’s presentation.⁹¹ He may drop in this adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 8:38) to apply the saying after the destruction of the temple (AD 70). A striking addition is the adverbial daily (kath’ hēmeran, καθ᾿ ἡμέραν), which invites a metaphorical reading. Paul alludes to this saying, "Why are we [the apostles] also in danger every hour? . . . I die daily (kath’ hēmeran)" (1 Cor 15:30–31), which suggests that Luke is not putting words into Jesus’s mouth but bringing forward an alternative tradition. The evangelist repeats some of the saying in the context of hating one’s family and own psuchē (14:26–27).

R: Jesus may allude to Psalm 44, the lowest point in the Psalter, when God’s people complain about inordinate suffering, despite their faithfulness: Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered (v. 22 ESV). Nevertheless, they were sinful; but the argument sharpens in Jesus, a sinless Messiah, and those who are willing to suffer daily with him. Paul cites this verse as finding resolution in our union with the crucified yet resurrected Christ (Rom 8:36).

D: Saint Benedict’s Rule encourages monks to meditate daily on their death (RB 4, 47). Although, as Luke suggests, not every disciple will be crucified, all follow a crucified Messiah, which shapes our renunciation; we intentionally seek the lowest position because only slaves, captives of war, and others of low status were crucified by the Romans;⁹² we celebrate God’s immediate victories, but anticipate a difficult, painful ministry unto death; if others even take notice of our lives, they will judge them to be a failure. Benedict writes:

Renounce your own desires and ambitions so as to be free to follow Christ. Control your body with self-discipline; don’t give yourself to unrestrained pleasure; learn to value the self-restraint of fasting. Give help and support to the poor; clothe the naked, visit the sick and bury the dead. Console and counsel those who suffer in time of grief and bring comfort to those in sorrow.⁹³

Meister Eckhart notes, there was never any man in this life who forsook himself so much that he could not still find more in himself to forsake.⁹⁴

S: Although presumed in the other accounts, Luke emphasizes the Son’s own glory. Lord Jesus, you are beautiful, not simply in the eye of the beholder yet in the eye of the faithful beholder. You are the Beauty behind all true and wholesome beauty, like that of the angels or a field of sunflowers. You are what makes that beauty profound, bringing glory to the radiance of your Father.

31a: Rest Summons (Mark 6:30–31)

[30] And the apostles are gathering themselves with Jesus. And they announced to him all the things that they did and that they taught. [31] And he says to them: "You, (come) over here by yourselves to a wild place and rest yourselves for a while." [Gen 2:2] For many were coming and going, and they were not having an opportunity to eat.

P: The apostles complete their first mission (vv. 7–13). The word apostle has been used only once before—where they are first named as such (3:14). Now they are actualizing the name, nomen omen, but Jesus re-introduces rest into their cycle. The Baptist’s death and burial, narrated just before this scene, allowed time for their mission to take place offstage, but also to emphasize its danger.

Although Jesus had them work, albeit modestly, on the Sabbath (2:23), he now encourages rest, although there is no indication that this is a Sabbath. In both cases, though, he is concerned about their diet—a pastoral moment setting up the Feeding of the Five Thousand (6:32–44), which the ESV includes as part of the unit.⁹⁵

R: Jesus recapitulates God’s rest after six days of creation:

And God finished on the sixth day his work that he did (poieō, ποιέω), and he rested on the seventh day from all (pantōn, πάντων) his works that he did (poieō, ποιέω). (Gen

2

:

2

LXX)⁹⁶

God dignifies the apostles by allowing them to participate in creation’s renewal.⁹⁷ What they did (poieō, ποιέω), their labor, matters: Adam and Eve were to populate the earth; they, the Kingdom. He further dignifies them by granting rest, a critique of slave labor going back to the first formulation of the creation story. God rested in the sense that he took up residence in the temple of his creation, so he and the first couple might commune with one another.

D: Rest or communion, the enlivening of our union with God, is the telos of our evangelistic labor. In the healing of creation, God is at rest; Jesus invites the apostles into that rest, as they will do in their teaching. Ministry requires sacrificial love, a great effort, the yang of the Way, but flows out of fullness in Christ and communion with others, the yin. Jesus does not offer restorative meals as ancillary to the Kingdom, but the essential resolution of his teaching (Mark 2:13–17). If the apostles were to become too busy to eat with the forgiven, which would include communion (the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist), they would only be talking about the Kingdom, not offering its first fruits. Resting is especially important after productivity. We may feel full, but are almost empty. It is the way of evangelism to pour out, as Christ did. Whereas God is eternally full, we are finite and contingent upon the filling of the Spirit. Over here, Jesus invites us who are weary. Let’s refresh ourselves around a meal, not a quick bite but a banquet. Recline here, against my chest. We can talk or just enjoy one another’s presence." Over here, we may say to a weary brother or sister: There is space on the couch.

Nevertheless, Jesus is not calling the apostles into a permanent rest, but for a while (oligon, ὀλίγον). As we explored in the first volume, monasticism was largely a departure (anachōrēsis) from the world, although church leaders like Basil the Great invited monks to come out of the desert to serve others: Whose feet will you wash?⁹⁸ Monasticism, for the bishop, is life according to the Gospel.⁹⁹ The psuchē, which is maintained by unceasing prayer alone with God, was nevertheless created to shape the body, to enliven it. A healthy rule of life is ever striving for the right tension between the wild place and the city.

Philosophers claimed one had to choose between the Active or Quiet Life. Philo distinguished the Essenes from the Therapeuts by describing how the latter replace labor and city life with contemplation: Instead of this they pass their days outside the walls pursuing solitude in gardens or lonely bits of country (erēmia, ἐρημία; Contemp. 20). Mark uses the same root here (erēmos topos, ἐρῆμος τόπος). Depending on our place in the journey, this can be a tension for the disciple. Paul wanted to depart this life to be with Christ, but remained in this world for the benefit of others. In the previous teaching (Mark 8:34–38 pars.), we meditated on the fear of death. This may be described as fear of life in a world of exhausting distraction. But Jesus offers a rhythm between restful contemplation—loving God—and engaged service—loving neighbor. As we have noted, anachōrēsis or departure for watchfulness and prayer defends us from the weakness of the flesh in tests with Satan. Until death, we must walk this narrow path. Ministry, paradoxically, often distances us from Christ. The process is gradual, but it emerges in a fleshly mindset, exhaustion, and, if unchecked, burnout.

Over here: What should we do if we hear the crucified yet resurrected Lord in these words calling to us? The apostles were probably ecstatic: God was expressing his power—a power they had witnessed in Jesus—now through them. Perhaps Jesus’s response is an encouragement not to get caught up in the excitement, but to rest in God’s mercy (see 1:32–34).

S: No one forced God to rest; he rested himself; we imitate God by resting ourselves as well.¹⁰⁰ Father, thank you for the dignity of co-participation in your Kingdom and freedom under your authority to determine our rest. Amen.

31b: Rest Summons (Matt 11:28–30)

[28] "(Come) over here to me, all who are laboring and are weighed down with burdens, and I will refresh you. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because¹⁰¹ I am humble and lowly in heart. And you will find refreshment in your psuchai [30] because my yoke is easy and my burden is light." [Ps 23:2–3; Jer 6:16]

P: Perhaps integrating additional tradition with Mark’s rest summons, Matthew emphasizes its didactic, internal basis. We find a similar saying in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas: Jesus said: ‘Come unto me, for my yoke is easy and my lordship is mild, and you will find repose for yourselves’ (90), which may be derivative of Matthew or evidence independent tradition.¹⁰² In any case, the summons matches how Jesus was distinctly remembered by his disciples.

The invitation follows a prayer in which Jesus thanks the Father for concealing himself from religious teachers, the wise, yet is available to disciples. Jesus distinguishes himself from the Pharisees, a popular religious group, who attacked his provision (12:2) and healing on the Sabbath (v. 10) and even plotted to destroy him (v. 14). They slandered him as a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners because he did not require weekly fasts but forgave and shared a table with sinners (11:19). Jesus, in turn, will criticize them for placing heavy burdens on people, but are unwilling to move them with their finger (23:4). Jesus literally says, over here (Deute, Δεῦτε)—leave them and join me!¹⁰³

The yoke was a common symbol for discipleship, but often connotating oppression, making the summons paradoxical—something like, I know your impression of following a teacher, but joining our family, God’s family, will be different.¹⁰⁴

Why take on a yoke? Why join a marginalized and persecuted group (5:10, 11–12; 10:32–39)? Why choose the narrower, more difficult path (7:13–14)? Jesus gives three reasons. First, he is humble (praus, πραΰς) and lowly (tapeinos, ταπεινός), which is not normal credentialing for teachers who attract students through their prominence. Jesus will unassumingly enter Jerusalem on a donkey to die for his people (21:5 where praus is used). Tapeinos describes someone of low social status. But those who learn this way of life are blessed and will inherit the earth (Matt 5:5 where praus is used). God gives grace, a supernatural empowerment, to the lowly.¹⁰⁵ Second, his yoke is easy (chrēstos, χρηστός), a cherished word by the early church because of its similarity to Christ (Christos, Χριστός).¹⁰⁶ His way is forgiveness and love. Third, he offers rest for our psuchai.

R: Jesus quotes an oracle of judgment in Jeremiah against Jerusalem for rejecting God’s yoke. His wording is closer to the Hebrew than the Greek translation:

Greek: "And you will find purification (hagnismos) for your souls."

Hebrew: "And find (imperative) a resting place (margoa, מַרְגּוֹעַ) for your souls."

The citation connects the present offer of peace with God’s offer of peace which, when rejected, led to the Exile (see 11:20–24).¹⁰⁷ Jesus presents as the antitype Moses, the quintessential Law-giver and prophet (special revelation), "who was very humble [praus, πραΰς], more than all people who were on the face of the earth (Num 12:3). Moses does not punish the slander of Miriam and Aaron; he puts the needs of the people before his own, serving as their intercessor (Exod 32:30–34; 33:12–14). In contrast, the Pharisees teach from the seat of Moses (23:2), an honorary position in the local synagogue for the authoritative interpreter of Scripture, but do not imitate his example.¹⁰⁸ Those who followed anyone other than Moses met disaster in the wilderness; now someone greater than Moses is here. Jesus is also the antitype of Wisdom, the other source of understanding through the grain of the universe (general revelation), who, seeking a home among the Nations, cries out: Come to me (προσέλθετε πρός με), you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits. For the memory [awareness] of me is sweeter than honey and the possession of me sweeter than honeycomb" (Sir 24:19–20).¹⁰⁹ Proverbs depicts Wisdom summoning young people to follow her in the way of virtue.

D: To our post-Christendom world, Jesus says: "I know your negative experiences of religion. Like me, you have felt manipulated, judged, shamed, rejected, abused. Rhetoric did not match reality. Over here: things will be different."

Socrates did not call disciples to himself, but Wisdom.¹¹⁰ In Plato’s Symposium, which most fully fleshes out the character of the teacher, he offers philosophy as a bridge between ignorance and wisdom, the human and divine.¹¹¹ Philo absorbed this tradition while remaining Jewish.¹¹² In the Contemplative Life, he features the Therapeuts as the ideal of his tradition, surpassing the virtue of Socrates and the philosophical schools.¹¹³ Wisdom (Sophia, σοφία) calls them from family, out of the city, filled with distractions and vice. As disciples of Moses, the Therapeuts are ultimately attracted to the Logos, the bridge between humanity and the divine.¹¹⁴ I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful, confesses Augustine, but I have never read in either of them: ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’¹¹⁵ Coming to Jesus, the God-man, brings rest because there is nothing to reach that is beyond God.

The promise of rest is partially eschatological—the humble will inherit the earth (5:5; see Heb 6:2, 6, 7)—and the certainty of its fulfillment offers rest. All is well in the gradually becoming well of the universe: our stay in this world of the flesh is short and transitory, but the promise of Christ is great and marvelous: rest in the coming kingdom and eternal life! (2 Clem. 5:5).

But there is also a present rest in Immanuel, who shares the Spirit and unique relationship with the Father. Taking a line from the Septuagint (Exod 24:10–11), the desert fathers celebrated the place of God (ho topos tou theou, ὁ τόπος τοῦ θεοῦ) that could be found in solitude and prayer.¹¹⁶ Facing an unjust execution, the Christian philosopher Boethius (c. 477–524) nevertheless found consolation by freeing his attention from corporeal things to focus on the simple, stable, quiet place of God.¹¹⁷ God is always enthroned. Traumatized by the destruction of the Exile, the author of Lamentations, traditionally identified as Jeremiah, concludes: You, Lord, are forever sitting, Your throne is from generation to generation (5:19). With Plato, Boethius came to see time as a cycle of shifting scenes before eternity.¹¹⁸ Eternal life, the Kingdom of God, is not quantity but a location—with God outside time. In God, there is no past or future, only the timeless present, the eternal.¹¹⁹ In Christ, we no longer face a wrathful God, but a loving Father who gives the Spirit of peace, who fills us with the Trinitarian love of God, inviting our psuchai into deepening rest.¹²⁰ As we noted in the first volume, the place of God is the res of our baptism. We respond in faith, in surrender, which deepens the resting place.

We have been engaging in this kind of prayer in our commentary by not allowing Jesus, the God-man at the center of nearly every scene, to disappear into the past but always to be speaking from the Father’s right hand. The scenes of our short, difficult lives begin to mirror those of the short, difficult life of our Lord and yet, because of our union with him, the crucified yet resurrected one, we are not entirely bound to those finite moments but are beginning to see through them like a scrim.¹²¹

Jesus invites us to a place to which we can always return. If we attend to our interior life, we discover a cycle around our intention. An aspiring athlete focuses, rests, becomes distracted, and refocuses. Rest is essential, but she may begin to shorten this element because of its relationship to distraction, especially if winning becomes an idol. Even distraction is necessary, but, if we are not disciplined, this element tends to lengthen until we are no longer pursuing our intention. So it is with the disciple: repentance leads to focusing on God’s throne, whose Spirit works through our finiteness to offer rest and enjoyment of creation. Many of the desert fathers sought the angelic life, reaching a place of entirely undistracted retirement and prayer, but this is not a universal calling. God did not create human beings to be angels but to care for and enjoy his beloved creation. Work is responsibility, Sabbath a gift. But we do become distracted by the demonic misuse of creation, which preys on our proclivity to laziness. And yet, unless we harden our hearts, the Spirit makes us aware of this distraction; we repent and refocus on God’s throne. Like the athlete, we slowly begin to learn that extended distractions are dead ends and that undistracted prayer is the highest act of the intellect—what makes us most fully alive and human.¹²² Sanctification begins to close the gap. John Cassian, who contributed to the Benedictine ideal of ora et labora (prayer and work), observed that our habits before prayer shape prayer. Loving our neighbor encourages love for God. Turning briefly away, by grace, increases ardor.

For a long time,