There's a lot of things I'd like to do, but we're going to talk about the whole of John's Gospel, and the first letter of John, and the final conclusion, and all of that. Obviously things are going to get squeezed out. Let's talk about John's Gospel first, and if anybody wants to carry that further, well, we can do it somehow, in another way. And I'm afraid it may be confusing what I'll throw at you, but ask questions when something's not clear or possible, and I'll try to clarify. The time of writing of John's Gospel is generally given nowadays between 90 and 110 A.D., and 90 seems to be more favored. It's the last of the four Gospels to be written, evidently. The place of writing, the author, is a great, what do you call it, great confusion and a complicated discussion about the authorship of John. And I'm not going to touch it at all. There are probably several people involved. The usual view now is that it comes from, at least that there's a Johannine community,

[01:05]

and it comes from that. There's a unity in the style and the thought of the Gospel which indicates strongly that there's one person at the middle of this, that there's a single author. This is often true in the New Testament writings. You may not know who the author is, but it's pretty evident that there's one personality and one inspiration pulling the work together, and so it is with John's Gospel. The conception, somehow, and the unified conception can only come through one person, even if several people elaborate at different stages, and you can't do that with a committee. John is a kind of wisdom poem, and what I mean by that is partly that the way in which John communicates knowledge is largely elusive, largely symbolic, largely implicit, inferential, oblique, eccentric, elliptical, whatever you want to call it, but it's often not direct. In a sense, it's more direct, but it's not on the normal, rational, nor the merely historical

[02:10]

level. But secondly, and there's a kind of rhythmic quality. You read the prologue of John, and there's a rhythm in it. It's like a hymnic quality, a musical quality, and it's as if you're kind of walking around in a circle, chanting or something like that, around an invisible center, and much of John's Gospel is that way, it seems to be circular. Things are repeated, and you move around, there's a kind of ritual character to it, a kind of ritual rhythm to it. It's far from being straightforward, linear history, as is obvious. And it's unified. Every part, I believe, relates to the center of it now, and we have to ask ourselves what the center is. But actually, that's not hard to find. If you read the prologue, the center of John's Gospel is given to you there, the central perspective from which you're to read it, and the prologue seems very different from the narrative of the Gospel, in a way. And the things that are primary in the prologue are not even mentioned in the Gospel like

[03:12]

the Word. But so much the more, I think that means that you have to read the Gospel through the prologue, which is what we're going to try to do. Let's talk about the prologue, then. The prologue is unique in the New Testament, certainly, even though there are other texts that approach it. And the texts that approach it in some way usually have a hymnic quality to them. They usually sound a little bit like a hymn. The whole of John's prologue is obviously not a hymn, because you've got some little stretches in there about John the Baptist that are like a monkey wrench in the works. They break the rhythm of it in some way, and seem an intrusion of narrative into a poetic text, or into a circular or rhythmic text. They interrupt the dance in some way. But part of it, they say that part of it probably pre-existed John's Gospel as a hymn. My belief is that it's a baptismal hymn, or a baptismal text. The structure of the prologue, do you have this handout, H8, with all of the diagrams

[04:18]

on it? Look at the third page of that. On the left side of the third page, you'll find a diagram, a very trying diagram. Do you have it? We don't have it. I'm going to see if I can find it. Oh. And I don't think I have it here, so I can give it to you later, but I don't have it here. So if you can look on with somebody. If you can sit next to somebody, then we can look on. Even though the print is kind of fine. Now, what we've done there is to, once again, since I'm not up in session, but we've diagrammed John's prologue. John moves up, moves up this way. You might say, here, that that's once again five parts. So this is part one down here.

[05:19]

Then you go over here, and this is part two, which is, it's not moving this way in the diagram. It's moving down. Part one is moving up. Part two is, we're not going to go this way, but the verses are written going down. Part three is in the middle. Part four is over here. Part five is at the top. Now, as I say, the two parts of Anabaptist are symmetrical. One is above the center in part four, or part five. The other is below the center in part one. And I think they are somewhat intrusions in the text, but it doesn't matter. It's difficult to read the central column there, because it's upside down, if you notice. The reason for that is we're moving up. And if we want to find the symmetries, the actual chiastic symmetries here,

[06:19]

we need to line it up this way, so that actually the beginning is at the bottom and the end is at the top, but no one will be able to see those parallels. We haven't been able to do that on the horizontal part, part two and part four. Now, we'll talk about the center for a moment. They used to believe that the center of this was verse 14, because that's the theological heavyweight for Western theology. Eastern theology, too, is that one. And the Word became flesh and lived among us. That's a dogmatic statement. In fact, that is like the kingpin of traditional theology, the belief in the Incarnation. Consequently, that would be put at the center. But scholars nowadays are more inclined to put the center earlier on and to find it in, especially because of the chiastic parallels that they find, that is, these hinged symmetries between one part and another, to put the center in verse 14.

[07:20]

I think I got this from Culpepper, who wrote a widely recognized paper on the structure of John's prologue. The center at verse 12, and that makes a different kind of sense. See, that's not a dogmatic, objective sense. This is an experiential sense. Suppose that what this is about is baptism, and suppose that verse 12 is the actual baptismal experience, the actual baptismal event. But to those who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God. Suppose that becoming a child of God is the actual baptismal event. It is, isn't it? It's the baptismal event, in some way. And suppose that that corresponds to the center of John's Gospel. Now, we've seen the influence of baptism on Mark's Gospel, but I think John's form is a much more centered form. Mark sort of has a conclusion at the end. We talked about the center of Mark's Gospel. We read a puzzle about exactly what it is. It's the long word-of-the-cross section between the two healings of alignment.

[08:23]

But to precisely fix the center of Mark's Gospel is not so easy. I think it fits together in John more conclusively. It kind of falls together really quick in John's Gospel. The center of the Gospel, and then here the center of the prologue, and the correspondence between the two. They're about baptism. To become a child of God is the baptismal event, the baptismal experience. It comes through faith and through receiving Jesus. The thing that corresponds to it in the Gospel, I believe, is the sea crossing, where Jesus is coming across the water, remember? After the multiplication of the bread in John chapter 6, verses 16 through 21. He sends them off in the boat. They're rowing. Jesus is walking on the water. They're frightened. He said, do not be afraid, I am. And then they want to take him into the boat. They wanted to receive him into the boat. The Greek verb is not quite the same. So it's symbolic. The center of John's Gospel, the sea crossing,

[09:28]

is symbolic both of the Exodus sea crossing and of the first day of creation, remember? When the Spirit hovered over the waters. And God said, let there be light. Just as Jesus says, I am. And they want to take him into the boat. So that's symbolic also of baptism and therefore of birth. Remember the words at the baptism of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. You are my beloved Son, and you I am well pleased. You gave the power to become the children of God. So I believe that's the baptismal experience. And the whole thing is about that in some way. And the whole of John's Gospel, I believe, is centered in that baptismal experience. So it's not basically a linear narrative. It's a commemoration of that which is transcendent of that which comes into the world and somehow takes you back to the beginning and starts everything all over again. It's an attempt to put into form, to put into some kind of visible, repeatable, readable form that which is overwhelming,

[10:29]

that which comes in and becomes the biggest mountain of all, which is this experience that the disciples have had, that John has had, the Johannine community has had, the experience of baptism, which somehow becomes the center of the world. And so the only way to do it, ultimately, graphically or visually, is through the centered text, which is what is happening here. There's this enormous centering tendency that you find in sacred text and in sacred architecture as well. When there's been a transcendent experience, when there's been some kind of overwhelming experience, something out of the ordinary, how do you commemorate that? Well, build a, make a pile, find a mountain, find the biggest mountain, find a tree, find the tallest tree, find something that is naturally centered and that protrudes out of the two-dimensional surface. And that's what the gospel writers are attempting to do in their own way, I believe. So part of it is linear, part of it is a history, but you've got the second level on which it's a centered thing. And the centering and the symmetry around the centering is the language of that second level.

[11:31]

It's the language, I don't like to say transcendence because that's usually opposed to eminence. And what we're talking about here is both transcendence and eminence. It's the language of the ultimate, of the absolute, of the I Am, of that which comes into your life and becomes the middle of your life. That which comes in and becomes the principal thing, becomes the dominant thing. That which comes in and becomes the rule, becomes A, Z, and the whole alphabet for you, which revolutionizes your life. So that's what they're, that's what they're talking about. Now if you look at verse 13 there, it's also in the box in the middle. Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Why are there four terms there? It seems rather boring. It seems like some kind of Semitic, wearisome talk or something. But actually I think it's pointing out the four-dimensional quality of the whole thing, the four-dimensional form. That is the four arms. Here we have another mandala text in which you're given a center. The center is the baptismal experience, and then you have these four dimensions, okay?

[12:33]

And they're pointed to in a very simple way by those four terms. Blood, will of the flesh, will of man, God. And then the God direction is the upward direction, is the vertical direction, as we have it drawn here. You could also do it upside down. Descend instead of ascend. And the same thing is true, I believe, of the Gospels. So the, the quaternary form, or the mandala form, or the cruciform of the prologue is repeated in the Gospel. Now, what do these four limbs mean here? Remember that the prologue is a guide to reading the Gospel, so don't expect everything in the prologue to be explained within the prologue. I believe it goes like this. At the bottom you have the first creation. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing was created, okay? It's a statement of the first creation. Now, remember that, what's the beginning of John's prologue? In the beginning. In the beginning was the Word.

[13:34]

In the beginning is the first words of the book of Genesis, right? It's the first words of the first creation kind of Genesis, so he's deliberately taking you back to the first creation. Very emphatically, he's undermining that most wonderful words, N-R-K, in the beginning. And that beginning, somehow, is a unitive beginning, an all-inclusive beginning. It's not just the beginning in time. It's the metaphysical beginning, which is the divine beginning, which is God and which is the Word. But at the bottom you have the first creation, and at the top you have the new creation, and that's what John is about. That's what John's Gospel is about, is the new creation. Now, what characterizes the new creation? Let's read from verse... First you have the John the Baptist thing, which, as I say, is a kind of intrusion. And then you have verses 16 up. From his fullness we have all received. Grace upon grace. The law, indeed, was given through Moses before the law yet of creation, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God.

[14:36]

Is God the only Son who is in the Father's bosom, who has made him known? Another interpretation of that word exegesis, exegesito, excuse me, the usual one is he has made him known. Another one is he has opened the way by a good French Jehovah's Scholar, Le Pottery. What's happening up there on the top? What's the difference between the first creation and the new creation? It's got something about this fullness. It's got something to do with grace. It's got something to do with grace and truth. It's got something to do with not seeing God, but another kind of relationship with God, which is expressed by being in the bosom of the Father. What does the baptismal thing do? It makes you a child of God. What is it to be a child of God? It's to be Christ. It's to be Jesus. It's to be the only Son. It's to be the only child of God. There's only one. And that's the one who is in the bosom of the Father. So the new creation is being created inside God,

[15:37]

which is being generated by God. The new creation is not creation. It's generation. It's to be begotten by God. That's what the first letter of John is so full of, that being begotten by God. Now that's to go back to the real beginning. See, the real beginning is even before the beginning of creation. The real beginning, beginning, beginning is the Father who generates, and generates in the beginning, and is the beginning. And there in the beginning too is the Word. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was the Word. So you're taken from creation to generation. New creation is a unitive creation, which means that you're created, recreated inside God. What was created, we picture it, outside God, is brought inside God, and that's the new creation. The first creation, as it were, was a separation. And the creation account tends to be all separations. The light is separated from the darkness, and the heavens are separated, and the water is separated from the dry land, and all of that. It's by separation. The second creation is by union, by integration.

[16:39]

It's by this unitive taking, and entering, and bringing in of the human person into God. And that, I believe, is the drama, the thing that's happening in the whole of John's Gospel, is that new creation. Which is a unitive new creation, which means it's the oneness, it's the union, which is the newness. The union is the newness. And the union is in the Son, is in the one Son, is in the Word, who is Jesus. And we're taken into Him, we become one with Him, and in becoming one with Him, we're one with God, we're in God, that language, in God, we're in Him. Now that's the vertical axis here, OK? You might call it the metaphysical axis, the axis of being. But it's also an axis that in some way takes place in time. And yet, it takes place in time, not just A to B, but it's always overlapping. That is, there's this transformation that's going on all the time of new creation, by which the old creation flung out there

[17:40]

becomes a new creation by being brought into God, by accepting God and entering into God. The unitive new creation. Now what do you have on the horizontal line? I think here what you've got is the outside and the inside. And that's what we usually have in these figures for the New Testament. On one side we have like Galilee, remember? The outsiders and the Gentiles on one side, on the right side we've been putting it. On the other side we have the inside, the insiders. That's Judea, that's Jerusalem, it's the Jews, it's especially the officials of the Jews, the high priests and the scribes and the Pharisees and so on, all those guys. Those are the insiders. On the other side is the outsiders, the Galileans, the Gentiles and a lot of messed up people often over on the right side. And the whole world actually is waiting outside the door on the right side usually. And the left side, the insiders, is usually ironic in that Jerusalem is where Jesus is rejected and so on.

[18:42]

So there's a reversal taking place over on the left side and the outsiders are being brought in and the insiders are being thrown out. There's that dynamic happening continually in these figures in the New Testament. Now what do we have here? Over on the right side, the true light which enlightens everyone is coming into the world. He was in the world and the world came into being through him but the world didn't know him. He came into those who were his own and they didn't accept him. So here you've got the insiders who become outside over on the right. What you've got is the outer darkness here. It's as if the people who do not accept him become part of the world which does not know him on the right side. On the right side is darkness. What's on the left side? And the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son full of grace and truth. It's the light on the left side. Now what is that light? That light I believe is the baptismal light. That's the illumination. That's the photosmos of baptism. Those who didn't believe remain in the darkness on the outside with the world which does not know the light out of which it was made and which has come into it.

[19:45]

Those who believe and who receive him and who are baptized are illuminated in their baptism and the whole thing depends on that baptismal experience. And that's what you have on the left is the overflow or the emanation of the center, of verse 12 of the center. 12 and 13 are born of God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Now we usually think of that outside of ourselves in Jesus but suppose that that's happening in us. Suppose that here it's really intended to be a commentary on the baptismal event by which the word becomes flesh in us because we are Jesus at that point, because we're Christ. And we've seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son. Do you remember what that recalls? The glory of the father's only son. It recalls the transfiguration, doesn't it? Remember? Where Jesus is explicitly, clearly glorified. He's seen in glory with Moses and Elijah. But what is the transfiguration connected to? It's connected to the baptism. Remember the words of the baptism once again.

[20:46]

You are my beloved son, and you are in one place. And at the transfiguration, it's this is my beloved son, listen to him, my only begotten. Whatever the language is in the given gospel. That's not in John. But surrounding that baptismal event, in which somehow is the event of the transfiguration, is this light of the glory of God and these words and this idea of being a child of God. Glory as of a father's only son. That's still the radiance of the baptismal event, the radiance of the baptismal experience. And I think that's what it's about, is the light of the baptismal experience. Contrasting with the darkness over on the other side of the world which does not know him and the people who do not know him, even though they're his own people. And the same thing is going on, and I believe in basically the same shape in John's gospel. Even though there's sometimes some uncertainty about the poles, because there's this irony about these poles. They seem to move back and forth on the horizontal level,

[21:47]

not on the vertical level. That always seems to work the same. Okay, notice the unitive continuity in this. You've got a series of terms, all of which express this unitive participation that we're talking about. And first of all, the word. And without him, not one thing came into being. He contains everything. He is God, John is saying, and in this word, which is God, is everything. And everything comes out of him, as it were, and yet somehow remains in him. The unity, the integrity of all things is found only in him. What has come into being? In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. Now the sequence there is a little puzzling to me. I'm not sure I can reason it out between life and light and so on. But these are the unitive terms. There's one life, there's one light, there's one word for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

[22:49]

And then the part about John. And then you go over to the right side, verse 9. The true light, which enlightens everyone, is coming into the world. Sounds like that light is enlightening everybody before he comes into the world. Before he comes in as Jesus, he's already the light that's in the world, and it's enlightening everybody somehow from within. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. This is an astonishing kind of distance from the Jesus that we see in the Gospels, isn't it? To say that he was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and the world didn't know him. What that does to the figure of Jesus, let's say the Jesus of Mark, is enormous. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. So the unitive term there is the light. And that light is also the word. The unitive term in verse 12, 12 received him, believed in his name. That name has a unitive reference to it,

[23:50]

a unitive resonance to it too. Children of God, and born of God, those are the unitive terms. There's an axis that runs through all of it. Because to be born of God is born as the one child, the one son. The word became flesh, word again, lived among us, we have seen his glory. Glory as of a father's only son. Why? Because we are the father's only son. We are the one child. The unitive term at that point gathers us into itself. The unitive light, the unitive word gathers us unitively into itself. And then you go up, verse 15, we skip because that's the John the Baptist, from his fullness, okay, the fullness. There's a pleroma in the Pelagia, I remember, I think so. We have all received grace upon grace. The law, the partial and structured law, differentiated law, the intermediate law, the mediated law, came through Moses.

[24:52]

Grace and truth are the final terms. Grace and truth are the final unitive terms. You've got about 30 different words to describe this one thing which is happening, which is a breaking through of God into the world, into the human person, through baptism in the unitive way, so that somehow you are divine. These words that we hardly dare to speak. No one has ever seen God. Seeing God is not what it's about, ultimately. You see Jesus if you see God. To see, to see with the eyes, to see with the imagination, that's just an intermediate thing, as the law is. No doubt we shall always see God, but see God in some manifest form, but not see God as the source. To know God as the source, to see God as the source, is to arise consciously and unitively from God, to be begotten consciously by God, to be in that relationship, and that's what the new creation is, beginning with the human person. So grace and truth are the unitive terms there. And to be, finally, in the Father's bosom, and to have God made known to you,

[25:54]

that happens by your being brought into the Father's bosom. The Father's bosom is what we call an anatomical expression, or a spatial expression, another one for this one unitive reality of being one with God, whatever that means. So the same key is the key to the prologue, and then to the Gospel itself. Now it's relatively simple in the prologue, it's all compressed here, and the narrative parts, as I say, seem like they hardly belong there, they seem like an interruption or a pause in this unitive continuity, whereas in the Gospel, which of God is narrative, which is then with the discourses of Jesus, which tend to often establish this unitive reality in the middle of the narrative. Now we get to the Gospel, and our time is halfway gone already, but let me say something about the structure of the Gospel. You have in page 2 of that H8,

[26:55]

you have two diagrams, which both relate to the structure of John's Gospel. And the reason why I have to go through it is because it's very much bound up with this unitive content of John, the unitive message of John that we're talking about. The structural thing and the unitive thing are just two aspects of the same composition. Now the one on the left, the last one I gave you, this one, is just a magnification, a bigger version of the one on the right, because that's too small for that to do anything. The one on the left is Peter Ellis' structure, he has the structure for John's Gospel, which I've taken care of, and tried to build upon it. Basically it works like this. You'll see he's got five parts. The five boxes here are five parts of John's Gospel.

[27:57]

And they go simply like this. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It's a horseshoe, alright? Start here with, this is not the prologue they're going to have. The prologue is not part of this. It corresponds to the whole tension. Take out the prologue, start with 119, where John the Baptist is there with George, and you can set up the Gospel in this way, so that you have part 1, which reflects part 5, okay, those two have all kinds of parallels between them. Part 2 relates to part 4. Part 3 doesn't have any parallels, it's all by itself, it's the center. And notice what part 3 is, it's very short. It's only about five verses. It's between the multiplication of the bread and Jesus' bread of life discourse in John chapter 6. You've got the sea crossing that we were talking about, okay? Now that, Ellis said, the center, I believe it. He gets this actually from a Jesuit, Gerhard,

[29:00]

who seems to have disappeared. He was at Porter when Ellis was teaching him, and he did this in his dissertation. Ellis picked it up and made it more popular because he's a genius. I've never heard any more of Gerhard's. So you see, if you look at the parallel episodes here, he calls them sequences, S-E-Q here, okay, you can see certain obvious parallels. Maybe the most obvious ones may be between sequence 2 here, the second one, and sequence 20 where you have two episodes with Jesus and a woman, okay? Mary and Jesus, that is his mother and Jesus and Cana, and then Mary Magdalene and Jesus at the tomb in the garden, okay? But then if you look down between 2 and 4, you'll find sequence 6 and sequence 16 are not in the same relative position, but the Samaritan woman and Jesus, and then the women, Mary and Martha and Bethany

[30:01]

together with Jesus, okay? So something's going on there in parallel form. In fact, you wonder if there couldn't be a fourfold relationship, not only twofold, but fourfold, between these Jesus woman episodes. So we'll follow that up. The titles here are all negotiable, okay, because you can put any kind of title you want on these passages. You have to look at the passages themselves to see the relationship, to see the actual parallel in the content. Sequence 1 is at the Jordan. Now, you remember what that's about. It's Jesus choosing and inviting his first disciples, but behind that whole episode is the baptism of Jesus which doesn't appear in John's Gospel. You've got John the Baptist there and the calling of the first disciples. And the end of that, 1.51, chapter 1, verse 51, remember it is Jesus' words to Nathanael. Do you, uh, what does he say? Do you believe just because I told you

[31:03]

I saw you under the fig tree? You shall see greater things than this. You shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon a son of man. And what's that about? It's about Jacob there, remember? Remember the connection of Jacob with the baptism of Jesus that we found in Mark, in the Synoptic Gospel? And the ascending of Jesus from the water and the descending of the Spirit by Jesus' baptism in Mark's Gospel? That's about the baptismal experience. I believe that the greater things in these are not just the baptism of Jesus, that's already gone, but the baptism of the individual, of Nathanael, for instance, the one who wasn't the last one, who goes along with Thomas. So it's the baptism of us, it's the baptism of the believer, the one who was finally brought in. That is the greater thing, which is the same as to see the glory as of the only begotten Son in the full argument. However, what Ellis has done is

[32:04]

kept chapter 21 in the final part, in the final sequence of the Gospel. I don't think it's that way, so I'm going to make another scripture and take that out. Let me try to find a couple more convincing parallels here. Where's the Passion narrative? 19, sequence 19. And it goes along with sequence 3, which is Jesus in the temple. Now, do you remember what happens when Jesus cleanses the temple in John's Gospel? He's challenged, of course. And what does he say? He says, destroy this temple, and in three days I'll build it up again. And John said that in the temple of his body. And his disciples didn't understand what he was talking about. But he said that in the temple of his body, destroy this temple and in three days I will build it up again. Now that's paralleled by the passion of Jesus, by the destruction of that temple, of Jesus' body. And then the resurrection is the building up of a new temple

[33:04]

of Jesus' body. So there's a good parallel there. Also, when you reflect that what was the temple after all? The temple was the place where the sacrificial animals were killed in great numbers. So something is being terminated there, and something new is happening with the passion of Jesus. What's being terminated? As the letter to the Hebrews would have it, the interminable sequences of sacrifices are concluded by the one sacrifice, which is the passion of Jesus. Now if you interpret the temple, it's not the only way you can interpret the temple. If you interpret it in that way, it makes perfect sense that that would be the parallel to the passion of Jesus, the whole issue of the temple. And remember that the temple itself is going to be destroyed. Which has happened before in the Gospel of John is written, hasn't it? Okay, now the one on the right looks fiercely complicated. And it's derived from this. But if you have five parts, if you have a certain kind of personality disorder, you're going to have a big temptation to do this in a different

[34:06]

way. How? By putting the middle part in the center of the other four parts. And if you don't resist that, you could end up with something like this. Now, if you we've done something like this in Mark's Gospel, and I'm going the same way. If you take this diagram, okay, and read it this way. This is part one moving up this way. Then you have to move in this way for part two. This is one. This is two. The same part is basically developed that way. This is part two. This is part three, same as the other. This is part four moving up this way. And finally, this is part five moving upwards. So, your progression goes like this. Then you go over here. See, I showed you this part of that. Then across, then that, up like this.

[35:07]

In order to keep to keep one linear sequence while you're having a different kind of geometrical arrangement, to bring together the linearity of the actual narrative together with the geometry of it, you have to do something like that, something weird. Because it's weird to move from here to over here and go across this way. But what we've done, see, is simply to rotate this parallel axis like this. Now, ordinarily you'd find a structure that holds up this way if you're going upward. So you have one, two, three, the center, four, five. What we've done is simply take this part and rotate. See? So instead of that, instead of this side, we've got this. We get used to that for a while.

[36:13]

Now the point of this is that if you do this, you start to notice, also I pushed around some of the section boundaries, the sequence boundaries there. But if you do this, you start to notice other symmetries which become very strong, which become very convincing. We've kept the same center just to, and we've kept the same, I'm sorry, this is a conflict. The little numbers in the circle are the numbers of the sequences as you come out from the center. And there are 21 of them, but I excluded chapter 21. So that's the chapter at the lake, remember, when they go out and they have to catch a fish? And Jesus is on the shore, he says, throw the head up to the side. Then they come to shore and they find that he's got a fire, remember, and Peter hauls in some of the fish, 150 fish thereof. And then they have breakfast, and then

[37:14]

Jesus challenges Peter, remember, and then he says, follow me. And then it's the question of Peter and the beloved disciple remain here and follow me. Now that seems to me to be a new, what do you call it, a new mold, a new style, which breaks the symmetry of the gospel up through chapter 20. So we've separated that and left it out of the diagram. The diagram, as we have it over here and on up here, ends with chapter 20. Now what I want to point out is some symmetry that occurs. And some of it occurs because we're clueless, not because we deliberately take the question, you understand, set it up favorably, as we can. But if you modify these section boundaries a little bit, what you get, actually, is the seven days of creation moving out from the center. That's the reason for pulling onto this at all. But you notice that there's a progression, there's a series of symmetries,

[38:17]

a kind of series of layers or levels here moving out from the center, and that they're related to one another in some way. But the tip-off, really, is that the moment-to-moment move out this way are the days of creation. So you've got a center circle, and then you've got six more rings. The center circle is the first day of creation in Genesis, Genesis chapter 1. The second one is the first ring on 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Look at number 6. We notice that those four Jesus-woman episodes seem to be asking to relate to one another. The similarity of having man and woman in those four episodes, and those having already found the two relationships, the two symmetries, the two pairs. What if you line all four of them? Well, if you line them with a little elasticity, you find that that corresponds to the sixth day of creation. The sixth day of creation in Genesis is the creation of what?

[39:19]

Of the land animal and of humanity, of man and woman. Male and female He created them. In His image He made them male and female He created them on the sixth day of creation. That's so strong that it lends one to carry the insanity further and then figure out the other days of creation, which is what has been done there. If you do that, and if you line up these, I won't carry through and try to explain what corresponds to what of each day of creation. The correspondence is with the actual days of creation in Genesis are not all that convincing. That one is. The first one is. A couple of others are, but they're not uniformly convincing. Rarely is a scheme like that worked out perfectly. But I believe that it's in there. The first day of creation that corresponds to the sea crossing and corresponds to Jesus walking upon the water and to saying to the disciples, do not be afraid, I have.

[40:19]

I believe that corresponds, as Ellis said, it corresponds to the ages. I'm going to call that the new age of this family. Walking across the sea. The crossing, as it were, from the outside to the inside of the inside to the outside. John wants it in the center. And it represents the event of baptism or the event of the new birth. The crossing over from the old creation to the new creation. The crossing over from the outside, in some way, to the inside. Of course, in the exodus, what you have is a going from the inside to the outside. Once again, it's ironic that the inside is a negative inside. Out of Egypt. On the first level of symbolism, it is the exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea. The liberation, let's say, from slavery. On the second level of symbolism, it is the first day of creation or the first moment of creation. Remember the first words of the prologue in the beginning. What follows in the beginning in Genesis? There's the chaos, remember?

[41:20]

The chaos is reflected in the water. In the sea, as often in the Old Testament. And then there's something hovering over the water, which is the spirit, remember? And God says, let there be light. And Jesus doesn't say, let there be light. He says, I am. And I believe what that is. It's not the creation of a new life. It's a manifestation of the uncreated life, which is the word, which is the light that's talked about in the prologue. The central part of the prologue, verse 12, he gave the power to become a child of God. He's surrounded on one side by this light, which has come into the world, remember? It was not seen, not known. On the other side, by the glory of God, the glory of the Son. And at center, remember that baptismal event is the experience of life. I might like the words of Jesus in some way to be closer to life, or in some way to fit in, to dovetail better with that idea of the first day of creation and death, but they don't.

[42:21]

That's what we have. So read us where it is. So the baptismal moment, interpreted as new creation, and as birth, and as exodus, but primarily as creation. And as creation, but a manifestation of life. A manifestation of this unit of life in the world. That's what he's mentioning. And somehow that influences every other episode, I believe, in the Gospel. I think they all, as it were, are built upon that. And you'll see that light beam coming out explicitly many times. And the baptismal beam reflected many times. Wherever there's mention of water, but also the light and the water both reflect baptism. And then you move out with the other days of creation. The first day of creation is the baptismal day of creation. In John's Gospel, I believe, the second day, which you see is the bread sign, the bread list, because that's the Eucharistic day of creation. This really gets terminal, really gets pathological, if you light up the seven sacraments, which are the seven sacraments

[43:22]

that were around until the 12th century. There's also an accidental parable. Let me point out a couple of other symmetries here. The one on the second day between the bread sign and the bread discourse, that's no surprise because he sets up that way. But the baptismal moment of crossing the sea was right in the middle of the bread matter there in John. Take a look at Roman numeral number 5. Let's look at the fifth day of the new creation. On the bottom you've got Jesus cleansing the temple. Remember we looked at that in Alice's structure. And we find that he parallels the trial and death of Jesus with that sequence 19. And that's good. It seems pretty convincing. Look what you have on the other two episodes or sections here, which are number 13

[44:23]

and 14. 13 is the royal official son. Remember that one? His son is at the point of death. I don't think he's already died, but he's at the point of death. And then look at Lazarus when it corresponds on the other side. Lazarus is four days dead, isn't he? So this is about death and life. This is about death and life. But here it's as the fruits as it were of the passion and death of Jesus which is the bringing back to life. Here you have two episodes, two symbols, two symbolic narratives of the participated resurrection of Jesus. Or you can say the passion of Jesus experienced in human death. But what's more important is the resurrection of the fruits. And one is kind of suggestive of the pagan world. That's the royal official son. Basilikos is his Greek title. The other one is suggestive of the Jew, of the good Jew.

[45:25]

Remember Lazarus in Luke? Who is the poor man lying outside the rich man's cave. You can puzzle about why that name Lazarus should be used in these two instances. But Lazarus I believe is the good Jew. He's the brother of Mary and Martha. He lives in heaven which is real close to Jerusalem. So he's in the heartland. That kind of thing. So I don't want to carry this much further but compare 20 and 21. That's the 7th day. Now what you have in chapter 1 of John's Gospel from 19 to 51, as I said, is against the background of the baptism of Jesus. And John the Baptist is there. And I believe that basically it's intended to be interpreted in a baptismal cave. And at that point is predicted, remember, that John said that John baptized with water but there's one who comes after me and he's going to

[46:27]

baptize with the Holy Spirit? That's what happens up in 21 with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's as if the baptism with water of John still is caught within the limits of the first creation of the world. But the baptism, which the Holy Spirit with Jesus brings, initiates the new creation. And the disciples break through to that only at the end, only in the outermost ring here. On the 7th day, when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit, and alone, and said, Receive the Holy Spirit, and then you shall forgive your every sin. Remember the 7th day in Genesis, God's rest? God's rest. After the Passion, after the great work of the Passion, and after the 6th day, too, the 6th day which is the 3rd creation of the human person in the Resurrection, the appearance of Jesus immaculate in the wedding feast of Cana, we can talk forever about those 4 Jesus 1 epistles because they're deeply, deeply sublime. And then you have the God's

[47:29]

rest, which is the final thing, at least in this figure. And God's rest is the beginning of the Holy Spirit, and there they are at the Lord's Day in a room with the disciples, and Jesus comes and gives them the Spirit. Now that was a due for a creation symbolism from Genesis. Remember when Adam was created by breathing the Breath of Life into him in Genesis 2? That's what that is. It's an explicit new creation symbolism. And Jesus breathed the Spirit into the disciples on the Resurrection Day. What he's doing is bringing about the new creation of the one new humanity, the new unitive creation of the one humanity, of the one man, the one Adam as it were, the one human person, which is himself, by giving his own Spirit to the disciples, to the 12 disciples, however many there are gathered in the room.

[48:30]

It's not 12. But they symbolize the 12 tribes, and all of humanity. Any questions about this? I'm sorry to shoot it at you. I'm confused on the fifth day, and this ring. What do Jesus' trial and death and the royal official's son, and all the things in the fifth ring have to do with the fifth day of creation, and what happened on the fifth day of creation? The fifth day of creation is the creation of life. And it's the first living creatures, which are the fish and the birds, actually. But I think what John has done is used it for the issue of life. So you have the ironic appearance of life in, first of all, the destruction of the temple of Jesus' body. But remember that the temple is the place of animal sacrifice. I think what John has done

[49:31]

actually is put all animal life into the fifth day, or all life into the fifth day, and put humanity and humanity for him means man and woman, the whole nuptial symbolism, into the sixth day. So that, you see, the emphasis has changed not totally, but somewhat. It's shifted. And the fifth day, therefore, is the day of life and death. But particularly the day of, well, the day of life and death. So the animal sacrifices are supplanted as it were by the one sacrificial death of Jesus. And here you have these two human deaths. Death, as it were, among the pagans. And the basilicos, after all, that royal official son, reflects what at the exodus time? Reflects the... Remember the first born of Pharaoh who was slain in the final plague at the time of exodus? And you find frequently, I think in the Gospels, that the signs of Jesus, the great healings and signs of Jesus, are reversals of the plagues in Egypt. In other words, the action of God this time is not seen as a destructive

[50:32]

action, but a life-giving action. No matter who it's bestowed upon. So the issue in all four of those is life. With a lot of death as the background of it. And death is the necessary door, as it were, to this restoration of life. But then we see that the life that is restored, here it's human life, symbolically, but it's much more than human life. The life that is restored now, or is given now, is this unitive life, in which is the life of God. And that comes out on the 6th and 7th day. Because that nuptial imagery of the 6th day is loaded with the symbolism of the new unity of God and man. New unity of God and humanity. All of that marriage, the symbolism of those four episodes, of Jesus and a woman, really has that in the background. And then that becomes explicit on the 7th day, when the Spirit is breathed into the disciples, actually. And then there's the thing about Thomas in the 7th day too, which is very interesting. Thomas the twin, okay?

[51:33]

The twin, who is somehow two, and who is a twin also of Nathaniel in chapter 1, because of the parallelism. The two are very similar. Look at those two sometimes, just for fun. Nathaniel and Thomas. And what they cry out. Nathaniel cries out, you are the king of Israel, you are, does he say, the son of God? Way at the end of chapter 1. And Thomas cries out, my lord, am I God? And is invited to stretch out his hand and put it into Jesus' side. And do you remember in Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve had been thrown out of the garden? And God says to himself, or says to somebody there, he says, well, lest man reach out his hand and take from the tree of life. Lest man reach out his hand and take the fruit of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Okay? So what is happening there with Thomas, I believe, actually, with

[52:35]

his final closure of the paradise imagery, is that he's invited to reach out his hand and take from the tree of life, symbolically speaking. Jesus is the tree of life. Once again, it's the unitive imagery of the one thing that comes into the world and is participated, is given, is broken, is distributed to all. By the giving of the Holy Spirit, and then by the opening, as it were, of his side to Thomas to reach out, which symbolically is the opening of paradise again, because paradise was closed to the first man. But what is paradise? Paradise is the unitive place. Paradise is the place where everything comes together at the center, as it were, and is one in God. Now Thomas is the twin. The twin. He's the double one. Remember how he was the one, they always called Thomas the doubter, you know. He's the one who had the problem. He'd say, well, you know, let's go and die with him. Or I won't believe until I see the holes in his hands, until I put my hand in his thigh I won't believe. But that moment he

[53:36]

believes with both feet, he cries out, my Lord and my God. The double one has become the single one at that point. The Syrians love to interpret those things in those terms. The single one. They have a whole language for that. So Thomas is putting his hands in Jesus' womb is the same as him reaching out and touching the fruit. That's the way I understand it. Thomas Thomas reaching out. We don't know that he did. He was invited to. Jesus invites him to, we don't know. Lots of painters, of course, have done that. Thomas reaching out let's say as we imagine it, and putting his hand through the womb into Jesus' thigh is the human person entering again into paradise stretching out his hand and taking the fruit of life from the tree of life to live forever. But what is the fruit of life? What is the fruit of the tree of life? That's in chapter 6, too, in that great bread of life discourse. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. But the bread of life

[54:36]

is the tree of life, it's the same thing. And if you eat of this fruit you'll live forever. But what is that life that lives forever? That's the single life the one life, the divine life the only life that is eternal. And the life in which all things are one. That may seem like stretching things a bit, but I'm compressing a lot in that. So I think Thomas and his doubleness is intended as a final underlining of the unitive nature of what's happening here. Another place is where the beloved disciple enters into the tomb in John 20. You've got about four different scenes in John 20 that's the final resurrection, before John 21 of the lake. Four different scenes and each one of them has a unitive character to it. Remember where the beloved disciple goes down into the tomb after Peter does. And he sees the grave clothes and he believes. Now what I think

[55:38]

is happening there, the grave clothes and especially the cloth that was over the face of Jesus has been rolled up and set there. And the face cloth especially has been rolled up and set aside. I think what that is, is the removal of the veil. And I think that that too corresponds to a baptismal experience. Remember how we found in Mark that the baptismal font and the tomb of Jesus are taken to be the same thing as in Romans 6. So when he steps in and sees the cloth set apart first of all, remember one clothing came into being. There's a lot of symbolism in the Old Testament. Clothing came into being when man and woman were cast out of the tribe, cast out of the tribe, cast out of the unitive place. So to see the cloth there set aside means that Jesus doesn't need them anymore. It means that the wrappings that people had to have when they were cast out of paradise have been laid aside and are not necessary anymore. So that Jesus entered into the unitive place where he's now in a unitive state.

[56:39]

But that's also what paradise is. The veil has been taken away. As the veil was taken away, remember Paul says in the face of Moses when somebody believes in the Lord, the veil is taken away. So taking away that intermediary, whether you look at it from the side of Paul, the veil of Moses, whether you look at it from the side of the clothing that we had when we were thrown out of paradise. There's an entering into that inner place. So when he sees and believes, I believe that's the same as the baptismal frame once again. The beloved disciple is the one in whom that reaches its finality. Okay. What I would have liked to have done had we had longer was to go through John's Gospel and pick out the places where this one core theme are found. And the core theme, I think, in John's Gospel finally is unitive participation in God. We talked about the four Gospels as presenting four dimensions

[57:48]

as it were, of the Christian reality. We said that reality is one. And what happens as we go from Mark up to John is that what's implicit becomes explicit. What we're showing now may seem to be far from explicit because there's a lot of symbolic subtlety to it. Nevertheless, it's coming, what's dark here is light here. Unitive participation, which is just entered at and is found in the baptismal experience down here, it reflects back upon Mark's Gospel. It's come out into the opening as if the Gospel is just loaded with it from beginning to end of John's Gospel and starting with the prologue. You've got nothing but this teaching of unitive participation coming from the one who calls himself I Am, who says I Am. Where you find it especially in most concentrated form besides the prologue, and most explicit form, is in the Supper Discourse of Jesus, chapters 14 through 17. If you read through that and find all

[58:50]

the places where Jesus is talking about your being one in some way, united with him and with God. In the theme of indwelling, if anybody loves me, he'll keep my words and I'll come to him and be with him and I'll come and dwell in him and the Father will come and dwell in him. Those words to dwell in, menein en, and to be in, are very important there, as well as in 1 John. Or, I am the vine and you are the branches. Or when he prays in John 17 that they may be one as we are one. I in you and you in me that they may be one. So, the chapter, the chapters of the Supper Discourse, 14 through 17, are the final, what would you call it, unitive, explicit unitive message of John's Gospel. The rest is symbolism, as we've been talking about in the Resurrection episodes in John 20. Now, what do you have in the Synoptic Gospels for the Supper? You have a short account of the Supper and in Mark, I looked at it this morning, you've got two things. You've got the betrayal

[59:50]

and you've got the institution of the Eucharist, okay, the body and blood, the bread and the wine. And the two are fitted together by that idea of handing over. Betrayal is handing over and what Jesus does is hand the Eucharist over at that point. But that's a largely Eucharistic text and it's a very small text. In John, how many chapters do you have dealing with the Supper? 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. You've got five chapters and he doesn't at all mention the Eucharistic institution. He doesn't say anything about the Eucharist, which is incredible in such a long Supper Discourse. What it is, is a Eucharist of wisdom, is a Eucharist of this unitive reality itself. What he's trying to give you is the heart of the Eucharist, the core of the Eucharist, the spiritual divine reality, which the Eucharist ultimately symbolizes. So that's what he gives you. Preceded by the baptismal recollection of the foot wash in chapter 13. So if you want to find this unitive participation in John, read the Supper Discourse

[60:53]

in that light, 14 through 17. I also wanted to talk about the first letter of John, which I asked you to read last time. You have a handout which gives you Malatesta's proposed structure for that, which is very interesting because it's in three parts. First part, basically, God is light. Third part, God is love. The central part, you are children of God, begotten by God. There's a Trinitarian form in that structure. And it's on the level of John's prologue in its transparent unitive language all the way through. Some of those things sound like the Upanishads. God is light, God is love. You have to... But when it says that, when it says God is love, it means you are one with God insofar as you love. When it says God is light, it means you are light. You are one with God. You are God insofar as you live in that light, which is God. And then in the middle, you are begotten by God. So I won't be vague with that now. We don't have time.

[61:54]

I think that's the most unitive extended text in the whole New Testament. And so it forms a good conclusion of what we've been saying about the unitive participation in the New Testament. That's where it's fullest. It's like full daylight in the first letter of John. The first letter of John and the Gospel go right together. The first letter is supposed to have been written after the Gospel, and probably not by the same person, but it depends on the Gospel. There's a lot in the first letter that evidently can't be understood unless you are familiar with what you've got in the Gospel, by the way. To recall, once again, our four Gospels, and the shape that we're proposing is in the New Testament for the expression of this one mystery. We said there's our fundamental principle of interpretation for the Christ event is that it's a new unity in diversity. In other words, it's a new simplicity which concentrates everything about this one thing, which is Jesus himself. And within that one thing,

[62:54]

the one thing, the oneness that pulls everything together into that is the oneness of God. It's like the, what do you call it? It's like the gravitational attraction in one of those black holes that draws everything into itself. An extremely powerful gravitational attraction which doesn't destroy things, but brings them into their fullness in itself, and so that they're one with all the others. But that expresses itself like an artwork does by embracing the maximum diversity, the maximum plurality. So you've got the inward movement and the outward movement. The inward movement to the core, the inner to the core, which is being in God. The outward movement to all the Gentiles, to the whole cosmos in some way. And then we've got our four expressions of it. Mark, the breakthrough, the explosion, the eruption of this into the world. The tearing open of the heavens, the breaking open of the earth, the tomb, and so on. The tearing of the veil. And the baptismal experience.

[63:54]

And John, the thing brought completely into the light, the lamp is on its lampstand, so that this light of unity of participation, which is Christ himself, somehow illuminates the whole narrative of the gospel and transforms it. And Matthew, you've got this from the perspective of wisdom. Wisdom and of a life of wisdom, a life of moral living based on the law of love, the central commandment of love, the new commandment, which pulls your whole life together into unity and inner participation in the wisdom of Christ. And doing that is the whole thing pulled into the energy of the Holy Spirit. That is, the oneness is the very reality experience and participation of that divine energy, which is the Holy Spirit. So beyond this is the basic mystery of Christianity itself, which is the three persons. The three persons who are not a kind of solitary shining triangle, but somehow throughout the cosmos, the creation of humanity, and therefore ourselves

[64:55]

and even our bodies, even matter into their work, into that communion. Once again recall the icon of opportunity by Ludwig, where you have the table with three figures and the open front, which is waiting for you to enter into the communion. That's the paradigm. Yes. What you said is really applicable in the Eastern churches, especially about their idea of human participation in the life of the Trinity. In the 14th chapter of John, it's a really important text for commentary in the Orthodox churches, because they look at it as communion is not just with in Christ, but it's like to get kind of pulled into the inner life of the Trinity when they use that. It's kind of like one in us, we're in them, and everybody's in drawing each other. It's been very hard for Western theology to keep open to that kind of concept, because we became so differentiating, so dualistic and analytical

[65:56]

in our thinking that we can no longer conceive of a union like that, a communion like that. The East cherishes that and defends it, I think, against Western analysis, against a more Aristotelian way of thinking, I guess you could say. But we really have to recover it, because it's the heart of the New Testament. Koinonia. Okay, thank you very much. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

[66:25]

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