The Kingdom of God in History

163 Pages·1988·7.887 MB·English

by  Benedict T. Viviano

~ Good News Studies 27
The Kingdom
of
God in History
The Kingdom
of
God in History
by
Benedict T. Viviano, 0. P.
~':. Michael Glazier
~ Wilmington, Delaware

GOOD NEWS STUDIES
Consulting Editor: RobertJ. Karris, O.EM.
Volume 27
About the Author
Benedict T. Viviano, O.P. is currently a professor of the New
Testament at the Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem, and dean of
studies at the Ecumenical Research Institute, Tantur. He is the
author of Study as Worship: A Commentary on Ma~thew,
and has been published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the
Journal of Biblical Literature and Spirituality Today, among
others. As well, Father Viviano has served as an associate
editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and is currently
associate editor of the Revue Biblique.
~irst publish~ in 1988 by Michael Glazier, Inc., 1935 West Fourth Street,
Wilmington, Ddawa~ 19805.
Copyright <e1988 by Mkhael Glazier, Inc. All rights reserved.
-
Library of CongressCa:talog Card Number: 86-45329
International Standard:Book Number. 0-89453-600-1
Typography by Laura Burke.
Printed in the United States of America.
For my brother Paul,
d.1984
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................. 9
1. The Kingdom of God in the Preaching of Jesus ....... 13
2. The Kingdom of God in the Church Fathers ............ 30
3. The Kingdom of God in the High Middle Ages 57
4. The Kingdom of God in
the Early Modern Period ...................................... 81
5. The Kingdom of God in
Twentieth-Century Thought ................................ 123
Conclusion ................................................................. 149
For Further Reading .................................................. 153
Index of Scripture References ..................................... 155
Index of Names .. ....................... .... .... ............. ...... ..... 157
INTRODUCTION
The impulse to write this book came from two sources.
On the one hand, as a teacher of New Testament literature,
and particularly as an interpreter of the synoptic gospels, it
early became obvious to me that the central theme of the
preaching of the historical Jesus of Nazareth was the near
approach of the kingdom of God. Yet, to my amazement,
this theme played hardly any role in the systematic theology
I had been taught in the seminary. Upon further investigation
I realized that this theme had in many ways been largely
ignored in the theology and spirituality and liturgy of the
church in the past two thousand years, and when not
ignored, often distorted beyond recognition. How could this
be? On the other hand, as a responsible Christian teacher,
trying to relate the biblical message to contemporary con
cerns, especially to the emerging greater concern in the
churches for social justice, both at home and in relation to
the Third World, I also realized that the best New Testament
basis for such concerns was precisely Jesus' proclamation of
the kingdom of God. In a word, the kingdom was of
explosive power, if only it was fully understood.
Had the church willfully tried to suppress the message of
the kingdom, or had she simply misunderstood it? Had it
simply become lost in the shuffle as Christians moved from
an apocalyptically charged Palestinian culture to a Hellenistic
Stoically influenced culture where the chief values advocated
were inner serenity even for slaves (Epictetus) and an
enlightenment of soul which led to union with the One in a
9
JO Introduction
blissful spiritual eternity beyond this vale of tears (the
Hermetic literature)? Or had the church simply suffered an
apocalyptic burn-out, as a result of too ma?y s~attere~
hopes and bitter failures? (After all, somethmg lIke thls
happened to the Jews for a long while.) Moreover, the
element of government intimidation could not be ruled out
then or now. For example, it is easier to understand how the
parish priests failed to preach the center of the Christian
message when we realize that as late as in the 18th century in
"Catholic" Austria the sermon topics for Sunday services
were set by the government office for church affairs, and that
every book checked out of the university library by a
theology professor was reported to the secret police. Some
thing like this is going on in many countries today. And yet
government intimidation cannot account for everything in
this story, as we shall see. In brief, what happened to the
kingdom of God in history?
As I tried to find out the answer to that question I realized
that there was room in English for a short book which would
tell the story through some of its major representative
figures. A selection was necessary. Inevitably the author is
not equally familiar with every period of Christian history.
Nor did he feel competent to provide a chapter on the roots
of the theme in the ancient Near Eastern concept of
kingship. What follows then is a combination of biblical
theology and the history of ideas which will. I dare to hope,
also provide part of a theological basis for Christian involve
ment in the struggles for justice in the world.
There is clearly a need for a work of this kind in English.
There exist two works in German which attempt to tell much
the same story. One is by Johannes Weiss, Die Idee des
Reiches Gottes in der The%gie, a book of 156 pages
published in 1901. It provides a model for my work and it
would be good to have it in English, but it omits the
medieval part of the story and could not tell what happened
between 1901 and 1984. The other work is on a completely
different scale. Ernst Staehelin of Basel spent a lifetime
compiling interpretations of the kingdom of God from the
Fathers of the Church to modem times. His collection of
Introduction 11
sources was published in seven stately volumes from 1951 to
1965 under the title Die Verkundigung des Reiches Gottes in
der Kirche Jesu Christi. The reader who wishes to pursue the
matter further will find this ample work a gold-mine.
There is also a standard short work in English, Karl
Lowith's Meaning in History. Written by a professional
philosopher, this book traces the understanding of the
kingdom of God in the great philosophers of history but
avoids exegesis.
There are also related works on the history of millennarian
thought, on the social teachings of the churches, on church
state relations, on the history of Christian doctrine, on the
social world of early Christianity, on the theology of the
land, on Christology and on the parables of Jesus, which
cover some of the same ground. John E. Groh provides an
excellent bibliographical survey in Church History 43 (1974)
257-267.
The specific focus of the present work will be on the
kingdom of God in the gospels and on the interpretation of
the kingdom and some attempts to realize it in later church
history. It is obvious that the theme of the kingdom is
comprehensive by nature and difficult to confine within a
narrow compass. Only its importance can justify the effort.
The specific audience for this survey would be theological
students and other readers with a minimum of theological
education.
I would like to thank the following for the opportunity to
present some of the ideas in this book for discussion: the
University of Dubuque Seminary, Wartburg Seminary,
Aquinas Institute, the priests' study groups of the arch
dioceses of Denver and St. Louis, the New England province
of Assumptionists, and the social justice commission of
Dominicans in North America under its outstanding leader
Edward van Merrienboer. I must also thank the editor of the
Thomist for permission to reprint some of the material in
chapter three, and especially Nancy Hardesty for typing the
manuscript.
St. Louis and Jerusalem 1987
The Feast of St. Matthew