Resurrection Sunday
Aristotle defines peripeteia (περιπέτεια) as “a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, and that “the finest form of insight1 is one attended by peripeteia.”2 Peripeteia, then, despite having no precise English equivalent, can be conceived as a “reversal” or a “turning.” Today, angelic choirs rejoice and raise their voices in song and trumpets bray out the triumph of the Resurrection. It is precisely the idea of “turning” that I would like to sound as the keynote for the this contemplation in hopes that it may contribute a small strain to the divine jubilation.
Consider John the Evangelist’s account:
1The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. 3Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. 4So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 8Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
To note is that Mary arrives first at the tomb, John, the “disciple, whom Jesus loved,” commeth second, and Peter cometh third. I would like to comment on each of these cases in turn before returning to the main theme and keynote.
Peter “upon-this-rock-I-will-build-my-church”3 is beloved for his impetuousness and ardent desire to follow his Lord in spite of the impediments of his psychology and temperament. But over the course of Jesus’ ministry, Peter is progressively reformed and fortified in faith and love, often through shock and through remorse, as, for instance, after his denial of Christ on the Eve of the Crucifixion: “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”4 Perhaps the most salient demonstration of Peter’s progressive conversion by Christ is recounted at the very end of the Gospel of John. Three times, Christ poses the question, “lovest thou me?” and three times Peter answers. These three affirmations of his love can be seen as a sort of repentance and redemption for his three denials of only a few days before. John recounts:
15So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 16He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 17He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
18Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.
Christ says “follow me” because he is “the Way.”
The exchange above, whatever one might say about it prima facie, is much more interesting that a mere cursory readthrough could suggest. As English speakers, we see the same verb, “love,” used interchangeably through all the occasions. But the Greek text tells a very different tale. In the first instance and second inquiry, Christ inquires “agapas me?” (ἀγαπᾷς με) and Peter conspicuously responds with a different verb, “philō se” (φιλῶ σε). The verb refer to two different categories of love, which may be familiar to reader, namely, agápē (ἀγάπη) and philía (φιλία). Briefly, agápē is divine love, based on the example Christ set for us and on the “turning” or “reversal.”
In Latin, agápē is translated as caritas and this accounts for the frequency of the term “charity” in many older English translation. Philía, by contrast, is sometimes termed “brotherly love” because it is based on affinity, sympathy, or shared interest. Following each of Peter’s responses, Christ shows him how he might begin to transform philía into agápē. Christ asks a third time, but this time he phrases the question in the term to which Peter at that time adequate, φιλεῖς με? to which Peter, now visibly upset, again responds, φιλῶ σε. Christ had foretold that Peter would deny him at the critical moment—“I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me”5 and Peter had pretended to himself that he was a better man than this. When the sequence of events on the Eve of Good Friday dashed his pretense against a Πέτρος, which is, being interpreted, “a rock,” the ground for his conversion, or “turning,” was finally laid. When Christ forgives Peter, he demonstrates the very agápē that Peter now, for the first time, acknowledges he is not yet capable of exercising but one day he shall be:
When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
John, by contrast, is joined to Christ in bonds of agapeic love after having been apparently selected by the Master to receive a sort of “transmission” through the raising of Lazarus, later called “John,” from the dead. “Behold how he loved him!” they said, after Jesus wept outside of the tomb.6 Here, the verb employed is ἐφίλει (ephilei), from philía, but that’s because Lazarus, author of the John Gospel, was, more or less, in Peter’s state and therefore thitherto lacked the idea of agápē. But from that moment onwards, Lazarus is called “John” and John is referred to as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (ἠγάπα), and the agapeic sense is here explicitly designated.
Mary’s path is neither that of Peter nor of John. Instead, through her devotion to Christ, she seems already to possess, to a large degree, the agápē that John would receive through transmission and Peter through laborious instruction and trial. This is tacitly shown through Mary’s having preceded by a whole day, Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet, of which he “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”7 Mary, without this prompting, had already done the same, but to Jesus.
Mary’s bond with Christ is also conveyed by the fact that she precedes the other disciples in seeing, though not in entering, the empty tomb on Easter morning. Rather than enter herself, instead she selflessly runs away from it to alert the other disciples. John outruns Peter, but Peter enters first, as conveyed by the excerpt from the beginning of John 20 presented at the top of this reflection.
The entry into a tomb is a traditional symbol for initiation into another state of consciousness and of being, which to now I have indicated under the rubrics of peripeteia, “reversal,” “conversion,” or “turning.” The significance of Peter’s entrance into the tomb likely accounts for his ability to acknowledge his own frailty in the scene recounted above and receive the gift of forgiveness from his Lord, whom he betrayed, rather than seek to justify himself. John did not enter the tomb because he had already done, as Lazarus. Mary is next to enter:
10Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
11But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, 12And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. 14And when she had thus said, she turned herself (Στραφεῖσα) back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 15Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself (Στραφεῖσα), and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
The corporeal and locomotive movements of figures in the Gospels must be interpreted as expressions of psychological and spiritual events.8 Of course, everyone’s voluntary movements should be interpreted in this manner. In any case, when Mary “turns herself” bodily, she is also, as Plato says, “turning the soul from day that is a kind of night, to true Day.”9 Plato elaborates:
…our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn (στρέφειν) from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned (περιακτέον) from the world of becoming into that of Being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of Being, and of the brightest and best of Being, or in other words, of the Good.10
The just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified, and so will learn his lesson that not to be just, but to seem just, is what we ought to desire.
What Plato called “the Good” became incarnate as Jesus Christ,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Plato had in fact predicted the fate of the Perfect Man already in the same dialogue from which I have already quoted:
The just man (dikaios) will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified, and so will learn his lesson that not to be just, but to seem just, is what we ought to desire.11
In the Gospel of Matthew, Pilate’s wife uses the word dikaios, when she tells him her dream: “Have thou nothing to do with that just man (dikaios): for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”12 Pilate should have listened to his wife, just as Caesar should have listened to his.13
John concludes his testimony with the statement:
25And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
I have scarcely scratched the surface of those things which were written but I hope that anyone who has joined me in these contemplation has found something of value in them.
Χριστός ἀνέστη! Christ is Risen!
specifically, anagnorisis (ἀναγνώρισις), which Aristotle defines as “a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune” (Poetics 1452a)
Aristotle, Poetics, 1452a
Matthew 16:18, “Peter” comes from Πέτρος, which is, being interpreted, “rock”
Matthew 26:75
Luke 22:34
John 11:31-2
John 13:15
Ordinarily, this would not have to be stated but paradigmatic conceits of modern science have led many people to ignore that only the same standard can render our daily interactions intelligible. When people ascribe apparently voluntary action on behalf of men to the mystical powers of “the brain” or “DNA,” they condemn themselves, among other things, to a vicarious hermeneutical attitude that is perfectly antithetical to an adequate reading of any texts, let alone sacred ones.
Plato, Republic, 521c: “turning the soul from day that is a kind of night, to true Day—the ascent to what is, which is to say, true Philosophy.”
Plato, Republic, 518c
ὁ δίκαιος μαστιγώσεται, στρεβλώσεται, δεδήσεται, ἐκκαυθήσεται τὠφθαλμώ, τελευτῶν πάντα κακὰ παθὼν ἀνασχινδυλευθήσεται καὶ γνώσεται ὅτι οὐκ εἶναι δίκαιον ἀλλὰ δοκεῖν δεῖ ἐθέλειν.
Plato’s Republic 2.361e–362a.
Matthew 27:19
Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.
Do not go forth to-day: call it my fear
That keeps you in the house, and not your own.
We'll send Mark Antony to the senate-house:
And he shall say you are not well to-day:
Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.
Shakespeare Julius Caesar, II.1.
Hi Max,
In two days time we have something coming up which is called, "Thomas Sunday", in which the disciple Thomas is brought in with the second Resurrection appearance of Christ to the disciples:
Jesus among His Disciples
19 So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
26 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” John 20
This was the second time that the Docetic Christ appeared to the disciples, and the last time was some 32 days later on the Sea of Tiberius, when Thomas readily and willingly got into the boat, ref. John 21.
The Resurrection activities over the forty days in which the Risen Christ was working rather in a kind of sub rosa manner over the entire earth, and maybe especially in America, come to a kind of concrete conclusion in chapter 21 of John. Peter is shown here in a very unique fashion. Max, you have written these very interesting observations about Peter:
"Peter “upon-this-rock-I-will-build-my-church” is beloved for his impetuousness and ardent desire to follow his Lord in spite of the impediments of his psychology and temperament. But over the course of Jesus’ ministry, Peter is progressively reformed and fortified in faith and love, often through shock and through remorse, as, for instance, after his denial of Christ on the Eve of the Crucifixion: “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”⁴ Perhaps the most salient demonstration of Peter’s progressive conversion by Christ is recounted at the very end of the Gospel of John. Three times, Christ poses the question, “lovest thou me?” and three times Peter answers. These three affirmations of his love can be seen as a sort of repentance and redemption for his three denials of only a few days before."
This is true, and exactly why Christ asks these three times if Simon loves Him. Simon/Cepheus has been put through an ordeal, which was predicted before the entry into the Garden of Gethsemane, and maybe most presciently with this verse from the Gospel of Luke:
31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; 32 but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 But he said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!” 34 And He said, “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.”
Luke 22
Then, Christ says to get swords for his defense, even if it means to sell your coat. One of the disciples says, "here are two swords", and Christ says, "that is enough". Then, they proceed into the Garden. So, why is Peter called impetuous because he draws a sword to protect Christ, ref. John 18? Does he not demonstrate what he said about protecting Christ, even unto death?