MARK
1 KNOWING AND WILL-TO-BELIEVE
The messianic miracle story foundational to Markan
epistemology and psychology, and therefore fundamental to the
soteriology of this particular gospel, is The Feeding Of
The Five Thousand. Its subject, acoustic memory,
is the single radical of consciousness responsible for the
sovereign form of the conscious intentional mode, knowing. The
Genesis rubric which announces the corresponding aconscious
conceptual radical, space : time, is Day 5. The perceptual
radical, acoustic memory, and conceptual radical, space :
time, and their corresponding modes of intentionality, knowing
and the will-to-believe respectively, dominate the gospel of
Mark in just the same way as the perceptual and conceptual
categories, haptic memory and mind : body respectively,
pervade the gospel of Luke. They are the very backbone of the
Markan theological idiom. In examining the contents of the
acoustic semiosis, we shall see that the haptic and acoustic
modes are mutually consonant. The same structures are
operative within each, but in different ways according to the
categoreal paradigm. Whereas the haptic semiotic series
accentuates neither transcendence nor immanence, the acoustic
semiosis is weighted in favour of transcendence. The texts
integral to this first section dealing with the gospel of
Mark, and which we must consult, are the following:
ACONSCIOUS
CONCEPTUAL RADICAL - SPACE : TIME
|
CONSCIOUS PERCEPTUAL
RADICAL - ACOUSTIC MEMORY
|
Sevenfold
Creation Series
|
Sevenfold
Messianic Series
|
Genesis 1.20-23: Day 5
|
Mark 6.30-44: The
Feeding Of The Five Thousand
|
Markan Twelvefold
Healing Series
|
Mark 5.24a-34: The
Haemorrhagic Woman
|
Mark 7.32-37: The Deaf
And Dumb Man
|
Other versions of the messianic miracle and healing
event are extant. We have for example, a story in John 5.1-18, The
Healing At The Pool, which reiterates the (Markan)
conceptual category, space : time. It is contextutalized
immediately prior to the Johannine version of The Feeding Of
The Five Thousand in that gospel, (John 6.1-12).
Before we address any of these texts, since we have just
previously outlined the twelvefold haptic semiosis in discussing
the first section of the gospel of Luke, here is an ideal point
to present in similarly cursory outlines, the acoustic semiosis.
The Miracle And Time
The several indications for this episode are consistent:
And when it grew late ( h!dh
w(/rav pollh~v), his disciples came to him and said,
"This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; ( h!dh w(/ra pollh/, Mark 6.35);
When it was evening (Oyi/av de\
genome/nhv), the disciples came to him and said,
"This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; ( h( w(/ra h!dh parh~lqen, Matthew
14.15a);
Now the day began to wear away; ( (H de\ h9me/ra h!rzato kli/nein, Luke
9.12a).
The only reference to time in the Johannine version of the
narrative is:
Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at
hand. (John 6.4).
The tradition attests a sign, in the word 'green
(grass', xlwrw~? xo/rtw?, Mark
6.39), essential to the theology of semiotic forms. It does not
merely add to the case for the time of the event
being the interval immediately after midday, spanning
approximately 2 P.M. until 6 P.M.. Mark's inclusion of
this epithet accordingly stresses the same important fact. For
the optic semiotic forms are not in the first place connected
with time, as are the acoustic forms. If they are to be so
linked with any conceptual form, it is that of the anthropic,
just as the haptic semiotic forms sustain the same relationship
with the conceptual form of the body. The link between the acoustika
of acoustic memory and the conceptual form space : time is
complete in this gospel, which contains the most thorough tally
of the messianic series of any gospel, and contains the
twelvefold schema of healing events, reiterating the categoreal
forms. Acoustic memory and the conceptual form space : time are
the two categoreal entities on which the soteriological and
eschatological perspectives of this gospel, and no other, are
predicated. So the acoustic rather than the optic semiotic
forms, are innately connected to the spatiotemporal. But Mark
cannot specify an acoustic sign any more than he can actually
verbalize, that is speak aloud, his gospel. In this way, the
congruent semeioptika act as pointers to the semeiacoustika,
just as the written word transfers the spoken word. Whereas the
spoken word is primordial, being first in terms of both
phylogeny and ontogeny, the written word becomes final,
teleological, and eschatological. In this way, Mark's gospel
veers more towards a theology of creation rather than salvation,
a respect in which it differs from the gospel of Luke.
The second miracle of loaves, The Feeding Of The Four
Thousand, with which the first is nevertheless linked
semiologically, and so too in terms of temporality, occurs in
the succeeding interval, that of evening proper, extending from
approximately 6 P.M. to 10 P.M., and the final feeding miracle,
The Transformation Of Water Into Wine, occupies the last
of the three nocturnal/diurnal intervals, defined by decreasing
light. It gravitates around midnight, between 10 P.M. to 2 A.M..
The seamless integration of these temporal durations, which
turns upon the second interval, suggests that no hard and fast
distinction between the first and the second, nor between the
second and the third can be upheld. It is reflected in that the
intervening episode, The Feeding Of The Four Thousand,
signifying optic memory, integrates the intentional modes proper
to acoustic memory and haptic memory, between which some measure
of contrast occurs, as these produce the sovereign or
canonical instances of perceptual cognition and perceptual
conation respectively. We have already determined that the
sovereign instance of the intentional mode proper to optic
memory, is that of desiring-and-knowing, their hybrid form.
Nevertheless, taken in isolation, knowing and desire maintain a
specific contrast which depends upon the opposition between the
conscious proximal and conscious distal pasts respectively. The
fact that desire is instrumental to knowing does nothing to
alter this.
There is more to the topic of this hybridizing radical, optic
memory, for we have passed immediately from the gospel of
Luke and the discussion of the last messianic miracle of this
scheme. We have moved from the doctrine of desire, and hence
belief-in-desire, to that of knowing, and will-to-believe,
according to the shift from the first feeding miracle to that
which the chiasmos organises as the third. Part of the purpose
of the messianic series is to plot in its outlines, a theory of
the epistemological and psychological development of human
persons. This requires that some attention be given to the
integrative role played by optic memory. This perceptual radical
is thoroughly, that is, unequivocally, immanent in kind, and
since immanence is immediately recognisable as merging,
homogenizing, amalgamating entities which would have otherwise
have remained distinct and identifiable, its role is to co-opt
both intentional modes, the conative one of desire, and the
cognitive one of knowing. It has a distinct role in determining
the processes in which knowing is emergent. Such processes are
synonymous with the transitional relation of the ontogenetic
self to the phylogenetic selves; that is, the relation of
personal to social being. These issues will be explained below,
in dealing with the seven signs in the gospel of John, and
particularly in the examination of the second sign, numbered as
such in that gospel (John 4.54). The same miracle story also
explicitly details the time of day when the healing occurred,
(John 4.52).
The attribute 'green' is certainly purposeful. Mark contains
it, although it is missing from Matthew and John, while Luke
makes no reference to grass at all:
Then he commanded them all to sit down by
companies upon the green grass. ( e)pi\
tw~? xlwrw~? xo/rtw? - Mark 6.39.)
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the
grass; (xo/rtou Matthew 14.19).
Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much
grass (xo/rtov) in the place; so
the men sat down, in number about five thousand. (John 6.10).
The semeioptikon thus answers the question of the
temporality of this particular event. By temporality we do not
mean only the specific interval within the frame of the
diurnal/nocturnal cycle, here, that of early to late afternoon,
even though as far as the messianic series itself is concerned,
that is what the sign indicates in the first place. We have
already seen that the serial order of the optika ranks
them relatively to one another referentially to more than just a
single temporal cycle. There is no one single temporal cycle to
which the optic semeia are exclusively referent. The
analogous relation between the messianic events and the Days at
once ensures this. The Days series certainly connects each
rubric with an actual day, the interval measured by the earth's
rotation on its own axis.
Whereas the messianic miracle series connects each corresponding
episode to durations within the nocturnal/diurnal cycle
or 'day'. This postulate ensues from the significanc eof the
various references to 'hour'. In the final sign story in John we
encounter referenes of both kinds; 'days' and 'hours'. Thus the
same signs which designate temporal intervals constitutive of
the week of seven days also designate parts of those parts,
intervals within a twenty-four hour cycle. That is, they signify
equally intervals within the day itself as well as those of the
intervals within the lunar cycle, days. Moreover the semeioptika
also designate periods within the annual or solar cycle to which
both of these aggregated components, the week, and the day,
belong. The expression 'green', like any of the other terms
referring to component members within the visible spectrum, is
polysemous in respect of several temporal cycles. This is of
crucial importance from the practical point of view, that is to
say, from the 'religious' point of view. In a profound sense,
'religion' accepts time as among its primary subjects, if not
its primary subject, not merely because of its association with
death, but so also because of religious observances, the
recurrently obligatory performance of ceremonial or ritual acts.
Periodicity in its various shapes and sizes is paramount here.
If there is any doubt about the time of this first miracle of
loaves and fish, since it appears in many ways, so similar to
the second, the index, the semeioptikon 'green' removes
it. Narratives of The Feeding Of The Four Thousand for
their part also contain general references to time, but none as
specific as the optic semeion in the former event:
In those days, when again a great crowd
gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples
to him, and said to them, "I have compassion on the crowd,
because they have been with me now three days, and have
nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their homes
(ei)v oi!kon au)tw~n), they will
faint on the way; and some of them have come a long way."
(Mark 8.1-3).
Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have
compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now
three days, and have nothing to eat; and I am unwilling to
send them away hungry (nh/steiv ou) qe/lw),
lest they should faint on the way." (Matthew 15.32, 33).
In passing, we should not ignore Mark's note sounding the
theme of the economic, identifying the specific conative impulse
proper to optic memory. It accords fully with the second sign in
John, which mentions 'all his [the official's] household' (h( oi)ki/a, John 4.53); nor Matthew's
fitting use of both verbs, 'to desire', here translated 'to
will', and 'to fast', here rendered 'to be hungry'. If there
remains any doubt about the precise location of The Feeding
Of The Five Thousand within the nocturnal/diurnal serial
order, it is removed by the miracle immediately following it, The
Walking On The Water, which specifies the time of
the event. The triadic and chiastic form of the series defines
this as the complement to the feeding miracle:
And about the fourth watch of the night (peri\ teta/rthn fulakh\n th~v nukto\v)
he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them.
(Mark 6.48b).
And in the fourth watch of the night (teta/rth?
de\ fulakh~? th~v nukto\v) he came to them, walking
on the sea. (Matthew 14.25).
In the diurnal/nocturnal cycle, this period marks the
interval preceding dawn, and is the first of its kind, intervals
in which the light is increasing rather than decreasing. It is
the complement of the first interval representing the waning of
light and the onset of darkness, which of course The Feeding
Of The Five Thousand signifies. It begins the three
diurnal intervals, and the miracle story with its predecessor,
its complement, occupies the centre of the chiasmos, being the
'third' miracle of virtual transcendence reckoning from the
outside to the centre. Counting from the centre of the chiasmos
outwards, and counting according to their binary division,
confirms the reckoning of the miracles of both kinds as we have
illustrated them in the mandala. The 'second' such event was The
Stilling Of The Storm, which designates the ensuing
interval, that of morning, and the 'first', The
Transfiguration, designates the period centred on midday.
In understanding the chiasmos thus, we are acknowledging
the complementary relation of the three immanent messianic
miracles, to the three miracles of virtual transcendence; or
what is the same thing, the relation of the three 'feeding'
miracles to the three 'identity' miracles. Of course it is the
former which effectively denote the series as immanent; the
perceptual polarity of consciousness, standing in opposition to
its conceptual polarity, the transcendent, defined in the Days
series.
In the annual cycle however, the semeioptikon as per the
narrative, identifies the vernal equinox. More specifically, it
configures the nocturnal component of the same, which is
equivalent to its diurnal part. These are equal in measure. And
this fact distances the gospel of Mark from those of Luke and
John, and aligns it with the gospel of Matthew. The gospels of
Luke and John can be viewed as collaborative, just as those of
Mark and Matthew can, given that the former are signified
analogously to the winter and summer solstices respectively, and
that the latter are signified analogously to the vernal and
autumnal equinoxes respectively. Both sets occur simultaneously
in the two hemispheres. Moreover, since religious praxis
is bound to temporal passage, the value of these postulates
should not be neglected. The inception of scripture, the story
of creation, methodically stressed the import of time to
theological reason, and does so in the context of religious
practice.
The analogical or isomorphic relation of immanence to
transcendence is echoed in that of the perceptual polarity of
consciousness to the conceptual polarity, just as are set
against one another 'end' and 'beginning' respectively.
Thus The Transfiguration is indeed not the first, but
the last of the six messianic miracles. Nevertheless it is
inseparably bound to what is the first miracle in chronological
order, The Transformation Of Water Into Wine. If The
Stilling Of The Storm is actually, chronologically, the
second miracle, that cements the same chiastic form. The chiasmos
is underpinned by the polar alternation of 'feeding' miracles
and 'identity' miracles, or miracles of (actual) immanence, and
those of virtual transcendence. So we must take into
account not only the complementarity of the six events
which reduces them to a triad, but equally this rhythmic passage
from one 'side' to the other; the constant oscillation of the
two subsets. So that the mention of 'the fourth watch of the
night' then further corroborates the time of its complementary
immanent miracle, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand.
This specification further validates as the proper interval of The
Feeding Of The Five Thousand, the early afternoon-late
afternoon, the first of the nocturnal intervals of decreasing
light, rather than the very next nocturnal interval. That is to
be assigned to The Feeding Of The Four Thousand. The
reason for emphasising this chiastic paradigm here,
particularly in the case of The Feeding Of The Five Thousand,
is its confirmation of the period denoted by the semeioptikon,
green. This immanent miracle and its counterpart, sit at the
centre of the chiasmos, and denote the two
nocturnal/diurnal intervals which are diametrically opposed to
one another, morning (2 A.M. - 6 A.M.) and afternoon-evening (2
P.M. - 6 P.M.). Thus the chiasmos vindicates what is
already stated in the two narratives themselves, the semeioptikon
'green' and the nocturnal/diurnal temporal reference.
The two designated intervals of the annual template are those of
nocturnal vernal equinox, and nocturnal vernal autumnal,
respectively to the central events of the chismos, The
Feeding Of The Five Thousand and The Walking On The
Water. These are equivalent in terms of duration, and
equivalent to their subsequent diurnal intervals. This is the
very meaning of 'equinox'. Nevertheless, they are disposed in
oppositional orientations; for the vernal equinox is followed by
the summer solstice, and it belongs to that one half of the year
comprised by the spring and summer quarters. But the autumnal
equinox is followed by the winter solstice. It pertains to the
antithetical half of the year, that of decreasing daylight.
These two halves of the annual cycle configure the
epistemological-psychological categories as radically ordered in
virtue of conscious and aconscious processes of mind. We should
not forget concerning which, they both divide the diurnal and
nocturnal representatively of the same analogy. Conscious
classes have equal numbers of diurnal and nocturnal elements,
signifying the three pure conceptual forms and three actual
immanent forms, forms of memory, respectively. The same applies
to the aconscious. The Christian doctrine of mind in this manner
does not simply divide the analytical representation of
consciousness vis-à-vis the annual spatiotemporal template
according to any hard and fast distinction between day and
night. It accounts to the overriding significance of transition;
both the transition of diurnal and nocturnal intervals. Nothing
is set in stone in this depiction. Everything is subject to
transition, so marking time itself.
No synoptic accounts of this narrative mention 'knowing' as
such. The Johannine recension however more than amply
compensates for this. We have already listed the theme of
'truth' in the extended discourses, The Bread Of Life
(John 6.22-59), and The Words Of Eternal Life (John
6.60-71), which follow the two miracle stories in that gospel.
Themes touching on 'The Father' (John 6.27, 32, 37, 40, 44, 45,
46, 57, 65); 'heaven' (6.31, 32, 33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58, 62,
the latter being a cognate form); and the 'eternal' (6.27, 40,
47, 54, 58, the latter being a cognate form, also verse 68), are
also immediately germane to both the axiological as well as the
epistemological and psychological strands in the two miracle
narratives, and will avail us in the hermeneutic of the feeding
miracle story in particular. Both miracle narratives, The
Walking On The Water and The Feeding Of
The Five Thousand, are theologies of The Transcendent.
Both acoustic perceptual radicals, that of memory and its
imaginal counterpart, exemplify this identity.
Notably then, John's telling of the miracle itself does
include one very remarkable reference to the cognitive mode,
knowing. It is couched in ironic terms, with Jesus feigning
ignorance. The scene the evangelist envisages between Jesus and
Philip recalls that between Jesus and Nathanael, which took
place just prior to the miracle at Cana. By such means John very
subtly links this, his second feeding miracle, with the first,
so as to underline the transitional relation of desire to
knowing, or what is the same thing, the instrumentality of
desire to knowing:
Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a
multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, "How are we
to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" This he said to
test (peira/zwn) him, for he
himself knew (au)tov ga\r h!?dei)
what he would do. (John 6.5, 6 emphasis added.)
John's forthright mention of the intentional mode is
perfectly in accord with the numerous and explicit references to
the same in the synoptic recapitulations of both miracles of
loaves. These are too substantial to ignore, alend are
comparable to the introduction of the first sign in John with
its nuanced reference to the P creation narrative in relation to
the depiction of another disciple, Nathanael. He is
characterised in virtue of sexual desire, the subject of the
ensuing miracle story, just as Philip and Andrew are
characterised relatively to knowing. In both cases the Johannine
narratives subtly connote the narrative of the first human
couple in the garden, in which the intentional forms, desire and
knowing are first announced. But Mark no less adverts to the
same in the recapitulation of the details of both Eucharistic
messianic miracles:
And being aware (gnou\v)
of it, Jesus said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that
you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand (ou!pw noie~te
ou)de\ suni/ete)? Are your hearts hardened? Having
eyes do you not see; and having ears do you not hear? And do
you not remember? (Mark 8.17, 18).
But Jesus aware (gnou\v)
of this, said, "O men of little faith, why do you discuss
among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not
yet perceive (ou!pw noie~te? Do you not
remember the fie loaves of the five thousand, and how many
baskets you gathered? (Matthew 16.8, 9).
Thus it is here in the synoptic recapitulations of the
miracles of loaves and fish that we have abundant, literal and
explicit warrants for the psychological and epistemological
hermeneutic of these narratives. These texts reinforce to an
extraordinary degree not only the theme of appetition qua
desire and subsequent satisfaction, confirming their tie to the
first messianic event, but also the necessary and indubitable
connection between sense-percipience and cognition. In the
conclusions of both synoptic recapitulations we find another
reference to 'understanding'. John's gospel lacks the discourse
recapitulating both miracles of loaves, since it lacks also the
second of these, as does Luke. But John's discourse on The
Words Of Eternal Life ends on a note in harmony with the
conclusion of the recapitulations of the two Eucharistic
miracles in Mark and Matthew, more so with the former, the
severity of whose censoriousness the latter seems to mollify:
But Jesus knowing (ei)dw\v)
in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them,
"Do you take offense at this?" (John 6.61).
"But there are some of you that do not believe." For Jesus
knew (h!?dei) from the first who
those were that did not believe, and who it was that would
betray him. (John 6.64).
And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" (ou!pw sunie/te, Mark 8.21).
Then they understood (sunh~kan)
that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matthew
16.12).
Serial Order In The Messianic Series, The Johannine Signs,
And The Apocalypse
It is appropriate here to examine in more detail the
presence of seriality in the three sections of the New Testament
which most occupy us. Clearly the messianic series is the most
complex of these. We have already noted the one only 'crossing
to the other side' in the Johannine ordering of its seven 'semeia'.
The effect of which is to commend the series as the basis of a
developmental psychology, plotting the life trajectory from Eros
to Thanatos, subsequently to the introduction of time
vis-a-vis consciousness in the creation story. This also must
influence in part, any hermeneutic of the messianic series. The
clear congruence of the seven Johannine signs and the messianic
series, the fact that both accept in different measure the
creation series as a paradigm and precedent, as well as the fact
that two of the Johannine signs are identical to two of the
messianic series, and the similarity between some of the
Johannine healing miracles and those in the gospel of Mark, all
these facts support the same proposition.
In effect then, any reading of the story of salvation in Mark
and John from the point of view of a rudimentary structure
pertaining to developmental psychology, must deal equitably with
both, in spite of their divergences, and must deal equally with
the creation series. A significant amount of such divergences is
attributable to the disparity between the
'sociological'/psychological perspectives of each evangelist. In
previous mandala, this has been clearly illustrated by the
juxtaposed terms 'phylogeny' and 'ontogeny'. The dichotomy stems
from the variant epistemological-psychological perspectives of
the two gospels. If Mark takes his cue from the mode knowing,
and its subordinate counterpart, the will-to-believe, this is
almost everywhere conceived in relation to the public aspect of
existence. It is never more plainly stated than in the messianic
miracle itself, where 'five thousand' enumerates the greatest
gathering of its kind. Knowing according to this theology or as
we might say, sense-percipient, epistemic consciousness, is
consensual. Its justification places the individual within a
class, as one among the greatest multitude. For John, matters
are clearly otherwise, since he is pre-occupied with belief, and
from the start, we see this framed in terms of the individual;
in the cameos of Nathanael, Nicodemus, the beloved disciple,
Lazarus, Thomas, Peter, and so on. He emphasizes the
individual's irreducibly personal response to Jesus. Thus the
ontogenetic cast of both belief and the desire-to-know stand in
starkest contrast to the phylogenetic modes, knowing and the
will-to-believe.
Both perspectives are vital to a comprehensive
epistemology-psychology, that is Christology, and we cannot
understand the theology of semiotic forms without the singular
emphasis that the Markan doctrine gives to place and time, and
that the Johannine answers with an equal attention to the person
as individuated. The role of a personalist developmental
psychology in John's gospel is vital to understanding his own
construal of time, just as in Mark, we find indications of the
particular value which that evangelist places on the society.
These cross-referential patterns are at once announced in the
subordinate and aconscious modes of intentionality operative in
each case; desire-to-know in John and will-to-believe
in Mark. (I have italicised the supervening intentional mode
rather than its prevenient co-efficient, in order to make this
as plain as possible.) The resolution of their apparent
disparity occurs in the context of typology, an inherent
tendency driving semiotics. Mark takes up the society or class
of 'the twelve', reiterating the dominant perspective in the
Hebrew canon, which in keeping with Judaism itself, writes large
the reality of the group, the tribe, the phylum, to any one of
which 'we' may belong. This requires for its rationale, the
notion of place, or space-time. John on the other hand applies
typologies to the nature of existence as defined by the
life-course. One passes through diverse stages of life, which
themselves are identical to the same tupoi defining
particular regions, or locales.
There is no essential contesting polemic here. The individual
can be accounted for, just as the phlyum can. Mark
dedicates his focus to the phlylogenetic point of view, as we
gleaned from his emphatic positioning of the stories which
centre the chiastic structure of the messianic series, the
Transcendental miracle stories, The Feeding Of The Five
Thousand and The Walking On The Water, the first
of which dominates his theological consciousness. It is
reaffirmed in the healing episode, The Haemorrhagic Woman,
which stands at the apex of another less apparent although
similar structure. Alternatively, John begins and ends his
gospel with signs that underline the private, 'ontogenetic'
facts of existence, love and death, the miracle at Cana and the
death of Lazarus, and indeed the messianic series as a whole
does the same. Put simply, a mind : body is an 'I'; but it
necessarily dwells within a given place, at a given time with
other such psychophysical entities, more or less similar to,
even if not exactly the same as, itself. In the case of the
family, this similarity is greatest, and in the case of
identical twins, it reaches its limit. A family then stands as a
model of sorts for the class, even though it is poised perhaps
paradoxically, midway between the believing and therefore
individuated person as a particular self, and the class as the
class of knowing subjects.
The family is a class of sorts; yet it is also an individuated
class. This paradox stems from the contradictory status of
hybridity. Even in the cases of such extraordinary degrees of
similarity as that of identical twins however, the certain
identity of the individual, the ego, as founded on both
Christological phenomena, love and death, correspondingly to the
uniqueness of the only begotten Son, is never attained.
Of these two overarching points of reference, love and death,
death thus remains the guarantee in perpetuity of the
authenticity of the ontogenetic perspective, and so selfhood.
Luther's aphorism "Everyman must do his own believing, and every
man must do his own dying." encapsulates the ontogenetic
character of the transcendent Christological form of
intentionality, belief. The individuality of mortality as
criteriological for ontogeny is evident in John's last sign, and
equally in the last sign of the messianic series.
We shall return to the question of a resolution between
phylogeny and ontogeny at a later point. Its ultimate
explication reverts to Christology, to
epistemological-psychological factors, as governed by the distinction
between knowing and believing relevantly to the dichotomy of
heteronomy-autonomy. Respectively, Mark and Matthew adopt the
former stance, as their theological perspectives are governed by
knowing and will, whereas Luke and John expound the latter,
since their theologies are shaped by belief and desire. These
intentional modes constitute their proper and specific
soteriological and eschatological concerns. The distinction is
tantamount to that between The Transcendent and The Son. What
bridges it in scriptural terms, are just those texts
identifiable as Pneumatological. The outstanding one in the
Hebrew canon is Ezekiel, and in the New Testament it is The
Apocalypse.
The Apocalypse as a whole is therefore party to these complex
questions, precisely as it brings into a fully intertextual
compass, each of the four gospels. As far as seriality goes, the
thesis put here logically relies upon the analogy obtaining
between the four cardinal temporal point-instants of the year,
the two solstices and two equinoxes, as the interpretive key in
understanding the broadest parameters of this intertextuality.
They are outlined for us in both Ezekiel and The Apocalypse.
Thus The Apocalypse draws upon the visions of the 'four living
creatures' in Ezekiel, pursuant to the deployment of the theme
of time (and light), in the P creation story. The Apocalypse
extends its own far-reaching ambit to us inseparably from its
apparent endorsement of the fourfold gospel. In its broader
contours it consists of four sections, each marked by a
sevenfold series, so invoking the two analogous cycles, creation
and salvation, or messianic miracles. There are continuous
echoes of both throughout the book. So the seventh sign in the
last three sevenfold cycles are consistent with each other, and
consistent with the status of the Sabbath : Eucharist. It is of
course the very concept of religious worship, whose connection
with time we have just noted, which establishes this
consistency. Arguably, the same pattern applies to the first of
the sevenfold series, the letters to the churches, which is
followed by the first description of the heavenly worship. Thus
in all four cases, letters, seals, trumpets and vials, the
seventh event is congruent with the Sabbath : Eucharist. The
initial picture of the worship in heaven certainly takes its cue
from the visions of Ezekiel in chapters 1 and 10, as if to
pre-empt the interpretation of the entire book, and seems to
conform to the three remaining seventh events. In such a manner,
it sets the programme for the further acts of heavenly worship:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any
one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him
and eat with him and he with me." (Apocalypse 3.20).
Round the throne were twenty-four thrones, and
seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clad in white
garments, with golden crowns upon their heads. From the throne
issue flashes of lightening, and voices and peals of thunder,
and before the throne burn seven torches of fire, which are
the seven spirits of God; and before the throne there is as it
were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four
living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind; the first
living creature like a lion, the second living creature like
an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and
the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four
living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of
eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease
to sing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. who was
and is and is to come." Apocalypse 4.4- 8);
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire
from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals
of thunder, voices, flashes of lightening, and an earthquake.
(Apocalypse 8.5);
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were
loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has
become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall
reign for ever." And the twenty-four elders who sit on their
thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God ...
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his
covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of
lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy
hail. (Apocalypse 11.15-16 and verse 19);
The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud
voice came out of the temple, from the throne saying, "It is
done!" And there were flashes of lightning, peals of thunder
and a great earthquake such as had never been since men were
on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was
split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell,
and God remembered great Babylon, to make her drain the cup of
the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no
mountains were to be found; and great hailstones, heavy as a
hundredweight, dropped on men from heaven, till men cursed God
for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.
(Apocalypse 16.17-21).
These 'Sabbatical' events are teleological or final in the
literal sense of the word, and emphatically so, due to the
avowed eschatological remit of The Apocalypse. So much so,
that the six prior occurrences, or all seven letters in the case
of the first sevenfold series, are preparatory to each of these
four respective consummations. That
the first of the four sevenfold series, the series of seven
letters, corresponds to the basic premises of Markan soteriology
is a postulate we shall develop in what follows. The
consideration of The Apocalypse in league with the gospel of
Mark, as was the case of its connection with Luke, will not
override the most immediate purpose of this essay, which is the
doctrine of the acoustic semiotic forms, and the intentionality
of both knowing and will-to-believe.
There are two more reasons for identifying the series of letters
with the gospel of Mark, and we should note these now. Colour
terms abound in The Apocalypse; the just meanings of some of
which are extremely difficult to fix. In one important passage
dealing more specifically with the 'four living creatures', we
find particular colours identifying the four horses which
implement immediately the opening of the seven seals, at the
command of each of the four living creatures in turn, given to
each of these four horses and their riders (Apocalypse 6.1-8).
The last of the four seals to be opened utilises the same
epithet Mark included in his signature story of The Feeding
Of The Five Thousand. It is often translated 'pale',
although it signifies the colour of growing grass, that is,
'green':
When he opened the fourth seal, I heard a voice
of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" And I saw, and
behold, a pale horse ( i(/ppov xlwro/v), and its rider's name was Death,
and Hades followed him; (Apocalypse 6.8a, emphasis
added.)
Belonging to the same system of meaning is the mention of the
same two personified entities just before the first of the
letters. Even though the recapitulation of the formula occurs
within the second quartet, comprising the seven seals, this
literary device constitutes an inclusio marking the
beginning and end of the first quartet, and confirms the
relation between one of the four riders and the particular
living creature qua evangelist who dispatches him:
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though
dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, "I am the
first and the last, and the living one; I died and behold I am
alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades
(Apocalypse 1.17, 18, emphasis added.)
As part of the same semantic project telling for the
congruence between the eschatology of the letters to the
churches set out in The Apocalypse and the eschatology proper to
the gospel of Mark, that of knowing and the will-to-believe, we
should note the musical repetition of the clause after the
initial address to the angel of each church:
I know ( oi!da) ...
(Apocalypse 2.2, 9, 13, 19, 3.1b, 8, 15).
Similar to this is the equally rhythmical incantation of the
same formula at the conclusion of each letter:
"He who has an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
( O( e!xwn ou~)v a)kousa/tw ti/ to\
pneu~ma le/gei tai~v e)kklhsi/aiv), Apocalypse 2.7a,
11a, 17a, 29a, 3.6a, 3.13a, 3.22a, emphases added.)
And it is reminiscent of the exhortation to 'understand'
exclusive to the Markan apocalypse:
"But when you see the desolating set up where it
ought not to be (let the reader understand ( o( a)nagi/nwskwn noie/tw)), then let
those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; (Mark 13.14).
The chief characteristic of this form of intentionality, the
defining attribute of conscious knowing as of aconscious
will-to-believe, is heteronomy. Both miracle narratives which
present the perceptual and conceptual radical responsible for
these modes, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand and The
Haemorrhagic Woman respectively, evince this explicitly.
These intentional forms bind us together into the social rather
than the personal mode of being. And so the churches or
'assemblies' - e)kklhsi/av -
addressed in the seven letters do the same. In moving from the
gospel of Luke to that of Mark, following the designated serial
order of the messianic events themselves, we have
shifted radically. The gospels of Luke and John, so
divergent in other respects, are in accord on this issue; the
central and guiding lights of both are belief and desire, in
their conscious and aconscious permutations. Whatever the
instrumentality of desire to knowing, whatever links these forms
of perceptual intentionality, they nevertheless differ in this
very regard. Knowing constitutes us precisely as us. To know is
to belong, as member of the largest constituted
collective, to a society sharing the same language(s). Such a
class is similar to a phylum or 'tribe', and somewhat
similar to a family. It exists at furthest remove from being
defined in ontogenetic terms, the being of individuals which
rests upon the body (soma) as conceptual form, and the
perceptual form, haptic memory. The word ekklesia best
expresses this fact.
But if the author of the seven letters to the churches is
inclined to touch upon the sociology of knowledge, he is
nevertheless clearly far more inclined to ponder the moral
psychology of knowledge. The letters essentially address this
aspect of knowing, and allude to its concurrent if aconscious
parallel, the will-to-believe. We can thus frame the first part
of Markan eschatology according to the same syllogistic
reckoning as we did in the case of Luke:
All acoustic sentience is cognitive;
All cognition is heteronomous
All acoustic sentience is heteronomous.
In using the dichotomous terms phylogeny and ontogeny, and
also heteronomy and autonomy to distinguish the Transcendental
and Christological categories, it is appropriate here to point
out that the Pneumatological character of The Apocalypse
inclines it to the first of these if the content of the
categoreal series is any guide. We find in each case, the
subdivision of the Days, and those of the messianic miracles,
that the Transcendental and Pneumatological events are of a
certain kind; thus for example the two feeding miracles of
loaves and fish.
The effective focus of The Apocalypse is Pneumatological; it
begins with a substantial number of references to 'the Spirit',
and the subsequent angelology is of a piece with this. Its main
categoreal focus is correlatively the conceptual forms symbolic
masculine/symbolic feminine and the optic modes of
sense-percipience. There is a significant difference immediately
proposed in the numbers of the two miracles, five thousand and
four thousand, which we should not ignore, and for this reason
the Transcendental event represents the phylogenetic end of a
spectrum which the Pneumatological categories mediate. At the
opposite end, is the Christological. The Christological
categories and their consequent modes of intentionality all
reflect the uniqueness of 'the only (begotten) (monogenou~v) Son from the Father' (John
1.14). They consistently mirror ontogeny contrastively to
phylogeny. The intention of the Pneumatological perspectives
deployed in The Apocalypse is to mediate this contrast.
We should therefore repeat, even if once more, that as many as
four distinct terms are used throughout the work to speak of
people collectively:
... and they [the twenty-four elders] sang a new
song saying, "Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open
its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom
men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation
( e)k pa/shv fulh~v kai\ glw/sshv kai
laou~ kai\ e!qnouv), and hast made them a kingdom and
priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth."
(Apocalypse 5.9,10).
The same or similar formulae recur at 7.9, 10,11 (in the form
'" ... peoples and nations and tongues and kings"'), 11.9 ,
13.7, 14.6, and 17.15; in the last the wording used is '"...
peoples and multitudes (o!xloi) and
nations and tongues"'. The word here translated 'multitudes',
sometimes given as 'crowd(s)' or 'throng(s)', is used in all
recensions of both feeding miracles. Mark and John qualify it in
their record of the first event with the expression 'great'
(Mark 6.34 polu\n o!xlon, John 6.2,
5 o!xlov polu/v, polu\n o!xlov),
and Mark uses a similar expression of the second event (Mark 8.1
pa/lin pollou~), while Matthew
reserves it for the first (Matthew 14.14 polu\n
o!xlon). The term 'tribe' (fulh~n)
is used throughout The Apocalypse, most notably in the
description of the sealing of God's servant on their foreheads
(7.1-8).
The cognates of 'phylum'/'phyla' such as 'phylogenetic',
'phylogenic', used in the present work do not correspond to
their use in The Apocalypse. I use these expressions to denote
not the Pneumatological, but the Transcendental radicals and
their native modes of intentionality. We have seen that the
first series in The Apocalypse, the letters, addresses the human
collective in terms of ekklesia. This is phylogeny
sensu stricto as used here, and which I am connecting with
the gospel of Mark, due to its concerns with the intentionality
of knowing, and the will-to-believe. If there appear to be as
many as four different denominations of human collectives in The
Apocalypse in addition to widespread use of the word 'tribe' (fulh\), we may attribute to
these a link, albeit tenuous, with the Pneumatological
categories, not the Transcendental ones which occasion phylogeny
proper. These four expressions used of collectives in The
Apocalypse I am differentiating from the Transcendental, and
authentic forms of 'phylogeny' proper. They will answer to the
four synthetic or hybrid intentional modes, those which
establish the instrumentality of a conative form to a cognitive
form. For example, the instrumentality of desire to knowing,
desire itself being ontogenetic and knowing being phylogenetic.
It is important to emphasise just how the Pneumatological modes
mitigate clear-cut distinctions between cognitive and conative
modes of consciousness. In this way they bridge the divide
between authentic and definitive occasions of phylogeny and
ontogeny, parallel to the divide between the Transcendental and
the Christological.
The formal clarity of the four sevenfold series, beginning with
the seven letters to the churches, conforms to the paradigmatic
shape of the gospel itself. That there are four hybrid modes of
intentionality is the result of their proper canonical modes. This
is not to reduce The Apocalypse in status to the work of an
epigone, but to acknowledge its necessarily derivative character,
given its integrative purpose. The issue reverts to the habitual
tendency of The Apocalypse to adopt and modify its material from
various sources. Vital to any understanding of its
eschatological/teleological intent is its recapitulatory method.
For which reason, it is in no small measure derivative.
Nor is the characterisation of both Transcendental modes of
intentionality, the will-to-believe and knowing, as innately
phylogenetic, by any means intended to derogate them. That is,
it is not to argue that the psychology of the crowd is of
pejorative defining moment for either. But the consensual nature
of language itself, since what is foundational to the aconscious
mode at least is acoustic memory, and the spoken language is if
anything public rather than private, and probably still more
universal, and more public than the written language, the
equivalent subject of the Pneumatological feeding miracle, marks
it as heteronomous. We shall characterize the private categoreal
forms, those of the body and the mind, and of the two
sense-percipient modes of touch, antithetically. Intentional
modes of belief and desire, the Christological ones, thus oppose
the Transcendental forms of consciousness. Only we should
observe that those Transcendental and Christological modes
which occupy the same taxon, will and belief; knowing
and desire and so on, clearly do not oppose one another as we
might expect.
The pericope describing the sealing of God's servants in
The Apocalypse, would appear to have a certain connection with The
Feeding Of The Five Thousand. It belongs of course to the
series of numbered seals, not that of the letters, and the
exegesis of the former we will undertake in tandem with the
gospel of John, and its guiding epistemology-psychology, the
Christological modes belief simpliciter and
desire-to-know, as well as those of Luke, belief-in-desire, and
desire simpliciter. The recurrence of the figure 12, and
the square of this number present in the sum 'one hundred and
forty-four thousand', which accounts for the full process, the
sealing of God's servants, bears rapport with the instance of
the same in The Feeding Of The Five Thousand. That said,
neither should we lose sight of the connection between the
double hexad given in the two Christologies and the feeding
miracle. Both the Transcendental and Pneumatological feeding
miracles bristle with 'thousands', and these narratives offer
themselves as hermeneutical keys to understanding the meaning of
The Apocalypse 7.1-8. Each miracle story suggests the completed
dodecad: The Transformation Of Water Into Wine by means
of the dual six jars of water and six jars of wine, and equally
The Transfiguration with its reference to the Days of
creation, each of which consists of a 'morning and evening, an nth
day'.
But more significant still than these observations regarding the
relation of The Apocalypse generally to the fourfold format of
the gospel, and to the distinct permutations of the theology of
mind or consciousness of the latter, is the introduction prior
to the description of the series of seals: that of the seals
themselves as both seven in number and binary:
And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated
on the throne a scroll written within and on the back,
sealed with seven seals (bibli/on
gegramme/non e)/swqen kai\ o)/pisqen katesfragisme/non
sfragi~sin e(pta/); and I saw a strong angel
proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the
scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth
or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into
it, and I wept much that no one was worthy to open the
scroll or look into it. Then one of the elders said to
me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of
David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its
seven seals." (Apocalypse 5.1-5 emphasis added.)
I shall argue that the biblion to which John refers
here is most clearly nothing other than what concerns us
ultimately throughout The Markan Mandala; namely the
disclosures of both the sevenfold series of Days of 'beginning'
and the seven messianic events of 'end' recorded in the gospels.
If that is so, then this passage as well as functioning a propos
of the theology of religions which the book as a whole
addresses, contains an incipient doctrine of so-called 'special
revelation'. For here it adverts to the 'special' nature of the
Christian canon. It is worthwhile pointing out here also, the
very remarkable description of the author himself in terms of
the aconscious form of intentionality native to the gospel of
John, which I am linking with the series of seals; namely the
desire-to-know.
This page was updated 21.02.2023.
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