COMMENT: thanks of the Email from William,
----- Forwarded Message -----From: William ...
To: Donald...
Sent: Wednesday, 26 August 2015, 6:53
Subject: Nathaniel (Bartholmew)
Dear Father Donald,
Thank you - the commentary by Brendan Byrne is so sensitive to the nuances and is so well written that, as it flows, it draws one into the encounter / scene. The development of the personal relationship between Our Lord and Nathaniel is now to be a favourite lectio text for me. I shall add "Life Abounding" to my 'wish list' - we have our 42nd wedding anniversary coming up next month, and we have a tradition for each to obtain a gift to mark the day (rather than go out for a meal as so many do!).
I am so pleased to read Theophanes Cerameus' interpretation of the meaning of the fig tree, linking Nathaniel's fig tree to the otherwise puzzling barren tree incident: from his interpretation into a fine explanation - goodness, how one has to keep one's eyes open to the hidden connections and meanings!
Francis Thompson's poem "In no strange land" is delightful, with its reaching up to the heavens and then coming so charmingly 'down to earth'!
You have such a wide angled lens before so vast a horizon of spiritual writings - thank you for raising my eyes from the footpath!
With my love in Our Lord,
William
 |
Cover: Icon by
Marie Paul OSB Jerusalem |
Fr. Peter Edmonds SJ, at the Retreat,
during the talks used commentary from the book;
Brendan
Byrne, Life Abounding, A Reading of John’s Gospel.
Later we got an Amazon copy.
Before are the pages are not about
Nicodemus but about (Bartholmew) Nathaniel – gloriously on the personal
relation with Jesus.
Page Pages 47-51
Day \\ 4: Jesus Calls Philip and Nathaniel: "Greater things. . .": 1:43-51
With John the Baptist entirely receded from
the scene, Jesus himself, prior to setting out for Galilee, recruits two more
disciples, Phi lip and Nathanael. Whereas Jesus "finds" Philip and directly
calls him to discipleship ("Follow me" [v. 43]), Philip himself finds
Nathanael, just as Andrew had recruited Simon Peter. The detail (v. 44) that Philip
is from the same town, Bethsaida, as the other two, along with the plural formulation
"we have found" (v. 45), suggests that Philip sees himself as part of
a community formed by the three already called. The roundabout formulation,
"the One whom Moses wrote about in the law and the prophets (spoke of) too,
we have found: Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth" (v. 45b), again (cf.
v.41) locates the discovery within the aura of messianic hope. The "law"
(= Pentateuch) and "the prophets" indicate Scripture in a global sense.
19 No specific messianic text is in view-just the sense, widespread in Judaism
at the time, that Scripture points to what will Occur in the messianic age. Philip's
statement, then, repeats the balder formulation of Andrew: "We have found
the Messiah" (v. 41b).
Ignoring Philip's claim to have found the
Messiah, Nathanael fastens solely upon the mention of Nazareth (v. 46a). The expostulation:
"From Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" introduces a note
of irony that will recur again and again throughout the gospel. At a surface level
Nathanael simply gives voice to the kind of small town prejudice common in all human
societies. By the same token, Nathanael's exclamation raises the issue of Jesus'
origins: where has he come from? On a human level, he has come from Nazareth; on
a divine level, we know from the Prologue that he has come from an eternal life
with God. The double level of allusion once again instances the sacramentality that
pervades the story. That Jesus should come from such an ordinary, unremarkable town
as Nazareth of Galilee is part of the incarnation, the disclosure of the divine
in the human. Very soon in fact the Son will display "his glory" in another
small town in Galilee Cana-which just happens to be (though we only learn this
toward the close of the gospel [21:2]) the hometown of Nathanael!
Philip does not argue with Nathanael but simply
repeats the earlier invitation: "Come-and see" (v. 46b). Like the others,
Nathanael is invited to enter upon a life of discipleship ("come") where
he will "see" the divine presence ("glory") disclosed in the
humanity of Jesus. He will learn that out of Nazareth can come very great "good"
indeed.
Seeing Nathanael coming toward him," Jesus
ignores his cynical comment and instead makes an entirely positive pronouncement:
"Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile" (v. 47b). "Israelite"
is an honourable title." Nathanael's lack of "guile" (dolos) sets
him favourably off against the archetypal biblical "trickster" Jacob
(Gen 27:35-36), to whose dream at Bethel (Gen 28:12) Jesus will shortly allude
(v. 51). In contrast to Jacob, the eponymous ancestor of old Israel, Nathanael
will model what being an "Israelite" will mean in the era now dawning
with the presence of Jesus.
That is a promise for the future. For the present,
surprised by Jesus' comment and the claim to supernatural knowledge that it implies,
Nathanael exclaims: "Whence (pothen) do you know me?" [v. 48a]).22
Jesus, again,
20 "Coming to Jesus" is a more or less technical expression in the Fourth Gospel for entering upon a life of faith and discipleship: 3:26; 4:30;
5:40; 6:35, 37, 44, 65; 7:37; 19:39.
21 Occurring only here in the gospel, "Israelite" carries none of the ambiguity that attaches to "Jew"; cf. Gail O'Day, "The Gospel of John," 532.
22 The interrogative pronoun "whence" (pothen), rather than-as we might have expected"how" (pti.l') keeps alive the issue of Jesus' origins. Jesus' supernatural knowledge about Nlllhllllll('1 SlllllIS i'IOnJ his origin with the Father.
does not answer directly but gives yet a further example of special
knowledge: "Before Philip called you I saw you under the fig tree" (v.
48b). Proof of ability to see beyond the ordinary limits of space and time guarantees
the truth of his previous pronouncement. Whether any significance is to be
attached to Nathanael's being "under a fig tree" is unclear. In Micah
4:4 and Zechariah 3: 10 sitting under the fig tree is a symbolic expression of
messianic peace and prosperity; later Jewish traditions pictured rabbis under
fig trees teaching or studying the Torah." The suggestion could be that before
Philip called Nathanael, Jesus already knew him as one who was searching the
Jaw for signs that the age of the Messiah had arrived (cf. v. 45b). Nathanael, though
at first having difficulty with Jesus' origins (Nazareth), would then represent
all Israelites cherishing messianic hopes who are promised the sight of
"greater things" (v. 51) if only they can expand those hopes beyond what
they now imagine.
This is to wring a lot out of the simple
phrase "under a fig tree." It does, however, account well for Nathanael's
enthusiastic response: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of
Israel" (v. 49). As in the case of the testimony of John (v. 34), "Son
of God" here lacks the transcendent, morethan-human sense that will emerge
as the narrative unfolds (and of which we who have read the Prologue are already
aware [1: 18]).24 On the basis of Jesus' more than human knowledge, Nathanael hails
him as Israel's longawaited Messiah-King. But his faith will have to go on a
long journey to be adequate to the full mystery of Jesus.
More than a hint of this is contained in Jesus'
final response, which is also a promise (vv. 50-51). Nathanael has Come to believe
in Jesus on the basis of his seemingly miraculous know ledge. 25 He is now promised
"sight" of "greater things" than wonders such as this (v. 50).
In a solemn pronouncement ("Amen, Amen, I say to you" [v. 51a),26 Jesus
promises a "seeing" of "heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (v. 5ab). As has long been
recognized, there is an echo here of Jacob's dream at Bethel:
23 Cf. Raymond E. Brown, John I-XII, 83.
24 Cf. also Martha's confession of Jesus in 11 :27; also 20:31; see further, Francis J. Moloney, John 56, 61 62.
2.l His Icwl of lidlh III IhlS Jltlllll ,'lIlll'sponds to those who believe on the evidence of "signs" (iuirucles) n kV!'11i1l fI'" IIHI~I PIIII 11111 11I1('cI highly in the gospel: 2:23; 4:48.
III II('I(~ 1111I1111I1I11f,(1I1I11 IhlN 1111111111111111 Y IIISI' lil(.' 1IIOl'e Iiterul "Amen, Amen" translauon IlIlhlll Ihllllllll' NHSV'N "VII \. 11111\,"
And he dreamed that there was a ladder set
up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending
and descending on it. (Gen 28:12)
While allusion to this text is clear, there are also differences. In
Jesus' promise "heaven lies open" and the angels of God ascend and descend,
not upon the ladder (as in Gen 28: 12) but upon the Son of Man-that is, upon Jesus
here designated for the first time in the gospel in this enigmatic way.27
Jesus, in other words, is the vehicle of the
"commerce" between heaven and earth. For Nathanael-and all who will share
his journey of faith28-the barrier between heaven and earth will fall
away; heaven will "remain open" 29 in a constant revelation of God. Like
Jacob awaking from his dream, believers will exclaim, "Surely the Lord is
in this place-and I did not know it!" (Gen 28: 16); "this is. . . the
house (temple) of God" (Gen 28: 17c; cf. John 2:19-21); "this is the
gate of heaven" (Gen 28:17d; cf. John 10:7-10).
The distinction between a correct but inadequate
level of faith and a mature faith that sees "greater things" is one that
will recur throughout the gospel. The lesser level is prompted by and rests upon
the miraculous, the marvellous: in this case Jesus' accurate knowledge of Nathanael's
situation before actually meeting him. Mature faith, paradoxically, moves
"back," so to speak, from the marvellous to the ordinary and everyday.
It pierces the barrier between heaven and earth to find the divine depth in the
"Nazareth" of one's own life. The pervasive sacramentality of the Fourth
Gospel-the disclosure of the divine in the earthly and physical-begins and ends
around his person: the open "gate" of Heaven.30
Earlier (v. 31) John had described the purpose
of his coming and baptizing with water so that he (Jesus) might be revealed to
Israel. In the revelation of Jesus to Nathanael, the "Israelite without guile"
(v. 47), this task has been discharged." Nathanael, in contrast to the trickster
Jacob, is the
27 The origin, meaning, and use of the phrase "Son of Man" in the gospel tradition are matters of long-standing controversy. The phrase represents not so much a title as a role. For the present it will suffice to say that Jesus refers to himself in this way in connection with his mysterious role and destiny in which both suffering and exaltation are entwined.
28 In the transition from v. 50 to v. 51, there is change of subject from singular (opsei) to plural (opsesthe)
in "you will see."
29 The sense of remaining open is conveyed by the use here of the Greek perfect participle: aneoigota.
30 The poem "In No Strange Land" by the nineteenth-century British poet Francis
Thornpson
gives~
IIdlllllllhl\- expression to this sense of the divine presence h(lhilld 1111' I,,!!hlllly find furu 1 11111
31 Cf.
Raymond E. Brown. John i-xii.
model Israelite who overcomes his initial prejudice ("Nazareth!")
to accept Jesus as the fulfilment of his search for the Messiah (v. 49), even if
his journey of faith is at this point far from complete (1:51). We will not hear
of Nathanael again until we find him included among the seven disciples who join
Peter in a fruitless fishing expedition prior to an encounter with the risen Lord
(21:2-3). But the presentation of this "true Israelite" at the beginning
and end of the narrative should blunt something of the force of the Fourth
Gospel's negative characterization of "the Jews" in generaP2 Though
the narrative does not draw attention to the fact, it is significant that it is
at Nathanael's hometown, Cana in Galilee (cf. 21:2), that Jesus will begin his ministry
and for the first time display his "glory" (2: 11), an initial fulfilment
of the pledge regarding the "greater things" that Nathanael and all the
disciples will "see" (1:51).33
Reflection. In the person of the disciples, a number of idealistic individuals, each
in their own way cherishing hopes for the renewal and freedom of their people, have
attached themselves to a genuinely prophetic figure: John the Baptist. John knows
who he is and who he is not. He plays a classic mentor role, not holding on to his
disciples but pointing them toward Jesus. The disciples approach Jesus through
the lens of their messianic hopes and expectations. He does not impose himself but
asks them first to examine and state their desires: "What do you want?"
"What are you really looking for in your life?" In answer to their halting
question, "Where do you live?" he invites them into his "home,"
so to speak, to "come and see" where he lives, which is in the world
laid open to the presence of the Father (l :51). Disciples today have to put aside
preconceived categories and prejudices ("Nazareth!") to begin to enter
into the knowledge of his person. Like Nathanael, they learn that he already
"knows" them with mysterious insight and has a future for them ("Cephas"!).
Jesus' invitation, "Come and see," draws them into an ever-widening
web of discovery and witness.
32 Cf. R. AJan Culpepper, Anatomy,
123.
33 If it is correct to see Nathanael played off as "true Israelite" over against the "trickster Jacob," then it is possible that lying behind the "seeing" promise in 1:51 is a postbiblical Jewish trndition of Jacob-Isracl liS "1I1l' 1111111 who secs God." The tradition is based upon a linllllislil'lIlly i'll/se but populnr l'IYIIIUIIl.,y 1111111' J khll'W of "lsracl"; cf. Brcndan Byrne, 'Sons 1'./' (;"rI.' ~./, 11. 27 •.•.
 |
William Blake “Jacob’s Ladder”
c. 1800 Watercolor British Museum |
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”
O world
invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish
soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?
Not where the
wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places—
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your
estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.
But (when so
sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the
night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry—clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!
