Term Paper on "Jesus"

Term Paper 5 pages (1549 words) Sources: 2 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Jesus Through the Centuries

Jaroslav Pelikan investigates the enormous impact Jesus has had on the evolution of Western culture. Although he never manages to break free from the Christian worldview, Pelikan does offer a rich and scholastic chronology of the role Jesus played in Western social, political, economic, philosophic, and artistic histories. Divided into eighteen chapters that are roughly arranged chronologically, Pelikan's book Jesus through the Centuries is an ambitious undertaking. Pelikan treats Jesus as a symbolic figure and historical force, mentioning theology only when necessary to substantiate his main ideas. The author shows how the name of Jesus Christ has been evoked throughout the past two thousand years to "legitimate political activity," (p. 7). Moreover, Pelikan illustrates the way Jesus faded from historical figure into superhuman symbolic power guiding and directing nearly every aspect of human life in the West. Pelikan repeatedly returns to the centrality of the Gregorian calendar, which has in fact been adopted worldwide and which points out the unbelievably widespread impact Jesus has had through the centuries.

The introduction to Jesus through the Centuries describes the conceptual framework for the book as evoking "The Good, the True, and the Beautiful." Chapter One, "The Rabbi," elucidates some of the problems with literal interpretations of the New Testament in understanding Jesus' life and times. Here Pelikan emphasizes the time lag between the actual birth and life of Jesus and the historical legacy he left. The New Testament, according to Pelikan, "resembles a set of paintings more closely than it does a photograph," (p. 9). The author therefore differentiates between early Christian tradition and the Christian scriptures which evolved later. Similarly, Pelikan notes how different and sometimes conflicting translations of scripture affected the titles given to Jesus of Nazareth. His role as rabbi and as prophet has remained salient, but they also depend on cultural context and historical precedent. Finally, Pelikan mentions the enormous influence that Paul had on crafting the future of Christian doctrine. Paul was essentially "the one chiefly responsible for the de-Judaization of the gospel," (Pelikan, 1985, p. 18). Jesus has since been invoked to transmit cultural concepts, social norms, political ideologies, and economic systems.

In Chapter 2, "The Turning Point of History," Pelikan examines how Jesus became extricated from his Jewish roots and culture. The most poignant and symbolic evidence of Jesus' turning point remains the calendar, which is organized around a central, even if arbitrary, date. "Eventually the very calendar of Europe, which then became the calendar for most of the modern world, evolved into a recognition of the view of the significance of the figure of Jesus as the turning point of history," (p. 32). Chapter 2 treats the first few centuries of the Common Era. The following several chapters address the birth of Christianity as a world religion.

Chapter 3 examines the "Light of the Gentiles" during the third and fourth centuries of the Common Era. Pelikan points out that messianic mythos already extant in the indigenous cultures of Europe and the Middle East facilitated the transmission of Christian doctrine, philosophy, and politics. Jesus as a symbol became well-suited for cross-cultural transmission especially throughout the Greco-Roman world. Therefore, the mingling of early Christian doctrine with Greek philosophy and Roman pagan traditions laid the groundwork for the future of the religion.

Pelikan further describes the development of historical Christianity in Chapter 4, "The King of Kings." Shifting toward the role of Jesus as prophet to the role of Jesus as King, Pelikan shows how the spread of Christianity was also marked by quasi-theocracy. The emperors of Rome capitalized on the kingliness of Jesus to endow their office with spiritual power. Jesus has been referred to as the King of the Jews and as the harbinger of a new Kingdom on Earth. Politicians and monarchs who can appropriate the prophetic image of Jesus become spiritual kings on earth; their subjects can view them with profound respect with faith in spiritual salvation. Charlemagne best exemplifies this tendency to embrace the image of Jesus as King, a trend that flourished by the fourth century of the Common Era. The Caesar and Jesus mixed well.

In Chapter 5, Pelikan touches on more mystical meanings of Jesus in "The Cosmic Christ." Here is when Jesus became fully integrated with Platonic philosophy and ideals. The Greek influence on Christianity remains palpable but Pelikan notes the much greater emphasis on the Logos in Eastern Orthodox Christianity than in Latin/Roman Catholicism. Still, the Cosmic Christ is the underpinning of the Christian consciousness that fuels Western culture. Later in Chapter 10, Pelikan returns to the mystical meanings of Christianity that flourished during the Middle Ages. "The Bridegroom of the Soul" discusses the flowering of Christian mysticism in medieval times.

Chapter 6 is entitled "The Son of Man" and addresses one of the most significant chapters in Christian history: Augustine and his role in crafting Christian theology. The doctrine of Christ as the savior of man has become the primary source of Western consciousness, influencing our ethics, norms, and self-image. Broad concepts like good and evil and sin all stem from this formative era in Western history. Pelikan turns toward visible mages of Jesus' influence on Western culture in Chapter 7: "The True Image." Here the author discusses the way Christianity and images of Jesus impacted the development of new forms of art and architecture throughout Europe. Pelikan also discusses the heated debates over iconoclasm that created divisions between Eastern and Western forms of Christianity. Pelikan continues to address images of Christ in Western art and architecture in Chapter 8, "Christ Crucified." The symbol of Christ on the cross has become synonymous with the institution of Christianity. Like the bloody image of the martyred Christ, the ideal of the ascetic monk Christ also persisted throughout the Middle Ages, characterizing Christianity and the Christian monastic and clerical traditions. Thus, Pelikan shows how changing images of Jesus altered the role and function of the Church as well as its doctrine.

Stepping away from the morbidity of the Middle Ages after Chapter 11, "The Divine and Human Model," Pelikan turns toward the Renaissance and Reformation in the next several chapters. In Chapter 12, "The Universal Man" Pelikan refers also to role of Jesus in Renaissance literature and thought. The author addresses the Protestant Reformation throughout Chapters 13 and 14: "The Mirror of the Eternal" and "The Prince of Peace," respectively. The impact of Protestantism on the development of Christian scholasticism is addressed further in Chapter 15, "The Teacher of Common Sense." In Chapter 16, "The Poet of the Spirit," Pelikan shows how Romanticism adopted imagery and ideals of Jesus to inspire passion for aesthetics and a backlash against pure rationality.

Finally, the author addresses modern history in the last two chapters of Jesus through the Centuries. In Chapter 17, "The Liberatore," Pelikan argues that Jesus served as a model for non-violent resistance and peaceful protest. Jesus' role throughout the twentieth century continued to reflect pacifist ideals, in marked contrast with the way Jesus had been invoked for bellicosity in centuries prior. The author addresses post-colonial discourse and other means of how images of Jesus change to reflect social and political changes. In Chapter 18 Pelikan also notes how globalization has enabled Jesus to permeate the entire world; Jesus is no longer a Western figure but "The Man Who Belongs to the World."

What Pelikan fails to point out is how Jesus has been invoked as a means of social control. The malleability of Jesus' image and function in society has worked to the benefit of those in power who would wield the name of Jesus as a tool of manipulation. Pelikan seems not to take any stance at all on the issues related to the overarching negative impact Jesus has had not only on Western… READ MORE

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