{N}2.1:{/} {N}GOD SPEAKS {/}[Gen_1,3]
We said in the commentary that this first chapter was something like a preface to the first nucleus of biblical books which Ezra assembled, that is, the Books of Moses and the Prophets [Ne_8,1];[2Mac_2,13].
We discover something very distinct about Genesis 1, if we compare its contents to the cosmologies and myths of ancient peoples. By {C}cosmologies{/} we mean their ancient writings about the formation of the universe, and by the {C}myths {/}we understand the legendary stories relating ostensibly to historical events as their way of conveying their traditional cultural beliefs about order in the world. When we compare these to the Genesis story, we discover that Genesis states things that the others do not. One of the most important of these is its emphasis on the words: "God said."
{N}A GOD WHO SPEAKS{/}
To present the Bible simply as a divine teaching would seriously reduce our understanding of revelation. Of course there are teachings, but more important is the fact that God speaks. What a decisive revelation this is about the Who or the What which is Eternity Itself! Without hesitation we dismiss such secondary questions as: Is he a conscious being? Does he know us? Can he communicate with his creation? Does he expect something from us? Very few philosophers have dared to give positive answers to these questions.
Namely, God communicates Himself and expects an answer from us. Beyond the universe, its immenseness, its mysteries, its shadows, and its lights, Someone exists who unleashed an adventure of incalculable consequences. And the greatest risk of this adventure is that He started a dialogue with his creatures. To start a conversation might mean several things for us. It might be to give an order or to ask for something. However, by speaking I am figuratively knocking at someone's door to let him know that I exist, or to provoke that person to investigate if he or she really exists. And when that person listens to me, I also know that I exist and count for something.
Christian revelation is not primarily a law from Heaven for us to follow under penalty of failure or punishment. God is "the Other" who awakens in us our own consciousness and leads us out of our solitude. This is the point of departure for understanding God's call to numerous prophets: to Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and many more. Any call from God awakens in the recipient a new awareness of himself, while giving him the capacity to fulfill the mission he received. In this sense, the entire biblical story can be seen as the work of prophets. 
God is a God who speaks. He did not wait to do so until there were creatures capable of hearing him, rather he spoke first to himself. The Word is in God from the beginning. It is his own Wisdom, and He does not know it except by giving it life within his own being, and later bringing it back to Himself in order to share its own fullness. This mystery of the God-who-speaks-to-Himself, or of the Father, who expresses Himself in his Son, is at the origin of creation, and for this reason our world is a world in which God speaks.

{N}2.2: AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER? {/}[Gen_4,9]
The Bible incorporates a legendary figure here that in its original version describes Cain as the stronger of two brothers and the founder of a people. That legend follows the law of nature and lets the stronger one triumph, unimpeded by any desire for justice. There have always been tranquil societies and aggressive races, vegetarians and predators. The barbarian invasions that history tells us about were carried out by conquering races that still dominate the world. And these same "barbarians," after their conversion to Christianity, spread the Gospel and extended their dominating spirit into all areas of life, including sports and science. The liberalism that they imposed accelerated the unification of the world, which fits very well into God's plan. However, they generally accomplished this by irrevocably destroying the cultures and civilization that their victims had patiently constructed. 
The weakness of welfare systems is as evident as how often they have been misused. But that does not legitimize the ever increasing inequality between the rich minority and the vast multitude of the poor which demonstrates how legitimate systems can be abused by unbridled liberty. The prophets confronted these same injustices in the Kingdom of Israel where the rich expropriated the lands of the poor even by legal means [Is_10,1] - [Is_10,4]; [Mic_2,1] - [Mic_2,10]. In today's complex society it is even more difficult to distinguish good people from evildoers, especially if the latter call themselves Christians, asking the same question that Cain did: "Am I my brother's keeper?" 
In the complexity of today's global economy, it is even more difficult to formulate a solution. Certainly, we can expect that wherever believers respond to the proclamation of the Gospel, whether publicly or in secret, prophets will arise and moral revolutions will occur. 

{N}2.3: THE DIVERSE DESTINIES OF THE TRIBES {/}[Gen_49,3]
Reuben's tribe, on the other side of the Jordan, did not prosper. He did not take part in the conquest of Canaan (cf. the verse on Deborah in [Jdg_5,15]). None of those mentioned in the Bible came from this tribe. The misdeed attributed to the ancestor surely recalls an action by this tribe that appeared to the others like a betrayal.
With respect to Simeon and Levi, see what is said in [Gen_34,1]. Simeon, to the south of Judah, had only a small population and was absorbed by its neighbor. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah were the four children of Leah, the oldest of Jacob's wives (cf. commentary on [Gen_35,23]). It appears that these four tribes had lived a long time in Kadesh when Moses and his companions arrived there and told them about the revelation at Horeb. These latter would become the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, being considered as children of Rachel, another wife of Jacob Israel.
Although Simeon disappeared, Levi remained as a privileged caste by the fact of being the only priests recognized by the Law, even though they were actually dispersed among the tribes. Moses belonged to the tribe of Levi [Ex_2,1] which possibly was why they supported him unconditionally on the subject of the golden calf [Ex_32,26]. In this account the Levites received a blessing which was in fact their consecration as priests [Ex_32,29]. The text uses the precise term characteristic of priestly consecration, "your hands are consecrated to Yahweh." The later blessings of Moses make no mention of Simeon or of Levi's punishment, but emphasizes Levi's privilege [Dt_33,8]. The two stories told in [Jdg_18,1] and [Jdg_19,1] give evidence that Jerusalem's Temple with its clergy of levite-priests ruling by the laws of David did not yet exist [1Chr_23,1] - [1Chr_28,1]. At the time of the story, Levites were poor and without a common land, so they wandered from place to place hoping to offer some service in a temple for which the people would reward them with something to eat.
Very possibly Judah was formed by integrating diverse clans located in southern Palestine among whom the Kenizzites were important. This would explain the importance of Caleb, the Kenizzite, in the stories of the conquest [Num_13,6]; [Num_32,12]. According to Moses' later blessings [Dt_33,7], Judah remained apart in its hills of southern Palestine until the reign of King David.
Judah's obvious preeminence in verses 9-12 may be due to the fact that this paragraph was written and inserted when David's dynasty had already become the only center of Israel. Notwithstanding, the paragraph referring to the tribes of the north, those called "the house of Joseph", was not changed. Whoever wrote the story of Joseph, the common patron of both Ephraim and Manasseh, did not ignore the fact that they, together with Benjamin, were the group of Moses, more than the others. They were the heirs of his message for several generations until, by an unfathomable decision of God, they almost disappeared. Their formation of the Kingdom of Jeroboam in Shechem, instead of uniting with David, was a sin of blindness to God's plan. And two centuries later, their kingdom collapsed without there being any group capable of saving Israel's inheritance or of bringing it back to life, as happened in Judah. Therefore, the blessing that refers to them here goes back to the time when they were still the heart of the people of God.
The name, Issachar, is a play on the word, "salaried," which is pronounced exactly the same. This tribe showed no enthusiasm for joining the others. Their only ambition seemed to have been to live in peace among the Canaanites, putting themselves at their service.
We said with respect to [Gen_35,23] that even though all the tribes were recognized as a brotherhood, they did not share the same past or dignity. It cannot be doubted that the daughters of the "servants," Bila and Zelfa, joined the rest later without having shared with them the traditions from Moses nor the years in Kadesh.

{N}2.4:{/} {N}THE SEVEN NATIONS{/} [Ex_3,8]
Here the nations that must be dispossessed of the land of Canaan are six. The same list will be found in other passages: [Ex_3,17]; [Ex_23,23]...; [Jos_12,8]. In [Dt_7,1] the Girgashites will be added, which allows us to speak of {C}seven nations{/} like in [Jos_3,10]. The list is found in an almost identical form in ten places, and shorter in various others. This list is only a traditional enumeration and it would not be useful for a geographical atlas. Because upon entering Canaan, the Israelites found there a mixed population of Amorites (who belonged to the same race as Abraham) and Hittites. The latter came from the North and had occupied the country for a time; they formed the high class. In fact the Canaanite people appeared like a mosaic of small kingdoms and the Bible sometimes calls them with the names of these regions: they are called Jebusites in Jerusalem [2S_5,6], Hivites and Girgashites in other places (see [Gen_10,17]).
Note how calmly there is talk of taking away from them the land they occupy. When they looked to the past the authors of these books were aware that the conquest had been an essential element for the foundation of a people of God, different from the others, and that this was in a way the will of God. These texts continue to inspire some protagonists of the present conflict in the Middle East, as if to justify new conquests. In this we recognize a fundamentalist interpretation of the sacred text: what was the will of God in far-off times is considered by some a norm for today, as if the people of God, its rights and duties, its territorial base and its institutions should be now what they were thirty centuries ago.

{N}2.5:{/} {N}AARON{/} [Ex_4,27]
Aaron was the brother of Moses in a very wide sense (see in [Ex_4,14] - [Ex_4,17]); it is implied by this paragraph which is the work of the oldest author. In 6,20 a later writer will make Aaron the blood brother of Moses.
{C}Aaron, the levite,{/} must have been an authority well known to some desert group, perhaps the levites. Aaron and his clan took sides with Moses for his work of reform. The {C}Mount of God{/} mentioned here must have been a sacred place different from Mount Horeb; perhaps they were identified later, as in [Ex_3,1] and [Ex_17,6]. In these two passages the text seems to have been retouched.
Why go into such details? These observations help us see that the revelation of Exodus was not mounted by God by a series of miracles, through a prophet, Moses, who controls everything and infallibly accomplishes God's work. On the contrary it looks like the apparently most common and least grandiose history, whose actors are the Christians of today. God intervenes in some moments to open a way and entrust a mission, but He also guides us through encounters, friends and even obstacles. One has doubts, seeks supports, discovers brethren some of whom fail or betray; decisions are taken that seem to be good but soon enough they seriously endanger the future of our struggles.
It is very difficult to say by what paths God led the great prophet and founder of Israel; the grandiose images the sacred books leave about him help us better to grasp the importance of such revelation that present to us his life and his experiences.

{N}2.6:{/} {N}YAHWEH HARDENS THE HEART{/} [Ex_10,20]
We have clarified in the commentary to 10,1 the meaning that should be given to the biblical expression "to harden the heart". In many cases the Bible seems to attribute to God the responsibility for human decisions, like in [Is_6,10] and [Jn_12,40]. This is not to say that the author had an erroneous concept of human freedom, but he expressed himself in a language different from ours [Jdg_2,14]. For as soon as one believes in the existence of God, human freedom becomes a mystery. For our reason, it is impossible to reconcile satisfactorily this freedom and omnipotence, or God's omnipotence. We freely take our decisions, but in the last analysis, the result will be what is in accord with the plan of God [Pro_16,1]. And not only this: we are so submerged in God [Acts_17,28], that we could not decide or act without some reference to Him one way or another. Even when we harm our neighbor, he sees our wickedness, but he should also see God's hand in it [2Mac_5,17]; [2Mac_7,18]. For He takes care that everything may turn out for good to those who love Him [Rom_8,28].

{N}2.7:{/} {N}THE DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN{/} [Ex_12,12]
{C}I shall strike every firstborn in Egypt{/}. We have commented this expression in 11,1. See also the commentary to [Gen_22,1]. Here it would be good to note how the authors of Exodus emphasize the gesture of God. This killing intends to justify the offering of the firstborn of animals to God, and the ransom of the firstborn of Israel according to the laws in chapter 13.
From this also comes the dignity proper of the eldest son in Israel. The Bible invites the family to believe in life and to be fruitful, nor for its own satisfaction but as a mission to accomplish. The firstborn and the first fruits are the best and they are for God. To offer them to God is to pay a debt contracted with Him by the mere fact that they were chosen by Him over all other nations.
Israel belongs to God and is devoted to the divine worship. The Bible teaches them in this way the sentence that Gandhi placed among the seven commandments of social morality: "there can be no worship without sacrifices". There will be no worship that will not imply and will not accept some form of death; the letter to the Hebrews will recall this [Heb_9,22] when it sees in the bloody worship of the Temple the expression of a deep law inscribed in the plan of salvation, which would be fulfilled in Jesus.
The new covenant granted to the baptized is not like the first the integration to a people different from the rest neither can we pay a gift of God that has been communicated from person to person in faith and love. This covenant however implies a prospect of death: John will remind us that the salvation of Jesus is not only a purification, the sign of which is water, but also a sacrifice, the sign of which is blood [1Jn_5,6].

{N}2.8:{/} {N}THE SAVING GOD{/} [Ex_14,30]
Probably there will be few people who honor some divinity without expecting from it some or much help in their difficulties: "Deliver me from this problem; save me from the enemy that persecutes me...; heal me from such sickness..." These petitions are plentiful in the psalms. And this is salvation, at least right now. But the salvation offered by the great religions has a broader sense, whether we speak of the Buddhist, or Muslim or Christian salvation; then it is understood that a profound evil impinges upon the human condition, or that there is the aspiration to a happier life after death, and we expect to attain it by obeying certain precepts or making some changes in our life.
In this sense, it is very true that the entire Bible offers us salvation, but its message is given only partially in its beginning. Because no salvation could be given free to all until they have traveled a certain way. The child as well as the young person or the adult needs much time and experience before they can distinguish between what is good and what is bad for them, between what is only appearance and what is true wealth and true happiness. And all the experiences narrated by the Bible point in the same direction: humankind cannot be saved by itself. It begins with great projects and beautiful intentions, but sooner or later, it always falls. Many peoples believed that the gods were envious of us; but the Bible does away with these suspicions beginning with chapter 3 of Genesis, and it is on this occasion that it gives a first message of hope, without specifying it: at the end humankind will win the victory over evil.
But this will not happen without God. And the book of Exodus shows us the particular character of Christian salvation when it brings to memory the interventions of the Saving God. What the Bible highlights when the troop of Moses is delivered from its persecutors in some shore of the Sea of Reeds, is not first of all that it was saved, but rather that there was a Saving God: {C}Yahweh was my salvation, He is my God, the God of my father {/} [Ex_15,2]. The text clearly manifests that Israel was incapable of saving himself and that he did not even have the courage to face danger squarely. But Yahweh gratuitously intervened in their favor. God intervened as much out of fidelity to the promises He had made to his forefathers [Ex_15,2] as because He wanted Israel to become his partner [Ex_15,13].
That crossing of the sea was perhaps nothing but a small incident with regards to history, and the salvation that was offered to those fugitives may seem to us rather alien to the big problems that plague humanity; however the essential is already there. Centuries will have to pass before we can discover the full extent of salvation, but already in this page we read that humankind is not saved by its own power. It is an affair of God and his love [Ex_15,13] or rather of his free generosity. And in a certain sense, one is already saved when one knows that God is a God who intervenes and who loves; He is both the companion and the goal.
The human person will be for God an unfaithful and ever unsafe partner. The reconciliation with God and the forgiveness of sins will be the central theme of the salvation announced by the prophets when they speak of an era of peace and reconciliation with nature. And in the same way, in the New Testament, our reconciliation with God the Father through the death of Jesus will be the soul of Christian salvation.

{N}2.9:{/} {N}THE HEAVENLY LITURGY{/} [Ex_25,40]
These long chapters devoted first of all to the description of all the objects of cult which Moses had to make in his desert, and later to the manufacture of those same objects, will certainly not be the most attractive part of the book of Exodus. Yet they were of prime importance to the person who made the final draft of this book. It is easy to prove that the narrative interrupted in [Ex_24,8] is directly resumed in [Ex_31,18] and that the block of chapters 25-31 ends with a reminder of the Sabbath the conclusion of which takes up the first verses of chapter 35. It is clear then that chapters 25-31 and 35-40 formed at the beginning one single unit and later on they were inserted in the book.
The book in its previous version ended with the celebration of the perpetual covenant between God and Israel, immediately followed by the original sin of Israel, the feast of the golden calf. But at the moment of incorporating it in the Bible, they changed a little its original orientation. Now they emphasized the fact that the covenant of God with Israel found its perfect expression in the cult that Israel, the only one among all the nations, rendered to Yahweh in his Temple.
In the commentary to [Ex_25,1] we briefly said that this whole vision of the Tent-Sanctuary in the desert had something like two foundations. On the one hand they kept the memory of a tent that sheltered the sacred objects of the nomad tribe (for Israel the coffer called {C}Ark{/} was essential) and accompanied them in their journeys. And on the other hand they wanted to maintain the idea that the people of Moses already had in the desert an anticipation of the Temple of Jerusalem under the form of an immense movable sanctuary. That tent, thought of and built in proportion to a multitude  of 600.000 persons, existed only in the imagination of its authors, who in this way wanted to assert the importance of the liturgy in the call of Israel. These chapters dedicated to all the cultual material governed the domain of God; logically then they are located exactly where they were placed, before all the other laws that will be found in Leviticus and in Numbers.
The Tent -or later on the Temple- is the place where the liturgy is performed in accord with the laws given by God himself. This is the meaning of verse [Ex_25,40]: {C}See that you make all according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.{/} The same happens in [Ex_26,30] and [Ex_27,8]. A confirmation will be found of an earthly cult similar to the heavenly liturgy in other passages of the Bible: [Wis_9,8]; [Sir_24,9] - [Sir_24,11]. In the New Testament the speech of Stephen makes reference to it. It is good to remember this in order to understand what the gospel of John says regarding the Temple which is the "body" -and we should translate: the person- of Jesus [Jn_2,21]. The letter to the Hebrews evokes the heavenly Temple where Christ entered taking with himself his own blood [Heb_9,11] - [Heb_9,12] and immediately it goes on to another image [Heb_10,19]: the Temple is the body of Christ.
The Revelation of John will also speak of that heavenly Temple in which the sentences of God regarding history are pronounced, beginning with [Ex_11,19] up to chapter 16. At the end of history, that vision of the Temple will disappear from the scene, because in the final state, God is everything in all people: [Ex_21,22].
This entire reminder will perhaps not be superfluous, since our Western Christianism has forgotten that long tradition which, inversely, deeply marks the liturgy of the Eucharist of the Greek Church.

{N}2.10:{/} {N}THE MIRACLES OF THE DESERT{/} [Ex_40,36]
We cannot doubt that through the entire adventure of Sinai there were very important signs of the intervention of God. It's impossible to see how those traditions about the wonders of the desert could have originated if there would not have been something. They were embellished, many things were added, but there like everywhere else, only the rich are given loans. We will never know how things happened. Events that, seen from a distance, could have been considered merely as the result of chance, were seen as the work of God by those who lived and experienced them in their own flesh, and were impressed by a thousand concrete details that left no place for doubt. Those who later transmitted those memories were unable to safeguard the context, so that the narrated events lost their divine sense and became ordinary events. Knowing that there had been something marvelous, those who transmitted the story did so in their own way multiplying the wonders, as it is done in edifying stories. It can be said in general that they invented miracles to replace those true miracles they no longer knew how to tell as they really were.
We have already spoken about the manna and the quails in the commentary to [Ex_17,8]. Regarding the cloud, it is a fact that when a small cyclone begins in Sinai (which is not rare), it is frequently announced by a whirlwind that raises grains of sand, so fine that they form a translucent impalpable dust cloud: a true luminous column that moves slowly, totally agleam when hit by sunlight. It is very likely that the cloud of Exodus originated from testimonies related to those phenomena. But what is of interest now is the interpretation that was given to them. The cloud was a beautiful image, given by God, that could express many things for which there were no words: the mysterious presence of God with us, bright and dark all at once.

{N}2.11: THE HOLY GOD WHO CONSECRATES {/}[Lev_10,3]
{C}Through those who approach me I will manifest my sacredness. {/}This is a clarification about the destiny of a holy people. Many think that belonging to a people or a church is a call to live a more demanding life [1Thes_4,7]. They want the perfection of their daily life to testify to the truth in which they believe [1P_3,1] or to honor Him whose name they took [Mt_5,16]; [Rom_2,24]. Others take just the opposite view. If the Church is holy, one assumes that its actions are positive. Any negative activities open to public criticism should be viewed only as the weaknesses of its all too human members. Still others maintain that the holiness of the church impels us to keep silence, obediently awaiting the approval or disapproval of those occupying the seat of Moses [Mt_23,2]; [Heb_4,19].
The Word of God manifests the great responsibility of those whom God has chosen. Whether they honor God or obscure his glory by their actions, God will be recognized through them. God's choice of a people to be holy and set apart from others does not mean that they are better than others are. For example, the disclosure at the end of this century that Christians had committed many grave injustices, even on a continental scale, occasioned criticism even by high officials. True or false, serious authors have felt justified in saying that religious violence reached its greatest intensity among Christians. And even though prelates may ask forgiveness for sins committed by their predecessors, they often forget scandals for which they themselves are presently responsible.
However, we may be certain that at some moment God will manifest his holiness. He will disclose to the world the sins committed in secret by his own [2S_12,12]. He will humiliate those who should have made Him proud, and to some degree may even accept the scorn that those responsible rightfully suffer [Ezk_36,20] and [Ezk_36,22]. In a word, no one will be able to hide behind God's name. God confuses anyone who thinks he can take advantage of Him, and He will confound even more those who wish to usurp His glory and authority [Is_42,8]; [Is_48,11]. They are no more than a clay pot among other clay pots [Is_45,9]. The author of the second book of Maccabees, who fiercely condemns persecutors of God's people, denounces his own people with equal severity. We deserve all the persecutions we receive, he says, because of our sins. A sure sign of God's special interest in us is that He never delays long in making us pay for our infidelities [2Mac_5,18]; [2Mac_7,18].

{N}2.12: PENALIZATION OF WOMAN {/}[Lev_12,5]
This paragraph blatantly discriminates against women, relegating them to the status of inferior beings. Later, in chapter 27, women are classified as being of less worth than men, albeit from the point of being sold cheaper as slaves. In the present text, however, women are indisputably declared to be less worthy to approach God. We can be happy that these discriminatory laws were rejected by the Council of Jerusalem [Heb_15,10] as manifesting only a transitory mentality limited to the time preceding the coming of {C}Abraham's descendant{/} [Gal_3,19] and addressed only to Jews.
On the other hand, since {C}Scripture cannot be changed{/} [Jn_10,35] couldn't this discrimination serve as the occasion for a special gift from God? Since God is always anxious to take away acquired privileges, and since He tolerated this official discrimination for some time, was it not fitting for Him to endow women more generously with charisms than men hardly ever receive?

{N}2.13: SEXUAL PROHIBITIONS {/}[Lev_18,6]
The paragraph 18,3 seems like a preamble to the laws that we read in this chapter. It justified the imposition of laws in places where the neighboring peoples had practically no scruples. Moral rules, especially regarding sexuality, have practically always resulted from a social consensus whose origins no one could remember. They formed part of the traditions of each people. The different peoples entering Canaan adopted both the customs and the naturalist religion of that land. God, however, imposes different customs on His people which are not open to discussion, only strict obedience. That obedience is reinforced by experiences that remain true for generations: That sexual license leads to death [Dt_4,3] - [Dt_4,4].
There follows a series of laws whose interpretation could vary in later times, as was the case of marriage among blood relations, a problem which occasioned a decree at the Council of Jerusalem [Heb_15,20]. Nevertheless, Jewish tradition maintained these practices. Interestingly, however, when Paul criticizes the imposition of Jewish Law and customs on Christian Hellenist converts, he does not at any time argue against the sexual prohibitions of Leviticus. We find them again in the summaries on elemental morality in [1Cor_5,9] - [1Cor_5,11] and [1Cor_6,9] - [1Cor_6,10]. In [Rom_1,22] - [Rom_1,27] Paul sees a close connection between homosexual relations and idolatry, proper of a greek society, of which he was a witness, since he was educated in a greek culture society.
It is surprising to see modern Christians opposing these laws, as if God's Word had to be interpreted, softened, and relegated to a museum simply because very important sectors of our contemporary world reject any type of sexual discipline. But what authority can they appeal to, since they themselves are spokespersons of a society without children, which consequently is in the process of disappearing? [Lev_18,25]. The Christian way of life is not the result of a democratic consensus, but rather the authority of the Spirit imposes it. God's chosen people [1P_2,9] received a specific vision of humankind and of the way to reach maturity. Consequently, they cannot deny the Cross nor how they are to imitate God, which makes them different from non-Christians. In the commentary on [1Cor_7,1] we allude to Paul's major argument justifying Christian sexual discipline, that is, our consecration in Christ through Baptism. Paul did not invent these prohibitions; they come essentially from Leviticus.

{N}2.14: THE DWELLING AND THE TENT {/}[Num_9,15]
Here as elsewhere in Exodus and [Num_3,25], the Dwelling, whose construction occupies the major part of [Ex_25,1] - [Ex_40,1], is identified with the Tent of Meeting. It is also clear that the Book of Exodus uses the terms Testimonial Tent and Meeting Tent interchangeably.
By way of clarification, we should point out that the two words, Testimony and Meeting, are related in Hebrew. "Testimony" is the Testimony or Divine Declaration that is kept in the Ark and is expressed among other things through the Ten Commandments. The term, "Meeting," indicates the place where God meets Moses when he wants to speak to him [Ex_29,42]; [Num_12,5]; [Num_17,7] - [Num_17,8]. Both terms refer to a tent where God secretly and solely manifests himself to Moses [Num_12,5].
But later when they wanted to create the vision of a grandiose Dwelling, a first outline of the Temple of Jerusalem, they wanted to identify it with this Tent whose memory was conserved in the most ancient traditions (See especially [Ex_38,21]). In fact, if a grandiose Dwelling was desired for divine worship, they were most probably dreaming of a time when God met his friend and spoke to him face to face [Num_12,7] - [Num_12,8]. Throughout the Book of Job, this dream is implied about which the prophets sometimes spoke of with longing [Is_30,20].
The present paragraph praises a time in which God personally intervened, giving orders and taking the direction of his people into his own hands. We have already had the occasion to mention that the holy books present past history as a great epic poem in which God carried out all things to a point in which his justice and salvation were manifest. This is seen in the story of Abraham, again in the Book of Job, and much later in the Chronicles. But all of this was expressed from a perspective of faith. What the historical individuals actually experienced was quite different. The little that had been achieved with great effort actually contained many shadows, and God's presence was usually very discreetly manifest, although it was never doubted. In several places we see the surprise and even the scandal of the believer who compares what is happening before his eyes with what past traditions relate about God. The believer can't understand that God seems to have changed [Ps_77,1]. Why are the heavens now closed and do not respond anymore? [Is_63,7] - [Is_63,16]; [Ps_74,9] - [Ps_74,10].
What secret desire drives people of faith to make the past more beautiful than it was and God more generous? In the first place, the people of faith projected onto ancient history what they would like to happen in the present, beginning with the story of Adam and continuing with the stories of Moses and David. At a later time, the idealized past history was then projected into the future, which the people then hoped would become a reality. It was the spur of hope that made Israel mature in its hope for a new era with a Messiah sent by God. All cultures have described a golden age at the beginning of time, but later revised this hope more realistically in terms of being an Iron Age. Truly, there have been men and women at every place on the globe who have "hoped against all expectation" [Rom_4,18], but nowhere has this madness of hope been more deeply rooted than in biblical revelation.

{N}2.15: THE ELDERS {/}[Num_11,24]
In contrast to this text, Exodus 18 indicates that the origin of the judges or the Elders took place at the suggestion of Moses' midianite father-in-law. In our text, it is God who commands it. Whichever the case, these elders will become the authority with the deepest roots in Israelite tradition. In the time of the Kings, the centralized power will limit their role and will manipulate them, as is seen in [1K_21,8] - [1K_21,12]. However, they will again occupy the first place during the exile in Babylon, as can be seen in [Ezk_8,1]; [Ezk_14,1]; [Ezk_20,1]. Returning from the Exile their authority will be combined with that of the priests. In New Testament times, the Jewish Sanhedrin or supreme council will be composed of priests, elders, and teachers of the Law. In reality, these Elders are the chiefs of the most important families. However, in communities dispersed among the nations outside of Palestine, the priests will not play an active role, since the Temple is not there. Those in authority in the synagogues will be the Elders.
The Elders express the image of the people of God made up of communities in which leaders do not consider themselves superior to the community and problems are solved through consultation rather than by administrative decisions. This model of shared responsibility contrasts to an authority that imposes itself from above. The Bible supports the authority of the king and the high priest, as having been chosen by God, but maintains a critical attitude toward any ruler imposing himself on the people of God as their master [1S_8,11]; [2S_24,1]; [1K_12,1]. In the Apocalypse, where we see the people of God assembled in heaven to receive the victorious Christ, their representatives are twenty-four elders seated around the throne. No reference is made of any kings [Rev_4,4].
Let us not forget that in the primitive Church, the authority of the Apostles, the authentic witnesses of Christ and of the faith, does not diminish the role of the elders in the least. They were chosen, following the model of the synagogues. They presided over the community and the Eucharist, and the title, elder, may have had the same meaning as priest for them, but that is certainly not identical with our modern concept of "priests" today. In the New Testament, the Apostles are faithful to the communitarian spirit of the past, while being conscious of their authority as witnesses of Christ. It is not by accident that Peter and John both give themselves the title of Elder [1P_5,1]; [2Jn_1,1]; [3Jn_1,1]. 
The communication of the spirit to the elders contains several teachings. First, the authorities of the people of God can make decisions only under the inspiration of divine wisdom, yet the spirit that the elders receive is the same that resided in Moses. This means that no one will be able to change the bases of revelation. It may surprise us that Deuteronomy already foresees the coming of the Prophet to whom all must listen. Thanks to this text the future remains open, and if it is true that Jesus mentions the divine inspiration of the Law, this does not obligate him to stay within the framework of Moses alone.

{N}2.16: GOD'S WAY OF PARDONING{/} [Num_14,11]
The following page and Moses' prayer are very similar to what we read in [Ex_32,9] - [Ex_32,13]. We find something equivalent in Jeremiah also. This dialogue is certainly a way to express both the reaction of a just God who punishes disobedience, as well as the attitude of a God who sees beyond the present moment. He never feels himself limited by our faults. He forgives everything by punishing. One might wonder if this "pardon of God" manifests only the continuity of his work throughout the ages. He punishes the present generation by not allowing them to enter the Promised Land. That, however, does not deter the work that he began by choosing a people. That work will continue until the end of history.
But there is more to how God pardons. He in no way suffers our psychological limitations. On the contrary, he IS the maximum of self-giving in understanding, in love, and in mutual encounter. And as deep as God's mystery is, it is supremely important for us to realize that we can understand the meaning of divine pardon only in as much as our mutual relationship with God allows us to recognize in love what our true debt to God is. We must not expect the Book of Numbers to express the development and nuances that will only become evident later on. Here we are dealing only with ancient traditions. The prophets, in general, speak about God's faithfulness, more than his patience. Only later on we will encounter an awareness of a mutual relationship between God and humans in the Spirit [1Cor_6,17]. There, everything is forgiven and God is more than patient, since he has already given himself up (communicated himself to us?).

{N}2.17: THE GOD THAT PUNISHES {/}[Num_17,1]
Once again "God punishes" appears in this story. Some people, by reading too superficially, only see this teaching. It is always the same, they say. Those who misbehave will be punished. The present text speaks about those who rebel against God's representatives. Other readers will focus on the image of a very angry and rancorous God, perhaps reacting with the same hopelessness as did the Israelites in [Num_17,27]: If we continue this way, we will all perish.
It should not surprise us that these books depict God acting authoritatively, becoming angry and punishing the people, even when the guilty parties may have acted out of ignorance. And what does it matter to God today, if we are scandalized by such behavior? (see the book of Job). Without question, God adapts himself to whatever image that we make of him. Unlike a professor who generally pays no attention to how his teaching might be interpreted, God speaks to each person in a manner corresponding to his/her particular mentality. To those who condemn, he responds with condemnation, and to those who accuse he gives signs that they will be able to understand. Since God chose to reveal himself to a primitive people accustomed to speedy justice without inquiring about the motivations of the guilty parties, he adopted the characteristics that they would best understand.
Even in the case that this story were true, what did the guilty ones lose? What happiness and how many years of life did they have a right to before God? Can we speak of authority, when we refer to the one who from the beginning has seen our entire life? In him the number of our days on earth does not count, nor the years we might enjoy in retirement, nor perhaps the even horrible sufferings that might take us to our eternal "maturity" (destiny?).

{N}2.18: THE HIGH PRIEST {/}[Num_35,22]
See the regulation in verses 25 and 28: up to the death of the High Priest.
The High Priest is not only the one in charge of fulfilling rites of worship. From the moment he was consecrated with a solemn anointing [Ex_29,1]; [Lev_8,1] he becomes, and will be until his death, a defense against divine punishments. As was seen in the episodes dedicated to Aaron, the High Priest is the one who protects the people from God's wrath [Num_17,12]. He has the tremendous privilege of entering each year during the Festival of Pardon into the deepest sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies [Heb_9,7]. There he pours the blood of the sacrificed cow [Num_19,1] over the cover of the Ark, the Instrument of Expiation. The sacred vestments that he wears are an essential part of the worship, that is why such importance is given in Exodus [Ex_26,1] and [Ex_39,1] to the way in which they are made. During the Roman occupation in Jesus' time, the governor kept this vestment in his possession, surrendering it only at the time of the Festival. Immediately afterwards he retrieved it as a way of keeping the High Priest at his mercy.
The death of the High Priest was the occasion for an amnesty similar to that of the Jubilee Year. In Jesus' time, the women of the High Priest's family showed particular interest in the welfare of the prisoners, giving them alms. Their motive was to avoid the possibility that the prisoners might pray to God for release from prison, which would cause the High Priest's death. The precept contained in [Ex_22,27] refers especially to the High Priest. As the Anointed One or Messiah of the Lord, he is a sacred personage (in biblical language a holy person), in spite of any negative aspects he might have. In relation to this, consult the presentation of Christ as the High Priest of the new times in [Heb_5,1] - [Heb_10,1].

{N}2.19: THE WISDOM OF THE BIBLE {/}[Dt_4,5]
{C}No other people are as wise and as intelligent as this great nation{/}. The book of Deuteronomy is contemporary of the chapter 20 of Exodus with the ten commands. This book was written eight centuries before Christ, and already we read this proud certainty: "God has given us a wisdom that he has not communicated to any other people." Today we may smile at the naivet\u00e9 of this inspired author, writing from the isolation of his village and unaware of the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures as well as the great cultures and religions of the Far East which had preceded his. However, this author was still conscious of possessing unique laws:
- belief in Yahweh, the only true God, of whom no image should be made;
- belief in the Just God who demands interior fidelity and the practice of justice over any other form of worship;
- the rigorous obligation of the Sabbath as the means for preserving the freedom and dignity of the people; 
- the protection of human life and respect for foreigners, who very often were no more than Israelites living there, but from a different tribe;
- the prohibition of all sexual license.
The author of Deuteronomy already saw the great benefit of these laws, which would only be appreciated long after, when the neighboring cultures had disappeared.
Israel's pride in possessing a superior wisdom created a feeling of being a privileged people. The reverse was also true: confidence of having been called by God to a unique destiny was one of the pillars of Israel's wisdom. The whole structure of the Law would have collapsed if they had not believed in Yahweh's Covenant with Israel [Dt_4,13]; [Dt_4,20]. Deuteronomy, which was strongly inspired by the preaching of the first prophets from the school of Elijah, will repeat to us in a thousands of ways that Israel's salvation will come only through faithfulness to its calling.
Here we find a characteristic feature of the identity of the people of the Bible. Nowadays, we are aware that God has been carrying out the work of salvation in diverse cultures through the religions of the world. We must recognize with all honesty that many beliefs found in the religion of both Israel and Christianity already existed in other more ancient religions. Having said this, a comparative study of the world's Great Religions manifests the privileged uniqueness of biblical revelation. This revelation was entrusted to the only people to whom God manifested himself face to face. While other religions taught about a distant, indescribable God, Yahweh talked to Israel in the midst of their own community. While other religions proposed divine laws and wisdom in their search for the Absolute One, at no time did they center their search in service and obedience to the God who was known face to face [Dt_4,7]; [Dt_4,35]; [Col_2,8] - [Col_2,10].
It is true that in Deuteronomy we read: "You heard the sound of words, but didn't see any figure; you only heard a voice" [Dt_4,12]; [Dt_5,24], but this is simply a prohibition of images and a call to faith. It does not deny that God has manifested himself to them. The author describes Yahweh constantly as a God who reveals his word to those he loves and who love him [Dt_4,37]; [Dt_7,8]; [Dt_6,4]. In the New Testament, the Discourse after the Last Supper found in [Jn_14,1] - [Jn_17,1] has no precedence or equivalent in any other religion!

{N}2.20: YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN {/}[Dt_7,6]
"Yahweh has chosen you from among all peoples on earth to be his own people". Many ask: Why did God choose Israel instead of any other people? God does not act like a judge, selecting one candidate over another because of their relative merits and capabilities. God chose Israel in eternity, not in history when particular peoples began to emerge. That is why the Bible traces genealogies back to Adam [Gen_5,1]; [Lk_3,38].
Now this raises a very serious question to the Christians. If the actual jewish person is conscious of his originality in the middle of the rest of the peoples, by the simple fact of being born to jewish parents, it is hard for a Christian on the other hand to say in what way he is different from the rest, and even more how he has been chosen by God. Contrary to the first case, what makes a Christian is not the birth in one or another family or in one or another place.
It is true that until recently in Europe and the Americas, church membership was determined sociologically by the accident of geography and culture. The French, the Irish, Poles and Spaniards, for example, unquestionably baptized their offspring as Catholics. Parents determined the religious allegiance of their children, and no one could criticize this practice. Said tradition, however, left one of the essential characteristics of the baptism in the shadow, that is to say, the answer to a call from God. See Jeremiah's announcement of a new covenant involving the mutual recognition of God and his sons and daughters. 
The Acts of the Apostles presents the primitive Church being born from Jews who recognized Jesus as their Messiah and committed themselves to him in order to become the people of the New Covenant. And when they realized that most people did not follow their example, they better understood themselves as a chosen minority. Some years later, Greeks and other non-Jews who accepted the Gospel did so through the prolonged and disciplined process of the catechumenate by which they were eventually admitted into the community of those chosen by God. And they were conscious that their path to faith, which began by having met some believer, and their perseverance in the catechumenate, were personal gifts from God. 
To the degree that the path to Baptism has been a personal journey and a testing of one's faith, the celebration of Baptism may have been accompanied or followed by an experiential outpouring of the Spirit as described in the Letter to the Hebrews ([Heb_10,32] - [Heb_10,33]; [Heb_12,18] - [Heb_12,24]) and as suggested in Peter's Letter [1P_1,1]. Whatever the moment is when the Spirit manifests its presence in the life of each one [1Cor_12,7]; [Gal_3,2], it is difficult to find an authentically christian faith without the support of a spiritual experience. That gift of the Spirit is, according to the Scripture, the most evident proof that we have been personally called [Rom_8,16].

{N}2.21: THE OTHER VERSION OF THE HISTORY{/} [1S_29,1]
The beginning of this chapter leaves us uncomfortable and plants seeds of doubt about the awareness that David could have had of his israelite identity. The book that follows (actually only the second half of the Book of Samuel) will show David preoccupied with obtaining the unity of Israel for his own benefit. However the pages that have just been read, are they objective when they present David as the hope of the israelites and the noble victim of an envious and maniac Saul? This is the moment perhaps to remember that nothing is known of the tribe of Judah before David; then Judah was without a doubt simply the name of this region in the hills of Judah, occupied by diverse clans, the most important of them being the Quenitians. The hard line of these tribes, the heirs of Moses, were Efrain, Manases and Benjamin, Saul's tribe.
A very different interpretation could be given to this story. Against Saul, who, somewhat clumsily, tries to unite the tribes, David comes out as the champion of the people from the South. With his warriors he unites the tribe of Judah at the same time that he paralizes Saul's forces to unify Israel. David is the one who is successful and Judah, the new upstart, will displace those who until that time preserved the ideal of Israel in gestation. David will receive God's promises for his dynasty, but will have contributed to strongly rooting the mutual resentments between north and south, preparing the schism which takes place sixty years later.
This idea invites us to reflect upon God's and men's actions in people of God history and also the part which corresponds to the writers inspired in the fabrication of the holy story. Freedom exists to make other interpretations and they could even be more correct, but they would still only be interpretations, and history would not change.
This is because the Bible gave a sense to the story and the holy writers simply prolonged the first vision in the books of Samuel. In the first book, David conquers Goliath; at the end of the second book, he will be the author of the Psalms. The Chronicles will make David the creator of the Temple and all worship in Israel. It can be thought that David seems far from this legend, yet no one can deny that his story, as it has been transmitted to us, is a carrier of an enormous spiritual and human force. It determined in a good part the destiny of the jews, and without this story Jesus would have lost his human roots. Here we must recognize that the inspired book escapes man and that God uses it to supremely direct the destiny of his people.

{N}2.22: THE REDEMPTION {/}[Mt_20,28]
{C}To redeem, to repair, to liberate, rescue{/}, all these words whose difference we do not always see go together with the images and ideas that we ordinarily form about the Redemption.
Behind the words of the New Testament that we translate for {C}redeem{/}, it may be convenient to distinguish between four hebrew words of the Old Testament that have not always been translated by the same greek words.
In the first place the verb{C} to redeem{/}. This recovery is an acquisition, but what one acquires is an asset that, in most of the cases, belonged previously to the family and is recuperated. The word {C}redeem{/} is found more times in the small book of Ruth than in the whole rest of the Bible. In the New Testament it could be translated more frequently by the word to liberate or rescue: [Rom_8,23], - "rescue"; [Eph_1,7] - "obtain freedom"; [Col_1,14] "redeemed"; [Gal_3,13] - "rescued"; [Gal_4,5] "redeem". In [Heb_9,15] "atonement" and [Tit_1,14], the only word that agrees is to redeem.
The word {C}acquisition{/} is also appropriate. When the Bible recalls the choice that God made of a people who belong to him, it speaks at times of an acquisition to indicate that God becomes the owner and the master of Israel and no one could take it away from him afterwards. This sense will be found in [2P_2,1] in order to designate those who had been called to form part of the people of God. In [Rev_14,3] and [Rev_14,4], they are the 144,000 chosen ones and virgins on Mount Zion who had been acquired (or taken) from among the rest of the human beings.
On the other hand, in the present text of Matthew the word that we translate with {C}rescue {/}should be understood as the sacrifice of expiation or atonement that had to be paid for a committed misdeed or fault. The same in the parallel text of [Mk_10,45] and later in [1Tim_2,6], Here, in Matthew, Jesus refers to God's Servant of the book of Isaiah who offers his life in order to "repair" the failings of his people [Is_52,13] - [Is_53,12]. It is the only place in the Gospel where Jesus gives this meaning to his death, but the Acts of the Apostles show us that the Gospel preachers liked to use Isaiah's prophecy to proclaim Jesus-the Messiah. Starting from here, surely, they developed the three affirmations that we read in several places in the apostolic preaching:  Jesus died for our sins; he died so that our sins are forgiven; he was made victim because of our sins.
That idea of a sacrifice for our sins may surprise us insofar as we instinctively try to avoid our responsibility in the universal disorder that is the sin; besides we feel perhaps humiliated by the mere fact that another must pay for us. Yet our annoyance comes from that rescue or redemption which has often been commented upon in a very surprising way. While the biblical texts referring to redemption insist more on the idea of liberation than on the aspect of payment, some have understood that Jesus' death was a payment that he made to the devil in order to loosen his dominion over humanity. Others speak about offenses made against God that demand compensation and that became settled with the sufferings and the sacrifice of Christ.
Es muy cierto que Jes\u00fas muri\u00f3 por nuestros pecados, pero la Redenci\u00f3n va mucho m\u00e1s lejos que el pago de una serie de deudas. Era necesario que el ejemplo perfecto del sacrificio voluntario respondiera a la cobard\u00eda humana; siendo quemultitudes de inocentes han sufrido inocentemente, era preciso ue le Hijo se hiciera uno de ellos; para compensar la marea de odios y rebelionesdes que hacen la actualidad de los peri\u00f3dicos, la humanidad deb\u00eda ofrecer una amplia mies de esa \u00ab_obediencia_\u00bb [Rom_5,19] de la que Jes\u00fas vino a ser el ejemplo perfecto; para inaugurar un movimiento tan irresistible como es la proclamaci\u00f3n evang\u00e9lica, se necesitaba lo que hoy se llama un sacrificio fundador: [Heb_13,20] lo dice con otras palabras. Este sacrificio de Jes\u00fas tiene un valor universal para la humanidad y convienen las im\u00e1genes de [Rom_5,12] - [Rom_5,19]: en oposici\u00f3n al pecado de Ad\u00e1n  que afecta toda la raza humana, hay un don gratuito del que todos nos beneficiamos gracias a Cristo. {N}Si no hay nadie para traducir estos dos p\u00e1rrafos, que se cancelen.{/}
Those who in the past understood that text of Paul as the affirmation of a major sin effectively committed by the first man, could not but see in the death of Jesus the reparation of that so very mysterious sin. Many times the artists have painted at the foot of the cross a skull that would be Adam's. However the gospels are not interested in that sin or in that sinner: Adam is not even mentioned. En cambio mantienen con claridad que el esp\u00edritu malo est\u00e1 a la ra\u00edz de todos los des\u00f3rdenes de la humanidad. Y, dicen ellos, la redenci\u00f3n de Cristo tiene por efecto de liberarnos de su dominio sobre el mundo. Este aspecto de la obra de Cristo nos parece habitualmente demasiado misterioso para que lo tomemos en cuenta; Pablo, sin embargo, no vacila en afirmar que la bajada del Hijo a nuestro mundo y su muerte infamante han terminado con la tiran\u00eda de los poderes c\u00f3smicos [1Cor_2,8]; [Eph_1,21]; [Col_1,13]. Tal vez alg\u00fan d\u00eda comprendamos que el problema del bien y del mal en el mundo depende antes que nada de una lucha en un universo espiritual al que entendemos muy poco.
However there is an ordering of the world, just as there is an ordering of humankind that surpasses our perspectives in the short term. It was necessary that everything culminate in a perfect equilibrium so that everything could return to God. Jesus had as a mission to assure the return of an alienated world, and the sin was the main datum of our alienation. The unity of the universe and of the dispersed children of God could only be realized in a reconciliation that would also be reconciliation with God after the original sin - the one of the tutoring spirits and the leaders of the creation. The voluntary death of Jesus was the repair, in the figurative sense, of such a collapse. It is irrelevant to conclude from there that Jesus at the moment of death had before his eyes all of our individual misdeeds; however all of our misdeeds form part of the passive and not one of our "rebellions" [Is_53,5]; and [1Jn_3,4] could be simply forgotten.
Until here we have kept an intellectual and moral vision of the Redemption, but we must go further. When the apostles comment about the sacrifice of Jesus dying for our sins, dying for our liberation [Rom_3,25]; [Rom_4,25]; [Rom_5,6] - [Rom_5,11]; [2Cor_5,20] - [2Cor_5,21] and [1P_2,21] - [1P_2,25] they do not want first to explain but rather to force our admiration for the magnificence of divine love. In the first place the generosity of God the Father [Rom_8,3]; [Jn_3,16]; [1Jn_4,10] - [1Jn_4,11]; yet later, recognition and crushing in the humility before the voluntary sacrifice of the Son [Rom_5,7] - [Rom_5,11]. And from there comes our total surrendering to the person of Jesus [Gal_2,19] - [Gal_5,20].
It has been said that no one has ever been loved as Jesus has been, is and will be loved, and this is the other aspect of the Redemption. If we believe that the sacrifice of Christ saves the whole of humanity [1Jn_2,2], as well as also that this same Son-Word illuminates all human conscience [Jn_1,9], it is also a fact that the immense majority of the peoples have not known anything about this. Yet since the choosing by God of a people to whom he reveals his plan of salvation [Is_54,13]; [Jer_31,34]; [Eph_3,5] quite a good part of the Redemption is carried out through the mutual relationships between God and that chosen people [Is_62,1] - [Is_62,5] [So_3,17]. Those who were called saw God's love and believed [1Jn_4,16]. And in this way the possibility remains open to God of realizing with them a unique experience, one of a reciprocal love in clarity.
This is the reason for which Jesus wants - and it is one of his major motivations - that his sacrifice purify [Eph_5,26] and sanctify [1Cor_6,11] those whom he has acquired [Acts_20,28] or is going to acquire for God [Rev_5,9] - [Rev_5,10]; [Rev_14,3]. He is consecrated for their sake [Jn_17,19]; [Heb_10,14]. On the other hand, the contemplation of the lowering or humiliations and of the love of the Son will suggest to them an extravagant love, the same that will constitute in the eternity the admiration of the celestial powers [1P_1,12].

{N}2.23: JESUS AND THE PHARISEES {/}[Mt_23,1]
Matthew's chapter 23 should be read in the light of the oppositions and persecutions that the Church in Palestine suffered up until the moment that the Christians were excluded from the Jewish community. The rupture was definite with the decrees made by the Pharisees in the year 95 at their Council in Jamnia, when they reorganized the israelite community after the destruction of Jerusalem. It was then when they determined the canon of the holy books and also enclosed the Jewish religion within very strict traditions and customs. Then they put an end to a more open attitude that had facilitated, in times of Christ, an impressive development of the Jewish proselytism in the roman world and had multiplied the conversions of the "Greeks".
The Gospel of Matthew, written in those years, becomes very polemic in respect to the Pharisees, for representing this Judaism, an adversary of the Church. Speaking of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, he tends to see in them his principal enemies. However, although he deforms the historic reality which was better expressed by Luke, not for this reason are we allowed to destroy the testimony of Matthew about the fundamental opposition between the phariseeism and the gospel: the book of Matthew is the word of God and this means that it gives us the vision that God wanted us to keep about the situations that Jesus confronted.
We know that, under many aspects, Jesus made his own the interpretation of the Bible that the Pharisees gave (and they were numerous among the first disciples). Nevertheless their religion made up in great part of obligations and rights was incompatible with another spirit resulting of the fact that Jesus was the Son sent by the Father for the salvation of sinners.
In the present chapter, Matthew presents a controversy of Jesus against the Pharisees. This cannot leave any Christian indifferent since phariseeism was the expression, at a certain time, of a religious attitude as present among us as it was then. In times past, many christian authors spoke of them as if all of them had been hypocrites and people of bad faith. By reading some of those commentaries, one suspects that these writers guessed, but did not want to recognize, up to what point they, clergy, teachers, supposed elite ones of the Christian people, occupied in the Church the same place that the Pharisees in the society of their times. So they fell under the same accusations of the gospel. Anxious to distinguish themselves from the Pharisees, they could but paint them in a caricatured way. Today on the other hand, there are many in the Church who want, not only to justify the Pharisees of similar allegations but to ignore or even to reject the warnings of the gospel that refer to them. Possibly the reason for such fervor is the same that inspired the opposite attitude in previous times: they canonize the Pharisees because they came to occupy their positions, incurring in the same danger: of being those wise and prudent ones to whom the mystery of Jesus has not been revealed.

{N}2.24: THE IMPURT SPIRITS{/}[Mc_1,16]
We know very little about what Jesus did during the eighteen or more months that he spent with his disciples. John shares some details about his first encounters with them [Jn_1,29] - [Jn_1,34]. Mark shows here the call that Jesus would address to them one day: "It was not you who chose me."

{N}2.25: THE BROTHERS OF JESUS {/}[Mc_3,31]
What is doing here Mary with the{C} brothers of Jesus{/}? Let us not condemn those relatives of Jesus who will become an important element of the early Church. Mary, the widow of Joseph and orphan of Jesus had to live with them, as it was usual at that time. This could have been a part of her cross till the moment in which John took charge of her.
Here, we will simply supplement what already appears in the commentary on [Mc_3,31]. One may be surprised that the gospel's testimonies in this respect should be usually interpreted with such little impartiality. Will it be because the insistence (and at times the excesses) of the catholic preaching referring to Mary are refuted by a more objective examination of the texts? What is actually worth mentioning is that on this point many deny Gospel testimonies and information with no more arguments than some "it may be" and "it can be thought that".
First, let's clarify that the teaching about the "perpetual virginity of Mary" is not merely an ancient tradition, as even some Catholic authors say. Rather, this is a matter of faith and an article of the Creed based on revelation. We are not dealing simply with pious devotion concerning events that are open to discussion. Mary was to become the mother of God's Son in the strictest sense of the word. If God's only Son was conceived by an act of free will worthy both of God and of a woman conscious of the unique grace offered to her, it was impossible for God not to have made her his own in the exclusive and definitive form indicated by virginity. No one who has had a deep spiritual experience will dare to question this point. This spiritual intuition of divine truth forms the basis for the constant affirmation of Christian faith. When we manifest our belief in this reality, we are unveiling God's face as manifested in the Scriptures. And we should do so, regardless of the ignorance of other Churches about this aspect of God's wonders.
Now to the texts in question. Are they ambiguous? We said that if the brothers of Jesus were his mother's children, the author should have written, "your mother and your mother's sons." But we do not find this anywhere referring to Jesus. Still more indicative is the question, that if the three Gospels wanted to document Jesus' response at this moment, why didn't they quote the most obvious and appropriate text that everyone knew: "I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother's sons" [Ps_69,9]? This psalm appears fifteen times in the New Testament, nevertheless, when the Gospels refer to the "brothers" of Jesus, verse 9 is never quoted as any Jew would have done. The early Church would certainly have used it, if Jesus had had brothers, sons of his mother.
On the other hand, the arguments against interpreting the word, "brothers," as a reference to "relatives" are very weak. We did not find more than these two. The first: Hebrew texts use {C}brother{/} in a very wide sense, but here we are in a Greek gospel and Greek has precise words for relatives. Response: all the Greek translations of the Bible keep the word {C}brother {/}everywhere it is found in Hebrew original, may it mean true brothers or relatives. The second argument we found is the following. An exegete discovered that in one place of the New Testament Paul uses the specific Greek word, "cousin" [Col_4,10]. The exegete concludes: If Paul used it in that place, why did he not use it, speaking of the brothers of the Lord, if they were actually cousins? Response: Paul specifically used "cousin" in Colossians because his Greek correspondents knew Aristarcos as a "cousin of Barnabas". Elsewhere Paul spoke of the "brothers of the Lord" because that was the name that everyone gave to the cousins of Jesus in an Aramean context and that remained either in the spoken language or in the Greek translations. 
We talked about the weight that the testimony of [Mk_15,40] has, supported by [Mk_15,47] and [Mt_27,56] with respect to Mary, the mother of James and of Joseph. Those who oppose this overwhelming linguistic and cultural evidence never brought more that conjectures and hypothesis. Why do Mary's virginity and the mention of her only son disturb so many intelligent people? There must be unvoiced factors, as John says, "They hated me without cause" [Mt_15,25].

{N}2.26: THE GOOD USE OF SIGNS {/}[Mc_8,12]
{C}To this people no sign will be given{/}. {C}This people{/} here, the {C}people of the present time{/} in the anterior sentence: these are two possible translations of the original Greek: "this generation". In reality, Jesus has given many signs [Jn_20,30] and John insists on the fact that his miracles form part of the signs that permit him to be recognized [Jn_10,38]. Therefore, Jesus gives the impression here that He refuses to give any signs because they are ordering Him to give one [Jn_6,30]. They did not have the proper disposition to pass from a sign to faith [Jn_6,26].
There are other passages, nevertheless, where Jesus complains that we always need signs in order to believe [Jn_4,48]. For Him, the sign that God gives, just as prayers that are heard, are like a person who freely reveals himself to another, and that is the way he should be received [Jn_16,24]. Many times in our relationship with God, we consider trust as something difficult and costly which God should not demand without having given clear proof that He exists, that He hears us, and that our services, actions, and obedience will be rewarded. Yet, from the moment that we demand these guarantees, we deny Him the only thing that interests Him, our trusting love. 
Why should He feel glad about our fulfilling our religious obligations or doing good works? These things are of little importance to Him. On the contrary, all of his happiness (the word is not too strong) consists in initiating us into a game of reciprocal love in which we become capable of taking one step at a time, testing whether or not He will respond, then taking a second step, and a tenth. This is a way of reaching eternal life.

{N}2.27: THE ONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE WILL BE CONDEMNED {/}[Mc_16,16]
The original text says: "The one who does not believe will be condemned." Even if we understand this as, "the one who refuses to believe," this is a terrible statement of incalculable effects.
The one refusing to believe is the person to whom the message has been presented. In the context of this paragraph, a series of signs will accompany the message, signs eloquent enough to be recognized as a message from heaven. The one who does not believe in such circumstances {C}will be condemned{/}, which means that the day he is judged by God and must account for his good and bad acts, he will receive condemnation with respect to this distrust: the rejection of faith was a fault on his part. The same is read in [Mt_10,40].
{C} The one who believes and is baptized is saved{/}; meaning that he or she enjoys the gifts from that moment on that God has reserved for those who have recognized Him in the person of his Son. Thanks to their faith, they benefit from a reordering of all of their being. These are at the same time beneficiaries and cooperators in the mystery of salvation that God is accomplishing in the heart of human history. God has reserved for his special people, both those who are near and those who are far, an essential part of his work. And if they should refuse to fulfill their mission, humanity would be doomed to sink, in the full sense of the word.
One wonders how God could allow these truths to be interpreted so tendentiously in the Western Church even to the end of the nineteenth century. The bearers of the Gospel were convinced that everyone was obliged to accept their preaching, even when they spoke in a hateful or incomprehensible language or when they didn't show the signs indicated in the Gospel. They wanted to impose Baptism without, however, having initiated the candidates into a process leading to a rebirth. Instead, they expected the rites that they performed to bring about results as if by magic. They maintained that anyone who did not believe lost eternal salvation and was condemned to a hell without end, something that the text does not say. See the Introduction to the Book of Jonah in this respect.
This erroneous interpretation invited the ecclesiastical institution to consider that it was the "saved ones" in comparison to the vast majority who were lost. Such thinking gives rise to a certain violence often manifested in the heart of those who believe that God has chosen them alone to communicate the absolute truth to the world.
It is surprising that this false interpretation of Scripture was so commonly accepted without any prophets rising up to argue against it. This is a mystery. However, let us recognize that this black and white vision of a world without any half tones did manage to awaken a sense of determination in millions of believers to dominate their instincts and often to carry out heroic actions: suffer everything rather than sin.

{N}2.28: THE LIST OF THE TWELVE {/}[Lk_6,14]
See the note put down about [Mk_3,14]. It is known that the list of the Twelve is not the same in the three synoptic gospels, to which it would be necessary to add [Acts_1,13] as well. 
It is not known whether Judas {C}of James{/} should be translated for {C}son{/} or {C}brother of James{/}. On the other hand it is seen that he replaces Thaddeus (who is called Lebbe in some of the ancient manuscripts), mentioned in Matthew and Mark. Is Thaddeus the same as the Judas of James? Or rather was he one of the Twelve who retired and was soon forgotten, being replaced at that moment by Judas of James, who after Pentecost took the title of apostle, being perhaps one of the Lord's brothers? 
Luke tells us about the replacement of Judas Iscariot [Acts_1,15], but he was not obliged to tell us about other replacements, which was reasonable since there was a time during which the title of apostle was being given to some who founded new communities. Outside of this, there is no other reason to identify Bartholomew with Nathaniel: the fact that [Jn_1,45] - [Jn_1,50] shows us this last name among the first disciples is not proof that he belonged to the number of apostles.
Simon the Zealot is called the Canaanite in [Mt_10,4]. This word in Hebrew means the same as zealot in Greek: the fanatic. It referred to nationalists who later would become terrorists and attack the Romans and their collaborators.

{N}2.29: YOUR FAITH HAS SAVED YOU {/}[Lk_8,43]
Numerous ancient manuscripts have for this verse a longer text that is closer to [Mk_5,25]. This detail does not deserve our attention as much as the words of Jesus: {C}Your faith has saved you{/}. This is found in Matthew and in Mark in the same story, and besides four more times in Luke ([Lk_7,50]; [Lk_17,19]; [Lk_18,42] and [Acts_14,9]). What faith does it mean? As poorly learned the sick persons could have been, they knew however enough to consider Jesus as a prophet [Mk_6,15] and they approached him with the same certainty: God has visited his people [Lk_7,16].
This is the faith just as it is found in the simple and not theologian people. And Jesus is the first to value it. If we refer to the stories of miracles in the Old Testament that can be compared to those in the gospels --although in fact they will only be found in the chapters referring to Elijah and Elisha [1K_17,1]; [2K_1,1] - [2K_7,1] - the faith is not absent, but it is not the most important thing [Num_21,9]. The stories point out the charisma of the prophet, and the prophet, who has the faith and the charisma, asks God for the miracle. The Gospel, on the other hand, and especially Mark's gospel, gives testimony to the power of Jesus, who, contrary to the prophet, does not ask God yet gives an order. Luke however, takes pleasure in remembering the words of Jesus that celebrate the power of the faith.
Many people look down on that power of faith and immediately think: it is the same faith that attracts customers to where there are peddlers and hawkers. They do not see there any more than the power of suggestion, which in some cases gives the push that is needed, but does not have value in the medical plane, and even less in the religious one.
The word of Jesus invites us rather to envy this faith without instruction that often recognizes the prophets yet does not make a great use of the established Church; it is one of our greatest riches. In the world around us, in the beginning of everything that is great there was faith, if not under the form of {C}God has visited his people{/}, at least in its lay version: luck will help us. All people in all religions understand that language.
The Old Testament, although it shows this faith in action (see [Heb_11,1]), speaks little of it. The writings of the New Testament on the other hand praise the faith at every turn; but more frequently this deals with the faith in Christ the Lord. Those books praise believers that conscientiously live their new lives as baptized ones and the importance of the faith according to Christ (see note on [Acts_4,12]), which in turn allows the access to the supernatural assets. With this concern we are a little apart of the field where ordinary people are fighting in order to survive. Yet here the Gospel reminds us of our many brothers and sisters for whom the next day's bread is not assured and for whom doctors and health services are like a luxury out of their reach. Their faith, badly or poorly taught, uninstructed, conditioned by the immediate needs ([2K_4,39]; [Jn_2,3]), is no less valuable in the eyes of God. An irrational optimism brings them at times to think that God will get them out of the difficult situation and God likes that idea that they have of Him.

{N}2.30: THE NEIGHBOR {/}[Lk_10,29]
The oldest rabbinical commentaries of the bible - ones that were contemporaries of the gospels - show that the teachers were divided with respect to the question about who is the neighbor. The question raised to Jesus then was of great current importance. And the interpretations of the word {C}neighbor{/} went from the closest family members, to all jewish brothers and sisters, even to the proselytes who were still not yet fully jewish. But no one had passed that barrier between Jews and non Jews which was as much a national one as a religious one.
Jesus' answer is therefore absolutely new. Just as the philosopher Henri Bergson has demonstrated, going from the neighbor as a member of one's same social group to a neighbor that could be any other person, is not only an enlargement, but even more it is acceding to another world. The love of the neighbor that was trying to be practiced among the Jews and Greeks in the primitive Church in spite of mutual distrust (and that was one of the principal worries of Paul in [2Cor_8,1] - [2Cor_9,1] was a new asset given to the world. John on his part saw it as a totally new commandment [Jn_13,34]; [1Jn_2,8]. If now at this time Jesus' answer does not seem so extraordinary, it is simply because that parable has already transformed our consciences. However, that love of one's neighbor continues to appear as a novelty in the present world. It is true that there are many examples of people helping the distant neighbor in individual cases and of saving the underprivileged; however it is an even more surprising thing when the love allows the re-encounter of social groups between which barriers exist. 

{N}2.31: THE HUMAN FACE OF GOD {/}[Lk_18,1]
The parables in which Jesus lends God such a human face will surely bring some uneasiness to those people who have a philosophical training. At first one is touched by the humanity of God; yet later one reflects, and the parable then is no more than a comparison of what one cannot trust too much. Is not God the One and the Only, the Absolute and the first Substance, eternal, immutable and unshakable? It is here then, where the faith sees with greater clarity than reason. The God of the philosophers, even when generously granted the qualities of every person worthy of this name, does not prevent us from habitually conceiving him to the image and likeness of the principles and of the professors.
Jesus on the other hand invites us to see in him everything that we admire in the truly intelligent people, those who like to use the humor and the fantasy; among lovers, how little they observe the moderation; among parents, worried about their children. It is true that these parables have originated figurations of God and religious practices that many times forgot about the mystery of the Infinite. But we should not distrust less of the certainties of our preaching and the speeches with respect to That One whom our theology ignores more often than recognizes. We will become more indulgent with respect to the excesses of popular devotion if we recall that the proper mission of the Christian revelation is that of initiating a simple and trustful communion between God and his sons and daughters. Our Bible left to others the prostration and only speaks of it upon mentioning the heavenly city: [Rev_4,10]; [Rev_5,14]; [Rev_7,11] ...

{N}2.32: IT WAS IN THE SCRIPTURES {/}[Lk_24,45]
Luke shows us the risen Jesus giving to the apostles and the Church the bases of a christian interpretation of the Scriptures [Lk_24,27] and [Lk_46,1] - [Lk_47,1].
{C}The suffering of the Messiah and his resurrection{/}. It would be difficult to find one text that speak explicitly of this, but the whole biblical history is made up of deaths and resurrections. Many psalms are the thanksgiving of a believer who was at the edge of the tomb and to whom God returns life. The famous poem of the Servant that is read in Is 53 points out without a doubt the faithful minority that will ensure the future of Israel. But in fact, God wanted him to designate that faithful minority under the figure of a unique Servant; still more God had him to speak of an unjust death, of resurrection, of forgiveness of the sins in order to express the destiny of that faithful people. That is enough for us to apply that text to the one that summarized in his person the destiny of the chosen people.
One word from Jesus in [Jn_10,35] reminds us that Scripture cannot be changed. It could be said that in such and such a place the words surpass the thoughts of the author, that they appeared there by accident ... But it is a fact that they are there, and although we must keep the priority on what is essential in the message, the word that surprises, or the unusual image should always be received as a call to reflection. In a discussion the opponent could say that the response of Jesus in [Jn_10,35] was not unquestionable and that Jesus turned the text round to suit himself; in the same way it would be very difficult to prove that the Scripture announced the death and resurrection of Jesus, if from the start the opponent has not recognized Christ as the Messiah. A purely rationalistic discussion of the text will very rarely lead one to the faith; see how the devil makes excellent use of the biblical texts in the episode of the Temptation in [Mt_4,1] and [Lk_4,1].
The Christian interpretation of the Scriptures is not limited to a rational investigation that brings back the texts in their context so as not to say more that what the sacred author wanted to say. When Jesus said: {C}It was in the Scripture{/}, he was not first trying to prove that it was written down. Better we say that the resurrection of Jesus gives the Scripture a dimension that it did not have beforehand. A jewish interpretation already existed that had taken form as the experience of God's people was developing, but now new events imposed a rereading of the texts. [Mt_13,52] makes this understood by speaking of a teacher of the Law who, after having lived the experience of the Kingdom of God, discovers new treasures in the ancient text.
The {C}letter{/} is an instrument with which the Spirit plays freely, and the daily experience teaches us that the wisdom of the sacred book penetrates in the hearts without always passing through the paths of logic. Very frequently an image suggests a line of thought, the connection is made with other images that the book offers, with other passages where the same words are found, and little by little the threads are tied together as far as to establish an interpretation or to discover God's play in the situations which we live.
The believer, or the prophet, who rereads the Scripture does not betray the texts, but rather gives them a new life, and in the end, he will have made a poetic use of them, in the first sense of the term: the poet is the one who {C}creates{/}. Poetry is not subject in the first place to dialectic norms and the same can be said, at a more elevated level, of the Scripture. God is as much a poet as a dialectician (without saying he is even much more) and the Holy Spirit insinuates the truth beyond the letter. Like it or not, that kind of poetic or prophetic interpretation is generally more powerful that the rational exegesis in order to illuminate the spirit. Of course, unbalanced or perverse lucubration must be prevented, and the second letter of Peter raises up with force against personal interpretations (see the note written down on [2P_1,20] on the inspiration of the Bible). This is the reason for reading the Scripture in the Church. This does not mean that we only repeat what the elders or what the hierarchy have said, yet rather that we have our eyes and our ears open to be sure that we stand in the great trend of the tradition. In this way we do not stray.
The prophecy proceeded this way in the primitive Church, and the Scripture left us two unsurpassable models of this in the letter to the Hebrews and in the Revelation. One book, over all, facilitated the flourishing of that prophecy: it was the book of Psalms. These were believed to have David as their author, and on the other hand the Messiah was a son of David. Those two facts originated the development of many comments about one or another verse of the psalms. The learned and the monks meditated about the intuitions and the prayers of David, and from that point on they tried to better understand the mystery of Christ.
In the two passages of Luke that we have cited, Jesus stresses what will be the basis for the apostolic preaching, and to these first lessons Luke refers when he tells us that Jesus instructed his apostles {C}through the Holy Spirit {/}after the Resurrection [Acts_1,2].

{N}2.33: THE WORD, IS IT GOD OR NOT? {/}[Jn_1,1]
And {C}the Word was God.{/} That affirmation has been argued about not only because it demands a minimum of reflection, but over all because it hurts certain doctrinal prejudices. Such is the case of the Jehovah Witnesses who do not hesitate to translate: "the Word was a god". And in order to justify said translation they bring the text of [Jn_10,34] - [Jn_10,36]: the greek word {C}Theos{/}, they say, can mean equally a god as God, and when it means God, the article always appears in Greek: O Theos, the God. Yet here there is no article, and therefore it deals with a god.
The reality is very different. When it deals with, not a subject but rather an attribute, as is the case here with: {C}was God,{/} the biblical greek puts the article if God is considered as a person, but it does not put one if {C}God{/} means the divine nature. Surely he who is God (or the persons who are God) constitute only one thing with the divine nature, but it is not the same thing as the nature. Then, the article is not used if it says {C}what is{/} God, and it is used if it designates {C}he who is{/} God.
We have an example of this in the Book of Kings. In [1K_8,60] Solomon declares: "In this way all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh is God and there is no other beside him." And {C}God{/} is without the article: Yahweh alone is a divine Being. On the other hand in [1K_18,21] Elijah says to the people: "If Yahweh is God, follow him; if Baal is God, follow him. And God is written with the article because the choice is between two persons. The same is in [Dt_32,39] and [Jos_2,11], where two examples of {C}God{/} without the article are seen, and each time to say that Yahweh is an all powerful and sovereign Being.
If we pass on to the New Testament, we find a new detail. We remember in the commentary of [Jn_20,11] that from the days of the Resurrection and of Pentecost, the christian faith had acquired the certainty that Jesus was Son of God in the firmest sense of the term. Very early on they had begun to play with the words{C} God{/} and {C}Lord{/} in order to designate the Father and the Son without having the latter deprived of his divine rank. And it is easy to see how Paul always names them together: for him God is the Father and, in agreement with what we have said about the use of the article in Greek, Paul always writes: {C}the God{/}, because it is the person of the Father.
In these conditions, if John wanted to say that the Word was of a divine nature, meaning that it shared the divine nature of God-Father, but without being the same person as the Father, he could not do anything but express it just as he did: the Word was {C}God{/}, without the article. And immediately afterwards he says: He was from the beginning together with God: and here {C}the God{/} appears, with the article, because it says that the Word was close to the person God-Father.
It is true that from the beginnings of the Church, both for the Jews as for the Greeks, the christian faith in Jesus Son of God, born of God, and who shares the divine mystery of the Father, was a challenge to the philosophical reason and to the religions that had been taught. It is the same today for many people. Then to translate: the Word was a god, is absolutely absurd, since if they wanted to be consistent with their own argument, they would have to translate equally in [Jn_16,27]: I came from a god. Because there is no article there either.

{N}2.34: JOHN AND THE SAMARITANS {/}[Jn_1,47]
{C}Here comes an Israelite, a true one{/}. When the Gospel speaks of the Messiah, it usually resorts not to the vocabulary common to the Jews, but rather to the one of the Samaritans, distant heirs to the reign of Israel and of the tribes of the north. It speaks of Elijah, the great prophet of Israel, the Prophet mentioned in the [Dt_18,15], one of the books that equally figured in the Bible of the Samaritans; in verse 45 the phrase is turned around and the whole accent is put on: {C}the one Moses spoke about in the Law{/}, because the Samaritans vindicated Moses, but not the prophets who were almost all Jewish; Jesus is the son of {C}Joseph{/}, a name loved by the people of the north because it was the territory of the tribes of Joseph; and Nathaniel responds: {C}You are the King of Israel{/}. Jesus responds evoking the dream of Jacob in Bethel, a man and a place that are even more typically Samaritan.
All of this brings us to think that some parts at least of the gospel of John were written down for the Samaritans, or more precisely, for the christian communities from the other side of the Jordan where they felt closer to the Samaritans than to the Jews. In chapter 4 the exceptionally long conversation with the Samaritan woman will show the same characteristics, up until the reply in verse 42, because the expression {C}Savior of the world{/} seems to have been born during that time in the province of Samaria. In the following chapters John will write down many times: {C}the Jews{/}, as if he spoke of a foreign group.

{N}2.35: THE SYMBOLS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN {/}[Jn_2,11]
It is true that John intends to discover the symbolism of many of the details of the events of which he was a witness; he found the key to these events in his knowledge of the Scriptures. Some people in present times will bring up the question: did God want all those symbols? Did Jesus have them present in his spirit when he acted? Are they not better seen as an interpretation of John, admirable possibly, but no less subjective?
It is impossible to give a simple response to these  questions. We have had the opportunity to recall that there has never been a "unique" interpretation of the Scripture. It is the bearer of the Spirit [2Tim_3,16] and it is the Spirit who teaches each one a part of the treasures that it encloses. We will point out here some of the symbols that seem to have been inscribed by John in his story of the wedding of Cana.
The evangelist has conserved in his memory that event in Cana, but he rereads it now in light of the Resurrection and the symbolic approximations are multiplied because now the happiness of the Wedding of God with humanity is revealed.
The first words of the story place the banquet in time: the third day. It is the last day of the "inaugural week" that follows from the Prologue of the Gospel of John, and it is then the seventh day from the beginning of the ministry in Galilee, according to the presentation that this fourth evangelist makes.
That third day brings the event back to the history of the salvation. With the occasion of the divine manifestation and the conclusion of the Covenant in the Sinai, God had said to Moses: "Go back to the people and have them sanctified today and tomorrow... and be ready for the third day. For on the third day Yahweh will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people " [Ex_19,10] - [Ex_19,11]. Yet the third day also reminds the believer of the Resurrection of Christ and the promises of eternal life.
However, in Cana, his {C}hour had not yet come{/}, the hour of the passion and of the cross, but also the hour in which his Glory will shine as the Son of God together with his love for all men and women.
The mother of Jesus, the first person mentioned in the story, intervenes discreetly together with her son; she is attentive to the lack of wine without which the party would have been a fiasco. Mary, daughter of Israel, presents to her son the anguish of her people; together with him, she awaits the salvation that has been promised to her. 
The reference to the Hour insists on that distinction between the precise event and the messianic revelation of the event. Mary understands that the response from Jesus goes infinitely further beyond the event and orders the servants: {C}Do whatever he tells you{/}; in doing this she invites them to imitate the fundamental attitude that has made her live and act from the day of her Annunciation: I am the handmaiden of the Lord, let it be done according to your word [Lk_1,38].
Mary reveals herself under a double aspect: as the daughter of Israel she is seen as being solidary with her people, as the mother of Jesus, she is already the figure of the Church, the Israel of God.
Jesus has them serve the wine at the table of Cana, using the stone jugs that contained the water for the ritual purifications, a cultural symbol of Judaism. That wine provided profusely and conserved until that day proclaims the appearance of the new Covenant announced by the prophets and inaugurated in Jesus Christ.
In this way the history of humanity has only two periods of time: the time of the promise and the time of the fulfillment. By his paschal mystery Christ brings it to its fullness and transfigures that history: he invites humanity to participate in the eternal banquet of the Wedding of the Lamb [Rev_19,9].

{N}2.36: I HAVE COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN {/}[Jn_6,33]
{C}The bread that God gives is the one that has come from heaven and that gives life to the world{/}. We find seven times in this chapter the words: {C}come down from heaven{/}. It is enough to make us understand that for John this affirmation is essential. Anyone who has a somewhat rationalistic training can hardly accept that the Son, being divine person, come down from heaven? In the fourth century the nestorians were accused of dividing Christ; they insisted in such a way on the human reality of Jesus, that he seemed to be a separate person from the Son of God. It was something like as if from the highest part of Heaven the eternal Son had become closely united to a man that he piloted, taking as his all of what that exceptional man did. It may be that the nestorians have committed that error since we ourselves commit it very frequently. There exists a very common manner of speaking of Jesus, that puts a great distance between him and the mystery of God where the eternal Son dwells.
Maybe some will say: the Son cannot lose his divine condition and exchange it for a human condition. Of course He does not lose his divine nature, but it is totally resent in his manner of being this man. This emptying himself of the Son-God [Jn_1,18] cannot but shock our reasoning just like it did with the conception of a divine being that existed among the greek philosophers. However this is found in all of the texts of the New Testament referring to the mystery of the Son; see [Jn_3,32]; [Jn_6,62]; [Jn_8,14] and the note on [Phil_2,6].

{N}2.37: THE CRISIS OF THE DISCIPLES {/}[Jn_6,66]
John is the only one who reports said crisis in Jesus' audience and the withdrawal of many disciples, although the synoptics also make it understood that now less people surrounded him. Mark tells us in [Mk_9,30] a little later that Jesus was going from one place to another and that he did not want it known where he was because he was occupied with instructing his disciples. It can be thought then that now the crowds did not come to him, and if we take into account what John says in this paragraph, one understands better how, in the other gospels, Jesus goes from teaching the crowds to the training of the true faithful ones.
But if there was a crisis and a serious one, what was the motive? John gives a double answer. The first is that the masses were disappointed by the messianism (others will say by the negativeness of messianism) of Jesus. Each one made in Israel his own idea of the Messiah, but there was however one point in common and that was the national restoration. Well then, when the popularity of Jesus arrives at its highest point, he wriggles out. [Mk_6,45] confirms in its way the disillusion that John talks about in [Mk_6,14] - [Mk_6,17].
The second motive is more profound. To deny the messianism, as it was understood by the people did not discredit the teaching of Jesus. Here instead John wanted us to capture the incapacity of the sympathizers to place themselves on the same latitude as the revelation that Jesus was giving them. They held him in high esteem as a Master or Teacher, they were astonished by his powers as a healer, they believed that God acted through him, but when they began to perceive what Jesus brought with him they abandoned him. There are people who only swear by one or another great man and that accept as holy all that he says. This provokes around them annoyance or jokes; happily those persons are not numerous and the majority shows more sense. Well then, it was precisely that majority in the jewish people, alerted by the Law against any worship of a personality, which is scandalized because Jesus eludes any comparison and any effort to give him a place among the Masters and the Prophets.
John did not imagine the discourse of chapter 6 in a direct and immediate manner; he must have gathered here various sentences where Jesus went against the messianic hope as he found it in the people. Now then, Jesus says and repeats the words: {C}the bread that has come down from heaven{/}. And what is even more serious, all of his affirmations are taken from the Old Testament which he carefully quotes. How far he is from the religious writings of his time and even from the later books of the Old Testament! Jerusalem, ... the Temple..., the sighs of oppressed Israel..., the compassion of the Eternal One for his people ... Jesus instead seems only interested in that the Father be discovered in the Son: there is the kingdom. And if the hour is unique, it is because God has made himself present.
The disciples go into reverse because they are not willing to abandon all of their religious inheritance for the simple faith in one who exercises over them such an attraction: not only listen and believe him but believe in Him. Who would reproach them? {C}No one can come to me if my Father has not granted it to him{/} (verse 65).
Jesus never asked them to renounce their religious practices; these should rather be crowned by something totally distinct: the search and the experience of a communion with God through the Son, and thanks to the life in the Spirit. It is easy to see that that crisis of the disciples of Jesus is always latent in the christian world: the idea that the totality of God and of the universe is being offered to us even today in him and only in him is intolerable for the learned, and some of them would not rest until they have made of Jesus one of the greatest or the greatest among men, but without {C}believing in Him.{/}

{N}2.38: THERE IS NO OTHER NAME {/}[Acts_4,12]
{C}There is no salvation in anyone else{/}. We could ask ourselves what Peter understands by salvation. God had manifested himself as the only Savior of his people and as the only Name through which humankind could be saved. Yet now, as Peter explains it, all God's work in Israel will be accomplished through that Messiah already {C}seated at his right hand{/} [Ps_110,1]. Salvation which {C}is not found in anyone else{/} is first of all the "liberation of Israel" [Lk_2,25] that many of Peter's listeners awaited. And Peter does not hesitate to promise them better times [Lk_3,20].
Yet the prophets never separated the salvation of Israel from an internal renewal of the believers. And the Apostles are immediately going to emphasize that salvation granted to those who believe. These are not called "Christians," but  "the saved" [Lk_2,47]. There is no doubt that they were aware of being saved and they manifested it in their daily life. Yet, could that last? In the enthusiasm of the first moment, the believer feels renewed and has the impression that his problems are resolved. Or, as some express it: "Yesterday that paralyzed me; today it doesn't bother me." The presence of a loved one that becomes the center of our existence is enough to give us wings. Jesus is the loved one. And still more, they already received the gift of the Spirit!
They would have never thought of denying Israel's past, the revelation made to the prophets, the riches and the faith of the Jewish community, that produced apostles and martyrs, not to mention the multitude of humble and anonymous just people. Yet it is not the same to believe in God because of the interventions of his Providence, or even to believe in God's covenant with Israel, written about both in history and in Scripture, as to accept Jesus as the Only Son, as God incarnate who came to us to share our condition. This unique event is more capable than any other revelation to persuade the human heart to have confidence in God the Father, and following Jesus' example, to be humble and to love truly. 
Believing acquired a new dimension through Jesus. For this reason Paul's letters do not speak only of faith in Christ [Heb_21,12]; [Gal_2,16], but of the faith of Christ, meaning, characteristic of Christians, that is supported in Christ and according to Christ [Heb_3,16]; [Rom_3,22]; [Phil_3,9] .... The proof that the faith of Christ has transformed the psychological and spiritual panorama of the believer is found in the gift of the Spirit given at baptism. This is not merely the giving of a charisma as a tangible favor intended to reward the believer, rather it is a new world that opens up to and in the believer.
This personal salvation, which will soon become the primary concern of the Church, is a profound renewal of the believer. First, there is the forgiveness of sins. The reason is that Jesus exposed sin in its reality as had never been done before. It is sufficient to read the Sermon on the Mount. For some of Peter's listeners sin consists also of having approved of Jesus' condemnation, and for all the rest, of not having listened to his calls. But now God offers a more profound reconciliation than any other offered in the past, essentially because he manifested his immense love and his power of forgiveness through the cross of Christ. Even when the believers did not yet know how to express their faith in the Son of God, they were conscious of having gained everything. To express it in the language of the prophets, they saw themselves as "the remnant of Israel" and "the saved ones of Zion" [Is_4,3].
In this regard, when Peter says that he who believes is saved, he is not talking about escaping from condemnation or from an impending apocalypse [Acts_2,21]. Salvation is fullness. The saved are both beneficiaries and cooperators in the mystery of salvation that God is bringing about in the heart of human history. And when they look around themselves, they do not doubt that they have entered body and soul into a state, or better yet, into a truth characteristic of those who believed and entered in the Church.
When Peter says, with reference not only to Israel but also to all peoples, that there is no other Name under heaven that has been given to humankind, he is not placing limits on the work of salvation. He does not deny God's work among the great part of humanity that does not know Christ. Rather he speaks for those who are listening to him and for those whom God has already chosen to be the bearers of his mysteries. Nor does he say that those who do not believe will be condemned, but simply that they lose that salvation that was the great gift from God.

{N}2.39: BAPTISM AND THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS {/}[Acts_8,14]
This paragraph distinguishes baptism from the laying on of hands that confers the Spirit [Acts_19,6]. Both are clearly distinguished in [Heb_6,2]. On the other hand the Gospels talk about baptism in the Holy Spirit which was no more than the Christian baptism distinguished from John the Baptist's baptism by water.
Here we must recall Peter's words in [Acts_10,47]: "those who have received the Holy Spirit, just as we have." If we stick equally to the details of Peter's explanations in [Acts_11,16], we must conclude that from the beginning it was by the laying on of hands that the Apostles wanted to transmit the gift that they had received (see [Num_27,18]). It may be that Jesus had said something to them in the days following his resurrection during which time he instructed them through the Holy Spirit [Acts_1,2]. On the other hand, they do not speak of baptism "in the Spirit" which Jesus had referred to. It seems more likely that from the beginning Christian initiation included both rites and anointing followed by the imposition. One can only wonder if they were united or if they had an interval of time between them. On another side, it is true that the imposition of the hands did become without any rupture in meaning or practice, our Confirmation.

{N}2.40: THE DECREE OF JERUSALEM {/}[Acts_15,28]
We said in the commentary of [Acts_15,22] that perhaps Luke combined here in only one narrative the meeting at Jerusalem and the decision taken later by James for his own diocese with a majority of Jewish converts. We should note that several manuscripts belonging to the so-called Western group have a different text for verses 20 and 29. There the prohibitions are totally or partially omitted and the Christians are requested instead to respect the great law of love already suggested in Leviticus [Lev_19,18] and [Lev_19,34]: don't do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you.
When this chapter is examined side by side with that of Paul in [Gal_2,1], there are several details that make one think that the meeting took place in the context of the feast of the Consecration of the Temple. From this liturgy originate the text of Amos with the mention of the tent of David, that is the Temple, and the comparison of the apostles to the pillars of the Temple [Gal_2,9], and the allusion to the yoke that "our ancestors were not able to carry." Following the example of moderation given by the Jews themselves with regards to the proselytes that joined their numbers, the Church went farther yet and guaranteed their freedom with regards to the laws about what was pure and impure.
Therefore, it seems that our text was retouched later in order to make it consonant with the decree mentioned in [Acts_21,25], which maintained those regulations for the regions close to Palestine.

{N}2.41: THE RISEN CHRIST: HAS JESUS OF NAZARETH BEEN DISTORTED?{/}[Rom_1,5]
Jesus' figure, as it emerges from the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, is the figure of a rabbi, a teacher of the Law in the purest tradition of the people of Israel [Jn_3,2]. Although, later on, the first Christian Community gave more importance to the conflicts with the Pharisees than actually oceurred, they did not forget that Jesus'teaching was very close to the teaching of the Pharisees on many points [Mk_2,16]; [Mk_12,28]; [Mk_12,32]. Both disciples and opponents saw him as a self-taught master of the law [Jn_7,15]. How then did we go from there to the figure of Christ as it appears particularly in Paul's letters: the Lord of history, the new Adam, the one who reccived the ineffable "Name"?
The apostles believed in the resurrection of Jesus and so did the entire Christian community who were born of this conviction. There was no doubt that he was the Messiah; people also believed that he was God's Son in a very special sense, different from what the Jews understood by this term. A long time was needed to draw all the inferences from this. This passage was undoubtedly more difficult for those who had known Jesus personally and who had seen him through the eyes of their Jewish culture, not because Jesus was not utterly Jewish, including his way of teaching, but because what they loved in him was preventing them from seeing beyond.
They certainly recognized themselves in James' letter, the most "Jewish" of the apostolic writings. While acknowledging Jesus as "our Lord," the author of the letter sees Jesus first as the teacher of a new law which included the best of the Old Testament [Rom_2,1] and [Rom_2,8]. With the help of the impact of the Nazareth group, the "brothers of Jesus," the Christian communities of Palestine would grow fond of this image they had of the Galilean rabbi. He had risen, of course, but he had not set the world clock back to zero, and his heritage was first of all an example of doing good, not just teaching the Law.
Within just a few generations, these "Judeo-Christians" would find themselves like strangers to the faith of the Church whose center had moved from Jerusalem to Antioch, then to Rome. lt is there that Paul played a decisive role that he himself did not choose. He did not invent Christ the Lord and Redeerner: he was already present in Peter's first proclamations [Acts_2,32] - [Acts_2,36]; [Acts_3,15]. Paul, however, had not been influenced (and at the same time limited) by the image and the words of the Galilean rabbi. On the contrary, his conversion had been an encounter with God himself in the person of Jesus, and he saw the Master's itinerant preaching as the first stage of a wider destiny [2Cor_5,16].
If Jesus had not risen, he would have remained a teacher; until then, his words were perhaps more important than he himself was. But his body disappeared from the tomb; this first-ever happening, if true, did not fit into the laws of the universe. So the visions of the resurrected one conveyed but one message: Jesus, the Lord! This went far beyond Jeremiah exultant in glory or Elijah taken up to heaven. On the day of Pentecost Peter said that God had raised his holy servant [Acts_3,15] and he added: "God has made him Lord." Before long Jesus will be recognized as "the son of the woman taken up to heaven to seize the book of history" [Rev_12,5]; [Rev_5,7]. Paul and John have authority to speak about him because they are true witnesses; both of them were privileged to get a glimopse of the above [Rev_4,1]; [2Cor_12,2].
From that moment, it was knowing who Jesus was that gave the understanding of his words, because he was God born of God. From that point on, his whole human adventure  was a new beginning.
Therefore, when Paul speaks of Christ as the "image of God" [Col_1,15], he is not primarily inviting us to find the goodness of the Father in Jesus' gestures: instead he is thinking more directly about the Son who, from the beginning, is the manifestation, the projection and the active wisdom of the forever invisible God. Christ is the one who passed through our history and our time so that, through him, all of creation including humankind would be seen as part of the divine mystery [Col_1,20].
In the gospels, Jesus chose to be the proclaimer of the Reign of God. With Paul, however, there is not just Kingdom, but our life in the risen Christ [Col_3,l]. There we see the gap between Christian faith and the position of the non-Christian Jews who were the most sympathetic toward Jesus and acknowledged him as one of their own. Paul was not the one who built a wall of misunderstanding; the scandal was found in Jesus'resurrection as well as in his death on the cross.
These are not less scandalous for today's Christians. Although we haye faith, at times we are besieged by doubt: is all of that certain? Many books written by unbelievers, or even by educated Christians, will reinforce our doubts: "The resurrection? There is no other bases than an empty tomb - and do we even know that? Yet, all these reasons do not overcome a deep-scated conviction in the hearts of believers. Then, people interpretad; they believed; they saw.... To say that he had risen was a way of exalting him and of reasserting the hope of the community..." A sense of God tells them that truth is found in the mystery rather than in the interpretations that seek to do away with it [1Jn_2,27].
We have just said "a sense of God," because it is not a matter of human feeling: we believe, which means first of all that we receive the testimony of the apostles and of the Church, and we believe the way they did. lf we welcome faith, God will not leave us alone with our doubts, there is also an added promise: the gift of the Holy Spirit [Acts_2,18].
There can be no lasting faith without a spiritual experience [Heb_12,18] -[Heb_12,24], and this is even truer for those living in a culture impervious to faith, as we are.

{N}2.42: THE VOCABULARY ON JUSTIFICATION {/}[Rom_3,20]
Our first step in examining Paul's important texts about "justification" must be to define precisely in our language the terms that he uses in his language. This is not merely a difference between the Greek that he spoke and the English we speak. Paul uses terms from the Greek Septuagint Bible, which to some degree determined the religious language of Greek speaking Jews. These terms, however, are better understood in the light of the religious experiences of the Old Testament.
Our vocabulary about justification and grace has been strongly influenced by numerous theological controversies and by the discussions between Catholics and Protestants from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Such questions as these never occurred to our religious ancestors before Christ. Their vocabulary about redemption, sin, and righteousness was born from their social experiences between groups and persons, between a less important person and a more powerful one, who became the protector of the first. The powerful person granted a "covenant" with reciprocal obligations. If the dependent person rebelled, he was said to have sinned against his sovereign [2K_18,14]; [Ezk_17,15] and to have betrayed him. On the other hand the sovereign could recognize the faithfulness of his ally and consider him to be just.
These same terms were used in God's Covenant with Israel. Certainly they never doubted God's mercy. The people knew that God forgives, but they were also conscious of his justice. If they obeyed the commandments, they would merit God's favor. The prophets would make the people conscious of the coming judgment. Then God would {C}justify{/} his people, that is, he would declare them to be just and protect them. After some centuries, as the people continued to sin, another process was initiated. The prophets recognized that God's people needed a conversion, and that only God could work this conversion [1K_18,37]. Please note that the word justification is not used in this case. 
After the Exile, we see in the Psalms the growing desire of sincere believers to do their best in order to follow the precepts of the Law, knowing that those who put them into practice will live through them [Lev_18,5]. Aware of their own weakness, they will not tire of asking God for a pure heart ready and willing to observe his Law. Yet when we read that God justifies, this always means that he recognizes the righteousness of someone and proclaims it.
Paul addresses believers of Jewish origin or converts to Judaism before becoming Christians, who feel and express themselves in this way. However, he asks them to make a radical reorientation of their understanding of religious words and attitudes. Until then, one's justification depended above all on the individual and his/her faithfulness in practicing the precepts of the Law. Justice was a combination of qualities of the heart and life of the believer. Believers considered justice primarily as the achievement of moral and legal perfection that deserved God's benevolence. One's relation with God was in good part juridical. The Law established a code of rights and obligations, and even when piety expected much from divine mercy, each one was made responsible for his own justification.
Now Paul discovers the universal value of the coming of Christ, meaning, as the Messiah. Through Christ, and thanks to faith, God transforms the human person. The Greek word that Paul uses means both "justice" and "the process of justification" (to become just or make oneself just or be recognized as just). Now, in the language of Paul the word {C}justification{/} signifies a re-creation of the person in the depths of his being. Christian faith opens the spirit and centers it in truth. If the word justi-fy confuses us, we should substitute other words of similar origin: recti-fy, re-habilitate, re-order, re-adjust, re-form, etc.
This adaptation of the word will be accompanied by an evolution of our understanding of the words, purchase or {C}redemption{/} (see the note on [Mt_20,28]). Likewise, since the new justice is an interior perfection and a work of God, it requires a new understanding of the relations between the words {C}holy {/}and {C}just.{/}
In the Old Testament, {C}holiness{/} is a characteristic proper to God, since it expresses his mystery. His holiness separates him from everything else and from all that humans can say about him. What is {C}holy {/}is opposed to what is profane. The Book of Daniel and the Psalms call those heavenly beings close to God (angels) the "holy ones" [Dn_4,10]; [Ps_89,6]. 
In the earthly domain, the word holy is applied to persons and things that are consecrated to God and who, therefore, obey different laws than profane persons do. For example, the priests, the Temple, and the objects of worship are holy. Similarly, when God tells his people: "Be holy because I am holy," it has a different meaning than what we understand today. This command associates the idea of justice with that of being a people "different from the rest" because they are consecrated to God. The Old Testament uses the words, just and pious, to express that a person is perfect in God's eyes and pleases him: it will not call this person holy.
From the moment that justification is understood as the transformation of a person, opening him/her to communion with God, it can become a synonym of the word holiness. In two different places we find the words {C}justification{/} and {C}holiness{/} associated and each time in a different order [1Cor_6,11]; [Rev_22,11]. This demonstrates that they are not two successive stages or two different actions of God, but rather that each complements the meaning of the other for those who were accustomed to the language of the Greek Septuagint. In the writings of Paul the word, holy, commonly has the meaning, "consecrated to God." That explains why he calls Christians, "the holy ones." Yet Paul also insists that those who are consecrated to God ought to live without fault and irreproachable, that is to say, as {C}saints{/}, and it is this word that we commonly use in our translations although it does not fit very well [1Cor_1,8]; [Col_1,22]. This Christian holiness is an imitation of divine perfection [Mt_5,45].

{N}2.43: THERE IS NO PROCLAMATION WITHOUT RISKS {/}[Gal_5,1]
{C}Then I would no longer be persecuted{/} (v. 11). The person who writes these letters is the same Paul whom the Jews persecuted from one city to another. And if he was being persecuted it was not by chance. It is probable that his strict character attracted many enemies, but this does not explain what is more important.
Let us remember that God had chosen him as an apostle of the greek-roman world, but it would have been impossible to evangelize that pagan world in so few years without having been supported in the countless jewish communities that had been formed centuries ago in all of the cities of the Empire. In the centuries before Jesus the immigrant Jews and their communities had prepared the way for the diffusion of the Word of God, establishing with their environment ties sometimes aggressive, but at the same time gaining friendships and winning adepts.
Paul then had to find, within these jewish communities, the first "Greeks" who later would win others. But, what would happen if the majority of the Jews, such as those in Palestine, refused to believe? He could then try to avoid confrontations, presenting Christians discreetly as a jewish sect that followed the person and the teachings of Jesus, and gaining the sympathy of some of the non-Jews without offending the Jews. Yet those, even a minority, had such strength within the Roman Empire that their hostility would attract the most serious dangers upon the Church and they would even be able to muzzle the christian apostolate. Would it not be more prudent to remain inside the synagogue?
But Paul prefers to run the risk. He urges the Jews to convert, to recognize Him in whom God's promises have been carried out, and if they refuse to believe, Paul will separate from them. This painful rupture will be the reason for the first persecutions against the Christians. Paul himself will be a victim of these persecutions. But precisely this decisive attitude and firm and clear affirmation of Jesus Lord and Savior, will give the first christian communities their apostolic dynamism.
It is true that this intrepid preaching includes a certain form of violence which now is easier for us to be aware of, but not for this should we ignore or scorn the path that Paul chose, which was the same one as Jesus himself.

{N}2.44:{/} {N}THE MYSTERY OF THE SON{/} [Phil_2,6]
This text of Paul is one of the most important of the New Testament. It is known that from the very beginning of the preaching of the apostles, the great challenge of faith has been to situate Christ in relationship to the only God, his Father. The starting point of any effort to define the faith was the certainty that Jesus was "the Son:" this was his "name" in the biblical sense of the word [Heb_1,4] - [Heb_1,5], that is, the name that best expressed the essence of his being and his mission. The Resurrection had confirmed it and when the apostles reflected on the past, they remembered many words and insinuations of Jesus, as well as some of his gestures that confirmed this evidence: having come after many servants and prophets, he had acted with the authority and the freedom of the Son [Mt_11,26]. Peter's first speeches assert the glorification and the lifting up of Jesus-Messiah to a divine rank [Acts_2,33] and for some time they were contented with these expressions. But now, in the letter to the Philippians, Paul is going to spell out the trajectory of the Son of God who came down to us.
It is clear that in these lines Paul attributes to Jesus the prophecy of the Servant that we read in [Is_52,13] - [Is_53,12]: the Servant of Yahweh, going through humiliation, will attain his glorification. His sufferings will allow him to become the Redeemer. But in this place, Paul emphasizes the free decision of Christ who renounced everything thus becoming as nothing; in this way he gives the text a new meaning.
{C}Being divine in nature{/}. The text says precisely: "being in the form of God". But in Greek, the formmeans the way of being, what caracterizes the being of someone. Likewise we read in verse 7: he took on the form of servant.
{C}Taking on the nature of a servant.{/} The first meaning of the Greek word is "slave." But this was never Jesus' nature. Accepting that the punishment of the cross was reserved to the slaves, the text distinguishes this humble condition from the ensuing acceptance of the cross. The Greek term then, should be understood in the sense of servant it usually has in the Bible: Moses, servant of God; Paul, servant of Jesus Christ... Although Paul wanted to express very forcefully the self-abasement of Christ, he had, on the other hand, before his eyes the prophecy of the Servant. Christ {C}emptied himself {/}relinquishing the nature proper to God and taking on a fully human nature, that of the Servant redeemer.
We have here a very deep intuition of the mystery of Jesus, Son of God. His identity, or his personality is all encompassed in this self-{C}abasing{/} followed by an exaltation that leaves Paul astonished. We have to acknowledge that, too often, we are content with words when speaking about the mystery of the Trinity, and unconsciously we keep the image of three persons quite similar to one another, and inserted in one common nature. And without saying so, we imagine God as established in an unmovable and immutable eternity, as the philosopher Aristotle conceived him. We forget that God is {C}the Father{/}, the Father from whom all comes.
The Son shares all that God the Father is; the Son is the image of God the Father, but is God in a very different way. It would not be appropriate to press too much the word "image" that we read in [Col_1,15], because it is part of a series of terms that in different ways translate the relation of the Son to the Father. He is the Word [Jn_1,1], the Radiance [Heb_1,3], the Wisdom... The Son is neither a reproduction, nor a rival of the Father. If the Father projects the Son in eternity, this is so because the dynamics of love is inscribed in the innermost part of the God-Love. The total generosity and the self-communication which is proper of the Father, causes this other face of love, which consists in being detached from oneself, emerge in front of him; and this losing himself in order to be retaken in the divine unity is proper of the Son.
So then, when Paul says that Christ emptied himself, this self-abasing is previous to the humiliations that Jesus experienced in his human nature. In saying that Christ did not claim equality with God, Paul does not refer to some privileges or some wellbeing that Jesus could have reserved for himself in the midst of humankind, because it is in God himself that the Son {C}emptied himself{/}.
Now then, the movement by which the Father projects his Word in eternity, continues with the creation of the universe: it is in this created universe that the Son attains the end of his self-abasement. In eternity he empties himself in order to enjoy again the riches of the Father and, if we are allowed this expression, he gives the divine life its rhythm and, as it were, its breath. But on entering the universe, he fixes there the moment which marks the unfolding of time, before and after his Incarnation. In that precise moment he is born in a little corner of our world, in order to undertake there the experience of our limitations, beginning with the experience of time that brings all created beings to death.
The Bible asserts that the Son has come {C}to seek and to save the lost{/} [Lk_19,10], and that God has sent his own Son to {C}destroy sin{/} [Rom_8,3]. In this situation, if the purpose of his Incarnation is to make up for an original failure, it is necessary to confront these truths with what has just been said. How is it possible that this self-abasement of the Son be an eternal characteristic of his person and, at the same time, that the purpose of his coming and his Passion be to repair an original fall that happened after the creation? Any answer and discussion in this matter is futile, since we can understand neither eternity nor the mutual relations between eternity and time: for God there is no before or after. The Bible enjoins a vision of history where creation, sin and redemption follow each other but all of it is but one only reality in God's world.
It is therefore in the divine mystery itself that we encounter the model that Jesus would propose to his disciples (theologians like to respect the Greek word "kenosis" which means simply "to become nothing"). And it is known that, according to [Mk_8,38], and even more in [Lk8,23] and [Jn_12,24], Jesus speaks of this losing himself, not as a duty he would impose on his disciples, but rather something indispensable for all.
Therefore, Christ's Resurrection, which the Church places at the very center of its liturgy, is not merely a glorification of Jesus that we celebrate, at times, without deep conviction. Neither is it a posthumous honor prepared for him by God, an immortality of a higher category than that to which we aspire. It is not just the return to life of a certain Jesus through whom the Son would have made himself present on earth while remaining up there. It is truly the return of the Son to the Father. The Son who "for a little while was placed lower than the angels" [Heb_2,9] finds again the Name and the Glory (John expressly says so in [Jn_17,5]. At this point Christ is true God and true man. He is the man in God, or the glorified man. {C}Jesuschrist is Lord{/}, and he brings back with himself the whole of creation [Col_1,20].
The mysterious person of the Son, then, has two faces. In our world and in time, only the course of Jesus, of which Mary and the apostles were witnesses, can be seen. This manifestation followed other comings of the Wisdom to our world ([Wis_9,10]; [Sir_24,8]; [Jn_1,5] and [Jn_8,1] - [Jn_10,1]) and brought them to an end. And on the other hand, in eternity, the Son is born of the Father, but only to empty and lose himself and be taken up again. Then the mutual joy that the divine persons have in each other reaches its consummation. But Paul does not bring us to this point and it is in John's Gospel that we are somewhat enlightened in this respect [Jn_14,17].
We must acknowledge the poverty of our language, which will always be inadequate to comprehend the mystery of God. For centuries, Christians have torn one another in the name of those different expressions about faith, instead of humbly accepting that there may be others that are more sensitive than ourselves to certain aspects of the mystery. There is not just one way to express our faith, otherwise the Church would not have received the Gospels of Mark and of John at the same time.

{N}2.45: CHRIST, THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE UNIVERSE{/} [Col_1,15]
It is not difficult to see that the passage [Col_1,15] - [Col_1,20] is a hymn. It is something like a parenthesis in the text, because without it, one could go normally from verse 14 to verse 21. Yet is not possible to say that it was inserted later in Paul's letter since it serves likewise as the conclusion to the prayer that precedes it and it connects very naturally to what follows.
This exceptional presentation of the place that Christ occupies in God's plan deserves to be dwelled upon. The whole plan of God the Creator is centered upon the Son. He was already present in God as the image of the Father; after his resurrection he becomes the head of that special people of God that is the Church, but at the same time he is the center around which our history revolves. Through him the universe will reach its unity. 
It is known that ever since the resurrection the first christian community believed in Christ as the Messiah and savior of Israel. Besides, from this same moment, it was also believed that he was of divine origin. It is always difficult to exactly state thoughts when words do not exist for this, so for this reason the first Christians and especially the apostles, who were the official witnesses of Jesus, wanted to state exactly in what sense they called him and believed in him as the Son of God.
This word remained imprecise and did not say openly what was in the heart of the christian community: the presence of Jesus through his spirit, the mystery that was half seen in his resurrection and glorification, the central place he now held in the faith to the Unique God. It was clear to all that there is but one God and that Jesus was a human: how could be expressed what was believed and lived?
The spirit, without any doubt, suggested the words. 
During the days preceding Pentecost, besides praying, the community argued and reflected on their faith [Act_1,14]. The testimony of Mary about the conception of Jesus must have had more value: that's why Luke mentions it extensively in his first two chapters that proceed from an old document from the churches of Palestine. The testimony of the three witnesses to the Transfiguration was also very important. But it was during the whole generation that saw the preparation of the gospels when the prophets of the primitive Church (among whom Paul should be recognized) made progress in the christian vocabulary; they defined the meaning that the divine rank attributed to Jesus had.
The first step was when Jesus was given the title of {C}Lord{/} (see the comment on [Jn_20,11]); the apostles simply applied to him many of the texts throughout the Scriptures where the Lord is none other than Yahweh-God ([Mt_21,16]; [2Cor_3,16]). In this way they proclaimed without any doubt his divine rank. The greetings from Paul in his letters always mention side by side the Father and Jesus as the authors of one grace: the Father is God and Jesus is the Lord ([1Cor_1,3]; [2Cor_1,2]): "Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ". However the situation and the personality of the Son facing the Father was still not defined exactly.
In this respect we have here a very rich text. The whole background of Paul is biblical. In the book of Proverbs, in the most recent part, which should go back to the second or third century before Christ, there is a poem about Wisdom [Wis_8,22] where it is presented as a person. Wisdom designates God's active plan about his creation, before the universe, origin of all that exists of order, beauty, and harmony in the world. She comes down to humans, because this is where she fells at her right place, and settles in Israel to inspire their wise men. In the book of Sirach [Sir_24,1] - [Sir_24,29] once again a poem about Wisdom is found in which it is once again personified. But the meaning is slightly changed: Wisdom designates the spirit of the Law this time. It came down from heaven where it celebrated divine worship in its heavenly temple and laid its roots in Jerusalem: it is found as if incarnate in the Book of the Law.
These texts could be compared. Yet if it is true that the hymn in this passage to the Colossians owes its structure to them, it is a fact that this text frees itself of them and is much more audacious: Christ has a rank, a reality, a lordship over the world that was missing in the texts about Wisdom.
{N}15{/} {C}He is the image of the unseen God{/} - Where did Paul find the word {C}image{/} that is not used in the texts on Wisdom? Probably he thought of [Gen_1,27] and applied to the Son of Man what is said in this place referring to man. In the same way [Heb_2,6] does, interpreting [Ps_8,1]. Hardly in any places in the Bible is the word {C}image{/} associated with God, because the images of God were totally excluded. However there is [Num_12,8] where Moses contemplates "the image of God", [Ps_17,15] and [Ezk_1,28]. Even [Dt_4,12] which affirms: "You saw no form, only heard his voice", may have spurred him to state, by contrast, that Son made human is the image of the invisible Father.
{C}For all creation he is the firstborn{/}. Here we say {C}for all{/} ... instead of putting{C}: he is the{/} {C}firstborn of all{/} creatures, because in the Bible the firstborn occupies a special place, it is not only the first child. Christ is not created, and Paul refuse to say such a thing although [Pro_8,22] says that Wisdom is "created". And the same was said in [Sir_24,8] and [Sir_24,9] even when this Wisdom came from God's mouth. Christ is the image from which everything has been created. One cannot make him a super creature prior to all creation (as the Jehovah Witnesses claim) because before the creation there is nothing but God, and what can there be in God that is not eternal and one with him? If he was then the Son [Heb_1,2] and [Heb_1,4] it is because he was not a creature.
{N}16{/} A{C}ll was made for him. {/}Another new element. The one who served Wisdom obtained the favors from Yahweh [Pro_8,35], but here everything is returned to Christ. As it is said already in [1Cor_15,24], he will only hand over the Kingdom once the whole Universe has been made subject to him.
{N}17{/} {C}All things hold together in him{/}. Here we have the principle of the unity of the universe; let us remember that for the Greeks, {C}the all{/}, is also the universe.
{N}19-20{/} {C}Through him God willed to reconcile all things to himself{/} after the blood of his cross has reestablished peace. The redemption is not only reparation for the sins we have committed but is an event of cosmic order. Here we find a point that escapes our notice, because the idea that we have of the universe is what science gives us from what we see, and what we see and measure is a material and physical order: speeds, distances, light years ... But we do not know how a spirit sees this whole, because for him distances do not exist: and what is the reality of the universe in the eyes of God? All the interpretations are then possible and Paul tells us that the deeds performed by the Son, who died in Palestine two thousand years ago, restore the order of the universe.

{N}2.46:{/} {N}THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON{/} [Ap_12,1]
This vision of the woman takes up again the sun, the moon and the stars of Joseph's dream  in [Gen_37,9], but the role of the sun and the moon makes us think immediately of the woman in the [Song_6,10]. In Genesis it was Joseph in the midst of his brothers; in the Song it was Israel in the midst of the nations (see the preceding lines of the Song in [Song_6,8] - [Song_6,9]. Here it seems that the woman is the center of creation. The chapter is presented as a continuation of [Gen_3,15] but without forgetting the Emmanuel or his mother in [Is_7,14] (and [Mic_5,2].
This chapter is one of those that seem to imply the mixture of different pieces, hence the many solutions that have been imagined to reorganize it and to find the original elements; however the multiplicity of these essays demonstrates that none of them is convincing. This chapter, like the first chapter of Ephesians, is divided into two periods: first what happens in the eternal plan of God, then its realization on earth; this is much in keeping with the vision of history that is found in the apocalypses. 
1-2:  the woman and the Incarnation in the center of God's plan for the universe.
3-4a: the presentation of the dragon, a mighty angel. It is said that he will provoke the rebellion in the celestial realm, but this rebellion does not take immediately.
4b-6: the dragon decided to devour the child of the woman, and God intervened: the child will become ruler of the nations, even though the woman will have to live in the desert (as the mother of the Emmanuel).
7-9:  division of the world of spirits and expulsion of the evil ones.
10-12: the chorus (in the sense of the old tragedy) praises God's decisions.
13-18: transition to the consequences of this crisis in time and in history. This refers to the Church after the Resurrection. But it is difficult to interpret the river poured out of the dragon's mouth behind the woman. In 17-18 there is a return to the persecution against the Christians of the Empire, whom John is addressing.
If we wanted now to determine exactly the sense of the vision, we would have to relocate it in the book. In this regard see the note to [Rev_8,1]. The vision of the two witnesses in ch. 11 is the evangelization and the call to conversion throughout history. Now the vision of the Woman and the Dragon presents the protagonists of the struggle that will appear in the following chapters. The Woman is humankind spoused to God. Let us not say that it is the Church, because she was there before Christ and she it is who gave him birth, but in each period it is identified with the redeemed. Before Christ, she was the spouse of the Son, anxiously awaiting the visit of her King. Later on, she becomes one thing with her children who now are the children of the Gospel, witnesses and prophets of Jesus; because in the Hebrew culture {C}the children of... {/}be it of Adam, of Belial or of the prophets designate a community that constitutes one entity with the legendary father to whom they are bound.
Here John kept his own language, but there is a new element: the mother of Jesus is a concrete person, and suddenly the Woman comes out of the world of symbols and becomes a reality in Mary.
If John recognizes Mary in the Woman, both in Cana and in Calvary, it is also very legitimate to keep here that identification. In contrast it would be an error to think that the {C}impressive sign{/} could be a means to designate in an exclusive way this person or that community that John had in mind: the prophecy gives a signal that embraces the totality of time, and later on John applies it, or we apply it, with greater or lesser success, to the events and to the persons located in the corresponding line. The figure of the Woman in the center of the Revelation is extremely important. In fact, even though the Bible is almost completely dominated by the viewpoint of males and tinted by experiences lived exclusively by males, one of the dominant traits of Christian revelation, and what gives faith its own identity, is to conceive the entire relationship of humankind with God as the preparation of a grand wedding. The Song and the sign of the Woman express what is in the center of all prophetic revelation. In the same way it is true that in defending the predestination of Mary, her perpetual virginity and her presence in the entire work of salvation, the Church reaffirms one of the essential traits of the God of the Bible: not to recognize the privileges of Mary is not to worship onlGod, rather it is adulterating the face God wanted to give to himself.
But it is also a fact that in our century Marian piety has invaded many domains where it was formerly absent. In past centuries, faith itself and the vision itself of God and of Christ-Spouse were based on convictions and on a piety that were different. Many God's lovers have seen themselves again in the Spouse of the Song, seeing totally in her above all the figure of the Church: they saw themselves as an important part of the mystery and of God's predestination. The identification of Mary with the Woman should not be now one more way to underestimate our own calling and the unique love in which we have been known by the Father. Jesus invited his apostles to believe that they were in the center of the plan of God, rather than to envy the greatest saints of the past and live through intermediaries.

{N}2.47:{/} {N}PROPHECIES{/} [Rev_20,7]
We see here a sudden change of speed of the prophetic vision. John spoke extensively about the Roman idolatry and about the persecutions of the totalitarian power; then, in chapter 20 we enter into the times that follow and John apparently sees in them only the joy of the recovered peace. The totalitarian beast and the false Christ -institutions more than persons- have been sent to the eternal fire and the agents of Satan have been purely and simply eliminated [Rev_19,21]. Only after those thousand years of peace summarized in a few lines, the devil starts working anew; in two paragraphs the great revolt (Paul will speak of the apostasy in [2Thes_2,3] is dominated and the story ends with the devil being sent again to hell.
We find here what was already noted in the prophets of the Old Testament: the prophecy sees in the events of the moment an anticipated presence of the Judgment, overlooks everything positive that is in them and tries to show only whatever in them demands an intervention of God. Therefore all the time that will elapse between the condemned present system and the end of history is only a great deceit: the prophet was not there to describe beforehand the development of history.
There is a continuity between the prophecy of the Old Testament and the Christian prophecy. Although revelation definitively ends with the book of Revelation, the prophetic charism however is not extinguished. Nowadays many persons turn towards heavenly messages, which become all the more numerous, the more the world becomes bigger and the present revolutions destroy our certainties. Whatever the part of credulity and illusion may be in the heavenly messages that flourish almost everywhere, it would be very unfair to underestimate all those warnings; frequently they emanate from prophets whose charism it would be difficult to reject. Most of the time they only repeat with intensity, by means of images that strike our imagination and bring us to conviction, the calls of the Gospel to conversion and the imminence of the judgment of God on the idolatrous systems that imprison us. Even if their message should convey only what we find in Scripture, read with faith, those prophecies are not useless, because they touch those persons whom the Church or the circumstances have not allowed to enter into the Bible.
It is not then a matter of ignoring the Christian prophecy of our time from the ceremonial chair of our theological science, often too rationalist; the Spirit and the spirits are as necessary as the prelates in the life of the Church, even if they touch the monopoly of authority. But of course the biblical criteria must be applied to them. We should listen to the warnings, pay attention to the nearer signs that are given us; but on the other hand, everything in those messages that may pretend give us informations regarding what will happen in the future, should be attributed to the imagination and to the human limitations of the prophet and not to the Spirit of God.

{N}2.48:{/} {N}THE SALVATION OF NON-CHRISTIANS{/} [Rev_22,3]
Is it not true that the New Testament, the final word, should tell us how those who have not known the Only Savior will be saved? But it does not do so, and the Revelation that closes the book speaks only of the struggle waged by the powers of evil, scattered through all the spheres of society, against the newly born Church. Never does it mention the innumerable non-Christians who have been neither witnesses of the word nor instruments of evil.
And the same happens in the letters of Paul: the non-Christians are {C}the outsiders{/}; they are a {C}world{/} in which the evil spirit acts without hindrance. Even the text in [1Tim_2,4] ({C}God wants all to be saved...{/}) ignores our question, because it only refers to the divine will to make the message of salvation reach all people.
To ignore to such extent those who constitute the greatest majority could make of Christianism a sectarian message: we already said something about that "outside of the Church there is no salvation" when speaking of [Mk_16,16]. However we should not be surprised: the books of the New Testament were addressed to small communities whose universe was limited to the Greco-Roman world and whose problems did not go beyond their city. There was the struggle for those Christians, frequently not accepted or persecuted: it was necessary to tell them that the salvation of the world depended on their faithfulness.
Nothing however in the Gospel justifies a discrimination towards those who did not receive the biblical revelation: we can see how Jesus acted toward the non-Jewish in [Mk_7,24] - [Mk_8,10]. In the same way the parable of the final Judgment [Mt_25,31] does not make any distinction between believers and non believers. This is enough to make us rethink the problem of the salvation of those who have not received the faith. Moreover the question now is not to know whether God has a spirit generous enough to be interested in "the outsiders", but rather to understand how He laid out human history in such a way that all will be saved by the only Savior, although only a minority may know the Son made man. Why such diverse callings: to know or not to know the great divine manifestation? If we believe that God acts with a boundless generosity and without distinction of persons, how can we see in this a work worthy of Him?
Many Christians today would like to think that only language and culture separate us from those who do not share our faith, that the religious diversity is a product of our limitations and that truth must be found beyond the different creeds. They are open to the eastern spiritualities or immersed in our liberal culture; there is a great temptation to deny the differences and to refer everything to the field of comparative religions. Christian revelation is opposed to this type of concessions: even though we may accept that there are other revelations of God and that other religions are based on prophets different from ours, whom we must respect, the fact remains that the Son is unique just as God is one. 
However, without rejecting the uniqueness of the Christian salvation, we can amplify our traditional vision: it should be enough to present not an affront but a challenge of the non Christian wisdoms towards that of the people of God. For centuries there has been an effort to be reassured by belittling those other wisdoms and religions: they are but human babbling, preachers said, where God gives us the fullness of light. But why not recognize that there are two ways equally loved by God, although the Spirit of Evil has sown there all sorts of confusion and mirages?
We cannot doubt of our privileged vocation, but neither can we conclude that God measures the gifts He grants to others and saves them reluctantly. God saves some by revealing himself to them and others by letting them seek Him [Heb_17,27]; what seems to be here a contradiction is in fact an absolute demand of the holiness of God. Because God cannot reveal himself without at the same time remaining hidden; He cannot promise and commit some part without sinking immediately into mystery or, if we prefer so, without submerging us into our condition of creatures.
To speak of the Holy God is to confess that we have a sharp conscience not so much of what He is but of his ever unforeseeable action. The events we live, with their share of tragedies and scandals, appear to us then as a divine game: we see that they take place in a background of reality where there is nothing but the mystery of divine freedom. {C}Our God is a devouring fire,{/} and we are unable to do anything in front of the initiatives and the exuberance of his unattainable riches, often terrible, that can crush us with all our wisdom.
The Holy God has willed the most inconceivable thing for the human reason; to make that created beings return to Him in his eternity. By doing this He assumed amazing risks: What can, and what should they know of God? What experiences should they have in the course of their existence, so limited in time? What must they guess about the superior Being from whom they come so that their present life may be a prelude of eternity? What traumatisms are needed to prepare them for such metamorphosis? 
The Apostle James holds that in God there is no darkness but everything in Him is light. But that light is not ours, and it blinds us. What believer, on coming out of prayer, does not find himself suddenly disturbed by an unforeseen misfortune? How could God permit that...? Let us go further: there never was a friend of God, to whom He revealed himself beyond the common norms, who did not have to go through periods of interior trial, terrible at times, when it seemed that everything he had experienced was nothing but a dream. For God cannot reveal himself without his truth's being betrayed by our words. 
That mystery of a light that is given and denied is at the very bottom of the work of salvation. The tensions that in God himself are knotted and end up in unity are the ultimate reason of the contradictions that are inscribed in the plan of salvation with its diverse ways: the majority of humans will undertake the search for God on their own, even though God may keep for himself to intervene discretely; but others are chosen to be his people and to receive his own testimony. They will live other experiences and will be the witnesses of a divine wisdom, ignored by those who have not been called. And this is the way the holy God saves human history, using his left as well as his right hand, his bright as well as his dark face.
God foresaw that the majority of humans would not know their Savior during their earthly life, because this is good and necessary. But let us not say that because of that they are less loved: God loves every man and every woman with a total love that will be able to transform them in all their dimensions when the time will come. And when that time comes, no one will complain of having made their way without the weight and the riches of the revelation, because the weaknesses that were our lot on earth will appear as the instruments of the particular love God has for us since eternity. And from among those innumerable sons and daughters of God who are not his people on earth, He knows how to choose good friends for himself.
But God wanted to manifest himself to a people whom He made his own, because that too is good and necessary. The call to Abraham first, the call to believe in Christ later on, brought to birth a people that was not superior to others, but different. That people was really privileged because God gave himself to it. We not only know Him; we can also practice, beginning now, what will become the life of all in eternity, the relationship of mutual love in tenderness and in fidelity. And that people performs an essential function in the history of humankind, even though it has written many not so glittering pages. Among those who experienced the riches of the love of Christ, who will hesitate to say that he/she received the best part? Would we have to say therefore that that undeserved privilege gives us a superiority over those who were not called? St. Paul gave the answer to that question in his letter to the Romans, ch. 3.
It is now time to look more closely to the counterpart of God's gift. If the revelation of the Bible could offer us full security and make us examples of virtue, we could speak of inequality. But it is the Holy God who has brought us over to himself, and we are going to be  burned in the fire of his holiness. Who will bear the weight of the first commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength?" And who will act better than those apostles whom Jesus constantly reproached for their lack of faith? The biblical history is that of a long list of rebellions and incomprehensions that still continue in the history of the Church. Jesus made it clear that the saved, in the sense that He gives to this term, are very few. The chosen people is, more than any other, a people of sinners, and here the balance is restored [Mal_1,11] - [Mal_1,12].
Though a sinner, the believer would like to share with all the riches of his faith [2Cor_5,14]. But there is a limit that we cannot overcome: God did not consult with us to offer each one our own destiny and frequently we will suffer seeing that God keeps those we love in ways where Christ is absent [Rom_9,3].
We will never finish making the synthesis of the Christian way and of the other ways, even though there maybe some on the other side who think they did, because the words {C}choice {/}and {C}grace {/}are at the base of the revelation. Not to speak of the choice, would be to deny the whole of biblical history. And that choice is confirmed by the word {C}grace{/} that only the Christian faith puts at the center of our relationship with God. But for what purpose should  we want to build at all cost a synthesis or accomplish the unity before the day of God comes? What counts is not what we have been able to raise here below. We should rather ask ourselves whether the two ways, both the way where God reveals himself and that other where we have to grope our way, are not equally necessary so that the riches of the love of God may finally be fully recognized: see the note in [Rom_15,8].

{N}2.49: VISIONS AND ANGELS{/} [Gen_16,1]
What are we to think of these appearances of angels? Did they really happen or are these passages merely a way of speaking? Let us clarify the following: 
- We must not confuse {C}angels{/} and the {C}Angel of Yahweh. {/}Only in the last books of the Old Testament (and naturally in the New Testament) are {C}angels {/}mentioned with the meaning that we give them: spiritual creatures who have their place in the ordering of the world and in the salvation of humans as for example in [Zec_1,1] and [Zec_2,1] and also in [Dn_9,21] and [Dn_10,21]. Ancient Israelites did, however, sometimes speak of the Angel of Yahweh or a Messenger of Yahweh to express things which they could not explain but which indicated an intervention by God. 
When an epidemic providentially destroyed the Assyrian army, it was attributed to {C}the Angel of Yahweh:{/} see Isaiah [Is_37,36] and also [2S_24,16]. Since they knew that no one could see God, when someone had a vision, they spoke of the Angel of Yahweh: see [Jdg_6,11].
- The whole Bible shows that God reveals himself in many different ways to those who seek him. He speaks through events; he enlightens the hearts of those who read his Word; he speaks through our intuition and our dreams; he speaks through visions or words, and sometimes, as in the case of the prophets, in a more direct manner, in an intimate and spiritual way.
- We cannot, however, take literally all that is said about visions or words received from God because ancient people did not express themselves the way we do. When a person was reflecting or was tempted by evil, they sometimes expressed this inner meditation as a dialogue with different characters and would say that the devil or God dialogued with this person: see [Jos_7,10] and [1K_3,4].
- It is quite possible that God did not act with ancient biblical people in the same way that he acts in our days. Now, after the coming of Christ, we have everything in him and in his church and we have no need of visions and appearances. God usually reserves them for those he leads on a special path. However, in the first centuries of biblical times, God revealed himself much more through those more visible but inferior ways.

{N}2.50{/}: {N}RELIGION AND FAITH{/} [Dt_4,1]
These two terms constantly appear when we speak of our relationship with God. We must know, however, what we mean by "religion" and what we say when we speak of faith.
People of ancient nations were "religious" just as many are today: they believe that the world they inhabit is the work of a Creator-God. That is why we find in all the religions of antiquity, as in the first pages of the Bible, accounts of creation, which explain the origin of the world and of humankind. Since the Creator is the author of creation, only he can give the rules for its functioning: all the religions have naturally included in their accounts, prescriptions of morality. The God of religion (or gods, since polytheism is widespread) is served by a clergy which, in the name of the people, thanks him for the good things he has given to humans and begs him to renew these benefits during the coming year. Thus the religious feasts consist, first and above all, of thanksgiving and first fruits, as we see in the ritual texts of the Old Testament. Religion is by nature conservative, since it assures good order in the world; it is without "hope": we have nothing fresh to hope for, but only to expect that tomorrow like today, will give us what we need in this world.
On opening the Bible, in making our "profession of faith" we recognize that we, too, are a religious people; do we not say: "I believe in the all-powerful God, Creator of heaven and earth?" But this religion we profess has been totally transfigured by faith: God, the Creator has revealed himself to the people of Israel, chosen from all eternity to be his "witness among the nations." Throughout the centuries God has revealed himself in the history of Israel: he leads his people as a father guides his child [Dt_1,31], towards a plenitude that a human being can neither conceive nor imagine [Eph_1,15] - [Eph_1,23]; [Eph_3,14] - [Eph_3,21]; [Col_1,9] - [Col_1,14]; [Col_1,25] - [Col_1,27].
God has made himself known as he is; he draws us towards a communion of eternal love with him [Jn_17,21]. That is why hope, at least as defined by Paul [Rom_8,24] - [Rom_8,25], is at the very heart of our faith; and if our thanksgiving rises continually towards God for the good things received from him, it rises still more, infinitely more, towards this Father who has prepared us to receive our share in the inheritance of the saints in his kingdom of light, towards him "who has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of this beloved Son" [Col_1,12] - [Col_1,13]. 

{N}2.51: GOD IS THE SAVIOUR OF ALL{/} [Jon_4,1]
Jonah refuses to obey the call from Yahweh: perhaps because he does not feel responsible for the salvation of the hated Ninevites. He is asleep while the sailors, good pagans, are trying to save the boat. (Though this is not a religious work, it does interest the pious Jonah too.) Jonah delights in thinking about the punishment that God is going to inflict on the pagans of Nineveh. He complains of God's mercy toward the Ninevites, because his own reputation will suffer from this.
God guides the world according to a broad and generous vision. Because he created everyone, he feels responsible for everyone and wants to save {C}humans and cattle {/}[Jn_4,11] regardless of their race or religion. The story of Jonah soon became popular, and Jesus would mention it:
- The Ninevites' conversion [Lk_11,30].
- The comparison with the three days that Jonah spent in the fish's belly [Mt_12,40].

{N}2.52:{/} {N}THE HELL{/} [Mt_10,17]
{C}Beware of the people{/}. This point will be developed in [Jn_15,18].
{C}They will flog you in the synagogues{/}. In the roman world the various ethnic groups had a certain internal organization. The Jews had their synagogues there and they could punish certain crimes according to their own laws [Act_9,2].

{N}2.53:{/} {N}THE WISDOM OF JESUS{/}[Mc_6,1]
{C}Who is He but the carpenter{/}. This is the only place where Jesus is called {C}son of Mary{/}. For Jews to say this, is very strange, perhaps even an insult. Normally, they would call him, son of Joseph. In fact, ancient manuscripts read: "the son of the carpenter", as in [Mt_13,55] and this text is confirmed by Origen saying that nowhere in the Gospel is Jesus called: "the carpenter". Other manuscripts read: the son of the carpenter and of Mary. The actual text must have been modified out of respect for Mary.

{N}2.54: CLEAN AND UNCLEAN{/} [Mc_7,14]
An important practice of Judaism was to keep oneself clean: one could not participate in worship without being in a state of ritual purity. This word "purity" did not have the same meaning we give it today. The clean person was one who was not contaminated even inadvertently by things prohibited by Law. For example, pork and rabbit were considered unclean; they could not be eaten. A menstruating woman or a person with hemorrhoids were considered unclean for a certain number of days: no one could even touch them. A leper was considered unclean until cured. If a bug fell in oil, the oil was considered unclean, and would have to be thrown away. 
If contaminated even by no fault of his own, the person had to purify himself, usually with water, sometimes paying for sacrifices.
At one time, these laws were useful in encouraging a hygienic lifestyle. They also protected the faith of the Jews who lived among people who did not know God. How could they guard their faith in the one God if they were to live with other nations, befriend them, and even imitate their ways? With so many religious practices to observe, the Jews had to live apart from those who did not share their faith and lifestyle.
Jesus removes off from these rites their sacred value: nothing is unclean in all God's creation; touching the sick, a corpse or a bloodstained object does not offend God. God is not bothered if we eat this or that. Sin is always something which comes from the heart and not something we do unintentionally.
It is true that the Bible teaches these concepts of purity and impurity, but these laws were written many centuries ago and not everything the Bible says is valid for all times. Through the teachings of the Bible God educated his nation, but the laws he gave them from the beginning, when they were barbaric and uneducated, are no longer necessary for a community which has a solid religious foundation. 
It is quite legitimate for Christians to adopt a vegetarian way of life, that Christian communities consider abstinence from alcohol and tobacco as a witness to help addicts. But let us not say that this is part of our faith nor let us judge those who do not agree with us. That would otherwise undermine the transcendence of Christian salvation which goes beyond any question of "eating and drinking" [Rom_14,17].

{N}2.55: {C}THE NAME OF JESUS{/} [Mk_16,15]
On the day of his resurrection, Jesus' human nature begins to participate fully in divine Glory (Rom_1:1). Jesus now asks us to believe in his {C}Name, {/}that is, in the divine power he has just received and that works through him.
{C}The Name{/} is a word that has little or no meaning for us. For the Jews it meant the active presence of God. This term allowed them to speak of God's mysterious presence in the world without disregarding his greatness. The Bible does not say that God walked with the Hebrews toward the promised land (for God does not walk); instead it says that his Name or his Face [Ex_33,14] was among them. God's presence could not be confined within his temple, but the Bible says that his Name dwelt in this temple, from whence he blessed all the activities of his people [1K_8,27].
The Name, thus, means divine presence or power. Paul says that the resurrected Jesus has received this Name that outshines any other [Phil_2,9]. God the Father has given it to him and Jesus, who has received it, is not less than him, since whatever belongs to his Father is now his as well. Jesus does not receive glory as one receives a title or an honor (as already proclaimed in [Is_9,5]), for divine glory can be granted only to God. If he receives a divine title, it is because he actually received divinity from the Father in the beginning - divinity is his very being.
Thus, Jesus is as much God as the Father, but he is so in a different way, by receiving everything from God who possesses all. That is why it is written that {C}his Name is the Son{/} [Heb_1,4]. When we speak to the Father {C}in the Name of Jesus,{/} this means much more than bolstering ourselves with his merits [Heb_5,9] or making use of his valuable intercession [Heb_7,25]. We present ourselves as sons and daughters, knowing that God embraces us with the same paternal love he has for his own Beloved One [Eph_1,6].
From then on our Lord Jesus Christ, with divine power, begins little by little to direct human history and the personal path of each one of us to himself. The apostles were sent into the world to heal and sanctify it. The miracles and healings are not ends in themselves; they are only signs and means. The goal of evangelization is that all creation may be gathered around the person of the Son-of-God-become-human, through the power of his Spirit. "Do not fear," the Lord says, "my Church is not a shelter against the world, its temptations and problems; rather each of you is baptized to be an apostle."
{C}Signs like these will accompany those who have believed.{/} The Acts of the Apostles reports these signs and miracles. Even today they can be seen wherever Christians fulfill their mission of evangelizing the world.

{N}2.56: GOD'S PUNISHMENT {/}[Lk_13,1]
In this passage Jesus questions the idea we have of God's punishment. We cannot believe in God without believing in justice. For the Greeks whose gods were capricious and not very honest, justice was a divine power superior to the gods. We always tend to make ourselves the center of the world and believe we are better than others. If misfortune falls on someone else, we think it is just, but when it is our turn, we ask: "What have I done against God that this should happen to me?"
The Gospel deals with several aspects of the question. First of all let us try to be free of a ghetto mentality (see [Lc_6,32]): the evil done by our enemies is not worse than the evil we do.
The justice of God goes far beyond our justice, and is only really fulfilled in the next life (the case of Lazarus, 16:19).
The misfortune which to us here below appears as the "punishment of God" is no more than a sign, a pedagogical measure used by God to make us aware of our sin. And God often converts a sinner by granting him an unhoped for favor (see the case of [Zec_19,1]).
Then why is there so much about God's punishment in the Old Testament? God's people did not know yet an afterlife, so it was necessary to speak of God's punishments in this life, for these people to believe in his justice. In fact God continues to give such signs both for persons and for communities. It is good to know how to recognize them, keeping in mind they are not the last word of God's justice.

