Resurrection. Unamuno, Life 4.2
What
is the resurrection? Not a natural or normal event, says Unamuno. Or at least, the early Christians did not see it thus.
Hase
afirmado del cristianismo primitivo, acaso con precipitación, que
fué anescatológico, que en él no aparece claramente la fe en otra
vida después de la muerte, sino en un próximo fin del mundo y
establecimiento del reino de Dios, en el llamado quiliasmo.
¿Y es que no eran en el fondo una misma cosa? La fe en la
inmortalidad del alma, cuya condición tal vez no se precisaba mucho,
cabe decir que es una especie de subentendido,
de supuesto tácito, en el Evangelio todo, y es la situación del
espíritu de muchos de los que hoy le leen, situación opuesta a la
de los cristianos de entre quienes brotó el Evangelio, lo que les
impide verlo. Sin duda, que todo aquello de la segunda venida del
Cristo, con gran poder, rodeado de majestad y entre nubes, para
juzgar a muertos y a vivos, abrir a los unos el reino de los cielos y
echar a los otros a la gehena, donde será el lloro y el crujir de
dientes, cabe entenderlo quiliásticamente, y aun se hace decir al
Cristo en el Evangelio (Marcos IX, 1), que había con él algunos que
no gustarían de la muerte sin haber visto el reino de Dios; esto es,
que vendría durante su generación; y en el mismo capítulo,
versículo 10, se hace decir a Jacobo, a Pedro y a Juan, que con
Jesús subieron al monte de la Transfiguración y le oyeron hablar de
que resucitaría de entre los muertos aquello de: «y guardaron el
dicho consigo, razonando unos con otros sobre qué sería eso de
resucitar de entre los muertos».
Y
en todo caso, el Evangelio se compuso cuando esa creencia, base y
razón de ser del cristianismo, se estaba formando. Véase en Mateo
XXII, 29-32; en Marcos XII, 24-27; en Lucas XVI, 22-31; XX, 34-37; en
Juan V, 24-29; VI, 40, 54, 58; VIII, 51; XI, 25, 56; XIV, 2, 19. Y
sobre todo, aquello de Mateo XXVII, 52, de que al resucitar el Cristo
«muchos cuerpos santos que dormían resucitaron».
Y
no era esta una resurrección natural, no. La fe cristiana nació de
la fe de que Jesús no permaneció muerto, sino que Dios le resucitó
y que esta resurrección era un hecho; pero eso no suponía una mera
inmortalidad del alma, al modo filosófico (Véase Harnack,
Dogmengeschichte.
Prolegomena, 5, 4.)
Para los primeros Padres de la Iglesia mismos, la inmortalidad del
alma no era algo natural; bastaba para su demostración, como dice
Nemesio, la enseñanza de las Divinas Escrituras, y era, según
Lactancio, un don —y como tal, gratuito— de Dios. Pero sobre esto
más adelante.
It
has been argued of early Christianity, perhaps too hastily, that it
lacked eschatology: that its
faith was not yet firmly placed in another life after death, but
rather in the proximate end
of the world and the establishment of God's kingdom
on earth—a
position known as chiliasm.
Are these two positions, the eschatological and the chiliast, perhaps
the same, in their rudiments? Faith in the soul's immortality is
presumed, and silently supported, throughout all the Gospel, though
the condition of the soul is never closely discussed there. It is the
spiritual situation of modern readers that impedes their ability to
notice this, a situation opposite and opposed to that of primitive
Christians. Without
doubt, we must understand all the talk of Christ's second coming—that
he shall appear in great
power, surrounded by majesty in the clouds, with the purpose of
judging the quick
and the dead,
opening the kingdom of heaven to some and casting others down to
Gehenna, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth—in
chiliastic terms. The
gospel of Mark even makes Christ say that there were with him some
folk who would not taste of death without having seen the kingdom of
God, meaning that it would come during their generation (Mark 9.1).
The same chapter of Mark, in the tenth verse, says of Jacob (†),
Peter, and John that after
they had ascended the mount of transfiguration with Jesus, and heard
him say that he would return from the dead, "they kept his
teaching to themselves, wondering with each other what this
resurrection from among the dead could mean."
In any event, the
gospels were composed when
belief in the triumph over death was forming, becoming the foundation
and raison d'être of
Christianity. Witness also Matthew 22.29-32; Mark 12.24-27; Luke
16.22-31 & 20.34-37; and John 5.24-29; 6.40, 54, 58; 8.51; 9.25,
56; 14.2, 19. And above all, the passage in Matthew 27.52, which
records that when the
resurrection of Christ
occurred, "many holy
corpses that had slept also returned to life."
This
was not a natural resurrection, by any means. The Christian faith
arose out of the conviction that Jesus did not remain dead, but that
God resurrected him, and that this resurrection was a fact. This did
not suppose merely the immortality of the soul, in a philosophical
sense (witness Harnack's History of Dogma, 5.4 in the preface). For
the first fathers of the church, the immortality of the soul was not
a natural phenomenon. The teaching of holy writ was enough to
demonstrate it, as Nemesius says (‡), and Lactantius considers it a
free gift from God (*). But more about this anon.
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(†)
The apostle Jacob, son of Zebedee, is usually called James in
English, occasionally James the Great to distinguish him from the
brother or cousin of Christ (James the Less).
(‡)
Nemesius (floruit c. 390 CE) was bishop of Emesa in Syria, and
author of a Greek treatise on the nature of man (Περὶ φύσεως
ἀνθρώπου), where some have found anticipated the idea that
blood circulates as a result of being pumped by the heart (a
discovery usually credited to William Harvey). Unamuno refers to this
treatise here.
(*)
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250-325 CE) was born in
north Africa, where he entered public life after studying with
Arnobius to become an orator. Summoned to Nicomedia to teach Latin
rhetoric by the emperor Diocletian, he converted there to
Christianity, and resigned his imperial post, going into exile. Constantine summoned him back to court to tutor his son Crispus, who was
ultimately put to death by his father in 326. The fate of Lactantius
is unknown, but he left quite a few Latin writings, which impressed
humanist scholars enough that they called him the Christian Cicero.