1645.The Question

SCANNED PDF

The question of the formal structure of religious authority is one question, the question of its material content, another. Thus, whether X is an authority, or rather the explicit primal ontic source of authority--this being a question about Xs place in the formal structure of religious authority-X may represent either the gift and demand of unconditional love, or the gift and demand of conditional love. 

If Marxsen is right, what is distinctive of Jesus' own kerygma as well as both the Jesus-kerygma and the Christ-kerygma ofthe early church and the Christ-kerygma of Paul is representation ofthe gift and demand of unconditional love. By contrast, what is distinctive of both John the Baptist's pre-Christian message of repentance and the Christian (but not "Christian") message ofthe Gospel of Matthew is representation ofthe gift and demand of conditional love. 

Thus Christ, for Matthew, is a "second Moses," but only in something like the same sense in which Christ, for Paul, is a "second Adam." That is, Christ for Matthew, as much as for Paul, is not simply an authority, not even the authority, but, rather, the explicit primal ontic ,.,·ource of authority. And yet, whereas Christ, for Paul the Christian, re-presents the gift and demand of unconditional love, together with the selfunderstanding/understanding of existence corresponding thereto, Christ, for Matthew, very much as the law for Paul the Pharisee, re-presents the gift and demand ofconditional love only, together with the self-understanding/understanding of existence corresponding to it. 

15 September 1999; rev. 10 December 2008