Water Has Never Feared The Fire

“Water Has Never Feared the Fire” is the title of a sculptured tapestry executed by Aisha Khalid for the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. Its monumental size, 5m x 3m, is apparent by comparing the pictures on the wall behind, which are at eye level. The design is formed by three million gold and steel pins. https://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/apt9-installing-aisha-khalids-sculptural-textile/  The work portrays the Four Rivers of Paradise flowing out of Eden (Genesis 2.10). It points to the importance in Islamic culture of gardens and order, trade and multi-cultural relationships, the omnipresence of the sea and the irresistible force of water. The tapestry’s debt to Muslim and Jewish thinking is clear. For Christians it may represent the ever-flowing spring ushering in a Second Creation, the eternal water sought by the Woman at the Well and the water which issued from the side of the crucified Redeemer, when Water and Fire are finally brought together in a cosmic hour of darkness covering the Earth.

Financial Times "Scheming  Spires" feature October 2019 on the
Dispute at Christ Church, Oxford

Dear Complaints Commissioner FT, Senior Counsel, Editor, feature writers, Chair, Appointments and Oversight Committee,

I write in the wake of the revelations which have appeared in the Daily Mail, Times and Telegraph on Feb. 16 and on Feb. 29 in The Times. The dons’ email descriptions of the Dean of Christ Church are beyond shock, disgust and contempt.

Your article was published on Oct. 12. On Oct. 13, I wrote to the Editorial Team challenging the article’s content and balance, as attached. I did not receive a reply. Only after I wrote directly to the Complaints Commissioner did I do so. I considered it inadequate and submitted a formal complaint, which resulted in an Adjudication on Feb. 7, rejecting my submission. I now challenge that Adjudication and, in the light of the recent revelations, the FT’s overall stance.

Adjudication Para 14 (d) “The initial dispute appears to have arisen over the Dean seeking to change his terms and conditions with the College salaries board.” The Times article by Andrew Billen makes it clear that the dispute began in 2016 with the Dean challenging the College’s archaic safeguarding regime for failing to protect a vulnerable student. The FT states that the reason for the dispute was that the Dean protested about the level of his salary; it covers the first two pages and is referred to on a third. In these last two weeks, it has been made clear that the salary issue was resolved in 2018. So why in 2019 is it given such prominence by the FT?

Para 14 (a) “The failure to investigate or report 609 comments on a litigation funding website is not an omission so relevant……. : the internet comments add nothing.” This language diminishes the referenced content. The omission is that the feature writers prioritise the anonymous comments of a dozen “insiders” over the hundreds who freely give their name and validate it with a financial contribution. Any attempt to draw a parallel between the anonymity of the insiders and those motivated by philanthropy is not acceptable.

Para 14 (b) “The article is free to be slanted.” To a legal layman like myself, this statement when set against FT Code 1.2 “responsibility to reinforce the FT’s reputation for accuracy and truthfulness…...” looks very much like wanting to have your cake and eat it. Whatever the claimed justification, embedded in legalism, the cost is that failure to paint the whole picture results in others having to do it for you. Hence the revelations elsewhere, which the FT has not thought relevant to report. While in October it may not have been possible to paint the whole picture, it is a severe failure not to anticipate that there was a fuller picture to paint, given the anonymous and desperate character of the devious briefings indicating that it could be considerably darker than what was being portrayed, although few could have anticipated its depth of rancour, degree of adolescent stupidity and coiled deviousness.

I take it that the FT stands by the position articulated by the Commissioner: “I do not agree that the article is anything like as slanted as the Complainant suggests.” Recently the Dean is quoted as saying what it is like to be “tested in the crucible of false and pernicious accusations.” His accusers “calculated that the very exercise of their threats would enable them to achieve their goals.” “I have resisted these intimidating charges, albeit at considerable cost.” Nowhere in the FT article is there any inkling of recognition of what lay in the areas it refused to investigate. In order to evaluate the Commissioner's assertion, one needs to ask how, if he were Dean, he would have received the article. If I were in the Dean’s position, the FT article would present itself as another in the array of misrepresentations, less than half-truths and hearsay innuendos which were being set against him.

I write to ask that the FT reconsider its position, dissociate itself from the tainted briefings of its insiders and abandon the slant which it claims for itself. The FT in its Letter Column has recently given space to the trivia of Latinisms. It would be more purposeful, given the stench arising from the dons’ emails, for the FT to remind itself of the Labour of the Augean Stables and recognise that the Dean has been courageously and at great personal cost exercising himself and his role in precisely the way that befits the Dean of Cathedral and House.

I turn now to the FT’s complaint system. The Commissioner accepts that the subject of my second complaint is outwith his jurisdiction. (para.10). This is actually a telling dismissal. I complained that there was no category in the FT’s filter for subscribers who are engaged in the field of philanthropy or charity. In my relationship with the FT, I am not prepared to identify myself as “Not Applicable” let alone “N/A”. The non-recognition is a loss both to those in these fields as well as to the FT itself. They might have something useful to contribute to each other. So where do I take this Complaint? The FT does not answer and sees no relationship to its dominating, diversionary and mistaken emphasis on the Dean’s salary level.

This reflects a wider fault in the system. I submitted a wide-ranging complaint. The delayed response, which suggested not just dismissal but evasion, was put into the hands of legal counsel. Responsibility is immediately narrowed into a legal channel which takes no account of issues outside of what can be developed from within legal precedent. It takes no account of actual personal stature. If the Feature Writers had allowed into themselves the 600 detailed testimonies from named individuals the FT could have taken a quite different stance. Instead it ignored the significance of the Dean’s deafening silence and attempted, in the manner of tabloid journalism, to maneouvre him into explaining himself, which would have meant breaking the confidentiality of the Tribunal Report. Readers of the Adjudication will make up their own minds as to whether the FT has “taken care to avoid publishing inaccurate information……..been negligent about setting out the facts... such inaccuracies that a careful newsroom could and should have avoided.” IPSO 8.1.

This raises the fundamental question of whether the FT’s attempt to replace Leveson II is essentially flawed. For this reason, I forward this correspondence to some who have promoted the ongoing case for an independent press regulator.

Finally, my professional life has been within the practice of analytical psychotherapy. The fundamental question not addressed by the feature writers or the FT is what unconscious message has been imbibed by generations of Christ Church students from the entitlement culture of those dons who have behaved in the way they have.

Yours sincerely,

(Rev. Dr.) Peter G. Liddell

Honorary Canon Emeritus, St. Albans Cathedral

2^nd March 2020

From: Peter Liddell

Sent: 13 October 2019 14.59

To: ean@ft.com

Subject: Your Dreaming Spires Article

Dear Editorial Team,

I submit the following for publication.

It is remarkable that, the Dean having been exonerated, your article should produce a catena of such uniformly sour comments. The Moderator has now closed the site, leaving readers with this imbalance.

I wonder how many of your contributors have actually met Dean Percy. Some years ago, I made his fleeting acquaintance. Recently I drafted a paper for publication. As a long shot, I asked him if he would read it. Within 24 hours his email said, “Send it.” Within 48 hours I had his assessment. I wonder whether your investigative reporters have read the comments of those who have made their voluntary contributions towards his legal fees.

During this harrowing period, the Dean has kept silent. Now others are prepared to share their insights, unattributably, of course. Your article conceals its slants. £2million racked up by the college and its dean? No, it is the college and the sponsors of the action who, being driven by their personal agendas, appropriated charitable funds. The plan was plainly to ruin the Dean. They identified their target, while they hid unnamed. They now wish to prevent disclosure.

Dean Martyn is drawn from a “diminishing pool of talent”? This is a personal smear. If your reporters had taken the trouble, they would have found that there is exceptional talent in those coming forward for ordination, particularly in later life, where they have already achieved distinction.

Remuneration? Martyn Percy, like all his fellow clergy, will have lived in a tied house on a minimal stipend. Over a lifetime, this has the effect of shaping an outlook where money and financial reward are not actually the dominant factors of personal concern. This may come as a surprise to many of the commentators. It is, however, apparently reflected in the culture of the FT to judge by the categories by which subscribers are asked to identify themselves. “Charitable sector” does not exist. This is the context in which the Dean may justifiably raise inequity. The fact that the unique role of Christ Church head of house is ordained is not a factor to be used in order to reduce the College’s responsibility. It is not permissible to take advantage and to denigrate at the same time.

Yours sincerely,

(Rev. Canon Dr.) Peter Liddell

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The author is the writer of A Sabbath Day's Walk with Two Companions, Luke and Rembrandt published in Modern Believing October 2019 by Liverpool University Press. "The article takes readers on a journey with both Companions. We hear and overhear; we move across time, compress it and expand it."  https://link.growkudos.com/1jrxpkcp1j4

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                            Letter to the Israeli Ambassador following a Settler Attack

Mr. Mark Regev, 
Israeli Ambassador,                    
Embassy of Israel,      
2 Palace Green      
London W8 4QB                                                               

8th January 2018

Dear Mr. Regev,

On 28th December, Ma’An News reported from Nablus that Yitzah settlers had descended on the village of Burin and attacked the school. The Israeli Defence Force was present and allowed the mayhem to proceed. I myself have been present at a similar scene when the IDF ordered villagers to their homes and did nothing to curtail the marauding activities of settlers. I can testify to the conditions of intimidation, threat, fear, humiliation and violence in which villagers live.

I am at a loss to understand how the Israeli Government does not extend a generous protection to the inhabitants of the Territories it occupies and for whom it has a responsibility. Along with some friends, I have contributed to the underfunded facilities of Burin school.  I believe I may therefore justifiably ask, Mr. Ambassador:

Did the attack by settlers on Burin School happen as described?
Will the Israeli Government compensate the school for damage?

Will the commander of the IDF detachment be disciplined?

I wish to present my credentials.  I have practised as a psychotherapist in New York and London, where understandably a high proportion of my professional colleagues were Jewish. My most senior colleague was a member of the Haganah during the Mandate and for a while settled in the new nation, purchasing a house for her father, a rabbi. I am also an ordained priest of the Church of England.  It will soon be Holocaust Memorial Day and as usual I shall be including in the Sunday liturgy a recording of Kol Nidrei taken from the High Holydays Tradition of the Koenigsberg Synagogue, performed by the National Choir of Israel and the cantor of the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. It has the musical purity of 19th century operatic tradition, the suffering of an American slave Spiritual and the religious depth from which my own faith tradition grew. I work for the day when the inhabitants of the Palestinian Territories achieve protection, recognition, independence and advancement.

Yours sincerely,

Peter G. Liddell
Hon. Canon Emeritus, St. Albans Cathedral

Cc 

Archbishops of Canterbury and York
Bishops of St. Albans, Hertford and Bedford
Dean of St. Albans
Lord Lieutenant for Hertfordshire
Lord Lieutenant for Bedfordshire
MP for Hitchin and Harpenden
Former Lord Lieutenant for Hertfordshire
Chief Rabbi
Former Chief Rabbi
President Board of Deputies
Bishop of Liverpool
Jews for Justice for Palestinians
Micah’s Paradigm Shift
Jewish Chronicle
and 30 others

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Olive Harvest 2019

Report to UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs

 First They Came for us with Clubs
                                                                       
                                                                   

At 11:45 on15/10/19, three women and a man from Friends of Madama and Burin were picking in an olive grove below Yitzhar.  They were working with three Palestinian farmers and six volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights.  Suddenly one of the Palestinians came rushing down the hill looking terrified and yelling at us to run.  The group scrambled for their bags and started to run, when they were confronted by a dozen young male settlers, approximately 16 to 17 years old.  The settlers had their faces and heads covered with scarves and were armed with wooden cudgels, tyre levers and rocks.

The settlers immediately attacked the females, hitting them across the back and arms with their cudgels before they managed to run free.  They then turned on the man who was further back, having run back to find his bag.  Three settlers chased him. He was, in fact, an 80 year old rabbi. In his panic, he fell into a ditch. Two settlers turned on him, one standing over him with a metal tyre lever hitting him about the legs and causing abrasions to his shin.  They proceeded to throw rocks at him, causing an injury to his hand as he raised it to protect himself, the wound needing paramedic treatment.  The settlers then ran off.  All in the group were terrified by the ferocity and brutality of the attack.

The incident was reported by TIME magazine

https://time.com/5714146/olive-harvest-west-bank/

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Letter to The Times 27th May 2020

Christ Church and its Dean

Dear Editor,

The Dean was fully exonerated by the Tribunal. Since then there has been a campaign to nullify its conclusions. The article “Embattled Dean” (Saturday May 23) is no different in its internal inconsistency from the FT “Scheming Spires” feature of Oct. 11 (an analysis of which appears in my blog: pe2526ter.blogspot.com). Tom Ball writes, “Dean refuses £1m offer to quit.” Who, in their right mind, would accept what is essentially a bribe? Who, in their right mind, would make the offer except on the basis of their own estimate of the other person? Who, in their right mind, would think it a meritable headline? Tom Ball speaks of the Dean’s “supporters”. This, in its implication of “partisans”, is sleight-of-hand writing. Anyone who has bothered to look at the comments of the 600+ donors to the Dean’s legal fees would have seen that calls for justice and transparency are their motivation.

Now former members of the Governing Body identify themselves with the campaign. They seek public support while, at the same time, refusing public scrutiny of the Tribunal’s report. Why do they reduce the chances of successful mediation by aligning themselves publicly with the impression the present members are intent on conveying? Why do they seek to place the Dean, who cannot speak for himself lest he be accused of breaking the confidentiality of the Tribunal, into the public pillory where he has already suffered the stench of the dons’ emails?

The Times leader of 29th February read, “Christ Church should stop harassing its Dean”. Yes, indeed.

Yours sincerely,

(Rev. Dr.) Peter G. Liddell

Hon. Canon Emeritus, St. Albans

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Letter to the Yorkshire Post in response to article by GP Taylor, criticising bishops for commenting on the Cummings affair. 3rd June 2020

Re the article "Hypocritical Church Leaders"

It is always hazardous to accuse others of being hypocritical.

GP Taylor claims to speak for parishioners, whose mind he knows. His picture is of a submissive group who have to be shielded from diverse opinions.   For him, values are elided into "politics", the colour of which in those he derides he also claims to know. The charge he trumpets is dismissed by a recent letter elsewhere.

"I am neither a bishop nor an Anglican but must disagree with the correspondent who said that it would be wiser for the bishops 'to keep their counsel' on the Cummings affair.  Where issues of truthfulness, justice and equity in  public life arise, church leaders have a duty to speak for the sake of the people to whom they minister and for all people in society who are wondering what kind of values underlie our common life.  To tell clergy they should keep silent is an old ploy by those in power who fear an ethical challenge being brought to bear on their actions.  Adolf Hitler took the same position in 1934, when he told German pastors, 'I'll take care of the German people, you stick to your sermons.'  The writer, Rev. Dr. Keith Clements, is a Baptist minister, former General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches. (Letter to The Times May 29).

Yours sincerely, etc.

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Letter published in the Church Times 12 June 2020

Palestinians should receive concerted support

From Canon Peter Liddell

Sir, — The proposed annexation of the West Bank is as momentous an event as any in the long conflict between the Occupiers and the Occupied. As a nation, we have been preoccupied with the pandemic and the whole spectrum of its consequences. The issue for the churches, the media, and the public has been whether church buildings are to be open or shut. One hundred and forty parliamentarians signed a cross-party letter calling on the Government to raise sanctions against Israel if it proceeds with annexation. None of the bishops in the House of Lords signed it.

This may be one of those situations where external and unforeseen events conspire by happenchance against intention. Nevertheless, it has meaning, which may be used purposefully. I am grateful to Bishop Declan Lang, Chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Department of International Affairs, for his statement, “As the local Church leaders in Jerusalem have warned, annexation will destroy any hope of a peaceful two-state solution. The Catholic Church in England and Wales will continue to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land against such a move.”

Gerald Butt (Comment, 29 May) unintentionally provides an escape clause for those looking for one. “The Palestinian leadership has failed its people by allowing their cause to be forgotten.” So that’s all right, then. In today’s political-speak, we can move on, blaming the victims for their plight.

The challenges are formidable: raising public awareness, accepting Britain’s historical responsibility, recognising the existential place of the Churches in the land of their birth, defining what is and what is not anti-Semitism, and, not least, granting to the Palestinian people full appreciation of their existence as a people with a history and a claim.

The letter sent to the Israeli Ambassador by 40-plus leading Jewish figures, opposing the proposal, is exceptionally timely and significant. It provides a spring-board. It is not surprising if, at times, the Palestinian people feel powerless and hopeless. What is surprising is their resilience and immense dignity in the face of oppression. They deserve more than our distracted attention.

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                                     Letter to Church of England Bishops, August 2020

For the past ten years, since I visited the West Bank, the Friends of Madama and Burin have been providing a protective presence to farmers in these two villages near Nablus at olive harvest time.  The group's 2019 experience of being attacked was reported to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and described in TIME magazine: https://time.com/5714146/olive-harvest-west-bank/ 

A short but complete video was made by one of our group:  https://youtu.be/rwu5Nc6tvgo  

Following the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, publication of the Kushner plan and the threatened annexation of the West Bank, the settlers have become so emboldened in their attacks that it is reasonable to question whether these villages will survive.

However, in June, unexpectedly and contrary to prevailing political policy, the Israeli Supreme Court struck down a proposed law aimed at legalising settlements:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-isr ael-palestinians-settlements/israels-supreme-court-strikes-down-law-legalising-settlements-on-private-palestinian-land-idUKKBN23G2MP

The Friends of Madama and Burin are now circulating a Call to Action.  A petition has been raised calling on the Head of the IDF Central Command in the West Bank, Major General Tamir Yadai, to comply with the judgement of the Supreme Court to defend Palestinians from settler attack and land thefts and to ensure their rights:
https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/major_general_tamir_yadai_palestine_is_burning/?tZaNFdb  The Friends are in the process of bringing this to wide attention;  I attach the information.

It gives me the opportunity to write to those bishops who responded to me so thoughtfully following my letter about the threatened annexation of the West Bank, those who joined the 1000 signatories of the EU letter, other bishops and leaders of other churches who, in addition to Archbishop Justin and Cardinal Nichols, responded to the plea of the Jerusalem church leaders.

I should be very glad if this information assists you in helping safeguard the lives of these and other villagers.

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Address St. Paul's Walden

                                                              6 Sept. 2020: Trinity XIII

ITV recently repeated its award-winning docudrama “The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies.” Radio Times described the performance by Jason Watkins as utterly flawless. Christopher Jefferies was a retired schoolmaster in Bristol. In 2010, one of his tenants in the same building, 25 yr old Joanna Yeates, disappeared. There was a nation-wide appeal. On Christmas Day, her body was found in the snow. Christopher Jefferies was arrested. His appearance did him no favours, although he would have passed unnoticed in a colony of academics. His hair was long and straggly, he dressed in 1970’s mode, he was a lonely figure and, in classic schoolmasterish style, didn’t suffer fools gladly. The tabloid press had a field day, describing him as “weird”, plainly a pervert. The headmaster of the prestigious school where he had been Head of English for 34 years distanced himself and the School. However, Christopher Jefferies had been loved by his pupils. One of them had become a lawyer and he engaged a firm of top London solicitors. With their professional and personal support and his own razor-sharp rebuttals, the case against him was dropped; shortly afterwards another tenant was arrested. Jefferies was persuaded to sue the tabloids and won substantial damages. In court and and on their front pages, the defendants regaled their apologies. The lawyers persuaded him to become a major witness, along with the parents of Milly Dowler and the parents of Madeleine McCann, in the Leveson Inquiry.

In today’s Gospel, St. Matthew teaches us how to respond when someone wrongs us. Speak face to face and you have the chance of gaining a brother. It is very caring and wise advice. If it doesn’t work, treat him as an outcast. Matthew’s advice holds good at the beginning. But Christopher Jefferies was dealing with institutions, a multiplicity of them and highly influential at that.

Some viewers reported being in tears at the end of the programme. There was the police raid on his flat before he was awake, his speechless bewilderment that they were charging him with murder, a police dog sniffing amongst the ornaments on his floor for drugs, him taking a shower, watched over, at the police station and laughter in the corridor as his name was mentioned. When the ordeal was over, he returned to a ransacked flat to find fingerprint directions on the wall and a treasured book on the floor split open and broken backed. Mesmerising was his measured silence, his panorama of expression, his inner deliberation and his incisive articulation as he slowly found his renewed self. Slowly, ever so slowly, the case against him had ground him down but now he stood on a new vantage point.

Mt. says “There am I in the midst of them”. He is speaking of when “two or three are gathered together in my name.” I don’t know whether those around Christopher Jefferies were gathered together in the name of the Risen Christ. But I believe that the Risen Christ is wider than even St. Matthew’s perception of Him and that the Risen Christ is there, always beyond where we are.

As the credits came up, the real Christopher Jefferies makes his own comment. A simple statement says, “Christopher Jefferies remains a member of Hacked Off,” the movement which led to the Leveson Inquiry. I wish I had remembered all that when last autumn I complained to a quality newspaper. In a Sat. supplement it had produced a feature, written in sleight-of-hand style about a prominent church figure, using unattributed observations from self-proclaimed “insiders”. The “insiders” plainly had the intention of diverting attention away from the fact that he had been exonerated by a high court judge and that the report of his tribunal was being withheld by the governing body which had brought the case. A long list of professors, bishops and luminaries protested, as a result of which the Charity Commission has intervened. My lonely effort was inconsequential but Christopher Jefferies, with his signatory message, plays out Matthew’s intention, which is to show that there is a caring presence even when it is not yet visible. I learned from the promise and the risk. And I have since rather taken to letter-writing. I have discovered that it helps me feel part of the Resurrection.

In May, the Heads of Churches in the Holy Land issue an appeal, essentially for survival. They said that the threat they confronted was catastrophic. Emigration would accelerate and it could lead to the possible demise of the churches. Archbishop Justin and Cardinal Nichols spoke in their support as did the leaders of other churches. Amongst the 1000 EU parliamentarians who wrote a letter five were Church of England bishops. You will know that I have spoken on this issue before. In July my letter to the Church Times was published. I have now written to all the bishops and suffragans, describing how last year some of my friends were injured in a settler attack, one of them being an 80 yr. old rabbi from Rabbis for Human Rights. The event was written up in TIME magazine. I have said all this to the bishops and more. I have so far heard back from a dozen of them. Two examples: “Thank you for the deep concerns you have, which I share.” “Many thanks for this and especially for sending the link to the very informative and moving testimony video. Thank you for all that you are doing to campaign for justice and protection for the Palestinian people.” I feel I am receiving words from men and women of the highest integrity, who speak from within the Resurrection.

We each have our own lives to lead and fears to face. In ending, I wish to try and say something for us as individuals and in the face of the seemingly intractable threats amongst which we live. Thursday. Three nights ago. The Proms. The First Night of the Proms. The Double Violin Concerto. What Bach does is take into himself the multitudinous chaos of the world around us. And he re-orders it. At first, it looks like a piece of algebra. But the cries, the sighs, the screams of humanity are being re-interpreted into re-shaped phrases of music. When seen in detail and as a whole, they become rational and carefully worked, like a tapestry. Each tiny phrase is an echo of a human voice. Sentences grow into themes. They are played in sequence, they speak against and with each other, separate but in harmony. Like children, they play. They grow, whether in speed or slow; they become sublime and serene. They build and take flight and a completely invisible but utterly real structure is created. Along come a man and a woman, a pair of virtuoso violinists,who hear not just as the rest of us externally but they have first heard it internally and made it a part of their bodies. Spellbound we watch creation taking place. Together, they create a miracle, which is as close to us as it was to the disciples. It stays and long after the performance, it is still there. This is what the Evangelists are telling us.

In case I have lost you, here is a poem for you to take away.

Arthur Hugh Clough, “Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth.”

                        Say not the struggle nought availeth,
                        The labour and the wounds are vain,
                        The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
                        And as things have been they remain.

                        If hope were dupes, fears may be liars;
                        It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
                        Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
                        And, but for you, possess the field.

                        For while the tired waves vainly breaking
                        Seem here no painful inch to gain,
                        Far back through creeks and inlets making,
                        Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

                        And not by eastern windows only,
                        When daylight comes, comes in the light,
                        In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
                        But westward, look, the land is bright.

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A modern representation of a mediaeval style. Chapelle Notre-Dame des Flots, Sainte Adresse

So Luke Copied the Ascension?

“When he had said these things, he departed upwards” (Livy)

Dennis R. MacDonald points to the resemblance between Luke’s narrative and Livy’s description of the ascension of Romulus (‘Luke and Vergil: Imitations of Classical Greek Literature’, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).

Livy Ab Urbe Condita 1.16.1-3 The Ascension of Romulus

Suddenly a storm kicked up with a loud crash and thundering; it covered the king with such a thick cloud that it prevented the crowd from seeing him. From that point on, Romulus was no longer on earth. Once their trembling had subsided, once a serene and sunny calm returned after such a chaotic period, the Roman throng saw the royal throne empty; ….they remained for some time despondent and silent, as though smothered with fear of abandonment. Then, at the initiative of a few, everyone hailed Romulus as a god born of a god, king and father of the Roman city, and implored him with prayers for peace to graciously protect their progeny for ever…………...Proculus Julius announced to the senate that he had seen the ascended Romulus. ‘Today, at dawn, Romulus, the father of the city, suddenly descended to me from the sky and met me. As I stood there reverent and overcome with trembling, I begged him with prayers that it may be possible to look on him without causing offence. He said, “Go and announce to the Romans that it is the will of heaven that my Rome be the capital of the world. …………...” When he had said these things, he departed upwards.’

Writing about 25 B.C., the historian of Rome’s Golden Age presents its official history from the city’s foundation to the accession of Augustus. Livy and Luke have the same purpose, although they understand it differently: all history points to its present fulfilment. Virgil, Livy’s contemporary, was read as a text-book in his own lifetime. It would be surprising if, a century later when Luke was writing, there was not complete familiarity across the Empire with the works of both these writers, especially by one who as a physician would have been educated in philosophy and the arts and given also his own mastery as a writer. On this supposition, Luke’s readers had Livy as background against which to set his narrative.

What does this do for the historicity of Luke’s account? This is a question for the modern mind, not for the writers of the period. For them, imitation was a compliment to the past and a compelling contribution to an author’s argument. ‘By emulating esteemed literature of the past…...(Luke sets out to) establish and vindicate a new social, cultural and political identity.’ (MacDonald p.203).

What Luke changes is as significant as what he accepts. Romulus was the first king of Rome and was celebrated by Livy as the author of its military prowess. His ascension takes place as he reviews his army on the Campus Martius, a fitting final scene for one whose father was the god of war, Mars. This is not a promising model for Luke. Nor would Livy’s own assessment of his sources have escaped him. ‘Traditions which belong to the time before Rome was founded are rather adorned with poetic legends…….It is the privilege of antiquity to mingle divine things with human…..’ (Preface 7).

From this unpromising context, Luke builds his canvas. He abandons the military context, which would not be lost on his Roman readers, some of whom might be willing to grant his courage for challenging the Empire’s historian. Luke’s Ascension, though monumental, is brief. Its understated significance is conveyed by the fact that it is narrated twice. Its shape and prominence is set within a slowly unfolding narrative of silence, wonder and disbelief; memory, grief and trauma; kinship, friendship and mother-son/Father-Son relationship; prophecy and apocalypse; calling, revelation and mission; political and social renewal; personal and global; human and divine; prayer and worship.

Luke and Livy converse. Luke follows Livy: ‘Ye shall be my witnesses….unto the uttermost parts of the earth.’ Livy anticipates and reinforces Luke: ‘From that moment Romulus was no more on earth,’ conveyed in Livy’s Latin with the force, simplicity and totality of a decree.‘nec deinde in terris Romulus fuit.’ (nor from thenceforth on earth Romulus was). The fuit is not narrative but existential. The usage anticipates John 1.1 in principio erat verbum just as the phrase deum deo natum anticipates the Creed. These usages illustrate the flow of ideas and understanding from which the beliefs we have inherited emerge.

Luke raises questions, the answers to which are to be found in his silence. How to account for the empty tomb? Luke’s answer is to offer two men in white apparel, linking the Empty Tomb and the Ascension. Livy’s answer: It is empty because ‘Romulus was no more on earth.’ Luke no more needs to provide further explanation than he does for how the Companions at Emmaus managed to return to Jerusalem when it was already evening and the day far spent. He is not interested in a ‘how’. The unfolding revelation of the Walk and the Supper are all that needs to be said. The Companions’ place is now back in Jerusalem.

Which is where Luke takes us and leaves us.

OooOOOooo

Peter Liddell’s paper ‘A Sabbath Day’s Walk with Two Companions, Luke and Rembrandt’ appeared in Modern Believing, Autumn 2019.

https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.3828%25252Fmb.2019.25/reader

peterspapers (pe2526ter.blogspot.com) (under revision)