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Presentation
The Editors

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!... serpents, you brood of vipers,
how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?" (Mt 23:29, 33).
Many people are troubled by passages such as the one above, considering them to be "antisemitic". It is true that the Christian Scriptures reflect the polemical situation of the time in which they were written (cf. §4 in Notes on Preaching and Catechesis, SIDIC XIX, 2, 1986); this is not what is meant, however. To understand such invectives, it is necessary to appreciate the fact that Jesus, a Jew himself, was speaking to his own people in the same unpopular speech as that of the prophets of old. This means that if Christians apply such words to themselves, as indeed they should, they are doing none other than Jews do when they listen to such verses as the following on Sabbath mornings:
"But (my people) did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts" (Jer 7:24).
The !primitive Church, then, has presented Jesus as one who, by his manner of life, his actions and his words, witnessed to his own people as did the prophets of Israel before him - the same harsh message from the Lord, calling them to conversion, to a change of heart through the denunciation of their evil ways.
This is not, however, the sole role of the prophet. In times of national disaster, of exile, he will speak words of comfort, of consolation as we read in the words of Isaiah as also in those of Jesus.
In what sense then may we regard Jesus as a prophet? It is a title attributed to him several times in the New Testament, in the gospels especially. The presence around him, moreover, of evangelical characters such as Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, John the Baptist (cf. Lk 1-3) shows clearly that there existed at that time among the Jews, various groups who were awaiting prophetic manifestations in what was a critical period in their history. Although Jesus let himself be called a prophet:
"A great prophet has risen among us" (Lk 7:16),
he did not claim the title for himself, if we except a general statement such as
"it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem" (Lk 13:33),
which was in all probability a proverbial saying.
Even if Jesus did not designate himself as a prophet, M. Pesce shows clearly in his article how, through his life and his teachings, he certainly fol;o ved in the footsteps of the prophets of Israel. At the same time, the Christian community was consc; ms, from its very beginnings, that he was more than a prophet, for, according to John's gospel, Jesus was not only he who spoke a prophetic word, he was the Word (cf. Jn 1:14).
Even if our respective traditions, which are nourished at the same source of the Torah and the prophets, differ in respect to the person of Jesus, both of us, Jews and Christians, believe that we have a prophetic witness to give to our world. D. Stawsky points out in his article that, since the fall of the Temple, the Jewish people itself is the bearer of the prophetic vocation. In the early Church, likewise, prophecy was seen as one of the charisms given by the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 12:27ff; Acts 2:14ff). And the Church today is rediscovering the prophetic dimensions of her mission:
"The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office: it spreads abroad a living witness to him, especially by a life of faith and love..." (Lumen Gentium II, 12).
More and more in our days then, Jews and Christians are seeing themselves as being called upon to witness together in our world to a prophetic calling - to announce, both by word and deed to a world in dire need of it, the sure promise of the coming of the Lord's kingdom when all will live in justice, in peace and in love.