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Perspectives - The Presence of Elijah in the New Testament
Jean Marc Pasquier
This article aims at giving a Christian reading of the Gospels in the light of Judaism. We are unable to present it in its entirety, unfortunately, for lack of space. We are however printing two important sections and the conclusion.
In his introduction the author suggests a link between Jesus, Elijah, Jewish messianic expectation and the suffering of the world. In the first section he showed the significance of the presence of Elijah in Jewish tradition as one of those biblical personalities who "circulate in space and time . . . giving meaning to the History of Salvation by underlining both its continuity and its newness". The author then continues:
The Significance of Elijah In the Transfiguration
Let us look at Matt. 17:11-12 and parallel texts, placing them in the context of Jewish life by using midrashic texts, in other words, shedding light on Scripture from Scripture itself. By thus extending the meditation of an entire community which, faced by new situations, continues to draw on the Word of God, we may discover that Jewish hope today is extremely important for a true understanding of our own Christian hope(1)
The starting point for our reflection is some verses from the account of the Transfiguration. We must firstly pay attention to what went before in order to put the Christian proclamation into the context of the Jewish one. We read in Matt. 16:13 (and parallel texts):
"...he asked his disciples: Who do men say that
I am? And they said: Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them: But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied: You are the Christ (Mk. 8:29) of God (added in Lk. 9:20), the Son of the living God (added in Matt. 16:16)".
The three synoptics also report that he commanded the disciples not to tell it to anyone.(2) Just before the account of the Transfiguration a first proclamation of the Passion was uttered. We will now look more closely at verses which particularly concern us here.
Luke begins his account with the words: "Now about eight days after these sayings". In Matthew and Mark we read: "And after six days". Thus from its very first words this text — the only New Testament one in which Elijah appears in person — raises a question on which light is shed by Jewish liturgy. In Matt. 16:16 Peter pronounces the Name of his Lord in the same way as the High Priest used to do on Yom Kippur.(3) Yom Kippur is separated from Sukkot by an interval of five days, but Jesus had already begun going up to Jerusalem for this feast.(4) In speaking of the eighth day, Luke seems to be emphasizing the fact that this going up was already accomplished. Not altogether, though, because he uses the word about, thus leaving the door open to another interpretation (as in 1:17 where we see a link between John the Baptist and Elijah).
The Mishnah, which gives some idea of the development of the Feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles before the year 70, says in Sukkah 6:1 that for six days there is rejoicing to the sound of the flute, and for seven days the water libation in the Temple, while all live in tents (sukkot). Peter's suggestion in Mk. 17:4 and parallel texts could in fact be an allusion to this.
The seventh day is called Hoshanah Rabbah (the great Hosanna). The Hallel is sung for the last time in the year, Sukkot being the third and last pilgrimage feast of the liturgical year. It is also the only one to have an extra day, an eighth day. Nevertheless, before 70 CE, the function of this eighth day (shemini) was only to close (azeret) this final liturgical feast, whose messianic and eschatological dimension is stressed very strongly. It is possible therefore that the numbers six and eight, as well as the allusion to tents, had a special significance in relationship to the fulfilment of all things in Christ(5)
Thus, six or eight days after the proclamation by Peter,(6) Jesus "took with him Peter and James and John° (Luke puts James last) "and led them up a high mountain" (Luke says with more solemnity: "and he went up on the mountain". These few words must be seen in relationship to the Torah, where it says:
The Lord said to Moses: Come up to me on the mountain .. . wait there; and I will give you the tables of stone, with the law and the commandment. Moses went up into the mountain .. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.(7)According to the Evangelists, "he was transfigured before them" (Matt. and Mk.), or, more simply: "the appearance of his countenance was altered" (Lk.).(8) And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah.(9) This is the context in which Elijah appears in the New Testament; the apparition takes place in relation to Moses. Both of them were assumed into heaven, although in different ways, and they are associated with the fire of the Word(10) If, according to Jewish tradition, Moses transmitted the entire Torah, written and oral, in the fire of Sinai, Elijah will unveil its organic unity in the fulness of time, according to the last words of the prophet Malachi(11)
"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me... the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold he is coming... Who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap... For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, 0 sons of Jacob, are not consumed... Then all nations will call you blessed... for you will be a land of delight... But for you who fear my Name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers...". Mal. 3:1,2,6,12; 4:2,45,6(12)
In this way the text of the Transfiguration wants to stress what has happened already in the human condition of Jesus of Nazareth, something essential to this paschal mystery which God began to fulfil with his people in the Liberation-type which was the Exodus; liberation towards which the Jewish people, like other nations, is always moving, reaching out towards a final liberation. This is why the text already anticipates the hour of the Resurrection (Matt. 17:9) before the death of Jesus (v. 12). This can never be stressed too strongly.
Thus there is, as it were, a concentration of history into a focal point, a concentration suggested by the presence of Moses, and above all by the presence of Elijah. If Jesus is speaking here with both of them (who can be considered as representing the beginning and the end of all liberation, the beginning and the end of history), then this focussing of the meaning of history cannot be frozen either in a given moment of time or in a precise place, as Peter is tempted to do. Mark 9:6 stresses this: "He did not know what to say.
But all that follows in the text, if it is read in the light of what has been said already on the intervention of Elijah in key moments of the history of God's people, will prevent the reader falling into the trap of a localization which would destroy the very meaning of this vision; a vision in which Elijah has his own place, that of a boundless ocean, according to the beautiful expression of John Chrysostom.(13)
The Return of Elijah and Final Redemption
The question asked by the disciples is found in this context: "Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?" (14) The answer given by Jesus must be looked at as it appears in two places, Mk. 9:11-13 and also Matt. 17:11-12: In Matthew: "Elijah does come" (present) "and he is to restore all things" (future); "but I tell you that Elijah has already come." Only in Mark is it inserted between the two declarations:
"How is it written of the Son of man, that he should suffer these things and be treated with contempt?" A primordial question for all who ask the meaning of a "messianic" expectation lived out in suffering between the two comings of Christ. In other words, how does it come about that between the two "meta-historical" comings (on one hand the Transfiguration and the Resurrection of Jesus, on the other this Resurrection and the final Resurrection of the Jewish people) there is still a time of expectation lived out in suffering? This question is linked to the very way that Matthew speaks of Elijah: on the one hand (men) and on the other (de). On the one hand Elijah comes and will restore all things. On the other, I tell you he has already come.
The Evangelists attempt to answer at the first level (Jesus). But the close link between the Son who is first born from the dead (Jesus) and the first born Son awaiting his own resurrection (Israel, according to Ex. 4:22 and Rom. 11:15), keeps on breaking through. What then is the meaning of the suffering of this people that God has called his son? The mystery of the suffering of Christ between the Transfiguration and the Resurrection opens up an infinite line of thought on the meaning of the ever-present suffering, first that of Israel, but also that of the Church and of every person, between the Coming of the Messiah and the fulfilment of that Coming.(15)
Elijah and John the Baptist
Following on from Jesus' reply, but no longer part of it, a polemic develops out of the second part of the reply: Elijah has already come. Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.(16) Polemic because, if Mark and especially Matthew emphasize that Elijah lives again in John the Baptist, John, and above all Luke, avoid finalizing the
issue. actual fact Matthew affirms (11:14) — with all the more authority because the affirmation comes from the mouth of Jesus himself — that John the Baptist is Elijah.(17) Nevertheless we read in John 1:21: "Are you Elijah? He said, I am not." This is put into the mouth of John the Baptist. On his side Luke, throughout his gospel, avoids this definite indentification of John the Baptist with Elijah, both in his account of the Transfiguration and also in the annunciation of the birth of the Baptist (he will be in the spirit and power of Elijah, but is not identified with him.(18)
If, for one who believes Jesus is the Messiah, this Elijah come alive again in John the Baptist is still richer in meaning than the Elijah come alive in Pinhas or Harbonah," it is not to say that the meaning of this other manifestation has been exhausted. On the contrary, Luke's silence and the discussion within the Gospels themselves on the subject of the relationship between Elijah and John the Baptist can only reinforce the special, inexhaustible character of the manifestation of Elijah at the heart of the Transfiguration of Jesus, of his people and of the world.
Indeed, the meaning of the presence of Elijah in this world remains an open question in so far as it is true that the biblical idea of fulfilment is not one of impoverishment, extinction or devaluation, but of enhancement in value. Is it not on account of those who might think that all is fulfilled if John the Baptist is indeed Elijah, that Lukes leaves the door open, as indeed our Jewish brothers do in actual fact at each seder?(20)
One can now understand so much better the holy fear of the disciples of Jesus when they feel that the vision of the Transfigured One, together with Moses and Elijah, might vanish; indeed, in this world it could never be more than transient: "When they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only" according to Lk. 9:36 and Matt. 17:8; "with them" according to Mk. 9:8.(21) "And as they were coming down from the mountain (Jesus) charged them to tell no one what they had seen." For Elijah, as for the Christ, there is no end to his coming...
The expectation of Elijah's return — always preceding the coming of the Messiah — is lived in depth by the Jewish people whose experience, parallel with that of the Christian people, helps the latter to focus their gaze on the Christ past and to come. The face of the Messiah, essentially present in the heart of every person, remains temporarily hidden, in so far as God does not give to all the Olam ha-ba (the world to come). This can perhaps help present-day disciples of Jesus not to give way to the double temptation to which certain Christians succumb with regard to the continuity of the Jewish presence: euphoria or apologetic.(22) This Jewish presence can help us not to falsify the word of Jesus himself by only taking into account part of his reply to the disciples: "Elijah has already come", because he also said: "Elijah does come and he is to restore all things.(23) In other words, for Elijah, as for the Christ himself, although in a different way, there is no end to his coming.
Having thus been attentive to the meaning of the particular presence of Elijah vis-à-vis the Messiah, it is perhaps easier to grasp the difference between fulfilment and the plenitude of fulfilment, the fulfilment of all things in Christ and the plenitude of the fulfilment of Christ in the world.(24) In fact, if we believe, as Christians, that Jesus has begun the messianic era, we know that all is not fulfilled in us. Hence the cry which arises from the heart of our Eucharists: Marana tha, and the desire of our Jewish brothers to see Elijah manifest himself anew at each circumcision, at each Seder, on each Shabbat. (25)
The Messianic Secret
If, between the beginning and the fulfilment of the Coming of Christ, the disciples of Jesus ate sent back to the messianic secret, is not this in itself an invitation to enter into the movement begun by the transient presence of Elijah: to banish all fear in meeting the other as other? Is not this what is suggested (one cannot say more) by the presence of Elijah at the side of Jesus, closely linked with Moses: there is no question of confusion, of syncretism, still less of amalgamation; rather it is question of presence and dialogue concerning the eruption of God into our world, something which can never be contained within human categories.
If according to Luke, the two great witnesses speak with Jesus who is on his way up to Jerusalem, and if Matthew and Mark do not record what they say, does not this underline the fact that we will never exhaust what is hidden in the word of the living God, as we await the final resurrection? (26)
Notes* Jean Marc Pasquier is a Franciscan who has obtained his Licentiate in Theology and who is now working with the group for permanent formation of Christian adults in France.
1. In fact one can ask if, after Auschwitz, one is in the same position as Paul. In any case, we find ourselves faced with a renewed recognition of the permanence of Israel since Vatican H, a recognition by the Church, not only by isolated groups.
2. Matt. 16:20; Mk. 8:30; Lk. 9:21. Among all the expressions of Jewish messianic expectation, many stress that the Messiah has remained hidden in the heavens since before the creation of the world, awaiting his full manifestation.
3. The High Priest pronounced the Holy Name once a year when he entered the Holy of Holies, and Peter in the same way came to recognize and proclaim Jesus as "Son of the Living God".
4. Matt. 16:21. We stress the passages in John 7, 8, 9 where the question of the messiahship of Jesus is openly discussed in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles.
5. Luk. 9:28; Matt. 17:1; Mk. 9:2. It should be noted that, following a natural development, the feast of Simhat Torah has been superimposed on the eighth day in the VII-IX centuries, to strengthen the joy brought by the gift of the Torah, already celebrated at Pentecost, the feast which ends the paschal season.
6. It will be noticed that at the end of his earthly life Christ called upon God, which was confused by those listening with a call to the Prophet Elijah. In fact there are two interpretations of this unique cry made by Jesus in Aramaic (a quotation from Ps. 22:1). It is unique because it is the only cry of Christ crucified which is reported for us by two Evangelists. It can be understood in two ways, either Eli atah (My God, it is you, which is found in the psalm quoted by the Evangelists at that moment) or: Eliab tha, Elijah, come! which is the interpretation put on it by listeners who knew that Elijah had something to do with the hour of fulfilment).
7. Ex. 24:12ff. In Mikra'ot Gedolot, Ibn Ezra, completed by Sforna, says that the Tables represent the written Torah; the Torah, the oral Torah; the Mitzvah, the putting them both into practice.
8. Matt. 17:2; Mk. 9:2; Lk. 9:29. The last one places the manifestation of Moses and Elijah in a context of prayer, thus linking heaven and earth. The Hebrew term, lehitpallel (to pray) suggests the expectation of a divine judgment, the realization of which will be the Passover of Christ, prefigured by his Transfiguration; but the Resurrection of Christ will only illuminate the entire universe after the final resurrection. On this subject cf. Rom. 5:10 and Rom. 11:12-13; M. Remand does this in: Le Serviteur: Jesus et Israel, N.R.T. Sept. Oct. 1981.
9. Mark names Elijah with Moses. In Luke the vision takes place between sleeping and waking.
10. Cf. II Kgs. 2 for Elijah; and The Assumption of Moses for Moses. Jude 8 probably alludes to this.
11. Note in passing that the New Testament considers John the Baptist (or Elijah living again in the latter) as the last of the prophets; it is significant that the Vulgate ends the Old Testament with Malachi.
12. Mal. 3. Compare verse 2a with Matt. 17:6 and 2b with Matt. 17:2, also v. 6 with Luk. 1:48. It seems equally possible to compare this ending of Mal. 3:24 with the wish of Paul to the Romans — 11:11ff. as far as "For God has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all."
13. In the Homily on Elijah: 3 — He is like a boundless ocean...
14. Matt. 17:10; Mk. 9:11, In the pharisaic world the scribes are those who read the Scriptures with the help of oral tradition.
15. A reunited people of God, true resurrection from the dead according to Rom. 11:15.
16. Matt. 17:13.
17. Matt. 11:14 has understood, in the light of Mal. 3, that the violence of intervention by the two prophets will he surpassed by the call to come together, for Elijah as well as for John the Baptist.
18. Luk. 1:17.
19. Midrashic tradition has identified Pinhas or Harbonah with Elijah. See Pirke of Rabbi Eliezer 47 and the Targum Ps. Jon. on Ex. 6:18 and Num. 23:12. The identification of Elijah with Pinhas was also known to Origen, Y.G. 14, 225.
20. The fulfilment of an event, while making it relative and a secondary event, also throws more light on it and reveals all its power. Two examples of this in Judaism and in Christianity: According to Tos. Bet, 1:10, the messianic night does not replace the night of the exodus from Egypt. In the same way the Parousia does not replace the Resurrection of Christ, but brings it more into the light and before the eyes of all.
21 How many of his disciples today, whether of Gentile or Jewish origins, are obliged to live their link with the Jewish people in silence, before Jesus done!
22. When it is not polemic.23. Reference was made to this point in the Presentation of our last issue of the SIDIC Review: Vol. XVII, No. 1 1984. We regret that acknowledgement was given in error to Michel Remand instead of to the present author. We ask both our friends to accept our very sincere apologies for this mistake.
24. I leave to specialists the analysis that can be made in this way of the Hebrew words: lekayem, lemale, leshalem.
25. Maranatha can be translated by: "The Lord has come" Maran atha, or, according to the Greek text of the New Testament (and its traditional interpretation) Come, Lord! Marana tha!
26. Or of that which Christians call the final resurrection and Jews the Olam ha-ha, the world to come.
