1978 - ruth page - the dramatization of jesus

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DOI: 10.1177/0040571X78081003051978 81: 182

Theology

Ruth PageThe Dramatization of Jesus

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182 Ruth Pagehas no power. He is a servant. He is entrusted with the ministry of theChrist who washed his servants' feet. He embodies the service of theLord who has made himself the servant of us all.The Prayer Book instructed me to tell you the duty and office of suchas come to be admitted deacons; to tell you how necessary that Orderis in the Church of Christ; and also how the people ought to esteemthem in their office. The deacon's duty and office is this: that he isentrusted with Christ's ministry to his people. Not the ministry ofChrist the Shepherd, the priest, or the Lord; but the ministry of Christthe servant of us all; the ministry without which all other ministryceases to be a Christlike ministry. How necessary is this Order in theChurch of Christ? It is as necessary as the need for a sacramentalrepresentation of Christ's presence to his people, not only as theirLord and their Master, but first of all as their servant. And how are thepeople to esteem them in their office? As Ignatius says, we are toreverence them as Jesus Christ (TraIl. 3.1). 'I bid you', he said, 'to doeverything in godly concord, with the bishop presiding in the likenessof God (there's authority), with the presbyters in the likeness of thecouncil of the apostles [there's more authority], while the deacons whoare so dear to me-they have been entrusted with the ministry, thediaconate, of Jesus Christ himself.'Mark Santer is Principal of Wescott House, Cambridge, where he gavethis address at the Ordination to the Diaconate of Rowan Williams inOctober 1977.

The Dramatization of JesusRUTH PAGE

It is well know today that the Gospels are simultaneously the source ofsuch information on Jesus of Nazareth aswepossess, and the expressionof faith in his Messiahship. But these elements are fused together, andcannot be separated like textile strands, nor excavated likearchaeologicallayers. Indeed a most appropriate analogy for the melange of materialin the Gospels is the baking of a cake, where some few ingredients likecherries retain their identity, while most are blended and baked out ofindividual recognition into a new whole. This fusion creates infinitedifficulties in making attributions unequivocally to Jesus, the earlycommunities or contemporary Judaism, and has led some theologiansto turn from history to 'stories' as a basis for Christology. The term is

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The Dramatization of Jesus 183often used loosely, but its value is held to lie in the fact that the meaning(or meanings) of a story may be implicit within itself, not in some un-attainable historical referent. I wish to argue that the general referencesto 'story' can be tightened, and the relation to meaning made more clear,by a consideration of the genre of drama. First, the process by whichthe evangelists and their predecessors came to present Jesus as theMessiah bears a close resemblance to that by which plays are createdand performed; and second, drama offers a model for the fusion ofhistorical memories and thematic portrayal.My concern is with the fabrication of plays, not their literary meritor appreciation, and the relevant categories for analysing structure andformation are action, theme and characterization. It is action, therepresentation of things done, that establishes a work as dramatic. Butthis action cannot be a random collection of happenings; it must beorganized and informed by a unifying idea or theme. The ' i d e ~ . ~ . e m -braces not only the subject-matter of a play, but also the whole view oflife that is implicit in the handling of the action. Even in the Theatreof the Absurd, which is in conscious reaction to tailored, linear progression, a theme such as the futility of life underlies the unpredictability ofevents or the suspension of action. Theme therefore gives direction andpoint to the action, while the visible representation suggests, objectifiesor particularizes the underlying theme. It is only in the abstraction ofanalysis that the two can be separated.What has been said so far of plays may also be ascribed to novels.A theme is implicit in even the most trite novelette, and action appearsin the story-line, although it is read, not seen. The difference lies inthe starkness and immediacy of drama, which must present its themethrough action and dialogue alone, without benefit of narrator orexplanation of motives and reactions.' From his analysis of such unmediated presentation, Georg Lukacs concludes that dramatic actionmust be sufficiently typical to be understood, but also intensified to thepoint of becoming symbolic to carry the weight of meaning it mustbear.PThis difference between novels and plays increases in the matter ofcharacterization, which is where the chief christological interest lies.Whereas a novel may be expansive, detailed and intimate in itsportrayals, drama, being much more closely bound to action, inevitablylimits and stylizes its characters. With a stringency foreign to novels adramatic character can be presented only as appropriate for and con

tributing to the action, no matter how completely the playwright may1 This point is made by E. M. Forster as that which most differentiates novels andplays. Aspects of the Novel, Penguin, 1974, p. 92.I Georg Lukacs, (Approximation to life in the novel and the play' in The HistoricalNovel, Penguin, 1969. pp. 150-77.



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184 Ruth Pagehave conceived him, nor how curious the audience may be to know himmore fully. Characters have no existence outside the action of a play,and therefore such imaginative productions as Mary Cowden Clarke'sTheGirlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines are monuments of irrelevance.An excellent illustration of the limitation of character in drama isgiven by Harold Rosenberg. He contrasts on the one hand a person asan individual who has a biography, psychology and biology, livingfreely and erratically, but recognizable in the continuity of his being;and on the other a person in a court of law, who is defined by a series ofovert acts leading to the fact which has brought him to judgement.In the latter case character is of importance only in relation to theseacts and only information relevant and material to the legal cause ofaction may be introduced. Such a character, defined by a central factand the coherence of his actswith that fact, Rosenberg calls an 'identity'.He argues that novelsmay picture individuals with a history, but dramarequires identities to give coherence of action. He summarizes hispoint thus:

Individuals are conceived as identities in systems whose subjectmatter is action and the judgement of actions. In this realm themultiple incidents in the life of an individual may be synthesised,by the choice of the individual himself or by the decision of others,into a scheme that pivots on a single fact central to the individual'sexistence, and which, controlling his behaviour and deciding hisfate, becomes his visible definition."The 'judgement of actions' ofwhich Rosenberg speaks draws attentionto the social characteristics of drama. Many dramatic theorists find

ethical overtones in the genre because of the approval or disapproval aplay and its characters can arouse among .spectators. Drama has aboveall a public character as opposed to the private experience of the novel.Further, plays are acted in a perpetual present tense, no matter in whatperiod they are set. To watch an action unfold is to watch presentchoices, deeds, conflicts and reconciliations. As I have already argued,such immediacy is denied to the novel partly because it is not visuallypresented, but also because the author comes between reader and character with at least some description of motives and reactions. Theimmediacy of drama, on the other hand, can be so strong that the lesssophisticated confuse the play with real life. Even today people react tosituations in Coronation Streetor TheArchers as if they were happeningto their neighbours. At alllevelsofsophistication someidentification witha character in a play is a common experience.

In a nutshell, drama is contained in an action which embodies animplicit theme, and to which characterization is tailored. This pattern1 Harold Rosenberg, The Tradition of the New, Paladin Books, 1970, pp, 125-39.



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The Dramatization of Jesus 185is visible also in the New Testament. The Gospels and drama cannot beidentified, for there are evident differences, yet the similarities are striking enough for drama to be an illuminatingmodel for Gospelstudy. Ifweseek the theme that lies behind and gives point to the Gospels, howevervaried the expression, it is salvation, to leave the term at its most general.This underlies and informs the separate pericopes and the evangelists'redactions. Yet salvation is proclaimed in terms neither of philosophynor ritual, bu t through the action of the total career of a person. Thatperson, moreover, is not portrayed in all the fullness of historical life;he is what Rosenberg called an 'identity', in this case the Saviour, theMessiah. Messiahship is the fact, the 'visible definition' under whichJesus is represented through a series of overt acts-preaching, teaching,healing, exorcism, suffering, death and resurrection-which coherewith that fact to produce an identity. The dramatic nature of the presentation is increased by its difference from contemporary Messianicexpectation because Messiahship is tied firmly to that particular action.Whatever the original import of the stories may have been, in the Gospelsthey have that function. Everything from Jesus's close relationship withthe Father to the Virgin Birth, that is from what is to us the historicallyprobable to the legendary, is equally corroboration of identity to theevangelists. Since Jesus as theMessiah is an identity rather than a personwe are told nothing that does not add to the Messianic demonstrationeven his family is introduced only for this purpose. There is a real sensein which there is no historical Jesus, but only the dramatic role of theSaviour variously presented. Thus the question of Jesus's marital status,for instance, is as out of place as that of the girlhood of Shakespeare'sheroines. The emphasis in presentation differs in each Gospel, bu t it isalways an identity that is proclaimed-Mark's Son of God; Matthew'sTeacher of the Church; Luke's Saviour of the World; John's Revealerof God. Whatever in the Gospels is not directly action is scene-setting orbrief editorial comment in support of the identity the evangelist isportraying.The tendency towards dramatization did not, however, begin with the

evangelists, for the earliest preaching had already launched the process.Paul, for instance, writes of publicly portraying the crucifixion of Jesusbefore the Galatians' eyes (Gal. 3.1). Indeed, it is hard to see whatresult other than dramatization could have followed from such presentation.' The pericopes of the synoptic gospels are polished nuggetsof preaching and teaching with a considerable pre-literary history. Tojudge from the content, the style of delivery must have been histrionic.Dramatic dialogues in which Jesus answers questions or encounterschallenges are only the most obvious examples of this. Amos Wilder,

1 A similar point about dramatic preaching is made by John Knox in The Death ofChrist, Fontana, 1967, p. 14.



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186 Ruth Pagewho describes vividly how 'the Gospel action is not a history somuch asa ritual re-enactment ofmimesis-analyses the effectof this proclamatorystyle: 'The early speech forms made much of the dialogue involvingChrist because each follower thus found himself not only within reachof Jesus's voice, but in fateful give and take with him'; ' Here is boththe involvingnature ofdramathat asksfor judgement, and the immediacyof the present tense in which it is perpetually acted. It appears that theinfant Church was not concerned to distinguish between presentationand happening. The Risen Lord was felt to be activelypresent and thebelievershared personallyin the drama of his lifeand death. J. L.Martynhas argued this caseevenfor John's Gospel.! He discerns that in storiessuch as the healing of the blind man a two-level drama is in process.One level concerns the action and situation of Jesus, the other that ofthe Christian preacher and the Church. But in the Gospel the two areblended and responded to as one whole.

The Gospels, then, are very similar to plays in the thematic portrayalof action, the constraints of characterization and the impact of presentation. They also resemble historical dramas in that they representtheir authors' imaginative response to a set of past circumstances. Butobviously theirs is not the response of a playwright imbued with historical consciousness, writing for an audience similarly sophisticated.No doubt 'what really happened' and the impact of the historical Jesusnot only inspired but exercised a degree of control over the Gospel accounts. Yet the problems of kerygmatic history are not solved bycalling the Gospels historical dramas. Indeed it is because of theirdramatic characteristics that the Gospels are so opaque to a historian,for the evangelists handle history like dramatists. Brecht's Life ofGalileo, for instance, centres round Galileo's recantation, but it iswhat Brecht doeswith this incident that gives the play its distinction.He makes it convey the suppression of a new spirit of free inquiry andforeshadow the bondage of science to the State. He has usedthe recantation rather than recorded it. Anyone who was forced to investigateGalileo solely through the play would have precisely the same problemsas New Testament exegetes in disentangling Brecht's construction fromthe historical original. Thus, although the Gospels include such 'events'as the transfiguration and the resurrection, and although we have noindependent knowledge of Jesus by which to judge the constructions ofthe writers, the use to which all happenings are put is the same as inhistorical dramas, namely the pursuance of the theme.

I do not wish to argue that meaning is use, but the fact that historyis used, is only a means to an end, does point to where the meaning indramas and the Gospels alike lies. If a dramatist chooses to place his1 AmosWilder, Early Christian Rhetoric, SCM, 1964, pp. 37, 42.I J.L.Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Harper, 1968.



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The Dramatization of Jesus 187action at some point of the past, it is because these historical circum-stances give objectivity to something he wishes to say. They may fit apreconceived theme or suggest one to him. Certainly in the performancehis theme is inseparable from the action, but his message, his meaninglies at the level of theme, not history. The theme may be extracted froma play for consideration, although all vividness, suggestiveness andparticularity are thereby 'drained from it. It then becomes a generalstatement, not necessarily profound or new, about a facet of life derivingfrom a writer's 'vision of reality'. The phrase is Ronald Gaskell's, whoseDrama andReality traces this process. He expresses it thus:

A theme takes shape in the mind of a writer who sees the world inhis own way. To Brecht man is a political animal, to Eliot a spiritcapable of salvation, to Beckett a useless passion. Theme at its veryroots is fed by a personal vision of this kind-which is not just away of looking, but a way of thinking and feeling. And from this itfollows that the form of a play . . . does more than explore andclarify a particular theme. It alsoexpresses and defines a distinctivevision of human life.'

Themes other than the one the dramatist intended may of course befound in a play and may have resonance even in different and latervisions of reality, but such meanings will still be perceived as images ofthe human condition. I amnot arguing for a singlemeaning, but insistingthat meaning does not lie in historical recital.If the Gospels are interpreted on the dramatic model, and this under-standing of meaning is transferred to them, their message is seen to be

divine salvation, specifically the salvation of the new aeon arising fromthe disciples' reorientation to reality after the resurrection. In theGospels themselves this is evidently inseparable from the presentation ofJesus in the role of Messiah, but theological reflection can abstract it.One reason for insisting that meaning is to be sought in the impliedtheme is that at some time an apologetic account of .the use of thedramatic model must be made, including a description of the kind ofclaims that are involved. Such analysis is an extremely complex anddelicate matter, lying outside the scope of the present essay, but Iwould wish to argue that the fundamental claims are at the level oftheme, highly general though that is, and cannot be considered withoutreference to the 'vision of reality' involved.If the meaning ofthe Gospels lies in their theme, and this is presented

through Jesus the Messiah, the resulting Christology must be functionalrather than ontological. This conclusion is supported by a number ofNew Testament scholars.. Oscar Cullmann for instance declares that1 Ronald Gaskell, Drama and Reality: the European Theatre since Ibsen, Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1972, pp. 60 f.



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188 Ruth Page'When it is asked in the New Testament "Who is Christ?" the questionnever means exclusively, or even primarily, "What is his nature?" butfirst of all, "What is his function?" '1 Although R.H. Fuller feels thatCullmann goes too far in claiming that all New Testament Christologyis functional, he concedes that it is only in the latest stratum that onticstatements are made.P This coheres with Willi Marxsen's argumentthat Jesus was originally regarded as the initiator of faith, that hisfunction (Marxsen's term) was to call men to faith, and that only as timepassed was his person qualified and interpreted.f Marxsen, unlikeFuller, sees this movement as one that led to solidification and limitationof the earlier understanding. These exegetes speak of Christ's 'function',but tha t term perhaps implies something too mechanical and rigid.'Role' as well as fitting in with the dramatic model, implies somethingmore human and less determined.Even where a Christology is structurally less dramatic than in theGospels, if Jesus is seen as doing something, or if God is doing somethingthrough Christ, then the categories of theme, action and characterizationstill apply. It is interesting to see in Paul's casethe extent to which themeinfluences the other categories. His visionofrealityincludes principalitiesand powers, so salvation must be cosmic in scope. Therefore theaction, while it centres on the death and resurrection of one born of awoman, born under the law, takes in also creation, Adam's sin and therebellion of cosmic powers. The identity fits into this framework andbecomes the Heavenly Man, the Son of God and the last Adam, one whoundergoes sacrificial death to be raised by God." It is notorious thatPaul's references to Jesus's earthly life are meagre. I suggest that thecosmic theme is so compelling that Paul can use only that part of Jesus's

career which is appropriate for it. Thus the required identity controlswhat use is made of the history.My basic argument in this article has been that the way in whichJesus is presented in the New Testament, especially the Gospels, re-sembles the way in which a play is structured. Yet to make thisargument I have had to run counter to much modern literary criticismwhich is suspicious of at tempts to go behind a text and explain it interms of the author's intentions. It is as true of the New Testament as itis of literature that 'the meaning of a work of art is not exhausted by, oreven equivalent to, its intention'.5 But I would argue firstly that the1 o. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, SCM, 1959, p. 4.2 R.H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, Fontana, 1969, pp. 247f., 257.3 W.Marxsen, The Beginnings of Christology: a study in its problems, Fortress Press,

1969, e.g, pp. 55, 71 f.4 This description of Paul' s Christology is largely drawn from C.K. Barrett'sFrom First Adam to Last, A. & C. Black, 1962., Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, Penguin, 1973, p. 42.



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The Dramatization of Jesus 189New Testament was not written dulce but utile, and that a theologian'sconcern with it is not that of a critic with literature studied for itsintrinsic beauty. Secondly, my interest lies in what the evangelists weredoing rather than in what they produced because of the implications forChristology and potential Christological method.

The principal Christological implication arises from the fact thatthe Gospels are most like drama in their representation of Jesus as anidentity whose multiple personal characteristics have been organizedinto the role of the Messiah. This affectsour understanding of his manhood. There are already numerous difficultiesin taking the full humanityof Jesus as the starting-point for Christology, in face of our growingappreciation of the biological, psychological and sociological conditioning of all mankind. S.W.Sykes advances an argument against theaffirmation when he writes: 'Could there be any acceptable grounds, ifthe empirical humanity of Jesus was said to be a matter offirm knowledgefor not envisaging Jesus as simply the normal mixture of strength andweaknesses, good points and bad points?'! The reason Jesus is notenvisaged as a mixture is that he has always been presented as adramatically integrated figure, but that answer strengthens Sykes'sbasic objection. From the application of the dramatic model it appearsthat we do not have knowledge of Jesus's empirical humanity, nor ofhis full personal life. He is in all the sources a selectively presentedidentity, and to posit his full humanity is asmuch an addition to what isgiven as it was to posit the development of his self-understanding in theLife of Jesus movement. As both are additions, both are able to reflectcurrent or personal estimations of humanity or selfhood. The emphasison the full humanity of Jesus is understandabie because of the ontological heritage of Christology, reinforced by our acquaintance withhistorical narrative which does deal with empirical humans, and withrealistic fiction which gives that appearance. But if Jesus is a quasidramatic identity, Christologians are faced with a situation in which wehave access neither to an assured historical Jesus, nor to a fullypersonal one. A wayout of this impasse may possibly lie in adopting theevangelists' unconscious method and considering Christ as a role, ratherthan a person or a title-perhaps bringing to bear the insights of roletheory in social psychology. But all such development lies outside thescope of this article.Ruth Page is a lecturer in theology at the University of Otago, Dunedin,New Zealand.

1 s.W.Sykes, 'The Theology of the Humani ty of Christ' , in Christ, Faith andHistory, S.W.Sykes and J.P.Clayton eds. CUP 1972, p. 57.


1978 - ruth page - the dramatization of jesus

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