F. Mauriac in the introduction to his Life of Jesus [1], writes "Everything changes, except the need of the Christian who has forgotten Christ for Christ". He says that it is his intention to show how Christ, besides being God was also man, fully man, with a human heart, a heart which includes not only the possibility of feedling what we feeling but also our own heart, a heart which is at once infonite, belonging to a God, and yet spacious enough to embrace the infinitely finite.

This essay (for those whom the name of Mauriac strikes unfamiliar) is not intended to be a study of Mauriac's christology-He was no theologian for all that matters. I got the idea of writing about such an issue after reading J. Vanier's Jesus, The Gift of Love, a book which I have found interesting not for the new exegitical insights it offers about the Jesus of the Gospels (none at all in fact), so much as the help it affords one towards coming to know the Jesus of the Gospels. The Gospels themselves were intended to provide one with a knowledge of the life of Christ (actually, I wonder whether I should believe that any longer after my studies in Gospel exegesis!). Since then many men and women have claimed that the life of this Man has brought about a change in their own life. The question arises: What was so special about the life of this Man such that it has not only aroused so much interst but also so much change of heart? If the life of this Man is of such dimensions, then it is also possibly wothwhile going over the ways men and women have gone about describing it. A "life of Jesus" is possibly an important reading, given that it is the best way as F. Sheed puts it in the title of his book To Know Christ Jesus.

Mauriac, holds that "Of all historians, the Biblical scholar is the most decieving" [2] (obviously, I quote this text while professing great respect to the Biblical scholars who embellish our faculty). So I wilol not be studying the contribution of conteporary biblical scholars in this field. The "historical" Jeesus has been the concern of Biblical scholars since the eighteenth century, and we may possibly consider Scheiermacher as their champion, rightly described as the father of Modernism. [3] The liberals' attempt at trying to squeek out the "historical" Jesus from the Gospels met with failure, and instead of Strauss and others, telling us why the Gospel is wrong, in the nineteenth century, men such as J. Weiss and A. Scwietzer, called attention to the escathological dimension of the Gospels, whereas M.Kahler now enlightens us about the fact that the Gospels do not intent to offer us biographies of our Lord, but rather stories of the Passion with a long introduction. Then followed the Formgeschichte school and the role of the primitive Church was emphasized, while the role of the evangelist was given due attention by the Redaktionsgeschichte school.. In our day, men such as J. Jeremias are again attempting to the ipsissima verba of Jesus. They will not be the subject of this essay and I wish them luck!

So how shall we go about understanding the many "life of Jesus" which have enriched our libraries since a "Jesus" existed? I think the first thing to study is man's need for such a "life". What does man say about himself when delving into a "life". Mostly he admits his limits, that he cannot solve his own problem; not only that he is an homo politicus, created to lead a life with others, but also that the human community as such, extending into both space and time is limited and that man is hardly the best interpreter of human history. Some men have believed that these limits point out to man's need of reading through another "life", a "life" whiich is able to give meaning to our life, a life which is fully human and yet beyond man. Pascal was one of those who held tthis view. He says adressing man:"It is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yoursleves that you will discover the true and the good."4We are living in an age when doubt as to the possibilty of man's bearing any relationship to the divine has been shed in all fields of man's existenced, be it language (the logical-positivistic school, Wittgenstein), hope (E.Bloch), reason (Descartes and Kant) and the moral life (the enlightenment). History is no longer the locus of God's action, but rather a call for human progress which at times means eliminating notions of a divine being (Hegel, Marx). Socialist models of society, suggest that homo sapiens is the best hermeneutic for understanding homo sapiens; but when the model of man or society they offer are put into practice, they somehow breakdown. Some contemporary churchmen, seem to believe that only by adopting the intellectual categories of such men can we bring it about that Christianity be relevant for men of our age. I do not doubt that the contribution of such philosphers might help one enrich one's vision of the faith, but I cannot understand how a philosphy which has failed in helping man understand himself can help man understand God! I think I should agree with M.Muggeridge who says: "...books like Resurrection or The Brothers Karamazov give me an almost overpowering sense of how uniquely marvelous a Christian way of looking at life is and a passionate desire to share it; likewise listening to Bach, reading Pascal, looking at Chartres Cathedral or any of the other masterpieces of Christian art and thought"[5]. Obvioulsy I am not suggesting fideism as against a theologically worked out faith. Yet I would like to have it that authors who enter upon the task of presenting the life of Jesus have the attitude mentioned by Mauriac:"No doubt a Life of Jesus should be written on one's knees, with a feeling of unworthiness great enough to make the pen drop from the hand. A sinner should blush for his temerity in undertaking such a work" [6].

R. Fabris, a Biblical scholar and lecturer at the faculty of Theology at Udine has written a study of Christ, which seeks to be both a life and an interpretation.7 In the first chapter of his book he gives a history of the interpreation of the life and historical information available about Christ since Reimarus to Bultmann. I think his opening affirmation sets the problem scholars have to face when studying this phase of studies about Christ is the following: "Il ritratto di Gesu' come appare con immediatezza dalloe pagine dei quattro vangeli canonici ha attraversato, senza ritocchi sostanziali e serie contestazioni, diciasette secooli di storia. Solo nel clima del Aufkarung, illuminismo tedesco, si osa proporre una nuova immagine di Gesu che contraddice quella tradizionale" [8]. These were men who were in search of history. I was greatly enlightened when during a Scripture lecture recently, I heard it affirmed that Scripture does not give us history so much as meaning. And I believe that writers who are not Biblical scholars when writing such books are mainly concerned about meaning. The life of Jesus is a life which gives meaning. Fabri tries to relate the two approaches. He gives the following as the reason for his writing this work: "Esso vuole essere un segno e una testimonianza di quella passioone ininterrotta che ha spinto da sempre gli uomini a rileggere e meditarecon amore i primi testi che hanno conservato il ricordo dei gesti e delle parole di Gesu', siglati dalla sua morte tragica" [9]. Fabri, goes on to quote Lagrange, who held that "I vangeli sono la sola vita di Gesu' che si puo scrivere". He cocncludes his introduction by saying that he does not intend his work to be a biography of Jesus, so much as a historical critical study of the four Gospels. I think such an approach to the life of Christ, is useful since it can shed new light on the Jesus riddle, even if usually what believers search in a "life of Christ" is not to solve the enigma of Jesus as much as that of their own life.

I think a life of Jesus such as would help man come to better grips with his own human condition is that oferred by J. Vanier. He writes his book having in mind the Johannine imperative "Those who say they abide in Jesus ought to walk as he walked" (1 Jn 2). Thus the book is not intended to provide one with a systematic study of the scriptural materiaal available about the life of Jesus though Vanier does take these into account. Rather, Vanier wants to narrate a life, a life of a God who was truly a man, thus capable of feeling all that ordinary and at times emarginated humanity may feel, and being both God and man, also able to redeem them. Thus he looks upon the Gospels not as a merely historical text, but rather as books narrating a life, books with a moral and aestethic purpose. He says:"The Gospels are there not just to lead us to belief, the belief that he is living with us today and in the Church, but to teach us how to live and to act in our broken world today" [10]. He intends his book for people yearning for communion with God and neighbour. His "life of Jesus" is I believe true to the purpose of Jesus'own life, that of bringing a change into people's life, of helping them feel God's love and respond to it by loving one another. I think that the book is to be understood in the context of Vanier's other works, particularly those on communtiy (such as Community and Growth, DLT 1985) and also his life work, the founding of Arche' and his work with persons with special needs. The meaning of the historical dimension of Christ's existence is beautifully brought out by Vanier when he speaks of the way the Incarnate Word made his own human suffering. Thus he says: "The Word became flesh and assumed the limits, the constraints, and the sufferings of flesh....To love is to give oneself"[11]. Thus Vanier seems to have grasped the meaning of writing such a "life", that of changing man's life.

Women in the course of history have also contributed to the understanding of Jesus'life. In the Gospels we have Mary, the mother of Jesus who possibly presents the best attitude a person should have when responding to the "life of Christ". We frequently read:"His mother stored up all these things in her heart." I would like to conclude by referring to two women who both reflected on the life of Christ and discovered in it the meaning of their own life. The first is Julian of Norwich, a woman who in the fourteenth century had a number of visions concerning Christ. Her contribution according to J.Leclerq is interesting because she reflects on the feminine dimension of God-she reflects on God both as father and mother."In the Trinity, "fatherhood means power and goodness";motherhood means wisdom and lovingness."12Contemplating the Crucifix in one of her visions, she comes to the conclusions that the purpose of Christ's life (besides the redemptive dimension obviously) is divine pedagogy in love. Thus through his "life", Jesus "will teach a soul himself how it should bear itself when it contemplates him, and that is the greatest honour to him.....For it seems to me that the greatest honour which a soul can pay to God is simply to surrender itself to him with true confidence..."[13]

Another woman, this time one who lived in our century, whose life was changed through an encounter with Christ is Adrinne von Speyr. Possibly through our theology studies we are familiar with her spiritual director, H.U. Von Balthasar. Unluckily I have not found available any of her commnetaries on the Gospels (particularly that on John) which should have shed great light on the matter. Yet, I think we can get a glimplse of what a "life of Christ" meant for her, through reading the chapter "The Eternal life of the Son and Redemption" in her book The Gates of Eternal Life. In another part of the book, speaking of prayer she says that through praying as Jesus taught us we can discover a bond between our life and his. Furthermore, his life can bring a change in ours:"He came for all of us and died for all of us. If that has dawned on us, we too would endavour to bear our lot in the same spirit-to pray, to act, to serve for the salvation of all without discrimination, in him" [14]. Through reflecting on the life of Jesus, man and woman can form an idea of who is God and his love for them: "The Son lives and communicates the divine reality so directly that his fellow humans can form an idea of the boundlesness of eternal life" [15]. Thus Christ unites time and eternity, history and divinity. Refelcting and writing the "life of Christ" means being introduced and introducing others to God's love.

I think that these various approaches to the "life of Christ" should help us understand better the purpose of Christ's own life. Jesus lived with a purpose and I believe it is the task of those who engage in narrating such a life to bring out this purpose. The knowledge of Jesus'life is not a dry academic enterprise but an adventure bound to change the direction of one's own life. The authors I have mentioned have discovered the dynamic dimension of Christ's life and invite us to seek in this "life" not sterile innformation, but formative challenges for growth and conversion.

Notes:

[1] F.Mauriac, Life of Jesus, NY 1951, vii

[2] ibid, ix

[3] M. Schmaus, God in Revelation, NY1968, 17

[4] Quoted in M.Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered, 1969, 122

[5] ibid 78

[6] ibid n1, ix

[7] R. Fabris, Gesu' di Nazareth, Storia e Interpretazione, Cittadella Editrice, 1983

[8] ibid 5

[9] ibid 1

[10] J. Vanier, Jesus the Gift of Love, Crossroad NY1994, 18

[11] ibid 172

[12] Julian of Norwich, Showings, SPCK 1978, 9

[13] ibid, 195, 196

[14] A. Von Speyr, The Gates of Eternal Life, Ignatius San Francisco, 1983

[15] ibid, 111