Modern Gospel of Jesus - II - Time Perception
Primacy of the Apocalypse
As we claim here the Holy Bible itself starts from the Apocalypse of Jesus. Multiple questions may emerge in our head, but one, in particular, may come strong: Are you ignoring the fact that the Apocalypse was written roughly +1000 years later than the TaNaKh?
Well, some may think that I’m (laugh). But I'm not trying to deny the existence of actual historical documents that prove the moment they were written in a linear perspective of Time. The argument here is to perceive History as an actual consequence of Prophecy. This is based on two assertions that I want you to think about:
“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation, 19:10);
“Prophecy is History in God’s Voice” (Paiva Netto).
I’ll get into it more throughout our study, but these two things will lead to our comprehension of the primacy of the Apocalypse. In regards to the idea of time we are discussing here, Mircea Eliade in his book “The Sacred and the Profane” (1987): “by its very nature sacred time is reversible in the sense that, properly speaking, it is a primordial mythical time made present. Every religious festival, any liturgical time, represents the reactualization of a sacred event that took place in a mythical past, ‘in the beginning’. (...) Hence sacred time is indefinitely recoverable, indefinitely repeatable.”
Cyclical and Linear Time
If we are going to discuss about Time, first we need to remember and understand the two dominant perspectives of it. Of course, the discussion here does not go into the scientific field. The focus is more on the religious, spiritual, and personal aspects of it, that is of our daily experience with time.
In light of this, Mircea Eliade (1987), explains that the idea of a Cyclical Time comes from Hindus and the Greeks, while the idea of Linear Time comes from the Judeo-Christian view:
“Christianity radically changed the experience and the concept of liturgical time, and this is due to the fact that Christianity affirms the historicity of the person of Christ. The Christian liturgy unfolds in a historical time sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God. The sacred time periodically actualized in pre-Christian religions (especially in the archaic religions) is a mythical time, that is, a primordial time, not to be found in the historical past, an original time, in the sense that it came into existence all at once, that it was nor precede by another time, because no time could exist before the appearance of the reality narrated in the myth.”
Later on, he proceeds:
“Greece too knew the myth of the eternal return, and the Greek philosophers of the late period carried the conception of circular time to its furthest limits. To quote the perceptive words of H. C. Puech: ‘According to the celebrated Platonic definition, time, which is determined and measured by the revolution of the celestial spheres, is the moving image of unmoving eternity, which it imitates by revolving in a circle. Consequently all cosmic becoming, and, in the same manner, the duration of this world of generation and corruption in which we live, will progress in a circle or in accordance with an indefinite succession of cycles in the course of which the same reality is made, unmade, and remade in conformity with an immutable law and immutable alternatives. Not only is the same sum of existence preserved in it, with nothing being lost and nothing created, but in addition certain thinkers of declining antiquity—Pythagoreans, Stoics, Platonists—reached the point of admitting that within each of these cycles of duration, of these aiones, these aeva, the same situations are reproduced that have already been produced in previous cycles and will be reproduced in subsequent cycles—ad infinitum. No event is unique, occurs once and for all (for example, the condemnation and death of Socrates), but it has occurred, occurs, and will occur, perpetually; the same individuals have appeared, appear, and will reappear at every return of the cycle upon itself. Cosmic duration is repetition and anakuklosis, eternal return.’
“Compared with the archaic and palaeo-oriental religions, as well as with the mythic-philosophical conceptions of the eternal return, as they were elaborated in India and Greece, Judaism presents an innovation of the first importance. For Judaism, time has a beginning and will have an end. The idea of cyclic time is left behind. Yahweh no longer manifests himself in cosmic time (like the gods of other religions) but in a historical time, which is irreversible. Each new manifestation of Yahweh in history is no longer reducible to an earlier manifestation. The fall of Jerusalem expresses Yahweh’s wrath against his people, but it is no longer the same wrath that Yahweh expressed by the fall of Samaria. His gestures are personal interventions in history and reveal their deep meaning only for his people, the people that Yahweh had chosen. Hence the historical event acquires a new dimension; it becomes a theophany.
“Christianity goes even further in valorizing historical time. Since God was incarnated, that is, since he took on a historically conditioned human existence, history acquires the possibility of being sanctified. The illud tempus evoked by the Gospels is a clearly defined historical time—the time in which Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judaea—but it was sanctified by the presence of Christ. When a Christian of our day participates in liturgical time, he recovers the illud tempus in which Christ lived, suffered, and rose again—but it is no longer a mythical time, it is the time when Pontius Pilate governed Judaea. For the Christian, too, the sacred calendar indefinitely rehearses the same events of the existence of Christ—but these events took place in history; they are no longer facts that happened at the origin of time, “in the beginning.” (But we should add that, for the Christian, time begins anew with the birth of Christ, for the Incarnation establishes a new situation of man in the cosmos). This is as much as to say that history reveals itself to be a new dimension of the presence of God in the world. History becomes sacred history once more. —as it was conceived, but in a mythical perspective, in primitive and archaic religions.
Christianity arrives, not at a philosophy but at a theology of history. For God’s interventions in history, and above all his Incarnation in the historical person of Jesus Christ, have a transhistorical purpose—the salvation of man.”
Eliade (1987) explains how Hegel worked with the concept of sacred time in history through a Judaeo-Christian view:
“Hegel takes over the Judaeo-Christian ideology and applies it to universal history in its totality: the universal spirit continually manifests itself in historical events and manifests itself only in historical events. Thus the whole of history becomes a theophany; everything that has happened in history had to happen as it did, because the universal spirit so willed it. The road is thus opened to the various forms of twentieth-century historicistic philosophies. Here our present investigation ends, for all these new valorizations of time and history belong to the history of philosophy. Yet we must add that historicism arises as a decomposition product of Christianity; it accords decisive importance to the historical event (which is an idea whose origin is Christian) but to the historical event as such, that is, by denying it any possibility of revealing a transhistorical, soteriological intent.
“As for the conceptions of time on which certain historicistic and existentialist philosophies have insisted, the following observation is not without interest: although no longer conceived as a circle, time in these modern philosophies once again wears the terrifying aspect that it wore in the Indian and Greek philosophies of the eternal return. Definitively desacralized, time presents itself as a precarious and evanescent duration, leading irremediably to death.”
Mircea brings an interesting discussion about the perception and manifestation of sacred time in differentiating from profane time. Now, going further in this topic of the different aspects of time. I would like to discuss how it is present in our daily lives, consciously and unconsciously.
Kronos - Time as a Titan
In Greek mythology, the myth of Kronos (Time) is about a Titan, who receives a prophecy about the born of a son, who would kill him and take his place. Afraid of such prophecy, mad Kronos started eating his own children, until the last one of them, Zeus, bravely cut through Kronos's belly, killing, cutting him into pieces, and freeing his siblings. That's a tragic myth. Why?
Because it portrays an idea of time where its existence and its acts of destroying its children are based on the fear of losing its place. Also brings us the difference between mortality and immortality. The first is bound to be devoured by time, while the second breaks with it, destroying its power and achieving an eternal material state of jovial life.
Now, even though it is a myth, we still live immersed in this aspect of time, because we are constantly running from time and having the idea that time is running after us, feeling as if time is devouring our existence and because of that we work to keep alive the materialistic myth of the youthness of body. Add that to the cyclical aspect of time, it is a depressing idea. Because, we enter in a locked state of eternal return, where our lives will be repeating over and over again.
Judaic Historical Time
From the Judaic perspective of time, we understand that it is bound to be linear because it brings the historical idea of the presence of God in a time that begins and ends (period). However, I would also have to add that Judaism didn't deny a cyclical aspect of time, which would be in reincarnation, but specifically for the main prophets of the Judaic Tradition. So we could say that until the end of times, life is also in a cycle of birth and re-birth for the prophets.
Universal Reincarnation and Life
This is an old notion of the recurrent return of Life to Earth through the Divine Law of Reincarnation. Not to get too much into details about the different views on Reincarnation. The focus goes to the one that works with the universal aspects of it, where every soul reincarnates for karmic reasons, rather good or bad until they are “paid off” and the spirit doesn’t need to reincarnate anymore.
The difference in the perception of a cyclical time for a religious man and a non-religious man is that in the cycle of life, he will return, but for the latter, his story ends in death, even though we will have the birth of several other children starting their time in the cycle of life. So a non-religious man puts himself outside the very aspect of life, by suggesting that what is created never returns after its destruction, even though birth continues to happen.
Prophetic Time
All this discussion helps us understand the applicability of the Ecumenical Method, which brings the comprehension of a cyclical timeline, which does not deny the linear perspective of time.
We could say that we will work to internalize the comprehension of the “One to Infinity and Infinity to One”, “the Individual to Collective and the Collective to Individual”, “From Chaos to Order and from Order to Chaos”, or to be more mythical the “Beginning of the End and the End of the Beginning”.
Why am I getting into this? The reason is that even though we have important and specific characters in TaNaKh, its main story is about the formation of a nation for the arrival of the King of kings. Now in the Gospel, we find the story of this Divine King forming His nation and then letting its people prepare everything for His Triumphant Return.
But, doesn't the story end there? In the Apocalypse with the Returning of Christ to His Kingdom? It could. But, if the premise of this theory is correct, I would ask you: What about the story of this Kingdom after His arrival? Wouldn't that continue and be registered? Could that new Kingdom's story hold traces of the archetypal (which is not the same as culture) formation of a nation present in the TaNaKh, but now with the conscious results of its characters’ choices? That is, knowing the results of their actions, instead of acting to see what would be the result.
The Essence of God's Time
This topic will also be discussed further on, but I just want to emphasize that what is drawn from this study is the Recurrent Present State of Time. Hold this name in your thoughts: The Lotus Time Diagram (again, we will be back to it). It defends the idea of the Recurrent Present State of Time in the Day of the Lord (Revelation, 1:10). Which can only be reached spiritually. One day we hope to be in a condition that will easily give us access to it.
Timely condition of incarnation
For now, our incarnated condition in the world makes it hard to grasp this idea. But, unconsciously we use at our disposal instruments to represent this Recurrent Present State of Time. Take Grammar/Languages, for instance.
We will always find expressions that we consider timeless. Have you ever noticed how they are written? In what period? In the present. And timely transformation or mutation can be cyclical. Always going from Chaos to Order and Order to Chaos, and vice-versa.
Since God is the essence of everything. Including Time, it represents God Himself. That's why we are so bound to attribute to God the image and representation of the Law itself, of a Law that is Eternally Present.
For example: “You shall not murder” (Deuteronomy, 5:17). This expression is timeless, it doesn't matter where or when you read it will always refer to a present action. That's the expressed Order. In this, what could be Chaos expressed? We could argue that it would be like this: “Murder, not shall”. It's still comprehensive, but this is chaotic grammar. It does not follow the grammatical rule but also does not deny it.
Alright, I know.
But even if you wrote: “Murder not” or “Murder shall”, it would inherently come back to the main principle of Order: “You shall not murder” (Deuteronomy, 5:17).
One, because the first still carries its orderly premise. Two, the practice of the second would naturally and intrinsically bring forth the culture of preserving lives for the benefit of society and consciousness itself. Even if you only said: “not” or only “shall”, someone would ask: “What? Not or shall?” and you would come up with an answer that would bring Order to it.
That’s a Prophetic sentence (atemporal, universal, and cyclical) and that is represented historically.
