Reginald H. Fuller (1915–2007)

The author, Reginald Horace Fuller.

FOREWORD: ... "Another apparent infelicity is that from Lent C through the per annum Sunday 2 A....practical suggestions for the homilist were somewhat desultory and mingled with the exegetical comment." [vii]

Sought to "separate off and develop more systematically these practical suggestions." This corresponds to an essential part of sermon preparation, what the Germans call Predigtmediation. In these meditations "the shift is made from exegesis--which with Dean Krister Stendahl of Harvard I understand to be the method of discovering what the text meant--to answering the question: What does the text mean now, in our situation today?" [vii]

"In 'plugging the holes' left in the WORSHIP articles over the past three years by such pretermissions, I have been guided by the following principles. Only those Sundays which occur in the Roman use [IN THE ROMAN USE!] during the whole decade 1970-1980 have been provided for." [viii]

{Reginald seems to give it away. Cannot resist the boast, the association with Rome's perduring paganism only slightly hidden in or under the concealed nocturnal pretermissions.}

CONTENTS

"Roman Table of Sundays and Holy Days"
Introduction by Rev. Dr. Eugene L. Brand
Preparing the Homily by the Author

PROPER OF THE SEASONS
Lent
Holy Week
Easter
Trinity Sunday to Sunday
...
Advent
Christmas
Lent
Holy Week of Year A
Easter to Ascension
....
Pentecost
Trinity Sunday
...
PROPER OF THE SAINTS
Immaculate Conception (Dec 8) {Note discrepant with Birth on Christmas}}

Reading from Revelation, 1:5-8 "this passage comes from the epistolary address of the Apocalypse. It is a greeting from Jesus Christ as well as from the Father and the seven spirits". {Clearly no monotheism.} Then follows a triple doxology:

Point 1: he loves us --note the present tense: Christ's love is perpetual and goes beyond the historical event of the redemption (Jerome Biblical Commentary {!} Died 420). [451-452]

Point 2: the historical event of the atonement, couched in a traditional credal formula. {!}

Point 3: the effect of the redemption is to set up a community which shares Christ's kingly and priestly functions. {!}

After the doxology there follows a proclamation of the imminent parousia which is to be the theme of the whole apocalypse. {!] This proclamation draws upon a combination of Old Testament testimonia used elsewhere in the New Testament, from Daniel 7:13-14 and Zechariah 12:10. The reading ends with a self=proclamation of Yahweh under three titles:

Alpha and Omega, a hellenized expression of the Old Testament's "first and last"; a second title asserting that God's being comprises present, past and future (a reflection on the meaning of Yahweh?); and the third title (pantocrator), a Greek rendering of Sabaoth (hosts). Combined together, all three look like a meditation on the meaning of KYRIOS HO THEOS, YAHWEH 'ELOHE SEBAOTH. [452]

The Author acknowledges that "It is not certain precisely what attitude Jesus took toward this charge "of being a messianic pretender". And he interpolates "King" as "the Roman equivalent of the Messiah" {!} "established by the titulus on the cross, "handed down in various forms"! "Some traditions present him as preserving a stony silence...while others represent him not as rejecting it, but as being at pains to correct it (the answer, "you say so,"...). In the Johannine version of the trial begfore Pilate Jesus explicitly corrects the charge by offering a reinterpretation of what kingship means for him." Bottom line is that Jesus did not, ever, claim "kingly and priestly" functions. "He has come into the world to be the bearer of the divine revelation", which in Johannine terms is NOT being a "king"!

Fuller goes on the suggest lines for the homilist to take today. For example, treat the "second coming not as the last chapter of Christian dogmatics, but as an immediate, relevant concern of Christian existence." [453] Contrary to the text, Fuller urges that an exposition of the "way in which the Christian community already here and now shares Christ's kingship and priesthood" would be to "point to the liturgy as the focal point where its priesthood is expressed and to secular life as the place where its kingship is exercised through service". Wow. He himself seems to see the somersault, in that he goes on immediately to say "But then it becomes necessary to insist that Christ's kingship is 'not of this world'--suggesting a consideration of the relationship between the church and political power."

Finally, the author suggests "Thirdly, the homilist could concentrate upon the Johannine Christ's redefinition of kingship in terms of witness to the truth. Perhaps it is particularly relevant just now to refute recent attempts to portray Jesus as the paradigm of a political revolutionary." [453] {Ouch!}… (more)

The strength of this work is that it covers all of the New Testament sources of the resurrection narratives, meaning Paul's letters as well as the canonical Gospels. There is also an appendix that discusses the resurrection appearances in some of the apocryphal gospels. Fuller is obviously competent and familiar with the material. He finds redactions, exaggerations, conflations, and invention at every turn. In fairness, though, he also reaches conclusions more traditional, such that Luke had an independent source beyond Mark, that the Emmaus Road Story is based on earlier tradition, and that at least the report of the empty tomb by a women or women is historical.

The greatest weakness of this book is the leaps that Fuller takes to reach conclusions that will appear to the reader as speculative, at best. The book has less than 200 pages of text. There are sentences that should be paragraphs and paragraphs that should be chapters and chapters that could easily be books. As a point of comparison, Raymond Brown takes 1500 pages and two volumes to cover the death and burial of Jesus. This does not mean that Fuller is always wrong, just that he often provides insufficient information and discussion for us to form an opinion one way or the other.

One example is Fuller's conclusion that the "third day" reference in 1 Corinthians 15 "is not a chronological datum, but a dogmatic assertion." Why the disciples would have found "on the third day" to be dogmatically necessary is gleaned from much later apocalyptic writings in the Talmud. But not only are these sources much later than the resurrection narratives, they are not discussed or even cited (Fuller provides a secondary reference). Nevertheless, Fuller assumes that these apocalyptic beliefs about the significance of the "third day" must have been powerfully active during the time of Jesus. So powerful that the early Christians had to invent a reference to "on the third day" to meet that expectation. But apparently not powerful enough to have left any contemporary evidence of its existence. This seems unlikely and needs much more evidence than is cited.

I do not mean to impugn Fuller. After sweeping away the possibility that there was a historical event that prompted the tradition, he had little choice but to come up with an alternative--no matter how unsupported. Of course, his discussion of why there could not have been a historical prompting for the tradition rests on his assumption that early Christians would not have seen the discovery of the empty tomb and the beginning of the resurrection appearances as indicating the day Jesus was resurrected. I disagree and think at the very least the point merits much further attention. Certainly it would be reasonable for the apostles to conclude that Jesus' resurrection occurred within the same time frame as the empty tomb being discovered and the beginning of the resurrection appearances. Fuller also ignores the reports that Jesus referred to the destruction of the temple and its being rebuilt in three days. This tradition is attested by two traditions (Jn. 2:19 and Mark 14:58; 15:29) so it is not so easily dismissed.

In addition to a simple lack of sufficient discussion, part of the problem seems to be Fuller's apparent assumption that any tension between the accounts can only be explained by authorial redaction. He also sometimes views the literary evidence as a closed universe. For example, because Paul only lists resurrection appearances without supplying narratives, Fuller appears to conclude that the narratives later grew out of the lists. I find this rather unlikely. Some of the appearances in Paul never found there way into a narrative and other narratives, though existing before the gospels, have no detectable source in the list. Additionally, Paul is expressing a creedal statement, useful in preaching and in letter writing. But it seems more likely that the list was distilled from known stories about the resurrection appearances. After all, the leaders of the church had actually experienced these appearances themselves (Peter, James, Paul, the Twelve, and the Apostles). Not nearly enough attention is given to the dynamic of how these witnesses would have shaped the development of the narrative traditions. Paul lived at least as late as 62 CE. James too lived into the 60s. Though we have less information about Peter, he too seems to have lived into the 60s. (Not to mention the Twelve and the other apostles). All of them were continuously active in the church as leaders of the young movement. Would they have really left such little imprint on gospels written only 5-15 years later? I am skeptical. But again, the issue deserves much more attention than it gets.

Overall, an informative read with some insights and good discussion. But ultimately this book is more useful for pointing out the issues than resolving them.… (more)