1 Peter 4:12–19

Finding Meaning in Suffering

Commentaries by Ian Boxall

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Marc Chagall

Yellow Crucifixion, 1942, Oil on canvas, 140 x 101 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; AM 1988-74, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, Photo: © CNAC / MNAM / Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Communion in Suffering

Commentary by Ian Boxall

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Marc Chagall was haunted by the image of Christ as Jewish martyr, not least following the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. The Yellow Crucifixion, painted in 1943, is one of several crucifixion scenes Chagall produced, which scandalized Jew and Christian alike.

Christ on the cross is unmistakably a Jewish man, wearing tefillin on his head and left arm. Moreover, trampling on centuries of artistic convention, and in contrast to his earlier and more famous White Crucifixion (1938), Chagall has de-centred the cross. It has yielded its place to an open Torah-scroll. Or perhaps the two symbols—the Torah and the cross—belong together, connected by Christ’s outstretched right arm, and both illuminated by the candle held by a flying angel, blowing a shofar.

Moreover, the crucified is surrounded by scenes of Jewish persecution and displacement. A town burns below the cross to the right. At bottom centre, a Jewish mother flees with her child, recalling the Christian iconography of the Flight into Egypt. The boat on the left is the Struma, sunk off the coast of Türkiye in 1942 with nearly eight hundred Jewish émigrés on board. Here is a potent image of European Jews sharing in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13). Or rather, the crucified Christ as the archetypal suffering Jew.

1 Peter originally addressed converts from paganism, ostracized by family and taunted by neighbours for their association with the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth. Yet by Chagall’s time, the tables have dramatically turned. Now it is Jesus’s co-religionists who find themselves reproached, ostracized, and forced to flee by those who bear his name. Nor, tragically, is this something new. Centuries of Christian antisemitism have prepared the ground. Far from being reviled ‘for the name of Christ’, his followers have used that name to revile others. Chagall’s shocking variation on a familiar theme foregrounds the complicity of European Christians in the sufferings of their Jewish brethren.

 

References

Amishai-Maisels, Ziva. 1993. Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press), ch. 3

Bohn-Duchen, Monica. 2010. ‘Images of Jesus in the Work of Marc Chagall: Christian Redeemer or Jewish Martyr?’, in Cross Purposes: Shock and Contemplation in Images of the Crucifixion, ed. by Nathaniel Hepburn (Paddock Wood: Mascalls Gallery), pp. 68–71

Jeffrey, David Lyle. 2012. ‘Meditation and Atonement in the Art of Marc Chagall’, Religion and the Arts 16: 211–30


Annibale Carracci

Christ appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Domine, Quo Vadis?), 1601–02, Oil on panel, 77.4 × 56.3 cm, The National Gallery, London; Bought, 1826, NG9, Photo: © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY

Named and Unashamed

Commentary by Ian Boxall

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It is especially poignant that the author (actual or implied) of this exhortation to share Christ’s sufferings is the apostle Peter. The memory of Peter’s denial of Christ was widespread among early Christians. Peter was ashamed to be associated with Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest: not once, but three times (Mark 14:68, 70, 71). But Peter is also a potent symbol of the transformative power of grace. Simon’s new name ‘Peter’, ‘rock’ (Matthew 16:18; John 1:42), is less an indicator of his character than of what he would become.

But how long would it take Simon to live up to his new name? More importantly, when would Peter be bold enough to publicly declare Christ’s name, and suffer for it?

Annibale Carracci depicts a scene, not from the New Testament, but from Christian tradition.

Many years have passed since that threefold failure in Jerusalem. An elderly Peter, having preached the gospel in Rome, flees the city, only to encounter Christ on the Appian Way. Quo vadis, Domine? (‘Where are you going, Lord?’). Christ, bearing the marks of his passion, replies that he is headed for Rome, to be crucified again. Carracci’s Peter recoils at this prospect of suffering. Yet this encounter also marks a turning-point. Peter will return to the city, and face crucifixion in Christ’s stead. Posterity will claim both Peter and Paul as founding martyr-apostles of the Roman church.

Our passage presents an apostle who has made that transition. He has learned from his mistakes, and is no longer ashamed of Christ’s name. Now he boldly encourages his fellow Christians, scattered across the provinces of Asia Minor, to suffer joyfully ‘as a Christian’ (1 Peter 4:16). The name ‘Christian’ almost certainly emerged as a term of abuse, used by pagan neighbours (Acts 11:26). Yet now it has become a badge of honour, for those, like Peter, unashamed of their association with Christ. 


Stefan Lochner

The Last Judgement, c.1435, Tempera on oak, 124.5 x 173 cm, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud; WRM 0066, Photo: bpk Bildagentur / Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne / Michael Albers / Art Resource, NY

Beginning with the Household of God

Commentary by Ian Boxall

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Stefan Lochner’s magnificent triptych of the Last Judgement, of which this is the central panel, is one of the most compelling interpretations of the scene surviving from the late Middle Ages. Christ sits enthroned, separating the wicked from the righteous as they emerge naked from their graves: his right hand raised in blessing over the latter, his left directing the former towards eternal punishment. Lochner’s panel vividly depicts that eschatological judgement of which our passage speaks (1 Peter 4:12, 17–18). The ‘fiery ordeal’ faced by Peter’s early Christian audience is part of the so-called ‘messianic woes’, expected sufferings of God’s people as the day of reckoning approaches (see e.g. Mark 13:5–8; Romans 8:18; Revelation 7:14).

Lochner’s Last Judgement panel does not stand alone, however. It originally had side panels (now fragmented and dispersed among several different collections), presenting in twelve graphic scenes the martyrdoms of the apostles. For Lochner’s contemporaries, these apostle-martyrs would have served as powerful intercessors in the face of their own experience of suffering. They exemplify the promise that those who share Christ’s sufferings will ‘rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed’ (1 Peter 4:13). The revelation of the glory is displayed for all to see in the triptych’s central panel.

Yet, this passage from 1 Peter also contains a word of warning. Judgement begins with ‘the household of God’ (v.17). The author has regularly used architectural metaphors to describe Christian converts whose profession of faith rendered them homeless: living stones, a temple, a house (or household). Here his readers are warned against the presumption of salvation. Hence, contrasting sharply with the jubilant procession entering heaven’s gates to the left of Lochner’s panel, is the disturbing scene at bottom right. A chained devil seizes a terrified group of twelve humans—a kind of anti-apostolate—pulling them down into hell. Visible among them are pillars of the medieval Christian community: a pope, a cardinal, a bishop, and a monarch.

Judgement begins at the very door of God’s household, the Church. To whom more is given, more will be demanded.

 

References

Chapuis, Julien. 2004. Stefan Lochner: Image Making in Fifteenth-Century Cologne (Turnhout: Brepols)


Marc Chagall :

Yellow Crucifixion, 1942 , Oil on canvas

Annibale Carracci :

Christ appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Domine, Quo Vadis?), 1601–02 , Oil on panel

Stefan Lochner :

The Last Judgement, c.1435 , Tempera on oak

Suffering and Judgement

Comparative commentary by Ian Boxall

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The mystery of suffering continues to elude Christians. It is so central to the Christian story: Christ’s own passion and death; the blood of the martyrs, seed-bed of the Church; the vocation of Jesus’ followers, called to take up their cross, whether literally or figuratively. Moreover, far from being a Christian prerogative, suffering is a universal experience.

This passage from 1 Peter reflects on the meaning of suffering, and draws back from offering a univocal meaning or explanation. Suffering may be undeserved, the result of hostile reaction from outsiders to those who follow Christ’s way. In such cases it can be grounds for rejoicing, an opportunity for participation, communion, koinonia in Christ’s sufferings. Or suffering can function to ‘test’ or ‘prove’ believers’ fidelity, like the purifying effects of fire. In an ‘end-time’ context, suffering is the expected experience of God’s people, ‘part of the mysterious drama of judgement’ (Senior and Harrington 2003: 135). Yet suffering is not the end-game: it will be definitively overcome on that day ‘when his glory is revealed’ (1 Peter 4:13).

The particular connection between present suffering and a positive judgement at the last is hinted at in different ways by Annibale Carracci, Stefan Lochner, and Marc Chagall. For Carracci, suffering is a pattern of life for the Christian disciple, in imitation of Christ himself. Even as he encounters Peter, Christ is on the move, legs in motion, gesturing towards his destination with his right hand. On the Via Appia, he reprises that Via Dolorosa undertaken in Jerusalem. Peter now faces his moment of decision. Where is he headed? Away from the cross? Or will he turn (the root meaning of ‘repent’, Greek metanoeō), and take up Christ’s baton on the way of sorrows? Nor is this invitation only for Peter. The original design of Carracci’s painting had the figure of Peter closer to Jesus’s body than it is now. In the final version, Peter recoils to the right, leaving space for the viewer to reach out and take hold of the protruding cross. A favourable judgement is promised through solidarity with Jesus and his story. ‘If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed’ (1 Peter 4:14): this Petrine beatitude echoes Jesus’s own declaration of blessedness on those reviled for his sake (Matthew 5:11–12).

But Peter’s story, like ours, is a story of recurring failure. Lochner’s Last Judgement therefore hints that judgement must be tempered with mercy. Close to Christ is the Virgin Mary, her hands clasped in prayer. Christ apparently looks, not at the resurrected people being divided into damned and saved, but directly at his mother. In her role as Mater misericordiae, ‘mother of mercy’, she intercedes with her son for her earthly suppliants, some of whom raise their hands in fervent prayer. Angels and demons fight over others, their ultimate fate apparently still in the balance.

Yet Lochner’s altarpiece, designed for the eyes of medieval Christian worshippers, reflects a very different age, where church and society were largely coterminous. In such a world, members of other Abrahamic faiths were not valued as neighbours but reviled and feared as ‘the other’. Unlike the Christian suppliants seeking Mary’s prayers, there is apparently no mercy for the crowd filling the ravine between her and John the Baptist in the centre of the panel. These are being herded by devils to hell’s gateway on the right, like goats on Christ’s left hand (Matthew 25:33). Among this unfortunate group are several turbaned Muslims, and Jews wearing stereotyped pointed hats. Lochner’s judgement scene is an extreme visual example, reflecting the presuppositions of fifteenth-century Catholic Europe, of 1 Peter’s warning: ‘if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?’ (1 Peter 4:17).

Chagall’s Yellow Crucifixion turns the vision of Lochner on its head. Cross and Torah scroll are dramatically juxtaposed. It is the suffering, crucified Jew, and the faithful hearers of Moses, who emerge as the righteous. A group of Jewish refugees hovers beside the cross, modern-day counterparts of the angels, the holy women and St John in classic crucifixion scenes. Judgement is now given in their favour. By contrast, their Christian neighbours stand condemned, for their silent complicity, if not active participation, in the persecution of European Jewry.

 

References

Amishai-Maisels, Ziva. 1993. Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press), ch. 3

Bohn-Duchen, Monica. 2010. ‘Images of Jesus in the Work of Marc Chagall: Christian Redeemer or Jewish Martyr?’, in Cross Purposes: Shock and Contemplation in Images of the Crucifixion, ed. by Nathaniel Hepburn (Paddock Wood: Mascalls Gallery), pp. 68–71

Chapuis, Julien. 2004. Stefan Lochner: Image Making in Fifteenth-Century Cologne (Turnhout: Brepols)

Jeffrey, David Lyle. 2012. ‘Meditation and Atonement in the Art of Marc Chagall’, Religion and the Arts 16: 211–30

Senior, Donald P., and Daniel J. Harrington. 2003. 1 Peter, Jude, and 2 Peter, Sacra Pagina (Collegeville: Michael Glazier)

Next exhibition: 1 Peter 5

1 Peter 4:12–19

Revised Standard Version

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; 16yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God. 17For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18And

“If the righteous man is scarcely saved,
where will the impious and sinner appear?”

19Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.