Vatican City, Oct 8, 2008 / 08:14 am
Pope Benedict XVI dedicated today's audience to St. Paul's relationship to the so-called "historical" Jesus. The Holy Father reminded the faithful that for Paul, "Jesus is alive, speaks for us and lives with us."
Speaking to the 25,000 faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict began his address by noting that St. Paul himself distinguishes two ways of knowing Jesus. In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, he writes, "(E)ven if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." To know someone "according to the flesh," the Pope said, means knowing them from the outside: how someone speaks, moves, etc.
And yet, one does not really know a person from mere externals, he explained. The only way to truly know someone else is with the heart, unlike the Sadducees and Pharisees who only knew Jesus superficially.
Another example of people demonstrating their superficial knowledge of Jesus occurred after the Transfiguration when Jesus asked the apostles: "What do people say about me?" and "But who do you say that I am?" Those who compared Jesus to Elijah or John the Baptist only knew Jesus from the outside, the Holy Father said.