![]() ![]() ![]() In 390, a wealthy Roman woman named Poimenia financed the construction of the Chapel of the Ascension. By 384, an exact place on the Mount of Olives was venerated. Art and architecture also honored the ascension. St. Augustine (died 430) writes that the Feast of the Ascension was widely observed long before his time. In addition to Luke, there are another twenty or so references that allude to the ascension (see below for these references). By the late second century, and down to our own day in most churches around the world, every Sunday we Christians confess the ascension in the Apostles' Creed: "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father." Jesus's definitive ascension forty days after his resurrection would have put a strict limit on such claims. In what sense was Jesus now both present and absent after his death and resurrection? Luke's version of the ascension would have addressed an obvious problem that arose in those early days - continuing claims of further resurrection appearances, some of them legitimate and many of them spurious. The ascension grapples with an important and perplexing ambiguity faced by the earliest believers. He writes that forty days after his resurrection, Jesus "was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight," and so he was "taken from them into heaven." In his gospel and in Acts, he separates the resurrection and the ascension. There are several oblique references to the ascension in John. They seem to construe the resurrection-ascension-exaltation of Jesus as a single and singular event. Matthew and Mark don't mention the ascension, except in Mark's spurious longer ending. ![]() These central affirmations of the Christian faith require us to consider our ancient religious texts in ways that honor our modern scientific cosmologies. How should we understand this language of ascent and descent? Is it metaphorical or literal, fictional or mythical? Some mix of those, or maybe something altogether different? ![]()
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