Now
there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and
devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon
him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see
death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit
into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to
perform the custom of the law in regard to him, He took him into his arms
and blessed God, saying: "Now, Master, you may let your servant go in
peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you
prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and
glory for your people Israel." The child's father and mother were amazed
at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his
mother, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of
many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted - and you
yourself a sword will pierce - so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
Luke 2:22 et seq.
In
Chapter 16 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus announces, “Truly, I say to you,
there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son
of Man coming in his kingdom.
This
line inspired early Christians to believe the Second Coming would happen within
a generation. It also may have inspired the legend, referred to in the
enigmatic third-to-last verse of the Gospel of John (21:23), which indicated
early Christians believed the apostle John would live an unnaturally long time
until Jesus returned. It appears in
today’s reading as a blessing received by Simeon as reward for his
righteousness.
But
unnatural longevity was also sometimes considered a curse. A thirteenth century
legend told of a man named Cartaphilus – sometimes depicted as Pontius Pilate’s
gatekeeper who struck Jesus as he carried the cross to Calvary – who is cursed
to wander the earth until the Second Coming. Apocryphal stories about encounters with individuals
claiming to be Cartaphilus in the 1200s and 1500s received a lot of attention
(sometimes with an ugly anti-Semitic cast) and most recently he was played as
an ageless, murderous Catholic priest, prominent in the 1988 apocalyptic
movie, The Seventh Sign.
Image: Rembrandt - Simeon with Jesus (1669)
