The Canonical Gospels in Michel Henry’s “Philosophy of Christianity”: The Synoptics as a Praeparatio for the Gospel of John

Abstract

This article explores Michel Henry’s interpretation of the canonical Gospels in his Christian Trilogy. While Henry’s phenomenology emphasizes the immanent self-manifestation of a truth transcending all linguistic mediations, he recognizes the canonical authority of the Gospels as authentic sources of Christ’s words, granting privileged access to that same truth. His surprising focus on Synoptic Gospels, especially in Words of Christ, contrasts with his usual preference for Johannine and Pauline writings. However, his interpretation of the Synoptics tends to uniformize their literary and theological diversity and ignore the narratives and particularities of each Gospel. We suggest that Henry’s hermeneutics is guided less by an exegetical intention than by the principles of his radical phenomenology of life. In short, the article shows the clear risk of eisegetical projection at the core of Henry’s philosophy of Christianity.

1. Introduction

One of the most influential phenomenologists of the twentieth century, especially in the French-speaking context, Michel Henry (1922–2002) is recognized for his highly original philosophical trajectory, marked by a dual uniqueness. First, in a period characterized by postmodern relativism, with its rejection of absolutes, Henry found in the phenomenological reduction the means to philosophically establish an unconditional absolute: the immanent “Life” itself. Through this method, he arrived at the incarnate, living self—the very essence of the “I” in its immediate experience. He argued that the primordial phenomenon to which we have access is the subjective body in its lived flesh, i.e., an acosmic ipseity in which life reveals itself to itself. This primordial phenomenon, encapsulated in the notion of “auto-affection”, opens the door to a “radical phenomenology of life” focused on the deeply subjective and internal experience of existence (Henry 1973, §30, p. 233).

According to Henry, this phenomenon of auto or self-affection has been overlooked in favor of philosophies that focus exclusively on “hetero-affection.” Philosophers until Henry seem to have been exclusively focused on this type of phenomenality: the subject sees things external to itself, feels, touches, and listens to beings that exist outside of it. In this way, the subjective self perceives objects that reveal themselves through this relation of exteriority. However, the primordial phenomenon does not correspond to any of these types of hetero-affection: it is instead feeling one’s life within the immanence of one’s own flesh. Joy, pain, or anguish are phenomena that reveal our life to ourselves in an interiority without ekstasis.1 It is crucial to recognize that this immanent life that defines us is an absolute we do not create. It is something received in the very generation of our own “self.”2 Here lies Henry’s first originality within the postmodern context.

The second distinctive aspect of Henry’s work within the contemporary philosophical landscape is his engagement with Christianity, especially in the final phase of his life, resulting in the publication of the so-called Christian Trilogy:3 a series of works dedicated to exploring the fundamental themes of the New Testament. The first volume is titled C’est moi la Vérité: Pour une philosophie du christianisme (I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity) and was published in 1996. A second volume came out in 2000 with the title Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair (Incarnation: A Philosophy of Flesh). Finally, in 2002, took place the posthumous publication of Paroles du Christ (Words of Christ). In this Trilogy, Henry does more than simply offer a religious interpretation of the New Testament. He conducts a phenomenological analysis of sacred texts, providing an innovative perspective on the experience of the sacred. For Henry, Christianity reveals an ontological truth where life is understood as an immanent and sensitive experience. His interpretation of Christianity moves beyond theological doctrines, positing it as an unequivocal expression of life in its original manifestation. This distinctive approach—intertwining philosophy and spirituality—links his phenomenology of life with the Christian experience, illuminating the New Testament in ways that diverge markedly from traditional interpretations. In doing so, his final philosophy of Christianity merges with his radical phenomenology of life (Mercer 2010, p. 162).

Concerning the hermeneutics of biblical texts implied in this philosophy of Christianity, most recent studies have focused on Henry’s use of the Pauline corpus and the Gospel of John as his primary sources of inspiration.4 Nevertheless, in Henry’s work, one also finds references to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), especially in the final volume of his Trilogy, Words of Christ, which is regarded as a kind of spiritual testament written in the late stages of his life as he battled aggressive cancer (Audi 2006, pp. 14–15).

In an effort to fill a gap in scholarship, the present essay studies Henry’s interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels in his Christian Trilogy. Our analysis will reveal that Henry approaches the Synoptic Gospels from a limited and limiting viewpoint, reducing them to a “deposit of quotations” and subordinating them to the Gospel of John, which appears as the sole key to the mystery of Christ’s revelation. First, though, it is necessary to clarify the place the four canonical Gospels occupy in his philosophy of Christianity.

2. Henry’s Ambiguity Regarding the Epistemological Value of the Gospels in His Work

The first question that needs to be tackled is the epistemological status of the canonical Gospels in Henry’s philosophy of Christianity. What is their value for a philosophical inquiry seeking to unveil the “truth” of Christianity (or, as he puts it, “what Christianity considers as truth” (Henry 2003, p. 1 (italics in the original)))? Are they key to that effort or simply a path among others to the heart of Christianity? As argued in the following, his answer is somewhat ambiguous. A comparison between the introduction to I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, the first volume of Henry’s so-called Christian Trilogy, and the introduction to Words of Christ, the last volume, reveals an understated shift on the standing of these textual sources.

In I Am the Truth, the French phenomenologist raises the question of the meaning of “Christianity,” i.e., its “truth.” Can the analysis and historical study of the New Testament offer access to that “truth,” its “content?” Henry’s answer is a radical “no.”5 On a superficial level, the issue is the provisional character of scientific conclusions, which precludes definitive answers. Deep down, however, there is a structural problem with the historical method itself. For Henry, history—i.e., historical inquiry—relies on the “visibility” of the events and the presence of witnesses to bring about an objective reconstruction of the past (Henry 2003, pp. 3–4). Yet this double criteria is not only too high a bar for the large majority of the events and individual lives of the past but can only be fulfilled if historians turn their attention to documents, particularly texts. For him, this “substitution” is at the core of the historiographical effort and leads, in the case of Christianity, to the assumption that the writings of the New Testament are “the sole mode of access to what these texts are about, to Christ and to God” (Henry 2003, p. 5).

However, the issue remains unsolved since the access these texts grant us falls short of the “truth” we seek. Assuming, for example, the historical reliability of the Gospels, i.e., that they are based on the testimony of credible eyewitnesses and faithfully transmit that testimony, we would only have the confirmation that a certain Jesus has historically existed and claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and God himself. The “truth of Christianity,” nevertheless, is “that the One who called himself the Messiah was truly that Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, born before Abraham and before time, the bearer in himself of Eternal life” (Henry 2003, p. 6).

Conversely, if the canonical Gospels were to be dated to a very late period and their content rendered suspect to the point that it would be impossible to prove (or disprove) the historical existence of Christ, still his divine identity, “if it is true, would not be less true” (Henry 2003, p. 6). Therefore, concludes Henry, “the inability of historical truth to testify for or against the truth of Christianity… is more generally the incapacity of the texts themselves” (Henry 2003, p. 7).

This fundamental incapacity of the neo-testamentary writings to posit the reality envisioned in them is only an instance of a broader phenomenon affecting all language whose sole “power,” in isolation from reality, is its ability to lie, i.e., “to speak this reality when it does not exist, to affirm something, whatever it is, when there is nothing” (Henry 2003, p. 8).6 This feature makes it a source of evil and an unreliable and ultimately unsatisfactory path to reality. In fact, Henry himself explicitly affirms that “language has become the universal evil” (Henry 2003, p. 9). Applying the reasoning back to the New Testament texts, he asks if it would not be better to invert the relationship between them and the “truth” of Christianity. Answering in the positive, he states that

It is not the corpus of the New Testament texts that can offer us access to the Truth, to that absolute Truth of which the corpus speaks. On the contrary, it is Truth and Truth alone that can offer us access to itself and by the same token to that corpus, allowing us to understand the text in which Truth is deposited and to recognize it there.

(Henry 2003, p. 9 (italics in the original))

This assertion, which summarizes Henry’s position, needs some unpacking. First, it seems to create a kind of hermeneutical circle whose pivotal point is the “Truth,” as it manifests itself directly and immediately to the subject, not the New Testament writings. The latter are entirely subordinate to the former, and their meaning depends on it. Consequently, these sacred texts no longer act as mediations or, at least, their role is not primarily that of mediation: the “Truth” points to them, not the other way around. Finally, the only instance that grants these texts a privileged position vis-à-vis the “Truth” is the “Truth” itself. Accordingly, all other criteria are irrelevant or inconsequent, be it the texts’ reliability as established by historical inquiry or, we may surmise, their “ecclesial validation” through liturgical use and/or official declarations, i.e., their canonicity.

Applied to the canonical Gospels, the position outlined in the first volume of the Trilogy implies a radical reconfiguration of their epistemological status. In doing so, Henry denies them and, in fact, any text or document the ability to be a witness of the truth of Christianity. They cannot lead us to that core without a previous, unmediated knowledge granted to us by that core itself.7 They may resonate with the “truth,” i.e., function as a mirror or a deposit, but they cannot elicit its “manifestation” to the subject. As a matter of fact, they are somewhat indifferent (or powerless) vis-à-vis that “truth.” Moreover, nothing, apart from the “truth” itself, can single them out from other Gospels or any other text. No historical, ecclesial, or other considerations can put them in a unique relationship with the core of Christianity: they “happen” to echo that “truth” as other texts, documents, or objects may and equally do. Their value is, at best, maieutic.

This uncompromising philosophical stance is somewhat softened in the introduction to the last volume of the Christian Trilogy. In an implicit but unmistakable manner, the French phenomenologist gives the canonical Gospels a place of honor among the writings pertaining to Christianity while going beyond his self-imposed epistemological restraint. In the introductory pages of Words of Christ, the issue is the nature or character of the words pronounced by the Messiah. Assuming as the point of departure the theological claim that Christ is the incarnated Word of God and, as such, is both human and divine (double nature), Michel Henry interrogates the consequences of this assertion for the understanding of Christ’s discourse. According to him, Christ’s twofold nature invites us to assume that his “speaking” was also dual: “sometimes a human word is at stake in it and sometimes that of God” (Henry 2012, p. 4 (italics in the original)). In this way, Henry calls for a rigorous distinction between Christ’s human and divine “speech.” In doing so, he tries to grasp not only human language but also divine language, i.e., “the way in which God speaks to us” (Henry 2012, p. 5 (italics in the original)).

Nevertheless, this appears impossible for us since our understanding of language pertains only to human language and is inherently unable to recognize, much less examine Christ’s divine “speaking.” According to Henry, this aporia faced by the disciples chosen by Christ in the New Testament can only be surpassed by the Word of God itself, as it manifests itself to us in Christ’s words.8 An inordinate claim to truth singles out the disciples. Christ claims “not only to transmit a divine revelation but purely and simply to be in himself this Revelation, the Word of God” (Henry 2012, p. 9). Henry’s work studies those words to assert if they are “capable of justifying such an assurance” while starting with the easier task of examining “the words of Christ considered as a human being, speaking to humans in their own language” (Henry 2012, p. 9).9

For the purposes of this section, however, it is solely the “locus textualis” chosen by Henry that deserves further attention. He says, “Christ’s words, or at any rate a number of them, have come down to us” (Henry 2012, p. 6). Preserved as logia, they have an enviable historical pedigree and were transmitted in the New Testament and other textual traditions, such as the Gospel attributed to Thomas.10 Discarding as “pseudo-historical” the doubts raised in the nineteenth century about them, Henry takes these logia as “authentic documents” (Henry 2012, pp. 6–7), i.e., as the words that Christ himself pronounced, his ipsissima verba.11 According to the French philosopher, proof of that is Christ’s condemnation and death, which came about precisely because of the “astounding assertions” about his divine identity that not even a late Christian community could have devised.12 Having established this, Henry goes on, in the book, to extensively quote the direct speech attributed to Jesus in the four canonical Gospels and exclusively in them.

The approach adopted in Words of Christ is surprising when considered from the standpoint of the claims in I Am the Truth. Are not historical considerations irrelevant when ascertaining the position of a text vis-à-vis the “truth” of Christianity? Yet, here, the historical reliability of the traditions preserved in the New Testament writings is vigorously upheld and becomes the reason to trust their ability to answer a question pertaining to the core of Christianity, namely, the dual nature of the words of Christ. Henry’s decision to engage these particular texts is therefore determined by their value as historical documents; a conviction that, as recognized in I Am the Truth, depends on a form of inquiry open to a never-ending revision process, given the inherent falsifiability of all scientific conclusions (Henry 2003, pp. 2–3).

Moreover, if historical considerations—and plausibility arguments such as the one regarding Jesus’s condemnation and death—have a role in determining which texts are to be given priority, that does not seem to be the sole principle operating in Words of Christ. When Henry refers to the Gospel of Thomas, he puts it side by side with the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke as texts containing (authentic) logia Christi. Still, neither the Gospel of Thomas nor any other ancient text claiming to reproduce Christ’s words—and positive about his divine identity—is quoted in the rest of the volume. Henry seems to act as if the canonical Gospels were the sole documents worthy of study. Why is that? The answer can only be surmised, but it would be reasonable to assume that their canonical status plays a pivotal role. It is probably the fact that these four writings enjoy a singular position in the millenary tradition of the Church, which recognizes them as “inspired,” that led Henry to choose them as the material to be examined. Once again, an extrinsic criterion—in this case, “ecclesial validation”—seems to confer on specific texts an understated position of privilege in any inquiry about the “truth” of Christianity.

In summary, between the first and the third volume of Henry’s Trilogy, there seems to have been a subtle shift in the conception of the epistemological status of the canonical Gospels. It would not be correct to postulate that Henry abandoned his position of principle about the direct and unmediated character of the access to the “Truth.” Nonetheless, the impression that all texts are “equal” in their “powerlessness” is somewhat disproved in Words of Christ. The four canonical Gospels (and, possibly, other New Testament texts) are perceived as “closer” to the “Truth” than other potential candidates, and, most importantly, this assessment is based on more than just the “Truth alone“ (Henry 2003, p. 9). Their perceived closeness to the events (and reliability) and their official status as Church Scriptures also sets them apart and above. In the following, their use as source for the “words of Christ” constitutes the object of study. Are they treated as a single source, or is the singularity of which Gospel acknowledged and cherished? Is there a “hierarchy” among the canonical Gospels?

3. Henry’s Hermeneutic of the Synoptics: A Single Deposit, a Single Theme

To analyze Michel Henry’s interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels, we focus on the final volume of the so-called Christian Trilogy: Words of Christ. This choice is justified not only by the fact that this book is somewhat more exegetical than the previous two volumes of the Trilogy (I Am the Truth and Incarnation), but also by the scope of Henry’s engagement. While in earlier works, the French philosopher refers primarily (and almost exclusively!) to the Gospel of John and the Pauline writings (Piret 1996, p. 483), in Words of Christ, he turns his attention to the Synoptic Gospels as never before, allowing us to grasp better the principles guiding his hermeneutical approach.

As stated before, the central question addressed in this third volume is the possibility of accessing the Word of God: can the subject discern divine speaking in the words pronounced by Christ and reproduced in the Gospels? Having defined his purpose, Henry approaches the canonical Gospels, primarily the Synoptics, with the aim of excerpting quotations attributed to Christ in these writings. For him, the Gospels are, first and foremost, a faithful deposit of the words pronounced by Christ, allowing a kind of unmediated access to his speaking whose origin and quality are being probed. This constitutes the first aspect of the Henryan hermeneutic worth highlighting. Throughout the book, he rarely refers to the narrative framework within which the different Gospel writers decided to include the sayings of Jesus. It is possible to find oblique references to the setting (“Are not the words of Christ himself which resounded under the sky of Judea and Galilee, arousing the admiration or the rage of his listeners, very far from us, belonging to a vanished world?” (Henry 2012, p. 117)) and some allusions to the circumstances in which Christ uttered certain words (such as the meetings with Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman (Henry 2012, pp. 91, 99)), but overall Henry focuses almost exclusively on Jesus’ direct speech as it is reproduced in the Gospels, leaving aside any consideration for the “chronology” and “geography” of the narrative. The words of Christ are isolated from the narrative context in which the different writers chose to include them as if their meaning could be grasped regardless of the literary and theological decisions shaping these four (re)presentations of Jesus’ life.13

This hermeneutical choice affects the Synoptic Gospels in a particular manner, which, as indicated by the name, share a common vision due to common sources and textual interdependence. Building on the latter, Henry “uniformizes” the witness of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, either by listing parallel texts without any reference to their function in the respective plot or combining the quotations as if they were all part of a single Gospel.14 Such a way of proceeding altogether disregards the literary and theological singularity of each of the Gospels, construing their “synopsis” as an authorization to amalgamate their testimony. In that sense, although Henry seems to take the “ecclesial validation” of these three (four) Gospels as the reason to place them front and center in his inquiry about the “truth” of Christianity, as argued before, it does not translate into an exegetical approach fully guided by the horizon of canonicity. Because in the case of the Gospels, there is a clear indication that the ecclesial decision to preserve and transmit not one but four “biographies” of Jesus without “harmonizing” their differences was driven by an awareness of the “polyphonic” nature of the canon in its witness to Christ 15. Unity does not translate itself into uniformity, as the method adopted by Henry risks doing.

Yet Henry’s uniformizing reading of the Synoptic Gospels seems to be steered not only by the method and its object (Jesus’ sayings) but also by the author’s tendency to discern in (or project upon) the biblical texts the principle which encapsulates the essence of his phenomenology of life: the hierarchy between two modes of phenomenological manifestation (appearing), namely, the auto-affection of one’s flesh and the hetero-affection by objects (external) to the subject (Henry 2015, §9, pp. 55–59). As in the previous two volumes of his Christian Trilogy, Henry makes the distinction between immanent life and external world the key to interpreting the New Testament writings, which, according to him, reveal a profound understanding of the “duality” of the phenomenological manifestation. In this particular aspect, the biblical texts contrast with the Greek philosophy that tended to absolutize the ek-static mode of “appearing”, framing it within the horizon of exteriority relative to the subject. The New Testament texts recognize the former but are fully attuned to that more primordial manifestation inherent to the subject’s inner life. In that sense, in Henry’s view, even when Jesus presents himself as an ordinary human being, engaging in dialogue with others using distinctly human language, there is always this call to recognize that the nature of humanity is intrinsically fleshly and affective, rather than principally rational or merely capable of perceiving external phenomena.

Guided by that hermeneutical principle, Henry drastically reduces the thematic diversity of the Gospels. In fact, it would be possible to argue that Henry forces the biblical texts not only to speak as a single voice but also to be about a single topic. This is clearly visible in how Henry goes “beyond the letter” to unveil the true intention and purpose of the most disparate words of Christ. Some examples will suffice.

When Jesus engages in a discussion about purity and impurity (see the sayings in Mt 15: 11–20 and Mk 7: 14–23), the issue is not construed by Henry as an intra-Jewish religious debate but as a pushback against the notion that intermundane exteriority can affect the truth of one’s nature: only the pure immanent reality resonates with one’s self, i.e., one’s “inner heart” (Henry 2012, p. 12).16 In the same vein, Jesus calling his disciples to trust in their heavenly Father, who shall take care of them as he feeds the birds and dresses the lilies of the field (Mt 6: 24–25), is interpreted as an appeal to recognize the “radical opposition between the visible and the invisible”, between “the invisible revelation of life in us” and that which is “before us”—the “world”—that can only distract us from what is most valuable to us (Henry 2012, pp. 15–16 (italics in the original)).

According to the French phenomenologist, this fundamental impairment of our horizon is also the target of Jesus’ indictment against hypocrisy in the Gospels. When Christ accuses the Pharisees of being hypocrites, either because of how they practice their piety (Mt 6: 1–18) or because of their understanding of the Law about the Sabbath (Luke 14: 3–6), at stake is not some moral deviance but the upturn of the original hierarchy between the two modes of phenomenological manifestation (appearing): their sin is to have neglected the inner life in its fundamental auto-affection and embraced exteriority as the driving principle of their lives and deeds.17

Finally, even the Beatitudes (Mt 5: 3–10; Lk 6: 20–22) pertain to this same “duality”. Those who are recognized by Christ as “children of the Father” and embody the Beatitudes live the paradox at the heart of the human condition. The call to joy is intrinsically connected with the experience of self or auto-affection, which is destined to grow in the subject; the intrawordly mediations, the external “possessions” in the horizon of the hetero-affection, cannot and shall not bring that joy. It is possible to be deprived of everything (external) and yet experience the promise of a full (inner, affective, fleshy) life (Henry 2012, pp. 26–27.38–39.46–47; see also Henry 2003, pp. 201–4).

These examples illustrate the kind of exegesis practiced by Michel Henry when discussing the words of Christ included in the canonical Gospels, in particular the Synoptics. It would be fair to argue that Henry’s exegesis imitates his own phenomenology in discerning a certain duality between text and meaning. The words themselves, in their “exteriority,” speak about different topics and seem to address various concerns. Still, their meaning is always directly or indirectly the same because Christ is fully identified with the primordial self-revelation of life and speaks solely to make it clearly known and appreciated in its superiority. This is why Henry can claim, at the very beginning of Words of Christ, that “the most concrete Synoptic texts say the same thing as the Johannine texts or Paul’s letters” (Henry 2012, p. 12) (italics ours)). What remains to be seen is if, in Henry’s exegesis, this “single theme” is articulated in the same manner across the board or some writings or texts have hermeneutical primacy.

4. The Synoptics and the Gospel of John: Henry’s Hermeneutical Asymmetry

In the Introduction of Words of Christ, Michel Henry presents the book’s plan. To answer his question regarding the divine origin and essence of Christ’s words, the French philosopher believes it will be necessary to examine those words of Christ “considered as a human being, speaking to humans in their own language”, either about them or about himself, before studying Christ’s words as those of the Word of God, in an attempt to clarify what distinguishes them and how can they be heard and understood by human beings (Henry 2012, p. 9). The plan traces an itinerary in which the distinction between two kinds of sayings and two levels of language builds a kind of “hierarchy of meaning.” Some of Christ’s words reproduced in the Gospels resonate with the human experience and only require an attentive hearing, while others surpass that horizon and, though “hearable” and ultimately understandable, require a particular disposition of one’s heart and can only be grasped in that inner core.18

We have already clarified how even the simplest words of Christ require, in Henry’s exegesis, an unveiling of their true meaning. At this point, however, the “hierarchy of meaning” and how it affects the relationship between the four canonical Gospels needs to be highlighted. A remarkable feature of Words of Christ is the absence of quotations from John’s Gospel in the book’s first chapters.19 In the book’s first half, when the French author is surveying and studying the words of Christ “considered as human being, speaking to humans in their own language”, only the Synoptic Gospels offer material to Henry’s inquiry. There seems to be, already at this level, an implicit decision about the nature of the sources of Jesus’ sayings. While the Synoptics are witnesses to the full range of Christ’s engagement with human beings, the Gospel of John would be somewhat more selective in its approach, having focused exclusively (or almost exclusively!) on those sayings of Jesus which speak immediately and uncompromisingly about his divine nature.20 In that sense, the Fourth Gospel seems to occupy a higher place in Henry’s “hierarchy of meaning”. The Synoptic Gospels, on the contrary, stand as a kind of preparation for the core of Christ’s announcement—his divine identity—which is (re)affirmed directly and more clearly in John.21

This structural “hierarchization” of the four canonical Gospels comes to imply, however, more than simply an idiosyncratic use of the textual witnesses. Although John’s Gospel is never explicitly quoted in the first half of Words of Christ, Johannine language and theology are pervasive throughout the book. From the first lines of the introduction onwards, the term “Word” (in French, Verbe) in uppercase stands for the Johannine Logos, whose enflesehment or incarnation is described in John 1:1–18.22 The question driving Henry’s Gospels study is also formulated in terms dependent on John’s Christology: “The question that must be asked is a question of principle. Is it possible for humans to hear in their own language a word which would speak in another language, namely that of God or more exactly of his Word [Verbe]?” (Henry 2012, p. 8) Finally, there is a repeated use of this same terminology and its specific manner of describing Christ’s divine identity in the discussion of the sayings extracted from the Synoptic Gospels.

The latter point deserves a detailed commentary. It is not only the case that the Gospel of John offers the frame to think about Christ and its words; it also shapes the exegesis of the passages unique to the Synoptics. For example, while discussing Jesus’ saying regarding “greatness” and service (Lk 22:26–27: “The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves”), Henry invites the reader to go beyond the immediate meaning and uses both John’s Christology and Soteriology (see John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in his name”) as his hermeneutical key:

Once again, this is not a mere edifying example or a model of conduct. Christ who intervenes in human relationship is not actually one of its members—neither the one who commands, nor the one who serves. He is the Word [Verbe] hidden in the life of each one of those on whom he confers the status of son as he delivers them.

(Henry 2012, pp. 52–53)

Similarly, when Henry engages in a detailed analysis of the “parable of the sower” reproduced, with minor variants, in the three Synoptic Gospels (Mt 13:1–23; Mk 4:1–20; Lk 8:4–15), John’s theology reigns, once again, supreme:

The first, truly appalling, concerns those who hear the Word, but at the very moment they hear it, the evil arises which obliterates their attention [Mt 13:19; Mk 4:15; Lk 8:12]. Everything occurs as if the word had never been spoken, as if it had never been heard—as if the Word [Verbe] came even to his own, but had not been received [John 1:11].

(Henry 2012, p. 94)23

This same dynamic is also at play when Henry quotes and comments on the so-called “Johannine thunderbolt”: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt 11: 27//Lk 10: 22).24 This passage—which is frequently quoted in Henry’s biblical discussions, see, e.g., (Henry 2004a, p. 133; Henry 2004b, p. 139), is presented in Words of Christ as the perfect illustration of the theological correspondence between John and the Synoptics in their understanding of Christ’s divine identity: “Christ’s identification with the Word [Verbe] of God is in no way the prerogative of John’s Gospel alone. It is all over the Synoptics, either in the form of explicit statements or resulting directly from Christ’s words or actions” (Henry 2012, p. 50).

Hence, Henry’s exegesis of the Synoptic Gospels has not only a certain “amalgamative” quality but is utterly subordinate to the theological perspective espoused in the Gospel of John. Underlining Henry’s approach seems to be the assumption that the Synoptic Gospels convey the exact same message as the Gospel of John, although in a somewhat more ambiguous (or less perfect) manner. As a result, the French philosopher remains blind to the theology proper to each of the Synoptic Gospels, in particular their unique Christology. It is possible to construe Henry’s bias as a reaction against the tendency to pit against each other the “high” Christology of the Gospel of John and the supposedly “lower” Christology advanced in the Synoptics Gospels.25 It goes, however, too far in its attempt to show the (Johannine!) “harmony” of the four canonical Gospels, sacrificing the literary and theological specificity of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.26

In that sense, the Synoptic Gospels seem to assume, first and foremost, a “probatory” value. In the introduction to Words of Christ, Henry singles out the Synoptic Gospels as a trustworthy deposit of the oldest Jesus’ traditions available: his logia (Henry 2012, p. 6). That quality, i.e., their “historical pedigree,” is what makes them so significant since they can attest—under the exegetical gaze of the French phenomenologist—to the fact that John’s peculiar understanding of the divine identity of Jesus (the idea of an enflesehment of the Word of God) goes back to the earliest stratum of the tradition and, eventually, to Christ himself.27 Thus, through the Synoptic Gospels, John’s hermeneutical primacy receives a historical grounding.

In fact, it would be more precise to attribute hermeneutical primacy not to the whole of John’s Gospel but to a particular text: the Prologue (John 1:1–18). Henry’s exploration of not only the Synoptic Gospels but also John’s Gospel is (over)determined by the language and theology of that particular passage. Already in the first volume of the Christian trilogy, I Am the Truth, it is in the Prologue to the Gospel that Henry recognizes the clearest expression of John’s “phenomenology of Christ.” In Henry’s terminology, the Prologue describes the begetting of the “Arch-Son,” the “First Living,” who came to acquaint us with the intra-Trinitarian relations that bring about the primordial and ceaseless begetting of “absolute Life” which “auto-affects” the subject in its most intimate core (See, in particular, Henry 2003, pp. 74–78). In Words of Christ, the same text is also repeatedly evoked, explicitly or implicitly,28 both to clarify the circulation of “absolute Life” in God and the extra-Trinitarian mission entrusted to the Word/Christ.29 John 1:1–18 “constitutes—as Henry affirms—the summary and conclusion of the Gospel of John” (Henry 2012, p. 81)30 and, consequently, the true hermeneutical key to the four canonical Gospels (and the “truth” of Christianity).

5. Conclusions: Is Henry’s “Philosophy of Christianity” Truly Biblical?

In this essay, we analyzed how Michel Henry interprets and uses the Synoptic Gospels throughout his Christian Trilogy, especially in the posthumous final volume, Words of Christ. We began by discussing the place of the canonical Gospels in his philosophy of Christianity, highlighting the ambiguity of Henry’s position. In the first volume of the Trilogy, the emphasis is on a “Truth of Life” that does not require any mediations—textual or otherwise—to manifest itself 31. Everything depends on this immanent manifestation; hence, the New Testament or any other texts cannot grant access to that “truth.” Although, once it becomes manifest, they may acquire a certain maieutic function. In the third volume of the Trilogy, by contrast, the canonical Gospels become the “locus textualis” of an inquiry into the heart of Christianity, i.e., the affirmation of the divinity of Christ, the enfleshed Word of God. They are the faithful deposit of his “words,” and this historical reliability places them as a privileged witness. Moreover, their canonicity is also at play since Henry disregards any other possible textual witnesses in favor of these four Gospels, implicitly embracing the Church’s practice and official declaration as guidance.

Studying the references to the Synoptic Gospels in the Words of Christ, our analysis has shown that Henry’s exegesis is characterized by an exclusive focus on Christ’s direct speech (his verba or logia), which completely disregards the narrative framework as if it was not relevant for the understanding of the meaning of the text. Consequently, the literary and theological diversity of the three Synoptic Gospels is entirely dissolved: they operate as a single source or Gospel for Christ’s “atemporal” and “aspatial” words.

This uniformization of the Synoptic Gospels is further intensified by Henry’s tendency to read the biblical texts according to the principle governing his radical phenomenology: the hierarchy between the two modes of appearance, namely, the immanent life, on one side, and the external world, on the other. Based on this phenomenological principle, Michel Henry ends up reducing the whole of Christ’s message—as it is attested in the Gospels—to a single theme: “the relation between the world and our life is here proposed under the form of a radical opposition between the visible and the invisible” (Henry 2012, p. 15 (italics in the original)). In doing so, the French thinker seems to exchange the exegetical effort for an eisegetical insouciance in which his radical phenomenology of life reigns supreme. In light of this, Henry’s own words about his (re)encounter with the New Testament offer clear indications of the limits of his biblical hermeneutics:

I did not start with Christianity, but with phenomenology. It was only later, while rereading the New Testament texts, that I discovered, with a certain emotion, that the theses implied in these texts were those to which the internal development of my philosophy had led me, namely, (1) the definition of the absolute (God) as Life, and (2) the assertion that the process of life, as coming to itself and as self-experience, necessarily generates within itself an Ipseity through which it precisely experiences itself.

(Henry 2005, pp. 153–54 (our translation))

There was then a clear risk of eisegetical projection, which ended up being substantiated in the analysis of the individual texts of the Gospels.32 As shown in the article, a projection that also imposes Johannine notions and theology upon the remaining three Gospels, creating a hierarchy of sorts within the New Testament. John’s Gospel (in particular, the Prologue to the Gospel) offers the most complete and clear understanding of the “truth” of Christianity, while the other Gospels reflect it in a somewhat opaque or imperfect manner. Their value resides almost exclusively in their ability to “prove” that John’s later theology is grounded on the earliest available tradition. The price paid is, however, too high: forcing the Synoptics to conform to his interpretation of John’s Gospel, Henry sacrifices the unique literary and theological voices of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Therefore, rather than offering a deeper understanding of these texts, Henry’s hasty exegesis imposes a uniformizing vision that fails to respect, let alone cherish, the plurality enshrined in the Christian Scriptures.