208 BERNARDO ESTRADA consequences of His words. The early Christian community needed to give a sense to the cross: the core of the church’s kerygma was considered by both Jews and Gentiles an absurd and foolish event. The antiquity and wide diffusion of the theme in NT writings favor its origin in Jesus Himself and such an invitation to rejoice just in suffering agrees well with the contents of His frequently paradoxical teaching 110. Jesus’ sayings in Matt 5,11-12 / Luke 6,22-23 represent the core of His preaching about joy in suffering, which the early church has interpreted and applied to its own circumstances. In this vein, Peter is a full adaptation of Christian thought characterized by an affirmation of present experience as divine blessing and of its Christological basis 111. How faithfully has 1 Pet kept Jesus’ logia? Or better, what about the authenticity of these sayings? As regards the motive of joy in suffering, to which 1 Pet is closest in form and content, a considerable number of NT scholars would accept it readily. There is in it a knowledge and adaptation of Jesus’ logion recorded in Matt 5,11-12 and Luke 6,22-23. More difficult would be establishing a consensus about the expression en onomati Xristoy (1 Pet 4,14a), which is seen by ß ß¥ ˜ some scholars as a redaction of Jesus’ saying in the last beatitude of Matt/Luke. That could derive from an independent oral tradition 112, where oneid¥zein is linked with similar causal phrases eneken ß ı ™ emoy (Matt) and eneka toy yΩoy toy anurwpoy (Luke). Several ߘ ™ ˜ ı˜ ˜ß ¥ NT passages put together the idea of suffering and its association with Christ 113. The Petrine statement reflects the traditional idea that such an association will result in the same treatment that Jesus himself encountered. Why joy in suffering? What meaning did such an attitude have in early Christianity? Surely, it was not a search for pleasure in the midst of pain. Nobody could bear it without a motive. It would be rather an expression of happiness in the disciple who follows the steps of Christ, who walks on the pathway run by Him. Cf. DUPONT, Béatitudes II, 344-345. 110 Cf. N. BROX, “Der erste Petrusbrief in der literarischen Tradition des 111 Urchristentums ”, Kairos 20 (1978) 214. Cf. DAVIES – ALLISON, Matthew I, 463. 112 Matt 10,18/Mark 13,13; Matt 10,22; 19,29; 24,9/Luke 21,17. They are 113 preceded by the prepositions eneken / eneka, dia, yper. ™ ™ ¥Ω¥