Essays on the Psalms of Solomon: Its Cultural Background, Significance, and Interpretation 9783161624483, 9783161624490, 3161624483

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Parabiblica Editiones et Studia Edited by / Herausgegeben von Felix Albrecht (Göttingen) · Christfried Böttrich (Greifswald) Jan Dochhorn (Durham) · Nils Arne Pedersen (Aarhus) Jacques van Ruiten (Groningen) ·Tobias Thum (München) Managing Editor / Geschäftsführender Herausgeber Jan Dochhorn

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Essays on the Psalms of Solomon Its Cultural Background, Significance, and Interpretation Edited by

Kenneth Atkinson, Patrick Pouchelle, and Felix Albrecht

Mohr Siebeck

Kenneth Atkinson, born 1960; 1999 PhD; 1999–2011 Associate Professor of Religion; Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa. orcid.org/0000-0003-1915-5056 Patrick Pouchelle, born 1973; 2013 PhD; Associate Professor of Old Testament at the Centre Sèvres in Paris. orcid.org/0000-0003-4817-1397 Felix Albrecht, born 1981; 2017 PhD; Head of the Research Unit “Die Editio critica maior des griechischen Psalters” at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. orcid.org/0000-0003-2511-6475

ISBN 978-3-16-162448-3 / eISBN 978-3-16-162449-0 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-162449-0 ISSN 2941-2609 / eISSN 2941-2617 (Parabiblica) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen. www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Felix Albrecht / SCHRIFT-BILDER.org, printed by Gulde Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper, and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.



Preface Most of the essays gathered in this volume were read in the third international Meeting on the Psalms of Solomon, co-organised by the Centre Sèvres and the TDMAM (Centre Paul-Albert Février), and held in the “Maison Méditerranéenne des sciences de l’homme” in Aix-en-Provence (July 2018). After the important contributions made at the first meeting,1 and the question of intertextuality raised in the second meeting,2 this volume is more focused on the questions of the production and the reception of this text. The volume is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the Second Temple Period Jewish context of the collection. Albrecht examines the Psalms of Solomon in the context of “Palestinian Judaism”, particularly focusing on the importance of Moses and Solomon. Pajunen explores the relationship between the Psalms of Solomon and other late psalmic writings. He notices the similarities and differences between these texts, most notably with the Hodayot. He considers that the extra canonical Ps 154, the Apostrophe to Zion, and the Messianic Apocalypse were very close to our corpus. Finally, Babota explores the motif of the Temple in the Psalms of Solomon. The place of the Temple is ambivalent, but it seems to be important for some psalms while in others it is completely absent, with sacrifices probably replaced by benevolent actions. Babota puts this issue in the Herodian context where this king may have considered himself as a new Solomon building a new temple for his God. The second part explores some major themes of the Psalms of Solomon in greater depth. Rath studies the neglected themes of the Diaspora and the Exile in the collection. Although the psalms are considered as written in a Palestinian context, the place of the galût seems important. Johnson manages to bring something new in the widely studied theme of messianism. Bringing together Judith and Psalms of Solomon he overcomes the classic debate between a militant or a non-militant messiah. Zurawski explores the well-known topic of paideia in the Psalms of Solomon. By a judicious comparison with Wisdom of Solomon, he clarifies the differences between the two texts. For instance, in the Psalms of Solomon, the paideia is reactive (due to the sins of the righteous) and dedicated to the righteous, whereas in Wisdom, the paideia is proactive (to avoid the sin of the righteous) and open to all mankind. In the third part, the relationship of the Psalms of Solomon with the New Testament is studied. Continuing his research on the relationship between Paul and the Psalms of Solomon,3 Ábel analyses the eschatological opening to the Gentiles in Paul and in Psalms of Solomon and concludes the need for analyzing in greater depth the Jewish context 1 The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015). 2 The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, Intertexts. Edited by Patrick Pouchelle, G. Anthony Keddie, and Kenneth Atkinson, EJL 54 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021). 3 František Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, WUNT II/416 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016).

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of Paul. In a short contribution, Rastoin compares the question of the horse metaphor in Acts 26:14 and Psalm of Solomon 16:4. He does not find any direct influence of the Psalms of Solomon on Acts. However, as the comparison of human (and divine) discipline with mating a horse is well known in Greek culture, he advocates for doing more research on the question of Hellenistic influences on both the Psalms of Solomon and Acts. In the fourth and final part, the question of the history of the text is addressed. Pouchelle presents the first quotation of the Psalms of Solomon ever found: Gennadios Scholarios II, the first patriarch after the siege of Constantinople in 1453, mixed Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8 to explain why the city has fallen developing a typology of the fall of Jerusalem. The patriarch considers clearly that these psalms belong to the Scriptures. Although this discovery has little to add to the new critical edition of the Psalms of Solomon,4 it has much to say about the question of the reception of the text. This last question is addressed differently by Dorival and Atkinson. Dorival raises the question of the canonicity of the Psalms of Solomon. By examining the question in the Greek, Syriac and other linguistic sphere contexts, he concludes that even if the canonicity of the Psalms of Solomon is unproven it could not be considered as nonexistant. Finally, in a complimentary way, Atkinson also offers a wide synthesis of the history of the text of the Psalms of Solomon. He concludes that they were widely used in ancient Greek and Syriac churches but gradually disappeared. Our particular thanks go to Christophe Boudignon, who co-organised the conference in Aix-en-Provence. Thanks are also due to Schrift-Bilder gGmbH (Berlin) for supporting the printing, and finally to the publishing house Mohr Siebeck – especially Elena Müller, Markus Kirchner, and Rebekka Zech – for their professional assistance. Kenneth Atkinson, Patrick Pouchelle, and Felix Albrecht

4 Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), cf. also idem, Die Psalmen Salomos. Griechischer Text nebst deutscher Übersetzung und Gesamtregister (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020).

Table of Contents Preface.............................................................................................................................................. V Felix Albrecht The Psalms of Solomon as a Witness of Palestinian Judaism ............................................ 1 Mika S. Pajunen The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms ............. 11 Vasile Babota The Temple in the Psalms of Solomon ..................................................................................... 29 Julia Rath Exile and Diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon ........................................................................ 49 Nathan C. Johnson Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? The Debate and a Proposed Rapprochement .............................................................................................................................. 69 Jason M. Zurawski Solomonic Paideia: Divine Pedagogy in the Psalms of Solomon and the Book of Wisdom............................................................................................................................................ 85 František Ábel The Question of the Eschatological Participation of the Gentiles in the Psalms of Solomon 17 and Romans 11.................................................................................................... 101 Marc Rastoin PsSal 16,4 et Ac 26,14 ou l’aiguillon de l’héllenisme ............................................................ 125 Patrick Pouchelle The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found and Its Importance for the History of the Reception of This Text......................................................................... 131 Gilles Dorival L’appartenance des Psaumes de Salomon au canon biblique ............................................ 147 Kenneth Atkinson The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon .............................. 159 List of Contributors....................................................................................................................... 177 Index of Ancient Sources............................................................................................................. 179 Index of Words............................................................................................................................... 189 Index of Authors............................................................................................................................ 191 Index of Subjects............................................................................................................................ 193



The Psalms of Solomon as a Witness of Palestinian Judaism* Felix Albrecht The Psalms of Solomon (Pss. Sol.) is a collection of 18 Psalms under the name of King Solomon, largely from the first century BCE, which was completed towards the middle of the first century CE. In my estimation, two sub-collections (I. Pss. Sol. 2–8; II. Pss. Sol. 9–16) deriving from Hasmonean times (165–63 BCE) can be discerned from the text. In their core, these are related to the circle of the ‘pious’ (ḥasidim).1 A continuation of the first sub-collection (Pss. Sol. 2–8) was provoked by the Roman conquest of Judea by Pompey in 63 BCE, as is reflected in Pss. Sol. 2 and 8. From this time onward, the Psalms of Solomon may already have been transmitted through Pharisaic circles. The compilation of both sub-collections and the consolidation of the Psalms of Solomon into a single collection would not have taken place until Herodian times. In my view, this can be seen from the final psalms, which were likely added over time during the Herodian era. These final psalms express a clear anti-Herodian sentiment, directed against Herod the Great. This may have been stimulated by Herod the Great’s claim to act as a Solomonic ruler. It is therefore likely that criticism of Herod the Great would have arisen in Pharisaic circles. The picture of a Davidic Messiah drawn in the final psalms 17–18 – namely, the second part of Ps. Sol. 17 (vv. 30–46) and the first part of Ps. Sol. 18 (vv. 1–9) – is, in my evaluation, the last layer of revision in the whole collection. My basic claim is that the final messianic revision of the concluding Psalms (Pss. Sol. 17–18) probably took place under the reign of Agrippa I (41–44 CE).2 On the basis of these insights, it has been possible to reconstruct the oldest attainable text form of the Psalms of Solomon, going back to 50 CE, which is the probable date of its archetype.

* The present article is based on the second part of my German “Disputationsvortrag” (28 June 2017, Göttingen). Parts of it were presented in a slightly revised English version at the 2018 meeting of the Helsinki Centre of Excellence, “Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT)” (Academy of Finland / University of Helsinki) in Helsinki (7 December 2018), as well as in a similar version at the 2019 meeting of the SBL in San Diego, California (26 November 2019). 1 On the ḥasidim, see also Mika Pajunen in the present volume, esp. 19–21. 2 Cf. Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 212–34 (‘Die Endredaktion in Herodianischer Zeit’). This argument accords with Bousset’s observations, especially regarding his discussion of messianism at the time of Caligula (37–41 CE); cf. Wilhelm Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter. In dritter verbesserter Aufl. hg. v. Hugo Gressmann. 4., photomech. gedruckte Auflage mit einem Vorwot von Eduard Lohse, HNT 21 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 41966), 204–06, esp. 205.

2 Felix Albrecht

1. The Psalms of Solomon and Their Place in Hellenistic Judaism The Psalms of Solomon are regarded as an artefact of Palestinian Judaism from around the turn of the era. Their theological and historical significance as a document of Palestinian Judaism seem to me to be worth exploring further. The outdated, but still influential distinctions Johann Maier made between ‘Palestinian’ and ‘Hellenistic’ Judaism are problematic as Martin Hengel has demonstrated.3 Accordingly, Hellenistic Judaism should by no means be equated with Alexandrian Judaism, although the latter seems to be, or at least seemed at some point to be, the dominant one.4 Rather, ‘Palestinian’ and ‘Alexandrian’ Judaism should be considered as two relevant parameters. The decision, however, about which literary references can be ascribed to the one or the other is by no means unproblematic as Jan Dochhorn has emphasized.5 If one considers the two main streams of Hellenistic Judaism – Palestinian and Alexandrian – it seems that certain leading figures, namely Moses and Solomon, can be assigned cum grano salis to the different streams of Hellenistic Judaism, although these assignments should hardly be taken as definite and normative, as the ‘Wisdom of Solomon’ shows.6 1.1 Moses as a Leading Figure in Alexandrian Judaism Moses becomes a leading figure in Alexandrian Judaism, as is evident in the writings of Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandrian provenance. For example, the founding legend of the Septuagint, described in the letter of Aristeas, deals with the translation of the Torah into Greek. Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 BCE–50 CE)7 was an influential exegete of the Torah, whose marginal statement on Solomon can be found at the end of his work ‘On Mating with the Preliminary Studies’; there, Philo introduces a quotation from the Book of Proverbs, describing the author as ‘one of the disciples of Moses’ (τις τῶν φοιτητῶν Μωυσέως), by the name of Solomon.8 The noticeable distance in linguistic expression,

Johann Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten. Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels, NEB.ATE 3 (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1990), 290–91. Cf. Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, WUNT 10 (Tübingen 31988); Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten, 37. 4 Cf. Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten, 291. 5 Cf. Jan Dochhorn, “Jüdisch-alexandrinische Literatur? Eine Problemanzeige und ein Überblick über diejenige Literatur, die potentiell dem antiken Judentum entstammt,” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges, Felix Albrecht, and Reinhard Feldmeier, Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 285–312 and Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten, 82–83. 6 The Sapientia Salomonis is a prominent example of the mediation of both streams of Judaism, which seems on the one hand, in its appreciation of the Solomon figure, to attribute the developments of Palestinian Judaism to Solomon and, on the other hand, reveals its origin in Alexandrian Judaism with its broad reception of the Exodus tradition. On the relationship between Sapientia Salomonis and Psalmi Salomonis, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 210–11. 7 For Philo’s disputed biographical data, cf. Otto Kaiser, Philo von Alexandrien. Denkender Glaube – Eine Einführung, FRLANT 259 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 25 with n. 2. 8 Philo, De congressu eruditionis gratia 177: ἐνθένδε μοι δοκεῖ τις τῶν φοιτητῶν Μωυσέως, ὄνομα εἰρηνικός, ὃς πατρίῳ γλώττῃ Σαλομὼν καλεῖται, φάναι· […]. On Philo’s etymological analysis of ‘Solomon’, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 220 n. 2. 3

The Psalms of Solomon as a Witness of Palestinian Judaism 3

which gives the impression of a teacher–student relationship9, and the lack of information about their connection with one another is hardly surprising, given that Moses and the Pentateuch are at the centre of Philo’s work. The fragmentary collection of available artefacts of Alexandrian Judaism also testifies to a rich occupation with and treatment of the Exodus tradition, as is reflected in Artapanos of Alexandria’s depiction of Moses (third‒second centuries BCE)10 and in the drama of Ezechiel Tragicus (second century BCE).11 Although the Exodus tradition itself has sometimes been interpreted politically (Jan Assmann)12, Alexandrian Judaism hardly exhibited political ambitions, at least before the turn of the era. It was not until the first century CE that a number of conflicts that were mainly socially motivated arose in Alexandria, escalating in 38 CE and 66 CE and culminating in the Jewish uprising of 115–117 CE, whose history is substantially determined by the ‘Nachwehen des 1. Jüdischen Krieges’ (Anna Maria Schwemer).13 The political impetus that led to the politicization of the conflict in Alexandria thus came from the Palestinian riots themselves.14

The φοιτητής designates the pupil in strict contrast to the διδάσκαλος; cf. Passow, Handwörterbuch II/2:2324 s.v. φοιτητής. According to Bradley J. Embry, “The Name ‘Solomon’ as a Prophetic Hallmark in Jewish and Christian Texts.” Henoch 28 (2006): 47–62, here: 51: “[…] it seems that Philo understood Solomon as a type of prophet in the line of Moses.” 10 On Artapanos, cf. e.g. Nikolaus Walter, Fragmente jüdisch-hellenistischer Historiker, JSHRZ I/2 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1980), 121–36; Holger M. Zellentin, “The End of Jewish Egypt. Artapanus and the Second Exodus,” in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Gregg Gardner and Kevin L. Osterloh, TSAJ 123 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 27–73. For further literature see Albrecht, Psalmen Salomos, 14 n. 33. I would like to point out one important aspect that Zellentin has observed in Artapanos’ view of Moses – namely, the absence of a mention of the or a Jewish temple, which accords withs my thesis that the idea of the temple was not an explicit focus of Alexandrian Judaism: “Artapanos contrasts the Mosaic building activities with Egyptian temple building: the Jews found cities, not temples” (Zellentin, “End,” 71). 11 On Ezechiel Tragicus, cf. e.g. Bruno Snell, Szenen aus griechischen Dramen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 170–93; Bernard Zimmermann and Antonios Rengakos, ed., Die Literatur der klassischen und hellenistischen Zeit. Volume 2 of Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike, HAW VII/2 (München: C.H. Beck, 2014), 920–23. For further literature see Albrecht, Psalmen Salomos, 14 n. 34; and for a general overview of the Moses tradition in the Hellenistic age see Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 30–39. 12 Cf. Jan Assmann, Exodus. Die Revolution der Alten Welt (München: C.H. Beck, 2015, 398), who discerns a political dimension in the Exodus tradition: “In der politischen Dimension begründet der Exodus-Mythos einen Begriff des Volks als religiöser Idee und steht auch darin im Gegensatz zu Ägypten, das den Staat als religiöse Idee begründet hat.” However, can this really be called a ‘political dimension’? The Jewish idea of a ‘people’ instead of a ‘state’ is, in my opinion, clearly a-political. According to Assmann, on the contrary, the idea of the covenant would imply an anti-authoritarian and state-critical element: “Ebenso […] liegt in der theokratischen Idee des Gottesbundes ein anti-ägyptisches, staats- und herrschaftskritisches Element […]” (Assmann, Exodus, 398–99). 13 Anna Maria Schwemer, “Zum Abbruch des jüdischen Lebens in Alexandria. Der Aufstand in der Diaspora unter Trajan (115–117),” in Alexandria, ed. Tobias Georges, Felix Albrecht, and Reinhard Feldmeier, Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 383. 14 Cf. Schwemer, Abbruch, 382. 9

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1.2 Solomon as a Paragon of Palestinian Judaism Solomon, on the other hand, appears to be a paragon of the politically and nationally minded Palestinian Judaism, which had a strong connection to the Jerusalem Temple, and based its hopes for a Jewish monarchy on the Davidic antetype.15 Thus, the Exodus is not at the centre of theological consideration, but the monarchy; not Moses, but Solomon; not the Torah, but the Temple. For Hellenistic Judaism in Palestine, Jerusalem and the Temple had central, symbolic meanings.16 Such a meaning was directly associated with the name of Solomon. The legendary builder of the Temple in Jerusalem17 was a leading figure for Palestinian Judaism, which was engaged in a struggle to defend its sanctuary and to maintain national importance. This can be seen, for example, in Eupolemos and Josephus, both of whom give the Temple in Jerusalem a significant place in literary representation: the historian Eupolemos wrote in the service of the Maccabees, who sought the restitution of the Jewish monarchy and who focused on Jerusalem and the temple in their nationalistic and centralistic aspirations. Similarly, in the work of the historian Josephus, the construction of the temple (Antiquitates Iudaicae VIII.50–129) and the Jewish War of the years 67–70 CE both held great significance, especially as the latter culminated in the struggle for Jerusalem and, ultimately, in the destruction of the temple (De bello Iudaico V–VI). The emphasis of Josephus on the city of Jerusalem and on its temple is also apparent from the fact that he intended to write a separate work about it (cf. De bello Iudaico V.237). I believe that this special significance in the work of Josephus is apparent from the outline of the two main works, both of which have Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple at their centre. All in all, Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities are, from a literary point of view, composed skilfully in two narrative arcs: the first narrative arc (Books I–XIII) revolves around the reign of David and Solomon with the erection of the Solomonic Temple, which is the literary centre (Books VI–VIII) 15 Within Palestinian Judaism, there are several streams and groupings that make it impossible to speak of the Palestinian Judaism. Two recognizable streams are worth mentioning: (1) On the one hand, Samaritan Judaism, for which Abraham was the leading figure, as, for instance, the anonymous Samaritan author, Ps.-Eupolemos, attests (on Ps.-Eupolemos, cf. Walter, Fragmente, 137–43). (2) On the other hand, Qumran: In the texts from Qumran, Solomon plays a subordinate role to the figures of the Pentateuch and also to David; cf. Martin G. Abegg, James E. Bowley, and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance. Vol. I/2, The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2003), 725. 935; Johann Maier, Einführung, Zeitrechnung, Register und Bibliographie. Volume 3 of Die Qumran-Essener. Die Texte vom Toten Meer, UTB 1916 (München: Ernst Reinhardt, 1996,) 309 s.v. Salomo. This fits the transmission of the biblical texts in Qumran, where the canonical wisdom and history books are much more poorly attested than the Pentateuch, the Psalms and the books of the prophets; see the overview by Ulrich, Scrolls, 779–81, for the quantitative testimony to the biblical writings; cf. also Maier, Einführung, 10–13. Most of the textual witnesses relate to the Psalms, Deuteronomy and Isaiah. 16 This applies not only to Hellenistic Judaism but to the discussion below. Here it should be noted that the oldest attested language of the Psalms of Solomon is Greek, and recent research has given compelling reasons for treating the Psalms of Solomon as having in fact been written in Greek, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 181–82. 17 The Testament of Solomon, which is commonly believed to have been written in Jerusalem in the 4th century CE, testifies to the fact that this tradition was vivid in late antique Palestinian Judaism. For the Testament of Solomon, see the first volume of the series “Parabiblica”: Testamentum Salomonis. Editionen, Texttraditionen und Studien zum Testament Salomos herausgegeben von Felix Albrecht unter Mitarbeit von Jan Dochhorn (Parabiblica 1), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.

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of the arc. The second arc (Books XIV–XX) focuses on the events that led to the outbreak of the Jewish War. The same applies to Josephus’ Jewish War. This work, too, comprises two narrative arcs, the first of which (Books I–II) deals with the prehistory of the Jewish War and the second of which (Books III–VII) follows the Jewish War, depicting the fates of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple (De bello Iudaico V.136–237). As Eupolemos shows, the Judaism of the Maccabean era was a return to national tradition. The Davidide Solomon was the chief source of inspiration, suitable not only as the potential prototype of religious Judaism, which had found its centre in the Temple cult since the Hasmonean period, but also as the exponent of political Judaism, which sought to renew the Jewish monarchy on the basis of the antetype of the Davidic dynasty. The Jewish monarchy of the Herodian couleur is the political reality in the background of the Psalms of Solomon, a reality that cannot ‘measure up’ to the religious expectations and demands formulated in these Psalms.18 It seems that especially Herod the Great legitimized his claim of power by recourse to the Davidic dynasty, as is shown above all in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. In view of this, the Psalms of Solomon can be read as a reflex to what its authors regarded as an illegitimate claim of Herod.19 Consequently, these are to be assigned to a political, nationally minded Judaism.20 These political ideas are joined by religious ones, and both aspects are combined with the expectation of the Davidic Messiah.21 The Davidic messianism, which is theologically significant, especially with regard to the development of the Davidic idea of the Messiah, unfolded in the New Testament and linked to Jesus of Nazareth, is pictured in Pss. Sol. 17–18.22 For this reason especially, the Psalms of Solomon are an important document for understanding the theological and historical development of Palestinian Judaism.

2. The Psalms of Solomon and Their Attribution to King Solomon The Palestinian character of the Psalms of Solomon and their attribution to Solomon seem to be closely related. The crucial question, however, remains: why are, on the one hand, Eupolemus and Josephus in their writings and, on the other hand, the Psalms of Solomon particularly interested in Solomon? A major part of the biblical wisdom books 18 On the central topos of justice in the Psalms of Solomon, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 188–90. On Antiherodianism in the Psalms of Solomon, see the references in the following note. 19 On the Psalms of Solomon’s quarrel with Herod the Great, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 212–34 (‘Die Endredaktion in Herodianischer Zeit’); and Albrecht, Psalmen Salomos, 63–64 n. 177. 20 The aspect of the national – more specifically, the national belief in hope expressed in the Psalms of Solomon – is particularly emphasized by Bousset, Religion, 206. 21 The expectation of the Davidic Messiah presumably reflects the general mood in Jerusalem at the turn of the era, since it appears with such openness in the Psalms of Solomon; cf. Bousset, Religion, 204–06; 223. 22 Cf. e.g. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 255–59 (‘Zur Wirkungsgeschichte’). On the messianism of the Psalms of Solomon, cf. the overview by Patrick Pouchelle, “Les Psaumes de Salomon. Le point sur les questions posées par un ‘Messie’ trop étudié,” in Encyclopédie des messianismes juifs dans l’Antiquité, ed. David Hamidović, Xavier Levieils, and Christophe Mézange, BTS 33 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 153–203. See also Nathan C. Johnson in the present volume. On the importance of Ps. Sol. 17 cf. Bousset, Religion, 228, and Atkinson, Lord, 129–79, esp. 129.

6 Felix Albrecht

is associated with the name of Solomon. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, Solomon’s knowledge and wisdom are highly praised, so that he soon became a sage par excellence.23 On the other hand, Solomon is, next to David and Hezekiah,24 the only outstanding Israelite monarch who was considered an author. The Septuagint translation of 1Kings 5:12, which increases the 1005 songs of Solomon to 5000 (3Regn 5:12), is often quoted in this context.25 The second reason, however, is likely to be decisive in the case of the Psalms of Solomon: namely, the role of Solomon as a monarch during a legendary peacetime seems to be of crucial relevance to the legitimacy of the Psalms of Solomon. This emphasis becomes even more obvious when we bear in mind that two important Jewish historians from the circle of Palestinian Judaism show an unmistakable interest in Solomon: on the one hand, Eupolemos, writing at the time of the Maccabean Wars, and, on the other hand, Josephus, active at the time of the Jewish War. 2.1 Scenarios of Virulent Martial Threat The reasons for the attribution of the Psalms of Solomon to King Solomon likely lie in the historical circumstances of their origin: the political and social situation at the times of the Maccabean Wars and the Jewish War were as tense as the virulent threat and conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, which is described in the Psalms of Solomon (cf. Pss. Sol. 2; 8). The martial situation of threat described at the beginning of the collection (Pss. Sol. 1–2) is paradigmatic. These scenarios of martial threat, which concerned the centre of Palestinian Judaism – namely, Jerusalem and the Temple of Jerusalem – constitute, in my opinion, the common denominator of these writings. Both Eupolemos and Josephus, as well as the Psalms of Solomon, were reacting to a situation of threat and thus had recourse to the figure of Solomon, since it was this monarch who, as Josephus foregrounded at the beginning of his Solomon narrative, ‘ruled […] in deep peace’ (VIII.21). This detail is intimately connected with the name ‘Solomon’ itself, so much so that it has often been repeatedly interpreted etymologically – for instance, in 1Chron 22:9.26 The high esteem of the Solomonic peacetime thus constitutes the connecting element between the historical reality of Eupolemus at the time of the Maccabean Wars, the references in the Psalms of Solomon to the time of Pompey, and the time of Josephus, who had experienced the Jewish War. 23 Josef A. Sint, Pseudonymität im Altertum. Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe, Commentationes Aenipontanae 15 (Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 1960), 139, even speaks of Solomon as “Prototyp aller Weisheitslehrer;” cf. Hengel, “Judentum,” 237. 24 Besides with Solomon and David, literary ambitions are only associated with the late eighth-century (BCE) King Hezekiah: Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 244–81 (‘Wisdom substrata in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic literature’), considers Hezekiah’s as the age that “marked the beginning of deuteronomic literary activity” (ibid. 255, cf. 161–62); for him, it is finally clear that the deuteronomistic school used the figure of Solomon (cf. ibid. 256). Robert Balgarnie Young Scott, “Solomon and the Beginnings of Wisdom in Israel,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East, ed. Martin Noth and D. Winton Thomas, VT.S 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1955), 272–79, goes so far as to assume that Hezekiah took Solomon as his antetype. 25 3Regn 5:12 LXX: καὶ ἐλάλησεν Σαλωμων τρισχιλίας παραβολάς, καὶ ἦσαν ᾠδαὶ αὐτοῦ πεντακισχίλιαι. 1Kings 5:12 MT: ‫‏ח ִמ ָָּׁשה וָ ָ ֽא ֶלף‬ ֲ ‫ֹלֶׁשת ֲא ָל ִפים ָמ ָָׁשל וַ יְ ִהי ִִׁשירֹו‬ ֶ ‫וַ יְ ַד ֵֵּבר ְְׁש‬ 26 1Chron 22:9 MT: ‫ל־אֹויְביו ִמ ָָּס ִביב ִִּכי ְְׁשֹלמֹה יִ ְהיֶ ה ְְׁשמֹו‬ ָ ‫חֹותי לֹו ִמ ָָּכ‬ ִ ִ‫נּוחה וַ ֲהנ‬ ָ ‫נֹולד ָלְך הּוא יִ ְהיֶ ה ִאיׁש ְמ‬ ָ ‫ה־בן‬ ֵ ֵ‫ִהֵּנ‬ ‫יָמיו׃‬ ָ ‫וְ ָָׁשלֹום וָ ֶֶׁש ֶקט ֶא ֵֵּתן ַעל־יִ ְְׂש ָר ֵאל ְְּב‬. Cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 220 n. 2.

The Psalms of Solomon as a Witness of Palestinian Judaism 7

2.2 Nostalgia and the Idealization of the Solomonic Peaceful Past During all three periods, a certain longing for a more secure situation seems to have been projected onto Solomon and his rule of peace. This was accompanied by a subliminal idealization of the Solomonic past and the longing for that past, which expressed itself in the form of a sentiment comparable to nostalgia.27 We know from Josephus himself that he wrote the Antiquitates Iudaicae twenty years after the end of the Jewish War which ended up in the destruction of the Herodian Temple. Scholars with a social-psychological approach emphasize the meaningfulness of nostalgia, a state of mind that attempts to compensate for loss of meaning – like the loss of meaning for Temple-observant followers of Judaism incurred by the destruction of the Jewish Temple.28 Through Solomon, Josephus reached back to an ideal form of Judaism in bygone days, for which the national state and sanctuary formed the chief points of reference and of identification.29 Josephus was not alone in choosing the ‘nostalgic perspective’ as a way of coping with the heavy loss:30 Eupolemos follows the same strategy in his recourse to Solomon, contrasting the reality of war in his time with the peaceful ideal of Solomon’s days. Finally, the Psalms of Solomon counter the threatened and threatening reality of their time with the programme of the Davidic Messiah, who bears unmistakably Solomonic features.31 Thus, these psalms serve to pacify the trauma caused by Pompey’s conquest 27 The psychological function of nostalgia is to adequately handle external insecurities. It manifests itself as anxiety or angst; cf. Tom Panelas, review of Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, by Fred Davis. American Journal of Sociology 87 (1982): 1425: “It is always evoked in the context of current fears and anxieties, and looks to alleviate those fears by ‘using the past in specially reconstructed ways’.” 28 On this psychological function of nostalgia, cf. Clay Routledge et al., “The Past Makes the Present Meaningful. Nostalgia as an Existential Resource,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101 (2011): 638–39. Overall, nostalgia can mitigate existential threat; cf. the empiric studies by Jacob Juhl et al., “Fighting the Future with the Past. Nostalgia Buffers Existential Threat,” Journal of Research in Personality 44 (2010): 309–14. 29 The biblical figures of Abraham and Moses, also re-stylised by Josephus, take on another, contrasting function: they are Jewish ‘national heroes’, who, as Feldman demonstrates, are stylised according to a Hellenistic role model, as (natural) philosophers; cf. Louis H. Feldman, “Abraham the Greek Philosopher in Josephus,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 99 (1968): 156: “Josephus, for apologetic reasons, presents his Abraham, like his Moses, as a typical national hero, such as was popular in Hellenistic times, with emphasis on his qualities as a philosopher and scientist […].” 30 On the ‘nostalgic perspective’, cf. Thomas Lange, Idyllische und exotische Sehnsucht. Formen bürgerlicher Nostalgie in der deutschen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Scriptor Hochschulschriften. Literaturwissenschaft 23 (Kronberg: Scriptor Verlag, 1976), 31: “Die nostalgische Perspektive ist mit utopischen Momenten geladen. Die Wehmut im Rückblick auf Zustände, die als menschheitsgeschichtliche Vergangenheit begriffen werden, deutet auf ein Bewußtsein, das Geschichte nicht als abgeschlossene akzeptiert.” 31 On Ps. Sol. 17, Pablo S. Torijano, Solomon the Esoteric King. From King to Magus, Development of a Tradition, JSJ.S 73 (Leiden et al.: Brill, 2002), 107, emphasizes that “[…] the author of the Psalm is depicting a ‘Son of David’ who is more like the peaceful Solomon than the rather warlike David.” Whether the Messiah of the Psalms of Solomon should necessarily be classified as peaceful, however, might be contested; there is rather an emphasis on his ‘militant’ traits, which Atkinson has repeatedly associated with David; cf. Kenneth Atkinson, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran. New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60; idem, “On the Use of Scripture in the Development of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran. New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 33/SSEJC 7 (Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-

8 Felix Albrecht

of Jerusalem. The desire for peace, expressed through the reference to Solomon, is all the more understandable given this warlike circumstance.

3. Bibliography Abegg, Martin G., James E. Bowley, and Edward M. Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance. Vol. I/2, The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran. Leiden et al.: Brill, 2003. Albrecht, Felix. Die Psalmen Salomos. Griechischer Text nebst deutscher Übersetzung und Gesamtregister, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020. – Psalmi Salomonis (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Assmann, Jan. Exodus. Die Revolution der Alten Welt, München: C.H. Beck, 2015. – Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism, Cambridge (Massachusetts) et al.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Atkinson, Kenneth. I cried to the Lord. A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting (JSJ.S 84) Leiden: Brill, 2004. – An Intertextual Study of The Psalms of Solomon. Pseudepigrapha (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 49) Lewiston et al.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. – “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran. New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60. – “On the Use of Scripture in the Development of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran. New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17.” Pages 106–23 in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by Craig A. Evans (JSPSup 33; SSEJC 7) Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Bousset, Wilhelm. Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter. In dritter verbesserter Aufl. hg. v. Hugo Gressmann. 4., photomech. gedruckte Auflage mit einem Vorwot von Eduard Lohse (HNT 21) Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 41966. Dochhorn, Jan. “Jüdisch-alexandrinische Literatur? Eine Problemanzeige und ein Überblick über diejenige Literatur, die potentiell dem antiken Judentum entstammt.” Pages 285–312 in Alexandria. Edited by Tobias Georges, Felix Albrecht, and Reinhard Feldmeier (Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia 1) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Embry, Bradley J. “The Name ‘Solomon’ as a Prophetic Hallmark in Jewish and Christian Texts,” Henoch 28 (2006): 47–62. Feldman, Louis H. “Abraham the Greek Philosopher in Josephus,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 99 (1968): 143–56. Hengel, Martin. Judentum und Hellenismus (WUNT 10) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 31988. Juhl, Jacob et al. “Fighting the Future with the Past. Nostalgia Buffers Existential Threat,” Journal of Research in Personality 44 (2010): 309–14. Kaiser, Otto. Philo von Alexandrien. Denkender Glaube – Eine Einführung (FRLANT 259) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015. Lange, Thomas. Idyllische und exotische Sehnsucht. Formen bürgerlicher Nostalgie in der deutschen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts (Scriptor Hochschulschriften. Literaturwissenschaft 23) Kronberg: Scriptor Verlag, 1976.

demic Press, 2000), 106–23; idem, An Intertextual Study of The Psalms of Solomon; Pseudepigrapha, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 49 (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 377–78; idem, I cried to the Lord. A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJ.S 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 129. Nevertheless, the Solomonic traits of the Psalms of Solomon’s depiction of the Davidic Messiah are, in my opinion, distinctive, although these hardly belong to the sphere of peace and the pacific.

9 The Psalms of Solomon as a Witness of Palestinian Judaism Maier, Johann. Einführung, Zeitrechnung, Register und Bibliographie. Volume 3 of Die Qumran-Essener. Die Texte vom Toten Meer (UTB 1916) München et al.: Ernst Reinhardt, 1996. – Zwischen den Testamenten. Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels (NEB.ATE 3) Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1990. Panelas, Tom, review of Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, by Fred Davis. American Journal of Sociology 87 (1982): 1425–27. Passow, Franz. Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache. Vol. II/2, Leipzig: Vogel, 51857 (= Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004). Pouchelle, Patrick. “Les Psaumes de Salomon. Le point sur les questions posées par un ‘Messie’ trop étudié.” Pages 153–203 in Encyclopédie des messianismes juifs dans l’Antiquité. Edited by David Hamidović, Xavier Levieils, and Christophe Mézange (BTS 33) Leuven et al.: Peeters, 2017. Routledge, Clay et al. “The Past Makes the Present Meaningful. Nostalgia as an Existential Resource,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101 (2011): 638–52. Schwemer, Anna Maria. “Zum Abbruch des jüdischen Lebens in Alexandria. Der Aufstand in der Diaspora unter Trajan (115–117).” Pages 381–99 in Alexandria. Edited by Tobias Georges, Felix Albrecht, and Reinhard Feldmeier (Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia 1) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Scott, Robert Balgarnie Young. “Solomon and the Beginnings of Wisdom in Israel.” Pages 262–79 in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East. Edited by Martin Noth and D. Winton Thomas (VT.S 3) Leiden: Brill, 1955. Sint, Josef A. Pseudonymität im Altertum. Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe (Commentationes Aenipontanae 15) Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 1960. Snell, Bruno. Szenen aus griechischen Dramen, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971. Torijano, Pablo A. Solomon the Esoteric King. From King to Magus, Development of a Tradition (JSJ.S 73) Leiden et al.: Brill, 2002. Ulrich, Eugene Charles, ed. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls. Transcriptions and Textual Variants (VT.S 134) Leiden et al.: Brill, 2010. Walter, Nikolaus. Fragmente jüdisch-hellenistischer Historiker (JSHRZ I/2) Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1980. Weinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, Oxford: Clarendon, 1972. Zellentin, Holger M. “The End of Jewish Egypt. Artapanus and the Second Exodus.” Pages 27–73 in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Gregg Gardner and Kevin L. Osterloh (TSAJ 123) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Zimmermann, Bernhard, and Antonios Rengakos, ed. Die Literatur der klassischen und hellenistischen Zeit. Volume 2 of Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike (HAW VII/2) München: C.H. Beck, 2014.



The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms Mika S. Pajunen The Psalms of Solomon are among the most substantial collections of psalms preserved from the late Second Temple period (ca. 167 BCE–70 CE).1 The now fully published Dead Sea Scrolls offer a great number of roughly contemporary collections of psalms and prayers, but most of them are rather poorly preserved. The most extensive collections are a collection of the Qumran movement’s Hodayot psalms in 1QHa and a large compilation of psalms predating the movement in 11QPsa. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that the Psalms of Solomon have been largely neglected as comparative evidence for the collections of psalms and prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such a comparison is a desideratum not only for integrating the Psalms of Solomon more firmly into the study of late Second Temple Judaism,2 but also because comparative studies are able to highlight both the shared and distinctive features of specific writings. Most of the relevant comparative material for the Psalms of Solomon from the Dead Sea sites derives from the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran. Remains of over 900 manuscripts were discovered in these caves and roughly 140 of them have been categorized in the official editions as containing collections of psalms and prayers.3 They range from rather minute fragments containing a portion of a single composition to a few substantial collections containing, in their present state of preservation, thirty to forty compositions. It should also be remembered that the now biblical psalms were not at that time regarded as a fixed “book of Psalms,”4 and collections of them could offer valuable comparative evidence, for instance, on different potential reasons for compiling specific collections of psalms. Furthermore, while nearly all the “biblical” psalms probably predate the Psalms of Solomon, some of them could contain editorial layers with distinctive similarities to the Psalms of Solomon. There are, thus, a great number of potentially fruitful avenues to explore that would advance the study of the Psalms of Solomon and firmly integrate them into the study of early Jewish psalm literature. 1 For the literary and historical settings of the Psalms of Solomon in first century BCE Palestine, see, e.g., Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, ConBNT 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995), 18–20; Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 395–429. 2 Cf. Kenneth Atkinson, “Responses,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 175–91. 3 Emanuel Tov, Revised Lists of the Texts from the Judaean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 4 See, e.g., Mika S. Pajunen, “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT 39 (2014): 139–63; Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

12 Mika S. Pajunen

Because the Psalms of Solomon are typically considered as a collection of compositions deriving from a particular group within early Judaism, emphasis will first be placed on comparing them with psalms ostensibly deriving from the Qumran movement, like the Hodayot psalms (1QHa-b, 4QHa-f ), Songs of the Sage (4Q510–511), and the Berakhot (4Q286–289). This will highlight particular aspects in the Psalms of Solomon that distinguish them from the writings of the Qumran movement. While some of the Qumranic writings contain traits that are found in other late Second Temple psalms, such as the Psalms of Solomon, their distinctive sectarian content suggests they were likely associated with the Qumran movement. Consequently, in the second part of this study these highlighted aspects of the Psalms of Solomon will be analyzed in connection with psalms most likely written by members of Jewish groups other than the Qumran movement. This will serve as a control to isolate features that are specific to the Psalms of Solomon and distinguish them from preserved contemporary psalms. These two consecutive comparisons result in singling out three compositions that seem to have a more elemental connection with the Psalms of Solomon than other texts from the late Second Temple period and would, therefore, deserve a closer examination in the future. The similarities in rare literary and ideological traits will suggest that either the same group was responsible for these three compositions and the Psalms of Solomon or they share elements of a distinct literary style and group identification, comparable, for instance, to the utilization of the Deuteronomistic style and theology in later writings.5 While this study is more explorative than conclusive in nature, it will establish certain features of the Psalms of Solomon worthy of closer examination in the future and suggest a place for them among late Second Temple psalm literature. Furthermore, while it may be impossible to positively identify the group who wrote the Psalms of Solomon with a specific Jewish group active in the late Second Temple period6 due to the lack of reliable sources describing them in detail, the comparison with other psalms will help distinguish further characteristics of this group and to rule out some of the identifications previously suggested.

1. Psalms of Solomon and the Psalms of the Qumran Movement On a broad scale, the Psalms of Solomon display functional elements typical of late Second Temple psalms that are also found in the psalms of the Qumran movement. These correspond to the three main functions of psalms during this time, viz., liturgical, educational, and prophetic.7 In the Psalms of Solomon the main thrust is on the educational

5 For the use of Deuteronomistic style in late Second Temple period writings, see, for example, Hanne von Weissenberg, Juha Pakkala, and Marko Marttila, ed., Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, BZAW 419 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 275–404. 6 Cf. Kenneth Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 220–21. 7 For the functions of psalms in the late Second Temple period and the necessity of distinguishing between functional elements related to the genre of a psalm and thematic elements related to its main

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 13

side.8 While there are some liturgical rubrics in many of them, these are typically not the main functional markers in the psalms, and they are often placed close to the end of the psalms as actions that would be in line with the conclusions drawn on the righteousness of divine justice in the main part of the psalm (e.g., Pss. Sol. 2, 9, 10, 11, 12).9 The prophecies on the other hand are mostly limited to specific psalms dealing with the future of Israel and placed at the end of the collection (esp. Pss. Sol. 17 and 18). 10 The psalms of the Qumran movement are on the whole much more centered on liturgy.11 The Songs of the Sage focus on terrifying evil spirits by praising God, and similarly the possible covenant renewal ritual in the Berakhot centers on the praise of God the Creator. If the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–407, 11Q17) derive from the Qumran movement,12 they also share this focus on liturgy. The closest parallel in the use of functional elements in respect to the Psalms of Solomon is the Hodayot psalms. They contain some liturgical rubrics but focus mostly on explicating different aspects of God through a didactic style. They also contain some prophetic sections placed primarily at the very end of the psalms (cf. 1QHa 7:19–20; 11:15–18, 26–36; 12:18–22; 14:29–33). This is also one of the main differences between the Hodayot psalms and the Psalms of Solomon. The Hodayot psalms typically integrate the different functional elements within the same psalm and they seem to have enough common elements to speak of a poetic genre. The Psalms of Solomon are on the whole much more varied in style, and the individual psalms do not mix functional elements to the extent that the Hodayot psalms do. themes, see, Mika S. Pajunen, “Differentiation of Form, Theme, and Changing Functions in Psalms and Prayers,” SJOT 33 (2019): 264–76. 8 See, e.g., Mika S. Pajunen, The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381, JAJSup 14 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 79–84. Cf. Rodney A. Werline, “Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 133–54. 9 Cf. Werline, “Formation,” 148–50. 10 For the Psalms of Solomon as part of prophetic discourse, see, Brad Embry, “Some Thoughts and Implications from Genre Categorization in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, 59–78. While Embry acutely notes and establishes connections with the Psalms of Solomon and prophetic traditions, his assessment of the roles of psalm and prophetic traditions for understanding the genre(s) of the Psalms of Solomon is mostly based on material from the Hebrew Bible. While the Psalms of Solomon and the MT Psalter are quite different in terms of genre, the late Second Temple psalms are not only part of liturgical and educational but also of prophetic literature and provide ample parallels for the different elements in the Psalms of Solomon. Situating the Psalms of Solomon within this discourse setting among contemporary psalm collections shows that they are primarily a collection of psalms, not in terms of the MT Psalter but of contemporary psalm collections and the functions of psalms in other literary works. 11 On the use of psalms in the Qumran movement, see, for example, Mika S. Pajunen, “Building a Community of the Elect through Psalms and Prayers: Liturgy, Education, and Prophetic Interpretation,” in The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy, Ritual and Community Formation from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Biblical Texts in Dynamic, Pluralistic Contexts, ed. Claudia Bergmann et al., AJEC (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 12 The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Barkhi Nafshi (4Q434–438) are collections of psalms that are wholly compatible with the writings typically associated with the Qumran movement, but lack the specific terms used for the movement in the other mentioned compositions. On such borderline cases, see further Carol A. Newsom, “‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. David Noel Freedman, Baruch Halpern, and William H. C. Propp (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167–87.

14 Mika S. Pajunen

Another psalm collection that should be mentioned at this point, even though it is a borderline case in terms of whether it was composed by members of the Qumran movement, is the Barkhi Nafshi (4Q434–438). They are collections of hymns that share the same genre.13 While some of them partly reflect on aspects of the overall theme of God’s justice (cf. 4Q434 1, 4Q437 2i) that appears to be so central to the Psalms of Solomon, the liturgical elements common to the Barkhi Nafshi hymn genre and the prophetic elements are integrated as parts of all the individual hymns. The Qumran Barkhi Nafshi moreover lack the educational terminology and aims central to the Psalms of Solomon. In relation to the psalms of the Qumran movement and the two borderline cases, the Psalms of Solomon, therefore, display a different use of functional elements and a wider variety of poetic genres, although it might be an error to call them actual genres since the individual psalms do not appear to follow any distinct structural patterns or use of functional rubrics common to earlier or contemporary psalms.14 While the Psalms of Solomon display knowledge of some specific psalm genres, like lamentations, praises, and Barkhi Nafshi hymns, these are referred to in passing rather than employed in the structuring of the psalms. The purpose of the Psalms of Solomon as a collection also distinguishes it from the psalms of the Qumran movement.15 Psalm of Solomon 1 aptly explicates the central reason for compiling the collection, regardless of whether some of the psalms were written prior to this compilation, and it is quite likely that it was written as an introduction to the collection.16 The question the Psalms of Solomon answers is, why did God judge the nation, and Jerusalem in particular, by the Roman conquest of 63 BCE. The traditional marker of God’s favor, outward prosperity, would have indicated that the city was full of righteousness. Yet once more God used a foreign nation as an instrument of his judgment of Israel. This seems to be why the Psalms of Solomon place so much emphasis on the secret nature of the committed sins. Only God was able to see through the lies, hypocrisy, and hidden sexual sins, and judge the nation accordingly. Thus, the psalms argue that God’s judgment was righteous, which some people may have questioned. God punished the sinners and tested the loyalty of the pious, which is why the psalms underline the need to persevere in following the correct practices demanded by God and why the collection ends in a section describing the unwavering constancy of the luminaries (Ps. Sol. 18:10–12). The central reason for the particular medium of psalms being chosen by the writers might be encapsulated in a key phrase describing what a righteous person does in Psalm of Solomon 3:3. It is at the beginning of a short list of practices distinguishing the righteous from the sinners (Ps. Sol. 3:3–8). It is stated that a righteous person 13 See, Mika S. Pajunen, “From Poetic Structure to Historical Setting: Exploring the Background of the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. Cecilia Wassen, Ken Penner, and Jeremy Penner, STDJ 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 355–76. 14 For the difficulty of genre classification of these psalms and previous suggestions regarding it, see Embry, “Some Thoughts,” 59–67. 15 For the Psalms of Solomon as an intentionally structured collection, see, for example, Brad Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13 (2002): 99–136; Pajunen, The Land, 79–84. 16 Cf. Werline, “Formation,” 142–43.

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 15

remembers God and proclaims and justifies his judgments, which is essentially what the Psalms of Solomon do. A similar emphasis on remembering God and publicly declaring his merciful acts is one of the main messages of Tobit and there the proclamation is carried out through psalms as well. The centrality of knowledge regarding God’s righteous judgments for the Psalms of Solomon community is also found in Ps. Sol. 5:1 where the speaker declares an intent to praise God among those who know the righteousness of divine justice and in the ending of Ps. Sol. 8:24–34 where the community that knows the righteousness of God’s judgments is said to justify them and praise God for them (cf. Ps. Sol. 10:5). The passages demonstrate a certain interplay between proclamation and praising that might also be relevant for understanding the mixture of different functional elements related to these spheres in the Psalms of Solomon as a whole. While the Qumran movement also displays an interest in explicating their understanding of the principles of divine justice and how God has acted in the recent past, such an interpretation is most often found in the pesher commentaries. Of the Qumran movement’s psalm collections, the Hodayot are closest to the Psalms of Solomon in this respect. They frequently deal with God’s sovereign choices to show mercy to the speaker in particular circumstances even though the speaker does not deem himself to have been worthy of the saving acts. And this common ground of divine justice highlights some of the main differences between the two groups. The first is about free will of humans in relation to a predetermined plan of God. The Hodayot psalms attest to the notion held by the Qumran movement that God has a master plan for the world, which has been in place since the creation. The basic nature of humans is sinful, and they cannot transcend that state without God’s merciful interference. After God in his sovereignty has granted his elect few with proper insight, correct righteous behavior will follow as a response to this saving act. Humans are incapable of changing their sinful state by themselves.17 Consequently, divine justice in accordance with human acts relying on a free choice between right and wrong behavior, or other related acts, like repentance, are not essential to the theology of the Qumran movement.18 The Psalms of Solomon instead adhere to the more traditional concept of divine justice where judgment is based on the actions of individual humans who are responsible for their choices (esp. Ps. Sol. 9:4). This ideology underlies the collection as a whole and serves as the basis for condemning the deeds of the sinners that led to the recent judgment of the nation. It is also the reason why the concurrent suffering of the righteous with the sinners presents a problem, which the authors solve through the idea that God tests the righteous (e.g., Ps. Sol. 10, 14, 16). The Qumran movement instead perceived the contemporary suffering of the righteous to be because God had given Belial and his demons free reign for a limited time, which was seen as a time of humiliation for the elect, before the eschatological end times. This leads to the second related difference, which centers on the concept of election and the covenantal context of the two communities. The psalms of the Qumran movement make it clear that they perceived themselves as the elect of God whereas the rest of humanity, including other Jewish groups, seems to fall outside this selection. With Pajunen, “Building a Community.” Cf. David A. Lambert, “Was the Dead Sea Sect a Penitential Movement?,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Timothy H. Lim (Oxford: University Press, 2010), 501–31; Pajunen, “Building a Community.” 17 18

16 Mika S. Pajunen

only a few exceptions, the psalms of the movement do not deal with Israel, its ancestors, or Jerusalem/Zion.19 Instead, the world is divided between the elect community and angels who praise God and act according to his exclusively given will20 and the forces of Belial that include other humans and try to disrupt God’s predetermined plan. The only way to pass from one camp to the other is if God chooses to mercifully enlighten a person to become one of the elect or if someone from the elect transgresses and is expelled. The Psalms of Solomon are very different in this respect. While the group who compiled the collection appears to represent a particularly righteous and faithful portion of Israel, the whole nation is clearly perceived as the elect. Only the sinners, through their actions, are not part of the heritage of the righteous (e.g., Pss. Sol. 14). Some of the psalms contain explicit mentions of Israel, Jacob, or Abraham, and reflect on the fate of the whole people as well (e.g., Pss. Sol. 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 18).21 Angels and demons on the other hand play no role in the Psalms of Solomon. The fortunes of humans are completely in the hands of God who gives his righteous judgments based on the deeds of each individual. Finally, Jerusalem/Zion are quite central to the Psalms of Solomon whereas they feature in none of the psalms of the Qumran movement, although one of the borderline Barkhi Nafshi hymns refers to Jerusalem (4Q434 2). The way the Psalms of Solomon personify Zion and even use her voice in the first psalm are most of all reminiscent of Lamentations and at least partly due to the way the fate of Jerusalem in 63 BCE is depicted as a judgement parallel to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.22 Nevertheless, it is one of the features that distinguishes the Psalms of Solomon from the psalms of the Qumran movement. The final perspective to be taken up here concerns the group terminology used to describe the communities who composed these psalms. The most frequent terms used to denote the community behind the Psalms of Solomon are: the righteous (multiple times, for example, in Pss. Sol. 2, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16), the pious (Pss. Sol. 2:36; 3:8; 4:1; 8:23, 34; 9:3; 10:6; 12:4, 6; 13:10, 12; 14:3, 10; 15:3, 6; 17:16), and those who fear God (Pss. Sol. 2:33, 3:12, 4:23, 5:18, 6:5, 12:4, 13:12, 15:13).23 In addition there are a few terms used rarely, but more than once: those who love God (in truth) (Pss. Sol. 4:25, 6:6, 10:3, 14:1), servants of God (Pss. Sol. 2:37, 10:4), and the poor (Pss. Sol. 5:2, 10:6, 15:1, 18:2). Of these terms “the righteous,” “those who fear God,” “servants of God,” “the poor,” and “those who love Pajunen, “Building a Community.” For simultaneous praise of God by angels and the Qumran movement, see, e.g., Esther Chazon, “Liturgical Communion with the Angels at Qumran,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Oslo 1998, Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller, STDJ 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 95–105. 21 See also, Embry, “Some Thoughts,” 73–74. 22 For the use of the exile as a prototype of divine justice in the Psalms of Solomon, see, Mika S. Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period, ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner, BZAW 486 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 252–76. 23 For a list of group terms in the Psalms of Solomon, see Joseph L. Trafton, “The Bible, the Psalms of Solomon, and Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), 428. 19 20

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 17

God” are also used frequently in the psalms of the Qumran movement and are thus not particularly distinctive. The additional appellation, “in truth” (ἐν ἀληθείᾳ), connected to “those who love God” in Pss. Sol. 6:6, 10:3, and 14:1, seems to be particular to the Psalms of Solomon and used to distinguish between those who profess to love God, but forget him during the time of testing and those who persevere in their love through the trials (see esp. Ps. Sol. 14:1). The most distinctive group term in the Psalms of Solomon is, therefore, the pious (οἱ ὅσιοι), which is the standard rendition of ḥasidim (‫ ) ֲח ִס ִידים‬in the LXX Psalter.24 This term is not found in the psalms of the Qumran movement, which is rather striking because it is, along with “the righteous,” the most frequently used group term in the Psalms of Solomon. The absence of the term does not allow for more than speculation as to whether it was intentionally avoided and if so, was this because it was the name of another known Jewish group. But it is a noteworthy absence and could be comparable to the absence of the Qumran movement’s identity term yahad in the Psalms of Solomon. However, yahad is a much rarer and more specialized term, and it is more peculiar that the Qumran movement does not refer to its members as “pious.” This short comparison of two corpora of psalms composed by two contemporary Jewish groups has highlighted certain aspects of the Psalms of Solomon. It has moreover shown that there are fundamental differences between the ideologies of the Qumran movement and the Psalms of Solomon group. If the Qumran movement can be described as an Essene movement, these differences strongly suggest that an identification of the Psalms of Solomon group as Essenes should be ruled out. The distinctive aspects of the Psalms of Solomon could be broadly categorized as matters related to literary style and ideology of the Psalms of Solomon, such as, the purpose of the psalm collection as an educational proclamation on the righteousness of divine judgments, the structure of the individual psalms in relation to psalm functions, key thematic elements (e.g., centrality of Zion/Jerusalem, justice based on acts, Davidic Messiah), and the ḥasidim as a key designation for the group. Next, these will be compared to other psalms and especially those from the late Second Temple period.

2. Psalms of Solomon and Other Second Temple Period Psalms The available psalms from the Second Temple period, aside from the psalms of the Qumran movement and the Psalms of Solomon, are almost all earlier than these two corpora. Their compositional dates span hundreds of years and they were composed by numerous different writing circles. They hence do not provide contemporary evidence for the Psalms of Solomon nor a unified corpus in any other sense, but rather possible literary, 24 The recently resurfaced question about the original language of the Psalms of Solomon is not pertinent to this investigation. The specific terminology and most of the key concepts in the Psalms of Solomon demonstrate that the author was dealing with Semitic concepts and ideas. Whether an author turned these concepts into Greek terms he found most appropriate while writing in Greek or a later translator did this is a question beyond the scope of the present study. For the question of the original language of the Psalms of Solomon, see, e.g., Jan Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 31–48.

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ideological, and communal traditions the writers of the Psalms of Solomon might have utilized. To be clear, this comparison is not intended to establish any direct literary dependencies. The point is rather to investigate whether the distinctive features of the Psalms of Solomon in relation to the psalms of the Qumran movement are truly rare in psalms more broadly. Because of the great number of compositions, the comparison cannot be as thorough as it ideally should be, but such an investigation would require an extensive monograph study. The comparison is, therefore, based most of all on the distribution of specific terms, like ḥasidim, and more general observations on broader issues. In terms of functional elements related to liturgy, education and prophecy, most of the psalms are more in line with the Psalms of Solomon than the psalms of the Qumran movement in the sense that only rare psalms mix the different elements to the degree done, for instance, in the Hodayot psalms. Most of the earlier psalms are either liturgical or educational and their key functional rubrics attest to this. Prophetic psalms and the interpretation of psalms as prophecies seems to be a post-Maccabean revolt phenomenon and, hence, only a few late psalms contain such elements or are written entirely as prophecies.25 However, the frequent style of the Psalms of Solomon where liturgical rubrics are rare and mostly descriptive, and the main point appears to be a reflection and justification of divine justice, is not a typical style in psalmody. The focus on divine justice might be the theme of some specific psalms but currently only one other psalm collection seems to be dedicated to this theme. This is 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B (4Q381). The specific perspective employed in the overall theme in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B is, however, quite different than in the Psalms of Solomon. The psalms in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B draw on the Pentateuch and historical books to draw conclusions on how divine justice and election are connected and how the faithfulness and penitence of Judah’s kings were rewarded by God.26 The Psalms of Solomon also take up some past events as prototypical and paradigmatic models for more recent divine acts, but this is only done in order to justify the recent contemporary events as compatible with how God deals out righteous justice. 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B uses educational terminology and its main function appears to have been as an education on divine justice, which seems broadly comparable to the Psalms of Solomon. But the exact terminology used is largely different from that in the Psalms of Solomon.27 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B likewise contains one of the rare prophetic psalms, written roughly in the mid-second century BCE, but it is thematically about the special future of a particular Jewish group as the elect, not about a Davidic Messiah or the restoration of Israel as a whole, which are the themes of Psalms of Solomon 17 and 18. Finally, while some of the group terms used in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B are the same as in the Psalms of Solomon,28 the key term ḥasidim is missing and the most distinctive group term in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B, “the understanding ones,” is not found in the Psalms of Solomon.

27 28 25 26

See further, Pajunen, “Differentiation,” 269–72. See further, Pajunen, “The Land,” 298–308. For the educational terminology in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B, see, Pajunen, “The Land,” 292–97. For these group designations, see, Pajunen, “The Land,” 359–65.

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 19

In terms of ideology, the concept of free will, where everyone is responsible for their own actions, is the traditional Jewish concept, and when such views can be discerned in the earlier psalms, they are typically closer to the Psalms of Solomon than to the psalms of the Qumran movement. Similarly, while it seems that in general the Jewish worldview, as expressed in writings, developed in the late Second Temple period to include a more pronounced presence of both angels and demons, most of the other psalms precede this change.29 There are a few exceptions to this, mostly in late Second Temple period compositions, such as the “apocryphal” psalms in 11QapocrPs, the Plea for Deliverance (11QPsa 19:1–18), the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and the Song of the Three Young Men, but most psalms do not contain a significant presence of angels and demons. It is similarly true that most of the earlier psalms that somehow refer to the covenant see Israel as the chosen nation. It seems that election is another matter that was debated in the second century BCE, as reflected, for example, in Sirach, Jubilees, and 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B, and it is, therefore, not surprising that psalms mostly predating this time conform to the traditional views on covenant. However, the role of Zion as a personified woman or as the object/subject of extensive proclamations is also rare in the other psalms. The MT Psalter does contain psalms that deal with Zion or mention it in passing,30 but she is not typically addressed or given a voice of her own as in the Psalms of Solomon. The same is true for a psalm in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms A (4Q380 1i) that looks forward to future joy in Zion. While references to Zion are, thus, not remarkable in themselves, the personified way Zion is depicted in some of the Psalms of Solomon is rare and closer to Lamentations than to other psalms. Finally, regarding the main group terms used in the Psalms of Solomon, the same largely holds true as it does in comparison with the Qumran movement’s psalms. Most of the terms are rather common, especially in late psalms. All of them are used in MT psalms, some in 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B, and some in the Barkhi Nafshi. However, the term ḥasidim is quite rare. It occurs in thirteen MT psalms (Pss 30, 31, 37, 50, 52, 85, 89, 97, 116, 132, 145, 148, 149), but typically only once in each psalm, the exceptions being Psalms 132 and 149. These references have been scrutinized quite intently, particularly for a possible connection with the ḥasidim group mentioned in 1 Maccabees. It has furthermore been suggested that at least some of these references might be later editorial changes and could be part of the final editorial layer of the proto-MT Psalter that is typically dated to various points in the second century BCE.31 This is not the place to analyze these psalms and the references to the ḥasidim in detail. On the whole the psalms predate the Psalms of Solomon and if the references are later changes made to existing psalms, there is no reason to suppose the literary style of these psalms would be Mika S. Pajunen, “Fighting Evil with Psalms and Prayers: Incantations and Apotropaic Prayers as a Response to the Changing Worldview of the Late Second Temple Period,” in Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean: Cognitive, Historical, and Material Perspectives on the Bible and Its Contexts, ed. Nina Nikki and Kirsi Valkama, Mundus Orientis 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020), 197–214. 30 For Zion in the MT psalms, see, e.g., Corinna Körting, Zion in den Psalmen, FAT 48 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). 31 See, for example, Christoph Levin, “Das Gebetbuch der Gerechten: Literargeschichtliche Beobachtungen am Psalter,” ZTK 90 (1993): 355–81. Cf. Marko Marttila, Collective Reinterpretation in the Psalms: A Study of the Redaction History of the Psalter, FAT 2/13 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). 29

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comparable to the Psalms of Solomon.32 There are, however, some thematic similarities in these psalms that should be briefly mentioned here and investigated more thoroughly in the future. If the ḥasidim in the MT psalms are somehow connected with the slightly later ḥasidim of the Psalms of Solomon, such connections could help in discerning why the ḥasidim would have been added to the thirteen psalms, but not others. It is likewise possible that the occurrence of the ḥasidim in earlier psalms might have affected the ideology and composition of the Psalms of Solomon. Most of the references and the portions of the psalms they are part of have connections with the other prominent group terms used in the Psalms of Solomon and some of the distinct themes in them, although the literary styles are usually quite different. A few examples of the different kinds of connections will suffice at this point, but most of the MT psalms with references to the ḥasidim have similar links with the Psalms of Solomon. For instance, the passage in Psalm 31:24–25 where the ḥasidim are mentioned is part of a collective message drawn from the main part of the psalm and is clearly a separate note attached to its end. The ḥasidim are admonished to love God and to remain strong in their faith so that God will preserve them and recompense the acts of prideful sinners. The same message of persevering in righteousness and the just recompense of the sinners is the central point of Psalm 37. The section of the psalm that begins with the mention of the ḥasidim in verse 28 has even more connections with the Psalms of Solomon than the ending of Psalm 31 does. It states that God loves justice, he guards the ḥasidim forever, the sinners will be cut off and the righteous will inherit the land, the righteous are admonished once more to persevere in following God’s ways, and they are further qualified as people whose mouths utter wisdom and whose tongues speak justice (Ps 37:28–34). Many of the references to ḥasidim are in psalms that mention Zion and divine justice. In Psalm 50, God comes from Zion to judge Israel and summons the ḥasidim to gather (Ps 50:5). The Psalm is entirely about God as a judge of his people and the different destinies of the faithful and the sinners. Perhaps significantly, the sinners are described as those who hate God’s discipline (LXX-Ps 49:17 renders this as παιδεία), and who have forgotten him (Ps 50:22, cf. Ps. Sol. 14:7). In Psalm 97, God is the king who judges the whole earth, and Zion rejoices because of God’s judgments (Ps 97:8). God also guards the life of his ḥasidim and rescues them from sinners (Ps 97:10). In Psalm 149, the ḥasidim are induced to offer praises to God together with the children of Zion and to execute vengeance on the nations. The final examples taken up here are Psalms 89 and 132. Considering the expectations of a Davidic Messiah in Psalms of Solomon 17, it is intriguing that these are the two MT Psalms that refer explicitly to Nathan’s oracle. In the case of Psalm 89:20, the mention of ḥasidim occurs just prior to the oracle, and there is a variant reading, “his chosen ones,” extant in 4QPsx that could imply that ḥasidim is a later replacement of the more general term. In Psalm 132, the expectation of a future Da It has been suggested that Psalm 149 might have been written by the ḥasidim. See, Harm van Grol, “Three Hasidisms and Their Militant Ideologies: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Psalms 144 and 149,” in Between Evidence and Ideology: Essays on the History of Ancient Israel read at the Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oud Testamentisch Werkgezelschap Lincoln, July 2009, ed. Bob Becking and Lester Grabbe, OTS 59 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 93–115. The group is quite elemental to the psalm, but without further comparative material for the ḥasidim group active during the Maccabean revolt, the connection remains within the realm of possibility rather than probability. 32

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 21

vidic king is further combined with the choice of Zion as God’s eternal resting place. The future fulfillment of these promises will make the ḥasidim rejoice (Ps 132:9, 16). Many of the references to ḥasidim in the MT Psalms are hence in contexts that have a connection with a distinct theme also utilized in the Psalms of Solomon, like divine justice, Zion, and/or a Davidic Messiah. If some of these references to ḥasidim were added to the MT Psalms in the “final” editorial stages that many scholars date close to the beginning of the first century BCE, the composition of the Psalms of Solomon and insertion of the additions would be diachronically quite close. This possibility and the thematic and terminological connections deserve closer study in the future. To conclude this brief comparison and discussion, most of the features that distinguish the Psalms of Solomon from those of the Qumran movement are rather common in other psalms. However, the largely descriptive and argumentative literary style of the Psalms of Solomon is not typical of psalms. In terms of themes, the focus on God’s judgments in an educational context is a rare feature. The other rare thematic element is Zion, and especially how she is utilized in the Psalms of Solomon as a personified figure. Finally, the term ḥasidim is sufficiently rare that multiple occurrences of it in other psalms at least make it worth comparing such compositions to the Psalms of Solomon in other respects as well. There are three such texts among the Qumran finds, Psalm 154, Apostrophe to Zion, and the Messianic Apocalypse. As will be suggested in the following comparison, these three texts share a great many things with the Psalms of Solomon in terms of literary style, ideology, and particularly the rare features listed above.

3. Shared Style and Rare Concepts? Psalm 154, Apostrophe to Zion, and the Messianic Apocalypse The main parts of Psalm 154 have been preserved in Hebrew in 11QPsa 18:1–16 and a psalm with a distinct textual connection to it is found in 4Q448 III.33 The whole of Psalm 154 is extant only in Syriac, which appears to be translated from a slightly different Hebrew version of the psalm.34 Due to the use of Ben Sira in Psalm 154 and the connection with 4Q448, Psalm 154 can be dated quite firmly to the latter half of the second century BCE.35 This psalm is the closest parallel to many of the Psalms of Solomon in terms of literary style and central markers related to the community it describes. Its genre classi33 For the official edition of 11QPsa, see James A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa), DJD IV (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 64–69. The psalm in 4Q448 has been claimed to present the nucleus of Psalm 154 that was later extended to the version found in 11QPsa and Syriac manuscripts. See, e.g., André Lemaire, “Attestation textuelle et critique littéraire: 4Q448 Col. A et Psalm 154,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery, ed. Lawrence Schiffman et al. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 12–18; Hanan Eshel and Esther Eshel, “4Q448, Psalm 154 (Syriac), Sirach 48:20, and 4QpIsa a,” JBL 119 (2000): 645–59. The question about the nature and direction of the textual connection is, however, more complex and should be evaluated more cautiously. See further, Mika S. Pajunen, “Psalms 151–155,” in Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern Oegema (Oxford: University Press, 2021), 423–48. 34 Harry van Rooy, Studies on the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms, JSSSup 7 (Oxford: University Press, 1999). 35 Pajunen, “Psalms 151–155.”

22 Mika S. Pajunen

fication has been as difficult as with the Psalms of Solomon. Psalm 154 is mostly referred to as a wisdom psalm,36 which is not a genre but rather describes some of the thematic content of the psalm.37 Like many of the Psalms of Solomon, Psalm 154 rather describes desirable liturgical actions to be performed by a community than presents an actual example of a composition used in such practices. Importantly, the main action related to the pious community in Psalm 154 is that they should make known/declare God’s deeds, glory, might, and salvation to the ignorant, and the frequent wisdom language adds to this stress on educational elements. In addition, the community is encouraged to glorify God for these matters, but the psalm in itself does not present such glorification as a direct address to God (Ps 154:1–10). Moreover, the only direct liturgical rubric, “blessed be the Lord,” appears close to the end of the psalm (Ps 154:18) as is the case with many of the Psalms of Solomon, as noted above. There are also thematic connections between Psalm 154 and the Psalms of Solomon. While Psalm 154 does not deal with a specific case of God’s justice, its central message is about the salvation and mercy that God offers to those who do good, in contrast to the wicked. Psalm 154 does explicitly refer to God judging his people Israel at the end (Ps 154:19). Furthermore, Israel is twice mentioned as Jacob, which is far rarer in psalms than the designation “Israel,” but used in the Psalms of Solomon, and Zion/Jerusalem are at the very end (Ps 154:20) brought up as the locality chosen by God forever. While such thematic elements can be found together in some other psalms, together with the functional elements, they already distinguish the literary style and themes of Psalm 154 as particularly close to the Psalms of Solomon. This connection is further supported by the main group terms used for the pious community described in Psalm 154. The most important of these is ḥasidim. It is used as a parallel to the righteous in verse 12 when the community of the ḥasidim is described, thus connecting the two most frequent group terms used in the Psalms of Solomon. Moreover, the “poor” are among the other group terms employed in the psalm (Ps 154:18). Therefore, while Psalm 154 is slightly earlier than the Psalms of Solomon are as a collection, it is possible that the same community composed these psalms or at least they share enough functional and thematic elements as well as group terminology to suggest a common literary style and theological outlook. The second composition to be discussed, the Apostrophe to Zion, has been preserved in two psalms scrolls from Qumran. 11QPsa 22:1–15 preserves the entire psalm and more fragmentary remains of it are preserved in 4QPsf 7:14–8:16.38 The entire psalm is directed to Zion in order to remember it for a blessing (11QPsa 22:1–2, 12). It is less connected to the Psalms of Solomon in literary style than Psalm 154. As indicated, it is entirely directed to Zion and has liturgical rubrics praising and blessing it. However, aside from the Psalms of Solomon, and particularly Pss. Sol. 11 where Zion is addressed several times directly, such an address is not found in late Second Temple period psalms. The Apostrophe to Zion further concerns the hope for a Jerusalem purified of sinners and liars 36 For example, Dieter Lührmann, “Ein Weisheitspsalm aus Qumran (11QPsa XVIII),” ZAW 80 (1968): 87–98. 37 Pajunen, “Differentiation,” 266–68. 38 For the official editions, see Sanders, The Psalms Scroll, 85–88; Patrick Skehan, Eugene Ulrich, and Peter Flint, “4QPsf,” in Qumran Cave 4.XI: Psalms to Chronicles, ed. Eugene Ulrich et al., DJD XVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 85–106.

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 23

(11QPsa 22:2–7), and it is also explicitly stated that God tests his people and recompenses them according to their deeds (11QPsa 22:9–10) that will serve as a basis for dividing them into the righteous and the wicked. The wicked will be purged and scattered from Jerusalem and will not participate in the joyous victory and salvation prepared for Zion and the righteous. These concepts concerning God’s justice coincide exactly with the basic ideas in the Psalms of Solomon. Finally, the group that is declared to have a special place in the present and future of Zion is again the ḥasidim. Generations of ḥasidim are envisioned to dwell in Zion and their works are said to glorify it (11QPsa 22:3, 6). There are, thus, specific connections between the Apostrophe to Zion and the Psalms of Solomon with regard to the role of Zion and, in addressing it, the centrality of the ḥasidim group, the basic concepts of divine justice and the idea of God testing his people, and the expectation of a glorious future where the wicked will be cut off and the righteous will rejoice in Zion. While a connection with the Psalms of Solomon and the group who authored the Apostrophe to Zion may not be as strong as in the case of Psalm 154, there nevertheless exist enough similarities to merit further exploration of a possible connection in future studies. The final comparative text to be discussed here is a fragmentary prophetic proclamation titled the Messianic Apocalypse (4Q521).39 The exact genre of the text is unclear because so little remains of it. The text appears to be mostly poetry rather than prose, and it is overall quite similar in literary style and general content of prophetic oracles to Psalms of Solomon 17 and 18. Furthermore, the use of an “I” perspective as the one who proclaims the prophetic message (e.g., 4Q521 2iii 1), several attestations of a first person plural “us” (4Q521 2i+3 1, 5ii 7, 11 4), references to God both in the second and third person singular, several potential blessing formulas and descriptions of liturgical acts (4Q521 2iii 2–6, 7 5, 5ii 7, 8 11), and the use of vacats as division markers (4Q521 2i+3 8, 10; 2ii+4 3; 7 3, 6; 11 2; 15 2), might suggest that the text is a collection of several prophetic psalms rather than a collection of more traditional prophetic oracles. The largely descriptive style is similar to the Psalms of Solomon, and the combination of seldom used liturgical rubrics, some wisdom elements, and a prophetic oracle as the main content of the composition also find their closest counterparts in Psalms of Solomon 17 and 18 among late Second Temple period compositions. Whether 4Q521 is a collection of psalmic prophecies or other kinds of prophetic oracles, the above-mentioned stylistic similarities to the Psalms of Solomon are nevertheless intriguing. Furthermore, there are also thematic links to the Psalms of Solomon in 4Q521. The clearest of these are the expectation for a Messiah and that the righteous and wicked will be judged according to their works (esp. 4Q521 2ii+4 and 7). These are admittedly broad themes and do not by themselves suffice to establish a connection between the Messianic Apocalypse and the Psalms of Solomon. The group terms, however, offer some more specific connections. The group of the “I” speaker, probably reflected also in the “we” sections, is described with several terms. The most prominent of these, at least in the extant text, is the ḥasidim, whom God is said to honor upon the throne of his kingdom. The term is also once more paralleled by the “righteous” and God is said to call them by name (esp. 39 For the official edition, see Émile Puech, Qumrân Grotte 4.XXVIII: Textes Hébreux (4Q521-4Q528, 4Q576-4Q579), DJD XXV (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998).

Mika S. Pajunen 24

4Q521 2ii+4 4–10). The future actions of the “we” group, which are described as giving thanks and proclaiming the righteous deeds of the Lord (4Q521 7 7), likewise coincide well with the main communal activities described in the Psalms of Solomon. There are some further possible connections, like the idea that the group is waiting/hoping for God (cf. Pss. Sol. 17:2–3; 4Q521 2ii+4 4, 9), but there are also some terms used for the group in the Messianic Apocalypse that do not appear in the Psalms of Solomon, such as the “faithful ones” (‫( )אמונים‬4Q521 2ii+4 6; 5i+6 7). Such designations would be in line with the self-description of the group in the Psalms of Solomon but are nevertheless not used there. The Messianic Apocalypse, therefore, presents the most uncertain case regarding a connection with the Psalms of Solomon among the three compositions discussed here. The fragmentary state of the manuscript hinders the investigation considerably and many quite fundamental questions regarding the text remain unanswered. Yet the similarities merit further investigation, which could help in answering some of the questions regarding the Messianic Apocalypse and whether the Messianic expectations in the Psalms of Solomon coincide with those expressed in the Messianic Apocalypse.

4. Conclusions This study has provided a broad comparison between the Psalms of Solomon and other late Second Temple period psalms. The aim was to situate the Psalms of Solomon more firmly within the broader discussion concerning the composition and use of psalms during this period and to recognize any distinctive features of the collection in relation to roughly contemporary psalms. The Psalms of Solomon were first compared to the psalm collections composed by the Qumran movement. This demonstrated that the Psalms of Solomon use the functional elements typical of late Second Temple psalms, viz., liturgical, educational, and prophetic elements. It also revealed that the distribution of such elements and other matters of literary style distinguish the Psalms of Solomon from the Qumran movement’s psalms. More distinctive features were found in the main thematic content of the Psalms of Solomon and especially the concepts of election and the broader covenantal context. The fundamental differences in these matters from the views of the Qumran movement suggest that the two groups are most likely not part of the same broader Jewish group such as the Essenes. The group terms used in the psalms further strengthened this conclusion. The only truly distinctive group term in the Psalms of Solomon, the ḥasidim, does not occur in the Qumran movement’s psalms and the same is true regarding the Qumran movement’s favored term, yahad, in the Psalms of Solomon. In the second part of the study, the features distinguishing the Psalms of Solomon from the Qumran movement’s psalms were broadly compared to all the other psalms from the Second Temple period. This demonstrated further that the use of functional elements in the Psalms of Solomon is quite distinct, and while there are more parallels in individual psalms for the main themes of the Psalms of Solomon than in the psalms of the Qumran movement, many of these are quite rare, such as, the combination of God’s justice and educational aims, the personification of Zion, and the fresh prophetic oracles at the end of the collection. Moreover, while the term ḥasidim is found in thirteen MT psalms, they might be part of a late editorial layer of the proto-MT Psalter and the thir-

The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms 25

teen psalms have significant terminological and thematic connections with the Psalms of Solomon that deserve further investigation in the future. The features highlighted by these two comparisons as particularly important to the Psalms of Solomon in relation to other late Second Temple period psalms resulted in distinguishing three compositions that have particular affinities with the Psalms of Solomon, viz., Psalm 154, the Apostrophe to Zion, and the Messianic Apocalypse. These were then briefly discussed at the end of the study but these potential connections and their significance for understanding this group of compositions needs further study in the future. One or more of them might derive from the same community as the Psalms of Solomon or they might all just be using the same literary style and main theological viewpoints, in much the same way as Deuteronomistic style and theology are used in a number of substantially later writings. A final point that has to be brought up regarding the Psalms of Solomon and other late Second Temple period psalms is related to the transmission and acceptance of specific psalms and psalm collections as Scripture. It might be important for understanding the role of the Psalms of Solomon group in the society to consider that, in view of the great number of psalms now available from the late Second Temple period, the ḥasidim compositions have a prominent role in psalms that became Scripture or were at least part of some authoritative collections. The Psalms of Solomon were themselves preserved in Greek and Syriac, which is peculiar in itself if the group had been sectarian. If the references to ḥasidim in the MT Psalter are part of a late redactional layer, the fact that this particular collection of psalms and this version of it eventually became canonical could be important as well. Taking into account the three compositions discussed at the end of this study, the ḥasidim feature prominently in them, and Psalm 154 was part of a large collection of psalms, 11QPsa, with a Davidic emphasis and it was later translated into Syriac where it was in some manuscripts part of an appendix to the Psalter. Similarly, the Apostrophe to Zion was not only part of the same large collection of psalms as Psalm 154 in 11QPsa, but also of another significant psalm collection partly preserved on 4QPsf. In comparison, none of the psalms of the Qumran movement seem to have had a similar standing in any contemporary or later collections of psalms. The prominent role of ḥasidim in the psalm collections might of course be accidental and the relatively positive reception of these psalms could be mostly due to the rather traditional theological views promoted in them. It is, however, significant to realize that the Qumran movement’s compositions are far more particularistic and there is no evidence to suggest that the movement tried to spread the use of their psalms outside their own communities. The Psalms of Solomon instead contain passages explicitly stating an aim to proclaim in front of the more general populace and the psalms also include views on the restoration of the whole people, rather than limiting the focus to their specific group. In view of this, it is hard to see the Psalms of Solomon group as sectarian, and the evidence would suggest they rather tried to influence the broader people of Israel with their views.

26 Mika S. Pajunen

5. Bibliography Atkinson, Kenneth. An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. – I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting (JSJSup 84) Leiden: Brill, 2004. – “Responses.” Pages 175–91 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Chazon, Esther. “Liturgical Communion with the Angels at Qumran.” Pages 95–105 in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Oslo 1998, Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet. Edited by Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller (STDJ 35) Leiden: Brill, 2000. Embry, Brad. “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13 (2002): 99–136. – “Some Thoughts and Implications from Genre Categorization in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 59–78 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Eshel, Hanan and Esther Eshel. “4Q448, Psalm 154 (Syriac), Sirach 48:20, and 4QpIsa a,” JBL 119 (2000): 645–59. Grol, Harm van. “Three Hasidisms and Their Militant Ideologies: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Psalms 144 and 149.” Pages 93–115 in Between Evidence and Ideology: Essays on the History of Ancient Israel read at the Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oud Testamentisch Werkgezelschap Lincoln, July 2009. Edited by Bob Becking and Lester Grabbe (OTS 59) Leiden: Brill, 2011. Joosten, Jan. “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 31–48 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Körting, Corinna. Zion in den Psalmen (FAT 48) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Lambert, David A. “Was the Dead Sea Sect a Penitential Movement?” Pages 501–31 in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by John J. Collins and Timothy H. Lim. Oxford: University Press, 2010. Lemaire, André. “Attestation textuelle et critique littéraire: 4Q448 Col. A et Psalm 154.” Pages 12–18 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery. Edited by Lawrence Schiffman et al. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000. Levin, Christoph. “Das Gebetbuch der Gerechten: Literargeschichtliche Beobachtungen am Psalter,” ZTK 90 (1993): 355–81. Lührmann, Dieter. “Ein Weisheitspsalm aus Qumran (11QPsa XVIII),” ZAW 80 (1968): 87–98. Marttila, Marko. Collective Reinterpretation in the Psalms: A Study of the Redaction History of the Psalter (FAT II/13) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Mroczek, Eva. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Newsom, Carol A. “‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran.” Pages 167–87 in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters. Edited by David Noel Freedman, Baruch Halpern, and William H. C. Propp. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Pajunen, Mika S. “From Poetic Structure to Historical Setting: Exploring the Background of the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns.” Pages 355–76 in Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday. Edited by Cecilia Wassen, Ken Penner, and Jeremy Penner (STDJ 98) Leiden: Brill, 2012. – The Land to the Elect and Justice for All: Reading Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Light of 4Q381 (JAJSup 14) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. – “Perspectives on the Existence of a Particular Authoritative Book of Psalms in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSOT 39 (2014): 139–63. – “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and the Barkhi Nafshi Hymns.” Pages 252–76 in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period.

27 The Psalms of Solomon in the Context of Late Second Temple Period Psalms Edited by Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner (BZAW 486) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. – “Differentiation of Form, Theme, and Changing Functions in Psalms and Prayers,” SJOT 33 (2019): 264–76. – “Building a Community of the Elect through Psalms and Prayers: Liturgy, Education, and Prophetic Interpretation.” In The Psalms in Jewish Liturgy, Ritual and Community Formation from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Biblical Texts in Dynamic, Pluralistic Contexts. Edited by Claudia Bergmann et al. (AJEC) Leiden: Brill, forthcoming. – “Psalms 151–155.” Pages 423–48 in Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha. Edited by Gerbern Oegema. Oxford: University Press, 2021. – “Fighting Evil with Psalms and Prayers: Incantations and Apotropaic Prayers as a Response to the Changing Worldview of the Late Second Temple Period.” Pages 197–214 in Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean: Cognitive, Historical, and Material Perspectives on the Bible and Its Contexts. Edited by Nina Nikki and Kirsi Valkama (Mundus Orientis 3) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020. Puech, Émile. Qumrân Grotte 4.XXVIII: Textes Hébreux (4Q521-4Q528, 4Q576-4Q579) (DJD 25) Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. Rooy, Harry van. Studies on the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms (JSSSup 7) Oxford: University Press, 1999. Sanders, James A. The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD 4) Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Skehan, Patrick, Eugene Ulrich, and Peter Flint. “4QPsf.” Pages 85–106 in Qumran Cave 4.XI: Psalms to Chronicles. Edited by Eugene Ulrich et al. (DJD 16) Oxford: Clarendon, 2000. Tov, Emanuel. Revised Lists of the Texts from the Judaean Desert. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Trafton, Joseph L. “The Bible, the Psalms of Solomon, and Qumran.” Pages 427–46 in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006. Werline, Rodney A. “Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 133–54 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Weissenberg, Hanne von, Juha Pakkala, and Marko Marttila, ed. Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period (BZAW 419) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Winninge, Mikael. Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (ConBNT 26) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995.





The Temple in the Psalms of Solomon* Vasile Babota The focus here is on the temple as a biblical institution. The general aim is to analyze the perception of the temple of Jerusalem in individual psalms. This study seeks to trace the development and possible change/s in the perception of the temple from psalm to psalm and, possibly, within individual psalms. Not all the Pss. Sol. display the same interest/s towards the temple. Some psalms show clear concern for the temple: e.g., 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, and probably 17. Most, however, do not show such concern: e.g., 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. This study will not limit itself to the examination of those psalms or verses which make clear references to the temple. We also will shortly reflect on those psalms that do not seem to allude to the temple. Thus, we shall also ask the question of why the temple is not a consistent concern of the collection.

1. Defining the Historical Background of the Psalms of Solomon 1.1 The Nature and Historical Value of the Psalms of Solomon Many scholars believe that several authors composed the Pss. Sol. individually, or in groups, after the death of the Hasmonean High Priest and King Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE) but before the death of King Herod the Great (40–4 BCE). One or more redactors are held responsible for arranging the psalms in their present order sometime during the reign of Herod. Jerusalem or a place nearby is indicated as the most likely provenance of these psalms. Scholars have further asserted that some psalms are composite and that some of their contents should be dated to the reign of Herod or even after. Therefore, ‘psalmist,’ ‘author,’ and similar terms do not always need to imply a single individual. Even though we lack any fragment in Hebrew, and no early reliable witness, most scholars think the Pss. Sol. were composed in Hebrew and were subsequently translated into Greek and Syriac. A minority scholarly view claims that Greek was the source language. It is, however, possible that a major scribal revision was conducted on the Greek version only. Since direct Greek textual evidence comes from a much later period, the history of the Greek tradition itself is far from being well established.1 * I thank Dr. Patrick Pouchelle for inviting me for this conference. Special thank you also to Prof. Chris Seeman for correcting the English of this essay. Any remaining errors are my sole responsibility. 1 I have been unable to take the following into consideration: Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), esp. pp. 13–180 (“Die Textzeugen”) and pp. 181–259 (“Die Textgeschichte”). For an introduction into the manuscript history and translation, see Robert R. Hann, The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon, SBLSCSS 13 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1982); Robert B. Wright,

30 Vasile Babota

There has been a widespread tendency to regard several Pss. Sol. as providing important ‘historical’ insight into the first century BCE. By contrast, several scholars have concluded that there is little, or very little, that can be recovered for writing a history of this period.2 It is worth emphasizing that the authors of major literary sources produced in the last two centuries BCE and first century CE were particularly sensitive to what was happening in relation to the temple: e.g., the Book of Daniel, First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, several Dead Sea Scrolls, but also New Testament writings, and more. The references to the temple in the Pss. Sol. give us some hints for dating some of the psalms. Like the contemporary ‘sectarian’ Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) produced by the yaḥad, the Pss. Sol. refer to various figures and events by using a cryptic language written for their community. Flavius Josephus’s writings, which are our most important and continuous source for much of the Hasmonean period and down into the first century CE, help to further contextualize some of these references. Many scholars have assumed that, for both the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, Josephus relied on the “Histories” of Nicolaus of Damascus (born ca. 64 BCE) more than on any other work.3 Some scholars have further suggested that there may be more dependence on Nicolaus in Antiquities than in War.4 At least since 14 BCE, and until the death of Herod the Great (4 BCE), Nicolaus spent his academic career at the court of the king to whom he dedicated many volumes. Josephus,

The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition, JCTCRS 1 (London: T&Clark, 2007), 13–42; Michael Lattke, “Die Psalmen Salomos: Orte und Intentionen,” in Die Septuaginta – Orte und Intentionen 5. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 24.–27. Juli 2014, ed. Siegfried Kreuzer et. al., WUNT 361 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 78–95; idem, “Textual History of the Psalms of Solomon,” in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 2C (Leiden – Boston, MA: Brill, 2019), 326–32; Kenneth Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon. Greek,” in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 2C, 332–41; idem, “Psalms of Solomon. Syriac,” in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 2C, 341–50. For Syriac as deriving from Hebrew, see Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation, SBLSCSS 11 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985), 187–207. Trafton, 233–34, estimated that the Syriac and the Greek agree in about 90% of the lines as far as the word order is concerned. He concluded that the textual pluses in Syriac are mostly exegetical, whereas it contains a number of textual minuses (sometimes whole lines), when compared to Greek. 2 So, for example, Benedikt Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Solomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 7–29. On how the Pss. Sol. used the past to shape the present identity of their community, see Matthew E. Gordley, “Creating Meaning in the Present by Reviewing the Past: Communal Memory in the Psalms of Solomon,” JAJ 5 (2014): 368–92. 3 See, among others, Ben Zion Wacholder, Nicolaus of Damascus, UCPH 75 (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1962), 5–6; Menahem Stern, “Nicolaus of Damascus as a Source of Jewish History in the Herodian and Hasmonean Age,” in Studies in Bible and Jewish History Dedicated to the Memory of Jacob Liver, ed. Benjamin Uffenheimer (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1971), 375–94 [Hebrew]; Steve Mason, “Josephus’s Judean War,” in A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora H. Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers, BCAW (Malden, MA: Wiley–Blackwell, 2016), 23–24; Daniel R. Schwartz, “Many Sources but a Single Author: Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities,” in A Companion to Josephus, 36–58. For a discussion of the academic career of Nicolaus also in Rome after Herod’s death, see Mark Toher, Nicolaus of Damascus: The Life of Augustus and the Autobiography: Edited with Introduction, Translations and Historical Commentary (Cambridge: University Press, 2017), 1–21. 4 See, for example, Ben Zion Wacholder, “Josephus and Nicolaus of Damascus,” in Josephus, the Bible, and History, ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1989), 152–72.

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who claimed descent from the Hasmoneans (Life 1–10; Ant. 16.187), made use also of other sources.5 1.2 The Importance of the Temple and the Nature of the Hasmonean High Priesthood Why was the temple so important? On the theological level, it was considered the dwelling place of God’s Glory or Name. Through sacrifices in the temple one could atone for one’s sins. It was believed that, from the temple, God, as the supreme king, would protect Israel, His people. The temple was a particularly fit place where one could pray and ask God for a blessing. Conversely, a defilement of the temple could endanger the permanent dwelling of Divine presence. God could abandon His temple, threatening His covenant with Israel by loss of divine protection and potential deliverance of Israel into the hands of enemies, often identified with nations. The temple itself was at risk of being destroyed by foreign enemies while Israel sent in exile. All these possibilities are a major concern in several Pss. Sol.6 There were other aspects which made the temple very important. Whoever was the high priest at the time exercised, as a rule, religious and moral authority over the Jews, in some cases even beyond the administrative borders of Judea. The preeminent expression of his authority was officiating the rite on the Day of Atonement (e.g., Lev 16). When most Pss. Sol. were produced, the persons in control of the high priestly office were Hyrcanus II (76–67, 63–40 BCE), Aristobulus II (67–63 BCE) and Antigonus (40–37 BCE), all of Hasmonean descent. Starting with Herod the Great (37–4 BCE), however, the succession of the Hasmonean high priests established by Jonathan (152–143 BCE) was interrupted, Herod reserving for himself the right to appoint high priests whom he could control best.7 The Hellenistic traits of the Hasmonean high priesthood, however, which combined the high priesthood with political and military offices, created an unprecedented situation in Jerusalem.8 The climax was reached at the time of Jannaeus who also proclaimed himself king. Combination and abuse of both high priesthood and kingship generated internal rebellions.9 His death in 73 BCE, and especially that of his wife-queen in 67 BCE, 5 Other possible sources include: Eupolemus, Alexander Polyhistor, Strabo of Amaseia, or Josephus’s political and literary rival, Justus of Tiberias. See further, Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, I (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), 157, 262, 265–67. 6 On how the Babylonian exile played a warning message to future generations, see Mika S. Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period, ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner, BZAW 486 (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2017), 252–76. 7 The last Hasmonean to have acted as high priest and appointed by Herod for shortly in 35 BCE, was the young Aristobulus III. Herod killed several Hasmonean high priests putting an end to their rule: Antigonus II in 37 BCE, Aristobulus III in 35 BCE, and Hyrcanus II in 30 BCE. On these Hasmonean high priests as well as on the high priests in the reign of Herod the Great, see James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 337–416. 8 See further Vasile Babota, The Institution of the Hasmonean High Priesthood, JSJSup 165 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 285–91. 9 See further Vasile Babota, “Alexander Janneus as High Priest and King: Struggling between Jewish and Hellenistic Concepts of Rule,” Religions 11, 40 (2020): 1–17.

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opened the way for the two brothers, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, to claim their right to succession. Control of the temple was thus crucial in order to assert themselves as true successors to their father’s controversial throne. Among others, Ya‘akov Meshorer stressed how the Jerusalem temple “was not only the religious center of the Jewish people” but also its “central bank.”10 It was a source for loans and debt collection, and had a depository of collective and/or individual goods and donations both from inside Judea as well as from Diaspora Jews. According to Marty E. Stevens it “functioned as an economic institution … in ways similar to other ANE Temples.”11 The Jerusalem temple was, therefore, also a potential instrument of economic control in Judea. Not least, as several Pss. Sol. also imply, the temple was used at times by Jewish parties as a place of refuge and preparation for war during periods of internecine strife or foreign attacks as the last stronghold (e.g., War 1.148–149; Ant. 14.58–71).12 Much later, in relation to the Jewish revolt against Rome, Josephus will harshly criticize the Zealots for having turned the “temple of God into a stronghold” (τὸν νεὼν τοῦ θεοῦ φρούριον) and “the sanctuary” (τὸ ἅγιον) into their refuge (War 4.151; cf. 5.396–397). A look at Josephus’s two major writings, Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, shows that the temple may have been defiled, or considered as defiled by at least some groups, at least seven times between 67 and 4 BCE alone. A schematic layout will help clarify the matter: 67 BCE: Aristobulus II with the help of Itureans and other regional forces attacks his brother the high priest and king Hyrcanus II, near Jericho, and after a truce he takes control of the temple. In between, Hyrcanus II committed killings “within the temple walls”.13 65 BCE: Hyrcanus II with the help of Nabateans and some Idumeans attacks the high priest and king Aristobulus II in the temple during Passover; subsequently, Aristobulus II with the help of Roman troops fights back.14 This was very probably the first such violent attack since the siege of Antiochus VII Sidetes in 129 BCE, when the high priest was John Hyrcanus I (134–104 BCE).15 A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2001), 73–74. 11 Temples, Tithes, and Taxes: The Temple and the Economic Life of Ancient Israel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), 171. See also Allen Kerkeslager, “Jewish Pilgrimage and Jewish Identity in Hellenistic and Early Roman Egypt,” in Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, ed. David Frankfurter, RGRW 134 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 99–225; Martin Goodman, “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” in Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ed. Lee I. Levine (New York, NY: Continuum, 1999), 69–76; Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Priestly and Levitical Gifts,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, ed. Donald W. Parry and Eugene Ch. Ulrich, STDJ 30 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 480–96. See more recently Hayim Lapin, “Feeding the Jerusalem temple: Cult, Hinterland and Economy in First Century Palestine,” JAJ 8 (2018): 409–53 (relevant also for first century BCE). 12 See also War 1.141; 2.328, 443–445; 5.22; Ant. 14.19–20, 480, passim. 13 See Ant. 14.5. This information lacks in War. 14 This event is narrated only in Ant. 14.20–28, not in War. 15 Unfortunately, Josephus does not provide many details on this siege, while other sources are scarce. See further Kenneth Atkinson, A History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond, JCTCRS 23 (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016), 55–58. 10

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63 BCE: Pompey backs Hyrcanus II, besieges the new high priest and king Aristobulus II in the temple, and after a heavy slaughter makes a ‘tour’ of the sanctuary. 54 BCE: Crassus loots the treasures of the temple. 40 BCE: Mattathias Antigonus with the help of the Parthians overthrows his uncle, the high priest and king Hyrcanus II. Members of the Hasmonean dynasty, the Parthians as well as Herod the Great, each commit atrocities that involve the temple complex. 37 BCE: King Herod the Great with the help of the Romans overthrows the high priest and king Antigonus and captures the temple; part of the sanctuary is damaged. 4 BCE: Sabinus burns parts of the sanctuary and loots its treasures after putting down a Jewish revolt. With the possible exception of Crassus in 54 BCE, most often, foreign forces were invited by one or the other Hasmonean claimant to the rule of Judea. The psalmist usually speaks from the perspective of the one living in Jerusalem, or nearby, and experiencing these attacks. 1.3 Pro-Hasmonean Parties, Anti-Hasmonean Parties, and the Nations A closer look at Josephus’s and other writings shows that the history of Judea in the first century BCE was far more nuanced than what we get from the Pss. Sol. There were not just Jews and nations, or just pro-Hasmonean and anti-Hasmonean parties. Likewise, the Judean society was not split between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. For example, there were such respected individuals as the “righteous” Onias who, during the siege of 65 BCE, prayed God not to listen to the prayers of either party, as both are God’s people.16 In about 63 BCE, the warring brothers Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II were accused by a Jewish delegation before Pompey of unjustly arrogating the kingship to themselves and so overthrowing the “ancestral laws” (πάτριοι νόμοι; Diod., Bib. Hist. 40.2; cf. Ps. Sol 17:6; Jos., War 1.131–132; Ant. 14.41–47).17 From their side, the community behind the sectarian DSS (the yaḥad) seems to have opposed not only Hasmonean rule throughout the first century BCE, but probably also the Pharisees and others.18 The Pharisees and Sadducees, at least according to Josephus, seem to have switched Hasmonean camps 16 On this story, see Vered Noam, Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: University Press, 2018), 157–85. 17 For a discussion of sources, see Chris Seeman, Rome and Judea in Transition: Hasmonean Relations with the Roman Republic and the Evolution of the High Priesthood, AUS.ThR 325 (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2013), 256–71. See also Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Solomon,” 22–24, who unconvincingly questions the veracity of this anti-Hasmonean delegation. 18 For the view that the yaḥad regarded Hyrcanus II as their Righteous Teacher mentioned in several sectarian DSS who was executed by Herod the Great in 30 BCE, see Gregory Doudna, “Allusions to the End of the Hasmonean Dynasty in Pesher Nahum (4Q169),” in The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four, ed. George J. Brooke and Jesper Hogenhaven, STDJ 96 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 259–73. For the view that Hyrcanus II should be identified with the Wicked Priest, who appears as the antagonist to the Righteous Teacher, see John J. Collins, “The Origin of the Scrolls Community and Its Historical Context,” Henoch 39 (2017): 8–23. For a recent reevaluation of the evidence which concludes that neither view is convincing, see Vasile Babota, “The Wicked Priest, the Righteous Teacher, and the Yaḥad,” in Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 24–26 October 2017, ed. Henryk Drawnel, STDJ 133 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 112–42.

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several times during the first century BCE.19 Likewise, the Romans backed now one, now the other claimant to the rule of Judea – as best fit their own interests. Next, throughout the first century BCE there was a regular presence of mercenaries in Judea. Hyrcanus I (132–104 BCE) is said to have been the first (?) to have maintained mercenaries (μισθοφόροι), probably on a regular basis (War 1.61//Ant. 13.249). The practice of hiring mercenaries apparently intensified under Jannaeus, who reportedly had 8,000 (War 1.93) or 6,200 (Ant. 13.377) of them. Josephus specifies that these came from Pisidia and Cilicia (War 1.88//Ant. 13.374). His wife-queen Alexandra continued the recruitment of mercenaries (Ant. 13.409).20 Both Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II used to recruit and negotiate with foreign forces in their ongoing attempt to overthrow each other and maintain power. The anti-Hasmonean Jewish delegation before Pompey accused the Hasmoneans of having established their kingship “by means of a horde of mercenaries (μισθοφόρων γάρ πλήθει) and by outrages and countless impious murders” (Diod., Bib. Hist. 40.2). This part of the accusation is strikingly missing from Josephus’s Ant. 14.41, who likely wanted to minimize the role of mercenaries in establishing and maintaining the Hasmonean kingdom. The likelihood that some of these mercenaries actually came to permanently reside in the Land with their families further complicates any simplistic dichotomy between a native Jewish populace and foreign intruders.21 1.4 The Psalms of Solomon on Temple and Nations The authors of certain Pss. Sol. target the nations for defiling the temple. However, the presence of nations in or around the temple seems to have been even tolerated under certain conditions. Already Deut 23:9 allows Edomites and Egyptians to enter the assembly if they have lived in the Land for at least three generations. The First Book of Kings 8:41–43 has King Solomon asking God to hear the “foreigner” (‫ )נכרי‬when praying in the temple. Likewise, Lev 17:8–9 – definitely a post-exilic regulation – even encourages the “resident alien” (‫ )גר‬to offer sacrifices to the God of Israel. Other, much later texts speak of prayers and sacrifices brought on behalf of the nations in the temple.22 The comparison of Pss. Sol. with several DSS is helpful.23 Thus, 11QTemple Scroll 40:6 allows the “resident alien” (‫ )גר‬born in the Land to enter the third, outer, court of the temple, with the women. It should be emphasized that the exact status or condition/s under which a “resident alien” would or would not be admitted is not clearly defined in 19 See further, Vasile Babota, “In Search of the Origins of the Pharisees,” in The Pharisees, ed. Amy-Jill Levine & Joseph Sievers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, forthcoming 2021). 20 See the study of Israel Shatzman, The Armies of the Hasmonaeans and Herod: From Hellenistic to Roman Frameworks, TSAJ 25 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1991). 21 See further Pasi Loman, “Mercenaries, Their Women, and Colonization,” Klio 87 (2005): 346–65. On second century BCE colonists in Judea, see Dan 11:39; 1 Macc 3:45; 2 Macc 4:29; Jos., Ant. 12.252, passim. 22 See Ezra 6:9–10 and much later 1 Macc 7:33; 12:11; 2 Macc 3:32, 35; 4:60; 5:15; 9:16; 13:23; 3 Macc 1:9, 13; Jos., Ant. 11.336. See also James S. McLaren, “The temple and Gentiles,” in Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. David C. Sim and James S. McLaren, LNTS 499 (London, UK – New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2013), 92–108. 23 See John J. Collins, “Gentiles in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 46–61.

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the DSS. For example, did he need to be circumcised? The Damascus Document (CD) 14:3 seems even to reserve a place for the “resident alien” within the (later) ‘sectarian’ Community (yaḥad). This regulation is all the more unexpected as other sectarian DSS call for a separation not only from nations but even from the rest of the Jews (e.g., 1QS 8:13). This apparent admission, however, stands almost in stark contrast with the later 4QFlorilegium (4Q174) 1:3–7, which interprets Deut 23:2–3 and so excludes the “resident alien” from the assembly. Similarly, 4QMMT [4Q394–399] B 8–9 is against the sacrifices brought by nations in the temple. However, it is also known that strangers were forbidden from entering the temple. Flavius Josephus offers not only the most detailed description of the structure of the (later) temple (built by Herod the Great), but also mentions the existence at its entrance of stone inscriptions written in both Greek and Latin (War 5.184–238; 6.124–128; Ant. 15.391–421, passim). The inscription warned the “stranger” from entering the temple area: “no stranger should enter the sacred area” (μηδένα ἀλλόφυλον ἐντὸς τοῦ ἁγίου παριέναι). Exemplars of two such inscriptions have been uncovered in Jerusalem in 1871 and 1935 respectively (CIJ 2.1140; SEG 8.169; CII/P No. 2; cf. Jos., War 5.193–194; 6.125– 126; Ant. 15.417; see also Ant. 12.145–146).24 There is strong reason to believe that such admonitory inscriptions pre-dated the Herodian temple, at least since the early second c. BCE (cf. Ant. 12.145–146). One finds similar religious taboo in 11QT 67–68 and in 1 Macc 10:31, 43. With these issues in mind, we shall now look closer at those Pss. Sol. that clearly reveal a concern for the temple.

2. The Psalms That Show Concern for the Temple 2.1 Psalm of Solomon 1 Kenneth Atkinson, following others, posits that Ps. Sol. 1 is the work of the final redactor, who composed it as an introduction to the entire corpus and to Ps. Sol. 18 in particular. Atkinson reminds that “there is no manuscript evidence to show that the Psalms of Solomon 1 was connected with Psalms of Solomon 2”, and so “it is not necessary to use any other Psalms of Solomon to determine its date of composition”. In short, Atkinson, like other scholars, thinks Ps. Sol. 1 was authored by the redactor who shaped the Pss. Sol. as a corpus.25 If correct, then this psalm can be viewed as a theological reflection on the history of most of the first century BCE. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Pss. Sol. begin with a concern for the temple at the end of the first psalm. The psalmist, who speaks in the name of Jerusalem personified as a woman, emerges as if he himself experienced violent attack/s. His concern is profanation of the sanctuary itself – not just of any part of the temple compound. The 24 See further Elias J. Bi(c)kerman(n), “The Warning Inscriptions of Herod’s Temple,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, AGAJU 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 210–24; Stephen R. Llewelyn and Dionysia van Beek, “Reading the Temple Warning as a Greek Visitor,” JSJ 42 (2011): 1–22. 25 ‘I Cried to the Lord’: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 204–6. Atkinson also stresses how Ps. Sol. 1 lacks a title in the MSS.

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wording τὰ ἅγια κυρίου (Pss. Sol 1:8; 2:3) is also found in other LXX books (Lev 19:8, 20; Num 19:20; Mal 2:11; Ezek 25:3). It can be translated as “the holy things of the Lord”, but perhaps more appropriately, as “the sanctuary of the Lord”. One other suggested possibility is that it may refer to “the holy place”, or to “the services and sacrifices”.26 In all but one of these cases (cf. Num 19:20) the verb βεβηλόω is used to refer to an act of profanation. The same verb combined with τὰ ἅγια is found in Leviticus (20:3; 22:15; see also Num 18:32) as well as several times in Greek Ezekiel. The whole accusation ἐβεβήλωσαν τὰ ἅγια κυρίου ἐν βεβηλώσει in Ps. Sol. 1:8 can thus be translated as “they heavily profaned the sanctuary of the Lord”.27 The “sinners” (ἁμαρτωλοί: 1:1) – like in Ps. Sol. 2:1 (sing.) – who launched an attack on the temple are the ones deemed ultimately responsible for its fate. The implied “sinners” are probably both nations and Jews. That Jews are also responsible for the fate of the temple is clarified in the following verses. What happened to the temple it is because of their “sins” (ἁμαρτίαι: 1:7) and “(acts of) lawlessness” (ἀνομίαι: 1:8) which they committed “more than” the nations before them (1:8; so also 8:13). It is unlikely that the reference is to temple priests alone – as argued by some scholars. In the light of Ps. Sol. 17:4–6 which implicitly criticizes the Hasmoneans, it is more appropriate that this introductory Ps. Sol. 1 assumes those who had direct responsibility for the fate of the temple.28 It seems to explicitly condemn primarily those who used to launch military attacks against the temple. If correct, then this may well have been an indirect attempt to invalidate the institution of the Hanukkah festival by the Hasmoneans, which memorialized the profanation of the temple by the nations. In fact, in 1 Maccabees the nations are the main ones responsible for the profanation of the temple (4:44–47; see also 2 Macc 10:3). Both sins committed in secret as well as bloodshed had profaned the temple and so invalidated any cultic activity. The fact that the psalmist expresses a high concern for the temple strongly suggests that before this period he deemed the temple to have been pure. This position resembles the ideology of the yaḥad – the community known from a number of ‘sectarian’ DSS. The latter appear to have ultimately separated themselves from the Jerusalem temple and formulated other concepts of the temple, probably several decades before the supposed earliest Ps. Sol.

Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 56 n. 16. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 57: “they repeatedly profaned the Lord’s sanctuary”; Atkinson, ‘I Cried to the Lord’, 204: “they utterly profaned the sanctuary of the Lord”; Atkinson, “Psalms of Salomon,” in A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (Oxford: University Press, 2007), 766: “they profaned with profanity the sanctuary of the Lord”. 28 Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Solomon,” 20, thinks this accusation is directed against Jerusalemites. The Jerusalemites, as a whole, could hardly be regarded as the only responsible for the events that involved the temple. As has become clear, Judean population as a whole was split in between various parties and independent groups. Besides, as in other literary compositions of the Hasmonean period, while criticizing the Hasmoneans and their parties, various groups would often use cryptic language. Almost explicit anti-Hasmonean critique such as found in Ps. Sol. 17 is rather exceptional. While I think that at least some Pss. Sol. suppose the knowledge and ideology of 1 and perhaps 2 Maccabees, however, against Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 55 n 12, I do not think the Pss. Sol. make any reference to specific reported events in 1 or 2 Maccabees. 26 27

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2.2 Psalm of Solomon 2 Psalm of Solomon 2:1–25 seems to presuppose the Roman attack guided by Pompey in 63 BCE. It ends with a petition that God take revenge on the nations: 2:2, 6, 19, 22. By contrast, Ps. Sol. 2:26–37 may have been composed at a later stage, after the death of Pompey in 48 BCE (see 2:26–29; cf. 2:25), but likely before the ascendancy of Herod the Great in 40 BCE. The temple receives no attention in this second part. If correct, then, this psalm may reflect a period of about two decades.29 The author of Ps. Sol. 2 targets both nations and Jews in relation to the temple. The “nations who worship other gods” – initially defined as “the sinner” (2:1) – are accused of going up to the Lord’s altar (θυσιαστήριον; 2:2). The psalmist does not say the nations destroyed the altar, or that they caused any damage to it. Nor does he say why they went there. The Greek text is not clear whether the nations have trampled “with their sandals” the main altar of the temple,30 or trampled round about it (Ps. Sol. 2:2).31 Similar action is denounced in 8:12 (see below). Josephus mentions priests who were slaughtered about the altar by both Romans and adversary Jews while still performing their cultic duties (War 1.148–150; Ant. 14.65–72). Earlier, Jannaeus encircled the area around the altar with a wooden wall in order to separate the priestly area from the non-priests (Ant. 13.373). The presence of the nations themselves by the altar and especially the bloodshed point very probably to the desecration of 63 BCE. Josephus also reports that Pompey and his guards entered the Holy of Holies and saw what was permitted only to high priests (War 1.152; Ant. 14.71–72). Josephus specifies that Pompey did not plunder the sanctuary (so also Cicero, Flac. 28.670), something he reiterates when later accusing Crassus on acting differently in 54 BCE (War 1.179). However, our psalmist provides no such information; nor does he offer any significant detail with regard to the military maneuvers during the battle. Still, there is no reason for doubting the veracity of Josephus’s information here. Therefore, not only was the main altar profaned by nations but also the sanctuary itself. However, the psalmist does not openly state that the nations profaned the temple in the same way as when he speaks of his fellow Jews in Ps. Sol. 2:3–5. His Jewish enemies receive more and harsher criticism in this psalm. This is in line with the accusation made in 1:8. This should not surprise us. Most of all, because some of the Jews fought on the side of Pompey in support of Hyrcanus II, while those who took refuge in the temple were defending his brother, Aristobulus II (see also War 5.396). A similar attack on the part of Hyrcanus II occurred in 65 BCE. Then, with the help of the Nabateans, he besieged his brother Aristobulus II and his partisans who took refuge in the temple compound, most of whom were reportedly priests (Ant. 14.19–20, 25).32 It is plausible to assume that in 63 BCE too, Hyrcanus II would have relied on many priests who were in control of the temple. This matches with the narrative of Josephus, which suggests 29 More research is needed before drawing a conclusion. It could be that Ps. Sol. 2:19–25 also was composed later. 30 So, for example, Atkinson, NETS, 766. 31 So, for example, Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 59. 32 See also Kenneth Atkinson, “Perceptions of the temple Priests in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 79–96.

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priests were slaughtered during the entire siege both by the nations and by their countrymen. At first, the psalmist explicitly accuses the “sons of Jerusalem” for having desecrated the Lord’s sanctuary (τὰ ἅγια; Ps. Sol. 2:3). He does not state in what exact way did this happen. The wording ἀνθ᾽ ὧν in 2:3 has been rendered by some authors as a continuation of 2:2. In this case, the punishment of the “sons of Jerusalem” by the nations would be interpreted as a consequence for the former’s defilement of the sanctuary.33 This interpretation is supported by the content of Ps. Sol. 8 (see below). The psalmist adds that his people also profaned the “gifts of God” through their “(acts of) lawlessness” – referring very probably to sacrifices. The expression “the beauty of His glory” (τὸ κάλλος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ) in 2:5 likely implies the temple, and not Jerusalem as a whole, in which case one would instead expect a feminine pronoun (cf. 2:19).34 If correct, then the author claims that the glory of the temple “was despised [ἐξουθενώθη] before God, it was completely dishonored”, which reiterates what is said in 2:3. This makes further sense in the light of the preceding accusations in 2:2–4 with regard to the fate of the temple. The same verbal form ἐξουθενώθη is used to refer to God’s despising of “the dragon”, referring probably to Pompey in relation to his death in Egypt in 48 BCE (2:26–28). Josephus provides important information here. He states that Pompey gave orders “to cleanse” (καθαίρειν) the temple and bring offerings required by the Jewish Law (War 1.153; Ant. 14.73). Pompey acts here as de facto supreme cultic head on behalf of the Roman Republic. This is especially evident from his appointment of Hyrcanus II as high priest and probably king too (Jos., War 1.153; Ant. 14.73; 15.180; 20.244; Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.46 [mistakenly mentions Herod]). No details are given as to how the purification of the altar came about but probably similar actions were undertaken every time after the temple suffered an attack. This is a surprising statement, for elsewhere Josephus seems to equate the drama of the attack of Pompey with that under Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 BCE (War 1.19; 6.436; Ag. Ap. 1.34; 2.82). In such case, one would expect that Hyrcanus II rebuild the altar and perform the purification ritual himself of both the altar and the sanctuary. Either the re-installed high priest Hyrcanus II undertook no such initiative, or Josephus was unaware of it. Nor is Josephus himself bothered by this purity problem in his narratives. Furthermore, the historian draws no parallels here with the event in 164 BCE, when Judas Maccabeus ordered the rebuilding of the altar and the purification of the sanctuary (1 Macc 4:36–61; 2 Macc 10:1–9; Ant. 12.316–326).35 Neither Ps. Sol. 2 nor any other psalm alludes to a purification ritual. 2.3 Psalm of Solomon 7 The content of this psalm suggests its author feared the nations might take control of the temple. Consequently, it should probably be dated among the earliest psalms within 33 So, for example, Atkinson, NETS, 766. For a different rendering, see Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 59. 34 So, for example, Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 61. 35 It should be stressed that he situation in 164 was not quite the same as in 63 BCE. See further Babota, The Institution of the Hasmonean High Priesthood, 61–66, 75–77.

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the corpus, perhaps slightly before Pompey’s siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE. There is also the possibility that it was authored during the dramatic events of 65 when the temple suffered a siege. Like other psalms, this psalm probably was recited in particular during other attacks. However, the nations in Ps. Sol. 7:3 may not be the only enemy whom the psalmist’s community fears. The text of 7:1–2 may have in the background a Jewish party as well that collaborated with the nations. The fate of the temple is the main concern in the Ps. Sol. 7. From the outset, the psalmist supplicates God not leave them, alluding to Divine dwelling (7:1). Subsequently, he implores God not to allow the foot of those who hate them trample the holy precinct of the Lord. The term ἁγιάσμα (7:2) in the LXX often translates the Hebrew ‫( המקדׁש‬e.g., 2 Chr 26:18; 36:17; Sir 50:11). Subsequently, the psalmist explicitly refers to the dwelling of the Divine Name in their midst (Ps. Sol. 7:6). This recalls such important theological texts as Deut 12:5 and others.36 Furthermore, it echoes important Priestly and post-P texts, such as, Exod 25:8, Lev 15:31, and many more. Perhaps one of the most important aspects that emerges is that its author considered the temple to be legitimate. At the time of the writing of the psalm, he and his community believed that the Glory of God resided therein. This is another reason why Ps. Sol. 7 should probably be dated earlier rather than later. Moreover, the psalmist ties his own fate to that of the temple (7:6): “while Your Name dwells among us, we will be shown mercy”. This theological statement suggests a very intimate relation of the psalmist to the temple. Again, this makes the psalmist’s community ideologically distinct from the contemporary yaḥad of the DSS.37 2.4 Psalm of Solomon 8 It is quite probable that this long psalm is composite. It provides several clues which indicate an approximate date for psalm’s composition, or for at least part it. The passage contained in Ps. Sol. 8:15–21 likely refers to Pompey’s actions in Jerusalem in 63 BCE. Verses 16–18 refer to Jews who welcomed him “with joy” and opened the gates of the city to him who comes “from the end of the earth”. Subsequently, vv. 19–21 report a deadly attack. Both passages find some parallels in Josephus. The historian reports that the partisans of Hyrcanus II agreed to open the gates of Jerusalem to Pompey (War 1.157–58; Ant. 14.59) which is corroborated by other sources (Cass. Dio 37.15.2–17.4; Plut. Pomp. 39.3). The same event might lie behind 1QpHab IV, 10–13, which blames the “house of guilty/ criminals” for advising the Kittim (i.e. Romans) to enter the Land. The fact that Ps. Sol. 8 does not report Pompey’s tour of the sanctuary need not mean the psalmist was unaware of it. Unlike in Ps. Sol. 2, here Pompey is described as though he were sanctioned by God to punish the sinners (8:18–21; similarly, 2 Macc 5:17 of Antiochus IV). Although both Pss. Sol. 8 and 2 have in the background apparently the same event, they may have been authored by different individuals. Unlike Ps. Sol. 2, the author of Ps. Sol. 8 seems not to be aware of the death of Pompey in 48 BCE, which may be the terminus ad quem for dating the psalm. See also Deut 12:11, 14, 18, 21, 26; 14:23, 24, 25; 15:20; 17:8, 10; 18:6; 26:2; 31:11. On the separation of the yaḥad from the temple, see Vasile Babota, “The Wicked Priest,” 134–36.

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In the context of describing his experience of an attack on Jerusalem, the psalmist refers to it as the city of the “holy precinct/sanctuary” (ἁγίασμα; Ps. Sol. 8:4) – same term as in Ps. Sol. 7:2.38 Soon after, he explains that it is because of various sins that this attack occurred. After listing several of these (8:9–10), there follow the sins that concern directly the temple (8:11–12, 22) which are presented as the climax of all sins. The author concludes that these sins were more than those of the nations (8:13; cf. 1:8). As already argued here, it may well be an indirect criticism against the Hasmonean claims laid out in 1 Maccabees against the nations as being primarily responsible for the fate of the temple under the Seleucid rule. The first of the sins committed against the temple was the plunder of the sanctuary of God (Ps. Sol. 8:11). It is rare to find such harsh accusation elsewhere in Jewish literature. It may be that the warring Hasmonean parties used part of the temple resources to sponsor their armies – mercenaries included. It also could be that this plundering was partly connected with the financial promises made by both Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II in their attempt to bribe the Roman general Scaurus (War 1:128; Ant. 14.30). Or, perhaps, it was the combination of both and more. In either case, both Hasmonean brothers must have looked at the temple treasury as an important source for securing their high priesthood and kingship both on internal and external levels. The second listed sin against the temple is trampling of the altar of the Lord. Differently from Ps. Sol. 2:2, where it is the nations who trampled about the altar, here it is the warring Jewish parties that trampled it with all kinds of uncleanness (Ps. Sol. 8:12a). That is, not physical but moral defilement of the altar. Equally, they are accused of rendering the sacrifices profane with “menstrual blood”. Again, this harsh accusation has a moral dimension – not physical. In the mind of the psalmist, the effects of such behavior are the same. This also shows that the psalmist cared for the sacrifices and for their purity. Psalm of Solomon 8:13 emphasizes that there was no sin which his fellow Jews would have not done, more than the nations (cf. 1:8). Hence, in the eyes of the psalmist, all these sins eventually caused the profanation of the temple. Whether it is only the priests who are accused of these sins, or – more probably – also those supporting them, is beyond certainty.39 It does seem that, with the advent of Pompey in 63 BCE, the psalmist’s community began to consider the temple profaned. Any prayers and sacrifices therein were invalidated. The implication is that, following the siege of the temple by Hyrcanus and the Nabateans in 65 BCE (Ant. 14.19–20), the psalmist very probably did not think the temple was desecrated yet. Despite the fact that Josephus reports that the priests supporting Hyrcanus II were in need of sacrifices (Ant. 14.26–28), it is not evident that the daily sacrifice was temporarily interrupted. By contrast, in 63 BCE, the battle involved the area of the sanctuary itself. Consequently, the daily sacrifice (‫ )תמיד‬had likely ceased (cf. Ant. 12.251; see also Dan 11:31; 1 Macc 1:37) until the whole area was cleansed and probably redone at the order of Pompey (War 1.153; Ant. 14.73).

For the translation, see also Lattke, “Die Psalmen Salomos,” 94. See Atkinson, “Perceptions of the Temple Priests,” 89–90, who opts for priests only.

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2.5 Psalm of Solomon 1140 This psalm alludes to no clear historical events which would help date it. It appears to reflect a post-trauma situation and calls for the return of the Jewish exiles (Ps. Sol. 11:2–5; cf. 9:1–2). Its language seems to suggest that the temple suffered some misfortune in the past. The same holds true for Jerusalem as a whole (11:7–8; cf. 2:19–21). The psalmist may express a belief in the restoration of the temple. The reference to Zion is an allusion to the temple Mount, while mention of the “holy ones” (Ps. Sol. 11:1) probably stands for priests, or for faithful Israelites. The exhortation ἑτοίμασον τὴν στολὴν τοῦ ἁγιάσματός σου (11:7) seems to imply preparation of the robe to be used by the high priest in the sanctuary. If correct, the psalmist may allude to the coming of a festival. By the time of Josephus, the Jewish high priest appears to have worn the sacred robe only on three major festivals: Feast of Passover, of Harvest, and of Tabernacles (Ant. 18.94; cf. Lev 23:34).41 This practice might go back to the Hasmoneans. However, it is also possible that by “the robe of the sanctuary” the psalmist means here the “linen robe” used once per year during the Day of Atonement.42 In either case, the returnees are probably expected to gather for a festival in a temple to come. 2.6 Psalm of Solomon 17: An Eschatological Temple? If, as more scholars have assumed, Ps. Sol. 17:7 alludes to Herod the Great – rather than to Pompey, Crassus or anyone else – then it can be dated to the time of this king. It appears to harshly criticize the Hasmonean establishment (17:4–7), which recalls similar critiques elsewhere.43 There is not much this psalm tells us about its author’s perception of the temple. It would be important to be able to tell whether it had been authored before the rebuilding of the temple or after. This question is made difficult, not least, because the psalm seems to be composite. The only relevance of this psalm here is the wording the “Glory of the Lord” (δόξα κυρίου), with which God “glorified” (ἐδόξασεν) Jerusalem (Ps. Sol. 17:31). This may be an allusion to the temple. Given the overall content of the psalm and especially its call for the coming of a Davidic Messiah (17:21–46),44 it may be that this verse makes an allusion to an eschatological temple. The expected Messiah, however, is not directly linked to 40 This psalm was the focus of a major study by Heerak Christian Kim, The Jerusalem Tradition in the Late Second Temple Period: Diachronic and Synchronic Developments Surrounding Psalms of Solomon 11 (Lanham: University Press of America, 2007). 41 Later on, the high priestly vestments became a real political instrument, first of Herod the Great and his son Archelaus, and then under Romans down to 37 CE, when Vitellius – after removing the high priest Caiaphas – placed them back under the custody of the temple priests (Ant. 18.91–95; cf. 20.6–14). See also Ant. 18.90–95 on the high priestly vestments of Hyrcanus I. 42 Samuel Rocca, “Josephus and the Psalms of Solomon on Herod‘s Messianic Aspiration: An interpretation,” in Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Z. Rogers. JSJSupp 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 325, is probably correct to point to a pilgrimage here. However, there is no compelling evidence that the assumed temple is the one built by Herod the Great (see also below). 43 See the already cited texts in Diod., Bib. Hist. 40.2; cf. Jos., War 1.131–132; Ant. 14.41–47. 44 For a recent reassessment of the concept of Davidic Messiah in Ps. Sol. 17, see the contribution in this volume of Nathan C. Johnson, “The Debate Over the Militant Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17: A Rapprochment”.

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the temple, which instead is mentioned almost in passing. By contrast, it speaks twice about the “congregations (of the devout)” (17:16, 43), which may allude to ‘synagogue’ as a religious institution.

3. Psalms of Solomon That Show No Concern for the Temple The psalms that show some concern for the temple are, as a rule, easier to date than those that do not. However, there is no need here to discuss the latter’s date. Psalms of Solomon 5, 6, 12, 13, 16 do not provide any secure element that would tell us something about the temple, or what their author/s thought of it. Therefore, we will very briefly focus only on the remaining psalms, namely, 3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 15, 18. Psalm of Solomon 3 expresses the view that fasting and humbling of the soul can atone for the sins of the righteous (3:7). The Lord will cleanse every devout man (πᾶν ἄνδρα ὅσιον) and his house (3:7–8). Here the psalmist perceives God’s vicinity to His devout ones. Both these concepts appeal as a substitution for sacrifices. It is no more the devout who goes to seek God in the temple, but it is God who visits the house of His devout ones. Psalm of Solomon 4 too is concerned with the fate of the devout ones (4:1, 6, 8). In fact, most of the psalm is a condemnation of the sinners. Among others, it targets the one who speaks the law with deceit (4:8; cf. 10:4; 14:2), probably in the council of the devout ones (see 4:1). Hence, it calls for a separation of the sinners from the devout ones who very probably gather outside the temple.45 Psalm of Solomon 9 portrays God visiting the righteous human beings (9:4; cf. 3:7–8). The one who confesses and acknowledges his/her sin God will cleanse his/her soul (9:6– 7). Again, the act of repentance appears to be unrelated to the sacrifices practiced at the time in the temple. Psalm of Solomon 10 is another composition that shows that its author rejected ongoing cultic activity in the temple. Those who endure discipline, God cleanses their sins through punishment (10:1–3).46 The psalm stresses the importance of the law (10:4; cf. 4:8; 14:2–3) and envisages a role for the devout ones in the “community of the people” and the “assemblies of Israel” that should glorify the name of the Lord (10:6–7). Psalm of Solomon 14 seems to focus on the eschatological fate of the devout ones as the ‘true’ heirs of Israel. It too stresses the observance of the law (14:2–3; cf. 4:8; 10:4), but there is no allusion to the temple or to the cultic system. Psalm of Solomon 15 is a curious case as it reads as if its author escaped a tragedy (15:1) and was expecting a military attack in the future that is interpreted as Divine punishment. Eventually God Himself will visit the earth with judgment (15:6–13). The lack of any reference to the temple may be due to the fact that the psalmist considered the temple no more the place of Divine dwelling. This, in turn, may suggest a late date for this psalm. 45 See further Rodney, A. Werline, “The Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 133–54. 46 On this recurrent aspect in the Pss. Sol., see Patrick Pouchelle, “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 115–32.

The Temple in the Psalms of Solomon 43

Psalm of Solomon 18 is another composition that speaks of the coming of a Messiah (18:5–9). Does not connect the Messiah with the temple. By contrast, it stresses that the dwelling of God is in “the highest” (ἐν ὑψίστοις; 18:10) – perhaps imagining a heavenly temple. It may be that all, or almost all, of the psalms discussed in this section post-date Pompey’s capture of the temple. That is, they may have been composed when the psalmist’s community deemed the temple to be profaned. Psalms of Solomon 12–18 in particular display no interest in the temple, either in the present or in the eschatological temple (except perhaps the allusion in 17:31). The community behind certain Pss. Sol. decided at some point to ‘silence’ the temple, formulated an invitation to worship God in the synagogues, atone for sins by fasting and by humbling one’s soul, let oneself being disciplined by God, and build one’s relation with God apparently separately from the temple. Furthermore, Pss. Sol. 17–18 imagine a messianic age where the temple apparently plays no significant role (see 17:31).

4. The Rebuilding of the Temple by Herod the Great (Josephus, Ant. 15.380–425)47 Probably in 19 BCE Herod the Great started rebuilding the temple, whose area he expanded to twice its dimensions under the Hasmoneans (War 1.401).48 The project took officially ten years; 18 months for the sanctuary alone (Ant. 15.421). This means it was inaugurated in 9/8 BCE – even if some construction work continued into the first century CE. Apparently 10,000 craftsmen and 1,000 priests were employed (Ant. 20.219 has 18,000). It was likely the biggest accomplished project in the first century BCE in the entire ANE. Josephus states that “Herod took away the old foundations and laid others, and erected the temple upon them” (Ant. 15.391). Reportedly, it was the priests themselves who built the sanctuary. Its dedication was celebrated with sacrifices (Ant. 15.421–423; cf. 1 Kgs 8; Ezra 6). One only can guess the great economic and religious impact the rebuilt temple must have had. One should not expect that every Ps. Sol. would mention the temple. Still, under Herod the temple that the psalmist’s ‘enemies’ had repeatedly ‘defiled’ no longer existed. Many priests and non-priests must have regarded the new temple as clean. The psalmist’s community should have survived to see this magnum opus completed. Yet the Pss. Sol. do not mention it, or at least make no allusion to it. The psalmist seems to regard Herod the Great negatively (Ps. Sol. 17:7).49 Not only is the kingship of the Hasmoneans harshly criticized (17:6), but implicitly also that of 47 On Ant. 380–425, see Jan Willem van Henten, Judean Antiquities 15: Translation and Commentary, vol. 7B of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, ed. Steve Mason (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 285–326. 48 It was estimated to have been 280 m × 488 m (about 18 hectares). For a comment on War 1.401, see Chris Seeman, Judean War 1: Translation and Commentary, vol. 1A of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, ed. Steve Mason (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 49 Rocca, “Josephus and the Psalms of Solomon”, 327, argues that the “man alien to our race” in Ps. Sol. 17:7 is the same as the “son of David” in 17:21. For a rejection of this view, see Benedikt Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius”, JSJ 40 (2009): 491–492. While we have earlier evi-

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Herod, who was appointed king by the Roman Senate in 40 BCE. In fact, the psalmist evokes a Davidic Messiah (17:21). Hence, the psalmist’s community was oriented towards a messianic age, just like the yaḥad behind the sectarian DSS. By the time of Herod, the community behind the Pss. Sol. had completely separated from the temple, thereby radically challenging its legitimacy. However, it is also very possible that the community underwent a religious identity crisis caused exactly by the rebuilding of the temple. This would have caused part of its members to leave the community. If plausible, this could be one of the reasons why at one point the psalmist’s community ceased to produce new psalms.

5. Conclusion On the theological level, the Pss. Sol. start with the temple as the “Lord’s sanctuary” (Ps. Sol. 1:8) and end with the “highest (heavens)” where God the Creator dwells (18:10). They begin by focusing on the temple of Jerusalem, and seem to conclude with the universe as the temple-like space of God. The nations were not the only threat to the temple’s status. More so, it was the Jewish parties that had rendered the temple even more polluted, even before the arrival of the nations. What happened to the temple is the result of its moral defilement by those Jews who had had direct responsibility for its status. Besides, the psalmist targets those Jews who used to launch attacks – in collaboration with nations – at the temple and Jerusalem as a whole. The history of the temple in the first century BCE was dictated to a great extent by the ongoing struggle of the Hasmoneans, and later of Herod the Great, to control it. This struggle was in part rooted in the very nature of the Hasmonean rule, characterized by combination of both high priesthood and kingship in one person. Several Pss. Sol. can be viewed as a critique of the Hasmoneans and their supporters – priests in particular – for being responsible for defilement of the temple. This may have been an indirect criticism to First Maccabess, which, instead, accuses the nations for having profaned the temple (e.g, 2:12; 3:51–52, 58), while justifying the Hasmoneans for cleansing it and for instituting their high priesthood. A number of members of the psalmist’s community were almost certainly priests. There is reason to think that sometime after the joint siege of the temple of both Pompey and Hyrcanus II in 63 BCE, they began to regard it as profaned. This means they split several decades after the yaḥad of the DSS had been instituted as a sectarian community. It is impossible to say whether the psalmist’s fellows were expelled from the temple during this violent attack, were persecuted for some time by temple priests after this event, or voluntarily decided to leave as a result of its profanation. By the time of Herod the Great, the psalmist’s community had radicalized to such an extent that they no more dence of a foreign king regarded as Messiah by at least some Jews (e.g., Cyrus in Isa 45:1), there is no evidence for Herod being regarded as a Davidic Messiah in this psalm. After all, in 8:18–21 Pompey is even more favorably depicted than Herod here. Rather, one can distinguish three periods in Ps. Sol. 2: the (past) Hasmonean period, brought to an end by Herod, followed in turn by eschatological messianic age. No less important, the psalmist’s community was at odds with the priests running the temple affairs.

The Temple in the Psalms of Solomon 45

accepted the validity of his new temple or his kingship. Rather, this new sectarian community chose to live separately from the temple, in the synagogues, in the expectation of a Davidic Messiah. This Messiah, however, is not directly linked to the only possible allusion to the eschatological temple in Ps. Sol. 17:31.

6. Bibliography Atkinson, Kenneth. “Psalms of Solomon: Greek.” Pages 332–41 in The Textual History of the Bible, Volume 2: Deutero-Canonical Scriptures. Edited by Matthias Henze and Frank Feder, Leiden: Brill, 2019. – A History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond (JCTCRS 23) London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016. – “Perceptions of the Temple Priests in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 79–96 in Psalms Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “Psalms of Salomon.” Pages 763–76 in A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (Oxford: University Press, 2007). Babota, Vasile. “Alexander Janneus as High Priest and King: Struggling between Jewish and Hellenistic Concepts of Rule,” Religions 11,40 (2020): 1–17. – “The Wicked Priest, the Righteous Teacher, and the Yaḥad.” Pages 112–42 in Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations: Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later. Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 24–26 October 2017. Edited by Henryk Drawnel (STDJ 133) Leiden: Brill, 2020. – The Institution of the Hasmonean High Priesthood (JSJSup 165) Leiden: Brill, 2014. Bi(c)kerman(n), Elias J. “The Warning Inscriptions of Herod’s Temple,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History (AGAJU 9) Leiden: Brill, 1980. Collins, John J. “The Origin of the Scrolls Community and Its Historical Context,” Henoch 39 (2017): 8–23. – “Gentiles in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pages 46–61 in Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by David C. Sim and James S. McLaren (LNTS 499) London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Doudna, Gregory. “Allusions to the End of the Hasmonean Dynasty in Pesher Nahum (4Q169).” Pages 259–73 in The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising Texts from Cave Four. Edited by George J. Brooke and Jesper Hogenhaven (STDJ 96) Leiden: Brill, 2011. Eckhardt, Benedikt. “The Psalms of Solomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and P. Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Goodman, Martin. “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period.” Pages 69–76 in Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Edited by Lee I. Levine, New York: Continuum, 1999. Gordley, Matthew E. “Creating Meaning in the Present by Reviewing the Past: Communal Memory in the Psalms of Solomon,” JAJ 5 (2014): 368–92. Hann, Robert R. The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon (SBLSCS 13) Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Henten, Jan Willem van. Judean Antiquities 15: Translation and Commentary, vol. 7B of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary. Edited by Steve Mason, Leiden: Brill, 2013. Kerkeslager, Allen. “Jewish Pilgrimage and Jewish Identity in Hellenistic and Early Roman Egypt.” Pages 99–225 in Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. Edited by David Frankfurter (RGRW 134) Leiden: Brill, 1998. Lapin, Hayim. “Feeding the Jerusalem Temple: Cult, Hinterland and Economy in First Century Palestine,” JAJ 8 (2018): 409–53

46 Vasile Babota Lattke, Michael. “Textual History of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 326–32 in The Textual History of the Bible, Volume 2: Deutero-Canonical Scriptures. Edited by Matthias Henze and Frank Feder, Leiden: Brill, 2019. – “Die Psalmen Salomos: Orte und Intentionen.” Pages 326–32 in Die Septuaginta – Orte und Intentionen 5. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 24.–27. Juli 2014. Edited by Siegfried Kreuzer et. al. (WUNT 361) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Llewelyn, Stephen R. and Dionysia van Beek. “Reading the Temple Warning as a Greek Visitor,” JSJ 42 (2011): 1–22. Loman, Pasi. “Mercenaries, Their Women, and Colonization,” Klio 87 (2005): 346–65. Mason, Steve. “Josephus’s Judean War.” Pages 13–35 in A Companion to Josephus. Edited by Honora H. Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (BCAW) Malden: Wiley–Blackwell, 2016. McLaren, James S. “The Temple and Gentiles.” Pages 92–108 in Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by David C. Sim and James S. McLaren (LNTS 499) London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Meshorer, Ya‘akov. A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba. Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2001. Noam, Vered. Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature. Oxford: University Press, 2018. Pajunen, Mika S. “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns.” Pages 252–76 in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period. Edited by Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner (BZAW 486) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Pouchelle, Patrick. “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 115–32 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Schiffman, Lawrence H. “Priestly and Levitical Gifts.” Pages 480–96 in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues. Edited by Donald W. Parry and Eugene Ulrich (STDJ 30) Leiden: Brill, 1999. Schwartz, Daniel R. “Many Sources but a Single Author: Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities.” Pages 36–58 in A Companion to Josephus. Edited by Honora H. Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (BCAW) Malden: Wiley–Blackwell, 2016. Seeman, Chris. Judean War 1: Translation and Commentary, vol. 1A of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary. Edited by Steve Mason (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). – Rome and Judea in Transition: Hasmonean Relations with the Roman Republic and the Evolution of the High Priesthood (AUS.ThR 325) New York: Peter Lang, 2013. Shatzman, Israel. The Armies of the Hasmonaeans and Herod: From Hellenistic to Roman Frameworks (TSAJ 25) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991. Stern, Menahem. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 1. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974. – “Nicolaus of Damascus as a Source of Jewish History in the Herodian and Hasmonean Age.” Pages 375–94 in Studies in Bible and Jewish History Dedicated to the Memory of Jacob Liver. Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1971 (in Hebrew). Stevens, Marty E. Temples, Tithes, and Taxes: The Temple and the Economic Life of Ancient Israel. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006. Toher, Mark. Nicolaus of Damascus: The Life of Augustus and the Autobiography: Edited with Introduction, Translations and Historical Commentary, Cambridge: University Press, 2017. Trafton, Joseph L. The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation (SBLSCSS 11) Atlanta: Scholars, 1985. VanderKam, James C. From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) London: T&T Clark, 2007. Wacholder, Ben Zion. “Josephus and Nicolaus of Damascus.” Pages 152–72 in Josephus, the Bible, and History. Edited by Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata, Detroit: Wayne State University, 1989.

47 The Temple in the Psalms of Solomon – Nicolaus of Damascus (UCPH 75) Berkeley: University of California, 1962. Werline, Rodney, A. “The Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 133–54 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015.





Exile and Diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon Julia Rath The Psalms of Solomon1 are a collection of 18 pseudepigraphic psalms. Most scholars date them around the 1st century BCE.2 The previous consensus on Hebrew as the original language has been challenged by new studies of Jan Joosten, Eberhard Bons and Felix Albrecht.3 Although different Jewish groups were suggested as authors,4 they can be identified as “an unknown Jewish sectarian community that resided in Jerusalem.”5 Recently, an increased interest has emerged in studying the Psalms of Solomon. Different topics have been investigated, e.g., the language, historic and messianic psalms, the theology, and stylistic features of the collection.6 Furthermore, new editions have been 1 Unless otherwise noted, the biblical quotations refer to the Göttingen edition of the Septuagint and the English translations are taken from the NETS, cf. Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, Septuaginta; 12,3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018); Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, ed., A New English Translation of the Septuagint: And the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title (Oxford: University Press, 2007). The enumeration of the Pss. Sol. follows Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 32, 261; Oscar von Gebhardt, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben, TUGAL 13,2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1895), 140 n. 1. 2 Felix Albrecht suggests a multi-layered process of formation from 165 BCE to 44 CE with various editorial processes, while Kenneth Atkinson proposes the time between 67 and 63 BCE, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 234–35; Kenneth Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 211. 3 Cf. Jan Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 31–47; Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 49–58; Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 181–2. Concerning Jan Joosten and the question of whether or not to cite his work cf. Stephen Young, “Love the scholarship but hate the scholar’s sin? ‘Himpathy’ for an academic pedophile enables a culture of abuse,” 24 June 2020, https:// religiondispatches.org/love-the-scholarship-but-hate-the-scholars-sin-himpathy-for-an-academic-pedophile-enables-a-culture-of-abuse/. 4 For an overview cf. Patrick Pouchelle, “Les psaumes de Salomon: quelle communauté?,” in Kon­ struktion individueller und kollektiver Identität (II): Alter Orient, hellenistisches Judentum, römische Antike, Alte Kirche, ed. Eberhard Bons and Karin Finsterbusch, BThS 168 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 127–51, 127–33. 5 Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 211. But cf. Pouchelle, “Les psaumes de Salomon: quelle communauté?,” 150–1, who proposes that the authors formed a group within Israel and belonged to the scribes. For a recent attribution to the Pharisaic milieu, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 234–5. 6 Cf., e.g., Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, ed., The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015); Frantis̆ek Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, WUNT II/416 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016); Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord; Bradley J. Embry, “Psalms of Assurance: An Analysis of the Formation and Function of Psalms of Solomon in Second

50 Julia Rath

published.7 This article seeks to investigate how exile and diaspora are understood in the Psalms of Solomon. Exile and diaspora deserve more attention since previous studies have examined these topics while focusing on other questions. A systematic approach is still missing. There is limited research investigating either exile or diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon. The TWNT offers a disputable opinion concerning diaspora: Karl L. Schmidt uses Ps. Sol. 9:2 to postulate that the Jews are elated because their dispersal throughout the world prevents anyone from annihilating their entire community at once.8 Willem C. van Unnik draws the opposite conclusion with reference to Ps. Sol. 9:2 and Sib. Or. 3.217: the diaspora is the divine punishment for Israel’s sinfulness.9 Erich S. Gruen investigates the connection between diaspora and homeland in Hellenistic Judaism and, for example, in Pss. Sol. 8:28; 9:1–2.10 He concludes that the Jews cared both for their former country, for their new home, and that there was no conflict between them.11 Using a canonical approach, Georg Steins postulates a well-organized structure of the Psalms of Solomon and sees Pss. Sol. 7–11 as its core. These psalms include a theology of exile and contribute to the ability to cope with it.12 Few studies have addressed exile and diaspora together. James M. Scott Temple Judaism” (PhD diss., Durham University, 2005), http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/768/; Stefan Schreiber, “Can Wisdom Be Prayer? Form and Function of the Psalms of Solomon,” in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in Their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity, ed. Clemens Leonhard and Hermut Löhr, WUNT 363 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 89–106. 7 Cf. Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, JCT 1 (New York; London: T&T Clark, 2007); Felix Albrecht, “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos,” in Die Septuaginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012, ed. Wolfgang Kraus et al., WUNT 325 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 110–23; Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. 8 Cf. Karl L. Schmidt, “† διασπορά,” in TWNT 2:98–104, 100. Cf. also Alf T. Kraabel, “Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues,” in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine (Philadelphia: ASOR, 1987), 49–60, 49, 58 who sees diaspora as a positive concept developed from the negative exilic concept. Concerning the theological dictionary cf. Maurice Casey, “Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,” NovT 41.3 (1999): 280–91. Methodologically, Karl L. Schmidt’s statement that diaspora is a terminus technicus and does not have a Hebrew equivalent needs to be criticized for inappropriately equaling diaspora with ‫ּגֹולה‬ ָ or ‫( ָג ּלו ּת‬both “exile”), cf. Schmidt, “† διασπορά,” 99. 9 Cf. Willem C. van Unnik and Pieter W. van der Horst, Das Selbstverständnis der jüdischen Diaspora in der hellenistisch-römischen Zeit, AGJU 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 69–72. Cf. also ibid., 122–3 where Willem C. van Unnik mentions Pss. Sol. 8–9; 11; 17 and emphasizes God’s justice as well as the hope for restoration. For a critique cf. James M. Scott, “Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews in the Greco-Roman Period,” in Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions, ed. James M. Scott, JSJSup 56 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 173–218, 180–4. 10 Cf. Erich S. Gruen, “13. Diaspora and Homeland,” in Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History, ed. Erich S. Gruen, DCLS 29 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 283–312, 289, 291. First published as Erich S. Gruen, “Diaspora and Homeland,” in Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity, ed. Howard Wettstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 18–46. 11 Cf. Gruen, “13. Diaspora and Homeland,” 312. 12 Cf. Georg Steins, “Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Oratorium über die Barmherzigkeit Gottes und die Rettung Jerusalems,” in Laetare Jerusalem: Festschrift zum 100jährigen Ankommen der Benediktinermönche auf dem Jerusalemer Zionsberg, ed. Nikodemus C. Schnabel, JThF 10 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2006), 121–41, 136.

Exile and Diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon 51

compares different views on diaspora and concludes that it can be used synonymous for exile, e.g. in Ps. Sol. 17:17–18.13 Jan Joosten analyzed the nouns ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and διασπορά (“dispersion,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) concerning grammar and intertextuality to investigate the original language and the connection of the Pss. Sol. to the kaige‐group.14 Furthermore, he emphasizes the “prominence of the diaspora theme in the Psalms of Solomon [that] raises at least the possibility of a connection to a Greek-speaking milieu.”15 Based on intertextuality, Kenneth Atkinson detects references to exile16 and to diaspora17 which he does not systematize.18 His intertextual commentary aims to “show contemporary readers how the PssSol’s authors used the HS [sc. Hebrew Scriptures] and what … they meant when they wrote the PssSol.”19 Thus, the texts about the 587 BCE Babylonian conquest served as interpretational paradigm for the Roman conquest 63 BCE. The authors of the Pss. Sol. “wrote poems about Jerusalem’s recent conquest that echoed the biblical descriptions of its earlier conquest. … [H]istory has repeated itself.”20 Overall, he sees the psalms as “a literature of crisis.”21 Mika S. Pajunen pursues the work of Kenneth Atkinson. He uses the intertextual references and analyzes Pss. Sol. 2; 7–9; 11; 13–15; 17, but only regarding the topic exile.22 As the Babylonian exile had influenced biblical literature over centuries, he shows that the Judeans hoped for its end and took the exodus as paradigm for restoration.23 Therefore, the psalms can be understood as prophecies of God’s intervention in human history and, contrarily to Kenneth Atkinson, a sign for starting to cope with the crisis. Cf. Scott, “Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews in the Greco-Roman Period,” 174–5, 184, 215. 14 Cf. Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” 36–8; Jan Joosten, “New Light on Proto-Theodotion: The Psalms of Solomon and the Milieu of the Kaige Recension,” in Die Septuaginta – Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz, ed. Martin Meiser et al., WUNT 405 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 304–15, 307–8. 15 Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” 44. 16 Cf. Pss. Sol. 2:1, 6, 17; 7:1, 3; 8:28; 9:1–2, 11:1; 13:5, 17:11–12, 16 and Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha, SBEC 49 (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2001), passim; Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, passim. 17 Cf. Pss. Sol. 1:4; 8:28; 9:2 and Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 12, 177, 196–7. 18 Cf. e.g. ibid., 196 where he concludes concerning Ps. Sol. 9:2: “The psalmist alluded to these HS [sc. Hebrew Scriptures] that recounted the Lord’s punishment of the people for their sins, when the Lord had exiled much of Jerusalem’s population to Babylon, to justify the present dispersion of Israel [“dispersion of Israel” originally printed in bold type] throughout the world.” He sees e.g., 4 Kgdms 25:8–11 as intertext for Ps. Sol. 9 legitimizing the diaspora. 19 Ibid., 2. This purpose has been criticized cf. Embry, “Psalms of Assurance,” 37. 20 Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 403. 21 Ibid., 426. 22 Cf. Mika S. Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period, ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner, BZAW 486 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 257–63. Unfortunately, his article lacks careful proofreading cf., e.g., his use of Robert B. Wright’s footnotes as enumeration in alleged Ps. Sol. 9:1–4 which is Ps. Sol. 9:1–2, cf. Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” 261; Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 127. 23 Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” 252. 13

52 Julia Rath

The psalms originate in a “transitional period”24 and, through intertextual allusions to the post-exilic restoration, show hope for a better future with the coming Messiah. The exile and other known biblical themes serve to educate the audience so that the psalms guide them away from the enemies and towards God.25 Previous research has largely overlooked crucial aspects of exile and diaspora in the Pss. Sol. An analysis of their lexical dimension is “an urgent desideratum.”26 This article will investigate if the Pss. Sol., especially if they are originally written in Greek, differ between the concepts of exile and diaspora. Furthermore, their characterization and, when applicable, their relationship will be studied in the Psalms of Solomon. This will lead to a better understanding of these concepts and, more generally, of the theology in the Psalms of Solomon. The Septuagint seems to distinguish between exile and diaspora in its translation. The Hebrew words ‫ּגֹולה‬ ָ and ‫( ָּגָ לּות‬both “exile”) can be translated with two Greek word families, αἰχμαλ- (“captivity”) or, less frequently, with composita of οἶκος (“home”).27 The Greek διασπορά (“dispersion”) occurs only eleven times in the Septuagint28 and it never renders the Hebrew words ‫ּגֹולה‬ ָ and ‫( ָּגָ לּות‬both “exile”).29 Consequently, the first two seem to be treated as the concept of “exile” while “diaspora” is treated as its own concept.30 This distinction can be widened lexically in the Psalms of Solomon. The concept of exile can relate to:

Ibid., 261. Cf. ibid., 261–3. 26 Scott, “Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews in the Greco-Roman Period,” 184, n. 31 further demands: “Hence, a complete philological study of the Jewish Diaspora in the Greco-Roman period must include not only a broader range of terms for ‘scatter’ … but also the whole vocabulary of exile and return in both literary and non-literary sources.” 27 Cf. Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books): Supplement (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906; Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1954), 227b, d; Stefanie Peinter (Plangger) and Georg Fischer, “ἀποικία, ἀποικίζω, ἀποικισμός, ἀποικεσία,” in HTLS 1:937–54, 937–8. The corresponding substantives are αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity”) and αἰχμάλωτος (“captive”) as well as ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile”), ἀποικία (“colony, captivity, exile”), ἀποικισμός (“removal, captivity, exile”), ἀποικίζω (“to send into exile”), μετοικεσία (“deportation, captivity”) and παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign country”). 28 Cf. Deut 28:25; 30:4; 2 Esd 11:9; Jdt 5:19; 2 Macc 1:27; Ps 146:2; Pss. Sol. 8:28; 9:2; Isa 49:6; Jer 15:7; Dan 12:2 OG. 29 Cf. Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books). 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897; Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1954), 1:311a–b. 30 This led to different interpretations of exile and diaspora, cf., e.g., Friedrich S. Rothenberg and René Krüger, “διασπορά,” in Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament: 1. Abraham– Hoffnung, ed. Lothar Coenen and Klaus Haacker, rev. ed. (Wuppertal: Brockhaus; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1997), 514–6, 515. They see exile and diaspora as historical development: While exile was difficult and God’s punishment, diaspora is a neutral term referring to a divinely ordained chance. 24 25

Exile and Diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon 53

– αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) – ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) – παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign country,” Pss. Sol. 12:3; 17:17), πάροικος (“foreign, sojourner,” Ps. Sol. 17:28) and παροικέω (“to dwell beside, to inhabit as alien or foreigner,” Ps. Sol. 17:28) On the other side, diaspora can be linked to – διασπορά (“dispersion,” Pss. Sol. 8:28; 9:2) – ἐκπετάννυμι (“to spread out,” Ps. Sol. 17:16) – σκορπισμός (“scattering,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) and σκορπίζω (“to scatter,” Pss. Sol. 4:10, 19, 20; 12:4) Phrases containing expressions like “among the nations” or “from/into the land” should also be investigated: – – – – – – – –

ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς (“from the earth,” Pss. Sol. 2:17; 4:22; 17:7) εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν (“to a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“over the whole world,” Pss. Sol. 1:4; 17:18) ἐν μέσῳ ἐθνῶν συμμίκτων (“in the midst of motley nations,” Ps. Sol. 17:15) ἐν μέσῳ λαῶν ἡγιασμένων (“in the midst of sanctified people,” Ps. Sol. 17:43) ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει (“among every nation,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν τῆς γῆς … ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν (“among the nations of the earth … in their midst,” Ps. Sol. 8:23)

Moreover, various other words can metaphorically refer to exile or diaspora, e.g., the semantical fields of distance, deportation, escape, or destruction.

1. Analysis Given the limited scope of a research paper, I chose three (sequences of) verses that include exile as well as diaspora. Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 is the basis of the survey since it contains not only ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and διασπορά (“dispersion,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) but also further connections to these concepts.31 Ps Sol. 2:6 treats αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) as well as ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) which could allude to the diaspora. Ps. Sol. 17:16–18 contain various references to both exile and diaspora.32 The verbs ἀπαχθῆναι (“to be led away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀποστῆναι (“to be sent away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀπερίφησαν (“they were expelled,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and the prepositional expression εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν (“to a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) can refer to the exile. Besides diaspora, ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει (“among every nation,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) is also mentioned. 32 The noun παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign country,” Ps. Sol. 17:17) is exilic. Linked to the diaspora are ἐξεπετάσθησαν (“they were scattered,” Ps. Sol. 17:16), and εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν … σκορπισμός (“scattering over the whole world,” Ps. Sol. 17:18). 31

54 Julia Rath

Following Felix Albrecht’s historical contextualization, psalms from different times will be analyzed in chronological order:33 Ps. Sol. 9 is part of the oldest subcollection originating in Hasmonean times. Ps. Sol. 2 was continued in Pompeian times and Ps. Sol. 17 is often characterized as late composition.34 This study offers an analysis of context, content, intertextuality, and the understanding of exile and dispersion. 1.1 Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 Ps. Sol. 9 deals with God’s justification and his relationship to Israel. Even though Israel lives in exile and in dispersion (Ps. Sol. 9:1–2), God is a righteous judge and humankind is responsible for its deeds (Ps. Sol. 9:3–5). The devout repent for their sins and pray for God’s mercy and salvation from the enemies (Ps. Sol. 9:6–7). The psalm concludes with a reminiscence of the covenant and the hope for God’s continuing mercy upon Israel (Ps. Sol. 9:8–11). Ps. Sol. 9 is, according to Felix Albrecht, part of the subcollection II (Pss. Sol. 9–16). Pss. Sol. 9; 16 refer to the exile 587 BCE and Pss. Sol. 9–11; 12–16 were composed between 165 and 63 BCE.35 Thus, he only refers to exile and suggests a rather long period in which the psalms were written. In Ps. Sol. 9:1–2, exile and diaspora are discussed in various ways: 1 Ἐν τῷ ἀπαχθῆναι Ἰσραὴλ ἐν ἀποικεσίᾳ εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν, ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ κυρίου τοῦ λυτρωσαμένου αὐτούς, ἀπερίφησαν ἀπὸ κληρονομίας, ἧς ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς κύριος. 2 ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει ἡ διασπορὰ τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ

1 When Israel was led away in exile to a foreign land, when they fell away from the Lord who redeemed them, they were expelled from the inheritance, which the Lord had given to them. 2 The dispersion of Israel was among every nation,

Cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 234–5. The dating of Ps. Sol. 17 is highly debated. These historical settings have been envisaged: Kenneth Atkinson corrects his previous assumption 37–30 BCE, cf. Kenneth Atkinson, “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38.4 (1996): 313–22 into 67–63 BCE as origin, cf. Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 211. Joachim Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts, ALGHJ 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 154–6, postulates an old basis of Ps. Sol. 17 (63–61 BCE) that has been edited during the composition of the collection (48–44/42 BCE). Benedikt Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” JSJ 40 (2009): 465–92, 489 sees a mix of Herod and Pompey which he calls “Herodompeius” in the background of the psalm. Due to its openness, the figure can later be identified with many foreign and lawless rulers. Patrick Pouchelle, “Les Psaumes de Solomon: Le point sur les questions posées par un ‘messie’ trop étudié,” in Encyclopédie des messianismes juifs dans l‘Antiquité, ed. David Hamidović, Xavier Levieils and Christophe Mézange, BTS 33 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 153–203, 167 presents the research evidence and states that the identification of either Herod or Pompey remains open. Felix Albrecht provides the latest dating: Ps. Sol. 17:1–29 could allude to the conquest of Jerusalem by Herod the Great 38 BCE, but Pss. Sol. 17:30–46; 18:1–9 were written against Herod I and influenced by the shining example of Agrippa I (41–44 CE), cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 197, 234–5. 35 Cf. ibid., 192. 33

34

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κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα δικαιωθῇς, ὁ θεός, ἐν τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ σου ἐν ταῖς ἀνομίαις ἡμῶν, ὅτι σὺ κριτὴς δίκαιος ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς λαοὺς τῆς γῆς.

according to the word of God, that you may be justified, O God, in your righteousness by reason of our acts of lawlessness; for you are a righteous judge over all the peoples of the earth.

Ps. Sol. 9:1 forms a threefold synonymous parallelism. First, Israel is exiled into a foreign land. Second, they fell away from the Lord and consequently, they are expelled from their inheritance. Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 are closely related with ἐν (“in”)-constructions.36 In Ps. Sol. 9:2, Israel’s dispersion is among the nations. Israel is mentioned in the beginning of both verses and is led away as well as dispersed. Supposing a constructio ad sensum, Israel and God are the main characters of the verse.37 Ps. Sol. 9:2 continues with a purpose, God’s justification, and a reason, Israel’s sinfulness. The nouns ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and διασπορά (“dispersion,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) are crucial for the discussion of exile and diaspora. The neologism ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) occurs eight times in the Septuagint (4 Kgdms 19:25; 24:15; 25:27; 2 Esd 6:16, 19, 20, 21; Ps. Sol. 9:1). The stem refers to “a situation ‘off/far from home,’”38 and ἀποικεσία describes in Ps. Sol. 9:1 “the exile of Israel in general.”39 Jan Joosten stresses the close relationship between ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and the kaige-Theodotion-group.40 The kaige-revision of 4 Kgdms 24:1541 is of special interest to the analysis of Ps. Sol. 9:1: καὶ ἀπῴκισεν τὸν Ἰωακεὶμ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα, καὶ τὴν μητέρα τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ τοὺς εὐνούχους αὐτοῦ· καὶ τοὺς ἰσχυροὺς τῆς γῆς ἀπήγαγεν ἀποικεσίαν ἐξ Ἰερουσαλὴμ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα.

And he exiled Ioakim to Babylon, and the mother of the king and the wives of the king and his eunuchs. And the strong men of the land he led away as a colony from Ierousalem to Babylon.

36 In Ps. Sol. 9:1, there are three expressions with the preposition, two of them with articular infinitives. This construction (Ἐν τῷ ἀπαχθῆναι, “in being led away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1; ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι, “in sending away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) is typical for the Septuagint. Ilmari Soisalon-Soininen, Die Infinitive der Septuaginta, AASF B 132,1 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1965), 192–3, 208, deduces a Hebrew original from the frequent use, Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 129–31, describes it as Septuagintism and reminiscence of the canonical psalter. Adding to this, Ps. Sol. 9:2 contains three ἐν (“in”)-constructions. 37 Cf. Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, ConBNT 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995), 72 who proposes an intentionally vague designation in order to avoid an offence. 38 Peinter (Plangger) and Fischer, “ἀποικία, ἀποικίζω, ἀποικισμός, ἀποικεσία,” 937. 39 Ibid., 952. 40 Cf. Joosten, “New Light on Proto-Theodotion,” 310: “[T]he passages in 4 Rgs are found in the kaige section γδ, and the manifold Theodotionic features in 2 Esdras are well known.” 41 Cited following Alan E. Brooke, Norman McLean, and Henry J. S. Thackeray, The Old Testament in Greek According to the Text of Codex Vaticanus, Supplemented from Other Uncial Manuscripts, with a Critical Apparatus Containing the Variants of the Chief Ancient Authorities for the Text of the Septuagint: Volume II. The Later Historical Books. Part II. I and II Kings (Cambridge, London: Cambridge University Press, 1930).

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This verse describes Ioakim’s deportation to Babylon. While the Antiochian text employs μετοικίζω (“to remove, drive out”) and ἀποικισμός (“removal, captivity, exile”),42 the kaige-revision uses ἀποικίζω (“to send into exile”) and ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile”). 4 Kgdms 24:15 has a personal construction with Nebuchadnezzar as agent. Together with 4 Kgdms 24:14, 10,000 exiles and their cast of characters are mentioned. The exiles are objectified and taken away as a colony. In Ps. Sol. 9:1, in contrast, the number of exiles is not specified and only named with “Israel,” pronouns, and “they.” Regarding the exile in 4 Kgdms 24:15, origin and destination are described. The emphasis lies on Babylon since it is mentioned twice. Several keywords of Ps. Sol. 9:1 have a parallel in this verse: ἀποικεσία (“captivity, exile”), ἀπάγω (“to lead away”), and γῆ (“land, earth”). Ps. Sol. 9:1 includes four further exilic references: First, the verb ἀπάγω (“to lead away” Ps. Sol. 9:1) expresses Israel’s deportation. It has already described the exile (Ps. Sol. 8:21) and in Ps. Sol. 8: 15, 19, the verbum simplex indicates God bringing up Jerusalem’s conqueror who is responsible for the exile. Many of the exilic references include the preposition and prefix ἀπό (“(away) from”). It is used six times in Ps. Sol. 9:1 and is a keyword of this psalm. Due to the passive infinitive, Israel is entirely passive and forms the genitive attribute. Second, the expression εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν (“to a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) only occurs in Ps. Sol. 9:1. The foreign land is where Antiochus perishes due to his deeds in Jerusalem (1 Macc 6:13).43 In Bar 3:10, the land of the enemies is described as foreign land, where the Jews had been living so long that they became old. This marks the consequence of Israel’s departure from the good path (Bar. 3:11–13).44 The noun γῆ (“land, earth,” Ps. Sol. 9:1, 2) frames Ps. Sol. 9:1–2. Israel gets into a foreign land and at the same time, God is a righteous judge over all the peoples of the world. The third exilic phrase ist ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι αὐτούς (“when they fell away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1). Contrarily to ἀπάγω (“to lead away”), the active voice is used, and the Israelites fall away from God by choice. The expression is a hapax legomenon in the Septuagint. The construction has two wider parallels that help to understand Ps. Sol. 9:1 better. Following Jer 39:40, God’s covenant and his fear prevents the people from falling away from him. Ps. Sol. 4:1 characterizes the profane man with καὶ ἡ καρδία σου μακρὰν ἀφέστηκεν ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου (“and your heart is far removed from the Lord”), which is an offence to God. The separation of God in Ps. Sol. 9:1 is likely to provoke God. Even more since God is the redeemer, which refers to the Exodus (e.g., Exod 6:6).45 Fourth, ἀπερίφησαν ἀπὸ κληρονομίας (“they were expelled from the inheritance”, Ps. Sol. 9:1). The previous expressions are intensified and supplemented by the met-

Cited following Natalio Fernández Marcos and José R. Busto Saiz, El Texto Antioqueno de la Biblia Griega: II. 1–2 Reyes, trans. Spottorno y Díaz-Caro, María Victoria, TECC 53 (Madrid: Instituto de Filología del CSIC. Departamento de Filología Bíblica y de Oriente Antiguo, 1992). 43 The oldest parts of the Psalms of Solomon (Pss. Sol. 2–8; 9–16) trace back to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and can be dated in the Hasmonean Era (165–63 BCE), cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 198. 44 Other references for the foreign land are Exod 2:22; 18:3; 1 Macc 15:13; Ps 136:4; Sir 39:4. 45 Cf. Joseph Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, Texte grec et traduction avec les principales variantes de la version syriaque par F. Martin, Documents pour l‘étude de la Bible 1,4 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911), 302; Svend Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, JSHRZ IV/2 (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977), 82. 42

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aphorical ἀπο(ρ)ρίπτω, which literally means “to throw away.”46 The passive voice is used, the agent is missing, and the identification of “they” remains open, although a connection to Israel is likely. Since God is responsible for the dispersion (Ps. Sol. 9:2), the expulsion probably happens, if not on behalf of God, then at least with his knowledge. The deportation leads to great despair, which is aggravated because they are thrown out ἀπὸ κληρονομίας (“from the inheritance,” Ps. Sol. 9:1).47 This inheritance is part of the covenant and God’s eternal promise (e.g., Exod 32:12; Ezek 47:14). After the exile in Ps. Sol. 9:1, the dispersion occurs in Ps. Sol. 9:2 in two different ways: With a geographical ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει (“among every nation”) and the substantive diaspora. In Ps. Sol. 9:2, Israel’s dispersion was among every nation. Ps. Sol. 9 differs between ἔθνος (“nation,” Ps. Sol. 9:2, 9) and λαός (“people,” Ps. Sol. 9:2, 8).48 In Exod 33:13, the nation Israel becomes God’s people through his mercy. The meanings of ἔθνος (“nation”) and λαός (“people”) interfere in the plural.49 Israel is amid foreign nations who do not believe in the same God.50 Using a collective word, the foreign humans form a mass and become objectified. The situation is described as ἡ διασπορὰ τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ (“the dispersion of Israel,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) and happened following God’s word.51 Dispersion can serve as punishment (Deut 28:25; Ps. Sol. 9:2; Jer 15:7; 46 Conserving the Hellenistic orthography cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 53–54, 84–85; Christian Schäfer, Alfred Rahlfs (1865–1935) und die kritische Ausgabe der Septuaginta: Eine biographisch-wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Studie, BZAW 489 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 353. 47 Cf. Herbert E. Ryle and Montague R. James, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ: Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon. Text Newly Revised from All the MSS. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), 90 who indicate Jer 16:13; 22:26 as parallels. In Jer 16:13, the verb ἀπο(ρ)ρίπτω (“to throw away”) is connected with ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ταύτης εἰς τὴν γῆν (“from this land into a land”). God throws the Israelites away into a land that is unknown to them. In the following verses, they hope for restoration so that God is no longer the redeemer from Egypt but also the one who restores them εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν, ἣν ἔδωκα τοῖς πατράσιν αὐτῶν (“to their own land that I gave to their fathers,” Jer 16:15). The deportation into a foreign land in Jer 22:26 is described with the words ἀπορρίψω … εἰς γῆν, οὗ οὐκ ἐτέχθης ἐκεῖ, καὶ ἐκεῖ ἀποθανεῖσθε (“I will hurl … into a land, there where you were not born, and there you shall die”). 48 Israel is among the nations while God judges all the peoples (Ps. Sol. 9:2). Furthermore, the “we”group is God’s people (Ps. Sol. 9:8) and God has chosen Abraham’s offspring before all the nations (Ps. Sol. 9:9). 49 Cf. Hans Bietenhard, “ἔθνος,” in Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament: 2. Israel – Zorn/Zank, ed. Lothar Coenen and Klaus Haacker, rev. ed., (Wuppertal: Brockhaus; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2000), 1811–15, 1814; Bietenhard and Fechter, “λαός,” in Coenen and Haacker, Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament, 1816. Cf., e.g., Ps. Sol. 17:12 where ὁ ἄνομος (“the lawless one”), probably Pompey ( cf. Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” 484), uses λαοὺς αὐτοῦ (“his peoples”) to send the sons and daughters to the west and the rulers of the land to derision, cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 44 who corrects the Greek text ἐν ὀργῇ κάλλους αὐτοῦ ἐξαπέστειλεν αὐτά (“in the wrath of his beauty he expelled them”) to ἐν ὀργῇ καὶ λαοὺς αὐτοῦ ἐξαπέστειλεν ἐπ’ αὐτά (“in wrath, he also sent his peoples against them,” my translation). 50 Referring to Deut 4:27, Herbert Edward Ryle and Montague Rhodes James understand ἀπεῥ­ ῤίφησαν [sic] – ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει as a unit. (“[t]hey were cast away among every nation”) cf. Ryle and James, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, 91. For the opposite view cf. von Gebhardt, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, 114; Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 82; Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 344. 51 Based on ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει ἡ διασπορὰ τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦ θεοῦ (“[t]he dispersion of Israel was among every nation, according to the word of God,” Ps. Sol. 9:2), Jan Joosten showed that

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41:17; Dan 12:2 OG), but it can also lead to restoration or to the hope for it (Deut 30:4; 2 Esd 1:9; Jdt 5:19; 2 Macc 1:27; Ps 146:2; Ps. Sol. 8:28; Isa 49:6). Concerning Pss. Sol. 8:28; 9:2, Robert B. Wright defines diaspora: The meaning is: “scatter, like sowing seed,” from which comes the English “spore.” Here, not “exile, punishment, and genocide,” but “fruitfulness, new growth, and spring,” reflective of Second Isaiah’s saying that “Israel would be a light unto the Gentile nations.”52

In Ps. Sol. 8:28, the diaspora should end, and, despite the calamity, there is still hope for God’s help.53 The dispersed understand their situation as a righteous judgment and appeal to God’s pity and kindness to end it. Furthermore, they believe in the scriptures and find comfort in “Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s promise that the Jews would one day return.”54 Ps. Sol. 9:2 demonstrates Israel’s sinfulness and therefore the legitimation of diaspora. Consequently, Robert B. Wright’s definition does not fit these verses. The states of exile and dispersion are linked to the question of justice. Due to the lawlessness, the punishment is justified, and God is a righteous judge. Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 uses exile and diaspora as historical and religious references that explain the current situation and justify God. As the description is rather general, Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 can be linked to various circumstances. These include central aspects of Israel’s history with God, e.g., covenant, exodus, and the Babylonian exile. The concepts exile and diaspora in Ps. Sol. 9:1–2 can be described in the following way: Exile can be employed in the active voice, ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι αὐτούς (“when they fell away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), as well as in the passive voice, ἐν τῷ ἀπαχθῆναι Ἰσραήλ (“when Israel was led away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and ἀπερίφησαν (“they were expelled,” Ps. Sol. 9:1). The separation is highlighted due to the recurrent use of ἀπό (“(away) from,” Ps. Sol. 9:1). The departure and direction are mentioned with ἀπὸ κυρίου (“from the Lord,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀπὸ κληρονομίας (“from the inheritance,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) and εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν (“to a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 9:1). The phrase ἐν ἀποικεσίᾳ (“in exile,” Ps. Sol. 9:1) refers to a condition and characterizes the Israelites as exiles. It does not indicate a direction. The prepositional constructions are complements to the verb and indicate the circumstances of the expulsion. The phrase ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει ἡ διασπορὰ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (“the dispersion of Israel was among every nation,” Ps. Sol. 9:2) illustrates a worldwide diasporic condition. Being a nominal clause, it does not indicate an active or passive process. It is a punishment founded through explicitly mentioned intertextual links as well as through God’s judgment.

the psalms were probably written in Greek. Ps. Sol. 9:2 refers to the Greek version of Deut 28:25 since the Hebrew version has ‫“( ְלזַ ֲעוָ ה‬an object of terror,” Deut 28:25 MT) and the only matching word is the noun διασπορά (“dispersion”). Furthermore, the Hebrew text does not deal with the exile, cf. Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” 36–8. 52 Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 123 n. 154. 53 Cf. Embry, “Psalms of Assurance,” 265; George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (London: SCM, 1981), 206. 54 Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 177.

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Both exile and diaspora are linked with the same construction and appear to be complementary concepts. Ps. Sol. 9 further discusses the question of confessing the sins and hoping for God’s mercy due to the covenant. 1.2 Ps. Sol. 2:6 Ps. Sol. 2 is “a didactic preaching about the righteousness of the Lord.”55 The psalm describes the conquest of Jerusalem as God’s punishment due to the sins of the temple priests and the inhabitants (Ps. Sol. 2:1–13). God is a righteous judge (Ps. Sol. 2:10, 15, 18, 32) and uses the ἁμαρτωλός (“sinner,” Ps. Sol. 2:1) as his penitential instrument.56 In Ps. Sol. 2:14–18, the psalmist prays to God and confirms his righteousness. After that, the description of Jerusalem’s dishonor continues (Ps. Sol. 2:19–21). A second prayer follows which pleads for deliverance (Ps. Sol. 2:22–25). It is granted immediately and the δράκων (“dragon,” Ps. Sol. 2:25) lies dead upon the Egyptian mountains (Ps. Sol. 2:25–27). Due to his pride, he did not acknowledge God as legitimate king over heaven and earth (Ps. Sol. 2:28–31). After an exhortation for the Gentiles to praise God (Ps. Sol. 2:32–36), the psalm ends with a doxology (Ps. Sol. 2:37). The psalm has a Pompeian background: The names “sinner” and “dragon” refer to him.57 In Ps. Sol. 2:1–13, 18–21, the siege and conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BCE are described. The verses Ps. Sol. 2:25–31 portray Pompey’s assassination in Egypt in 48 BCE after he fled following the battle of Pharsalus.58 Ps. Sol. 2:6 alludes historically to Pompey’s triumph in Rome to which he led numerous Jewish prisoners (cf. Ps. Sol. 17:12).59 Ps. Sol. 2:6 includes two different concepts: the noun αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) and ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6):60 οἱ υἱοὶ καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ πονηρᾷ, ἐν σφραγῖδι· ὁ τράχηλος αὐτῶν ἐν ἐπισήμῳ, ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν.

The sons and daughters were in harsh captivity, in a seal. Their neck with a mark among the nations.

Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous, 26. Cf. Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, 109. 57 Cf. Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 22. 58 Cf. Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 58; Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos, 25; Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 21–22. 59 Cf. Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Salomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” in Bons and Pouchelle, The Psalms of Solomon, 17–18. For parallels to Pesher Nahum cf. Shani Berrin, “Pesher Nahum, Psalms of Solomon and Pompey,” in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran, ed. Esther Chazon, Devorah Dimant and Ruth A. Clements, STDJ 58 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2005), 65–84, 78–84. 60 My translation, NETS reads: “The sons and daughters were in harsh captivity, their neck in a seal, with a mark among the nations.” 55 56

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The verse has two ellipses, and it is likely that a form of εἰμί (“to be”) is missing.61 The sons and daughters as well as their neck are the subjects. They neither act themselves nor are they objects of actions. The stichoi are parallel regarding their structure. Who are οἱ υἱοὶ καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες (“the sons and daughters,” Ps. Sol. 2:6)? They are also mentioned together in Ps. Sol. 8:21: ἀπήγαγεν τοὺς υἱοὺς καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας αὐτῶν, ἃ ἐγέννησαν ἐν βεβηλώσει.

He led away their sons and daughters whom they had begotten in defilement.

The identification of the sons and daughters is highly debated in both cases. Furthermore, the sons of Jerusalem are mentioned in Ps. Sol. 2:3, 11 and the daughters in Ps. Sol. 2:13. The sons and daughters from Ps. Sol. 2:6 could either refer to the temple priests and their environment62 or to the Jerusalemites in general. Regarding the “inclusive language” that is used here, a reference to the inhabitants of Jerusalem is more probable. Moreover, this emphasizes the difference between the sinful population and the devout. This idea leads to a “high potential of self-identification.”63 The noun αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) refers to “the notion of captivity, enforced by a foreign people as a consequence of a lost war” and “the state of being a captive”.64 It is described as πονηρά (“bad, wicked,” Ps. Sol. 2:6). This combination is unique to Ps. Sol. 2:6. In Ps. Sol. 2, the adjective characterizes the wicked deeds that lead to God’s turning away (Ps. Sol. 2:8) and to the retaliation of God (Ps. Sol. 2:16). The sons and daughters in Ps. Sol. 2:6 are responsible for their sentence and even the specific use of words shows that bad deeds lead to captivity. The meaning of the following is difficult.65 The noun σφραγίς (“seal,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) refers probably to either a ring or shackles around the neck with the name of the owner on it.66 A seal marks the possession (cf. Exod. 28:11). Their neck is ἐν ἐπισήμῳ (“with a mark,” Ps. Sol. 2:6). While the Jews are marked in that manner here, this will change with the Messiah. The Gentiles will serve under his yoke and God will be praised ἐν ἐπισήμῳ πάσης τῆς γῆς (“in the mark of all the earth,” Ps. Sol. 17:30). Combined with Ps. Sol. 2:10 61 But cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 49, 60 who sees Ps. Sol. 2:5–6 as explanations to Ps. Sol. 2:4b with several elisions. The verb ἐξουδενόω (“to disdain”), which is another way of writing ἐξουθενόω (“to disdain”) can indeed be constructed with ἐν (“in”), cf., e.g., 2 Kgdms 6:16. Since ἀτιμόω (“to dishonor”) is expanded in the Septuagint with ἀπό (“(away) from,” Jer 22:22) or ἐκ/ἐξ (“out of,” Ezek 16:54) to indicate the reason a missing form of “to be” is preferable. 62 Cf. Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 21: “[T]hey are seemingly the family of the Temple clergy.” For the identification as Aristobulus with his family cf. Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 29; Otto Kaiser, “Geschichte und Eschatologie in den Psalmen Salomos,” in Gott, Mensch und Geschichte: Studien zum Verständnis des Menschen und seiner Geschichte in der klassischen, biblischen und nachbiblischen Literatur, ed. Otto Kaiser, BZAW 413 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 80–129, 90. 63 Cf. Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Salomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” 16. For a more general approach cf. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous, 129: “Several leaders and some other Jewish citizens were taken as prisoners of war to Rome (2:6, 8:21, 17:12).” 64 Katrin Hauspie, Willy Clarysse, and Miriam Carminati, “αἰχμάλωτος, αἰχμαλωσία, αἰχμαλωτεύω, αἰχμαλωτίζω,” HTLS 1:435–56, 445. 65 Cf. Ryle and James, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, 12: “This passage is one of great obscurity. The general sense however is clear. The words expand in detail the ‘sore captivity.’ ‘The sons and daughters’ of Jerusalem are subjected to the usual indignities perpetrated on slaves.” 66 Cf. Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 63.

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where God’s righteous judgments shall be seen by everybody and everywhere, the exiles in Ps. Sol. 2:6 are visible among the nations. The diaspora is mentioned with ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6). Kenneth Atkinson states that “[t]hese people are clearly Gentiles since they are not residents of Jerusalem, but foreigners.”67 Supposing a triumphal procession, the sons and daughters can be among the nations due to the foreign nationality of other captives or due to the expansion of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, they can be visible for the nations with their mark. Ps. Sol. 2:7–8 declare that exile and diaspora are a just punishment because of their sins. Aggravating this situation, they were already punished and did not take the chance to improve their behavior. On the contrary, they sinned again: ὅτι πονηρὰ ἐποίησαν εἰς ἅπαξ τοῦ μὴ ἀκούειν (“for they did evil once again in not listening,” Ps. Sol. 2:8).68 Ps. Sol. 2:6 includes both exile and dispersion. The verse contains two ellipses, there is neither an active nor a passive action. The noun αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) describes a static condition. It is emphasized with an elliptic nominal clause and does not indicate a direction. The phrase ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6) also illustrates a state that relates to people and has a large extension but no direction. Both categories are used unanimously and are part of a parallelism. They display a static comprehension of exile and diaspora. Just as the Jewish sinners received their punishment, the sinner who caused the deportation dies (Ps. Sol. 2:1, 7–10, 25–27). 1.3 Ps. Sol. 17:16–18 Ps. Sol. 17 is the most famous psalm of this collection. Ps. Sol. 17:1–3, 46 form an inclusion concerning God’s everlasting kingdom. The vv. 4–20 and 21–45 are the two main parts with the historical events and the envisaged Messiah. The first main part can be subdivided into Ps. Sol. 17: 4–10 (the promised reign of David and the rule of the “foreigner”) and Ps. Sol. 17:11–20 (the invasion of the “lawless one”). Ps. Sol. 17:21–25 pray for a renewed Davidic kingship and Ps. Sol. 17:26–29 describe the gathering of the nations. After the διάψαλμα (“pause,” Ps. Sol. 17:29), the vv. 30–43 depict the universal reign of the Messiah and a macarism follows (Ps. Sol. 17:44–45).69 Ps. Sol. 17:16–18 describe the consequences of Pompey’s actions who is the ἄνομος (“lawless one,” Ps. Sol. 17:11).70 Following Felix Albrecht, Ps. Sol. 17:1–29 were written af-

Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 21. Cf. Embry, “Some Thoughts on and Implications from Genre Categorization in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Bons and Pouchelle, The Psalms of Solomon, 70 who describes a “point-counterpoint”-system in Ps. Sol. 2: “The point (punishment/dismay) played against the counterpoint (universal recognition of God’s sovereignty/God’s righteous actions) creates a view of a historical crisis, terrible though it may be, as an organic extension of God’s relationship with his community; sin and rejection of God leads to punishment.” 69 Slightly adapted cf. Georg Steins, “Psalmoi Solomontos: Die Psalmen Salomos,” in Septuaginta Deutsch. Erläuterungen und Kommentare: 2. Psalmen bis Daniel, ed. Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011), 1900–40, 1933–4. 70 Cf. Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” 484. Herod is ἄνθρωπος ἀλλότριος γένους ἡμῶν (“a person that is foreign to our race,” Ps. Sol. 17:7). Herod and Pompey become 67

68

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ter Herod’s conquest of Jerusalem 38 BCE with possible references to Pompey.71 A flight from a famine could be the historical background for Ps. Sol. 17:16–18.72 Jan Joosten even refers to the possibility of a firsthand diasporic experience of the authors.73 ἐφύγοσαν ἀπʼ αὐτῶν οἱ ἀγαπῶντες 16 συναγωγὰς ὁσίων, ὡς στρουθία ἐξεπετάσθησαν ἀπὸ κοίτης αὐτῶν. 17 ἐπλανῶντο ἐν ἐρήμοις σωθῆναι ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ἀπὸ κακοῦ, καὶ τίμιον ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς παροικίας ψυχὴ σεσῳσμένη ἐξ αὐτῶν. 18 εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ἐγενήθη ὁ σκορπισμὸς αὐτῶν ὑπὸ ἀνόμων, ὅτι ἀνέσχεν ὁ οὐρανὸς τοῦ στάξαι ὑετὸν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν.

16 Those who loved the congregations of the devout fled from them, as sparrows were scattered from their nest. 17 They wandered in wilderness that their souls be saved from evil, and their saved soul was precious in the eyes of those who sojourned abroad. 18 They were scattered over the whole earth by lawless men, for heaven withheld the rain from falling from the earth.

These verses describe the escape and the ensuing dispersion. The noun παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 17:17) refers to exile. Regarding diaspora, ἐκπετάννυμι (“to spread out,” Ps. Sol. 17:16), εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“over the whole earth,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) and σκορπισμός (“scattering,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) are mentioned. Furthermore, φεύγω (“to flee,” Ps. Sol. 17:16) and πλανάω (“to lead astray,” Ps. Sol. 17:17) describe movements but cannot be categorized as exilic or diasporic.74 Even if the escape and the wandering in the desert do not refer explicitly to exile or diaspora, they help to understand the situation better. The followers of the congregations of the devout75 fled ἀπʼ αὐτῶν (“from them,” Ps. Sol. 17:16). The pronoun refers to the sons of the covenant (Ps. Sol. 17:15).76 The metaphor of flying birds illuminates the flight from enemies (e.g., Ps. 10:1).77 the “Herodompeius” who is determined by theology and not by historiography. He is required for the Messiah’s advent, cf. ibid., 489. 71 Cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 191–2, 235. 72 Cf. Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 365. Kenneth Atkinson describes a “treasury of merits” as background for these verses. That is, the devout are punished together with the nation for their sins and the Messiah will come once they have repented for the sins, cf. ibid., 343–4, 365–8. He further connects the verses to the concept of “sabbatical messianism.” Josephus, A.J. 14.475 dates the siege in a sabbatical year which is linked to the expectation of the Messiah. 73 Cf. Joosten, “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon,” 43–44. 74 Cf. Johannes Tromp, “The Sinners and the Lawless in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 35 (1993): 344–61, 352: “The ones ‘who love the holy gatherings’ are said to flee like alarmed sparrows (vs. 16b), and to err in the desert to save their lives ‘from the catastrophe’ (ἀπὸ κακοῦ, vs. 17a). The image used for sudden fear, and the expression of the urgent need to save one‘s life in the desert (cf. vs. 17b) are more appropriate of an escape from a foreign military power who conquers the city, than of a retreat into the desert in order to avoid the urban defilement.” 75 For the discussion concerning the synagogue and the authors of the Pss. Sol. cf. Pouchelle, “Les psaumes de Salomon: quelle communauté?,” 144–8. 76 Cf. Eckhardt, “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” 475. But cf. Tromp, “The Sinners and the Lawless in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 351 who sees the sons of the covenant and the followers of the congregations as a “normal synonymous parallelism.” 77 Cf. Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 342–3.

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As a result, they wander in the desert (Ps. Sol. 17:17). The desert is life-threatening, reminds of death and is the home of dangerous animals (e.g., Deut 1:19). On the other hand, God showed himself in the desert (Exod 3) and led his people through the desert into liberty (Exod 16–Deut 34). After the exile, Israel will be led through the desert back into the promised land (e.g., Isa 40:1–11).78 This ambiguous picture appears also in the Pss. Sol.: God protects those living in it (Ps. Sol. 5:9–11), but the sound of Jerusalem’s conquest is described by a metaphor referring to a fire storm in the desert (Ps. Sol. 8:2). A wandering in the desert recalls the exodus and hopes for the end of exile. The exile is treated with παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign country,” Ps. Sol. 17:17). The noun denotes those living in it. The people become objectified and characterized by their current living situation. In Ps. Sol. 17:17, σῴζω (“to save”) is used twice. It names the purpose of the wandering in the desert, i.e., to save their souls from evil, and it forms an attribute to the soul. The exiled valued a soul that was saved from them, probably the sons of the covenant.79 The diaspora is discussed in Ps. Sol. 17:16, 18. The verb ἐκπετάννυμι (“to spread out,” Ps. Sol. 17:16) compares the flight to a scattering of birds. It is used in Isa 54:3 to spread out the tent so that τὸ σπέρμα σου ἔθνη κληρονομήσει, καὶ πόλεις ἠρημωμένας κατοικιεῖς (“your offspring will inherit the nations and will inhabit the cities that have become desolate”). This eschatological hope is diametrically opposed to the situation in Ps. Sol. 17:16. Since κοίτη (Ps. Sol. 17:16) also means “bed” (e.g., Exod 10:23), the reference to a human escape becomes even more evident.80 The noun σκορπισμός (“scattering”), a hapax legomenon in biblical Greek, is employed.81 It is derived from the verb σκορπίζω (“to scatter,” cf. Pss. Sol. 4:10, 19–20; 12:4). The expression is remarkable because the neo­ logism is connected to γίνομαι (“to happen,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) although the verb could have been used. In this verse, the form reflects the content: Their scattering is in the middle, the direction is given with εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“over the whole earth,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) and the responsible people are on the other side of the scattering: the lawless.82 While ὁ ἄνομος (“the lawless one,” Ps. Sol. 17:11) is Pompey, the plural ἄνομοι (“lawless men,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) refers to the sinful sons of the covenant (Ps. Sol. 17:15). A lack of water is presented as causal clause, thus justifying the dispersion of the people. Ps. Sol. 17:19 further describes the problems concerning the water supply and the fact that no one acts righteously which slightly modifies the content of Ps. Sol. 17:15.83 To summarize, the noun παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 17:17) refers to a condition of people. They form an objectified group and see the worth of the saved souls. This expression does not include a direction, but a geographical determi78 Cf. Peter Riede, “Wüste (theologische Bedeutung),” WiBiLex (2012): 1–6, https://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/35046/, 1–2. 79 Cf. Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 101. Ryle and James, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, 135 refer to a “life saved from the perils which Jerusalem offered both from the Romans and from fellow-countrymen.” 80 Cf. Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 100 who thinks of a contamination in the Greek text. 81 Cf. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 113. 82 Cf. the similar expression of diaspora in Ps. Sol. 9:2: Extension (“among every nation”) – diaspora – dispersed people (“Israel”) – reason (“according to the word of God, that you may be justified”). 83 Cf. Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 365.

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nation: They live in a foreign land. Regarding the concept “diaspora,” Ps. Sol. 17 shows that ἐκπετάννυμι (“to spread out,” Ps. Sol. 17:16) illustrates a passive process of being scattered from home. The direction is worldwide because of εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“over the whole earth,” Ps. Sol. 17:18). The neologism σκορπισμός (“scattering,” Ps. Sol. 17:18) represents a new process. Due to the construction with γίνομαι (“to happen,” Ps. Sol. 17:18), it is neither an active nor a passive action but rather a force of nature. Exile and dispersion are presented in a context of sinfulness but the connection between the sinful Jerusalemites and the followers of the assembly is not explicitly mentioned (Ps. Sol. 17:15, 20). Moreover, both concepts refer to the exodus and the hope for restoration.

2. Conclusion This study used a lexical approach to the categories of exile and diaspora in Pss. Sol. Therefore, an analysis of Pss. Sol. 9:1–2; 2:6; 17:16–18 was undertaken in chronological order. The investigation has shown that exile and diaspora can be used as synonyms. Both can be employed in the active voice (ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι αὐτούς (“when they fell away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1)), the passive voice (ἐν τῷ ἀπαχθῆναι Ἰσραήλ (“when Israel was led away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀπερίφησαν (“they were expelled,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἐξεπετάσθησαν (“they were scattered,” Ps. Sol. 17:16)) or without genus verbi (the nominal clauses in Pss. Sol. 9:2; 2:6 and ἐγενήθη ὁ σκορπισμὸς αὐτῶν (“[t]hey were scattered,” Ps. Sol. 17:18)). They portray the process of deportation (ἐν τῷ ἀποστῆναι αὐτούς (“when they fell away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἐν τῷ ἀπαχθῆναι Ἰσραήλ (“when Israel was led away,” Ps. Sol. 9:1)) as well as a condition (ἡ διασπορά (“the dispersion,” Ps. Sol. 9:2), αἰχμαλωσία (“captivity,” Ps. Sol. 2:6), and παροικία (“sojourning in a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 17:17)). Exile and diaspora can be directed (ἀπὸ κυρίου (“from the Lord,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀπὸ κληρονομίας (“from the inheritance,” Ps. Sol. 9:1), ἀπὸ κοίτης αὐτῶν (“from their nest,” Ps. Sol. 17:16), and εἰς γῆν ἀλλοτρίαν (“to a foreign land,” Ps. Sol. 9:1)). They can also be non-directed (ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (“among the nations,” Ps. Sol. 2:6)), and it can refer to a worldwide extension (ἐν παντὶ ἔθνει ἡ διασπορὰ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (“the dispersion of Israel was among every nation,” Ps. Sol. 9:2), εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“over the whole earth,”, Ps. Sol. 17:18)). Moreover, exile and diaspora are related to punishments for sinful behavior (Pss. Sol. 9:1–2; 2:6; 17:16–18). This result corresponds with the first two elements of James M. Scott’s triad “sin – punishment – return” that he postulates for exile and diaspora.84 Thus, exile and diaspora coincide in the categories of quality of action, meaning, and extension. Besides serving as punishment, other interpretative contexts for exile and diaspora are also possible, e.g., the hope for return in Ps. Sol. 8:28.85 Lexically, they are employed as synonyms in the Psalms of Solomon. Supposed differences of exile and dias-

84 Scott, “Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews in the Greco-Roman Period,” 184. Future research will have to investigate the relationship between past, present and future and the hope for restoration in the Psalms of Solomon. 85 Categories adapted from ibid., 184–85.

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pora, e.g., seeing diaspora as development and chance contrarily to the former difficult exile86 can be rejected for this collection. A synonymous use is possible in a “transitional period”87 with hope for a better future. In attending the coming of the Messiah and as justification of God, one can mix exilic and diasporic references with major events in human history with God, e.g., exodus and covenant. The community behind the Psalms of Solomon needs guidance and assurance for the future. This is undertaken with an actualization of theology. Old scriptures help to understand the present and guide the community into the future.88

3. Bibliography Ábel, Frantis̆ ek. The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul (WUNT II/416) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Albrecht, Felix. “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 110–23 in Die Septuaginta – Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012. Edited by Wolfgang Kraus et al. (WUNT 325) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. – Psalmi Salomonis (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Atkinson, Kenneth. “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38.4 (1996): 313–22. – “Perceptions of the Temple Priests in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 79–96 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha (SBEC 49) Lewiston: Mellen, 2001. – I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting (JSJSup 84) Leiden: Brill, 2004. Berrin, Shani. “Pesher Nahum, Psalms of Solomon and Pompey.” Pages 65–84 in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran. Edited by Esther Chazon, Devorah Dimant and Ruth A. Clements (STDJ 58) Leiden: Brill, 2005. Bons, Eberhard, and Patrick Pouchelle, ed. The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Bons, Eberhard. “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4.” Pages 49–58 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Bons, Eberhard, ed., Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint: Volume 1 Alpha–Gamma. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Brooke, Alan E., Norman McLean, and Henry J. S. Thackeray. The Old Testament in Greek According to the Text of Codex Vaticanus, Supplemented from Other Uncial Manuscripts, with a Critical Apparatus Containing the Variants of the Chief Ancient Authorities for the Text of the Septuagint: Volume II. The Later Historical Books. Part II. I and II Kings. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1930. 86 Cf. Kraabel, “Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues,” 58; Rothenberg and Krüger, “διασπορά,” 1:515. 87 Pajunen, “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns,” 261. 88 Atkinson, “Perceptions of the Temple Priests in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Bons and Pouchelle, The Psalms of Solomon, 93; Pouchelle, “Les psaumes de Salomon: quelle communauté?,” 151.

66 Julia Rath Casey, Maurice. “Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,” NovT 41.3 (1999): 280–91. Coenen, Lothar, and Klaus Haacker, ed., Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament. 3 vols. Rev. ed. Wuppertal: Brockhaus; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997–2002. Eckhardt, Benedikt. “PsSal 17, die Hasmonäer und der Herodompeius,” JSJ 40 (2009): 465–92. – “The Psalms of Salomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period.” Pages 7–29 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Embry, Bradley J. “Some Thoughts on and Implications from Genre Categorization in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 59–78 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “Psalms of Assurance: An Analysis of the Formation and Function of Psalms of Solomon in Second Temple Judaism.” PhD diss., Durham University, 2005. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/768/. Last access: 2023-04-03. Fernández Marcos, Natalio, and José R. Busto Saiz. El Texto Antioqueno de la Biblia Griega: II. 1-2 Reyes. Translated by Spottorno y Díaz-Caro, María Victoria (TECC 53) Madrid: Instituto de Filología del CSIC. Departamento de Filología Bíblica y de Oriente Antiguo, 1992. Gruen, Erich S. “13. Diaspora and Homeland.” Pages 283–312 in Constructs of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History. Edited by Erich S. Gruen (DCLS 29) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018. – “Diaspora and Homeland.” Pages 18–46 in Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity. Edited by Howard Wettstein. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Hatch, Edwin, and Henry A. Redpath. A Concordance to the Septuagint and the other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books). 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1897. Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1954. Holm-Nielsen, Svend. Die Psalmen Salomos (JSHRZ IV/2) Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977. Joosten, Jan. “New Light on Proto-Theodotion: The Psalms of Solomon and the Milieu of the Kaige Recension.” Pages 304–15 in Die Septuaginta – Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz. Edited by Martin Meiser et al. (WUNT 405) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. – “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 31–47 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Kaiser, Otto. “Geschichte und Eschatologie in den Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 80–129 in Gott, Mensch und Geschichte: Studien zum Verständnis des Menschen und seiner Geschichte in der klassischen, biblischen und nachbiblischen Literatur. Edited by Otto Kaiser (BZAW 413) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, ed. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. 10 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1933–79. Kraabel, Alf T. “Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues.” Pages 49–60 in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Philadelphia: ASOR, 1987. Nickelsburg, George W. E. Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction. London: SCM, 1981. Pajunen, Mika S. “Exodus and Exile as Prototypes of Justice: Prophecies in the Psalms of Solomon and Barkhi Nafshi Hymns.” Pages 252–76 in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period. Edited by Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner (BZAW 486) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright, ed. A New English Translation of the Septuagint: And the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title. Oxford: University Press, 2007. Pouchelle, Patrick. “Les Psaumes de Salomon: quelle communauté?” Pages 127–51 in Konstruktion individueller und kollektiver Identität (II): Alter Orient, hellenistisches Judentum, römische Antike, Alte Kirche. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Karin Finsterbusch (BThS 168) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017.

67 Exile and Diaspora in the Psalms of Solomon – “Les Psaumes de Solomon: Le point sur les questions posées par un ‘messie’ trop étudié.” Pages 153–203 in Encyclopédie des messianismes juifs dans l‘Antiquité. Edited by David Hamidović, Xavier Levieils and Christophe Mézange (BTS 33) Leuven: Peeters, 2017. Redpath, Henry A. A Concordance to the Septuagint and the other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books): Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1906; Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1954. Riede, Peter. “Wüste (theologische Bedeutung).” WiBiLex (2012): 1–6. https://www.bibelwissenschaft. de/stichwort/35046/ Last access: 2022-09-01. Ryle, Herbert E., and Montague R. James. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ: Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon. Text Newly Revised from All the MSS. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices. Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Schäfer, Christian. Alfred Rahlfs (1865-1935) und die kritische Ausgabe der Septuaginta: Eine biographisch-wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Studie (BZAW 489) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016. Schreiber, Stefan. “Can Wisdom Be Prayer? Form and Function of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 89–106 in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in Their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity. Edited by Clemens Leonhard and Hermut Löhr (WUNT 363) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Schüpphaus, Joachim. Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts (ALGHJ 7) Leiden: Brill, 1977. Scott, James M. “Exile and the Self-Understanding of Diaspora Jews in the Greco-Roman Period.” Pages 173–218 in Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions. Edited by James M. Scott (JSJSup 56) Leiden: Brill, 1997. Soisalon-Soininen, Ilmari. Die Infinitive der Septuaginta (AASF B 132,1) Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1965. Steins, Georg. “Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Oratorium über die Barmherzigkeit Gottes und die Rettung Jerusalems.” Pages 121–41 in Laetare Jerusalem: Festschrift zum 100jährigen Ankommen der Benediktinermönche auf dem Jerusalemer Zionsberg. Edited by Nikodemus C. Schnabel (JThF 10) Münster: Aschendorff, 2006. Steins, Georg. “Psalmoi Solomontos: Die Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 1900–40 in Septuaginta Deutsch. Erläuterungen und Kommentare: 2. Psalmen bis Daniel. Edited by Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2011. Tromp, Johannes. “The Sinners and the Lawless in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 35 (1993): 344–61. van Unnik, Willem C., and Pieter W. van der Horst. Das Selbstverständnis der jüdischen Diaspora in der hellenistisch-römischen Zeit (AGJU 17) Leiden: Brill, 1993. Viteau, Joseph. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, Texte grec et traduction avec les principales variantes de la version syriaque par F. Martin. Documents pour l’étude de la Bible 1/4. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. von Gebhardt, Oscar. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (TUGAL 13/2) Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1895. Winninge, Mikael. Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (ConBNT 26) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) New York; London: T&T Clark, 2007. Young, Stephen. “Love the scholarship but hate the scholar’s sin? ‘Himpathy’ for an academic pedophile enables a culture of abuse.” 24 June 2020. https://religiondispatches.org/love-the-scholarship-but-hate-the-scholars-sin-himpathy-for-an-academic-pedophile-enables-a-culture-ofabuse/ Last access: 2022-09-01.





Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? The Debate and a Proposed Rapprochement Nathan C. Johnson

1. Introduction The 17th Psalm of Solomon has unquestionably established itself as one of the most important texts concerning Davidic messianism in the Second Temple period.1 The characterization of its messiah, however – whether he is militant or non-violent – is debated.2 As John Collins argues, the expectation that an eschatological king from the line of David would come to violently overthrow the Romans and restore Israel to its former glory constitutes “the common core of Jewish messianism around the turn of the era.”3 While the Davidic messiah is militant in a number of other Second Temple texts, the question is whether or not he is in Ps. Sol. 17. Whereas Collins believes him to be, others demur. Despite the longevity of this debate, surprisingly little sustained attention has been given to the topic – no full-length treatment has yet appeared. This paper aims to close that gap and offers a way to bridge both sides of the debate. My argument unfolds in three stages. First, I offer a brief survey of militant and non-militant readings of Ps. Sol. 17. Second, I provide a close reading of the internal dynamics in Ps. Sol. 17 with respect to militancy and violence. And lastly, I examine intertextual aspects of Ps. Sol. 17 and compare it to other late antique texts. Taking up the results of this investigation, I offer a rapprochement between the two sides of the debate, arguing that the messiah is indeed initially violent, but only temporarily and in order to usher in an era of peace. 1 Oscar Cullmann wrote in regard to Ps. Sol. 17:21–25 that “die in neutestamentischer Zeit vorherrschende Messiaserwartung ihren klassischen Ausdruck findet” (Die Christologie des Neuen Testaments [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1957], 115). It continues to attract attention, not only from Psalms of Solomon specialists, but also from scholars of Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament, a trend Brad Embry questions because of its tendency to read Ps. Sol. 17 in an isolated way (“The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13 [2002]: 99–136). 2 Thus Joseph L. Trafton places this issue “at the forefront of the study of Ps. Sol. 17” (“What Would David Do?: Messianic Expectations and Surprise in Ps. Sol. 17,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 [Atlanta: SBL, 2015], 159). He elsewhere notes that “whether or not the Messiah is expected to be violent” is “[o]ne of the most controversial issues in understanding the messianic hope of Pss. Sol. 17” (“The Bible, the Psalms of Solomon, and Qumran,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Second Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, ed. James H. Charlesworth, vol. 2 [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006], 440). 3 John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 78.

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2. The State of the Question 2.1. A Non-Militant Messiah Since my project involves bridging two sides of the debate, as mentioned, a brief survey of those sides is in order. On the one hand, there is the non-militant view. To my knowledge, Joseph Klausner is the earliest – and perhaps most influential – representative of this camp. In his 1921 first edition of The Messianic Idea in Israel (English translation, 1955), he argued that with Ps. Sol. 17’s messiah “there is no suggestion of wars and bloodshed in his time; but he expels the Gentiles (Romans) from Jerusalem and sets up a great and mighty kingdom.”4 How the messiah does this is unclear, but Klausner is firm that he acts in “the power of the spirit, not the power of the mailed fist.”5 Similarly, Mathias Delcor claimed in 1973 that “What is striking in this description [of the messianic reign in Ps. Sol. 17] is that the messianic king does not appear as a warrior king.”6 A final – and widely cited – representative is James Charlesworth. In several publications he has argued against the “bewitching view that Jews were expecting a militant Messiah,” which he finds in the Pseudepigrapha in only 2 Baruch 72.7 His non-militant argument is one of the fullest to date.8 He contends: In the 17th Psalm of Solomon, in verses 21–33, we find a description of the Messiah who will be a descendant of David and who will purge Jerusalem of her enemies not by means of a sword or through military conquest but ‘with the word of his mouth’ … This passage [vv. 21–33] in the Psalms of Solomon has been taken usually to mean that the author is thinking about a militant Messiah. But he does not portray a political, revolutionary, and militant Messiah. His picture is considerably less militant than the one found in the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan … The Messiah in the Psalms of Solomon is, of course, not portrayed as a bloody warrior. As Klausner stated, there are no intimations of wars and bloodshed.9

Several modes of argumentation are employed here. There is the mutually-exclusive logic that if the messiah uses “the word of his mouth,” he cannot use “a sword.” And there is the assertion – which I believe is correct – that Ps. Sol. 17’s messiah “is considerably less militant” than that in Tg. Ps.-J. Gen. 49:11.10 Yet though this establishes that 4 Joseph Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel: From Its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah (London: Bradford & Dickens, 1956), 323. On the history of Klausner’s text, which began as his 1902 Heidelberg dissertation, see ibid., ix. 5 Klausner, The Messianic Idea, 324. 6 Mathias Delcor, “Psaumes de Solomon,” DBSup 48 (1973): 244. “Ce qui frappe dans cette description [du règne messianique], c’est que le roi messianique n’apparaît pas comme un roi guerrier [citing 17:33].” 7 James H. Charlesworth, “From Messianology to Christology: Problems and Prospects,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 20. Is it fair to isolate the Pseudepigrapha – a modern collection – as if it were an ancient corpus? 8 Anthony Le Donne gives several further arguments which are discussed below. 9 James H. Charlesworth, “The Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha,” ANRW 2.19:1:197–99. 10 Hengel was the first to make this comparison (Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit: Zur “politischen

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the former messiah is different in degree, it is a non-sequitur to conclude that he is also different in kind. Ultimately, Charlesworth takes the non-militant view one step further than Klausner and Delcor, adding that he is “convinced that this psalm was written against the belief that the Messiah would be a militant warrior” and that “the Messiah’s bloody confrontation … is rejected by the author of the Psalms of Solomon.”11 The crucial passage for each of the above proponents of the non-militant view of Ps. Sol. 17 – and a host of further scholars such as John Dominic Crossan, Kenneth Pomykala, Loren Stuckenbruck, and Joseph Trafton – is verse 33: “For he will not hope in horse and rider and bow, nor will he amass for himself gold and silver for war; and he will not gather hopes from a multitude in the day of war.”12 There appear to be two assumptions underlying the non-militant reading. First, since the messiah uses neither horse, rider, or bow, nor a large army for a day of war, it is apparently assumed that there will be no day of war. Second, since the messiah does not use these weapons, he instead uses exclusively “the word of his mouth” (vv. 24, 35). Lastly, it should be said that, with the exception of Charlesworth and, as discussed below, Anthony Le Donne, most scholars do not present robust arguments for non-militancy, but more often merely provide verse 33 as a prooftext alongside the passages about the messiah’s verbal weaponry. 2.2. A Militant Messiah On the other hand are those who hold to a militant messiah. In The Scepter and the Star, John Collins expresses “surprise” that “some scholars have denied the warlike character of this messiah” since “the initial role of this king is undeniably violent.”13 This concluTheologie” in neutestamentlicher Zeit, Calwer Hefte 118 [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1971], 37). Similarly, Delcor: “Ce tableau tranche très nettement sur ce point avec la description du Targum palestinien, qui souligne fortement le caractère guerrier du roi-Messie” (“Psaumes de Solomon,” 244). 11 Charlesworth, “From Messianology to Christology,” 20 n. 56. Emphasis added. 12 Scholars include Delcor, “Psaumes de Solomon,” 244; Charlesworth, “The Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha,” 2.19:197; John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 108; Charlesworth, “From Messianology to Christology,” 20; Kenneth Pomykala, The Davidic Dynasty Tradition in Early Judaism, EJL 7 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), 162; Antti Laato, A Star Is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations, University of South Florida International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism 5 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 282; Joseph L. Trafton, “The Psalms of Solomon,” in The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, and John Dominic Crossan (Princeton University Press, 2006), 256; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Messianic Ideas in the Apocalyptic and Related Literature of Early Judaism,” in The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments, ed. Stanley E. Porter, McMaster New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 95–96; Anthony Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009), 123. I translate εἰς ἡμέραν πολέμου “in the day of battle,” not, as do Wright (OTP) and Atkinson (NETS), “for a day of war/battle,” following Brad Embry, “Psalms of Solomon,” in Early Jewish Literature: An Anthology, ed. Brad Embry, Ronald Herms, and Archie T. Wright, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 2:563–84. On the addition of “for war” to Deut 17 in both Ps. Sol. 17 and 1QM, see Debra Rosen and Alison Salvesen, “A Note on the Qumran Temple Scroll 56:15–18 and Psalm of Solomon 17:33,” JJS 38 (1987): 98–101. Lastly, all translations are my own unless otherwise noted, though I have carried them out in consultation with Wright’s OTP and Atkinson’s NETS translations. 13 Collins, Scepter, 58.

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sion is based on a plain-sense reading of the psalm, as again when Collins argues that “Klausner’s claim that ‘there is no suggestions of wars and bloodshed in his time’ fails to account for the clear implications of the text.”14 The “text” to which Collins refers is not just Ps. Sol. 17 in toto, but more specifically vv. 22–24, to be examined below in detail. Thus, it would be fair to say that vv. 22–24 play a similar role for militant proponents as v. 33 does for non-militant advocates. Lastly, against Charlesworth, Collins offers a similarly commonsensical rejoinder: “The imagery in Ps Sol 17 is certainly less bloody [than Tg. Ps.-J. Gen. 49:11], but it is scarcely less violent. He will destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth, but the destruction is none the less for that” since the text clearly “implies militant, violent action.”15 But the most fully developed argument for a militant reading is to be found in several publications by Kenneth Atkinson, culminating in 2004 in his chapter entitled “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17” in I Cried to the Lord.16 He begins with the plain-sense reading of v. 22: “[The messiah’s] reign will not be peaceful, for the author of the Psalm expects the Davidic messiah to ‘smash the arrogance of the sinner like a potter’s vessel.’”17 Then he helpfully moves beyond this, furnishing the conversation with two further arguments: (1) one intertextual, (2) the other comparative. (1) Regarding intertextuality, he points to the dominant role played in Ps. Sol. 17 by a handful of texts, notably, Isaiah 11 and Pss 2 and 110: This messiah’s violent nature is enhanced by the author’s use of Isaiah 11, Psalm 2, and Psalm 110 to describe his future victory over his opponents and to portray him as a warrior, a judge, and man of purity who will rule over Israel … In order to make clear to the reader that the messiah will violently overthrow the Gentiles, the psalmist incorporates some of the militant imagery of Psalm 2 and Psalm 110.18

These Psalms are especially violent: Ps 2:9: “You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Ps 110:5–6: “The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter heads over the wide earth.”

Collins, Scepter, 59. Emphasis added. Collins, Scepter, 59. 16 Other, earlier publications include Kenneth Atkinson, “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E.) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38 (1996): 313–22; idem, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60; idem, “On the Use of Scripture in the Development of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” in Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition, ed. Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 33 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 106–23; idem, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2001). Other militant advocates include Herbert Edward Ryle and M. R. James, Psalms of the Pharisees: Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon: The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), liii; Joachim Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos: ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts, Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 70 (“seine Bekämpfung und Vernichtung”). 17 Kenneth Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” in I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 134. 18 Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 142–43. 14 15

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From these texts Atkinson concludes: “the author of Psalm of Solomon 17 uses scripture to fashion a militant Davidic messiah who is the righteous, yet violent, counterpart to the Hasmoneans.”19 (2) In using intertextuality, Atkinson then broaches his second, comparative contribution to the conversation: “This militant Davidic messiah is not unique to Psalm of Solomon 17, for he is also found in a number of Dead Sea Scrolls that use many of the same scriptural texts to portray a violent Davidic messiah.”20 After close examination of this well-known group of scrolls dealing with Davidic messianism (most notably 1QSb, 4Q161, 4Q252, and 4Q285), he concludes that several of them “portray a messiah who is a Davidic king” and “warrior.”21 Moreover, a number of these scrolls share in common with Ps. Sol. 17 a Davidic messiah “fashioned after a select corpus of biblical texts, particularly Isaiah 11.”22 What then do militant proponents do with 17:33? Atkinson – who earlier says that “the psalmist expects a militant Davidic messiah to … lead the righteous in a violent rebellion”23 – seems to reverse course when discussing v. 33: Because “God has made him strong in the holy spirit” (17:37), the messiah’s victories are not dependent upon military might but upon the authority of his word and his position as the legitimate Davidic king who has been anointed with God’s spirit [citing 17:33, and rightly noting the parallel to Deut 17:16–17].24

How the messiah can eschew “military might” yet also “lead the righteous in a violent rebellion” causes no small difficulty. To close our survey, two puzzles emerge in the debate. First, it is curious that, although the non-militant view is more popular, thorough arguments for this position are lacking. How this state of affairs arose in twentieth-century scholarship is a matter for another day, though one suspects it began as a response to caricatures in NT scholarship – the kind that Charlesworth was explicitly responding to in the 1970s – of the Jewish messiah as a war-mongering political king in contrast to the meek and lowly Christ of Christianity. Yet scholarship is not well served if one caricature replaces another. Conversely, though the militant side has less outright support, thanks to Atkinson’s work, it has far more robust argumentation. Second, the relationship between the seemingly militant vv. 22–24 and the ostensibly irenic v. 33 is at the heart of the controversy, and this tension causes difficulties for interpreters on both sides of the debate.

Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 144. Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 144. 21 Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 174. For him the Davidic-warrior messiah scrolls are “1QSb; 4Q161; 4Q285; 4Q252; possibly 4Q504 and 4Q174.” 22 Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 175. 23 Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 139. 24 Atkinson, “Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 142–43. 19 20

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3. A Rapprochement With the critical conversation on Ps. Sol. 17 in mind we now turn to the text. The historical situation is well known and widely granted: the psalmist cries out to God because the Hasmoneans have taken the throne promised eternally to David and his descendants.25 Without this royal pedigree, the Hasmoneans are usurpers who have “desolated (ἠρήμωσαν) the throne of David” (v. 6). God therefore sends against them “a man foreign to our race” (v. 7), Pompey of the First Triumvirate, in 63 BCE. He “repays” (v. 8; cf. 2:25) the Hasmoneans, stripping them of the kingship, then hunting down and carting off the offspring of Aristobulus.26 With Pompey’s intervention, however, the situation in Jerusalem goes from bad to worse. Just as the Hasmoneans “desolated” (ἠρήμωσαν) the throne of David, so too does Pompey “desolate” (ἠρήμωσεν) the land, killing young and old alike (v. 11).27 This causes the “doers of mercy and truth,” the “children of the covenant” to “flee” Jerusalem “as sparrows take wing from their nest” – that is, with haste, but in hopes of returning (vv. 15–16).28 Lastly, the defilement of the land by impurity and unfaithfulness to Torah leads even to the disturbance of the natural order.29 These environmental issues range from the depths (“the abyss”) to the heights (“the high mountains”), mirrored in the next verse by social pollution from the top to the bottom (“from their leaders to the least of the people, they are utterly sinful”) (vv. 19–20). Out of these depths of almost complete despair, the psalmist cries to God for a rescuer in the form of the just, Torah-keeping king from the line of David: 21 Ἰδέ, κύριε, καὶ ἀνάστησον αὐτοῖς τὸν βασιλέα αὐτῶν υἱὸν Δαυιδ εἰς τὸν καιρόν, ὃν εἵλουa σύ, ὁ θεός, τοῦ βασιλεῦσαι ἐπὶ Ισραηλ παῖδά σου,

See, O Lord, and raise up against them their king, the son of David, in the time which you chose, O God, so that your servant might rule over Israel.b

Wright: ἴδες (v.l. οἶδες, οἶδας, εἶδες). On translating παῖδά σου in apposition to υἱὸν Δαυίδ, see Nathan C. Johnson, “Rendering David a Servant in Psalm of Solomon 17.21,” JSP 26.3 (2017): 235–50. As rendered above, the dative αὐτοῖς is likely adversative (“against,” referring to

the Hasmoneans and Romans) in light of the similar construction in 17:7, where ἐπανίστημι + αὐτοῖς is adversative (“when he raises up against them a man foreign to their race”). The customary translation, “for them,” would refer to the “children of the covenant” yet would be redundant with αὐτῶν.

a

b

Pomykala even goes so far as to hypothesize that the Hasmonean crisis gave birth to the expectation that the future messiah would be a Davidide (The Davidic Dynasty Tradition in Early Judaism, 169). Yet the expectation can arguably be found earlier in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 26 See Josephus, Ant. 14.4.5, 5.4, 6.1; J.W. 1.7.7, 8.6. See also Ps. Sol. 8:21. 27 In Pss. Sol. 2:2; 8:12 (cf. 17:22), he even enters into the Temple’s most Holy Place. Notably, Sennacherib and the ἔθνη “desolate” (ἠρήμωσαν) the land in 4 Kgdm 19:17. 28 In another Deuteronomic reversal, it is the gentiles who “flee” in Ps. Sol. 17:25. 29 “Heaven held back its rain … perennial springs were stopped … because no one was carrying out righteousness or justice among them” (vv. 18–19). 25

Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? 75

Since the Romans had obviously laid waste the land with violence, one wonders – and this is the crux of the debate – if the messiah will respond in kind.30 As seen above in our survey, the militant reading depends on vv. 22–24. If the content of these verses is non-martial, the militant reading founders. If it is, then the question will be how to understand their relationship to v. 33. Anthony Le Donne has offered the fullest argument for a non-militant reading of vv. 22–24. He classifies the messiah as “not an eschatological warrior figure” but rather “the beneficiary of YHWH’s deliverance.”31 He reasons that the violent-sounding verbs in vv. 22–24 are simply metaphorical, in the same way one might say, “Gandhi fought British imperialism. Wilberforce led the charge against the slave trade. Knox sparred with Queen Mary.”32 This is a clever counterargument. Unfortunately, Le Donne does not offer ancient Jewish examples of metaphorical messianic violence and connect them to Ps. Sol. 17.33 For Le Donne’s case to win the day, this must be carried out – further investigation is in order. What drives the interpretation of vv. 22–24 is a string of six concussive infinitives that describe the inaugural activities of the messiah’s reign:34 22 καὶ ὑπόζωσον αὐτὸν ἰσχὺν τοῦ θραῦσαι ἄρχοντας ἀδίκους, καθαρίσαιa Ιερουσαλημ ἀπὸ ἐθνῶν καταπατούντων ἐν ἀπωλείᾳ, 23 ἐν σοφίᾳ δικαιοσύνηςb ἐξῶσαι ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἀπὸ κληρονομίας, ἐκτρῖψαι ὑπερηφανίαν ἁμαρτωλοῦ ὡς σκεύη κεραμέως, 24 ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ συντρῖψαι Wright: καθάρισον. Wright et al.: ἐν δικιαοσύνῃ.

a

b

Undergird him with strength To crush the unrighteous rulers To purge Jerusalem of gentiles that tramplec her down in destruction Wisely and justly, To drive out sinners from the inheritance, To smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s vessel, To shatter with an iron rod Cf. Pss. Sol. 2:2; 8:12.

c

30 Delcor, at least, argues that he will not, since the psalmist has witnessed the devastation that war brings upon the land and would rather that not continue: “L’espérance en un roi-Messie idéal aussi peu guerrier que possible ce conçoit fort bien de la part de notre Psalmiste, lassé des guerres meurtrières dont son pays a été le théâtre. Il préfère insister sur sa sagesse et sa justice…. une reprise d’Isa 11 :1–5” (Delcor, “Psaumes de Solomon,” 244). While Delcor’s psychological explanation fascinates, the text itself does not point in this direction. 31 Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus, 123. 32 Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus, 112 n. 93. Emphasis original. 33 Indeed, he fails to offer textual support for the contention that God fights on the king’s behalf; he simply cites Ulrich Müller, but the page number given (170) does not pertain to the topic at hand, and the relevant pages do not make this claim (see Ulrich B. Müller, Messias und Menschensohn in jüdischen Apokalypsen und in der Offenbarung des Johannes, SNT 6 [Gütersloh: Gütersloher, 1972], 118–20). 34 It is possible to include ἐλέγξαι and perhaps even φυγεῖν (v. 25) in the string of infinitive, but they are not as pertinent to the debate on militancy. Also, some manuscripts have optatives rather than infinitives; however, the difference for our purposes is slight. See Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 138.

76 Nathan C. Johnson

πᾶσαν ὑπόστασιν αὐτῶν, ὀλεθρεῦσαι ἔθνη παράνομα ἐν λόγῳ στόματος αὐτοῦ,

all their reality,a To slay the lawless gentiles with the word of his mouth. (17:22–24)

a Le Donne urges that “many translators incorrectly translate ὑπόστασις as ‘substance’ in this context. In rare cases, the word does denote ‘being’ as such (cf. Heb 1:3), but it is used most commonly to convey confidence, steadiness, or assurance. Given that the word is being paralleled with ὑπερηφανίαν, there is no reason to appeal to the lesser-used definition” (The Historiographical Jesus, 125 n. 127). It is unclear where Le Donne gets this definition from, but his belief that “substance” is rarer than “confidence” is entirely wrong. This meaning was introduced by Luther (at the behest of Malanch-

thon) in Heb 11:1 and only there (see Helmut Koester, “ὑπόστασις,” TDNT 8:586). Thus BDAG urges that “the sense ‘confidence,’ ‘assurance’… must be eliminated, since examples of it cannot be found” (s.v. ὑπόστασις). Koester suggests for Pss. Sol. 15:5; 17:22 “perhaps the sense of ‘basis,’ ‘power’ … or it might mean ‘plans,’ designs’” (583). R. Kittel and others suggests “essence” (583 n. 104). Geiger has “Bestand” (Eduard Ephraem Geiger, Der Psalter Salomo’s [Augsburg: J. Wolffischen, 1871], 147). I have opted for the most common rendering in this period, “reality” or “substance.”

Since these six infinitives are crucial in the militant/non-militant debate, they deserve careful attention.35 Two of the infinitives do not indicate one way or another whether they are violent: ἐξῶσαι and καθάρισαι.36 Purging and expelling the gentiles could presage violence, but they need not, especially if the gentiles flee without resistance in response to the messiah’s “threat” (ἀπειλῇ).37 The other four infinitives, however, are clearer on the question of violence. First, θραῦσαι (Muraoka: “to crush in a battle”).38 The word is used throughout the LXX, at least, for violence. The intertextual key to understanding its appearance in Ps. Sol. 17, however, is undoubtedly Num 24:17, among the most popular messianic prooftexts in antique Judeo-Christian literature:

Translations of these verbs are invariably violent, e.g., Viteau renders them: à briser, chasser, briser, briser, detruire (Joseph Viteau and François Martin, Les Psaumes de Salomon: introduction, texte grec et traduction, Documents pour l’étude de la Bible [Paris: Letouzey et Ane, 1911], 351, 353). 36 There is the further text-critical question of whether the reading is καθαρίσαι or the imperative καθάρισον. The latter is certainly better attested; see Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, JCTC 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 188. If it is an imperative, it is directed to God (cf. 18:5). On the other hand, emending to an infinitive accords with v. 30 (the messiah “will purify Jerusalem”). Those in favor of emendation include Geiger, Der Psalter Salomo’s, 93; Oscar von Gebhardt, ed., ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben, TUGAL 13.2 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1895), 131; Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart, ed., Septuaginta, Editio altera (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006); Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, ed., A New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 774; Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 189. 37 Ps. Sol. 17:25: ἐν ἀπειλῇ αὐτοῦ φυγεῖν ἔθνη ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐλέγξαι ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἐν λόγῳ καρδίας αὐτῶν. 38 Takamitsu Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed. (Louvain: Peeters, 2009), s.v. θραύω. In the LXX, it often communicates physical destruction leading to death: Exod 15:6; Num 17:11; 2 Kgdm 12:15; Jdt 13:15; 2 Macc 9:11; 3 Macc 6:5. 35

Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? 77 A Star shall come forth from Jacob, a man [MT: scepter] shall rise out of Israel. He will crush [θραύσει] the chiefs [MT: forehead] of Moab and will plunder all the sons of Seth. (Num 24:17 LXX)

The reception of Balaam’s oracle is also quite violent, as seen most famously in Simon bar Kokhba’s later adoption of it through his cognomen and coins in conjunction with his war against Rome.39 Second, ἐκτρῖψαι and its cognate, συντρῖψαι, may be treated together. Muraoka defines the former as “to destroy completely,” the latter as “to shatter, break to pieces, crush.” Two intertexts are of particular prominence: 1. Exod 15:7 LXX has: “In the plenitude of your [God’s] glory you crushed [συνέτριψας] the opponents.” What is more, the previous verse has another verb seen already in our survey, θραύω: “Your right arm, O Lord, has been glorified in strength; your right hand, O Lord, destroyed [ἔθραυσεν] the enemies” (v. 6). The context is the Song of the Sea, celebrating the destruction of Pharaoh’s forces in the Reed Sea. 2. Closer still is Ps 2:9, which the Solomonic psalmist virtually quotes verbatim: Ps. Sol. 17:23–24: “… like a potter’s jar, with a rod of iron to shatter [συντρῖψαι] all their reality” Ps 2:9: “with a rod of iron, like a potter’s vessel, you will shatter [συντρίψεις] them.”

Thus, these -τρῖψαι infinitives, it appears, come bearing a violent intertextual background.40 Lastly, ὀλεθρεύω (Muraoka: “to destroy”). This too may recall the exodus. The pass­ over angel of Exod 12:23 LXX is called simply ὁ ὀλεθρεύων, “the destroyer,” and his task is memorably violent. In terms of pre-understanding, at least four of the six infinitives clearly portend violence. Whether that background is constitutive of their present meaning is a question the interpreter must face, but she cannot avoid these data. I find nothing to suggest that this meaning is obviated in Ps. Sol. 17:22–24.41 If these four infinitives are “violent” in the normal sense of the word – physical aggression against another person – then this would appear to spill over into our understanding of the other two infinitives, that is, the messiah would then “purify” and “drive out” through the violent means outlined in the four other infinitives. In sum, at the beginning of his reign, the messiah is violent. What is less clear is how this messianic violence is enacted.42 As Delcor and Charlesworth have pointed out, the psalm does not present it in the “gory detail” given in

39 See further Nathan C. Johnson, “The Passion According to David: Matthew’s Arrest Narrative, the Absalom Revolt, and Militant Messianism,” CBQ 80 (2018): 269–70. 40 Cf. Ps. Sol. 8:5, συνετρίβη. 41 I assume the Wittgensteinian idea that words are defined by their use in a particular context, not by a previously located and assigned, essentialist “meaning.” 42 In light of the Exodus background of several of these infinitives, might it be that the messiah is the beneficiary of divine violence against Israel’s enemies, as was Moses? Others have concluded that divine violence is in view, though for different reasons; see e.g. Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus, 123.

78 Nathan C. Johnson

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Yet some go too far in arguing that the messiah acts “not by means of a sword or through military conquest.’”43 The author does mention one conventional weapon, the “rod of iron” used to “shatter [the sinners’] substance” (v. 24). The other weapon used, admittedly less conventional, is “the word of his mouth” (vv. 24, 36), an allusion to Isa 11: Ps. Sol. 17:35: πατάξει γὰρ γῆν τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ εἰς αἰῶνα Isa 11:4 LXX: καὶ πατάξει γῆν τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ

This “weapon” could be supernatural, as it is with the fire-breathing messiah of 4 Ezra 13 who incinerates Israel’s invading enemies.44 But it more likely means that, after the messiah’s show of power in violently destroying the Jewish sinners of the land, a mere “threat” (ἀπειλῇ) will suffice to put the remaining gentiles to flight (v. 25). None of the six infinitives typically refer to what we might call guerilla violence, carried out by an ad hoc throng. Rather, they more often denote violence carried out by a single actor: either God or his chosen agent. Thus, though I disagree with those who argue that the messiah is not violent, I do agree that the messiah does not gather a human militia for his campaign against the sinners and gentiles.45 Binding the various threads of our argument together, I find that the psalm is violent, but not militant in the sense that a human army is deployed; at the very least, this violence is enacted by the messiah through an iron rod.46 But what of the use of “the words of his mouth”; is this not a hurdle to the violent reading proposed above? Just here one of the closest parallel texts to Ps. Sol. 17 – which has yet to be discussed in this connection in the critical literature – proves useful. 3.1. Judith 9 In Judith’s prayer (Judith 9), we find a similar string of violent verbs, talk of eschewing horse and rider and bow in favor of “words,” and a human agent who ultimately takes violent action on behalf of God. The text even matches Ps. Sol. 17 form-critically as both are prayers for deliverance. 7 “Here now are the Assyrians, a greatly increased force (ἐπληθύνθησαν ἐν δυνάμει αὐτῶν), priding themselves in their horses and riders (ἐφʼ ἵππῳ καὶ ἀναβάτῃ), boasting in the strength of their foot soldiers, and putting their hope (ἤλπισαν) in shield and spear, in bow (τόξῳ) and sling. They Charlesworth, “The Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha,” 2.19:197. Cf. also 2 Thess 2:8 (ὁ κύριος [Ἰησοῦς] ἀνελεῖ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ) and Rev 19:15 (καὶ ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ ἐκπορεύεται ῥομφαία ὀξεῖα, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῇ πατάξῃ τὰ ἔθνη, καὶ αὐτὸς ποιμανεῖ αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ). See further Johnson, “The Passion According to David,” 267. 45 Atkinson seems to claim this at one point: “In the future, the psalmist expects a militant Davidic messiah to appear in Jerusalem, lead the righteous in a violent rebellion against unrighteous Jewish rulers and their Gentile supporters (Ps. Sol. 17:21–25), and gather the Jews throughout the world in Jerusalem” (“Messianism in Psalm of Solomon 17,” 139). Yet he later distances himself from this view: “Because ‘God has made him strong in the holy spirit’ (17:37), the messiah’s victories are not dependent upon military might but upon the authority of his word and his position as the legitimate Davidic king who has been anointed with God’s spirit” (142–43). 46 One cannot rule out that the psalmist also envisioned the aid of divine violence, perhaps through the involvement of an angelic army, as in 1QM. 43 44

Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? 79 do not know that you are the Lord who crushes (συντρίβων) wars; the Lord is your name. 8 Break their strength by your might, and bring down their power in your anger; for they intend to defile your sanctuary, and to pollute the tabernacle where your glorious name resides, and to break off (καταβαλεῖν) the horns of your altar with the sword (σιδήρῳ). 9 Look at their pride (βλέψον εἰς ὑπερηφανίαν αὐτῶν), and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. 10 By the deceit of my lips strike (πάταξον) down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance (θραῦσον αὐτῶν τὸ ἀνάστεμα) by the hand of a woman. 11 “For your strength does not depend on numbers (οὐ γὰρ ἐν πλήθει τὸ κράτος σου), nor your might on the powerful. But you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope. 12 Please, please, God of my father, God of the heritage of Israel (κληρονομίας Ισραηλ), Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of the waters, King (βασιλεῦ) of all your creation, hear my prayer! 13 Make my deceitful words47 bring wound and bruise (καὶ δὸς λόγον μου καὶ ἀπάτην εἰς τραῦμα καὶ μώλωπα αὐτῶν) on those who have planned cruel things against your covenant (οἳ κατὰ τῆς διαθήκης σου), and against your sacred house, and against Mount Zion, and against the house your children possess. 14 Let your whole nation and every tribe know and understand that you are God, the God of all power and might, and that there is no other who protects the people of Israel but you alone!” (Jdt 9:7–14, NRSV)

The parallels to Ps. Sol. 17 are striking indeed and can be briefly tabulated as follows: Ps. Sol. 17:21–35

Jdt 9:7–14

21

Ἰδέ, κύριε

9

βλέψον

23

ὑπερηφανίαν ἁμαρτωλοῦ

εἰς ὑπερηφανίαν αὐτῶν

22

τοῦ θραῦσαι ἄρχοντας ἀδίκους

10

24

συντρῖψαι πᾶσαν ὑπόστασιν αὐτῶν

7

συντρίβων (cf. 16:2)

24

ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ

8

σιδήρῳ

θραῦσον αὐτῶν τὸ ἀνάστεμα ἐν χειρὶ θηλείας

οὐ γὰρ ἐλπιεῖ ἐπὶ ἵππον καὶ ἀναβάτην 7 ἐφʼ ἵππῳ καὶ ἀναβάτῃ … ἤλπισαν … καὶ τόξον τόξῳ (cf. 2:15–18)

33

33

καὶ πολλοῖς λαοῖς οὐ συνάξει ἐλπίδας

7

ἐπληθύνθησαν ἐν δυνάμει αὐτῶν

πατάξει γὰρ γῆν τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ στόματος πάταξον δοῦλον ἐκ χειλέων ἀπάτης μου αὐτοῦ (cf. 9:11) 11 καὶ δὸς λόγον μου καὶ ἀπάτην εἰς τραῦμα καὶ μώλωπα αὐτῶν

35

10

47 As Carey A. Moore notes, this is hendiadys, more literally rendered, “give me a word and a deceit” (Judith: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 40 [Garden City: Doubleday, 1985], 194).

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Indeed, the resemblances between the two texts are so numerous as to be beyond examining in detail here. The more important task is to note how this cry for deliverance – in which “words” are used rather than horse and rider and bow – ends. Judith’s prayer for rescue has a narrative answer: she receives what she asks for, and her “deceitful words” lead to Holofernes’ memorable decapitation, described with the verb θραύω.48 That is, though she does not trust in horse or rider or bow or multitude, but instead in words, this still leads to violence that is real, physical, and mortal.49 And though Judith asks God to act, God apparently acts through Judith – divine violence can be enacted through an appointed agent.50 It should be noted that many of the parallels between Judith and Ps. Sol. 17 have a shared Pentateuchal source: the Songs of the Sea in Exod 15.51 There the stable phrase “horse and rider” (though not bow) is also found, along with the combination of συντρίβω and θραύω. So, impressive as the parallels between these Judith and Ps. Sol. 17 are, many of them (though not all) can be explained by a common, prominent source. This, however, does not affect the text’s utility for our purposes: that a cry of deliverance in Judith, a Second Temple Jewish text, can use the language of “words” instead of weapons and still end with physical violence against an enemy. Against the non-militant camp, word and violence need not be mutually exclusive.52 3.2. Ps. Sol. 17:33 With this context in mind, we return to the issue of how to relate Ps. Sol. 17:22–24 and 33. Following the string of six infinitives and the destruction of the Jewish sinners and flight of the gentiles, the psalm’s next act is taken, once again, from the script of Isa 11. After the sinners’ conviction (ἐλέξαι, as in Isa 11:4), the messiah “will gather [συνάξει] a holy people” (v. 26),53 as in Isa 11.54 This “peaceable kingdom” is the result of violence, but 48 Jdt 13:15: [God] ἔθραυσε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἡμῶν διὰ χειρός μου. Fittingly, Holofernes is attracted to Judith because she is “not only beautiful in appearance” but also “wise in speech” (11:23). On the question of whether Judith’s “deceit” is justified, Toni Craven writes: “The Book of Judith calls for a radical reorientation of religious sensibilities. Were Job to say to Judith as he says to Zophar, ‘Will you speak falsely for God, speak deceitfully for him?’ (Job 13:7), Judith might respond that in certain circumstances such unexpected behavior might be justified. Certainly on the occasion described in the story, she ‘lies’ for the Lord” (Artistry and Faith in the Book of Judith, SBLDS 70 [Chico: Scholars Press, 1983], 114–15). 49 Judith’s action is a fitting – and gendered – reversal of the Assyrian army’s boast to “strike as one man” with their “horses” (cf. 6:3). 50 This point is well made by Deborah Levine Gera: “Judith is, in fact, both an independent agent – it is her plan and her hand – and an instrument of God, for we are surely meant to understand that it is through divine aid that her mission succeeds. Our text regularly moves between these two poles of human initiative and divine assistance, underlining at times the part played by Judith, the courageous heroine, and stressing at other times God’s role as savior” (Judith, CEJL [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014], 318). 51 See further Gera, Judith, 315–20. Many of the parallels rely on the LXX over the MT (e.g., “crush” in Exod 15:3). 52 There is the further point that using words can be a form of “violence,” as speech-act theorists urge. Though this would be an interesting avenue of inquiry, it is beyond our current purposes. 53 Cf. Pss. Sol. 8:28; 11:2. 54 In Isa 11 the Davidic king “will gather [συνάξει] the lost of Israel and the scattered of Judah” (11:12 LXX). This scenario also occurs in 4 Ezra 13, itself heavily reliant upon Isa 11: following messianic violence, the diaspora are gathered.

Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? 81

it issues forth in a lasting calm demonstrated in the subservient role of the gentiles: “[the messiah] will have gentiles to serve him under his yoke” (v. 30). The nations even play a role in returning the Jewish exiles; as in Deutero-Isaiah, “gentiles will come from the ends of the earth to see [the king’s] glory, bearing as gifts her [Jerusalem’s] weakened children” (v. 31; cf. Isa 43:4–7). Because of this new situation between Jerusalem and the nations, the messiah no longer needs to resort to violence.55 It is here that v. 33 comes into play: following the violent subjugation of the nations, he will now fulfill the strictures of Deut 17 for the ideal king who does not need “horse and rider and bow” nor a standing army, nor gold and silver for war.56 Since all the gentiles now “fear” the king, he can have mercy on them (v. 34).

4. Conclusion To summarize our reading of Ps. Sol. 17, the messiah cleanses Jerusalem of sinners and gentiles. Against those who argue for a non-militant reading, Judith 9 demonstrates that using words and acting violently are not mutually exclusive. Further, the string of infinites in Ps. Sol. 17:22–24 and, as Atkinson has noted, the intertextual relationship with Ps 2 and Isa 11 indicate that the messiah is violent. But such violence is short lived, issuing afterwards in a peaceable kingdom of Torah observance, the ingathering of the diaspora, and the subjugation of the nations. As Ryle and James already saw, there are thus two stages to the messiah’s reign: war and peace.57 One could even characterize these two stages as “Davidic” and “Solomonic.” The messiah begins by cleansing Jerusalem as a warrior, just as David delivered Israel and is remembered for “killing his tens of thousands.” Then there is peace, just as Solomon was “a man of peace” who “had peace on all sides” in the wake of David’s wars.58 Proponents of a militant reading emphasize the Davidic stage, whereas non-militant advocates highlight the Solomonic stage. Both are correct in certain respects, and a rapprochement seems possible – hopefully before either side resorts to violence.

55 Thus Collins is wise to say that “the initial role of this king is undeniably violent” (Scepter, 58, emphasis added). Similarly Hengel: “The motif of the messianic war fades into the background …. It is stressed, on the contrary, that after the miraculous victory, achieved without human help, he ceases to be a warlike messiah [citing 17:33]” (Martin Hengel, Victory over Violence: Jesus and the Revolutionists [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973], 42). 56 Cf. Ps. Sol. 5:15: “if one is excessively wealthy, he sins.” Is it significant that in Judith (2:15–18), Holofernes gathers “gold and silver” and a multitude, including archers and horsemen, for war? 57 “When all the destructive work of the Messiah is over, his constructive functions begin,” citing Isa 11:12 (Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 139). Cf. liii: “His Mission is of a twofold character, destructive and restorative, expressed in the word ‘purification.’” 58 2 Chron 22:9; 14:6. Though, as Ryle and James note, Ps. Sol’s “son of David” appears as a “better Solomon” because he upholds the royal law of Deut 17 (Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 143).

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5. Bibliography Atkinson, Kenneth. “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E.) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38 (1996): 313–22. – I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting (JSJSup 84) Leiden: Brill, 2004. – “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60. – “On the Use of Scripture in the Development of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17.” Pages 106–23 in Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition. Edited by Craig A. Evans (JSPSup 33) Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000. – An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. Craven, Toni. Artistry and Faith in the Book of Judith (SBLDS 70) Chico: Scholars Press, 1983. Embry, Brad. “Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 563–84 of volume 2 in Early Jewish Literature: An Anthology. Edited by Brad Embry, Ronald Herms, and Archie T. Wright, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018. – “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13 (2002): 99–136. Charlesworth, James H. “The Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha,” ANRW 2.19.1:197–99. – “From Messianology to Christology: Problems and Prospects.” Pages 3–35 in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992. Collins, John J. The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd edition, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco: Harper, 1991. Cullmann, Oscar. Die Christologie des Neuen Testaments. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1957. Delcor, Mathias. “Psaumes de Solomon,” DBSup 9/48 (1973): 214–45. Geiger, Eduard E. Der Psalter Salomo’s: Herausgegeben und erklärt. Ausburg: J. Wolff, 1871. Gera, Deborah Levin. Judith (CEJL) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014. Hengel, Martin. Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit: Zur “politischen Theologie” in neutestamentlicher Zeit, Stuttgart: Calwer, 1971. – Victory over Violence: Jesus and the Revolutionists, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973. Johnson, Nathan C. “The Passion According to David: Matthew’s Arrest Narrative, the Absalom Revolt, and Militant Messianism,” CBQ 80 (2018): 269–70. – “Rendering David a Servant in Psalm of Solomon 17.21,” JSP 26.3 (2017): 235–50. Klausner, Joseph. The Messianic Idea in Israel: From Its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah, London: Bradford & Dickens, 1956. Koester, Helmut. “ὑπόστασις,” TDNT 8:572–89. Laato, Antti. A Star Is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (University of South Florida International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism 5) Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. Le Donne, Anthony. The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009. Moore, Carey A. Judith: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 40) Garden City: Doubleday, 1985. Müller, Ulrich B. Messias und Menschensohn in jüdischen Apokalypsen und in der Offenbarung des Johannes (SNT 6) Gütersloh: Gütersloher, 1972. Muraoka, Takamitsu. A Syntax of Septuagint Greek, Leuven: Peeters, 2016. Pietersma, Albert and Benjamin G. Wright, ed. A New English Translation of the Septuagint, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pomykala, Kenneth. The Davidic Dynasty Tradition in Early Judaism (EJL 7) Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995.

83 Is the Messiah in Psalm of Solomon 17 Militant or Not? Rosen, Debra and Alison Salvesen, “A Note on the Qumran Temple Scroll 56:15–18 and Psalm of Solomon 17:33,” JJS 38 (1987): 98–101. Rahlfs, Alfred and Robert Hanhart, ed. Septuaginta, Editio altera, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006. Ryle, Herbert E. and M. R. James. Psalmoi Solomontos = Psalms of Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon: The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss., Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Schüpphaus, Joachim. Die Psalmen Salomos: ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts (ALGHJ 7) Leiden: Brill, 1977. Stuckenbruck, Loren T. “Messianic Ideas in the Apocalyptic and Related Literature of Early Judaism.” Pages 90–113 in The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments. Edited by Stanley E. Porter (McMaster New Testament Studies) Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Trafton, Joseph L. “The Bible, the Psalms of Solomon, and Qumran.” Pages 427–46 in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Second Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006. – “What Would David Do?: Messianic Expectations and Surprise in Ps. Sol. 17.” Pages 155–74 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40), Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Viteau, Joseph. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version Syriaque par François Martin (Documents pour l’etude de la Bible) Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. von Gebhardt, Oscar. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis (TUGAL 13/2) Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1895. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) London: T&T Clark, 2007.





Solomonic Paideia: Divine Pedagogy in the Psalms of Solomon and the Book of Wisdom Jason M. Zurawski

1. Introduction When Patrick Pouchelle invited me to participate in the third Psalms of Solomon colloquium and to offer something on paideia in the Psalms, I had to seriously consider whether I might be able to add anything of substance to the topic. Paideia has long been recognized as a central concept in the text, and there have been several helpful studies on the topic in recent years.1 While considering the task and reviewing again the unique depiction of paideia portrayed in the Psalms, I kept being reminded of another text later assigned to the great wise king, the Wisdom of Solomon. In my own recent research I have worked quite a bit on the Wisdom of Solomon and its understanding of paideia.2 So, perhaps these connections taking shape in my mind were simply the result of my hoping to see the relevance of my research for pretty much any and all questions even tangentially connected. However, the more I considered these connections, the more I came to see some very real similarities which could, perhaps, be exploited in order to gain additional insight into the exact nature of paideia in each text individually. I am certainly not the first to recognize some connection between these two texts. As Kenneth Atkinson has pointed out, the Psalms were often grouped together with the Wisdom of Solomon in ancient canon lists and in several of the Greek manuscripts.3 1 See, e.g., Kenneth Atkinson, “Enduring the Lord’s Discipline: Soteriology in the Psalms of Solomon,” in This World and the World to Come: Soteriology in Early Judaism, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner, LSTS 74 (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 145–63; Rodney A. Werline, “The Experience of God’s Paideia in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Experientia, Volume 2: Linking Text and Experience, ed. Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, EJL 35 (Atlanta: SBL, 2012), 17–44; and Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, ConBNT 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995), esp. 137–40. Patrick Pouchelle’s contribution to the first Psalms of Solomon Colloquium, “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 115–32, is particularly helpful for his detailed readings and discussions on each instance of the terminology in the text. 2 See Jason M. Zurawski, “Paideia: A Multifarious and Unifying Concept in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Pedagogy in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Karina M. Hogan, Matthew Goff, and Emma Wasserman, EJL 41 (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 195–214. 3 See Kenneth Atkinson’s response in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, who suggests that both the theology and style of the Psalms matches closely that of the Wisdom of Solomon and

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Nevertheless, today the two texts are rarely put into conversation with one another,4 which is not really all that surprising, as, on the surface and despite the pseudonymous authorship, they appear quite distinct from one another. It has been long held that the one was originally composed in Hebrew – though this, of course, has recently been challenged5 – , the other in Greek.6 One was likely written in Jerusalem, the other in Alexandria. And one was influenced by the more local ideas of the Pharisees (or perhaps Essenes or “proto-rabbis,” etc.), and the other more by the intellectual world of thought of Hellenistic philosophy. Such basic differences, it would seem, suggested that comparison would either be inappropriate or, at least, not likely to result in any fruitful insight. However, one need not argue for literary dependence, genetic relationship, or historical development between two texts in order to justify the comparative task and the heuristic value such a comparison might provide.7 And, when one examines these texts with a focus on their respective understandings of paideia, stronger correspondences than initially assumed are revealed and the benefits of exploring the two together become more obvious. Paideia is foundational to both texts. And not simply paideia as traditionally understood within the broader Greco-Roman cultural setting, but rather a very peculiar type of paideia. This was not the paideia of the encyclical curriculum taught at the local gymnasia. It was not the paideia of advanced rhetorical or philosophical training, passed on from teacher to student. Nor was it even, at least as explicitly stated, that paideia in the law of Moses. No, this paideia, this “education,” came in the form of severe physical, mental, and emotional suffering and pain. But, this agonizing torment, so we are told, Ben Sira, the reason, he argues, that they were often grouped together in the mss and in ancient canon lists (181–82). 4 For example, George B. Gray, APOT, 2:625–52, lists only one cross-reference to the Wisdom of Solomon, 11:21 on Ps. Sol. 5:6. Robert B. Wright, OTP, 2:639–70, does not mention the Wisdom of Solomon in his section on the Psalms of Solomon’s “Relation to apocryphal books” (2:647–49), and he lists only a few cross-references in his translation, e.g., Wis 11:10 on 13:9, Wis 1:8ff. on Ps. Sol. 14:8. A few scholars, however, have pointed to some commonalities between the two. E.g., George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 238, sees the last part of Ps. Sol. 2 reminiscent of Wis 6. See now also Patrick Pouchelle, “The Septuagintal Paideia and the Construction of a Jewish Identity during the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period,” CBQ 81 (2019): 33–45. 5 For a review of the consensus opinion as well as a critique of an assumed Hebrew Vorlage, see Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 49–58. 6 Scholars of the Wisdom of Solomon have long been in agreement that the text was composed in an original and artful Greek, free from the types of Hebraisms or Septuagintalisms one finds in the Psalms. The most recent to argue for a Semitic original, here Aramaic, is Frank Zimmerman, “The Book of Wisdom: Its Language and Character,” JQR 57 (1966–67): 1–27, 101–35. For an overview of the discussion, see Chrysostome Larcher, Le Livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon, 3 vols., EBNS 1, 3, 5 (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1983–1985), 1:125–31. 7 See Bruce Lincoln’s discussion on the usefulness of “weak comparison” over and against stronger forms of comparison in Apples and Oranges: Explorations In, On, and With Comparison (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), building upon his earlier “Theses on Comparison,” in Comparer en histoire des religions antiques: Controverses et propositions, ed. Claude Calame and Bruce Lincoln (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2012), 99–110.

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was to be viewed positively, as a gift for the righteous bestowed by a gracious and utterly unique pedagogue. This distinctive – perhaps even nonsensical to many contemporary philosophers – understanding of paideia was developed as a means of explaining the phenomenon of righteous suffering, whether real or imagined, and was made possible, in part, by the choice of the Septuagint translators to use the, not wholly suitable, paideia/paideuō for the Hebrew musar/ysr.8 These similarities, both in motivation and implementation, are telling, but the differences too are important and must also be acknowledged. So, to see how the Book of Wisdom may shed light on the concept of paideia in the Psalms of Solomon – and vice versa – , first I will give a brief overview of the concept in the Psalms. Note here that for the purposes of this study, I will begin by reading the Psalms as the Greek collection we have, without recourse to a hypothetical Semitic Vorlage, though the results of this study may have some relevance for the question of the original language. Then, we will look at the concept in the Wisdom of Solomon and compare a few of the details between the two. And finally, I will conclude by reflecting on the results of the comparison and what light it might shed for each text.

2. Paideia in the Psalms of Solomon The observant reader might note that, thus far, I have failed to use to the word “discipline.” And the choice of “pedagogy” in the title of this paper was no accident. This is not to say that I have a problem with the idea of paideia as “discipline” in the Psalms of Solomon, but rather that I think there has been too little reflection on the precise definition of the term9 and the uniqueness of its meaning here, not just “education” but a particular 8 On the translation see now Patrick Pouchelle, Dieu éducateur: Une nouvelle approche d’un concept de la théologie biblique entre Bible Hébraïque, Septante et littérature grecque classique, FAT 2/77 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015); idem, “Kyropaideia versus Paideia Kyriou: The Semantic Transformation of Paideia and Cognates in the Translated Books of the Septuagint,” in Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 101–34; and Jason M. Zurawski, “From Musar to Paideia, from Torah to Nomos: How the Translation of the Septuagint Impacted the Paideutic Ideal in Hellenistic Judaism,” in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Munich, 2013, ed. Wolfgang Kraus, Michaël N. N. van der Meer, and Martin Meiser, SBLSCS 64 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 531–54. 9 For example, even in the otherwise very helpful study of Atkinson (“Enduring the Lord’s Discipline”), the translation of paideia with “discipline” is simply assumed. Werline justifies the translation of “discipline” by pointing to the “embodied” nature of paideia in ancient Jewish and Greek culture, where teachers formed “every aspect of the student’s life through discipline,” i.e. through harsh corrections and beatings (“The Experience of God’s Paideia,” 29). Note, however, that corporal punishment in education was not a given, and we actually find several ancient thinkers arguing precisely against such pedagogical methods. See, e.g., Ps.-Plutarch, Lib. Educ. 8b–9a; Quintilian 1.3.14–17; Plutarch, Marcus Cato 20.4. On the ancient debate, see Henri Irénée Marrou, Histoire de l‘éducation dans l‘antiquité (Paris: Le Seuil, 1948), translated into English as A History of Education in Antiquity (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), 272–73; and Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), 132. It should also be noted that even if corporal punishment was ubiquitous in childhood education, the term for this discipline was never paideia. George Bertram, “παιδεύω,” TDNT 5:596–625 (5:600, 608), claims that paideuō is never used in non-biblical Greek to refer to corporal punishment prior to the second century CE.

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manner of educating, i.e. physical, painful discipline. Perhaps most commentators have simply assumed an English translation of “discipline,” based on the presumed underlying Hebrew of musar, which is more naturally understood as “discipline.” However, for a native Greek speaker during the Second Temple period, the notion of violent discipline and punishment would likely not be the first thought to come to mind in connection to the term paideia. This is a very particular and peculiar understanding of paideia, and we must not lose sight of that. With that said, what exactly is paideia in the Psalms? Discipline, seemingly. But what is the nature of this discipline? First, the sole provenance of paideia is God (or God’s messiah), a rather unique view, since paideia would typically come from teachers, parents, nature, experience, and, yes, the gods. But here, God is the only source.10 Second, the targets of this divine paideia are the righteous and Israel; sinners and the nations are never offered it.11 Some of the paideia Psalms describe a dichotomy between anonymous, general righteous (the dikaioi) and sinners (the hamartōloi), without any ethnic descriptors (Pss. Sol. 3, 13, and 16). Importantly, these appear to be predetermined, fixed categories (cf. 14:8–9, on which see below). There is no movement between the two. Other Psalms, instead, pit Israel or the house of Jacob against the nations (Pss. Sol. 7, 8, 10, 14, 17, and 18), God’s protection and mercy now due not to the righteous or pious (e.g., 3:5–8), but to the “race of Israel” and the “house of Jacob” (7:8, 10). Taking the collection as a whole, it looks as though that we are meant to equate Israel with the righteous, who alone are worthy of God’s paideia, and the nations – and, perhaps, those Jews who have gone too far in their transgression of the law – with the sinners,12 those who do not have the opportunity to learn from God’s disciplinary instruction, who receive instead only complete and final destruction.13 10 For example, “Discipline (παίδευσον) us yourself in your pleasure; do not give us over to the nations” (Ps. Sol. 7:3). This is a remarkable thought. Literally, do not give us over to the nations “to be educated”! Of course, God does use the nations as tools of his paideia, though they themselves are unaware of this fact (2:22–24). In 17:42, God lifts up the messiah over Israel “in order to discipline (παιδεῦσαι) it,” and in 18:7 the people of Israel are happy under the messiah’s “rod of paideia (ὑπὸ ῥάβδον παιδείας).” Of course, the messiah’s paideia ultimately comes from God. 11 Some have argued that both the sinners and the righteous are offered God’s paideia, but only the righteous are able to endure it. See Pouchelle, “Prayers for Being Disciplined,” 121, on Ps. Sol. 8; Werline, “The Experience of God’s Paideia,” 36, on Pss. Sol. 3:9–11; and Atkinson, “Enduring the Lord’s Discipline,” 154, on Pss. Sol. 10:1–3, and, generally, 145: “Salvation is beyond the grasp of deliberate sinner, even though they are members of God’s covenant community, because they willfully reject divine discipline.” However, it must be pointed out that paideia language is never used for the sinners/nations, only for the righteous/Israel. Sinners may be “judged,” “punished,” and “destroyed,” but they are never “disciplined.” 12 Many understand the “sinners” to also be people within Israel, an internal dichotomy. See Atkinson, “Enduring the Lord’s Discipline,” 145, 159; and Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 244. 13 For example, Ps. Sol. 13 sees the dichotomy between the righteous and the sinners, but Ps. Sol. 14 immediately following affirms that the righteous are Israel, the hosioi who follow the law, clearly reading the moral or ethical category of the preceding psalm in ethnic terms. While is it certainly possible that we have two (or more) distinct collections, one significantly more ethnically particular than the other, reading the collection as a unified whole, it seems clear that we are meant to identify with the righteous with Israel and the sinners with the nations (or virtual apostates).

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What is the purpose of this paideia? The Psalms of Solomon is extremely consistent in portraying paideia as some form of correction, that is as a response to past transgression. Paideia in the Psalms is always reactive, never proactive. For example: Happy is the one whom the Lord remembers with reproof, and who is protected from the path of evil by the whip, so that he might be cleansed from sin and that it might not increase. He who prepares his back for lashes will be cleansed, for the Lord is kind to those who endure discipline (παιδείαν). For he makes straight the paths of the righteous and does not pervert them by his discipline (ἐν παιδείᾳ), and the mercy of the Lord is upon those who truly love him. (10:1–3)

Paideia is here what God uses to correct problematic behavior. Paideia always follows sin. This is another unique feature which we do not often find so adamantly affirmed in other texts which discuss paideia at any length. One of the, perhaps unintended, results of this view is a disconnect between paideia and the Jewish law,14 a curiosity in light of the many roughly contemporary Jewish texts which regularly equate the two, the law being, in fact, the greatest paideia possible, precisely because it teaches the Jews how to live properly according to nature’s intent, and because it trains them – as askēsis – to combat all passion and irrational desire.15 Now, to be sure, there is some relationship between the two in the Psalms, but only in that when one breaks the law does God then mete out his paideia as an atoning punishment. We are never told that the law itself is meant to educate (or to train or to discipline, etc.).16

Pace Atkinson, “Enduring the Lord’s Discipline,” 155; and Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous,

14

139.

15 This is the principle argument of 4 Maccabees, where the Jewish law provides the paideia and askēsis necessary to acquire the cardinal virtues and the eusebēs logismos necessary to master the passions. See, e.g., 4 Macc 1:15–17: “Now, reasoning (λογισμὸς) is the mind (νοῦς) that with right reason (ὀρθοῦ λόγου) prefers the life of wisdom (τὸν σοφίας βίον). Wisdom (σοφία), next, is the knowledge of matters human and divine and their causes. This, then, is the education of the law (ἡ τοῦ νόμου παιδεία), by means of which we learn (μανθάνομεν) divine matters reverently and human matters profitably”; 5:22–24: “You mock our philosophy (ἡμῶν τὴν φιλοσοφία) as though living by it were contrary to reason (οὐ μετὰ εὐλογιστίας). For it is teaches (ἐκδιδάσκει) us sōphrosynē, so that we master all pleasures and desires, and it trains (ἐξασκεῖ) us in andreia, so that we endure willingly any difficulty, and it educates (παιδεύει) us in dikaiosynē, so that, through all our habits, we act without impartiality, and it teaches (ἐκδιδάσκει) us eusebeia, so that we worship magnanimously the only existing God”; and 13:24: “For since they had been educated in the same law and trained in the same virtues (νόμῳ γὰρ τῷ αὐτῷ παιδευθέντες καὶ τὰς αὐτὰς ἐξασκήσαντες ἀρετὰς) and raised together in a righteous way of life, they loved one another all the more.” Notably, 4 Maccabees rejects the idea in its source text 2 Maccabees that the martyrs’ suffering is to be understood as God’s divine paideia. For 4 Maccabees, suffering is not divine paideia; suffering is able to be endured due to the paideia one receives from the Jewish law (cf. 4 Macc 10:10–11 compared to 2 Macc 6:12, 16; 7:30–33, 36). The role of the Mosaic law in the paideia of the people is also fundamental to Philo’s thought. See Jason M. Zurawski, “Mosaic Paideia: The Law of Moses within Philo of Alexandria’s Model of Jewish Education,” JSJ 48 (2017): 480–505. 16 Some want to make a connection between paideia and the Jewish law when the image of the “whip” or the “yoke” is used, as in, e.g., 7:9, “And we are under your yoke forever and the whip of your paideia.” See Winnige, Sinners and the Righteous, 139. I think it is fairly clear that the “yoke” in 7:9 is meant to be the “yoke” of the law. However, this is not to say that the law is described as a sort of paideia curriculum. Paideia is clearly related to the law, but only insofar as it is the result of a breaking of that law.

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This leads to a final question regarding the nature of paideia in the text. How does it actually work? If this is some sort of pedagogical discipline, meant to correct problematic behavior, how does this rectification come about? The process is not entirely clear; it is never spelled out in a logical manner. Yes, we are told that God uses the whip to keep one from evil and the lash to cleanse one of sin (10:1–2). But, we are never told how it happens. It could be that the covenantal, Deuteronomistic quid pro quo was so simple, so obvious that it required no explanation. For example, if I, as a student, make a mistake in my grammar lesson, the pedagogue might give me a little rap on the knuckles with his cane. Obviously, I quickly realize my mistake and correct it. I have thus been well instructed. The problem, however, is that this type of simple, immediate divine response is not always apparent. So, at the broadest level, how does Pompey’s invasion of Jerusalem, the result of past transgressions, inform the Jerusalemite offenders of what exactly they did wrong? How does something so big and all-consuming educate and correct problematic behavior on the individual level? We are never told.17 As we shall see, this is in stark contrast to the Wisdom of Solomon. In sum then, the Psalms of Solomon develops a consistent impression of paideia, one with several distinctive features. God alone is the paideutēs. His “students” are the righteous, a predestined group of holy ones within the house of Jacob. Another category of people, the sinners, receive no correction for their past sins, only destruction. Instead, God educates or disciplines the righteous via violent rebukes designed to correct past missteps and prevent future transgression. This divine discipline should in some way inform the student of unintentional or ignorant errors, though it’s not clear how this should always happen. This notion of paideia is quite unique from those found in other Greek texts of the period, and while the Wisdom of Solomon shares many of its features, the differences are instructive.

3. Paideia in the Wisdom of Solomon Like the Psalms of Solomon, the Book of Wisdom places great emphasis on paideia and its fundamental necessity in the fate of the individual. But, the notion of paideia in Wisdom is not as restrictive as it is in the Psalms; it is more encompassing, denoting both the pedagogy and the educational content, the former more aligned with the picture found in the Psalms than the latter. As to the content, we see, first, that the author viewed his own teachings, his book, as paideia, as a sort of textbook meant to guide one on the path to wisdom and immortality. The book is fictively addressed to “rulers of the earth” (Wis 1:1), who, as we learn later, have thus far not ruled rightly (6:4–5). In the second direct address to these as yet impious rulers, the author tells them to pay heed to his words so According to Pouchelle, “Prayers for Being Disciplined,” 132, “The purpose of discipline is to control or to limit the sins of the righteous. Indeed, the pious person should be able to recognize God’s discipline and then readjust accordingly. If one knows that one has sinned, then the person should repent. However, if the righteous person cannot recall the sin, then the sin must have been inadvertent. Nevertheless, the righteous person must still uncover the sin and repent in order to be forgiven. Therefore, this system intends to control sin and hold it to the lowest possible level.” While I agree that this could be the ideal view, the text never explains how it should happen in the case of more general calamities. 17

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that they may “learn wisdom and not transgress … Therefore, desire my words, long for them, and you will be educated (παιδευθήσεσθε)” (6:9–11). The author is inviting these rulers to learn from his paideia so that they gain wisdom, change their ways, and earn immortality (6:18–21). The ultimate source of paideia, as educational content, is the figure of Wisdom, who is called, in the opening lines of the text, the “holy spirit of paideia” (1:5). The content of Wisdom’s teachings, described in good Greek philosophical fashion, is total encyclopedic knowledge (7:15–22). Interestingly, the Wisdom of Solomon does not portray the Jewish law as part of this educational content, as in the Psalms of Solomon but for a different reason. Unlike the Psalms (most of them anyway), the Wisdom of Solomon goes to great lengths to avoid all ethnic designations throughout, the result of which is a more universalist, typological perspective, a cautionary tale about righteous and impious, not about Jews and gentiles.18 Therefore, to designate the Jewish law specifically as paideia would mar this purposeful ambiguity.19 Similarly, the author never describes the encyclical curriculum as paideia, as his contemporary Philo so often did,20 though it 18 This particularity of the text is most conspicuous in the final section, the so-called “Book of History,” where the particular history of Israel is transformed into a universal didactic tale concerning the difference not between Israelites and Egyptians or Canaanites but between anonymous groups of dikaioi and asebeis. This rhetorical move has often been dismissed by scholars, as the references were so clear and the stories so well known that ancient readers would have had no problems understanding the referents. See, e.g., Arthur T. S. Goodrick, The Book of Wisdom with Introduction and Notes, The Oxford Church Bible Commentary (London: Rivingtons, 1913), 143. Those who dismiss the rhetorical motivation of the text tend to view the text as more particularistic and hostile to Hellenistic culture. See, e.g., David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, AB 43 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), 3; Giuseppe Scarpat, Libro della Sapienza: Testo, traduzione, introduzione e comment, 3 vols., Biblica Testi e studi 1, 3, 6 (Brescia: Paideia, 1989–99), 1:27; and John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE – 117 CE) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 184. Those, however, who do take the typology seriously find the exact opposite, a text more universalist in its outlook. See James M. Reese, Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and its Consequences, AnBib 41 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), 160; John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 221–222; and Greg Schmidt Goering, “Election and Knowledge in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Studies in the Book of Wisdom, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, JSJSup 142 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 163–82 (182). 19 The Wisdom of Solomon appears to be purposefully ambiguous at several crucial points in the text, not only in the identification of the “righteous” and the “impious,” but also in the exact nature of nomos and even paideia itself (cf. 2:12). On the rhetorical use of surface ambiguity with respect to the nature of “death” in the text, see Michael Kolarcik, The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1–6: A Study of Literary Structure and Interpretation, AnBib 127 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991), 181. Note that the careful use of ambiguity could be viewed as a rhetorically sophisticated technique. See Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.67; Quintilian 9.2.65. 20 The necessity of encyclical paideia for most people, Jews included, prior to moving on to higher studies in philosophy or to acquiring wisdom or virtue was a favorite topic of Philo’s. Like those Greek philosophers who allegorized the story of Penelope, her handmaid, and the suitors to describe the relationship between the encyclia and philosophy (cf. SVF 1:350; Ps.-Plutarch, Lib. Educ. 7d), so Philo allegorically read the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, Hagar representing the encyclia required by Abraham – the learning soul – prior to moving on Sarah, the symbol of virtue and wisdom. Philo even devoted an entire treatise to the issue, On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (Cong.; cf. Cher. 3–10; Leg. 3.244–245; Sacr. 43; Post. 130–132, 137; Agr. 9–19; Her. 274; Mut. 255; Somn. 1.240; QG 3.18–20). See Jason M. Zurawski, “Mosaic Torah as Encyclical Paideia: Reading Paul’s Allegory of Hagar and Sarah in

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is likely that he considered both it and the Jewish law necessary components of a proper education, but not one or the other exclusively. As the pedagogy, the means of educating, paideia is described, similarly to the Psalms, in terms of violence and chastisement. This harsh discipline is portrayed as God’s testing of humanity, described using a wide range of juridical terminology. The author pushes the extremes of this torment by depicting even the brutal torture and murder of a blameless individual at the hands of the impious as part of this test, this divine paideia (3:1–6). While the target of paideia in the Psalms was the righteous (or Israel) alone, in Wisdom, all of humankind is at least offered paideia, the righteous and the impious both. We have already seen that the author directs his own paideia to the rulers of the earth who have already gone astray – presumably not Jews or at least not Jews alone. The difference between the righteous and the impious is that the righteous learn from their education, while the impious neglect or reject their paideia. They do not learn from their instruction. We find this clearly in the final section of the text, the so-called “Book of History.” Here, the author lays out a series of divine tests, with God (or Wisdom) instructing humankind through disciplinary tests designed to correct behavior and offer a chance to repent.21 The language used sometimes recalls the dichotomy between the righteous and the sinners in the Psalms, the righteous being disciplined with mercy, the sinners punished far more severely: For the destruction of the sinner is terrible; but nothing shall harm the righteous, of all these things. For the discipline of the righteous (for things done) in ignorance is not the same as the destruction of the sinners (ὅτι οὐχ ὁμοία ἡ παιδεία τῶν δικαίων ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ καὶ ἡ καταστροφὴ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν) … For he will admonish (νουθετήσει) the righteous as a beloved son and his paideia is for a firstborn. (Pss. Sol. 13:6–7) For when they were tried, though they were being disciplined in mercy, they learned how the ungodly were tormented when judged in wrath (ὅτε γὰρ ἐπειράσθησαν καίπερ ἐν ἐλέει παιδευόμενοι ἔγνωσαν πῶς μετ᾽ ὀργῆς κρινόμενοι ἀσεβεῖς ἐβασανίζοντο) For you tested them as a parent does in warning (νουθετῶν), but you examined the ungodly as a stern king does in condemnation. (Wis 11:9–10)

And we even find language that recalls the predestined fate of the sinners in the Psalms:

Light of Philo of Alexandria’s,” in Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 283–307; and idem, “Mosaic Paideia: The Law of Moses within Philo of Alexandria’s Model of Jewish Education,” 484–86. 21 Many scholars have identified a series of comparisons or synkrises or “antitheses” in this final section of the text between the impious and the righteous. See Friedrich Focke, Die Entstehung der Weisheit Salomos (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913), 12–16; Reese, Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom, 91–102. Most assume that these synkrises are meant to demonstrate God’s divine providence and mercy for Israel versus the punishment of Israel’s enemies, ignoring the typology developed in the text. See Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, 227; Samuel Cheon, The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation, JSPSup 23 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 111–12. For a more nuanced discussion, see Moyna McGlynn, Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom, WUNT II/139 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), esp. chapter 6, “The Seven Diptychs – The Judgement of Egypt and the Transcendent ‘Ideas’ of God” (170–219).

Solomonic Paideia 93 For the ways of men are known before him always, and he knows the secrets of the heart before they happen. Therefore their inheritance is Hades, and darkness and destruction; and they will not be found on the day of mercy for the righteous. (Ps. Sol. 14:8–9) But judging them little by little you gave them an opportunity to repent, though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would never change. For they were an accursed race from the beginning. (Wis 12:10–11)

However, there is a significant shift in the Wisdom of Solomon. In the Psalms, the omniscience of God and the predestined nature of the categories “righteous” and “sinners” means that God does not need to offer paideia to the sinners, only to the righteous. There is no possibility of shifting from one category to the other. In Wisdom, however, God still offers paideia to everyone, despite knowing that the impious will ultimately not learn. Everyone is first offered correction with mercy and given the chance to repent (see Wis 11:11–14, 15–16, 20–24; 12:2, 8–9; 16:18). Destruction for the impious only comes after they fail to atone and correct their behavior (cf. Wis 16:16; 19:1–3). The categories in Wisdom are not unalterably fixed; there is at least the slightest possibility of shifting from one to the other. This leads then to the purpose of paideia in the Book of Wisdom. In the Wisdom of Solomon, paideia and sophia go hand-in-hand. As we saw, the figure of Wisdom is introduced as the “holy spirit of paideia,” and we are also told that “the beginning of Wisdom is the sincerest desire for paideia” (6:17). Without paideia there is no sophia. The gifts that come from sophia – and thus from paideia – are without end. The narrator explains how he preferred Wisdom above all earthly possessions, wealth, and even his own health (7:8–10), though all of these came to him, without expectation, because of Wisdom (7:11–12). With God’s Wisdom comes encyclopedic knowledge, or, in common contemporary philosophical parlance, all knowledge human and divine (7:17–22).22 Wisdom provides the cardinal virtues for the wise (8:7).23 With Wisdom comes experience, knowledge of history, and inferences about the future (8:8). Also, particularly crucial for effective rulers are glory and honor among the people (8:10), keen judgement and admiration of fellow rulers (8:11), deference (8:12), an everlasting remembrance after going on to the immortal life (8:13), prowess in governing and in military matters (8:14–15), and a life filled with joy and happiness (8:16). Crucially, Wisdom provides knowledge of the deity, to learn what is pleasing to God (9:10) and what the Lord wills (9:13). Ultimately, all paideia, whether Wisdom’s teachings, God’s violent tests, or the author’s own 22 See, e.g., Cicero, Tusc. 4.25.57: rerum divinarum et humanarum scientiam cognitionemque quae cuiusque rei causa sit; Ps.-Plutarch, Placit. 874e: οὖν Στωικοὶ ἔφασαν τὴν μὲν σοφίαν εἶναι θείων τε καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων ἐπιστήμην; 4 Macc 1:16: σοφία δὴ τοίνυν ἐστὶν γνῶσις θείων καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων καὶ τῶν τούτων αἰτιῶν; and Philo, Cong. 79: σοφία δὲ ἐπιστήμη θείων καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων καὶ τῶν τούτων αἰτίων. On the attribution and transmission of this ubiquitous definition, see René Brouwer, The Stoic Sage: The Early Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates (Cambridge: University Press, 2014), 8–40. As Winston has it, “the wisdom goal of the Book of Wisdom in one of encyclopedic scope and unlimited range.” See David Winston, “The Sage as Mystic in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. J. G. Gammie and L. G. Perdue (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 388. 23 Philo also saw wisdom as the source of the virtues: “Therefore, generative virtue takes its beginning from Eden, the Wisdom of God … and the four particular virtues take their beginning from generative virtue” (Leg. 1.64; cf. Somn. 2.242; QG 1.6).

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instruction, is designed for one primary, ultimate end: the earned immortal life of the soul after its departure from the corporeal shell (e.g., 6:17–21). This education for the immortal soul often necessarily involves the correction of past mistakes. The direct addresses to the rulers of the earth who have already erred in their running of their empires explicitly state that the education provided by this book is meant to correct their past errors so that they may gain wisdom and thereby immortality. This education can come in the form of correction, as the result of past transgressions, as in the Psalms of Solomon, and is reactive: “Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass, and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin, so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord” (12:2; cf. 11:16; 12:10; 16:18). But, unlike the Psalms, paideia is just as often proactive, with pedagogical testing meted out to those who have not transgressed, even unknowingly. While we see this type of education in the divine tests of the final section of the book (11:8; 16:4–6, 11), this type of proactive pedagogy is most clearly demonstrated in what is undoubtedly the harshest educational test in this text – and probably any other – when God tests a righteous, innocent individual by means of a group of impious men who torture and murder him. Note that these men’s impiety derives from their rejection of paideia they had already received (2:12).24 While the foolish believe that this righteous man has been punished and destroyed, we are told the truth, that he was actually being educated and tested by God to determine his worth for immortality: But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little (ὀλίγα παιδευθέντες), they will receive great good, because God tested (ἐπείρασεν) them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. (Wis 3:1–6)

The brutal death of the righteous does not come as the consequence of any apparent transgression. This person, instead, was an example of righteousness and godliness. This extreme view, arguing that death itself was part of God’s merciful paideia, is possible because of the complete shift of perspective in the text regarding the nature of life and death, with the future, immortal life of the soul the only life that really matters.25 24 It is unclear to what exactly the paideia in 2:12 should refer. Many connect this paideia to the nomos in the previous stich, and because this nomos is assumed to be the Jewish law, the paideia too is correlated in some way to the Torah. The first-person plural pronoun in 2:12d has been singled out as decisive for understanding the nature of nomos and paideia here – i.e., does it include the impious alone or also the righteous man and/or the author himself? See Scarpat, Libro della Sapienza, 1:77, 187. The pronoun, however, should cause no real problems, at least not as traditionally argued. This is a direct quote from the impious, this is their paideia. The reader, however, purposefully does not know who exactly these impious are. The nomos in 2:12 is also typically assumed to be the Mosaic Torah. See, e.g., Larcher, Le Livre de la Sagesse, 1:242. Paideia here, like the nomos the impious sin against and the impious themselves, is ambiguous, seemingly intentionally so. 25 The exact concept of death in the Wisdom of Solomon has been extensively debated in scholarship. See Frederick R. Tennant, “The Teaching of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom on the Introduction of Sin and Death,” JTS 2 (1901): 207–23; John P. Weisengoff, “Death and Immortality in the Book of Wisdom,” CBQ 3 (1941): 104–33; Richard J. Taylor, “The Eschatological Meaning of Life and Death in

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The corporeal life becomes nothing but an agōn, a divine contest where the worthy are determined. Though the Psalms demonstrate some hope for bodily resurrection, the afterlife is not fully worked into the equation of suffering with divine paideia.26 Thus, we still find a desire in the text to maintain the old covenantal, earthly quid pro quo, an idea thoroughly rejected in the Wisdom of Solomon, where the author blatantly states that those things typically used to mark a person as sinful, such as childlessness (3:13–14), mean nothing and that dying young can actually signify a life lived so righteously that one was ready for the life of the soul at a young age (4:8–15). Finally, while the Psalms and the Wisdom of Solomon both can interpret suffering as paideia and a means to correct problematic behavior, Wisdom goes into far more detail, explaining how exactly this sort of divine pedagogy works. The process is repeatedly explicated in the descriptions of the punishments of the anonymous impious in the final half of the book, where disciplinary rebukes are designed purposefully to instruct and correct by both reminding the transgressors of their offense and demonstrating for the righteous the results of impiety. Over and again, we see that God disciplines through designed acts of nature “so that they might know that one is punished by the very things by which one sins” (11:16). Thus, for example, animal worshippers are punished by the very creatures they falsely assumed were gods (11:15; 12:8–10). These punishments serve as reminders of transgressions, so that the sinner knows exactly how they went astray and how to correct their past mistakes: “For your immortal spirit is in all things. Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass, and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin, so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord” (12:1–2; cf. 12:23). The difference between the righteous and the wicked is that the former learn while the latter do not. This dichotomy should remind us of the impious in the opening chapters who ignorantly torture and murder the righteous man and who are then punished exactly according to their false reasoning about the nature of life and death (4:19; 5:7–13), and though they do learn some over the course of their realization (5:2–4), they remain largely ignorant to the end (4:17; 5:5).27 the Book of Wisdom I–V,” ETL 42 (1966): 72–137; John J. Collins, “The Root of Immortality: Death in the Context of Jewish Wisdom,” HTR 71 (1978): 177–92; Yehoshua Amir, “The Figure of Death in the ‘Book of Wisdom’,” JJS 30 (1979): 154–78; Beverly R. Gaventa, “The Rhetoric of Death in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Letters of Paul” in The Listening Heart, ed. K. G. Hoglund, E. F. Huwiler, J. T. Glass, and R. W. Lee, JSOTSup 58 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 127–45; and Kolarcik, The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1–6. 26 The resurrection of the righteous compared to the ultimate destruction of sinners is expressed in 3:11–12; 13:9–11; 14:3–4; and 15:10–13. The closest the text comes to connecting God’s paideia of the righteous and their future eternal resurrection is found in 13:9–11: “For he corrects the righteous as a beloved son, and his paideia is as that of a firstborn. For the Lord spares his holy ones and blots out their errors by paideia. For the life of the righteous will be forever, but sinners will be taken away into destruction, and their memory will be found no more.” Most have pointed out that the Psalms show no sign of a body/soul dichotomy or a belief in an immortal soul. See, e.g., Robert B. Wright, OTP 2:639–70 (2:645); Jan A. Sigvartsen, Afterlife and Resurrection Beliefs in the Pseudepigrapha (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 161–66. 27 Note that one is also meant to learn from the example of others, with the miraculous salvific acts for the righteous designed to teach the impious the results of piety and the stern punishments of the impious designed to show the righteous the opposite. Cf. 12:20–22; 16:4.

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To summarize the notion in the Book of Wisdom, it would be difficult to underestimate the importance of paideia in the text and in the ultimate fate of the individual. Paideia is inseparably linked to sophia, and thus all of the benefits that derive from wisdom derive too from paideia, including not least the future immortal life of the soul. Paideia in Wisdom includes both educational content – Sophia’s teachings, the book itself – and pedagogy – God’s miraculous workings through nature to both punish and save. Paideia so often can be reactive, God’s divine discipline, suffering, and punishment meant to correct past behavior and set one on the proper path. But, paideia too can be proactive, with God educating and testing the already righteous. Importantly, paideia is offered to all of humankind, not just one chosen group. Everyone is educated and given the opportunity to learn. And finally, the Wisdom of Solomon goes to great lengths to explain how God’s paideia works as a means to educate and correct behavior, with each lesson designed purposefully to match a past transgression or to serve as an example for others.

4. Conclusions Though similar in many respects, the Psalms of Solomon and the Book of Wisdom differ in their views on paideia in three significant areas. First, paideia in Wisdom is more comprehensive, showing a sort of rapprochement between contemporary Hellenistic ideals about paideia and the Hebrew notion of musar, mediated by the Septuagint translations. The Psalms, instead, demonstrate no level of discourse with Greek notions of paideia, only that sort which is meant to punish and correct bad behavior. Second, the two texts diverge when it comes to the recipients of paideia and the process. In Wisdom, paideia is offered to all of humankind. Those who accept it and learn from it are the righteous. Those who do not are the impious. In the Psalms, paideia is only offered to the already righteous, while destruction is given to the fixed category of sinners. And third, the two texts are not wholly in agreement as to the purpose of paideia, with Wisdom viewing it as the instruction and preparation for the immortal life of the soul, not always involving a corrective for past errors, and the Psalms see it as the necessary correction of an already chosen people so that they do not continue in sin. If we take seriously, and I believe we should, one, the rhetorical choice in the Wisdom of Solomon to purposefully avoid all ethnic terminology and, two, the subtle yet important distinction from the Psalms that everyone is at least offered paideia and the possibility of repentance, then we see a much more particularistic, exclusivist position in the Psalms, with little possibility for dialogue between those inside and those out. This distinction might help clarify one of the long-debated questions in the history of scholarship on the Wisdom of Solomon, that is the position of its text vis-à-vis non-Jewish Hellenistic society. While much of the scholarship has long held Wisdom to be one of the most anti-Hellenistic texts we have from the Second Temple Diaspora, a few voices have questioned this position and instead have seen it as more open and universalist in its message. Comparing the idea of paideia as divine discipline to the Psalms, the Book of Wisdom looks downright ecumenical! One other thing that jumps out starkly in light of this comparison is the true uniqueness of the concept of paideia in the Psalms, in its consistently referring to reactive

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disciplinary punishment and showing no engagement with other contemporary ideas about paideia. While I was very appreciative and quite convinced of the arguments for a Greek original from the first Psalms colloquium, I’m now wondering if this depiction of paideia does indeed suggest a Hebrew Vorlage, or, at least, a more complicated process of transmission, including both translation and original Greek composition. Such a depiction of Hebrew musar would occasion no surprise. It would be expected. But such a view of paideia? Even as the result of influence from the Septuagint and the Judaean milieu, it is a striking depiction. While ancient Greek and Roman education of children of course included disciplinary punishment, and we even find some cases of divine remedial suffering,28 the term paideia was never used for the violence itself, the rebuke was never the defining element of paideia as it was of musar. One might fruitfully adopt an innovative, additional understanding of a term or concept, but to do so at the expense of every other meaning of a term would be difficult, especially with an idea like paideia, which was so much discussed and so important in the general intellectual air. We see a combination of traditional and innovative in Wisdom. There is no combination in the Psalms of Solomon. This paideia is simply musar, unaltered and uninfluenced. So, in reading the Psalms of Solomon as a Greek text alongside a similar Greek text, we find that either this was a Greek text wholly unique in its depiction of paideia, or maybe not an original Greek text at all, at least not in its entirety, but one reflecting the common idea of the Hebrew musar, translated with the common terminology of the Septuagint.

5. Bibliography Amir, Yehoshua. “The Figure of Death in the ‘Book of Wisdom’,” JJS 30 (1979): 154–78. Atkinson, Kenneth. “Enduring the Lord’s Discipline: Soteriology in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 145–63 in This World and the World to Come: Soteriology in Early Judaism. Edited by Daniel M. Gurtner (LSTS 74) London: T&T Clark, 2011. – “Responses.” Pages 75–91 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Barclay, John M. G. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE – 117 CE). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Bertram, George. “παιδεύω,” TDNT 5:596–625. Bons, Eberhard. “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4.” Pages 49–78 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Brouwer, René. The Stoic Sage: The Early Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates. Cambridge: University Press, 2014. Cheon, Samuel. The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation (JSPSup 23) Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Collins, John J. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. – “The Root of Immortality: Death in the Context of Jewish Wisdom,” HTR 71 (1978): 177–92. Focke, Friedrich. Die Entstehung der Weisheit Salomos. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913. Gaventa, Beverly R. “The Rhetoric of Death in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Letters of Paul.” Pages 127–45 in The Listening Heart. Edited by K. G. Hoglund, et al. (JSOTSup 58) Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 176–183; Plato, Rep. 380b; Laws 854d, 862e, 934a, 944.

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98 Jason M. Zurawski Goering, G. Schmidt. “Election and Knowledge in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 163–82 in Studies in the Book of Wisdom. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér (JSJSup 142) Leiden: Brill, 2010. Goodrick, A. T. S. The Book of Wisdom with Introduction and Notes (The Oxford Church Bible Commentary) London: Rivingtons, 1913. Gray, G. B. “The Psalms of Solomon,” APOT 2:625–52. Kolarcik, Michael. The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1–6: A Study of Literary Structure and Interpretation (AnBib 127) Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991. Larcher, C. Le Livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon, 3 vols. (EBNS 1, 3, 5) Paris: J. Gabalda, 1983–85. Lincoln, Bruce. Apples and Oranges: Explorations In, On, and With Comparison. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018. – “Theses on Comparison.” Pages 99–110 in Comparer en histoire des religions antiques: Controverses et propositions. Edited by Claude Calame and Bruce Lincoln, Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2012. Marrou, Henri Irénée. Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité (Paris: Le Seuil, 1948). Translated into English as A History of Education in Antiquity. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956. Morgan, Teresa. Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Cambridge: University Press, 1998. McGlynn, Moyna. Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom (WUNT II/139) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Nickelsburg, George W. E. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. Pouchelle, Patrick. Dieu éducateur: Une nouvelle approche d’un concept de la théologie biblique entre Bible Hébraïque, Septante et littérature grecque classique (FAT II/77) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. – “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 115–32 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “Kuropaideia versus Paideia Kuriou: The Semantic Transformation of Paideia and Cognates in the Translated Books of the Septuagint.” Pages 101–32 in Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by Karina Martin Hogan, Matthew J. Goff, Emma Wasserman (EJL 41) Atlanta: SBL, 2017. – “The Septuagintal Paideia and the Construction of a Jewish Identity during the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period,” CBQ 81 (2019): 33–45. Reese, James M. Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and its Consequences (AnBib 41) Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970. Scarpat, Giuseppe. Libro della Sapienza: Testo, traduzione, introduzione e comment. 3 vols. (Biblica Testi e studi 1, 3, 6) Brescia: Paideia, 1989–99. Sigvartsen, Jan A. Afterlife and Resurrection Beliefs in the Pseudepigrapha, London: T&T Clark, 2019. Tennant, Frederick R. “The Teaching of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom on the Introduction of Sin and Death,” JTS 2 (1901): 207–23. Werline, Rodney A. “The Experience of God’s Paideia in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 17–44 in Experientia, Volume 2: Linking Text and Experience. Edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline (EJL 35) Atlanta: SBL, 2012. Winninge, Mikael. Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (CBNTS 26) Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995. Winston, D. “The Sage as Mystic in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 383–97 in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Edited by J. G. Gammie and L. G. Perdue, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990. – The Wisdom of Solomon (AB 43) Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979. Wright, Robert B. “Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:639–70. Zimmerman, F. “The Book of Wisdom: Its Language and Character,” JQR 57 (1966–67): 101–35. Zurawski, Jason M. “From Musar to Paideia, from Torah to Nomos: How the Translation of the Septuagint Impacted the Paideutic Ideal in Hellenistic Judaism.” Pages 531–54 in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Munich, 2013. Edited by W. Kraus, M. Meiser, M. N. van der Meer (SBLSCS 64) Atlanta: SBL, 2016.

99 Solomonic Paideia – “Mosaic Paideia: The Law of Moses within Philo of Alexandria’s Model of Jewish Education,” JSJ 48 (2017): 480–505. – “Mosaic Torah as Encyclical Paideia: Reading Paul’s Allegory of Hagar and Sarah in Light of Philo of Alexandria’s.” Pages 203–307 in Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by Karina Martin Hogan, Matthew J. Goff, Emma Wasserman (EJL 41) Atlanta: SBL, 2017. – “Paideia: A Multifarious and Unifying Concept in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 195–214 in Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by Karina Martin Hogan, Matthew J. Goff, Emma Wasserman (EJL 41) Atlanta: SBL, 2017.





The Question of the Eschatological Participation of the Gentiles in the Psalms of Solomon 17 and Romans 11* František Ábel Exploration of Second Temple Judaism1, including the message and theology of Paul the Apostle – my focus in this field of research – is inconceivable without Jewish deuterocanonical literature.2 One of the most important reasons why this is so is that this corpus of literature makes it possible for us to better recognize patterns within Second Temple Judaism, with all of its specifics and complexities, which likewise helps us to recognize the somewhat distorted image that is held by some forms of contemporary Judaism, including mistaken readings of Paul’s message in recent centuries.3 Within this broad corpus of Jewish deuterocanonical literature, the Psalms of Solomon is of great importance for my field of research. While reading Chris VanLandingham’s monograph Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul (see n. 2), I found it interesting that the author uses the Psalms of Solomon to argue that Paul’s “teaching about justification by faith” in Romans 3:21–26 is primarily based on the eschatological practice of preparing devout believers for the coming Day of Messiah.4

* This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (VEGA), as part of the research project entitled “Paul within Judaism – New Perspectives” (VEGA 1/0103/18), with its home base at Comenius University Bratislava, at the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty. 1 When referring to Second Temple Judaism, I mean the period between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 515 BCE and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. 2 By this term, I mean the Jewish writings mainly from the period 200 BCE to 100 CE which in the Roman Catholic milieu are called “apocrypha” and in the Protestant milieu often “pseudepigrapha”, despite some Christian additions. This corpus of Jewish literature provides essential evidence of Jewish thought during the Second Temple period (approximately 400 BCE to about the second century CE). The focus is especially the corpus of Pseudepigrapha. There is ample evidence, mainly in 2 Maccabees, The Book of Jubilees, The Testament of Abraham, 1 Enoch (especially parts 1–5, 92–105), 1QS (especially parts 3–4 [col. III–IV], 10–11[col. X–XI]), 1QHa, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Psalms of Solomon, The Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo. For the detailed characteristics of the particular writings, see Chris VanLandingham, Judgment and Justification in early Judaism and the Apostle Paul (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006), 66–174; Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (To 135 CE) (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 77–215. 3 I talk about this in more detail in the first chapter of my monograph The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, WUNT II/416 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 5–10. 4 VanLandingham considers this question in the context of Ps. Sol. 18:5: “I suggest this idea, which is expressed so often in Jewish texts, is the background for understanding Paul’s statements in Rom 3:21–26.” See Chris VanLandingham, Judgment and Justification, 139, including note 249.

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For me personally, this was a decisive impulse to study this pseudepigraphon in more detail and to compare it closely with Paul’s message in connection with Paul’s messianic ethics, which I was examining. The result of this study is my monograph, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul (see n. 3). During this period of my research, I had the opportunity to acquaint myself closely with a broader spectrum of opinions and hypotheses about particular issues and questions related to the Psalms of Solomon as presented by respected scholars and experts on the text, including, among others, Kenneth Atkinson, Devorah Dimant, Joshua Efron, Brad J. Embry, Robert R. Hann, Joseph L. Trafton, Grant Ward, Mikael Winninge, Robert B. Wright, and especially the coauthors of the monograph, The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle.5 This salutary experience was greatly valuable to me, not only in regard to my aforementioned book, but for what it taught me about the likely influence of the Psalms of Solomon on many pious Jews contemporary with Paul (Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees), as well as upon Paul himself.

5 Eberhard Bons, Patrick Pouchelle (ed.), The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015); Kenneth Atkinson, “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E.) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38 (1996): 313–22; idem, “Toward a Redating of the Psalms of Solomon: Implications for Understanding the Sitz im Leben of an Unknown Jewish Sect,” JSP 17 (1998): 95–112; idem, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118/3 (1999): 435–60; idem, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 49 (Lewinston/Queenston/ Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001); idem, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting. JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2003); D. Dimant, “A Cultic Term in the Psalms of Solomon in the Light of Septuagint,” Textus 9 (1981): 28–51 (in Hebrew); Joshua Efron, “The Psalms of Solomon,” 219–86, in Studies on the Hasmonean Period, SJLA 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1987); Brad J. Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13.2 (2002): 99–136; idem, “Psalms of Assurance: An Analysis of the Formation and Function of the Psalms of Solomon in second Temple Judaism” (Ph.D. diss., Durham University, 2005); Robert R. Hann, “Christos Kyrios in Ps Sol 17.32: ‘The Lord’s Anointed’ Reconsidered,” NTS 31 (1985): 620–27; idem, “The Community of the Pious: The Social Setting of the Psalms of Solomon,” in Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 17/2 (1988): 169–89; P. Pouchelle, “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons, Patrick Pouchelle. SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 115–32; Joseph L. Trafton, “What Would David Do? Messianic Expectation and Surprise in Ps. Sol. 17,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 155–74; Grant Ward, “The Psalms of Solomon: The Philological Analysis of the Greek and the Syriac Texts” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1996); Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, CBNTS 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995); Robert B. Wright, “The Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” OTP 2:639–70; idem (ed.), The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text. JCT 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2007). Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to consult and take into consideration the works by Felix Albrecht, e.g.: F. Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018); idem, Die Psalmen Salomos. Griechischer Text nebst deutscher Übersetzung und Gesamtregister (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020).

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1. Introduction When discussing Second Temple Jewish eschatological conceptions in a general sense, we find notions coming to the fore of messianic ideas and notions, including the last judgment.6 The idea of messianism is also found in the Psalms of Solomon, especially in Psalms 17–18, the section of the work that presents the author’s/authors’ solution to the problems that the community of the righteous devout – which is in the background of the work – was confronted with. If we wish to answer correctly the question as to what led the author/authors to this solution, it is necessary to examine the writing as a whole.7 My goal in this study is not to enter into an exhaustive discussion of all the questions of historical background and specifics of the content of this writing, nor to solve all textual matters concerning the Greek and Syriac variants of the text.8 My intention is to only compare and evaluate the notion of the eschatological participation of the Gentiles9 in the end-time redemption of Israel which centers upon the concept of the coming of the Messiah, as found in both the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s message. I base my work 6 On Jewish messianic ideas and notions, see: Marion Wyse, Variations on the Messianic Theme: A Case Study of Interfaith Dialogue. Judaism and Jewish Life (Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2009), 185–95; William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998); idem, “Messianism in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha” in idem, Messianism among Jews and Christians. Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies (London/New York: T&T Clark – Continuum, 2003), 35–64; John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1995), 11–12; idem, “Messianism and Exegetical Tradition: The Evidence of the LXX Pentateuch”, in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Culture, ed. J. J. Collins, JSJSup 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 58–81; James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); Jacob Neusner, William S. Green and Ernest S. Frerichs, ed., Judaisms and Their Messiahs (Cambridge: University Press, 1987). 7 I agree with Brad Embry that the document could be read as a well-formed whole. In his dissertation, titled “Psalms of Assurance,” Embry suggests that the Psalms of Solomon are modeled on “the prophetic paradigm” of the Hebrew Bible. He thus compares it with Deut 32. In this manner, Embry attempts “to demonstrate that the document can be read as a well-formed whole, one that argues for a particular end, to produce hope in the reader by pointing to God’s divine plan in history.” See Embry, “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament,” 101–2, note 4. 8 For basic introductory information on the historical background and content of the Psalms of Solomon, see Wright, “The Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:639–50; J. H. Charlesworth, preface to The Psalms of Solomon (ed. R. B. Wright), vii–viii. For detailed information on the writing, including the historical-critical and textual questions and history of scholarship in the Psalms of Solomon, see Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 1–52. See also: Winninge, Sinners, 9–21; Embry, “Psalms of Assurance,” 11–25; B. Eckhardt, “The Psalms of Solomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, 7–29; F. Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, 31–44. 9 When using the term Gentiles/Gentile, I mean a social construction for description of non-Jewish people or nations, regardless of their national, cultural or religious identity. The term “Gentiles” is derived from the Latin gens, nation. Its meaning “non-Jew” is derived from the biblical tradition where the word “nations” (‫ּגֹויִם‬, ἔθνη) was commonly used to refer to non-Jews. See: Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 5; BAGD, 218; LSJ, 480. In this regard, William S. Campbell rightly remarks that this designation “is the typical Jewish way of corporately indicating non-Jews, the other nations among whom they lived.” William S. Campbell, The Nations in the Divine Economy: Paul’s Covenantal Hermeneutics and Participation in Christ (Lanham et al.: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018), 3.

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on the assumption that eschatological notions concentrating on messianism were wellknown to all Jewish groups or schools of that time. Since the messianic idea is a key element for the psalmist, as well as in Paul’s message, it is possible that, at least hypothetically, they both belong to the same background or school of thought. Though there is no proof that Paul used this writing – in the corpus of Paul’s authentic letters, we find only a few echoes of the Psalms of Solomon, all of them in Romans (Rom 2:3, 5, 17; 3:3; 7:10; 8:28)10 – there are arguments supporting the hypothesis that Paul could have been familiar with it. Following the conviction of the majority of scholars that the Psalms of Solomon were composed in Hebrew, the very fact that they were very soon translated into Greek, and at some later time into Syriac, presupposes its early dissemination, and also the popularity of the writing among the circles of devout and pious Jews, including Pharisees.11 Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that Paul was familiar with this writing and was even influenced by its key theological thoughts, including the eschatological ones.12 Concerning the methodology, I will first present a brief outline of Second Temple Jewish eschatological notions, especially of the notion of an end-time redemption of Israel that was to include the participation of Gentiles. Then, owing to space limitations, I will concern myself only with selected texts, particularly the Psalm of Solomon 17 and Romans 11, which are very characteristic and which make an instructive example of Jewish eschatological notions of the Second Temple period. In closing, I concisely explore and interpret both their common and differing aspects that would form a basis for more detailed ongoing research of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s message in connection with Jewish eschatological notions.

Stated by NA (Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed.). Regarding this argument, the hypothetical function of this document within the synagogue service should be noted, a theory supported by Svend Holm-Nielsen, Joachim Schüpphaus, Mark A. Seifrid, and Winninge. See: Svend Holm-Nielsen, “Salomos Salmer,” GTP II (ed. E. Hammershaimb et al.; Copenhagen: Gad, 1970), 554–55; Joachim Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte der vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts, ALGHJ 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 155–56; Mark A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme, NovTSup 68 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 113, 117; Winninge, Sinners, 18–19. The opposite position is taken by David Flusser, “Psalms, Hymns and Prayer,” in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period. Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus, ed. M. E. Stone, CRINT 2.2 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984), 573; Wright, “The Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:646, and skeptical about this possibility is also Daniel Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume 1 – The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. Donald A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, WUNT II/140 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck/Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 36. 12 I argue in my monograph that this type of influence is relevant despite the fact that scholars are still debating whether Paul was actually familiar with this particular writing, the Psalms of Solomon. See in more detail Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 69–76. 10 11

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2. Jewish Eschatological Notions: Some General Remarks Jewish eschatological notions developed rapidly after the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in the sixth century BCE, and culminating in the Second Temple period. This tragedy helped to transform the notion of the ruling Davidic king (Ps 2:7; 2 Sam 7:12–16; cf. 1 Chr 17:11) into one of an eschatological period of awaiting for him, though still maintaining Davidic royal ideology. In the following period, Davidic eschatological messianism becomes the primary Jewish messianic articulation, with the previous messianic notions becoming a core part of Jewish eschatology.13 Of course, it remains a matter of debate when precisely the idea of a messianic king from the line of David entered Jewish thought, but regardless of that question and its possible answers, it is clear that this notion is already present in various passages of the Jewish scriptures, including the Hebrew Bible.14 In this context, it must be added that not all eschatological notions during this period were centered on the Messiah (e.g. Isa 43:16–21), but rather were undeveloped and did not achieve any level of prominence.15 In any case, all these concepts reflect the experiences of the Jewish population living in Judea and Galilee, as well as those in the Diaspora among a non-Jewish population. Importantly, all these reflections also had to relate to the long-anticipated fulfillment of God’s promises of final redemption and salvation of Israel. In places where Jews lived in proximity to the Gentile nations, they had to consider, among other aspects, the status of these nations before the God of Israel – the one, universal deity, the creator of the earth and universe, with sovereignty over the created order of the world and all the nations within it.16 Jews living within the first century Greco-Roman world interacted daily with non-Jewish people. Of course, the modus vivendi varied depending on the local geopolitical situation bearing upon the relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish people. As is well-known, the Jewish communities in the Diaspora had in many cases achieved a comfortable coexistence with the local non-Jewish majority in Gentile cities.17 However, 13 In a general sense, in using the term “messianism”, we mean primarily the expectation of God’s designated messianic figure within the eschatological age. For more detail, see Collins, The Scepter and the Star, 11–12; idem, “Messianism and Exegetical Tradition: The Evidence of the LXX Pentateuch”, in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Culture, ed. John J. Collins, JSJSup 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 58–81. Stated by Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 46–47, including notes. 14 On this question, see Trafton, “What Would David Do?”, 159–61. On the approach to messianism in a broader sense, see Joseph Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel, from Its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah (transl. William F. Stinespring; New York: Macmillan, 1955). 15 See, for example, Georg Fohrer, Messiasfrage und Bibelverständnis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1957), 356. 16 Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 1–2. 17 On the interaction between Jews and non-Jews in the Hellenistic world, see: Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1998); John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 2nd ed., BRS (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2000); Paula Fredriksen, “The Question of Worship: Gods, Pagans, and the Redemption of Israel,” in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos, Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 175– 201; Neil Elliot, “The Question of Politics: Paul as a Diaspora Jew under Roman Rule”, in Paul within

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the situation in the territories with a majority Jewish population, primarily in Judea, especially at the turn of the era and even during the first century CE, was more complicated, often resulting in tensions and conflicts, and finally also in the first open revolt.18 2.1 The End-Time Redemption of Israel with Eschatological Participation of the Gentiles All these situations and experiences had to be reflected upon theologically in order to answer questions about the relationship between the Gentiles and the only God. As Terence Donaldson remarks, “Jews believed that this God had chosen them out of all the nations of the world to be a special people, that the will and the ways of this God had been revealed uniquely in Israel’s scripture, that the God who had created the cosmos was nevertheless uniquely present in the Jerusalem temple, and that despite the Jews’ temporal misfortunes, eventually Israel would be vindicated and exalted to a position of preeminence over all other nations.”19 This reflection drives us to a specific theological concept of the eschatological redemption of Israel with participation of the Gentiles.20 However, it must be emphasized that the Gentiles are not always treated positively in eschatological traditions and notions. In Jewish scriptures, there are texts describing the fate of Gentiles negatively and depicting them as Israel’s enemies or idolaters that must be punished and defeated together with idolatry itself (for example, Isa 29:8; 49:22–23; 54:3; Jer 30:11, 16; Ezek 17:11–21; Mic 5:6–14; 7:16–17; Joel 4:9–21; Zeph 2:1–3, 9–15; 1En. 91.9; Sir 36:1–10; Bar 4:25, 31–35; Sib. Or. 3.415–440, 669, 761; Ps. Sol. 17:24.30; 1QM 12.10–13). Gentiles are sometimes described as those who will be subservient to Israel or as submissive witnesses to Israel’s vindication (Isa 18:7; 60:1–22; 66:18–21; Hag 2:21–22). Other notions present the eschatological inclusion of Gentiles in Israel as a consequence of the restoration and redemption of Israel (for example, Isa 2:2–4/Mic 4:1–3; Isa 19:18– 25; 25:6–8; 45:18–25; 56:7; 60:5–6; 66:19; Zech 8:21–23; Tob 13:11; 14:5–7; Ps. Sol. 17:31– 41; Sir 36:11–17; 1En. 90.30–38; 91.14; Sib. Or. 3.616, 702–723), resulting in the observance of the Torah by Gentiles as well (Isa 2:2–4; Philo, Mos. 2.43–44; T. Levi 18.9; T. Naph. 3.2; Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. M. D. Nanos, M. Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 203–43. 18 The worsening situation in Galilee and Judea was increasingly reflected in the Diaspora, which resulted in the violent hostility of local populations toward Jews. Concerning these tensions, Josephus and Philo mention several instances of anti-Jewish riots and violence perpetrated on Jewish urban populations at the outbreak of the first revolt: in Alexandria (Philo, In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium, Josephus, Ant. 18.8.1), Caesarea (J.W. 2.18.1; 7.8.7), in Ptolemais (J.W. 2.18.5), in Damascus, (J.W. 2.20.2; cf. 7.8.7), in Gaza and Anthedon (J.W. 2.18.1), in Ascalon (J.W. 2.18.5), Hippus and Gadara (J.W. 2.18.1, 5), and in Scythopolis (J.W. 2.18.3–4; 7.8.7; Life 6). For more detail, see P. Fredriksen, “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2”, in The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation, ed. Mark D. Nanos (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002), 254, including notes. 19 Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 2. 20 In his book Judaism and the Gentiles, Terence Donaldson focuses on Jewish writings from the Second Temple period and synthesizes them by identifying four distinct patterns of universalism that arose out of the four broad textual categories of sympathizing, conversion, ethical monotheism, and eschatological participation. For further explanation of the term “universalism” as used by the author in regard to the world of late antiquity, especially in connection to Jewish “universalism”, see Donaldson, in the introduction to Judaism and the Gentiles, 1–13.

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Sib. Or. 3.791, 757–758; 5.264), yet there also are occurrences where the inclusion of Gentiles with Israel does not assume the observance of the Torah (Isa 25:6–10; Zech 8:20–23; Ps. Sol. 17:28, 34; Sib. Or. 5.493; Tob 14:5–7; 1En. 90.30–38; 2 Bar. 72). Instead, Gentiles will renounce their idols and sinful ways, turn to the God of Israel, and worship God as those sharing in the blessing of the coming age (Isa 2:20–21; Jer 16:19–20).21 Given this ambiguity of the biblical and non-biblical material, an important question arises about the precise status of these non-Jewish participants in the eschatological redemption. Does their full incorporation into Israel mean that they will become endtime proselytes, or do they continue to exist as non-Jews alongside Israel? Or, as Terence Donaldson asks, “[A]re these basic identities somehow to be transformed in a more fundamental way, along with other categories of the created order?”22 All these questions also relate to the Psalm of Solomon 17 and to Paul’s message in Romans 11, the focal point of this paper.

3. The Status of the Gentiles in the Psalm of Solomon 17 and Romans 11 Psalm of Solomon 17 and Romans 11 – the latter text, in its broader context, particularly chapters 9–11 – makes a specific example of the general knowledge and popularity of this eschatological concept in the later Second Temple period.23 Both these texts express the beneficiary role and inheritance of the nations in the story of Israel’s restoration and redemption, although their authors consider this issue in a different context. It is evident that just as in Paul’s message, so also in the Psalms of Solomon, there occur texts that fall into the category of eschatological participation24 which is applied to Jewish literature of the Second Temple period “that describe Gentiles as beneficiaries of the end-time redemption of Israel – that is, as coming in pilgrimage to worship God in Jerusalem, as abandoning their idols and turning to Israel’s God or, more generally, as having a share in the blessing of the age to come.”25

See Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 501–5. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 503. On this question, see also: Terence L. Donaldson, “Proselytes or ‘Righteous Gentiles’? The Status of Gentiles in Eschatological Pilgrimage Patterns of Thought,” JSP 7 (1990): 3–27; Fredriksen, “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2,” 235–60; Wolfgang Kraus, Das Volk Gottes: Zur Grundlegung der Ekklesiologie bei Paulus, WUNT 85 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996). 23 Donaldson remarks that there is no reason to believe, contrary to the opinion that was common in an earlier generation of scholarship, that “by the later Second Temple period traditional expectations of an eschatological pilgrimage of the nations to Zion had attenuated and Jewish attitudes concerning the place of Gentiles in Israel’s end-time restoration had become much more negative. … there is considerable evidence, both from Judea and from the Diaspora, for the Jewish belief that, when God should act in a final way to vindicate Israel and to establish the anticipated era of righteousness and peace, Gentiles would abandon their own sinful ways, turn to the God of Israel, and thus be granted a share in the blessing of the end time”. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 501, including notes. 24 Donaldson calls this broad textual category “Participants in Eschatological Redemption”. See Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 1–13, 499–505. 25 Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 11. 21 22

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3.1 The Psalms of Solomon 17 Let us start with the Psalms of Solomon, particularly chapter 17. This psalm is the longest in the entire collection, and, together with the last one, constitutes the theological climax of the Psalms of Solomon.26 In the most striking way, it expresses the hope of the psalmist in the coming of a Davidic king, considering this as a final dealing with all the negative political events and their impact on the community of the devout.27 In regard to the content of Ps. Sol. 17, verses 1–3 could be considered as a confession of the devout community concerning God’s everlasting Majesty, might, and mercy.28 All of these characteristics are expressed against the background of condemnation of illegitimate Jewish sinners who had unlawfully seized the Davidic throne (Ps. Sol. 17:1–3; cf. Ps 28[29]:10; 44[45]:5; 73[74]:12; 88[89]:4–5; 96[97]:1; 98[99]:1; 131[132]:11; 144[145]:13).29 In the following verses (4–8), the author recites his recapitulating prayer to God concerning the promises given to David, as well as the rise and fall of the “sinners,” a term which, by the consensus of scholarship today, stands for the Hasmoneans and their illegal usurpation of the high priesthood and establishment of a monarchy.30 The result of 26 For text-critical and exegetical reflections, as well as commentary on these two psalms, including references to other literature, see Winninge, Sinners, 89–109, 123; Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 329–78, 379–93; Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos, 64–73. 27 As Trafton, “What Would David Do?”, 162, aptly expresses: “What has always fascinated scholars is that the author of the psalm not only places his hope in a coming king from the line of David but also sets that hope over against recent political events.” (Emphasis original) In his study, Trafton compares the content of this psalm with all passages in the Hebrew Bible that express the hope for a King from the line of David, including its Greek version (LXX), and seeks to solve the question of what a future king from the line of David might have been expected to do. The results of this study show not only considerable variability in the developing messianic notions and expectations of the Second Temple period but also substantial ambiguity in the messianic notion in Ps. Sol. 17, which prompts more questions about its formation and background, and which as a result confirms “that it is time to give the Psalms of Solomon their due respect in our investigations into the fascinating world of Second Temple Judaism”. (Quoted by Trafton, “What Would David Do?”, 174). 28 In regard to the table of contents of Ps. Sol. 17, I follow the content analysis in Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 174–76. 29 Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 333. The very beginning of the psalm includes features of sharp criticism of the Hasmonean dynasty. See: Joseph Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version Syriaque par François Martin, Documents pour 1’etude de la Bible; Paris (Letouzey et Ané, 1911), 340; Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos, 66; Winninge, Sinners, 99. 30 Adolf Hilgenfeld, “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt,” ZWT 11 (1868): 165; Julius Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer (Greifswald: L. Bamberg, 1874), 162–63; Herbert E. Ryle, and M. R. James. Psalmoi Solomontos = Psalms of Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon: The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss. (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), 129–30; George B. Gray, “The Psalms of Solomon”, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, R. H. Charles; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 2:648; Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos, 65–7; George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 207; Trafton, “The Psalms of Solomon in Recent Research,” JSP 12 (1994): 3–19; Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord, 135–39; Winninge, Sinners, 99–101; Wright, “The Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:665; Pierre Prigent, “Psaumes de Salomon”, in La Bible: Écrits Intertestamentar, ed. André Dupont-Sommer, Marc Philonenko (Paris: Gallimard, 1987), 984. Johannes Tromp, “The Sinners and the Lawless in Psalm of Solomon 17”, NovT 35, 4 (1993): 359–61, argues in favor of the hypothesis that the “sinners” are the Romans.

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this event was the exile of the righteous community (Ps. Sol. 17:5, 16–18).31 This part of the psalm is followed by the lengthy section of verses 9–20 and consists of didactic reflections on past historical events (Ps. Sol. 17:9–20; cf. Ant. 14.4.5 §79; War 1.157–58). Verses 21–25 then constitute the main prayer of the psalmist and express the hope of the coming of the Messiah. The following section (Ps. Sol. 17:26–44) can be labeled the description of the anticipated Messiah and his didactic aim.32 The final part of Ps. Sol. 17:44–46 can be understood as an epilogue.33 The psalmist praises those who in the days of the Messiah would see the assembling of the tribes and the good things of Israel (Ps. Sol. 17:44; cf. Isa 60:22; Ezek 17:24). Afterwards, the psalmist asks God about the coming of the Messiah, and requests that God deliver this community of the devout from the uncleanliness of the defiled enemies (Ps. Sol. 17:45; cf. Ps 30:16 [LXX]). The last verse (Ps. Sol. 17:46; cf. Exod 15:18; Ps 29:10; 97:1; 99:1) is a solemn confession, reiterating the first verse (Ps. Sol. 17:1), where the Lord is the king of Israel forever. It is evident that the last verse is a repetition of the psalmist’s opening words and once again asserts his belief that God alone rules the world.34 At first glance, we observe in this psalm the ambiguity of the relationship of the Gentiles to the Messiah as regards God’s plan of Israel’s end-time restoration. There is obvious tension between particularity and universalism.35 In the main prayer concerning the hope of the coming of the Messiah (vv. 21–25), Gentiles and their future fate are portrayed negatively. The coming king will “purge Jerusalem from the Gentiles who trample her down to destruction”36 (v. 22: καὶ ὑπόζωσον αὐτὸν ἰσχὺν τοῦ θραῦσαι ἄρχοντας ἀδίκους· καθαρίσον Ἱερουσαλήμ ἀπὸ ἐθνῶν καταπατούντων ἐν ἀπωλείᾳ), will “destroy the lawbreaking Gentiles with the word of his mouth”37 (v. 24: ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ συντρῖψαι πᾶσαν ὑπόστασιν αὐτῶν· ὀλεθρεῦσαι ἔθνη παράνομα ἐν λόγῳ στόματος αὐτοῦ·), and will

Cf. Ant. 13.11.1 §301; B.J. 1.70. For an historical interpretation of the exile described in Ps. Sol. 17:5, 16–18, see Winninge, Sinners, 102–7. 32 Winninge, Sinners, 95. 33 Ryle and James, Psalmoi Solomontos, 126; Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos, 64–73. However, Winninge, Sinners, 96, raises an objection to this suggestion, remarking that this argument ignores the change of subject between v. 44 and 45. On that basis, Winninge stresses that verse 44 should be connected with what precedes it. 34 Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 358. From an historical perspective, it is very likely that verses 4–8 and 15–20 refer to the same period of time, most likely referencing the time of the Hasmonean monarchy in 104–63 BCE. See Winninge, Sinners, 107. 35 Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 182; Winninge, Sinners, 98, 107; Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 138. 36 The Greek text, as well as the English translation of the Psalms of Solomon, including the verse numbers, are based primarily on the full critical edition of Wright, The Psalms of Solomon. Where necessary, and where a comparison was needed, I also used the text of A. Rahlfs’ edition Septuaginta (two volumes in one; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979), 2:471–89, and the English translation based on Robert B. Wright’s translation, “The Psalms of Solomon,” OTP 2:639–70. For Syriac text, I used the critical edition of Willem. Baars “Psalms of Solomon”, in The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version (Leiden: Brill, 1972), volume 4, part 6, 1–27. 37 OTP 2:667, reads, “to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth”. 31

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“scatter the Gentiles from his presence at his threat”38 (v. 25: ἐν ἀπειλῇ αὐτοῦ φυγεῖν ἔθνη ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐλέγξαι ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἐν λόγῳ καρδίας αὐτῶν.).39 This negative description of the situation concerning the Gentiles is, however, caused by the after-effects of the historical events upon the apocalyptic eschatological orientation of the community that stands behind these psalms. It is evident that this destruction is of concern to those Gentiles who are sinners or lawbreakers, and who are therefore Israel’s enemies (cf. Isa 24:23; 29:8; Jer 30:11, 16; Ezek 17:11–21; Joel 4:9–21). Importantly, this fate also applies to Jewish sinners (cf. Isa 1:24–31), as is made clear in a previous section of the psalm (vv. 5–20), where the psalmist recounts the sins and punishments of Israel. In the next section (vv. 26–28), however, we notice a difference: the messianic king will distribute a holy people over the land according to their tribes, and “the stranger and the foreigner will no longer live among them” (v. 28: καὶ καταμερίσει αὐτοὺς ἐν ταῖς φυλαῖς αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς· καὶ πάροικος καὶ ἀλλογενὴς οὐ παροικήσει αὐτοῖς ἔτι·).40 All the calamities described by the psalmist have thus served to initiate the process of the final redemption and purification of God’s holy people, not only of Israel, but of the entire world, with the Messiah himself as their righteous king (vv. 29–32, 34): 29 κρινεῖ λαοὺς καὶ ἔθνη ἐν σοφίᾳ δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ· διάψαλμα 30 Καὶ ἕξει λαοὺς ἐθνῶν δουλεύειν αὐτῷ ὑπὸ τὸν ζυγὸν αὐτοῦ· καὶ τὸν κύριον δοξάσει ἐν ἐπισήμῳ πάσης τῆς γῆς· καὶ καθαριεῖ Ἱερουσαλήμ ἐν ἁγιασμῷ ὡς καὶ τὸ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς· 31 ἔρχεσθαι ἔθνη ἀπ᾽ ἄκρου τῆς γῆς ἰδεῖν τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ· φέροντες δῶρα τοὺς ἐξησθενηκότας υἱοὺς αὐτῆς· καὶ ἰδεῖν τὴν δόξαν κυρίου ἣν ἐδόξασεν αὐτὴν ὁ θεός.

29 He will judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his justice. Pause 30 He will have Gentile peoplesa serving him under his yoke, and he will glorify the Lord publicly in the whole world. He will pronounce Jerusalem clean, consecrating it as it was in the beginning.b 31 He will have nations comec from the ends of the earth to see his glory, giving backd her scattered childrene and to see the glory of the Lord with which God has glorified her.

a In Greek, “peoples of the nations”. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 193, n. 292. b OTP reads: “And he will have gentile nations serving him under his yoke, and he will glorify the Lord in (a place) prominent (above) the whole earth. And he will purge Jerusalem (and make it) holy as it was even from the beginning” (OTP 2:667). c Other manuscripts read, “come nations”.

Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 193, n. 293. d In Greek, “bearing as gifts”. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 193, n. 294. e This is the Syriac. In Greek, “her frail children”. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 193, n. 295. OTP reads: “(For) nations to come from the ends of the earth to see his glory, to bring as gifts her children who had been driven out” (OTP 2:667).

OTP 2:667, reads, “At his warning the nations will flee from his presence”. In Greek this literally means, “by the thoughts of their own hearts.” Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 189, note 285. 40 The Syriac reads, “will live near them.” Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 191, note 291. This account mirrors Ezekiel’s prophecy, who writes of a similar future distribution of the land (Ezek 45:8), while verse 28 closely echoes Joel’s prophecy looking forward to a future when Jerusalem will be holy and foreigners will not pass through her any more (Joel 4:17 [LXX]: καὶ ἐπιγνώσεσθε διότι ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν ὁ κατασκηνῶν ἐν Σιων ἐν ὄρει ἁγίῳ μου καὶ ἔσται Ιερουσαλημ πόλις ἁγία καὶ ἀλλογενεῖς οὐ διελεύσονται δι᾽ αὐτῆς οὐκέτι). See Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 353. 38 39

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32 καὶ αὐτὸς βασιλεὺς δίκαιος διδακτὸς ὑπὸ θεοῦ ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς· καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀδικία ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτοῦ ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν· ὅτι πάντες ἅγιοι καὶ βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν χριστὸς κυρίου. 34 Kύριος αὐτὸς βασιλεὺς αὐτοῦ· ἐλπὶς τοῦ δυνατοῦ ἐλπίδι θεοῦ· Kαὶ ἐλεήσει πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐν φόβῳ.

32 He will be a righteous king over them, taught by God, there will be no unrighteousness among them during his reign,a because everyone will be holy, and their king will be the Lord Messiah. 34 The Lord himself is his king, the hope of the one who hopesb in God. He will be merciful to all the Gentiles that fearfully stand before him.c

a In Greek, “in his days”. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 195, note 296. b In Greek, “hope”. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, 195, note 300.

c OTP reads: “He shall be compassionate to all the nations (who) reverently (stand) before him” (OTP 2:668).

In verse 29, the psalmist alludes to the final judgment and the work of the messianic king.41 The messianic king will judge in accordance with the righteousness of God, and his judgment will apply to all nations on the earth. Therefore, this will mean the glorification of the Lord himself in the whole world (v. 30). This process as such concerns the purification of Jerusalem (cf. Isa 2:2–4 [Mic 4:1–3]; Isa 60:1–22; Jer 31:23, 38–40; Ezek 17:22–24; 40:1–48:35; Zech 8:1–23; 14:10–11, 20–21), but also includes the Gentile nations who brought back the scattered people of God to the land of Israel42 (cf. Isa 35; Jer 31:1–25; Ezek 20:33–44; Zech 8:7–8, 20–23) so that they could see the glory of the messianic king and also the glory of the Lord with which God has glorified Jerusalem (vv. 30–31). Ultimately, they all are able to participate in this glory (v. 32).43 The eschatological character of this section is intensified by the psalmist’s remark about the holiness of all who will stand before the messianic king, purified from all their defilements. After all, God himself is king, even the Messiah’s king, and Gentiles who hope in the Lord can also be recognized as the righteous of the Lord and have a share in salvation (v. 34).44 This verse, despite the problem with verse 35 – contrasting in content with and contrary to the notion of God’s compassion (but cf. Isa 11:4–5, 9–10)45 – supports the suggestion that “Ps. Sol. 17 can be counted among those texts Here, I follow mostly Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 185–86. In this connection, Donaldson (Judaism and the Gentiles, 139), remarks that “[t]he descriptions of the exiles as ‘gifts’ (δῶρα) brought by the Gentiles to Jerusalem seems to echo the language of Isa 66:20 (cf. Isa 60:9)”. 43 This interpretation may be confirmed if one understands v. 32 as referring to the Gentiles, just as Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon, 361, does. Donaldson, 139–40, considers this reading to be “possible, however, it is probably not to be accepted”, since elsewhere in the psalm, the phrase βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν (their king) is used with reference to Israel (v. 21; cf. v. 46). 44 See Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, 357. 45 For more detail, see Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 140, including the notes. See also Winninge, Sinners, 95 including notes 398 and 399, who suggests that “the problem can only be solved by the assumption of a shift of subject, taking God as subject in v 34b (just as in v 34a), whereas Messiah is subject in v 35a (just as in 35b). Thus, the nations, brought to reverence for God by the judgment of Messiah, will receive mercy from the Lord himself.” 41 42

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that anticipate end-time blessings for the Gentiles.”46 The fact that its language underlines the motive of demonstrating glory shows that the work contains echoes of the eschatological pilgrimage tradition in Isaiah (Isa 42:10–12; 45:22; 48:20; 49:6; 52:10; 66:18) and it might also suggest that the Gentile nations will participate in worshiping the God of glory and will benefit from this demonstration of glory.47 3.2 Romans 11 Within the corpus of Paul’s authentic letters (Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon), it is particularly in Romans 9–11 (9:1–11:36), where the apostle has engaged in this crucial eschatological question in the most striking way.48 Beyond a reasonable doubt, Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (cf. Gal 1:15–16), regarded the addressees of his message – the Gentile believers in Christ – as the recipients of the fulfilment of the Jewish eschatological expectations, namely the long-awaited time when evil powers and their destructive nature will be eliminated and God’s righteousness established, when God’s promises to Israel will be fully realized, and when the Gentile nations, or at least some portion of them, will abandon their gods (idols) and worship the God of Israel. They will then also share in the promised blessings of the age to come (Isa 2:2–4 [Mic 4:1–3]; 56:7; see also 18:7; 25:6; 60:5–6; 66:19; Hag 2:21–22; Zech 8:22).49 Despite the diversity of Jewish notions and traditions regarding Israel’s eschatological restoration and the status of Gentiles in this process,50 Paul clearly holds the most positive version of the scenario, “one in which Gentiles are included in the redemption and participate in the blessings.”51 As mentioned above, Paul engages with this crucial question primarily in Romans 9–11 (9:1–11:36). The content of this section can be considered as an eschatological declaration of God’s righteousness and its triumph in regard to the Gospel’s mission Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 140. This suggestion is also supported by Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 139. Other scholars, like William D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: SPCK, 1948), 62; Svend Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, 104; Kraus, Das Volk Gottes, 50–52; D. S. Russell, The Method & Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, 200 BC-AD 100 (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 300–01; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission (2 vols.; Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 103, see in ss. Sol. 17 only a subservience of the Gentile nations to Israel. Stated by Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 139, note 117. 48 For an analysis of the structure of this pericope, see Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 556; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 547–54; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, WBC 38B (Dallas: Word, 1991 [1988]), 518–21. 49 See the contributors to Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos, Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015): Mark D. Nanos, “The Question of Conceptualization: Qualifying Paul’s Position on Circumcision in Dialogue with Josephus’s Advisors to King Izates”, 105–52; Caroline J. Hodge, “The Question of Identity: Gentiles as Gentiles – but also Not – in Pauline Communities”, 153–73; “The Question of Worship: Gods, Pagans, and the Redemption of Israel”, 175–201; Neil Elliot, “The Question of Politics: Paul as a Diaspora Jew under Roman Rule”, 203–43; Kathy Ehrensperger, “The Question(s) of Gender: Relocating Paul in relation to Judaism”, 245–76; Terence L. Donaldson, “Paul within Judaism: A Critical Evaluation from a ‘New Perspective’ Perspective”, 284–98. 50 For more detail, see Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 499–505. 51 Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 500. 46

47

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to Israel and the Gentiles.52 As James Dunn aptly characterizes it, these chapters “are a carefully composed and rounded unit with a clear beginning (9:1–5) and end (11:33–36), and with 9:6a giving the text or thesis to be expounded.”53 In view of space limitations, as well as of the circumscribed intent and purpose of this paper, my main concern is that of 11:25–32, which deals with the mystery of salvation of both Israel and the Gentiles, and which serves “to explain the allusion in 11:23–24 about the future engrafting of Israel alongside Gentile converts into the holy olive tree.”54 Paul’s concern is not only with Israel’s salvation, but rather the entire world “with respect to the power of the gospel to overcome otherwise irresolvable barriers.”55 The pericope contains two parts. The first (11:25–27) is a disclosure of the mystery, which is supported by the four-line prophecy concatenated from Isa 59:20–21 and Isa 27:9 (v. 26–27). The second is a theological explanation of its significance for salvation history (11:28–32).56 Paul’s focus on a universalistic view of salvation is called a “mystery” (τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο) that refers to a divine disclosure (cf. 1 Cor 2:6, 10, 14; 4:1; 7:7; 15:51; 2 Cor 12:1–4; 1 Thess 2:6–7).57 Nevertheless, it corresponds directly to the Jewish eschatological notion that focuses on the restoration of Israel as the path to restoring and saving all nations.58 Despite his Christocentric revision of the events (Rom 9–11; especially 11:25–26), Paul is aware that this process began with Israel, in particular with a group of Jewish believers in Christ, who in Paul’s view constitute “the present-day remnant of Israel.”59 However, what is new, and to a considerable extent also contradictory to all 52 Robert Jewett calls this section “the triumph of divine righteousness in the Gospel’s mission to Israel and the Gentiles”, and regards it as the third of four proofs of the thesis about the Gospel – as the powerful embodiment of the righteousness of God – and its implications for the Roman congregations. See R. Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 148, 555–723. 53 Dunn, Romans 9–16, 518. 54 Jewett, Romans, 695. In the analysis in this section, I follow mostly Jewett’s commentary (694– 712). For a detailed exegetical analysis and interpretation of the whole section (9:1–11:36), including other relevant literature, see ibid., 555–723. See also Dunn, Romans 9–16, 517–704; Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 547–744; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 539–636. 55 Jewett, Romans, 695. 56 Jewett, Romans, 695. 57 For the semantics, meaning and usage of the word μυστήριον in Greco-Roman religion and apocalyptic Judaism and various branches of early Christianity, see: Bornkamm, “μυστήριον, μυέω”, TDNT 4:803–27; H. Krämer, “μυστήριον”, EDNT 2:446–49; Michael Wolter, “Verborgene Weisheit und Heil für die Heiden. Zur Traditionsgeschichte und Intention des ‘Revelationsschemas,’” ZThK 84 (1987): 300–03; Markus N. A. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity, WUNT 36 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990), 24–126; E. Elizabeth Johnson, The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9–11, SBLDS 109 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 163; Dieter Sänger, “Rettung der Heiden und Erwählung Israels. Einige vorläufige Erwägungen zu Römer 11,25–27,” KD 32 (1986): 112–15. 58 Philo, Mos. 2.43–44; Sib. Or. 3.702–723. See Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 219; idem, “Jewish Christianity, Israel’s Stumbling and the Sonderweg Reading of Paul,” JSNT 29 (2006): 27–54. 59 As remarked by John Barclay concerning “the gift-language” in Rom 9–11. See John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 450. Anders Runesson and Mark Nanos suggest using the term “Apostolic Judaism,” applicable to the early Jesus movement, along with other known terms such as “Pharisaic Judaism,” “Essene Judaism,” “Sadducean Judaism.” See Anders Runesson, “The Questi-

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known Jewish notions about the eschatological restoration of Israel, is that the salvation of Gentiles is not a side-effect or consequence of Israel’s redemption, which was to happen first, but quite the opposite. First, the full number of the Gentiles will come in, and only then, and in such a manner, all Israel will be saved. Therefore, the two parallel statements about Israel’s “hardening” (πώρωσις – obtuseness) in v. 25 are followed by a mysterious declaration of the future salvation of all Israel (v. 26) confirmed by scriptural proof from Isa 59:20–21 and Isa 27:9 (v. 26–27).60 The rest of the pericope (11:28–32) contains a theological argument explaining “the relevance of this mystery in terms of the gospel’s global mission.”61 The primary focus rests in verses 25–26, which are the culmination of Paul’s understanding of God’s purpose within the eschatological restoration of Israel: that a hardening of Israel is part of God’s purpose; yet that once the full number of the Gentiles has come in, all Israel will be saved.62 25 Οὐ γὰρ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο, ἵνα μὴ ἦτε [παρ᾽] ἑαυτοῖς φρόνιμοι, ὅτι πώρωσις ἀπὸ μέρους τῷ Ἰσραὴλ γέγονεν ἄχρι οὗ τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν εἰσέλθῃ 26 καὶ οὕτως πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται, καθὼς γέγραπται· ἥξει ἐκ Σιὼν ὁ ῥυόμενος, ἀποστρέψει ἀσεβείας ἀπὸ Ἰακώβ.

25 So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.” (NRSV)

As mentioned above, Paul describes this eschatological scenario as a mystery. It could be said that it is a “new doctrine” expressed in the form of an oracle by Paul, whose authority is derived from God.63 Paul defends his viewpoint by reference to Isaiah 59 and 27 (v. 26–27; cf. Jer 31:33–34 [38:33–34 LXX]). However, the source and interpretation of this oracle are a persistent conundrum, with a wide range of hypotheses offered to resolve them. Remarkable in this regard is the observation that this “mystery” is not entirely dependent on scriptural exegesis, since the reversed sequence of the eschatological scenario (first, the Gentiles, then all Israel) that Paul develops in vv. 25–26 seems to be contrary to the LXX citations.64 Therefore, some scholars argue that this oracle is derived from on of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul,“ in Nanos and Zetterholm, ed., Paul within Judaism, 67–68; idem, “Inventing Christian Identity: Paul, Ignatius, and Theodosius I”, in Bengt Holmberg, ed., Exploring Early Christian Identity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 72–74. 60 Jewett, Romans, 695. See also Dunn, Romans 9–16, 677. 61 Jewett, Romans, 695–96. Quotation taken from 695. 62 See Dunn, Romans 9–16, 519. 63 See in more detail Jewett, Romans, 698. 64 Hans Hübner, Gottes Ich und Israel. Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9–11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 113–15, Seyoon Kim, “The ‘Mystery’ of Rom 11:25–26 Once More”, NTS 43 (1997): 412–15 (412–29); Jewett, Romans, 698. Ulrich B. Müller, Prophetie und Predigt im Neuen Testament, SNT 10 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1975), 230, suggests that the mystery may have originated in connection with 1 Thess 2:14–16. Stated by Jewett, Romans, 698, including notes.

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Paul’s spiritual interpretation of Scripture,65 others that it is an answer to Paul’s prayer for Israel’s redemption in Rom 10:1,66 and yet others that the mystery is Paul’s experience with the revelation of Christ at the time of his calling to the apostolic mission among Gentiles.67 All of these options raise serious questions; thus, as Jewett remarks in this connection, “[e]fforts to specify the precise source of this oracle have not been successful.”68 Jewett remarks in this connection that if we also take into consideration the texts in Isaiah 6 and 49 as among the sources reflected in Paul’s references to his calling to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, and the fact that there is material concerning the hardening of Israel,69 we would suppose that for Paul himself, this would be the foundation of his understanding of the Isaianic vision, to be fulfilled in reverse order.70 However, this option too is very hypothetical and unconvincing.71 For Jewett, “it is best to acknowledge that Paul’s use of the word ‘mystery’ in this context reflects the perspective of a mystic whose ‘revelation experiences’ remain partially beyond analysis.”72 However, we ought to regard this conundrum simply as Paul’s description of this paradoxical reversal of the eschatological scenario: as the Gentiles first attaining salvation, and only then all Israel. Indeed, it is a mystery, since it opposes to, if not all, Jewish notions about the eschatological redemption of Israel.73 65 Otto Betz, “Die heilgeschichtliche Rolle Israels bei Paulus,” ThBei 9 (1978): 20 (1–21); Hans Hübner, Gottes Ich und Israel. Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9–11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 113, 121; Otfried Hofius, “‘All Israel Will Be Saved’: Divine Salvation and Israel’s Deliverance in Romans 9–11,” in The Church and Israel: Romans 9–11: The 1989 Frederick Neumann Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, ed. Daniel Migliore, PSBSup 1 (Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1990), 33–38 (19–39); Franz Mussner, “‘Ganz Israel wird gerettet werden’ (Röm 11,26). Versuch einer Auslegung”, Kairos 18 (1976): 249–51 (241–55); Karl Olav Sandnes, Paul – One of the Prophets? A Contribution to the Apostle’s Self-Understanding, WUNT II/43 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 180–81; Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery, 174–75; Winfrid Keller, Gottes Treue–Israels Heil. Röm 11,25–27. Die These vom “Sonderweg” in der Diskussion, SBB 40 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998), 124. Stated by Jewett, Romans, 698 including the notes. 66 Müller, Prophetie, 225–32; Dieter Zeller, Der Brief an die Römer. Übersetzt und erklärt (RNT; Regensburg: Pustet, 1985), 198; Sandnes, Paul, 178; Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer, 3 vols., EKKNT 6 (Zurich: Benziger, 1978–82), 2:254. 67 Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, WUNT II/4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981), 74–99; idem, “The ‘Mystery’ of Rom 11:25–26 Once More”, NTS 43 (1997): 412–15, 420–29 (412–29). 68 Jewett, Romans, 698. For more detail, see 698–99, including the notes. 69 Here, Jewett is referring to Kim’s theory (“Mystery”, 412–15) that “is based on his interpretation of 1 Cor 1:6–10 concerning the divine plan of salvation, which was a development of the theophanic call patterned after Isaiah 6 and 49.” Stated by Jewett, Romans, 698. 70 Jewett, Romans, 698–99, remarks: “Could Paul have not identified himself along with those zealous Jews, rendered obtuse so as to oppose the Christ? When one takes Rom 10:4 into account, describing the dilemma of zealous Jews who reject Christ, an insight available to Paul at the moment of his conversion could well have been in view.” See also Kim, “Mystery”, 421–22. 71 In this regard, Kim, “Mystery”, 421, states that Paul does not explicitly refer to these texts while describing his vocation to the apostolic ministry “because they were not the primary sources of the ‘mystery,’ but only confirmation of it.” Stated by Jewett, Romans, 698. 72 Jewett, Romans, 699, including note 44. For a detailed exegesis of this section, see ibid., 698–702. 73 Dunn, Romans 9–16, 690, explains that “Paul intended the word ‘mystery’ in a more specialized sense – not just a religious secret (far less a secret rite), but mystery as eschatological mystery, mystery as insight into the events of the end time, into how salvation-history is going to reach its destined climax, into how God is soon to fulfill his final purpose for his people. […] God had revealed the solution

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The mystery obviously has three elements, ones introduced earlier in this chapter: the hardening of Israel, the full inclusion of Gentiles (their conversion), and, subsequently, the salvation of all Israel. Paul is certain that the hardening of Israel is only temporary and will ultimately be overcome when the full number of the Gentiles has come to God’s grace through God’s work and the sacrifice of the Messiah Jesus.74 Regarding the salvation of Israel (πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται), all of Paul’s earlier references in Romans suggest that he understands Israel ethnically. Since the word means “all,” “any and every entity out of a totality,” and because v. 27 goes on to argue that the sins of “all” of Israel will be taken away, and since v. 32 then concludes that God will show mercy “to all,” it seems most likely, as also suggested by Jewett, “that Paul’s ‘mystery’ was believed to include all members of the house of Israel, who, without exception, would be saved.”75 Mark Nanos remarks in this regard: “Indeed, with the initiation of the gentile mission the ‘fulness of the Gentiles begins,’ step two, ‘and thus, in this way, all Israel will be saved,’ even as the prophets foretold: The Deliverer will come from Zion to regather the dispersed children of Israel, Jacob will be restored, and the gentiles will be drawn to the light and worship the One God of Israel as their own, as the One God of all the nations.”76 Paul here expresses very clearly the core of his theologizing. The Gentile believers in Christ are justified by God’s sacrifice in Christ Jesus, an event that Paul places directly in relation to the Temple cult offerings as a way of explaining his theology (Rom 3:21–31; cf. Gal 3:13–14). With faith in Christ and through baptism, the Gentile believers in Christ have gained a new identity as those who are free from bondage to idolatry and from slavery to other powers (δαιμόνια, στοιχεῖα, ἄρχοντες, ἐξουσίαι, θεοί, κύριοι – cf. Gal 2:15; 5:19–21), and through love free to be slaves for one another (Gal 5:1,13).77 They now belong to Christ and thus are under the dominion of the only true God.78 The Christ-gift must be expressed in practice and behavior. Now, they have the freedom to disregard the previous criteria of distinction established under the constraint of the dominant cultural systems, and the freedom to follow their own system of values formed by the quality of social commitment, which is love (Gal 5:13–6:10).79 They are now, paradoxicalto him, perhaps through the scripture he is about to cite, though it is equally possible that the verses were seen to have such a full eschatological significance only in the light of this revelation received independent of them.” 74 For more detail on the interpretation of the meaning of the phrase “until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,” see Jewett, Romans, 700, including the notes. 75 For more detail on the interpretation of this, see Jewett, Romans, 701–02, including the notes. (Quotation taken from 702.) See also Nanos, The Mystery of Romans, 239–88. 76 Nanos, The Mystery of Romans, 287. Emphasis original. 77 Nils Dahl notes: “But they should serve one another in love and thus keep the commandment in which the whole law is fulfilled (5:13–14)”, in Nils A. Dahl, “Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: Epistolary Genre, Content, and Structure”, in Nanos, ed., The Galatians Debate, 137. The new identity shows the true nature of Paul’s own vision of communal life in the Galatian churches (Gal 5:13–6:10) and explains what Paul really means by his paradoxical interpretation of freedom as slavery (5:13). See Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 423–46. See also idem, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 152–54, 156, 166–69. 78 See Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 428–30. 79 See Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 423–42. Mark Nanos in this context remarks that they are now “already members in full standing apart from becoming proselytes, that is, members of Israel, for the ‘new creation’ community of God is the community of Israel and the nations: in Christ the awaited age

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ly, members of Israel, but not proselytes. In Christ, they have become “holy” and a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15), a part of God’s people – an eschatological community of Israel and the Gentile nations. Paul’s rhetoric implies that the Gentiles in Christ have gained a hybridized ethnic identity (Gal 3:8, 29). They have adopted Jewish attributes but remained Gentiles of a special sort.80 Their new identity was not gained by ethnic transformation, but instead through an entirely new way of life.81 Their faithfulness and trust (πίστις) in the gospel has become a foundation for their new righteous conduct (δικαιοσύνη), and they now live in accordance with both tables of the Law (Rom 12:1–2, 9–21; 13:8–14; cf. Gal 5:13–14, 22–25; 6:1–10). This is what we may call the doctrine of justification in Paul’s message.82 Gentiles now have a share in God’s blessing given to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 22:16–18) and can expect the ultimate restoration and redemption of Israel. Their separateness is part of God’s eschatological plan for the redemption of Israel, and, through Israel, also the redemption of other nations.83

4. The Psalms of Solomon 17 and Romans 11: Common and Differing Aspects The above analysis of both texts, Psalms of Solomon 17 and Romans 11, centering on verses 25–26 of the latter, shows that they have common but also differing aspects. What both authors, the psalmist and Paul, have in common is the fact that their thoughts in these texts pertain to the specific, eschatological category of Second Temple Jewish writings. Primarily, Ps. Sol. 17 draws on a number of Jewish scriptural expec-

has dawned.” Mark D. Nanos, The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 155. See Hodge, “The Question of Identity,” 172. 80 See Hodge, “The Question of Identity,” 172. 81 This means voluntary affiliation with Jewish politeia (way of life), as Josephus describes: ὅσοι μὲν γὰρ θέλουσιν ὑπὸ τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν νόμους ζῆν ὑπελθόντες δέχεται φιλοφρόνως οὐ τῷ γένει μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τῇ προαιρέσει τοῦ βίου νομίζων εἶναι τὴν οἰκειότητα τοὺς δ᾽ ἐκ παρέργου προσιόντας ἀναμίγνυσθαι τῇ συνηθείᾳ οὐκ ἠθέλησεν (Ag. Ap. 2.210). 82 See Fredriksen, “The Question of Worship”, 190–94. For Fredriksen, Paul’s doctrine of justification does not speak of acquittal by God’s last tribunal (the forensic meaning), but it is about the objective reality of qualitative righteousness. Chris VanLandingham argues for this interpretation in Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul, 272–332. See also Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon, 199–210, 265–84. 83 Hodge, “The Question of Identity”, 172–73. However, at the same time it must be emphasized that this new identity of Paul’s non-Jewish converts as proclaimed by Paul was, from the perspective of indigenous cultures and most probably also of Jewish communities, generally unknown, and therefore it remained very suspicious, especially because – in contrast to God-fearers (sebomenoi or phoboūmenoi), who were attached to synagogues and permitted to continue their cultic practices – Paul’s non-Jewish communities of Christ-followers were prohibited from such idolatry. On the other hand, proselytism was a known, legal, and generally an accepted form of changing one’s identity. In this regard, William Campbell remarks very aptly that the prohibition of idolatry results in them “experiencing an identity deficiency”. William S. Campbell, The Nations in the Divine Economy: Paul’s Covenantal Hermeneutics and Participation in Christ (Lanham et al.: Lexington Books/Fortress Academy, 2018), 8.

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tations concerning the future Davidic ruler84 (2 Sam 7:12–14; Ps 2:2, 7; Isa 9:4–7 [LXX 9:3–6], 11:1–7, 11–14; 4Q252 [4QCommGen A] 6 V 1–5; 4Q285 [4QSM] 7 1–5; 4Q174 [4QFlor] 1–2 I 11).85 As Lionel Windsor remarks in this connection, much of the key vocabulary of Ps. Sol. 17 occurs, in similar formulation, in Paul’s description of the gospel of Christ (Rom 1:2–7).86 Both texts belong to the category of the eschatological participation of the Gentiles in the end-time redemption and salvation of Israel, where one of the key factors is also – and indeed primarily – the question of identity, Jewish as well as non-Jewish. Moreover, Pss. Sol. 17 and Paul’s message as a whole belong to a group of only a few texts of the Second Temple period that seem explicitly to envisage the continued existence of the identity of Gentiles as Gentiles. Psalm of Solomon 17:28 makes a clear distinction between Israel and the Gentile nations, which means that “the ethnē” to whom the Messiah shows compassion (v. 34) retain their identity as Gentiles. Paul’s rhetoric implies that the Gentiles in Christ remain Gentiles of a special sort, since they adopted Jewish attributes, which means that their new identity was gained by a new way of life. Both Ps. Sol. 17 and Paul’s message emphasize the universal sinfulness of humankind (Rom 3:9–20; 5:12–21). In fact, in Ps. Sol. 17 all righteousness seems to be ascribed to the Lord’s Messiah, whose entire work will be characterized by righteousness. Moreover, the Messiah will be καθαρὸς ἀπὸ ἁμαρτίας (v. 36) – a human being pure from sin. These words would tend to establish a contrast between Messiah and the kings David and Solomon. Sinlessness is limited only to the Messiah, and the context evidently implies that even King Solomon, son of David, committed several sins (v. 33; cf. 2 Cor 5:21; Phil 2:6–11). On the other hand, the Psalms of Solomon not only know of the wicked, whether Gentiles or Jews, but also of those who, though integrated into the righteous, commit sin. They are, as Mikael Winninge categorizes them, “the sinfully righteous”. This is important, because it suggests that the devout and pious who belong to the sphere of righteousness also, to a certain extent, belong to the sphere of sin, and therefore they all are dependent on God’s and Messiah’s mercy. As to the differing aspects between the texts, these confirm that the views of particular Jewish authors of the Second Temple period on this eschatological notion varied in several aspects, most of all in the description of the messianic figure and his action. Comparing the psalmist with Paul’s message, there are more substantial differences in their description of this eschatological notion. In Ps. Sol. 17, the redemption of the ethnē follows the restoration of Israel (cf. Tob 14:6; 1 En. 90.30–38; Zech 8:20–23). In Paul’s scenario, the inclusion of the ethnē is made 84 See Lionel J. Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel: How Paul’s Jewish Identity Informs His Apostolic Ministry, With Special Reference to Romans, BZNW 205 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 132–33; John J. Collins, “Jesus, Messianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls”, in Qumran-Messianism, ed. James H. Charlesworth, Herman Lichtenberger, and Gerbern S. Oegama (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 104–05; Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh (trans. G. W. Anderson; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959), 308–11. 85 Qumran texts in Donald W. Parry and Emmanuel Tov, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader (6 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2004–2005), 1.244–45, 2.2–3, 110–11. Stated by Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel, 132. 86 Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel, 132–33.

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possible by the failure of Israel (Rom 11:25–26). In Ps. Sol. 17, the underlying motive of demonstrating glory is one that contains echoes of the eschatological pilgrimage tradition in Isaiah (Isa 42:10–12; 45:22; 48:20; 49:6; 52:10; 66:18), which might suggest that the Gentile nations will also participate in worshiping the God of glory and benefit from this demonstration of glory. Paul’s vision is fully eschatological and still within the bounds of Jewish eschatological expectations concerning Israel’s role towards Gentile nations. Paul’s gospel claims that the end of the ages has dawned with the resurrection of Christ, though still within the midst of the present age, and thus that additional elements are yet to arrive in full – in the Parousia. Although Rom 11:11–26 seems to anticipate a future day of salvation for all Israel, there is but little indication, whether in Romans or elsewhere, that Paul expects any grand pilgrimage of the nations on the other side of the Parousia.87 In Paul’s scenario, Gentiles rather have a share in God’s blessing given to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 22:16–18), and thus they can expect an ultimate restoration and redemption of Israel. Despite this, we can suggest that Paul “sees himself in the tradition of the prophets who call gentiles to Jerusalem on the Day of the Lord, when ‘all the nations shall stream to [the Lord’s house]’ (Isa. 2:2).”88 In comparing the Psalms of Solomon with Paul’s message, special attention must be paid to the description of the messianic figure. In the Psalms of Solomon (Ps. Sol. 17:21–44; cf. 2 Sam 7:12–16; Isa 11:1–12; Jer 23:5; 30:8–9; Ezek 34:23–24; 37:25; Amos 9:11) the Messiah is clearly a human being. He is the son of David being “raised up” (v. 21) and the anointed of the Lord (v. 32), yet certain semi-divine characteristics are attributed to him (vv. 23–25, 37–38). He is the presence of wisdom (v. 35), strength and righteousness (vv. 23–25), and is pure from sin (v. 36). His word has power and he is a source of blessing (vv. 35–40). He will drive out the Romans (v. 22), gather the dispersed (v. 26), and restore the old tribal boundaries of Israel (v. 28). The Messiah will be a king (v. 32), judge (v. 29), and shepherd (v. 40). Even the Gentiles will come to Jerusalem to bring tribute to him (v. 31). The Messiah is a human being, God’s agent within history. Although Ps. Sol. 17 asserts final and total kingship, there is no mention of real apocalyptic eschatology, since nothing is said about a heavenly realm. Despite the fact that Jewish messianic expectations cannot fully explain Paul’s messianic description, it is clear, as Lionel Windsor remarks, “that Paul is to some extent identifying the risen Lord Jesus Christ with the Davidic Messiah expected by at least some Jewish groups,”89 including the Psalms of Solomon 17. For Paul, the Messiah is Jesus [of Nazareth] (Rom 1:6–8; 5:11, 15, 17, 21; etc.). The Messiah is the son of David (Rom 1:3), but not only does Paul speak of the son of David being “raised up” (cf. Ps. Sol.17:21), he outright speaks of the “raising of the dead” (Rom 1:4: to be declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead [NRSV]). For Paul, the Messiah is kyrios (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 1:3; 12:3; Phil 2:11; etc.), he is the son of God (Rom 1:3f; 1 Cor 1:9; 15:28; 2 Cor 1:19), the Messiah who is crucified and resurrected 87 The exception would be Paul’s financial collection project (Rom 15:25–27). “This material gift to the saints in Jerusalem is an appropriate way for non-Jewish Christ-believers to acknowledge their indebtedness, since they as ethnē, ‘have come to share in their spiritual blessings.’” Donaldson, “Paul within Judaism,” 292. 88 Hodge, “The Question of Identity”, 168. See also Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel, 136. 89 Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel, 133.

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(Rom 1:3f; 6:4; 8:3; Gal 4:4; 1 Cor 2:2; 15:3–5, 15–20; Phil 2:6–11; etc.). Paul’s end-time theology in 1 Cor 15:28 expresses that the Messiah (Jesus), despite certain semi-divine characteristics, is not God, even though he incarnates God’s wisdom and power (1 Cor 1:24), imparts the Holy Spirit (6:17) and is the conduit for all existence (8:6). However, ultimately, “Christ belongs to God” (3:23), who is both the source of all that exists in the universe and its purpose and final goal. Paul’s unique messianic notion resulted in a special status for the Gentile believers in Christ. They are justified by God’s sacrifice in Christ Jesus. With faith in Christ through baptism, they have gained a new identity as those who are free from bondage to idolatry. The new identity thus must find expression in their conduct, since they now belong to Christ and are thus under the dominion of the God of Israel – the only God. They have become a part of God’s people – an eschatological community of Israel and the Gentiles.

5. Conclusion All these common and differing aspects are evidence of the variedness of Jewish eschatological notions, including messianic conceptions. As such, they reflect the experiences that Jewish people gained from daily encounters with non-Jewish nations, and express Jewish hopes and expectations in relation to God’s promises given to Israel. Each of these notions is more or less unique and expresses the background of a particular author or a school of thought, including the theological perception of the events, happenings, and experiences. All of this helps us not only to better understand the variedness and complexities of Second Temple Judaism but also to avoid stereotypes by offering us a more nuanced perspective on the Jewish aspects of any New Testament text. Therefore, a thorough exploration of the Psalms of Solomon as well as Paul’s message is highly recommended for anyone who seeks relevant answers to the question of Jewish as well as Christian cultural and religious identity.

6. Bibliography Ábel, František. The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul (WUNT II/416) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Atkinson, Kenneth. An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 49) Lewinston et al.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. – “Herod the Great, Sosius, and the Siege of Jerusalem (37 B.C.E.) in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 38 (1996): 313–22. – I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background and Social Setting (JSJSup 84) Leiden: Brill, 2003. – “On the Herodian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118/3 (1999): 435–60. – “Toward a Redating of the Psalms of Solomon: Implications for Understanding the Sitz im Leben of an Unknown Jewish Sect,” JSP 17 (1998): 95–112. Baars, Willem. “Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 1–27 in part 4.6 of The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version (Leiden: Brill, 1972). Barclay, John M. G. Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

121 The Question of the Eschatological Participation of the Gentiles – Paul and the Gift, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Betz, Otto. “Die heilgeschichtliche Rolle Israels bei Paulus,” ThBei 9.20 (1978): 1–21. Bornkamm, G. “μυστήριον, μυέω,” TDNT 4:803–27. Bockmuehl, Markus N. A. Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (WUNT 36) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990. Campbell, William S. The Nations in the Divine Economy: Paul’s Covenantal Hermeneutics and Participation in Christ, Lanham et al.: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018. Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992. Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (BRS) Grand Rapids et al.: Eerdmans, 2nd ed. 2000. – “Jesus, Messianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pages 100–09 in Qumran Messianism. Edited by James H. Charlesworth, Herman Lichtenberger and Gerbern S. Oegema, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998. – “Messianism and Exegetical Tradition: The Evidence of the LXX Pentateuch.” Pages 58–81 in Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Culture. Edited by John J. Collins (JSJSup 100) Leiden: Brill, 2005. – The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (ABRL) New York: Doubleday, 1995. Dahl, Nils A. “Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: Epistolary Genre, Content, and Structure.” Pages 117–42 in The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation. Edited by Mark D. Nanos, Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002. Dimant, Devorah. “A Cultic Term in the Psalms of Solomon in the Light of Septuagint,” Textus 9 (1981): 28–51 (in Hebrew) Donaldson, Terence L. Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE), Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007. – Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997. – “Proselytes or ‘Righteous Gentiles’? The Status of Gentiles in Eschatological Pilgrimage Patterns of Thought,” JSP 7 (1990): 3–27. – “Jewish Christianity, Israel’s Stumbling and the Sonderweg Reading of Paul,” JSNT 29 (2006): 27–54. Dunn, James D. G. Romans 9–16 (WBC 38B), Dallas: Word, 1991 (1988). Eckhardt, Benedikt. “The Psalms of Solomon as a Historical Source for the Late Hasmonean Period.” Pages 7–29 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and P. Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Efron, Joshua. “The Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 219–86 in his Studies on the Hasmonean Period (SJLA 39) Leiden: Brill, 1987. Elliot, Neil. “The Question of Politics: Paul as a Diaspora Jew under Roman Rule.” Pages 203–44 in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, Edited by Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Embry, Bradley J. “The Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation,” JSP 13.2 (2002): 99–136. – “Psalms of Assurance: An Analysis of the Formation and Function of the Psalms of Solomon in second Temple Judaism.” Ph.D. diss., Durham University, 2005. Falk, Daniel. “Psalms and Prayers.” Pages 7–56 in Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume 1 – The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism. Edited by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien and Mark A. Seifrid (WUNT II/140) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck/Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33) New York: Doubleday, 1993. Flusser, David. “Psalms, Hymns and Prayer.” Pages 551–77 in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period. Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus. Edited by Michael E. Stone (CRINT 2.2) Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984. Fohrer, Georg. Messiasfrage und Bibelverständnis, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1957.

122 František Ábel Fredriksen, Paula. “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2.” Pages 261–81 in The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation. Edited by Mark D. Nanos, Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002. – “The Question of Worship: Gods, Pagans, and the Redemption of Israel.” Pages 175–201 in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Edited by Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Gray, George B. “The Psalms of Solomon,” APOT 2:625–52. Gruen, Erich S. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 1998. Hann, Robert R. “Christos Kyrios in Ps Sol 17.32: ‘The Lord’s Anointed’ Reconsidered,” NTS 31 (1985): 620–27. – “The Community of the Pious: The Social Setting of the Psalms of Solomon,” Studies in Religion/ Sciences religieuses 17/2 (1988): 169–89. Hilgenfeld, Adolf. “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt,” ZWT 11 (1868): 133–68. Hofius, Otfried. “‘All Israel Will Be Saved’: Divine Salvation and Israel’s Deliverance in Romans 9–11.” Pages 19–39 in The Church and Israel: Romans 9–11: The 1989 Frederick Neumann Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture. Edited by Daniel Migliore (PSBSup 1) Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1990. Holm-Nielsen, Svend. Die Psalmen Salomos (JSHRZ IV/2) Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977. – “Salomos Salmer,” GTP (1970): 2:554–55. Horbury, William. Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ. London: SCM, 1998. – “Messianism in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.” Pages 35–64 in his Messianism among Jews and Christians. Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies. London et al.: T&T Clark – Continuum, 2003. Hübner, Hans. Gottes Ich und Israel. Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9–11. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984. Jewett, Robert. Romans: A Commentary, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Johnson, E. Elizabeth. The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9–11 (SBLDS 109) Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989. Keller, Winfrid. Gottes Treue–Israels Heil. Röm 11,25–27. Die These vom “Sonderweg” in der Diskussion (SBB 40) Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998. Kim, Seyoon. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (WUNT II/4) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981. – “The ‘Mystery’ of Rom 11:25–26 Once More,” NTS 43 (1997): 412–29. Klausner, Joseph. The Messianic Idea in Israel, from Its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah. Translated by William F. Stinespring, New York: Macmillan, 1955. Krämer, H. “μυστήριον,” EDNT (1991): 2:446–49. Kraus, Wolfgang. Das Volk Gottes: Zur Grundlegung der Ekklesiologie bei Paulus (WUNT 85) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996. Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT) Grand Rapids et al.: Eerdmans, 1996. Mowinckel, Sigmund. He That Cometh. Translated by G. W. Anderson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959. Müller, Ulrich B. Prophetie und Predigt im Neuen Testament (SNT 10) Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1975. Mussner, Franz. “‘Ganz Israel wird gerettet werden’ (Röm 11,26). Versuch einer Auslegung,” Kairos 18 (1976): 241–55. Nanos, Mark D. The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002. Nanos, Mark D. and Magnus Zetterholm, ed. Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First Century Context to the Apostle, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Neusner, Jacob, William S. Green, and Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. Judaisms and Their Messiahs, Cambridge: University Press, 1987. Nickelsburg, George W. E. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981.

123 The Question of the Eschatological Participation of the Gentiles Parry, Donald W. and Emmanuel Tov, ed. The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, Leiden: Brill, 2004–05. Pouchelle, Patrick. “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 115-32 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Prigent, Pierre. “Psaumes de Salomon.” Page 984 in La Bible: Écrits Intertestamentare. Edited by André Dupont-Sommer and Marc Philonenko, Paris: Gallimard, 1987. Ryle, Herbert E. and M. R. James. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ. Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon. The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices, Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Runesson, Anders. “Inventing Christian Identity: Paul, Ignatius, and Theodosius I.” Pages 59–92 in Exploring Early Christian Identity. Edited by Bengt Holmberg, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. – “The Question of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul.” Pages 53–78 in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First Century Context to the Apostle. Edited by Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Russell, D. S. The Method & Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, 200 BC–AD 100 (OTL) Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964. Sandnes, Karl Olav. Paul – One of the Prophets? A Contribution to the Apostle’s Self Understanding (WUNT II/43) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991. Sänger, Dieter. “Rettung der Heiden und Erwählung Israels. Einige vorläufige Erwägungen zu Römer 11,25–27,” KD 32 (1986): 112–15. Schnabel, Eckhard J. Early Christian Mission, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Seifrid, Mark A. Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (NovTSup 68) Leiden: Brill, 1992. Schüpphaus, Joachim. Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte der vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts (ALGHJ 7) Leiden: Brill, 1977. Trafton, Joseph. “The Psalms of Solomon in Recent Research,” JSP 12 (1994): 3–19. – “What Would David Do? Messianic Expectation and Surprise in Ps. Sol. 17.” Pages 155–74 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and P. Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “The Sinners and the Lawless in Psalm of Solomon 17,” NovT 35,4 (1993): 359–61. VanLandingham, Chris. Judgment and Justification in early Judaism and the Apostle Paul, Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006. Viteau, Joseph. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version Syriaque par François Martin (Documents pour l’etude de la Bible) Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. Ward, Grant. “The Psalms of Solomon: The Philological Analysis of the Greek and the Syriac Texts” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1996). Wellhausen, Julius. Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer, Greifswald: L. Bamberg, 1874. Wilckens, Ulrich. Der Brief an die Römer (EKKNT 6) Zurich: Benziger, 1978–82. Windsor, Lionel J. Paul and the Vocation of Israel: How Paul’s Jewish Identity Informs His Apostolic Ministry, With Special Reference to Romans (BZNW 205) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014. Winninge, Mikael. Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (CBNTS 26) Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995. Wolter, Michael. “Verborgene Weisheit und Heil für die Heiden. Zur Traditionsgeschichte und Intention des ‘Revelationsschemas’,” ZThK 84 (1987): 297–319. Wright, Robert B. “The Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” OTP 2:636–70. – The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) London: T&T Clark, 2007. Wyse, Marion. Variations on the Messianic Theme: A Case Study of Interfaith Dialogue (Judaism and Jewish Life) Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2009. Zeller, Dieter. Der Brief an die Römer. Übersetzt und erklärt (RNT) Regensburg: Pustet, 1985.





PsSal 16,4 et Ac 26,14 ou l’aiguillon de l’héllenisme Marc Rastoin Dans les Actes des Apôtres, sans doute écrit vers 95 à la fin du 1er siècle, Luc emploie une expression originale pour évoquer la résistance de l’apôtre à la grâce de Dieu. Jésus lui dit σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν “il t’est dur de regimber contre l’aiguillon” (Ac 26,14). Une expression qui, de l’avis quasi unanime des commentateurs, provient d’un proverbe populaire lui-même dérivé d’Euripide. Or dans les Psaumes de Salomon nous trouvons: “Dans sa vigilance, comme l’aiguillon pique le cheval, ainsi m’a-t-il piqué”(PsSal 16,4a) ἔνυξέν με ὡς κέντρον ἵππου ἐπὶ τὴν γρηγόρησιν αὐτοῦ (LXT). Le Seigneur a agi comme un aiguillon pour que l’orant de ce psaume entre dans sa mission de veilleur tout comme l’aiguillon de Dieu a permis à Paul d’entrer dans sa mission d’apôtre. Est-il possible d’y voir un topos? L’allusion de Luc à Euripide est fréquemment notée par les commentateurs. C’est ainsi que l’un d’entre eux, celui du célèbre Anchor Bible Commentary, J. Fitzmyer, observe que “though the Risen Christ addresses Paul in Aramaic, he quotes a common Greek proverb, which is otherwise not found in Jewish literature. In various forms, it occurs in Euripides, Bacchae 794–95 (‘than kick against the goads’); Aeschylus, Prometheus 324– 25; Agamemnon 1624; Pindar, Pythian Odes 2 94–95; cf. TDNT 3 366–67. In Greek literature the proverb expresses as idle or useless any resistance to divine influence in future conduct”1. Ce même auteur renvoie à une vieille bibliographie de base sur la question des allusions aux Bacchantes et à Euripide dans l’œuvre de Luc2. Mais, à ma connaissance, un seul commentateur récent a explicitement fait le lien avec Psaumes de Salomon 16. Il s’agit de C. Barrett dans son également célèbre commentaire des Actes qui commence par observer: “The proverb is a Greek one (from Pindar and the Tragedians onward) and therefore unlikely to have presented itself to Paul’s conscious mind at the time of his conversion”3. Pour ma part, je ne vois pas pourquoi un pharisien hellénophone de la diaspora, originaire de la très cultivée et philosophique Tarse, ne pourrait pas avoir cette culture! Cela dit, mon opinion est qu’il ne s’agit en l’occurrence aucunement d’un ‘souvenir’ personnel de Paul mais d’une sophistication littéraire et théologique de Luc. Comme toutes les allusions du même ordre dans les Actes, elle vise à établir la crédibili Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, ABC 31 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 758. Cf. Wilhelm Nestle, “Anklänge an Euripides in der Apostelgeschichte,” Philologus 59 (1900): 46– 57; Robert C. Horn, “Classical Quotations and Allusions of St Paul,” The Lutheran Church Quarterly 11 (1938): 281–88, esp. 287–88; Alfred Vögeli, “Lukas und Euripides,” TZ 9 (1953): 415–38, esp. 416–18; John Hackett, “Echoes of the Bacchae of Euripides in Acts of the Apostles?” ITQ 23 (1956): 219–27, 350–66; S. Reyero, “Durum est tibi contra stimulum calcitrare: Hechos de los Apóstoles, 26,14,” Studium (1970): 367–78, Fitzmyer, Acts, 759. 3 Cf. Charles K. Barrett, Acts 15–28, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (International Critical Commentary), Volume 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 1158 (souligné par moi). 1 2

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té, légitimité et culture du nouveau mouvement chrétien. Celui-ci n’est pas une barbare superstition orientale pour incultes mais une voie de sagesse riche en culture et destinée aux élites hellénistiques. Barrett poursuit immédiatement: “[…] though Knox4 (ibidem) notes Ps. Sol. 16.4 […] to show that the proverb ‘may have been acclimatized in Judaism, and such a proverb might well have found its way into a collection of proverbs available for Jewish students of Greek’”5. Cette dernière observation me parait en revanche très vraisemblable. Et l’usage que font les Pères apologistes des citations grecques va dans ce sens (cf. plus loin le cas de Clément). Est-ce vraiment si inconcevable que des juifs connaissent6, surtout sous forme populaire, des références et proverbes de la culture grecque? Tout d’abord, il me semble nécessaire d’expliciter comment nous voyons la question de la culture juive hellénistique et de son lien avec la terre d’Israël. Suite aux travaux de M. Hengel notamment7, il parait difficile d’opposer une terre d’Israël de langue araméenne radicalement différente des milieux juifs de la diaspora. On pouvait être pharisien très pieux et connaisseur des traditions intertestamentaires et des méthodes d’interprétation prérabbiniques hors de la terre d’Israël comme on pouvait être très hellénisé et au fait des courants philosophiques contemporains en langue grecque à Jérusalem. De ce fait, il n’est plus possible d’opposer judaïsme et hellénisme ou pharisaïsme et hellénisme de façon binaire. Le judaïsme était une religion hellénistique, par excellence même, comme dit Erich Gruen8, et les maîtres sadducéens ou pharisiens certainement au fait des évolutions intellectuelles et spirituelles du temps, largement en grec. Le débat sur l’âge auquel Paul le pharisien serait parvenu à Jérusalem pour ses études devient beaucoup moins dé Il s’agit de W. L. Knox, The Acts of the Apostles (Cambridge: University Press, 1948). Les autres commentateurs des Psaumes de Salomon ne relèvent pas ce parallèle. Cf. Herbert E. Ryle et Montague R. James, Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), 120; Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version syriaque par François Martin. Documents pour l’étude de la Bible (Paris: Letouzé et Ané, 1911), 335 qui note “il indique ‘Il m‘a piqué, etc.” pour la pensée, voir x, 1–4 – littéralement: ‘comme l‘aiguillon du cheval (pique le cheval)’ et peut-être faudrait-il corriger ippou en ippon). Il faut entendre par “aiguillon” tout instrument coupant, comme l‘éperon, cf. Eccl. xii,11, Eccli. xii, 19; xviii, 25; prov xxvi, 3. Presque sûrement la comparaison est tirée du cheval de guerre”; Svend Holm-Nielsen, Die Psalmen Solomos (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977): 95 note le parallèle avec Os 13,14, et indique également que κέντρον n‘est jamais employé avec cheval dans la Bible, le plus proche demeurant Pr 26,3; Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 320. Dans son analyse de Ps Sal 16, František Ábel, The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul, WUNT 416 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), ne mentionne également que Pr 26,3, p. 171. 6 La culture helléniste de Philon d’Alexandrie est bien connue et l’on peut noter que, lui aussi, emploie l’image de l’aiguillon pour parler d’Israël résistant à Dieu. Dans le De congressu eruditionis gratia, il écrit que “comme on use d’un aiguillon aiguisé pour les chevaux rétifs”(καθάπερ ἵπποις ἀφηνιασταῖς, ὀξὺ κέντρον). 7 Cf. Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period (London: SCM, 1974), ou encore Martin Hengel, “Judaism and hellenism revisited,” in Hellenism in the Land of Israel, éd. John J. Collins et Gregory E. Sterling (Notre Dame: University Press, 2001) 6–37, et, pour une reprise récente de cet héritage, Jörg Frey, “‘Judaism’ and ‘Hellenism’: Martin Hengel’s work in perspective,” in Jewish cultural encounters in the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World, éd. Mladen Popović et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2017) 96–118. 8 Cf. Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 4 5

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cisif tout comme le débat sur l’origine pharisienne ou pas des psaumes de Salomon. Il en va de même de leur emplacement géographique. C’est à partir des éléments fournis par le texte, tels qu’ils entrent en consonance ou dissonance avec des textes contemporains que nous pouvons bâtir une argumentation plus ou moins convaincante sur la reprise d’un topos ou l’éclairage d’un argument ou d’un thème théologique. Dans les travaux récents sur Luc-Actes, l’importance des références grecques a été de plus en plus mise en valeur9. Un élément intéressant à noter est qu’il semble aux spécialistes que ce n’est pas directement au texte original que l’auteur – comme la majorité des auteurs de son temps – se réfère mais bien à des recueils d’aphorismes et maximes ou tout simplement à des proverbes populaires. La postérité de cette technique s’atteste par le fait qu’un Clément d’Alexandrie (150–215) la pratique également. Dans un travail de recherche récent, portant sur les citations d’Euripide dans l’œuvre de Clément, l’auteur aboutit à ces conclusions: “Clément semble être un connaisseur érudit d’Euripide. Dans l’œuvre de Clément, on trouve 89 citations littérales, sans compter les références implicites. Les pages du Stromate VI où Clément développe la théorie du plagiat sont le meilleur exemple de cette érudition. Cependant, nous n’avons pas les éléments pour mesurer son originalité, c’est-à-dire, pour indiquer quel pourcentage de ces citations sont extraits directement des tragédies. Nous disposons d’éléments pour affirmer le contraire: N. Zeegers a démontré que Clément a utilisé des recueils de citations dans le Protreptique. Les commentaires de A. Le Boulluec à propos de Stromate V soulignent également que, dans certains passages, Clément dépend de recueils de citations”10. Ceci corrobore ce que MacDonald dit de Luc et ce que semble révéler la pratique de l’auteur (ou des auteurs) des Psaumes de Salomon. Euripide est le quatrième auteur cité par Clément après Paul, Platon et Homère. Parfois le propos est légèrement modifié pour s’adapter au contexte et parfois aussi utilisé sans que la référence soit mentionnée: il s’agit dans ce cas d’allusions culturelles codées repérables essentiellement par les connaisseurs. On peut relever également que le contexte d’origine des citations importe peu: ce qui frappe, c’est qu’il s’agit d’une utilisation très pragmatique visant à établir la morale ou la théologie de l’auteur. Repérer des proverbes ou expressions culturelles hellénistiques dans les Psaumes de Salomon ne permet pour autant pas d’établir sur ce seul fait des conclusions trop assurées sur le milieu d’origine. Des cercles pharisiens, en diaspora ou pas, pouvaient parfaitement maîtriser ces codes culturels et ne pas voir dans leur emploi une concession excessive à l’air du temps. Paul lui-même, le seul pharisien d’avant 70 que nous connaissons de première main, cite à l’occasion Ménandre voire Aristote (cf. Ga 5,23b, “contre de telles choses il n’y a pas de loi”) sans pour autant le dire ni s’en vanter. La chose parait 9 Cf. Dennis R. MacDonald, “Greek poetry and the Acts of the Apostles: imitations of Euripides’ Bacchae,” in Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture, éd. Stanley E. Porter et Andrew W. Pitts (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 463–96. 10 Cf. Juan Pablo Romero Tejada, Les citations d’Euripide chez Clément d’Alexandrie: Leur portée pour le dialogue entre foi et culture, mémoire de M2 sous la direction de Michel Fédou (Paris: Centre Sèvres 2018), 43. Il s’appuie notamment sur Nicole Zeegers-Vander Vorst, Les citations des poètes grecs chez les apologistes chrétiens du IIe siècle, Recueil de travaux d’Histoire et de Philologie 4a série, Fascicule 47 (Louvain: Université de Louvain 1972). Il note p. 54 en conclusion que “nous avons des preuves que certaines d’entre elles [les citations] ont été tirées par Clément de recueils d’origine stoïcienne et d’origine judéo-helléniste.”

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toute naturelle et elle l’était sans doute pour les auteurs du temps. Le judaïsme, ou plutôt les judaïsmes pouvaient différer sur leur rapport à la Loi ou leur conception des commandements, sans que cela entraîne nécessairement une position idéologique d’hostilité par rapport à la langue et à la culture grecque. Ce qui serait intéressant ce serait de faire une enquête approfondie des références culturelles implicites des Psaumes de Salomon pour mieux évaluer le degré de connaissance de la culture hellénistique de ou des auteurs11. Pour autant, une fois de plus, cela ne nous donnerait pas nécessairement une indication univoque que leur localisation géographique et spirituelle au sein du judaïsme du temps, pluriel, dynamique et maître dans l’art des échanges culturels12.

Bibliographie Ábel, František. The Psalms of Solomon and the Messianic Ethics of Paul (WUNT II/416) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Atkinson, Kenneth. An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. Barrett, C. K. Acts 15–28, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 2 (International Critical Commentary) Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998. Bons, Eberhard. “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4.” Pages 49–78 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Édité par Eberhard Bons et Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Boyarin, Daniel. A Traveling Homeland. The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Acts of the Apostles (AB 31) New York: Doubleday, 1998. Frey, Jörg. “‘Judaism’ and ‘Hellenism’: Martin Hengel’s work in perspective.” Pages 96–118 in Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World . Édité par Mladen Popović, et al. (JSJ.S 178) Leiden, Brill, 2017. Gruen, Erich S. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Hackett, J. “Echoes of the Bacchae of Euripides in Acts of the Apostles?” ITQ 23 (1956): 350–66. Hengel, Martin. Judaism and hellenism: studies in their encounter in Palestine during the early hellenistic period, London: SCM, 1974. – “Judaism and hellenism revisited.” Pages 6–37 in Hellenism in the Land of Israel. Édité par John J. Collins et Gregory E. Sterling, Notre Dame: University Press, 2001. Holm-Nielsen, Svend. Die Psalmen Salomos (JSHRZ IV/2) Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977. Horn, R. C. “Classical Quotations and Allusions of St Paul,” LCQ 11 (1938) 281–88. Knox, W. L. The Acts of the Apostles, Cambridge: University Press, 1948. MacDonald, Dennis R. “Greek poetry and the Acts of the Apostles: Imitations of Euripides’ Bacchae.” Pages 463–96 in Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture. Édité par Stanley E. Porter et Andrew W. Pitts, Leiden, Brill, 2013. Dans son article sur les allusions philosophiques de PsSal 9,4 E. Bons va dans ce sens. Cf. Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon. The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4”, in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, éd. Eberhard Bons et Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 49–58. Il écrit à juste titre: “Despite the hebraizing style of the Psalms of Solomon, some words or expressions betray a Greek background”, p. 58. En effet, “it cannot be excluded that Jewish authors living in Jerusalem had a certain knowledge of contemporary hellenistic philosophy”, p. 54. Certes! 12 Le vocabulaire des “emprunts” et des “influences” étant extrêmement trompeur comme le remarque avec vigueur Daniel Boyarin. Cf. Daniel Boyarin, A Traveling Homeland. The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). 11

129 PsSal 16,4 et Ac 26,14 ou l’aiguillon de l’héllenisme Nestle, W. “Anklänge an Euripides in der Apostelgeschichte,” Philologus 59 (1900): 46–57. Reyero, S. “‘Durum est tibi contra stimulum calcitrare’: Hechos de los Apóstoles, 26,14,” Studium (1970) 367–78. Ryle, Herbert E. et M. R. James. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ. Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon. The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices, Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Tejada, Juan Pablo Romero. Les citations d’Euripide chez Clément d’Alexandrie: Leur portée pour le dialogue entre foi et culture. Mémoire de M2 sous la direction de Michel Fédou, Paris: Centre Sèvres 2018. Viteau, Joseph. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version Syriaque par François Martin (Documents pour l’etude de la Bible) Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. Vögeli, A. “Lukas und Euripides,” TZ 9 (1953): 415–38. Zeegers-Vander Vorst, Nicole. Les citations des poètes grecs chez les apologistes chrétiens du IIe siècle (Recueil de travaux d’Histoire et de Philologie 4a série, Fascicule 47) Louvain: Université de Louvain, 1972.





The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found and Its Importance for the History of the Reception of This Text* Patrick Pouchelle Gennadios II Scholarios (ca. 1405–ca. 1473 CE) is the first patriarch of Constantinople under Ottoman rule. Known as a scholar and specialist of Aristotle, he was favorable to the union between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church. Scholarios accompanied the Byzantine Emperor to the Council of Florence (1439 CE) in an effort to heal this schism. However, he later renounced his former view and became the leader of the anti-Latin Orthodox party. Yet, he was interested in the work of Saint Thomas of Aquinas and made an adaptation of his writings in Greek. Retired as a monk in 1449 CE, he was captured during the 1453 CE siege of Constantinople by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II (a.k.a. “Mehmet the Conqueror”). Mehmet II appointed Scholarios as the Orthodox Patriarch. For Mehmet II, Scholarios was a good solution to gain the political support of the Greek population and to prevent them from seeking Western help. After some years of being patriarch, Scholarios finally resigned and dedicated the rest of his life to writing.1 On the occasion of his resignation, Scholarios wrote a letter justifying the fall of Constantinople and his decision to leave his position as Patriarch.2 His letter contains the earliest known Greek quotations from the Psalms of Solomon. * I warmly thank Kenneth Atkinson and Felix Albrecht of their enthusiastic reception, correction and improvement of this article. All remaining errors are mine. 1 For more details about the life and the work of Gennadios Scholarios and on the debate over his resignation, see Michael Angold, The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans: Context and Consequences (Turning Points, London: Routledge, 2012), 61–80; Marie-Hélène Blanchet, Georges-Gennadios Scholarios (vers 1400–vers 1472) – Un intellectuel orthodoxe face à la disparition de l’empire byzantin, Archive de l’Orient Chrétien 20 (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 2008); F. Tinnefeld, “Georgios Gennadios Scholarios,” in La théologie Byzantine et sa tradition, ed. G. and V. Conticello, Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), II, 477–541; Christopher Livanos, Greek Tradition and Latin Influence in the Work of George Scholarios (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006); C. Barbour, The Byzantine Thomism of Gennadios Scholarios (Studi Tomistici, 53, Vatican: Pontificia Accademia di S. Tommaso et di religione catholica, 1993); and the older C .J. G. Turner, “The Career Of George-Gennadius Scholarius,” Byzantion 39 (1969): 420–55; Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Cambridge: University Press, 1959, and idem, Personalities of the Council of Florence and Other Essays (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964), 79–94. 2 The Greek text has been edited in Martin Jugie, Louis Petit, and Xenophon A Siderides, Oeuvres complètes de Georges (Gennadios) Scholarios, vol. 4 (Paris: Maison de la bonne presse, 1935): 198–235. For a French translation, see Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople: Traduction,” in Constantinople 1453: Des Byzantins aux Ottomans, Textes et documents, ed. Vincent Déroche and Nicolas Vatin (Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016), 893–923. To my knowledge, the text has not been translated in English or German. Some excerpts have been translated in Italian in Agostino Pertusi, ed., La caduta di Costantinopoli: Le testimonianze dei contemporanei (Milan: Arnoldi Mondadori, 2001), 240–53.

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The first quotation occurs roughly in the middle of the fourth section of his letter and reads: Ἀνεκάλυψας, φησί, τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν, ἵνα φανῇ τὸ κρῖμά σου.

The word φησί is from Scholarios himself, introducing a quotation of Psalm of Solomon 2:17. A longer quotation is in the beginning to the fifth section. It is well delineated from the surrounding text of his letter. It starts with Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τὰ καὶ τά, φησίν, ἐποίησαν Ἰουδαῖοι, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν (“Indeed, it is said that because the Jews did that and that, and, to say, in short)” and ends with καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς τοῦ λογίου (“and what follows in the scripture”). The quotation is a combination of Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8, more accurately between Psalm of Solomon 8:13–18. 19b–20. 22b and Psalm of Solomon 2:1b and 2:3–6 according to the following complex structure: Psalm of Solomon 2:1b has been inserted between Psalm of Solomon 8:15 and Psalm of Solomon 8:16. Psalm of Solomon 2:3–6 has been added after Psalm of Solomon 8:22. This merger is unattested in any known witness, which suggests that it originated with Scholarios. The discovery of Gennadios’ citations from the Psalms of Solomon should be credited to the French Byzantine scholar, Marie-Hélène Congourdeau. She acknowledged that the Psalms of Solomon belongs to the Septuagint and that Scholarios gives them the same authority as the other Biblical books and briefly discusses some variants.3 Her aim was to translate and comment the letter and not to study the way Scholarios used scriptures. Therefore, she takes as granted that the Psalms of Solomon belongs to the Septuagint, which is debated.4 She also relies on the Septuagint edition of Rahlfs and ignores the critical edition of von Gebhardt,5 as well as the Greek text of Wright.6 Because the apparatus criticus of Rahlfs is not exhaustive, Congourdeau mistakenly attributes some variants to Scholarios whereas they are found in other manuscripts not cited in Rahlfs.7 She also implicitly corrects the edition of Scholarios’ letter towards the text of Rahlfs.8

3 “Scholarios va citer ici dans les deux paragraphes suivants les Psaumes de Salomon. Ces psaumes, considérés comme pseudépigraphes, ne se trouvent pas dans le canon hébraïque et n’ont pas été repris par la plupart des bibles chrétiennes. Cependant ils se trouvent dans la Septante. Scholarios les connaît donc et leur donne une autorité égale à celle des autres livres bibliques.” (Congourdeau, “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople,” 902, n. 19). 4 See the essay of Dorival in this volume. 5 Oscar von Gebhardt, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athosschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1895). 6 Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2007). 7 Cf. Congourdeau, “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople,” 902, n. 22: “‘Leur entrée’: Scholarios. Le psaume porte: ‘son entrée’.” Such variant is nevertheless attested by some manuscripts for Ps. Sol. 8:17. However, Rahlfs did not mention it. 8 Two main examples: She translates πῦρ as “father” in Ps. Sol. 8:18 (ibid. 902, see also note 24), and οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς (Ps. Sol. 2:4) as “je ne me complais pas en elles” (i.e. οὐκ εὐδοκῶ ἐν αὐτοῖς, here she offers no explanation). In both cases, she follows the text edited by Rahlfs.

The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found 133

Unfortunately, scholars doing research on Ps Sol were unaware of the discovery of Congourdeau.9 Consequently, Felix Albrecht was unable to include this quotation in his Greek critical text of the Göttingen edition.10 This is the aim of this essay to discuss these quotations. Two questions are of great interest: 1. Which text did Scholarios use and what is the impact of these quotations for the textual criticism of the Psalms of Solomon and for the history of its textual transmission? 2. How Scholarios used Psalms of Solomon, and why and how does he merges two parts of this composition, and how his use of this text serves his line of argumentation. Moreover, what is the importance of his quotations for the history of interpretation of this text at the occasion of the end of the Byzantine Empire?

1. Which Text Did Gennadios Scholarios Use? The collation of differences between Scholarios’ quotations and the edited text of the Psalms of Solomon are presented below in a format similar to that used by Albrecht in his new critical edition:11 Ps. Sol. 2:1 κατέβαλλε (253 336)] κατέβαλε (769 260ˊʼ) | ἐκώλυσας] ἐκώλυσεν αὐτόν 3 Ἱερουσαλήμ] Ισραηλ | τὰ ἅγια κυρίου] αὐτὰ πρότερον | ἐβεβηλοῦσαν (253)] ἐβεβήλουν (336-769 260ˊʼ) 4 εὐόδωκεν] ἔδωκεν (Sy? See discussion below) | ἀπορίψατε (253)] ἀπορρίψατε (769 260ˊʼ; ἀπερρίψατε 336) 5 αὐτῆς (471 Sy10h1)] αὐτοῦ (253 336-769 260-606 Sy16h1)| ἐξουθενώθη] ἐξουθενήθη (260ˊʼ) | om. ἕως (260ˊʼ) 6 θυγατέρες] + αὐτῶν. Ps. Sol. 8:15 ἤγαγεν (253 769)] -γε (336-629 260ˊʼ) | κραταιῶς] ἰσχυρῶς | ἔκρινεν (253)] -νε rel. 16 ἠπάντησαν (253)] ὑπήντησαν (ἀπήντησαν 336 769ˊ 260ˊʼ) | οἱ ἄρχοντες τῆς γῆς] add. οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ δηλονότι | εἶπαν (253)] εἶπον rel. | εἰσέλθατε (253)] εἰσέλθετε rel. 17 αὐτοῦ] αὐτῶν (260ˊʼ) | ἐστεφάνωσαν τείχη αὐτῆς] deest 18 πατήρ] πῦρ | ἔστησεν (253 769)] praemittit καί (Sy 16h1); -σε (336629 260ˊʼ) 20 ἀπώλεσεν] -λησεν (mendose) | πᾶν (253)] πάντα rel. | ἐξέχεεν (253 769)] ἐξέχεε (336-629 260ˊʼ) | τῶν οἰκούντων Ιερουσαλημ] αὐτῶν.

In addition, one should note that the text of Scholarios agrees four times with the edited text of Albrecht against some other witnesses. For example, in Psalm of Solomon 2:17, Albrecht mentions one unique variant, αὐτοῦ in the manuscript 769, which was corrected by a scribe at a later stage toward the majority reading, αὐτῶν. In Psalm of Solomon 8:14 Scholarios witnesses αὐτούς instead of αὐτοῖς (260ˊʼ), in verse 15 of the same psalm,

I am very sorry for having missed the reference of Congourdeau until 2019 when I independently rediscovered this quotation of Gennadios through a request on TLG. 10 Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, Septuaginta vetus testamentum Graecum XII,3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018). 11 Only variants attested by Scholarios are here presented. In brackets, the manuscript with which Scholarios agrees or Sy for Syriac when relevant. If “rel.” is mentioned that means that Scholarios agrees with all the other manuscripts. Therefore, if a variant is not followed by the mention of one or several manuscripts (in brackets or with “rel.”), that means that this variant is unique to Scholarios. Moreover, if the variant attested by Scholarios is followed by one or several variants in brackets with the indication of manuscripts, that means that some manuscripts offer a variant different both from the edited text and from the text of Scholarios. 9

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the second τὸν is present (omitted in manuscript 336) and in Psalm of Solomon 8:19, the article ὁ is present in the text of Scholarios and in 253 but omitted by 336 769ˊ 260ˊʼ. This comparison shows that the text of Scholarios shares many variants with the family of manuscript 260 (hereafter abridged 260ˊʼ as done by Albrecht).12 Each time Scholarios differs from the edited text of Albrecht, it is either unique or in agreement with 260ˊʼ with or without other textual witnesses (like 336, 629 or 769). The case of Psalm of Solomon 2:5 is special as the manuscript 471 (belonging to 260ˊʼ) seems to witness alone the better reading αὐτῆς, Scholarios is here in agreement with all the other witnesses. Yet Scholarios differs twice from 260ˊʼ. In Psalm of Solomon 8:14, the text agrees with all the other manuscripts against 260ˊʼ. There, ποτίζω is followed by αὐτοὺς instead of αὐτοῖς (260ˊʼ). The verb ποτίζω seems hardly attested with the dative.13 Although it could also be a secondary correction toward a better Greek construction, the text attested by Scholarios could date earlier than manuscript 260 (deriving from the so-called η stemma). The same could be said about Psalm of Solomon 8:19, where the text of Scholarios contains the substantive θεός preceded by the article in agreement with 253 alone. This may be ancient or a secondary harmonization by Scholarios himself as all the occurrences of θεός in his quotations are preceded by the article. There is no other family that is so close to our text. It differs many times from 253, which is the base of the edited text of Albrecht, but also 3 times from 629,14 5 times from 336 and 7 times from 769. Hence, the text may well be grouped with the family 260ˊʼ. Further analysis should confirm this hypothesis, as Scholarios witnesses some unique variants. Could these variants date back to an ancient archetype or are they secondary or even coined by Scholarios himself? Some of the variants are best explained by Scholarios’ alteration of the text to fit his theological agenda. Hence, the merging of Psalm of Solomon 2 and 8 alters the meaning of the whole texts, as I will discuss in the next section of this essay. For instance, in Psalm of Solomon 2:1b, ἐκώλυσας (2nd pers. masc. sing.) is addressed to God. But the whole long quotation of Scholarios is rather a matter of description, God is never addressed. It is therefore more probable that ἐκώλυσας was replaced by Scholarios by ἐκώλυσεν (3rd pers. masc. sing.), speaking of God. The mention of the destruction of the wall by the battering ram (Ps. Sol. 2:1b) probably led Scholarios to delete all the further mentions of the walls in his quotation: one could not find any longer ἐστεφάνωσαν τείχη αὐτῆς This family owns the manuscripts 260, 149, 471 and 606. Except in at least one inscription (OGI 200.16 from the 4th cent. C.E.), for something drunk. 14 This manuscript is close to 769. According to von Gebhardt, 769 and 629 derived from an older archetype (θ) which ultimately derives from an archetype common to them and 260 (ζ from which derived η the origin of 260). According to Wright, the stemma is highly complex. 769 and 629 derives from the archetype “n” which derived itself from “t”. the archetype “t” and another archetype “x” may be the source from both 149 and 260. On basis of the editions of von Gebhardt or Wright, the text of Scholarios may derive from a text belonging to the common branch of both 260ˊʼ and 769/629. According to Albrecht, however, 629 is a copy from 769. Does the text of Gennadios could be of some help for assessing which model is better? In fact, all the differences between 769 and 629 are relative to the absence of the letter “ν” in the conjugation of the third person singular. One could admit that the process of elimination of this letter occurs more than once in the manuscript history of Psalms of Solomon. In this case, the agreement of 629 with Scholarios are not relevant to refute the reconstruction made by Albrecht. 12 13

The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found 135

“they crowned her walls” (Ps. Sol. 2:16) denoting the fact that the “rulers of the earth” decorated Jerusalem for welcoming the foreign invader. The same could be said of the absence of κατελάβετο τὰς πυργοβάρεις αὐτῆς καὶ τὸ τεῖχος Ἱερουσαλήμ, “He captured her fortresses and the wall of Jerusalem” (Ps. Sol. 8:19a), perhaps perceived as redundant with the quotation of Psalm of Solomon 2:1b. The addition of οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ δηλονότι (“that is to say the angels of God”) contributes to Scholarios’ agenda. In Psalm of Solomon 8, the rulers of the earth are more specifically the rulers of the Judean province but the current quotation of Scholarios specifies that οἱ ἄρχοντες τῆς γῆς were in fact angels of God, implicitly in charge of applying the punishment decided by God. A last variant that corresponds to this shift is the mention of the fire instead of the father. The variant could date back from the abbreviation π(η)ρ for πατήρ which has been read as πῦρ. Yet, this reading could have been made easier as it definitively avoids the original interpretation: the invader has not entered the city like a peaceful father but like a burning fire.15 Another important alteration is the replacement of τὰ ἅγια κυρίου by αὐτὰ πρότερον in Psalm of Solomon 2:3. Placed after Psalm of Solomon 8:22b by Scholarios, this explains how the foreign invader polluted the temple of Jerusalem because the son of Israel16 polluted it firstly. Finally, Scholarios may also well have replaced τῶν οἰκούντων Ἱερουσαλήμ by αὐτῶν in Psalm of Solomon 8:20 which seems to carry on the two preceding αὐτῶν. Other clear secondary alterations could be in Psalm of Solomon 8:16, where Scholarios attests ὑπήντησαν whereas the edited text of Albrecht reads ἠπάντησαν as found in manuscript 253. For Albrecht, this reading is more representative of the Greek koine.17 Other manuscripts witness ἀπήντησαν, which is more common. This suggests that the reading of manuscript 253 should be followed. As for Scholarios, ὑπήντησαν differs from the secondary ἀπήντησαν of one letter only. It seems that it derives from the latter according to the following order of alteration: ἠπάντησαν > ἀπήντησαν > ὑπήντησαν. As a matter of fact, ὑπαντάω and ἀπαντάω have roughly the same meaning “to meet.” In Psalm of Solomon 8:20, Scholarios attests ἀπώλησεν instead of ἀπώλεσεν. The variant attested by Scholarios is manifestly Byzantine. Yet, the four remaining variants could point towards another textual tradition: 1. In Psalm of Solomon 8:15, instead of κραταιῶς attested by all the manuscripts, Scholarios used ἰσχυρῶς. Both adverbs are attested only four times in the LXX. Their meaning is close enough so that they rendered the same Hebrew word in the two textual traditions of Judges 8:1 (ἰσχυρῶς in B and κραταιῶς in A). I consider ἰσχυρῶς as secondary. Indeed, ἰσχυρῶς is much more frequent as κραταιῶς in classical literature. Moreover, ProverbsLXX 22:3 deals with wicked that are punished strongly (κραταιῶς) 15 Congourdeau, “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople,” 902, n. 24 suggest an error of reading. She did not really examine whether this error was made by Scholarios, or by the transmission of the letter, or in the text used by Scholarios. Should my interpretation be correct, this should be attributed to Scholarios. But this remains a little bit speculative, as Mehmet II entered quietly in the town, as witnessed by Kritoboulos, Hist. § 68, see the greek text in Kritoboulos, Critobuli Imbriotae Historiae, ed. Dieter Roderich, Corpus fontium Historiae Byzantinae 22 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983). 16 For the variant Israel, attested by Scholarios alone see below. 17 Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 99–100.

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which leads the righteous to be disciplined.18 Given the importance of the concept of paideia for the Psalms of Solomon, their authors could have been influenced by Proverbs. Later, κραταιῶς was replaced by ἰσχυρῶς. There is no irresistible arguments to attribute this variant to Scholarios. 2. Of minor importance, the apparition of καί before ἔστησεν in Psalm of Solomon 8:18 is supported by the Syriac version. 3. In Psalm of Solomon 2:3, Scholarios attests Ἰσραήλ instead of Ἱερουσαλήμ. The source of this variant is the proximity of the usual abbreviation of Ἱερουσαλήμ, which is ΙΛΗΜ, with the abbreviation of Ἰσραήλ, which is ΙΗΛ. This kind of alteration in the textual transmission occurs in Psalm of Solomon 2:22 or Psalm of Solomon 8:28.19 I would be inclined, in this case, to give the priority to the majority reading. Indeed, while not unique,20 the association of υἱός and Ἱερουσαλήμ is far less frequent than the expression οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ so that the variant attested by Scholarios may well be a lectio facilior. There is no specific reason to attribute it to him. 4. In Psalm of Solomon 2:4, Scholarios attests ἔδωκεν whereas the other manuscripts attest ευοδωκεν. This reading led Hilgenfeld to suggest a conjecture: εὐδοκῶ εν. However, as Albrecht rightly observes, this is useless.21 Indeed, the collocation of εὐοδόω with a dative and an accusative is attested in the LXX owing to the Semitic substrate,22 for denoting that God makes something prospered for someone.23 It should be noticed that the ancient division in verses which include τὸ κάλλος τῆς δόξης αὐτῆς to the preceding verse may have been lost in the main manuscripts, except 336, whereas Scholarios apparently preserves it.24 The use of δίδωμι with δόξα is rather used to express the praising of God.25 1 Chronicles 29:25 could offer some hints: καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ δόξαν βασιλέως, ὃ οὐκ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ παντὸς βασιλέως ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ and he (God) gave him the glory of a king, that had not been upon any king before him.26

Therefore, the variant attested by Scholarios denotes the fact that God did not give to them the beauty of the glory of Jerusalem, which may be the kingship.27 The Syriac version may be a witness for the antiquity of the variant attested by Scholarios with the following reading: 18 πανοῦργος ἰδὼν πονηρὸν τιμωρούμενον κραταιῶς αὐτὸς παιδεύεται, οἱ δὲ ἄφρονες παρελθόντες ἐζημιώθησαν : “When a prudent person sees the wicked punished, he is disciplined powerfully,” or “when a prudent person sees the wicked punished strongly, he is disciplined”. 19 See Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 273. 20 See Joel 4:6. 21 Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 60. 22 See TDNT 5:111. 23 See for instance, 2Chr 26:5, 2Esd 12:20, 1M 4:55, see especially TobBA 7:12: ὁ δὲ ἐλεήμων θεὸς εὐοδώσει ὑμῖν τὰ κάλλιστα “and may the merciful god prosper for you the most beautiful things.” 24 Pace the translation of Congourdeau, p. 903 who follows here the text of Rahlfs “Je ne me complais pas en elle”. For a detailed presentation, see Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 48–49. 25 See e.g. Jos 7:19; 1Kgdms 6:5; 1Chr 16:28. 26 For a similar idea, see Wisdom 10:14. 27 See especially Ps. Sol. 17:5–6.

The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found 137

̇ ̇ ‫ܐܬܩܢ ܥܡܗܘ‬ ‫ܕܬܫܒܘܚܬܗ‬ ‫ܫܘܦܪܐ‬ ‫ܘ�ܠܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܢ‬ ̣

And he did not establish with them the beauty of her glory

Although the more regular ‫“ ܝܗܒ‬to give” is used for the Peshitta of 1 Chronicles 29:25 and Wisdom 10:14, the verb ‫ܬܩܢ‬, “to establish” conveys a meaning which is also conveyed by δίδωμι. In this case, the Syriac would be less “rough” than Harris and Mingana have asserted.28 However, even if this reading is ancient, that would not prove it is better. I would be inclined to accept this variant as it expresses the fact that God does not give to “them”, a specific class of sinners, probably rulers of Jerusalem, the power in Jerusalem, even if this remains a little bit speculative anyway.29 5. In Psalm of Solomon 2:6, Scholarios has added αὐτῶν to θυγατέρες. Even if the Syriac version assumes such possessive pronouns, albeit in the third feminine singular person, this alteration may be secondary, as it probably is a reminiscence of Psalm of Solomon 8:21 (ἀπήγαγεν τοὺς υἱοὺς καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας αὐτῶν), which has been skipped by Scholarios. To conclude, the text witnessed by Scholarios is close to the family of 260ˊʼ. Nothing contradicts the stemma offered by Albrecht. The variants which are unique to this text are either due to Scholarios himself or could be explained by a later alteration of the text’s transmission. Only the variant ἔδωκεν in Psalm of Solomon 2:4 could be ancient. Should it be the case, then the text of Scholarios could derive from a manuscript between the γ or β. In the other case, it derives from a manuscript close to η. The new critical edition of Albrecht offers a new insight in this family 260 as it shows how the so-called Bible of Niketas30 is at the origin of this family.31 This “Bible” has been reconstructed based on three manuscripts which share similarities in codicology and in iconography. It is debated whether it was a complete bible or a partial one containing the sapiential books and the prophets. It was produced in the 10th century CE, at the occasion of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance, perhaps after a model dating from the 6th century, produced at the occasion of the reign of Justinian.32 Both eras were characterized by a greater emphasis on the wisdom of the emperor and on the identification of him with Solomon,33 so that the Psalms of Solomon may have been introduced in the Solomonic corpus during the Justinian era, transmitted in the “Bible of Niketas” produced during the reign of Constantin  VII 28 See Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation, SBLSCS 11 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 33, n. 14. 29 Scholarios may well have made the reading easier. See for instance the variant attested by 655 and 659: ἐνέδωκεν. This is manifestly secondary as both manuscripts have been copied by the same scribe upon Ms 253, see Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 27. 30 Hans Belting and Guglielmo Cavallo, Die Bibel des Niketas, ein Werk der höfischen Buchkunst in Byzanz und sein antikes Vorbild (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1990), 197. See also Hans Belting, “La Bible de Nicetas,” in La civiltà bizantina dal XII al XV Secolo Aspetti e problemi, ed. André Guillou (Università degli studi di Bari, Centro di Studi Bizantini; Rome: ‘L’ERMA’ di Bretschneider, 1982), 309–76. 31 See also Felix Albrecht, “Eine Randbemerkung zur ‘Bibel des Niketas’ im Lichte der Textüberlieferung der Psalmi Salomonis,” Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici N.S. 55 (2018): 81–83. 32 See Belting and Cavallo, Die Bibel des Niketas. However, John Lowden, “An Alternative Interpretation of the Manuscripts of Niketas,” Byzantion 53 (1983): 559–74 put it into doubt. 33 See Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 245–49.

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and later on copied during the era of the Palaiologoi.34 The Bible used by Scholarios may well derive ultimately from the model of the 6th century or more pragmatically from the “Bible of Niketas” itself. In any case, the text has had its own transmission history resulting in new variants, unattested elsewhere but not completely relevant for the textual criticism. Moreover, Albrecht also noticed that the Byzantine scholar Baiophoros copied the manuscript 471 in the monastery Prodromu Petra. Baiophoros and Scholarios knew each other very well and Scholarios had access to the monastery where he may have consulted manuscripts 471 and 606, and perhaps 260 itself.35

2. Why and How Scholarios Used Psalms of Solomon? Congourdeau has discussed the importance of the apocalyptic traditions during the last dynasty of the Byzantine Empire.36 In this context, the use of Psalms of Solomon, as a marginal text offering an interpretation of the distress suffered by the inhabitants of Constantinople, is not completely a surprise. Yet, Scholarios qualifies it as if it belongs to the scriptures. This probably confirms that he used the Psalms of Solomon from a Bible37 and not from a gathering of “non-canonical” apocalyptic texts. It seems probable that in the Bible he used, he found the Psalms of Solomon in the so-called Solomonic corpus as nearly all the other Greek manuscripts known to us place Psalms of Solomon. It would be interesting to ask who were supposed to be the readers of the letter of Scholarios. For him, his quotations raise no question of legitimacy. Did he expect that his reader knew the Psalms of Solomon, or did he simply use his authority without assuming his reader could check? Does it mean that the Psalms of Solomon were better known in the Byzantine Empire that it is usually assumed? This raises also the question of how Scholarios knew the Psalms of Solomon, as an orthodox, i.e. was it used in common liturgy,38 or as a scholar, as Scholarios was before becoming patriarch, or finally as a patriarch? In these two later cases, he may have had at his disposal some books that were unavailable to the common people. I would be inclined to believe that he may have known the Psalms of Solomon because he had a Bible as a scholar. On this, see Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 249–50. See Albrecht, “Randbemerkung,” 81–83. I thank Felix for this invaluable notice. 36 Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Byzance et la fin du monde: Courants de pensée apocalyptiques sous les Paléologues,” in Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople, ed. Stephane Yerasimos and Benjamin Lellouch (Istanbul: L’Harmattan, 1999), 55–97 and eadem, “Jérusalem et Constantinople dans la littérature apocalyptique,” in Le sacré et son inspiration dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident: Études comparées, ed. Michel Kaplan (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001), 125–36. The beginning of modern studies of these thoughts could be date from the classic studies of Charles Diehl, “De quelques croyances byzantines sur la fin de Constantinople,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 30 (1929): 192–96, and Alexander Vasiliev, “Medieval Ideas on the End of the World,” Byzantion 16 (1942/43): 462–502 37 And related to the so-called Bible of Niketas, see above. 38 But the Psalms of Solomon is not quoted in the Byzantine liturgy to my knowledge. 34 35

The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found 139

The way Scholarios used the Psalms of Solomon is specific to the message he wants to convey. The quotations occur in the beginning of the epistle which is structured as follows: In the first section, he explains that he will expose what he thinks about the fall of Constantinople, answering to those accusing him of his silence. In the second section, he praises the Lord for his paternal action who repays the Greeks according to their deeds. In the third section, Scholarios discusses the signs that should have warned the people of Constantinople: Notably, the oracles in the two testaments, with a Deuteronomic flavor, the natural law by which what is good and evil is repaid by divine providence, as witnessed by both sacred and profane authors, and the human experience. All these signs should have been interpreted as foreseeing the fall of Constantinople. Indeed, in the fourth section, Scholarios asserts that these witnesses were neglected and that the Lord allowed a year to repent but, in the meantime, he also allowed the evil of the people to prosper so that it will be clear that the fall of Constantinople was not due to the foreign invader but to the Lord alone. Here is the place for the first quotation of Psalm of Solomon 2:17. He also adds that the excessive confidence given in the human capacity to resist was blinded by the Lord himself.39 Then the fifth section introduces the longest quotation, followed by the assertion that Constantinople was more guilty than Jerusalem as the contemporary Jews did not know Jesus. Until the ninth section, Scholarios describes the consequence of the fall of Constantinople and then turns to his own fate (10–14). He finally concludes by an exhortation to understand what really happened to Constantinople. Hence, the quotation of the Psalms of Solomon is prepared by an argumentation of Scholarios. To my mind, he knows well the Psalms of Solomon as a whole. Indeed, he refers to several notions specific to the Psalms of Solomon even if they do not appear in the quotation. This is especially the case of the divine discipline, whose importance for the Psalms of Solomon is well known,40 which is used to explain the fall of Constantinople: ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν παιδείαν ἰατρείας ψῆφον οὐκ ἀποστροφῆς ἀϊδίου ἱκετεύομέν τε ὁμοῦ εἶναι (§ 2) and then we beseech that the healing correction would not be an eternal rejection.

Such assertion is in line with the Psalms of Solomon that develops this notion of divine discipline and only requests God for the correction not being too strong: καὶ οὐ διαστρέψει ἐν παιδείᾳ (Ps. Sol. 10:3) and he (God) will not mislead by discipline. 39 Did he allude to the union between Catholic and Orthodox churches he vigorously fought? (See notably, Donald M. Lincoln, The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261–1453 (2nd edition, Cambridge: University Press, 1999), 377. In any cases, he probably knew well the belief that Constantinople was built as a new Jerusalem and will not end before the second coming of Jesus-Christ. On this see Vasiliev, “Medieval Ideas”, 464–68. Moreover, he developed some eschatological ideas (see idem, 497–99). 40 See for instance Kenneth Atkinson, “Theodicy in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. Antti Laato and Johannes C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 546–75, or Patrick Pouchelle, “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon. Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 115–32.

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Another time, in the same section, Scholarios explains: ἐν ταῖς θλίψεσι ταραχὴν καὶ ὀλιγόψυχον ἀνίαν καταστέλλομεν τῇ συναισθήσει τῶν αἰτιῶν τῆς παιδείας during the repression, we low down the tumult and the distressed discouragement by being aware of the reasons of the correction

to be compared with: γογγυσμὸν καὶ ὀλιγοψυχίαν ἐν θλίψει μάκρυνον ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ, ἐὰν ἁμαρτήσω ἐν τῷ σε παιδεύειν εἰς ἐπιστροφήν (Ps. Sol. 16:11) Murmur and discouragement in oppression far from me, if I sin when you discipline for repentance.

The concept of divine discipline is of paramount importance for Scholarios to explain that the oppression suffered was permitted by God for the education or the discipline of the people.41 However, other proximities could be found, notably the belief that if Constantinople has fallen, this is not owing to a human enemy but to God alone: οὐκ ἀγνοοῦντας, ὅτι τὰ ἐπελθόντα τῇ μητροπόλει δεινὰ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ προδήλως ἐπῆλθον, καὶ ἐκ τῆς οὐρανίου δίκης, οὐκ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν τὴν ἰσχὺν εἶχεν ἡ ἐπελθοῦσα καὶ κατεργασαμένη ἡμᾶς τῶν ἐχθρῶν δύναμις πᾶσα καὶ τέχνη καὶ μηχανή (section 4) [they] are not ignorant that the terrible things that occurred to the Metropolis occurred manifestly from God and from the heavenly judgment, and all the power of the enemies, (their) art and (their) engine which come and subdued us did not have their strength from another source.

This is precisely the argument of Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8. Moreover, Scholarios also insists on the fact that the punishment corresponds exactly to the exactions committed. For Scholarios, God has permitted: τὴν ἡμῶν οὕτως ἐξαφθῆναι κακίαν καὶ τῇ παρασκευῇ τῆς δίκης ἀνταποκρίνασθαι [that] kindle therefore our badness and (that it may) corresponds to the prepared judgment.

This is again a topos of the Psalms of Solomon, which explains several times that the judgment was made according to the deeds of the sinners: ὅτι ἀπέδωκας τοῖς ἁμαρτωλοῖς κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν τὰς πονηρὰς σφόδρα (Ps. Sol. 2:17) Because, you repaid the sinners according to their works and according to their very evil sins.

See also § 9, Νῦν κατανοοῦμεν τὴν αἰσχύνην τῶν ἡμετέρων προσώπων ὡς ἐν κατόπτροις ταῖς συμφοραῖς ἐν αἷς ἐπαιδεύθημεν, a rather clear reference to 2 M 6:12: 12 Παρακαλῶ οὖν τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας τῇδε τῇ βίβλῳ μὴ συστέλλεσθαι διὰ τὰς συμφοράς, λογίζεσθαι δὲ τὰς τιμωρίας μὴ πρὸς ὄλεθρον, ἀλλὰ πρὸς παιδείαν τοῦ γένους ἡμῶν εἶναι which convey an ideology close to that of Ps. Sol., on that, see Patrick Pouchelle, “The Septuagintal Paideia and the Construction of a Jewish Identity during the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019): 33–45. 41

The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found 141

So that the God will be justified in his judgment: μετὰ τὴν δικαιοτάτην τῆς οὐρανίου δίκης κατὰ τῶν ἡμετέρων εἰς αὐτὴν παρανομιῶν ἐπεξέλευσιν (§ 3) After the most just correction of the heavenly judgment according to our transgression toward it.

Or Ὄντως ἀληθεῖς αἱ κρίσεις σου, Κύριε, καὶ δικαιοσύνης κατασχοῦσαι τὴν ἄκραν (§ 9). Really, your judgements are truth, Lord, and they hold the height of the justice.

These should be compared to the many references, where the Solomonic psalmist acknowledges the just punishment of God: ἐδικαιώσαμεν τὸ ὄνομά σου τὸ ἔντιμον εἰς αἰῶνας, ὅτι σὺ ὁ θεὸς τῆς δικαιοσύνης κρίνων τὸν Ισραηλ ἐν παιδείᾳ (Ps. Sol. 8:26) we have justified your honored name for ever, because you are the God of justice, judging Israel with discipline.

This is also the opportunity for Scholarios to quote the Psalms of Solomon for the first time (section 4): ἀλλὰ τὸ θεῖον ἀρκούντως ἐν τοῖς καθ’ ἡμῶν δικαιωθείη κρίμασιν· Ἀνεκάλυψας, φησί, τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν, ἵνα φανῇ τὸ κρῖμά σου. On the contrary, the divinity would be enough justified in is judgment against us: “you uncovered”, it is said, “their sins that your judgment would be manifested” (a quotation of Ps. Sol. 2:17).

The longest quotation occurs in a later line and is announced as a scriptural anticipation of the fall of Constantinople. The complex merging between Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8 deserves some study as it alters deeply the meaning of Psalm of Solomon 8. This text dealt initially with a foreign invader who enters peacefully in Jerusalem whose gates were opened by the rulers of the town. The placement of Psalm of Solomon 2:1b after 8:15 changes radically the meaning: the foreign invader destructed the wall of Jerusalem with a battering ram. The mention of the destruction of the wall leads all the other mentions of the walls useless and they were deleted. This emphasis is certainly in line with the fact that the Byzantines were very proud of the walls of Constantinople joined to the fact that Mehmet II built many war engines so as to enter the city, including battering rams.42 Moreover, the addition of οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ δηλονότι (“that is to say the angels of God”) and the reading πῦρ instead of πατήρ contributes to this shift. In Psalm of Solomon 8, the rulers of the earth are more specifically the rulers of the Judean province who welcomed the

42 But also a huge cannon. On the engine wars used during the siege, see for instance The Diary of Nicolò Barbaro, see A. Sopracasa “Nicolò Barbaro, Journal du siège de Constantinople,” in Constantinople 1453: Des Byzantins aux Ottomans, Textes et documents. ed. Vincent Déroche and Nicolas Vatin (Famagouste; Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016), 455–501, esp. 487, in the epistle of Leonard of Chios to the Pope Nicholas V, see Christine Gadrat-Ouerfelli, et al. “Leonardo de Chio, Lettre au pape Nicolas V (Chio, le 16 août 1453),” in Constantinople 1453, 681–728, esp. 700.

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foreigner. But in the quotation of Scholarios, a marginal note, probably from himself, indicates that it was the divine angels, in charge of applying the divine judgement,43 who welcomed Mehmet II and he is not entered as a father but as a fire.44 Hence, the harsh description of the murder and the profanation resonates with what currently happened: Ἀπώλησεν ἄρχοντας αὐτῶν καὶ πάντα σοφὸν ἐν βουλῇ· ἐξέχεε τὸ αἷμα αὐτῶν ὡς ὕδωρ ἀκαθαρσίας. He destroyed their rulers and every man wise in counsel. He poured out the blood of them like water of uncleanness.

The massacre that followed the victory of Mehmet II is described by many texts referring to the fall of Constantinople.45 The mention of impurity allows Scholarios to go directly to verse 22b and to skip the description of the fault of the people of Jerusalem. Indeed, the absence of the verse 21 which deals with the fate of the boys and the girls of Jerusalem probably follow the same aim at avoiding redundancy, as the quotation of Scholarios finishes with the mention of the boys and girls of Jerusalem sent away in captivity (Ps. Sol. 2:6). The beginning of the verse 22 explains the reason of this exile: Ἐποίησαν κατὰ τὰς ἀκαθαρσίας αὐτῶν καθὼς οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν “They acted according to their impurities, just as their fathers did.” It seems reasonable to think that Scholarios simply skipped verse 22a and used verse 22b as an introduction to his quotation of Psalm of Solomon 2:3–6. Indeed, Psalm of Solomon 8:22b explains how the foreign invader polluted the temple of Jerusalem, but Psalm of Solomon 2:3 suggests that this was the son of Israel who polluted it in reality. The replacement of τὰ ἅγια κυρίου by αὐτὰ πρότερον made it explicit “for it was the sons of Israel who defile it first”. Interestingly, Psalm of Solomon 2:2 being absent from the quotation of Scholarios could be a clue to explain how Scholarios worked. Indeed, this verse explains that invaders trampled down the altar in the temple. This mention is not so frequent in the biblical literature46 but occurs again in Psalm of Solomon 8:13 where, however, this is the people of Jerusalem who trampled down the altar. This is a line of argumentation: Jerusalem was punished where it has sinned. This is precisely the meaning of the addition of Psalm of Solomon 2:3–6 after Psalm of Solomon 8:16 so that Scholarios probably did not think it necessary to mention again the same line of argumentation. More precisely, it is possible that Scholarios observed the similarities of the argumentation of both Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8:

43 Here Congourdeau suggests that Scholarios added this mention referring to a specific Judeo-Christian tradition calling the “rulers of the earth” as “angels of God”. 44 Unless Congourdeau is right when she said that this an accident of transmission of the epistle of Scholarios. But see the description of Kritoboulos, Hist. § 61.3 45 See for instance Kritoboulos, Hist. § 61–62, but see note 15. 46 See Patrick Pouchelle “The Same Scholarly Fate? A Short Comparison Between the Psalms of Salomon and the Assumption of Moses,” in Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts and Intertexts, ed. Kenneth Atkinson, G. Anthony Keddie, and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 54 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 111–37 .

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Ps. Sol. 2

Ps. Sol. 8 The people of Jerusalem trampled down the altar. They sinned more than the nations

The foreign invader entered Jerusalem

The foreign invader entered Jerusalem

He trampled down the altar Because the people of Jerusalem defiled the sanctuary Sons and daughter are sent away

He slaughters the people, send away sons and daughter and defiled the sanctuary

The people sinned more than the nations But none of these two texts alone could correspond to the agenda of Scholarios. In Psalm of Solomon 2, the invader defiled the altar and the people the temple, and in Psalm of Solomon 8, this is the other way around. If Psalm of Solomon 2 correctly predicted the destruction of the wall using an engine, its description of the capture of the city is rather meager. On the contrary, Psalm of Solomon 8 describes a peaceful entry of the foreign ruler on the invitation of the rulers of the city who was followed by a cruel slaughter. But this was not the case of Constantinople. In this frame, Scholarios merged the two pieces of work and harmonized them for: 1. Developing one line of argumentation: the people of Jerusalem was punished by the defilement of the temple because they themselves defiled it before; 2. Fading away the mention that the foreign invader enters the city through gates opened by the rulers of the country, which is specific to Psalm of Solomon 8 but did not fit the reality of the siege of Constantinople; 3. Adapting the quotation to what Constantinople experienced. Both Psalm of Solomon 2 and Psalm of Solomon 8 mentioned the fact that Israel sinned more than the nations. This is also probably why Scholarios began with the quotation of Psalm of Solomon 2:17 soon before merging the two psalms. To conclude, the Psalm of Solomon conveys some key of interpretation of the fall of a great city: Divine discipline, sins of the inhabitants, God perceived as a father and as a judge … This is probably the text where these notions are the most present. Scholarios probably meditates on the fall of Constantinople reading the Psalms of Solomon. He also notices the proximity between Psalms of Solomon 8 and 2 and he suggest a harmonizing reading toward what experienced Constantinople. The key to interpretation remains the same, but the text has been altered to fit better to the context of 1453.

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3. Conclusion How to interpret what could not be interpreted, such as the fall of a metropolis? By using a marginal text, the Patriarch Gennadios Scholarios, the first patriarch under the Ottoman rulers, elaborates a typology, comparing the fate of Constantinople to that of Jerusalem. The desperate fate of Jerusalem anticipates that of Constantinople. The fall of this latter city was even worse for Scholarios. He did not hesitate to adapt his text to the context of Constantinople while using similar interpretative clues: divine discipline, acknowledgement that God is just, attributing the defeat to God alone. More than that, the quotation of the Psalms of Solomon is also exceptional as this is the first time that we have proof that the Psalms of Solomon was read, deeply meditated upon and used by an important person. Gennadios Scholarios is not a simple scribe whose task was to copy a bible who owns the Psalms of Solomon by accident, he became the Patriarch! The text he used corresponds to no known manuscripts even if it is close to the so-called Bible of Niketas. One variant attested could possibly be ancient, even if this remains speculative. But this rekindles the hope for finding other witnesses of the Psalms of Solomon either directly in a Bible, or indirectly in quotations. Indeed, if a patriarch of Constantinople, a former scholar, specialized in Aristotle and able to read and summarize Thomas of Aquinas in Greek knows the Psalms of Solomon, it may be that many other people in the Byzantine era knew them, at least more than we could expect. Moreover, many of the works of Scholarios are still unpublished, some of them are still on Mt. Athos, waiting for such publication.47 Sooner or later, I am certain that we will hear more about the history of reception of the Psalms of Solomon.

4. Appendix Here is the complete text of the longest known quotation of Psalms of Solomon 2 and 8. Introduction of Scholarios Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τὰ καὶ τά, φησίν, ἐποίησαν Ἰουδαῖοι, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν Ps. Sol. 8:13–15 οὐ παρέλιπον ἁμαρτίαν, ἣν οὐκ ἐποίησαν ὑπὲρ τὰ ἔθνη, διὰ τοῦτο ἐκέρασεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Θεὸς πνεῦμα πλανήσεως· ἐπότισεν αὐτοὺς ποτήριον οἴνου ἀκράτου, εἰς μέθην ἤγαγε τὸν ἀπ’ ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς τὸν παίοντα ἰσχυρῶς. Ἔκρινε τὸν πόλεμον ἐπὶ Ἱερουσαλὴμ καὶ τὴν γῆν αὐτῆς Ps. Sol. 2:1b ἐν κριῷ κατέβαλε τείχη ὀχυρὰ καὶ οὐκ ἐκώλυσεν αὐτόν 47 After finishing this article, I came across another possible allusion to Ps Sol 2:4–5 in Scholarios’ eleventh discourse, section 7: τοῖς μὲν ἁγίοις οὐκ ἔδωκε λοιπὸν τὸ κάλλος τῆς δόξης αὐτῶν. This definitely proves the value of studying this author more closely.

145 The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found

Ps. Sol. 8:16.18.19b–20.22 ὑπήντησαν αὐτῷ οἱ ἄρχοντες τῆς γῆς, οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ δηλονότι, μετὰ χαρᾶς· εἶπον αὐτῷ· Ἐπευκτὴ ἡ ὁδός σου· δεῦτε εἰσέλθετε μετ’ εἰρήνης· ὡμάλισαν ὁδοὺς τραχείας ἀπὸ εἰσόδου αὐτῶν· ἤνοιξαν πύλας ἐπὶ Ἱερουσαλήμ. Εἰσῆλθεν ὡς πῦρ εἰς οἶκον υἱῶν αὐτοῦ μετ’ εἰρήνης, καὶ ἔστησε τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ μετὰ ἀσφαλείας πολλῆς, ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν μετὰ ἀσφαλείας ἐν τῇ πλανήσει αὐτῶν. Ἀπώλησεν ἄρχοντας αὐτῶν καὶ πάντα σοφὸν ἐν βουλῇ· ἐξέχεε τὸ αἷμα αὐτῶν ὡς ὕδωρ ἀκαθαρσίας· ἐμίαναν Ἱερουσαλὴμ καὶ τὰ ἡγιασμένα τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Θεοῦ, Ps. Sol. 2:3–6 ἀνθ’ ὧν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ἐμίαναν αὐτὰ πρότερον· ἐβεβήλουν τὰ δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ἀνομίαις. Ἕνεκεν τούτων εἶπεν· ἀπορρίψατε αὐτὰ μακρὰν ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ· οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς τὸ κάλλος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ· ἐξουθενήθη ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ· ἠτιμώθη εἰς τέλος· οἱ υἱοὶ καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες αὐτῶν ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ πονηρᾷ, ἐν σφραγῖδι ὁ τράχηλος αὐτῶν, Conclusion of Scholarios καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς τοῦ λογίου

5. Bibliography Albrecht, Felix. “Eine Randbemerkung zur ‘Bibel des Niketas’ im Lichte der Textüberlieferung der Psalmi Salomonis,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici 55 (2018): 81–83. – Psalmi Salomonis (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Angold, Michael. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans: Context and Consequences. Turning Points, London: Routledge, 2012. Atkinson, Kenneth. “Theodicy in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 546–75 in Handbook of Theodicy in the World of the Bible. Edited by Antti Laato and J.C. de Moor, Leiden: Brill, 2003. Barbour, C. The Byzantine Thomism of Gennadios Scholarios (Studi Tomistici 53) Vatican: Pontificia Accademia di S. Tommaso et di religione catholica, 1993. Belting, H. “La Bible de Nicetas.” Pages 309–76 in La civiltà bizantina dal XII al XV Secolo Aspetti e problem. Edited by André Guillou, Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1982. Belting, H. and G. Cavallo. Die Bibel des Niketas, ein Werk der höfischen Buchkunst in Byzanz und sein antikes Vorbild, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1990. Blanchet, M.-H. Georges-Gennadios Scholarios (vers 1400 – vers 1472) – Un intellectuel orthodoxe face à la disparition de l’empire byzantin (Archive de l’Orient Chrétien 20) Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 2008. Congourdeau, M.-H. “Byzance et la fin du monde: Courants de pensée apocalyptiques sous les Paléologues.” Pages 55–97 in Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople. Edited by B. Lellouch and St. Yerasimos, Paris: Harmattan, 1999. – “Jérusalem et Constantinople dans la littérature apocalyptique.” Pages 125–36 in Le sacré et son inspiration dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident: Études comparées. Edited by Michel Kaplan, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001. – “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople: Traduction.” Pages 893–923 in Constantinople 1453: Des Byzantins aux Ottomans, Textes et documents. Edited by V. Déroche and N. Vatin (Famagouste) Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016. Diehl, Charles. “De quelques croyances byzantines sur la fin de Constantinople,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 30 (1929): 192–96.

146 Patrick Pouchelle Gadrat-Ouerfilli, C., et al. “Leonardo de Chio, Lettre au pape Nicolas V (Chio, le 16 août 1453).” Pages 681–728 in Constantinople 1453: Des Byzantins aux Ottomans, Textes et documents. Edited by V. Déroche and N. Vatin (Famagouste) Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016. Gebhardt, Oscar von. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (TUGAL 13/2) Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1895. Gill, Joseph. The Council of Florence, Cambridge: University Press, 1959. – Personalities of the Council of Florence and Other Essays, Oxford: Blackwell, 1964. Hann, Robert R. The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon (SBLSCS 13) Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Jugie, M., L. Petit, and X.A. Siderides. Oeuvres complètes de Georges (Gennadios) Scholarios, vol. 4, Paris: Maison de la bonne presse, 1935. Kritoboulos, Critobuli Imbriotae Historiae. Edited by Diether Reinsch (Corpus fontium Historiae Byzantinae 22) Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983. Lincoln, Donald M. The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261–1453, 2nd edition, Cambridge: University Press, 1999. Livanos, Christopher. Greek Tradition and Latin Influence in the Work of George Scholarios, Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006. Lowden, J. “An alternative Interpretation of the Manuscripts of Niketas,” Byzantion 53 (1983): 559–74. Pertusi, A. La caduta di Costantinopoli: Le testimonianze dei contemporanei, Milan: Arnoldi Mondadori, 2001. Pouchelle, Patrick. “Prayers for Being Disciplined: Notes on παιδεύω and παιδεία in the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 115–32 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “The Same Scholarly Fate? A Short Comparison Between the Psalms of Salomon and the Assumption of Moses.” Pages 111–37 in The Psalms of Solomon: Text, Context and Intertext. Edited by Patrick Pouchelle, G. Anthony Keddie, and Kenneth Atkinson (EJL 54), Atlanta: SBL, 2021. – “The Septuagintal Paideia and the Construction of a Jewish Identity during the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019), 33–45. Sopracasa, A. “Nicolò Barbaro, Journal du siège de Constantinople.” Pages 455–501 in Constantinople 1453: Des Byzantins aux Ottomans, Textes et documents. Edited by V. Déroche and N. Vatin (Famagouste) Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016. Tinnefeld, F. “Georgios Gennadios Scholarios.” Pages 477–541 in Volume 2 of La théologie Byzantine et sa tradition (Corpus Christianorum) Turnhout: Brepols, 2002. Trafton, Joseph L. The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation (SBLSCSS 11) Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985. Turner, C.J.G. “The Career Of George-Gennadius Scholarius,” Byzantion 39 (1969): 420–55. Vasiliev, Alexander. “Medieval Ideas on the End of the World,” Byzantion 16 (1942/43), 462–502. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) London: T&T Clark, 2007.



L’appartenance des Psaumes de Salomon au canon biblique Gilles Dorival Les Psaumes de Salomon (en abrégé PsSal) ont-ils appartenu au canon biblique? Les réponses varient selon que l’on affaire au texte hébreu de la Bible ou à ses traductions anciennes. Les PsSal sont totalement absents des éditions du TaNaK hébreu. En revanche, ils figurent dans l’édition de la Septante qu’Alfred Rahlfs a donnée en 1935. Ils sont également présents dans l’édition de la Peshitta procurée par le Peshitta Institute de Leiden en 1972. En revanche, ils sont absents dans les autres traductions du premier millénaire chrétien. Comment comprendre ces données contradictoires?

1. Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à un corpus hébreu? Les PsSal n’appartiennent pas au canon rabbinique. Aucun manuscrit hébreu ne les contient. Aucun texte des Sages ne semble leur faire allusion. Mais se pourrait-il qu’ils aient appartenu à un corpus hébreu antérieur à l’actuel canon rabbinique? La question se pose, pour deux raisons. D’abord, les PsSal sont un texte juif, où il n’y a pas d’interpolation chrétienne. Ensuite, l’opinion majoritaire est qu’ils ont été rédigés en hébreu. Leur cas pourrait donc être semblable à celui du Siracide (= Ecclésiastique ou Sagesse de Jésus/ Josué fils de Sirach), qui semble avoir fait partie du canon avant d’en sortir.1 On doit ici rappeler qu’à l’extrême fin du 19e siècle, dans la Genizah du Caire, ont été exhumés cinq manuscrits hébreux contenant au total les deux tiers du Siracide. Pour la première fois, il était prouvé qu’un livre que l’on pensait propre à la Bible grecque d’Alexandrie avait existé en hébreu. Mais cette conclusion ne s’est pas imposée sans résistances: certains ont voulu démontrer que l’hébreu avait été traduit sur le grec, contredisant ainsi le prologue grec du Siracide, qui affirme explicitement le contraire. On s’est alors rappelé que les textes talmudiques citent parfois des versets du Siracide comme Ecritures.2 Avant le canon des vingt-quatre livres, n’y aurait-il pas existé un canon plus large, comprenant les deutérocanoniques, ou du moins certains d’entre eux, non seulement le Siracide, mais aussi les PsSal?

Voir Dominique Barthélemy, “L’état de la Bible juive depuis le début de notre ère jusqu’à la deuxième révolte contre Rome (131–135)”, in Le Canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire, éd. Jean-Daniel Kaestli et Otto Wermelinger (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1984), 45, et H. Peter Rüger, “Le Siracide: un livre à la frontière du canon”, ibid., 47–69. 2 Sur les 12 citations différentes du Siracide, voir Shnayer Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: the Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (Hamden: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1976), 96–97. 1

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Le cas des PsSal n’est toutefois pas identique à celui du Siracide. Dans l’état actuel de nos connaissances, les écrits talmudiques ne les citent pas comme Ecritures. Des rapprochements entre les Pirqei Abot et les PsSal ont été proposés, mais il s’agit de simples parallèles dont on ne peut rien tirer.3 En second lieu, il n’est pas sûr que les PsSal aient été rédigés en hébreu. Certes, c’est l’opinion majoritaire. Mais Adolf Hilgenfeld a soutenu la thèse contraire il y a cent cinquante ans: les PsSal seraient dépendant de la Sagesse de Salomon et du livre III des Oracles sibyllins.4 La thèse de l’origine grecque des PsSal a resurgi récemment, lors du premier colloque international sur les PsSal qui s’est tenu à Strasbourg en juin 2013. Jan Joosten argumente en faisant valoir que les allusions à l’Ecriture présentes dans les PsSal renvoient à la LXX; il y a une imitation délibérée du style de la Bible grecque; les hébraïsmes des PsSal sont en fait des septantismes; ils présentent des tournures de phrase attestées dans la LXX, mais pas dans les livres traduits sur l’hébreu.5 Eberhard Bons étudie le cas du PsSal 9,4, où figurent les substantifs ἐκλογή et ἑξουσία employés dans un sens stoïcien et dont les éventuels équivalents hébreux sont problématiques.6 S’ils ont raison, alors les PsSal n’ont pas pu appartenir à un canon hébreu de la Bible. Mais ont-ils raison? Kenneth Atkinson, tout en reconnaissant la qualité de leurs arguments, reste favorable à la thèse de l’original hébreu.7 Certains traits des PsSal s’expliquent mieux s’ils ont une origine hébraïque, comme les variations dans l’emploi des temps, ou encore les tournures consistant en un verbe suivi d’un nom de même racine, qui semblent refléter l’infinitif absolu biblique. Dans le cas d’Eberhard Bons, Kenneth Atkinson n’exclut pas un original sémitique, tout en ajoutant que PsSal 9,4 et d’autres passages ont peut-être été rédigés en grec. Dès lors, original sémitique, original grec, original sémitique avec des parties en grec? Il est difficile de trancher. Et la question posée de l’appartenance des PsSal à un canon hébreu reste en suspens. Il faut bien dire que seule la découverte de leur texte hébreu permettrait d’aboutir à une conclusion sûre.

2. Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à la Septante? Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à la Septante? Pendant longtemps, ils n’ont pas figuré dans les éditions de la Bible grecque, puisque leur texte n’a été découvert qu’au début du 17e siècle et que leur édition princeps n’est pas antérieure à 1626.8 Ils ne figurent pas dans l’édition de John Ernest Grabe publiée à Oxford de 1707 à 1720: il est vrai qu’elle repose Herbert E. Ryle et Montague R. James, Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), LXXI–II. 4 Adolf Hilgenfeld, “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt”, ZWT 11 (1868): 133–68. 5 Jan Joosten, “Reflections on the original language of the Psalms of Solomon”, in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, éd. Eberhard Bons et Patrick Pouchelle, SBLEJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 31–47. 6 Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of. Ps. Sol. 9:4”, ibid., 49–58. 7 Kenneth Atkinson, “Responses”, ibid., 175–91 (p. 177–81). 8 Juan Luis de la Cerda, Adversaria Sacra (Lyon, 1626). 3

L’appartenance des Psaumes de Salomon au canon biblique 149

sur l’Alexandrinus, qui, dans son état actuel, ne les propose pas, mais qui a pu les offrir comme on le verra plus bas. Ce n’est qu’à la fin du 19e siècle qu’Henry Barclay Swete les imprime dans son édition en trois volumes de la LXX.9 Il est suivi par Alfred Rahlfs dans son édition de la LXX de 1935, qui tient compte des travaux antérieurs: avant tout, l’édition des PsSal par Oscar von Gebhardt en 1895,10 qui se fonde sur 8 manuscrits, et l’édition de la LXX par Henry Barclay Swete l’année précédente, qui a utilisé un manuscrit de la Grande Laure au Mont-Athous, le Lavra Θ 70, dont la partie qui contient les PsSal est aujourd’hui au musée Bénaki d’Athènes (Benaki 5). L’appartenance des PsSal à la LXX s’est si bien imposée au fil du temps qu’Albrecht a récemment insisté sur la nécessité d’une nouvelle édition destinée à prendre place parmi les volumes de la collection “Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graece”.11 Cette édition a été publiée depuis.12 Ainsi, au total, tout se passe comme si les éditeurs récents de la LXX avaient ajouté les PsSal à la Bible grecque de l’Antiquité, du Moyen Age et des temps modernes. Ont-ils eu raison de procéder ainsi? En fait, les PsSal ne sont pas attestés dans les manuscrits les plus anciens de la LXX. Ils sont absents des manuscrits onciaux, des papyri et des manuscrits minuscules jusqu’au 10e–11e siècle. Sauf erreur, les Pères grecs ne les citent jamais. Dès lors, la cause paraît entendue. Mais il faut ici revenir à l’Alexandrinus. En effet, il y a, au début de ce manuscrit, une sorte de table des matières, qui donne la liste des livres présents dans le codex, d’abord l’Ancien Testament, de Genèse à Siracide, puis, le Nouveau Testament, des quatre Evangiles à l’Apocalypse de Jean et aux deux lettres de Clément de Rome. Puis, il y a l’indication Ὁμοῦ βιβλία, “Ensemble [tant de] livres”, mais le chiffre correspondant manque ou est devenu illisible. La table des matières s’achève par Ψαλμοὶ Σολομῶντος ιη’, “18 Psaumes de Salomon”.13 Mais ceux-ci ne se lisent pas dans le codex, du moins dans son état actuel. En effet, la fin de l’Alexandrinus manque: il s’achève par la deuxième lettre de Clément, qui n’est donnée que jusqu’au paragraphe 12: les paragraphes 13–20 ont disparu, ainsi que, on peut le supposer, les PsSal. Même si l’écriture de la table des matières semble un peu plus tardive que celle du codex, on peut penser que ce dernier, qui date de la fin du 4e ou du début du 5e siècle, se terminait par les PsSal. Cela suffit-il à prouver l’appartenance desdits PsSal au canon? On remarque que la table des matières les met à part des livres de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testaments auxquels sont adjointes les deux lettres de Clément de Rome. Ils constituent donc une sorte de supplément ou d’appendice au canon chrétien. 9 Henry Barclay Swete, The Old Testament in Greek, 3 vols. (Cambridge: University Press, 1887–94, 18992); les PsSal sont donnés dans le volume 3, 1894, 765–87. 10 Oscar von Gebhardt, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1895). 11 Felix Albrecht, “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos”, in Die Septuaginta. Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012, éd. Wolfgang Kraus et al., WUNT 325 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 110–23. 12 Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII,3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018) et idem: Die Psalmen Salomos. Griechischer Text nebst deutscher Übersetzung und Gesamtregister (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020). Ces ouvrages n‘étaient pas parus au moment où s’est tenu le colloque d’Aix-en-Provence. La présente contribution n’a pu les prendre en compte. 13 Edition dans Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, Zweiter Band: Urkunden und Belege zum ersten und dritten Band. Erste Hälfte (Erlangen et al.: Deichert, 1890), 288–89.

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Le codex Sinaiticus, écrit dans les années 325–360, peut-être le plus ancien manuscrit biblique oncial qui nous soit parvenu, offrait-il, lui aussi, les PsSal? Comme l’Alexandrinus, il contient les deux Testaments. A la fin du manuscrit, après l’Apocalypse de Jean, il propose la Lettre de Barnabé et le Pasteur d’Hermas, qui est incomplet. Or, 6 folios ont disparu entre la Lettre et le Pasteur. En 1884, James Rendel Harris a émis l’hypothèse que cette lacune contenait les PsSal.14 Il a été suivi par plusieurs chercheurs, ainsi Albert-Marie Denis.15 L’argumentation qu’on peut reconstituer est la suivante: il y a une lacune dans l’Alexan­drinus et le Sinaiticus; comme le contenu de ces deux manuscrits est voisin, pourquoi cette lacune n’offrirait-elle pas un texte identique? Mais ce raisonnement est peu convaincant: les PsSal sont situés après tous les livres dans l’Alexandrinus, entre les deux derniers livres dans le Sinaiticus; de plus, les deux livres en queue de liste sont différents dans chaque codex: les 2 lettres de Clément de Rome dans l’Alexandrinus, Barnabé et Hermas dans le Sinaiticus; enfin, pourquoi ne pas supposer que les folios perdus contenaient un autre texte que les PsSal, par exemple les deux lettres de Clément de Rome? Quittons les grands onciaux et leurs silences énigmatiques pour réfléchir à la manière dont les PsSal ont été transmis dans les manuscrits grecs. A l’heure actuelle, nous connaissons onze manuscrits qui offrent ce texte: 1. le Vindobonensis th. gr. 11, du 10e–11e siècle (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 149. 2. le manuscrit de Copenhague Hauniensis 6, également du 10e–11e siècle (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 260. 3. le Mosquensis Mus. Hist. Bibl. Synod. 147, du 12e, 13e ou 14e siècle, en provenance du monastère de l’Iviron au Mont-Athos (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 471. 4. le Parisinus gr. 2291 A, de l’année 1419 (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 606. 5. le Vaticanus gr. 336, du 11e–12e siècle (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 253. 6. l’Athous Iviron 555, du 14e siècle (il manque PsSal 5,14b–8,12a et 18,4–12) = Rahlfs 336. 7. l’Atheniensis Benaki 5, du 12e, 13e ou 14e siècle, autrefois à la Grande Laure du MontAthous (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 769. 8. le Romanus Casanat. 1908, du 12e, 13e ou 14e siècle (PsSal 2,27–16,8) = Rahlfs 629. 9. le Leidensis Vossianus Miscell. 15, du 16e siècle (PsSal 17,2b–18,12) = Rahlfs 3004. 10. le Vaticanus Ottobonianus gr. 60, du 16e siècle, qui est un manuscrit composite (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 655. 11. Vaticanus Ottobonianus gr. 384, du 16e siècle, qui est un manuscrit composite (PsSal 1–18) = Rahlfs 659. Le manuscrit 1 de Vienne est à la base de l’édition princeps. Les manuscrits 1 à 4 ont été utilisés par Herbert Edward Ryle et Montague Rhodes James pour leur édition de 1891. Les manuscrits 1 à 8 ont été à la base de l’édition d’Oscar von Gebhardt de 1895; Henri 14 J. Rendel Harris, “Notes on the Sinaitic and Vatican codices”, John Hopkins University Circular 29 (Mars 1884): 54; le texte complet de la conférence n’a pas été publié, voir Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon, A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 2 note 9. 15 A.-M. Denis, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 507–45 (p. 510).

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Barclay Swete a eu recours au manuscrit 7; le manuscrit 9 de Leyde a été publié pour la première fois en 1961;16 les 11 manuscrits ont été étudiés en détail par Robert R. Hann en 1982;17 seule l’édition récente de Robert B. Wright repose sur les 11 manuscrits.18 Les manuscrits les plus anciens contiennent une information importante pour la question de l’appartenance des PsSal au canon. En effet, les manuscrits de Copenhague, Moscou, Vatican (Vatic. gr. 336) et Vienne copient à la suite 7 livres bibliques, parfois accompagnés d’une chaîne ou de scholies: Job, Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique des cantiques, Sagesse, Psaumes de Salomon, Siracide. Le manuscrit de l’Iviron a les mêmes livres, mais donne Siracide avant PsSal. Le manuscrit de Paris daté de 1419 se limite à Sagesse, Psaumes de Salomon, Siracide. La série de livres est absente dans les manuscrits d’Athènes, de Rome et du Vatican (fonds Ottoboni). Elle n’est pas représentée dans le manuscrit de Leyde, qui se réduit à un fragment des PsSal. Ce qu’il faut retenir pour notre sujet, c’est qu’il a existé un regroupement de 7 livres bibliques, comprenant 4 livres présents dans le canon hébreu (Job, Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique) et 3 livres propres à la LXX (Sagesse, PsSal, Siracide). Ce regroupement mêle des livres attribués par la tradition à Moïse (Job), à Salomon (Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique, Sagesse, PsSal) et à Jésus/Josué fils de Sirach. Ces livres appartiennent tous à la littérature de sagesse, et le corpus biblique des livres de sagesse est donné au complet. Qui a eu l’initiative, et à quelle époque, de ce regroupement sapiential? On remarque que le codex Vaticanus donne à la suite Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique, Job, Sagesse, Siracide: il regroupe des livres de sagesse, mais les PsSal manquent et l’ordre des livres est différent. Le codex Sinaiticus se termine par Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique, Sagesse, Siracide, Job: même regroupement des livres de sagesse, dans un ordre différent de celui des manuscrits offrant les PsSal; si ceux-ci étaient présents dans le codex à l’origine, ce qui n’est pas certain comme on l’a vu, ils se situaient dans la partie réservée au Nouveau Testament, entre la Lettre de Barnabé et le Pasteur d’Hermas. Le codex Basiliano-Venetus, qui ignore les PsSal, regroupe lui aussi les livres de sagesse, dans l’ordre Job, Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique, Sagesse, Siracide, qui est l’ordre des manuscrits qui proposent les PsSal. Le rapprochement est justifié. Mais le rapprochement le plus pertinent est avec le codex Alexandrinus: il donne Job, Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique, Sagesse, Siracide, puis, après les livres du Nouveau Testament et les deux lettres de Clément de Rome, les PsSal: c’est l’ordre exact du manuscrit 6, l’Athous Iviron 555. Ce qu’on peut tirer de ces observations, c’est que les copistes de la LXX ont eu très tôt tendance à regrouper les livres bibliques de sagesse, dans un ordre qui varie d’un codex à l’autre; mais l’ordre des manuscrits qui donnent les PsSal se retrouve dans le codex Basiliano-Venetus et dans l’Alexandrinus. Or, seul ce dernier proposait les PsSal après le corpus du Nouveau Testament, alors qu’il s’agit d’un livre attribué à un auteur appartenant à l’Ancien Testament: rien d’anormal à ce qu’un copiste l’ait fait remonter dans le corpus de l’Ancien Testament, soit avant le Siracide (manuscrits 1–3 et 5) soit après ce dernier (manuscrit 6). On peut donc estimer que le regroupement des livres sapientaux est antérieur à l’époque des codex onciaux. Est-ce à dire que les PsSal faisaient partie de ce corpus de sagesse? La W. Baars, “A New Fragment of the Greek Version of the Psalms of Solomon”, VT 11 (1961): 441–44. Robert R. Hann, The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982). 18 R. B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon; voir le stemma avec ses quatre familles de manuscrits p. 27. 16 17

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documentation à notre disposition ne permet pas de l’affirmer avec certitude, mais il est possible que la présence des PsSal ne soit pas une innovation chrétienne, mais remonte à la LXX juive.19 A contrario, on ne comprend pas bien pourquoi des chrétiens auraient introduit dans leur Bible un texte aussi manifestement juif. Il est temps de traiter des témoignages grecs d’époque patristique et byzantine portant sur les PsSal. Ceux-ci sont au nombre de 5. La Synopse du Pseudo-Athanase, qui date de la seconde moitié du 5e siècle ou du 6e siècle, énumère les livres contestés, ἀντιλεγόμενα, et les apocryphes, ἀπόκρυφα, de l’Ancien Testament (§ 74–75), puis les livres contestés et les apocryphes du Nouveau Testament (§ 76).20 La liste des livres contestés de l’Ancien Testament se termine ainsi: “Maccabaïques, 4 livres; Ptolémaïques; Psaumes et Ode de Salomon, Ψαλμοὶ καὶ Ὠδὴ Σολομῶντος; Suzanne”. Il faut probablement corriger “4 livres” en “3 livres” et voir dans les Maccabaïques 1, 2 et 4 Maccabées; en ce cas, les Ptolémaïques seraient 3 Maccabées, qui racontent en effet un épisode de l’histoire juive se déroulant sous Ptolémée IV Philopator; il faut aussi corriger le singulier “Ode” en un pluriel, Ὠδαὶ.21 Le même regroupement des PsSal et des Odes de Salomon se retrouvent dans la Stichométrie de Nicéphore ou du Pseudo-Nicéphore écrite vers 850, qui distingue les Ecritures en usage dans les églises et canonisées et celles qui sont contestées et ne sont pas en usage dans les églises. Celles-ci comprennent les 3 livres des Maccabées, la Sagesse de Salomon, le Siracide, les Psaumes et Odes de Salomon, Ψαλμοὶ καὶ Ὠδὴ ou Ὠδαὶ (selon les manuscrits) Σολομῶντος, Esther, Judith, Suzanne, Tobit. En revanche, la liste des 60 livres canoniques n’associe pas les PsSal et les Odes de Salomon.22 Elle énumère en plus 9 livres extérieurs aux 60, qui sont les deutérocanoniques, et 25 apocryphes, parmi lesquels les PsSal. Quatrième document, dans les commentaires sur les canons des Apôtres, Jean Zonaras (environ 1075–1160) et Théodore Balsamon (environ 1140–1200) examinent le cas du canon 59 du concile de Laodicée, qui interdit de lire à l’église les “psaumes des particuliers, ἰδιωτικοὶ ψαλμοί,” et les livres non canoniques. Le concile ne précise pas quels sont ces psaumes. Pour Balsamon et Zonaras, il n’y a pas de doute qu’il s’agit des psaumes “dits de Salomon et de quelques autres, λεγόμενοι τοῦ Σολονῶτος καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν”.23 Enfin, Matthieu Blastarès est du même avis: dans son Syntagma, qui date de 1334/1335, il estime que les canons 12 et 59 du concile de Laodicée, qui interdisent de lire et de chanter dans l’église les livres non canoniques, visent “les psaumes des particuliers, comme “les psaumes dits de Salomon et de quelques autres, ἰδιωτικοὶ ψαλμοί, ὡς οἱ τοῦ Σολομῶντος λεγόμενοι καὶ ἑτέρων τινῶν”.24 On aimerait savoir qui sont les “quelques autres” qui, en plus de Salomon, ont donné leurs noms à des psaumes. On remarque que le statut des PsSal varie d’un document à l’autre: à l’époque du Pseudo-Athanase et du Pseudo-Nicéphore, ils font partie des livres contestés, c’est-à PsSal 11 est cité en Baruch 4,36–5,9, à moins que ce ne soit le contraire. Ce fait ne peut être considéré comme un argument en faveur de l’appartenance des PsSal à la Septante juive. 20 Voir Gilles Dorival, “L’apport des Synopses transmises sous le nom d’Athanase et de Jean Chrysostome à la question du corpus littéraire de la Bible”, in Qu’est-ce qu’un corpus littéraire? Recherches sur le corpus biblique et les corpus patristiques, éd. Gilles Dorival (Louvain: Peeters, 2005), 53–93. 21 Ibid., p. 90. 22 Zahn, op. cit., p. 289–93. 23 PG 137, 1420. 24 PG 144, 1144. 19

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dire dont on ne sait pas si on peut les admettre, ce qui signifie qu’ils sont parfois admis; mais, dans la liste des 60 livres, ils figurent parmi les apocryphes. Ils sont clairement en dehors du canon biblique chez Zonaras, Balsamon et Blastarès.25 Le regroupement entre les PsSal et les Odes de Salomon chez le Pseudo-Athanase et le Pseudo-Nicéphore est intéressant, car on a pensé qu’il était attesté dans la tradition manuscrite. Si cela était exact, alors on tiendrait un second regroupement à côté du regroupement des livres de sagesse. Et ce trait rapprocherait le domaine grec du domaine syriaque, qui sera présenté dans un instant. Qu’en est-il? Dans le Romanus Casanat. 1908, les PsSal (folios 303r–307v) sont précédés entre autres par les Odes; mais il s’agit des Odes données par l’Alexandrinus à la suite des Psaumes, en l’occurrence les Odes 1–6, 8–9 et 11–14. Rien à voir avec les Odes de Salomon. Dans son état originel, l’Athous Lavra Θ 70 présentait une hermeneia sur les Psaumes à partir du Ps 11, puis les Odes, puis les 18 PsSal, enfin l’hermeneia de Cyrille d’Alexandrie sur le Cantique des cantiques. Ces Odes sont-elles les Odes de Salomon? On l’a souvent cru et cette identification figure chez un savant aussi éminent que Robert B. Wright. Mais la Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti nous avertit que les Odes de Salomon ne sont connues en grec que par un unique témoin, qui donne seulement l’Ode 11, le papyrus Bodmer 11.26 Dès lors, aurions-nous un manuscrit nouveau des Odes? En fait, il s’agit très probablement des Odes qui suivent les Psaumes dans l’édition d’Alfred Rahlfs. En effet, la description d’Alexandros Lauriotès de 1892 précise “les Odes dont la première pourvue d’une interprétation sur l’aurore, ἐν τῆι ἑώιᾳ”; il s’agit très probablement de l’hymne du matin (= Ode 14 dans l’édition de Rahlfs). Très probablement, car les Odes ont disparu. Le manuscrit de l’Athos a été dépecé dans les années 1900: seule l’hermeneia sur les Psaumes se trouve encore au Mont-Athos; l’hermeneia de Cyrille a également disparu, à l’instar des Odes. Seuls les PsSal ont été retrouvés, mais ils ont changé de localisation, puisqu’ils constituent aujourd’hui l’Atheniensis Benaki 5.27

25 Au début de l’époque ottomane, Gennadios II Scholarios écrit une lettre sur la prise de Constantinople, qu’on date de 1454. Elle contient deux citations des PsSal, qui ont été signalées pour la première fois par M.-H. Congourdeau, “Lettre sur la prise de Constantinople. Traduction”, in Constantinople 1453: des Byzantins aux Ottomans. Textes et documents, éd. Vincent Deroche et Nicolas Vatin (Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2016), 899–923. Dans le présent volume, P. Pouchelle revient sur ce document. Gennadios cite PsSal 2,17 et combine des extraits des Ps 2,1b et 3–6 avec PsSal 8,13–16 et 22. Ce sont les plus anciennes citations des PsSal chez les écrivains de langue grecque. Gennadios les tire sans doute d’une Bible. Cette Bible semble proche de la Bible dite de Nicétas (Xe siècle), qui remonte peut-être à un modèle datant de l’époque de Justinien. La Bible de Nicétas était-elle complète ou contenait-elle seulement les écrits de sagesse et les Prophètes? On en débat. Quoi qu’il en soit, au moment de la chute de l’empire byzantin, il existait au moins une Bible ou une sélection biblique qui offrait les PsSal. Je remercie Patrick Pouchelle de m’avoir communiqué sa contribution. 26 Jean-Claude Haelewyck, Clavis Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 205. 27 Excellent descriptif du manuscrit et de son histoire mouvementée chez Jean-Marie Olivier, Diodori Tarsensis Commentarii in Psalmos, CCSG 6 (Turnhout: Brepols: 1980), p. XVIII–XXII, et, plus récemment, chez Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 17–23.

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3. Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à l’Ancien Testament syriaque? Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à l’Ancien Testament syriaque? C’est ce que semble affirmer l’Institut de la Peshitta à Leyde: les PsSal ont été publiés dans sa collection “The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version”.28 Le même volume de la partie IV, fascicule 6 contient dans l’ordre les Cantiques ou Odes, la Prière de Manassé, les Psaumes apocryphes, les PsSal, Tobit et 1 Esdras (= 3 Esdras de la Vulgate). De la sorte, les PsSal sont clairement rangés au sein des livres deutérocanoniques. Les éditeurs ontils raison? Pour le déterminer, il faut se reporter aux manuscrits syriaques des PsSal.29 Au sens strict, ceux-ci sont au nombre de 2: 1. 10h1, London, Brit. Libr., Additional 14.538, fol. 151v–152v, 10e siècle, originaire de Nitrie en Basse-Egypte, PsSal à l’origine au complet. Le manuscrit en très mauvais état contient des extraits patristiques sur des sujets variés. Les folios 149–151, les Odes 17–42 de Salomon. Elles sont immédiatement suivies par les PsSal, qui sont numérotés à leur suite à partir de 43. Un folio a disparu après 151, qui contenait 3,6–10,2. 2. 16h1, Manchester, John Rylands Libr., Rylands syr. 9, fol. 31v–56v, 16e siècle, PsSal à l’origine au complet. 3 folios ont disparu, qui contenaient PsSal 17,38–18,7. Les PsSal suivent immédiatement les Odes de Salomon. C’est le témoin le plus complet du texte. Il a été édité par James Rendel Harris en 1909 et 1911, puis de nouveau par James Rendel Harris et Alphonse Mingana en 1916. A ces deux manuscrits syro-occidentaux écrits en serto, il faut ajouter la prière des PsSal 16,6–13, où l’orant s’adresse à Dieu pour qu’il le rende fort. Elle figure dans deux manuscrits syro-occidentaux écrits en serto et provient d’une collection de prières: 3. 14k1, Cambridge, Univ. Libr., Add. 2012, fol. 104v–105, 14e siècle. 4. 16g7, Woodbrooke (Birmingham), Selly Oak, College Libr., Mingana syr. 331, fol. 13, 16e siècle. Enfin, il existe une citation des PsSal 3,1–6 (appel à chanter un hymne à Dieu) en marge de la traduction syriaque, par Jacques d’Edesse, des Hymnes de Sévère d’Antioche contenue dans les manuscrits de Londres Brit. Libr., Add. 17134, peut-être du 7e siècle, et Brit. Libr. Add. 18816, du 9e siècle. Elle est attribuée à “la Sagesse”. Ce témoignage n’a pas été utilisé par l’éditeur de la Peshitta.30 Cette dernière citation ne permet pas de savoir si les PsSal appartenaient, ou non, au canon syriaque. Elle montre simplement qu’un lecteur des Hymnes de Sévère les mettait sur un pied d’égalité avec cet auteur: ils jouissaient de la même autorité que les Pères de l’Eglise. La citation de PsSal 16,6–13 dans une collection de prières va davantage dans le sens de l’appartenance des PsSal au canon, puisqu’ils pouvaient être utilisés dans certaines pratiques religieuses; il faut ajouter que les prières réunies en collection proviennent souvent de la Bible; il faudrait cependant mener une enquête plus approfondie 28 Wilhelm Baars, “The Psalms of Solomon”, in The Old Testament in Syriac according to the Peshiṭta Version, vol. 4.6 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 1–27. 29 Joseph L. Trafton, The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985). 30 Denis, Introduction, 516.

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sur les collections de prières en question et déterminer les éléments dont elles sont faites. Enfin, les deux premiers manuscrits signalés permettent d’atteindre un regroupement entre les Odes de Salomon et les PsSal, qui rappelle la Synopse du Pseudo-Athanase et la Stichométrie de Nicéphore, où les deux textes font partie des livres contestés de canon, c’est-à-dire des livres le plus souvent écartés, mais parfois admis. On note que l’ordre inverse PsSal–Odes a probablement existé, car, d’une part, c’est l’ordre des deux témoignages grecs, d’autre part, la Pistis Sophia copte attribue le numéro 1 à l’Ode 19, ce qui implique qu’elle suit les PsSal 1–18.31 Pour prendre la mesure des deux manuscrits signalés au début du présent développement, il faut prendre en compte les manuscrits complets de la Peshitta. Or, aucun de ceux-ci ne présentent les PsSal et les Odes de Salomon, alors même qu’ils contiennent des deutérocanoniques et même des apocryphes/pseudépigraphes. Par exemple, le célèbre manuscrit de l’Ambrosienne B 21 inf. (7a1) contient Sagesse, Lettre de Jérémie, Lettre de Baruch (= Apocalypse de Baruch 78–87), Bel et le dragon, Suzanne, Judith, Siracide, 1–4 Maccabées, Apocalypse de Baruch (y compris Lettre de Baruch), 4 Esdras (= Apocalypse d’Esdras), Josèphe (Guerre des Juifs 6). La “Bible de Buchanan” (12a1) offre la Lettre de Baruch, Baruch, la Lettre de Jérémie, Bel et le dragon, Suzanne, Judith, Siracide, 1–4 Maccabées, 1 Esdras, Tobit.32 Le fait que ces Bibles complètes ne proposent pas les PsSal montre que la canonicité de ceux-ci était faible. Peut-être pourrait-on parler d’un livre paracanonique.

4. Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à la Bible latine? Les PsSal ont-ils appartenu à la Bible latine et à d’autres Bibles du premier millénaire? La Vetus Latina ne semble pas les connaître. Toutefois, Herbert E. Ryle et Montague R. James ont estimé que Commodien, qu’on situe entre le 3e et le 5e siècle, citait PsSal 11,8–9 dans son Carmen apologeticum 952–963;33 mais la lecture de ces vers ne permet pas de faire apparaître cette allusion. On a voulu voir aussi chez Lactance (environ 250–325) une citation des PsSal dans le passage des Institutions divines 4, 12, 3 qui affirme que Salomon avait prédit la conception virginale; une telle prédiction est absente des PsSal; en revanche, elle est présente dans les Odes de Salomon en 19,6–7; Lactance connaissait les Odes de Salomon, non les PsSal. Plus intéressants sont les témoignages d’Ambroise de Milan et de Jérôme. Dans l’Explication du Psaume 1, Ambroise de Milan explique que la Bible connaît un seul cantique dans le livre des Juges (= Juges 5), un seul en Isaïe (= 5,1–9 ou 26,9–20), un seul en Daniel (= 3,26–88), un seul en Habacuc (= 3,2–19); il en va de même pour Salomon: alors que l’Ecriture dit qu’il a composé des cantiques innombrables (1005 selon 1 Rois/3 Règnes 5,12), l’Eglise n’admet que le Cantique des cantiques.34 Sous les cantiques innombrables, Ambroise vise-t-il les Psaumes et les Odes de Salomon? Peut-être. Quant à Jérôme, il attaque Vigilance parce qu’il admet un Esdras apocryphe, Denis, Introduction, 516 et 533. J.-C. Haelewyck, Clavis Apocryphorum, 141–71 (p. 143–45). 33 Ryle and James, Psalms, 100–01. Le poème de Commodien a été publié par J.-B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense (Paris: Didot, 1852), 21–49. Il est absent de la PL. 34 PL 14, 923 C. 31 32

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où il est écrit qu’après la mort, personne n’ose prier pour les défunts. Vigilance est critiqué pour recevoir d’autres livres non canoniques, dont un texte de Salomon.35 Il peut s’agit des Psaumes de Salomon et/ou des Odes du même. Ce qu’il faut noter, c’est qu’il semble qu’aux 4e et 5e siècles, certains milieux chrétiens ou parachrétiens admettaient plus de livres que ceux du canon de l’Eglise; parmi ces livres figuraient peut-être les PsSal. Les PsSal ont circulé en Arménie et dans les pays de langue slave. Au 13e siècle, dans la liste qu’il donne du canon arménien, Mkhitar d’Ayrivank inclut les PsSal parmi les “livres que les Juifs ont en secret”. Il est probable que l’Eglise d’Arménie connaissait les PsSal, mais les excluait des livres du canon. Les PsSal sont aussi mentionnés dans six listes slaves des 11e–16e siècles, qui recopient probablement des documents antérieurs. Cependant, elles ne mentionnent pas les Odes de Salomon. Mais on ne sait pas si les PsSal étaient traduits en slavon ni s’ils étaient utilisés dans la liturgie.36 Au total, il est possible que les PsSal aient largement circulé dans les pays du pourtour méditerranéen. Mais, ils n’ont pas joui d’un statut canonique, sauf dans les pays de langues grecque et syriaque. En Syrie, les PsSal semblent avoir eu le statut de livres contestés, c’est-à-dire le plus souvent écartés, mais parfois admis. Le monde hellénophone a été plus réceptif aux PsSal. Ils ont peut-être appartenu à la Septante juive avant de passer dans la Septante chrétienne. A l’époque des manuscrits onciaux, ils ont fait partie d’un regroupement de 7 livres de sagesse: Job, Proverbes, Ecclésiaste, Cantique des cantiques, Sagesse, Siracide et PsSal. Un peu plus tard, ils ont été regroupés avec les Odes et leur statut est soit celui de livres contestés soit de livres apocryphes. En d’autres termes, la canonicité des PsSal est faible, mais elle n’est pas nulle.

5. Bibliographie Albrecht, Felix. “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 110–23 in Die Septuaginta. Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012. Édité par Wolfgang Kraus et al. (WUNT 325) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Atkinson, Kenneth. An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. – “Responses.” Pages 175–91 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Édité par Eberhard Bons et Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Baars, Willem. “A New Fragment of the Greek Version of the Psalms of Solomon,” VT 11 (1961): 441–44. – “Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 1–27 de la partie 4.6 de The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Leiden: Brill, 1972. Barthélemy, Dominique. “L’état de la Bible juive depuis le début de notre ère jusqu’à la deuxième révolte contre Rome (131–135).” Pages 9–45 in Le Canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire. Édité par Jean-Daniel Kaestli et al., Genève: Labor et Fides, 1984.

Jérôme, Contre Vigilance 6, PL 23, 359–60. Voir la mise au point de Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon: Pseudepigrapha (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 408–09. 35 36

157 L’appartenance des Psaumes de Salomon au canon biblique Bons, Eberhard. “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4.” Pages 49–78 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Édité par Eberhard Bons et Patrick Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Cerda, Juan Luis de la. Adversaria Sacra, Lyon: Louis Prost, 1626. Denis, A.-M. Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique, Turnhout: Brepols, 2000. Dorival, Gilles. “L’apport des Synopses transmises sous le nom d’Athanase et de Jean Chrysostome à la question du corpus littéraire de la Bible.” Pages 53–93 in Qu’est-ce qu’un corpus littéraire? Recherches sur le corpus biblique et les corpus patristiques. Édité par Gilles Dorival, Leuven: Peeters, 2005. Haelewyck, J.-C. Clavis Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti, Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. Hann, Robert R. The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon (SBLSCS 13) Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Harris, J. Rendel. “Notes on the Sinaitic and Vatican codices,” John Hopkins University Circular 29 (Mars 1884): 54. Hilgenfeld, Adolf. “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt,” ZWT 11 (1868): 133–68. Joosten, Jan. “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 31–47 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Édité par Eberhard Bons et P. Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015. Jean-Daniel Kaestli, et al., éd. Le Canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire, Genève: Labor et Fides, 1984. Leiman, Sid E. The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: the Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence, Hamden: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1976. Olivier, Jean-Marie. Diodori Tarsensis Commentarii in Psalmos (CCSG 6) Turnhout: Brepols, 1980. Pitra, Jean-Baptiste. Spicilegium Solesmense, Paris: Dindorf, 1852. Rüger, P. “Le Siracide: un livre à la frontière du canon.” Pages 47–69 in Le Canon de l’Ancien Testament. Sa formation et son histoire. Édité par Jean-Daniel Kaestli et al., Genève: Labor et Fides, 1984. Ryle, Herbert E. and M. R. James. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ. Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon. The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices, Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Swete, Henry B. The Old Testament in Greek, 3 vol., Cambridge: University Press, 1887–94. Trafton, Joseph L. The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Evaluation (SBLSCSS 11) Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985. von Gebhardt, Oscar. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (TUGAL 13/2) Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1895. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1)London: T&T Clark, 2007. Zahn, Theodor. Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, Zweiter Band: Urkunden und Belege zum ersten und dritten Band. Erste Hälfte. Erlangen et al.: A. Deichert, 1890.





The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon Kenneth Atkinson The previous two conferences on the Psalms of Solomon, held in 2013 in Strasbourg and in 2015 in Paris, explored many new issues, demonstrating that there is still much about this ancient document that remains unknown. This collection of eighteen poems is poorly understood, from a lexicographic, historical, and a theological perspective.1 Little, moreover, is known about its reception in the ancient Christian world. This study seeks to highlight some new approaches to these issues by focusing on the composition’s transmission history and reception, topics that contain valuable clues for understanding the collection. While the primary focus is on the Greek text, this investigation includes relevant comments on the Syriac version since this edition contains some insights concerning how the Psalms of Solomon was used in antiquity.

1. Early References and Attribution There are no known citations or explicit references to the Psalms of Solomon in Jewish literature. However, a few parallels with Jewish texts place the Psalms of Solomon firmly in the Second Temple Period and suggest the community of these poems interacted with other Jewish sectarian communities. Two examples from First Baruch and the Dead Sea Scrolls provide the main evidence for this thesis. There are numerous parallels between First Baruch 4:36–5:9 and Psalm of Solomon 11. It is uncertain if one is dependent on the other or whether both used a common source. If Baruch is an original Greek composition, then its apparent Semitisms may be stylistic features that imitate the language and grammatical structure of the LXX. This would mean that any relationship between it and the Psalms of Solomon, presuming that the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek translator used Baruch, originated in the Greek.2 As For the contents and historical background of the Psalms of Solomon, see further Kenneth Atkinson, I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background & Social Setting, JSJSup 84 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), esp. 2–14, 211–22. Multiple authors likely wrote and later collected these eighteen poems in their present form at some unknown date. For scholarship on this issue and proposed authors for the collection, see further Kenneth Atkinson, An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 395–429. For extensive discussions of the composition with numerous bibliographical references, see The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJL 40 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015). 2 Wilhelm Pesch, “Die Abhängigkeit des 11. Salomonischen Psalms vom letzten Kapitel des Buches Baruch,” ZAW 67 (1955): 251–63; James R. Davila, “(How) Can We Tell If a Greek Apocryphon or Pseudepigraphon Has Been Translated from Hebrew or Aramaic?” JSP 15 (2005): 3–6. For the thesis 1

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Eberhard Bons highlighted at the first Psalms of Solomon colloquium, the issue of the composition’s original language is a complicated issue. He and others have argued that the work, or at least sections of it, reflect a Greek original.3 However, the same is true for First Baruch’s language as scholars debate whether it was composed in Hebrew, Greek, or subsequently redacted with Greek additions.4 The proposed dates of First Baruch range from the fourth century BCE to the first century CE. Nevertheless, there is a consensus that the portion of First Baruch shared with the Psalms of Solomon likely dates to the second century BCE or slightly later. There is also a general consensus that First Baruch reflects the Hellenistic period and was produced after the Greek translation of Jeremiah.5 The Psalms of Solomon’s relationship with First Baruch, although uncertain, provides some support for placing the Psalms of Solomon in the pre-Christian period, showing that it is a Jewish composition. Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls supports this supposition and suggests that the Psalms of Solomon’s earliest portions pre-date the Herodian era.6 that First Baruch copied from the Psalms of Solomon, see Moses Aberbach, “The Historical Allusions of Chapters IV, XI, and XIII of the Psalms of Solomon,” JQR 41 (1951): 391 n. 42; Mathias Delcor, “Psaumes de Salomon,” DBSup 9:222; Herbert E. Ryle and Montague R. James, Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge: University Press, 1891), lxxii–lxxvii, 100–03; O. C. Whitehouse, “The Book of Baruch, APOT 2:572–53. For the thesis that the writer of Psalm of Solomon 11 copied from First Baruch 5, see P. E. E. Geiger, Der Psalter Salomo’s: Herausgegeben und erklärt (Ausburg: J. Wolff, 1871), 137–39; Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions, AB 44 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), 314–16; Kabaselle Mukenge, L’unité littéraire du livre de Baruch (Paris: Gabalda, 1998), 330–56; Odil Hannes Steck, Das apokryphe Baruchbuch: Studien zu Rezeption und Konzentration “kanonischer” Überlieferung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 240–42. 3 For arguments in favour of a Greek original, see further the literature and discussion in Eberhard Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4,” in Psalms of Solomon: Language, 49–78; See also in the same volume, pages, 31–47 and 177–81. Felix Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 181–82. For arguments in favour of a Hebrew original and discussions of the textual transmission, see further Kenneth Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Greek,” in The Textual History of the Bible Volume 2: Deutero-Canonical Scriptures, ed. Matthias Henze and Frank Feder (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 332–41; idem, “Psalms of Solomon: Syriac,” in Textual History of the Bible, Vol. 2C, 341–50. 4 Most scholars believe the passage in common with the Psalms of Solomon is based on a Hebrew text. For a concise summary of the debate, see Tony S. L. Michael, “Barouch 1,” NETS, 925–27. Michael proposes that the argument for a Hebrew original for Baruch is not supported by the Greek, whose biblical quotations are from the LXX thereby suggesting a Greek original for the composition. The relationship between the shared elements in Baruch 5:5 and 4:36–37 complicate the debate as the former may represent a shortened version of the latter. For this possibility, see Johanna Erzberger, “One Author’s Polyphony: Zion and God Parallelized (Bar 4:5–5:9),” in Studies on Baruch: Composition, Literary Relations, and Reception, ed. Sean A. Adams (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 79–96. 5 It appears that Greek Baruch was produced sometime before 116 BCE and that the first part of this book and the Hebrew of Jeremiah were translated by the same person. See further Emmanuel Tov, The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch, HSM 8 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 111–33; David G. Burke, The Poetry of Baruch: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Original Hebrew Text of Baruch 3:9–5:9, SBLSCS 10 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982). 6 Although some of the earliest researchers considered the Psalms of Solomon a Christian writing, only Efron has made this argument in recent decades. See Joshua Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period, SJLA 39 (Leiden: E. J. Brill), 219–86. For a history of the proposed datings for the Psalms of Solomon,

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There are two passages in which the Psalms of Solomon appears to reflect traditions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 17:33, the Greek text contains an allusion to Deuteronomy 17:16 that includes the additional phrase εἰς πόλεμον, “for war,” that is not in the Masoretic Text. This same addition is in the Temple Scroll (56:15) and may attest to the use of a Hebrew Vorlage that differed from the Masoretic Text, or the incorporation of an earlier exegetical tradition.7 Psalm of Solomon 8:10–12 contains another example of an exegetical tradition that was likely translated from a Hebrew Vorlage. This list of vices is nearly identical to the “three nets of Belial” in the Damascus Document (4.15–18), which suggests it is an ancient exegetical tradition critical of the temple priests.8 4QMMT likewise cites these three vices as a reason for separating from the majority of Jews.9 This list is also found in Aramaic Levi (6.3) while the Isaiah Pesher (24:17–18) mentions the “three nets of Belial.”10 Although there is no evidence for a direct connection between the group see Atkinson, Intertextual, 410–19. Because there is a near consensus that the Psalms of Solomon and Baruch contain no Christian content or knowledge of the temple’s 70 CE destruction, both works should be considered pre-Christian Jewish texts. See further George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 2d ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 94–97, 238–47. 7 See further Debra Rosen and Alison Salvesen, “A Note on the Qumran Temple Scroll 56:15–18 and Psalm of Solomon 17:33,” JJS 38 (1987): 99–101. 8 Because the citation in the Damascus Document differs from the Genizah copy, it is perhaps more probable that it and the Aramaic Levi Document drew upon a common tradition. For this likelihood, see Devorah Dimant, “Themes and Genres in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran,” in Aramaica Qumranica, ed. Katell Berthelot and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, STDJ 94 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 27–32. The borrowing of this earlier tradition reflected in these books suggests that the “three nets of Belial” tradition is much older and predates the Maccabean period. 9 For the “three nets of Belial” in these texts and their possible relationship with one another, see further Hanan Eshel, “The Damascus Document’s ‘Three Nets of Belial’: A Reference to the Aramaic Levi Document?” in Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism, ed. Lynn LiDonnici and Andrea Lieber, JSJSup 119 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 29–40. 10 See Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Words of Levi Son of Jacob in the Damascus Document IV, 15–19 (CD),” RevQ 13 (1988): 319–22. The extant copies of the Aramaic Levi Visions of Amram and the Testament of Qahat date from the third to the second century BCE. Their mutual links, stylistic similarities, and comparable farewell addresses may indicate some relationship exists between these works. See further Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary, SVTP 19 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 19, 30–31; Michael E. Stone, “Amram.” In Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Lawrence Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford: University Press, 2000), 1:12–24. The scholarly consensus is that the Aramaic Levi document was written before approximately 100 BCE, although some date the original work to the fourth century BCE. See further James R. Davila, “Aramaic Levi: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures Volume One, ed. Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 125–29. J. T. Milik’s unpublished commentary on the composition, which dates the earliest material in Aramaic Levi to the third or fourth century B.CE, is discussed in Ursula Schattner-Rieser, “J. T. Milik’s Monograph on the Testament of Levi and the Reconstructed Aramaic Text of the Prayer of Levi and the Vision of Levi’s Ascent to Heaven from Qumran Caves 4 and 1,” QC 15 (2007): 139–55. John Collins suggests that Aramaic Levi incorporates much earlier traditions, especially its elaboration of Mal 2:4–7. See further, John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, 2d ed. ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 96–101. The relationship between this text with the other Levi traditions preserved in the Testament of Levi, the fragments from the Cairo Genizah and Mount Athos, Christian adaptations, and the relationship of the work to Jubilees and 4Q541, are beyond the limits of this study. It is probable that the various literary elements in Aramaic Levi were reshaped during the early Hasmonean period. A third to second century

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that resided at Qumran, the Scrolls, and the Psalms of Solomon, these parallels suggest that the community of the Psalms of Solomon shared many of the same interests at the Qumran sect. Both used similar polemical literature of the time that was critical of the Temple Priests, which shows that many Jews shared the concerns about the purity of the temple priests in charge of the Jerusalem sanctuary.11 The parallels between the Psalms of Solomon and the Dead Sea Scrolls should not be surprising, for the Psalms of Solomon describes a community that resided in Jerusalem where its members conflicted with the temple priests and other Jews regarding the observance of Jewish law. Scholars now recognize that the Dead Sea Scrolls comprise a collection of texts from a widely dispersed movement, of which the Qumran community was merely one part.12 Other sectarian groups wrote many of these texts while some likely reflect interactions with different communities, particularly those in Jerusalem. Because the earliest passages regarding the three nets of Belial are found in Dead Sea Scrolls that pre-date the Roman conquest of 63 BCE, the Psalms of Solomon’s clearly postdates them. These resemblances and the Psalms of Solomon’s reference to the temple cult all point towards a pre-Christian date for the composition, suggesting that the Psalms of Solomon’s authors interacted with other Jewish sects in the first century BCE and likely earlier. The Christian tradition sheds some additional light on the early Jewish use of the Psalms of Solomon as well as how this later religion regarded the composition. The catalog of the fifth century CE Codex Alexandrinus contains the earliest extant reference to the Greek text of the eighteen Psalms of Solomon.13 Its appearance in this list is unusual. The Psalms of Solomon is listed at the end of table of contents after the epistles of Clement. However, the Psalms of Solomon is separated from the Clementine Epistles by a spacing.14 This suggests that the scribe was uncertain of the Psalms of Solomon’s canonicity.

BCE date most recently has been proposed by Michael E. Stone and Esther Eshel, “Aramaic Levi Document,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia/Lincoln: Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 2.1490–91. Greenfield emends CD 4:15, 17–18 to suggest that the author of this Qumran text refers to Aramaic Levi §16. See Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Words of Levi Son of Jacob in Damascus Document IV,15–19,” RevQ 13 (1988): 319–22. If correct, this would provide another example showing the antiquity of Aramaic Levi since it would predate the Community Rule, which was written before the second century BCE establishment of Khirbet Qumran. Although the debate over the date and origin of the Aramaic Levi Document and its possible origin is uncertain, there is an agreement that it predates the composition of the Psalms of Solomon. 11 For this evidence, see further Kenneth Atkinson, The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors: New Historical Reconstructions from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Classical Sources, T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series 27 (London: T & T Clark, 2018), 60. 128–29; idem, “The ‘Three Nets of Belial’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Pre-Qumran Tradition,” QC 26 (2018): 23–38. 12 For this important distinction, see John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), esp. 52–121; Sidnie White Crawford, Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019), 217–320. 13 Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons (Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1890), 2/1:288–89. 14 The Psalms of Solomon along with 2 Clement is missing from this codex. See Bruce Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: Introduction to Greek Palaeography (Oxford: University Press, 1981), 86.

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To quote J. Rendel Harris, the Psalms of Solomon in this codex stands just outside the New Testament books “in the very penumbra of canonicity.”15 The Psalms of Solomon is included in numerous catalogs of canonical and apocryphal books from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries CE.16 These lists, like the Codex Alexandrinus, place the Psalms of Solomon outside the Old and New Testament canons, frequently among the Apocryphal writings. What is new is that these inventories show that in the Christian tradition the Psalms of Solomon became connected with the later Christian work known as the Odes of Solomon, which Michael Lattke dates sometime in the early portion of the second century CE.17 The sixth-century CE list of “Sixty Books” appended to Pseudo-Anastasius Sinaita’s Quaestiones et Responsiones and the early sixth CE Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae attributed to Pseudo-Athanasius place the Psalms and Odes of Solomon (Ψαλμοὶ καὶ ᾠδαὶ Σολομῶντος) among the ἀντιλεγόμενα of the Old Testament.18 The Psalms and Odes of Solomon are also included in the ninth-century CE Stichometria of Patriarch Nicephorus among “those of the Old (Testament) that are spoken against and not accepted by the church” (ὅσαι ἀντιλέγονται καὶ οὐκ ἐκκλησιάζονται τῆς παλαιᾶς).19 Although the Christian tradition connects the Psalms of Solomon and the Odes of Solomon, no extant Greek manuscript places the two compositions together. Because two Syriac manuscripts append the Psalms of Solomon to the Odes of Solomon, this provides some indirect evidence that the two works circulated together in Greek as the catalogues indicate.20 The short quotation from the “nineteenth Ode of Solomon” in the Coptic-Gnostic Pistis Sophia that does not match any text of the 19th Ode may indicate that a collection of combined Greek Psalms of Solomon and Odes of Solomon existed as early as the third century CE.21 Because the Syriac version of the Psalms of Solomon rarely departs from the Greek, it should be regarded as primarily as a witness to an early stage of the Greek text, and not to the Psalms of Solomon’s presumed lost Hebrew Vorlage.22 If the Syriac version of the Psalms of Solomon reflects the Greek edition, it still has much to contribute to understanding the composition’s transmission history. The Syriac’s closeness to Greek manuscript 253, which contains the earliest form of the text, makes the Syriac version among the earliest and most important witnesses to the Greek 15 J. Rendel Harris, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon Published from the Syriac Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1911), 4. 16 Atkinson An Intertextual Study, 407–09. 17 M. Lattke, Odes of Solomon: A Commentary, ed. Harold W. Attridge; trans. Marianne Ehrhardt, Hermeneia – A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 6–10. 18 Zahn, Geschichte, 317, 292, 299. 19 Zahn, Geschichte, 299. 20 Lattke, Odes, 1–7. 21 Lattke, Odes, 2. It is possible that other references to Solomonic literature in Greek, Coptic, or other languages may refer to the Psalms of Solomon. None, however, contains any clearly identifiable allusions or citations to confirm their identification as passages from the Psalms of Solomon. Because three of the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek manuscripts (MSS 253, 655, and 659) contain the superscription Σοφία Σολομῶντος, it appears that it and other texts circulated under this name. 22 Atkinson, “Psalms of Salomon,” NETS, 763; Willem Baars, The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, vol. 4/6 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), iii; Delcor, “Psaumes de Salomon,” 204–7; Patrick Pouchelle,“Critique textuelle et traduction du treizième Psaume de Salome,” JSJ 42 (2011): 522.

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edition. It is probable that the Syriac occasionally preserves readings from an older form of the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek text that has not survived since the Syriac translation is closest to Greek manuscript 253, which contains the best and earliest form of the Greek text.23 This may also indicate that the Syriac edition was attached to the Odes of Solomon quite early in its history of transmission since it most closely reflects the earliest available edition of the Greek text. Because the Odes of Solomon is a hymnbook that was used in the Syrian Church, this suggests that the Psalms of Solomon was used in a similar manner by the Jewish community. This would account for its early association in the Greek and Syriac traditions with the Odes of Solomon as well as some of the liturgical elements scattered throughout the composition.24 Now, let’s turn to the manuscripts to see what they tell us about the Psalms of Solomon’s reception and transmission.

2. The Manuscripts The extant Greek and Syriac manuscripts of the Psalms of Solomon not only date to the Christian period, but they also give the composition different titles.25 This raises the possibility that some references to the Psalms of Solomon are not recognized as such because they refer to the composition by another name. It is uncertain whether the title See further, Joachim Begrich, “Der Text der Psalmen Salomos,” ZNW 38 (1939): 163–64; Robert R. Hann, The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon, SBLSCS 13 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982), 57–63; Joseph Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction par J. Viteau; avec les principales variantes de la version syriaque par François Martin, Documents pour l‘étude de la Bible (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911), 238–39. See further the revised Greek stemma and comments on the Syriac witnesses in Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 134–80. 24 Like the liturgical compositions among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Psalms of Solomon stresses the practice of regular prayer (Pss. Sol. 3:3; 5:1; 6:1–2: 7:6–7; 15:1). Its poetic format, moreover, is similar to other Jewish penitential prayers that were recited. See further, Esther G. Chazon, “The Words of the Luminaries and Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Times,” in Seeking the Favor of God, Volume 2: The Development and Impact of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline, EJL 22 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 177–86. The Psalms of Solomon, moreover, exhibits many features of stichographic texts from Qumran that were used for liturgical purposes. Unfortunately, none of the Greek or Syriac manuscripts preserves the Psalms of Solomon’s likely original appearance, which presumably was similar to the biblical psalter. See further Shem Miller, “The Oral-Written Textuality of Stichographic Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 22 (2015): 162–88, esp. 183–86. 25 The work is extant in eleven Greek (tenth-sixteenth centuries CE) and five Syriac (seventh-sixteenth centuries CE) manuscripts. Only the Greek translation preserves the entire composition. The Greek text of the Psalms of Solomon was discovered in the seventeenth century CE See Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Greek,” 332–41. The first Syriac manuscript was found in early twentieth century CE See Alfred Rahlfs, Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments, für das Septuaginta-Unternehmen aufgestellt, MSU 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1914), 14–25; Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 1 (New York: T & T Clark, 2007), 14–25. The Syriac Psalms of Solomon is partially extant in 612 lines of text (1:1–18:7a) in five manuscripts. See Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Syriac,” 341–50; Baars, The Old Testament in Syriac, ii–vi; A.-M. Denis et al., Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique: (Pseudépigraphes de l’Ancien Testament) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 1.512–17. Felix Albrecht has prepared a new critical edition of the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek text that also includes much evidence about the composition’s extant manuscripts. See Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. 23

The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon 165

“Psalms of Solomon” was affixed to the presumed lost Hebrew Vorlage, or if it was added to the Greek text. Although Solomon is not mentioned in these poems, the collection’s attribution to this biblical king likely derives from the phrase “son of David” in Psalm of Solomon 17:21 and his fame as an author of poems and proverbs (1 Kgs 4:32 [Heb. 5:12]).26 In three manuscripts (mss 253, 655, and 659) the Psalms of Solomon appears with the superscription Σοφία Σολομῶντος.27 The Codex Alexandrinus and Christian canon lists use “Solomon,” which was apparently the preferred spelling during the Christian period. Because the LXX of the books of Kings (3–4 Reigns) uses “Salomon,” this was likely the spelling of the Old Greek, presuming that it contained a title.28 In the Christian tradition, the composition apparently became associated with Solomon long before the production of any of our extant manuscripts. Once this connection was made, the Psalms of Solomon seems to have been eclipsed by the Christian Odes of Solomon. The two Syriac manuscripts that contain the Odes Solomon followed by the Psalms of Solomon reverse the order of the canon lists by placing the Psalms of Solomon last. Syriac manuscript 16h1 titles both compositions ‫“( ܙܡܝܪܬܐ‬Ode”), and number the first Psalm of Solomon as 43.29 This suggests that some communities called all 60 poems the Odes of Solomon. In manuscript 10h1 Psalm of Solomon 1 is also numbered 43. The same is true of manuscript 14k1, where Psalm of Solomon 16:6–13 is listed as an excerpt “from Psalms of Solomon Son of David.” The same passage is found in manuscript 16g7 under the heading “from [a] Psalm of Solomon Son of David.”30 Because these quotations fol26 Although Solomon is not a major character in these poems, the mention of the “son of David” was likely enough for later readers or copyists to identify Solomon as the author. Although this identification fails modern standards of evidence, we must remember that the ancients frequently associated anonymously composed pseudepigraphal compositions with biblical authors. See further, Jed Wyrick, “Pseudepigraphy,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, ed. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1114–17. For the Solomonic nature of the Psalms of Solomon, which often contain parallels with biblical materials ascribed to Solomon, see further Thomas R. Elßner, “Das Wagnis der Hoffnung – Ein Bund auch für uns geschlossen (PsSal 9,10),” in Weisheit als Lebensgrundlage, Texte imprimé. Festschrift für Friedrich V. Reiterer zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel, Karin Schöpflin, and Johannes Friedrich Diehl, DCLS 15 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 123–37; Matthew E. Gordley, “Creating Meaning in the Present by Reviewing the Past: Communal Memory in the Psalms of Solomon,” JAJ 5 (2014): 368–92; idem, “Psalms of Solomon as Solomonic Discourse: The Nature and Function of Attribution to Solomon,” JSP 25 (2015): 52–88. 27 For the relationship between Ms 253, which provided the Vorlage for Mss 655 and 659, see the evidence in Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 27 with notes 1–4. Albrecht also corrects the mistaken description found in Hann, which was based on an error in Wright’s false collations, regarding these manuscripts. See Felix Albrecht, “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos”, in Die Septuaginta. Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012, ed. Wolfgang Kraus et al., WUNT 325 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 114 and n. 24. Von Gebhardt determined that ms 253 contains the best and earliest form of the Greek text. See Oscar von Gebhardt, ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ: Die Psalmen Salomo’s zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis, TUGAL 13/2 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1895), 14–42; Hann, The Manuscript History, 57–63. 28 Atkinson, “Psalms of Salomon,” NETS, 763–64. 29 Lattke, Odes of Solomon, 4. 30 Baars, The Old Testament in Syriac, ii–vi; Michael Lattke, “Titel, Überschrift und Unterschriften der sogennanten Oden und Psalmen Salomos,” in For the Children, Perfect Instruction, ed. Hans-Gebhard Bethge, Karen L. King, and Imke Schletterer (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 440–41.

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low the same continuous numbering of the Psalms of Solomon attached to the Odes of Solomon, both apparently emanated from a manuscript in which the Psalms of Solomon followed the Odes of Solomon. This provides additional evidence that two works circulated together in the Syriac tradition. The Christian references to the Psalms of Solomon suggest that the canonicity of the work was debated in antiquity.31 This implies that the composition was quite popular since only a text that was presumably already in wide circulation and use would have been the subject of such controversy.32 Michael Stone suggests that the prohibition against the reading of non-canonical palms in the Armenian Canon list from the 23rd Canon of the Council of Partaw in 786 CE referred to the Psalms of Solomon which, if correct, shows that the composition remained quite popular for centuries.33 According to the twelfth century CE Christian writers Joannes Zonaras and Theodorus Balsamon, the Psalms of Solomon was included in the works prohibited for use in the church in the fifty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea (ca. 360 CE).34 An undated Latin note written in the margin adjacent to Psalms of Solomon in the tenth-or eleventh century CE manuscript 149 now in Vienna states that the Psalms of Solomon was the work mentioned by Zonaras, and that the composition had been condemned at the Ladociean Council. Yet, despite repeated edicts against its ecclesiastical recitation, the Psalms of Solomon’s manuscripts suggest that the composition remained in use among monastic and religious communities until the sixteenth century CE This, period, unfortunately, coincides with the production of all our manuscripts. Yet, a close look at these witnesses tells us much about the composition’s earlier use, transmission history, and likely expansion.

3. The Manuscript Evidence and Stemma In 1982 Robert Hann, building upon the work of Oscar von Gebhardt, made a new collation of all the Psalms of Solomon’s extant Greek manuscripts. He classified them into four text types. Hann also confirmed the priority of Greek manuscript 253 and the existence of von Gebhardt’s text groups and arranged them in the following order of importance: the manuscript 253 Group (mss 253, 655, and 659); the manuscript 336 (comprises a single manuscript); manuscript 260 Group (mss 260, 149, 471, 606, and 3004); and the manuscript 769 Group (mss 769 and 629).35 Given the limited evidence available, it is For a complete list and discussion of Christian references, see Atkinson, Intertextual, 406–09. For new evidence for the later Christian use of the Pss. Sol. through quotations from the work by the fifteenth CE Patriarch Gennadios II Scholarios, see in the present volume, Patrick Pouchelle, “The First Greek Quotation of the Psalms of Solomon Ever Found and its Importance for the History of the Reception of this Text.” 33 Michael E. Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists III – The Council of Partaw (768 CE),” HTR 63 (1976): 289–300. 34 PG 144, col. 1144; 137, col. 1420; Ryle and James, Psalms, xxiii; Viteau, Les Psaumes de Salomon, 178–80. 35 For these characteristics of the manuscript groups, see further Hann, Manuscript, 82–85, 92–94. Albrecht’s Göttingen edition presupposes a Greek original completed during the reign of Agrippa I (41–44 CE) whose archetype can be situated around 50 CE. See further Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 234–45. He also reconstructs textual tradition that emanated from two main branches: Hyparchetype β 31 32

The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon 167

difficult to reach firm conclusions concerning the Psalms of Solomon’s transmission history because of the late date of all our existing witnesses to the Greek text. Nevertheless, a look at the Greek manuscripts show that they were used and revised extensively over a lengthy period of time suggesting that some scribes had access to multiple manuscripts, and editions, of the text. All the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek manuscript groups contain changes likely inserted by later scribes to improve the text (e.g. ms 655: 15:8d and 17:11; ms 659: 9:8h; 11:6; mss 655 & 659: 4:12b; 8:19c, 8:20a; 9:1b). The most common feature of the Greek witnesses is the frequent addition of complementary words (e.g. ms 253 group at 2:25a, 32a; 3:11a, 12a; 17:30c; ms 260 group at 4:15b; 5:11a; 11:1c, 8; 14:5c; 15:12a).36 In a few manuscripts (mss 336 and 769) datives are sometimes replaced with accusatives, which became common by the tenth century CE, and likely reflect later revisions to the Greek text.37 The replacement of the sigmatic –σαν ending with –εν for the third person plural aorist optative in ms 253 group and ms 336 at 4:8a is characteristic of Koine Greek, while the changes to this passage in the mss 260 and 629 groups likely reflect an Atticizing correction by later copyists.38 There is occasionally a difference between Greek manuscripts concerning the length of vowels, changes in wording or grammar, and substitutions that reflect a considerable period of scribal activity and alterations to the text. Several of the lexical impossibilities preserved in Robert Wright’s critical edition should be considered itacisms and likely attributed to Byzantine scribes.39 The punctuation varies in the manuscripts and was likely added during the Byzantine period. These changes all suggest that later scribes sought to bring the Psalms of Solomon’s text closer to the reader by making its Greek more understandable and reflective of current dialects. Three of Psalms of Solomon’s four text types are represented in manuscripts from Mt. Athos, which suggests this was a major center for the preservation of the Greek Psalms of Solomon.40 The manuscript 253 text of Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach preserves the hexaplaric recension.41 However, it is doubtful that the Psalms of Solomon was part of (the earliest that may date to the second half of the third century CE as the collection of PssSol and Odes Sol. testifies) and Hyparchetype γ (the starting point of the extant Greek tradition that he divides into two branches). See further Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis, 251–55. 36 For a more detailed listing and comprehensive discussion, see Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Greek,” 332–41. See also the extensive lexical discussions throughout Albrecht, Psalmi Salomonis. 37 Robert Browning, Medieval and Modern Greek (London: Hutchinson, 1969), 42–43. 38 For this phenomenon, see further Archibald T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek Testament in the Light of Historical Research (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 31919), 335–36; Henry St. J. Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint (Cambridge: University Press, 1909), 214–15. 39 Wright, Psalms of Solomon, 44–46. The following are examples of “lexically impossible” readings included in Wright’s critical text: ἐλογήσωμαι (15:5); διηρπάζωσαν (8:11); κληρονομίσαισαν (12:6). For and criticisms of Wright’s incorporation of these readings and his critical text, see Albrecht, “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos,” 110–23, esp. 116–17. 40 Hann, Manuscript, 104–05. 41 Joseph Ziegler, “Die hexaplarische Bearbeitung des griechischen Sirach,” BZ N.F. 4 (1960): 174–85; idem, Sapientia Salomonis. Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Gottingensis editum vol. 12/1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 50–53; idem, Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Gottingensis editum vol. 12/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 57–63.

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the Hexapla. Manuscript 260 of Wisdom and Sirach are related to the Lucianic recension.42 Yet, this similarity does not mean that the manuscript 253 group text of the Psalms of Solomon should be identified as hexaplaric or the manuscript 260 group as Lucianic. Manuscripts 471, 606, and 3004 are unreliable witnesses to the Greek text of the Psalms of Solomon since they are derived from manuscripts 149 and 260 while manuscripts 629 and 769 descend from a mixture of the 253 and 336 text groups. Many of the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek manuscripts, therefore, reflect a mixed textual tradition. This is important evidence of the composition’s use in antiquity, for it shows that scribes had access to multiple manuscripts and editions of the Psalms of Solomon and adopted readings from them into the text they copied. This raises the issue of what was the original form of the text.

4. The Original Form of the Psalms of Solomon’s Text Adolf Hilgenfeld proposed that the Psalms of Solomon was composed in Greek based on its allusions to the Septuagint.43 Although the Greek Psalms of Solomon frequently uses the very words of the LXX, they are often rearranged for poetic effect. Later scribes sometimes revised the text to bring the vocabulary into closer conformity with LXX readings.44 This suggests that many of the similarities between the Greek Psalms of Solomon and the LXX observed by Hilgenfield are likely later additions to the Greek text, or changes to conform it to the familiar readings from the Septuagint in the Greek-speaking communities that used the composition. The Psalms of Solomon’s Greek text displays many features common to other books of the LXX such as the frequent use of paratactical construction with clauses connected by καί and the infrequent use of the particles μέν (absent) and δέ (seldom used). Temporal conjunctions rarely occur (ὅταν 3:11; 15:5, 12) as the translator preferred to use alternative expressions, particularly ἐν τῷ with the infinitive.45 The genitive absolute is used sparingly (e.g. 8:11), and subordinate clauses are frequent. Successive nouns often govern a single genitive (e.g. 9:4; 14:5; 15:1) and the figura etymologica often occurs.46 Discontinuous nominal phrases sometime appear (e.g. 4:20; 13:3; 15:1; 17:19, 43).47 These Ziegler, Sapientia Salomonis, 48, 61; Ziegler, Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach, 56, 70. Adolf Hilgenfeld, “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt,” ZWT 11 (1868): 133–68. 44 e.g. The substation in 3:2c of ἀγαθὸς (253 group & ms 336) with ὅλης (remaining mss groups) to bring the text into conformity with the phrase ἑν ὅλῃ καρδίᾳ in the LXX Psalter (Ps 85:12; 110:1; 118:2, 10, 34, 58, 69, 145; 137:1). 45 The latter syntagm is unknown in Classical Greek and likely represents a Hebraism. For the constructions mentioned in this and the preceding sentence, with discussions of their possible Semitic background see further T. Muraoka, A Syntax of Septuagint Greek (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 334, 587–88, 698–99. The infinitive occasionally defines the content of the action denoted by a previous verb or noun (e.g., 2:24, 36), which likely reflects an underlying Hebrew. 46 For detailed discussions and other examples, see further Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Greek,” 332–41. See also, Muraoka, A Syntax of Septuagint Greek, 528–29. 47 For the examples cited here and many others, see further Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, lxxvii–lxxxviii. 42 43

The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon 169

features suggest that the Greek has been molded to meet the Hebrew the and that the translator attempted to preserve features of the Semitic original. The verbs in the Greek translation contain many features that point towards a Hebrew Vorlage. The Greek text frequently changes tenses without any clear change implied in the action of the verbs (e.g. 2:9b–10; 3:7–8a; 4:12–13; 6:5b–6; 13:5–8; 17:6b–9). The future indicative is frequently employed by the translator to represent a present or continuous state and may reflect an underlying Hebrew imperfect (e.g. 2:18; 3:4; 9:3). The dependence of one verb on another by putting the second verb in the infinitive reflects Hebrew idiom and at times makes for unpleasant Greek (e.g. 2:22b; 5:4b; 7:5). The use of the verb with a noun from the same root sometimes appears to indicate an underlying Hebrew infinitive absolute (e.g. 1:8; 9:10). Verbs are occasionally followed by a second verb in the infinitive (e.g. 2:22; 5:4; 7:5). The epexegetic use of the infinitive appears in several passages (e.g. 2:24b, 36; 4:9b, 12c; 10:1c; 15:5b; 17:17, 25, 31, 36).48 The neuter plural τὰ ἅγια in 8:11 combines the meaning of the holy area of the tabernacle and the temple with their sacred objects. This combination of meanings into a single term in the LXX likely originates from the Hebrew halakhic term “the temple and its sanctified objects” (‫)מקדש וקדשיו‬.49 In some instances the translator appears to have included duplicate renderings of the same word or inserted explanatory glosses (ὁράσεως πονηρῶν ἐνυπνίων [“the sight of evil dreams” 6:3]; ἐν ἐξομολογήσει, ἐν ἐξαγορίαις [“when he will confess, when he acknowledges” 9:6]; πρωτότοκον μονογενῆ [“a firstborn, an only son” 18:4]). The expression κληρονόμου λυτρουμένου (“heir who redeems” 8:11), which does not appear to be from the Hebrew, likely reflects the single word ‫ גואל‬that the translator incorrectly rendered as κληρονόμος. It is plausible that the translator, upon encountering the same Hebrew word in 8:30 where it is translated as λυτρουμένου, added the gloss to 8:11.50 These examples suggest that the translator often attempted to remain faithful to the meaning of the Hebrew text even if it resulted in awkward Greek. In several places the Greek is obscure and likely reflects the translator’s inability to render the Hebrew (e.g. καὶ οὐκ ἤνεγκαν [1:6]; ἐν σφραγῖδι … ἔθνεσιν [2:6]; ἡ μαρτυρία … ἐπισκοπῇ [10:4]). In 2:25 the translator seems to have misread the Hebrew ‫להמיר‬ (“to change, turn”) as ‫“( לאמר‬to say”). This is an awkward passage that makes no sense without emendation. In the next verse (2:26a) the translator apparently misread ‫גויתו‬ (written ‫ )גותו‬as ‫גאותו‬.51 In this problematic verse (2:26c) all the manuscripts contain ὑπὲρ ἐλαχίστου ἐξουδενωμένον (“on behalf of the least despised”), which has been often replaced by Geiger’s conjecture ὑπὲρ ἐλάχιστον ἐξουδενωμένον (“more than the least despised”).52 However, it is probable that the preposition ὑπέρ (‫ )מן‬represents the acci For this use in the LXX, see further Muraoka, A Syntax of Septuagint Greek, 341–42. Devorah Dimant, “A Cultic Term in the Psalms of Solomon in the Light of the Septuagint,” Textus 9 (1981): 28–51 (in Hebrew). See further, Herbert W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920), nos. 1003, 123–24, 1026. 50 Wilhelm Frankenberg, Die Datierung der Psalmen Salomos: Ein Beitrag zur jüdischen Geschichte, BZAW 1 (Gießen: J. Ricker, 1896), 22; Mikael Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters, ConBOT 26 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995), 64–65. 51 See Felix Perles, Zur Erklärung der Psalmen Salomos, SOLZ 5 (Berlin: Wolf Peiser, 1902), 17. 52 Geiger, Der Psalter Salomo’s, 82; Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935), 2:473. 48

49

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dental repetition of the final mem of ‫מצרים‬, which was the last word of the preceding line. The translator often used ὑπέρ with the accusative as a comparative. In this verse the translator, likely having mistakenly added ὑπέρ to the text, was possibly influenced by the wording of Psalm 119:141 ‫“( צעיר אנכי ונבזה‬I am small and despised”) and incorporated its meaning in an effort to make sense of a difficult translation. These, and other instances, make it problematic to reconstruct the Hebrew Vorlage since our present Greek text clearly contains many translational errors, duplications of Hebrew words, misunderstandings of the Vorlage, and additions. Yet, there is a problem with assuming a Hebrew Vorlage for the entire composition. A close look at the Greek version suggest that our extant Greek and Syriac editions of the Psalms of Solomon reflect a later updating, suggesting that none are identical with the lost Vorlage. For example, the text of 9:4 is difficult to reconstruct in Hebrew and likely reflects a Greek updating by the translator or later copyists. The use of ἐκλογή in this verse (cf. 18:5) seems to reflect Greek philosophy, particularly Stoicism, and not Semitic thought. The presence of words rare in the LXX (ἐκλογή [18:5]; ὑποκρίνομαι [4:22]; καταφορά [16:1 cf. Aquila’s translation of Gen 2:21]; μήνισις [2:23]; ἀναπτέρωσις [4:12]; αὐτάρκεια [5:16]; ἄναξις [18:5]), some of which are found in later LXX books or the New Testament, provides additional evidence for a rather late date of the Greek translation. A few unusual words in the poems (ἐπίσημος [2:6]; σημείωσις [4:2]; ἀνάλημψις [4:18]; περιστολή [13:8]), may reflect the translator’s uncertainty as to how to render the Hebrew text. There are several similarities between the Psalms of Solomon the revisors of the LXX and the Kaige group that likely dates to the first century BCE.53 This evidence not only strengthens the argument for a Palestinian origin of both, but it shows that the Greek Psalms of Solomon underwent an extensive period of redaction about which we know little. The arguments of for a Greek original are of particular importance, for they show that all efforts to determine the Psalms of Solomon’s Vorlage are complicated by our lack of understanding concerning the Vorlage of the Hebrew Bible, which in turn underwent an extensive period of redaction that is largely lost to us. The Septuagint provides much evidence for these redactions as it too exhibits considerable variations in its different traditions, which make it as difficult to reconstruct the Vorlage of the Old Greek as it is to recover the Vorlage of the pre-Masoretic Hebrew Bible.54 53 See further the citations and discussions of these passages in Ryle and James, Psalms, 33, 35, 42–43, 59, 94, 118, 133, 153. See also, Atkinson, “Psalms of Solomon: Greek,” 337–40. 54 Bons recently proposed that the Hebraisms of the Psalms of Solomon are “Septuagintisms,” and suggest that some verses may have been composed in Greek. See Bons, “Philosophical Vocabulary,” 49–78. The Book of 1 Maccabees presents a similar problem. Although its Greek text has the hallmarks of a translation from the Hebrew, it is clearly influenced by the Septuagint. Both the translator and the author of the Hebrew text, moreover, may have reformulated the letters of Antiochus VII preserved in it. See further, Berthelot, Katell, In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy. Translated by Margaret Rigaud, JAJS 24 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 163. The LXX version of Joshua provides evidence of the extent to which a Scriptural text translated from Hebrew was substantially revised during the Hasmonean period. For examples, see Kirstin De Troyer, “Reconstructing the OG of Joshua,” in Septuagint Research: Issues and Challenges in the Study of the Greek Jewish Scriptures, ed. Wolfgang Kraus and R. Glenn Wooden (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 105–18. Likewise, the Hebrew Bible includes many texts that were revised in the Hasmonean period to

The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon 171

5. Conclusion What can we conclude about the Psalms of Solomon’s reception and transmission history? The extant references to the Psalms of Solomon clearly shows the work was used over a thousand years after its presumed composition, which implies that it was widely known and still used in the Christian period. This raises the question of what happened to the Psalms of Solomon? The small number of Greek and Syriac manuscripts is surprising when compared with other Jewish or Christian pseudepigraphal writings for which we often have numerous manuscripts in several languages.55 We can only guess why the Psalms of Solomon appears to have disappeared in antiquity with scarcely any mention and only a few manuscripts. The composition’s genre may provide on possible the answer. As a psalter, the Psalms of Solomon clearly became part of the liturgical tradition in the Syriac Church, and, as the various canon listings suggest, the Greek Church as well. Works used in worship were subject to greater scrutiny than ordinary non-canonical compositions. Once definitively excluded from use in worship, it appears that the Psalms of Solomon was no longer circulated as widely as before. Only a few surviving manuscripts document its existence. Like the liturgical Dead Sea Scrolls, the Psalms of Solomon appears to have been abandoned by the Jewish community for reasons unknown to us. As for the question of the Psalms of Solomon’s language, the bulk of textual evidence, and parallels with the Dead Sea Scrolls, suggest a Hebrew original as the most probable explanation to account for our extant Greek and Syriac manuscripts of the composition. However, as with the biblical text, we must recognize that the Vorlage is a hypothetical document that is lost forever. Scribes in antiquity were not mere copyists, but creative authors who not only adapted texts for the use of their community, but at times were textual scholars as well who tried to correct their exemplar(s). In the case of the Psalms of Solomon, the manuscripts demonstrate that the composition underwent an extensive redaction. Those elements that clearly reflect the Greek language likely represent additions to the Hebrew. The Psalms of Solomon was apparently a living text in antiquity that was not only reshaped and reworked, but at times as merged with the Odes of Solomon. It is these layers of tradition that make the Psalms of Solomon a particularly fascinating text. They demonstrate that despite its brevity, the Psalms of Solomon is a work with a rather complicated transmission and reception history of which we know little.

reflect the activities of the Hasmonean monarchy. In these passages, we are uncertain of the original text because of the lack of more ancient manuscripts that predate these alterations. See the numerous examples and discussions of these issues throughout Israel Finkelstein, Hasmonean Realities behind Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives, Ancient Israel and Its Literature (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018). This evidence should make one cautious of assuming that the Psalms of Solomon’s Greek text represents the original edition of the composition. 55 See the numerous examples and literature regarding editions and translations of many noncanonical texts cited throughout Lorenzo DiTommaso, A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research 1850–1999, JSPSup 39 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).

172 Kenneth Atkinson

6. Bibliography Aberbach, Moses. “The Historical Allusions of Chapters IV, XI, and XIII of the Psalms of Solomon,” JQR 41 (1951): 399–96. Albrecht, Felix. “Zur Notwendigkeit einer Neuedition der Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 110–23 in Die Septuaginta. Text, Wirkung, Rezeption. 4. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 19.–22. Juli 2012. Edited by Wolfgang Kraus et al. (WUNT 325) Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. – Psalmi Salomonis (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/3) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Atkinson, Kenneth. The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors: New Historical Reconstructions from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Classical Sources (JCTCRS 27) London: T&T Clark, 2018. – An Intertextual Study of the Psalms of Solomon, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. – I Cried to the Lord: A Study of the Psalms of Solomon’s Historical Background & Social Setting (JSJSup 84) Leiden: Brill, 2004. – “The ‘Three Nets of Belial’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Pre-Qumran Tradition,” QC 26 (2018): 23–38. – “Psalms of Salomon.” Pages 763–76 in A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, Oxford: University Press, 2007. – “Psalms of Solomon: Greek.” Pages 332–41 in The Textual History of the Bible: Volume 2: Deutero-Canonical Scriptures. Edited by Matthias Henze and Frank Feder, Leiden: Brill, 2019. – “Psalms of Solomon: Syriac.” Pages 341–50 in The Textual History of the Bible: Volume 2: Deutero-Canonical Scriptures. Edited by Matthias Henze and Frank Feder, Leiden: Brill, 2019. Baars, Willem. “Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 1–27 in part 4.6 of The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Leiden: Brill, 1972. Begrich, Joachim. “Der Text der Psalmen Salomos,” ZNW 38 (1939): 163–64. Bons, Eberhard. “Philosophical Vocabulary in the Psalms of Solomon: The Case of Ps. Sol. 9:4.” Pages 49–78 in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle (EJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Berthelot, Katell. In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy. Translated by Margaret Rigaud (AJS 24) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Browning, Robert. Medieval and Modern Greek, London: Hutchinson, 1969. Burke, David G. The Poetry of Baruch: A Reconstruction and Analysis the Original Hebrew Text of Baruch 3:9–5:9 (SBLSCS 10) Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Chazon, Esther G. “The Words of the Luminaries and Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Times.” Pages 177–86 in Seeking the Favor of God, Volume 2: The Development and Impact of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism. Edited by Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline (EJL 22) Atlanta: SBL, 2007. Collins, John J. Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. – The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (ABRL) New York: Doubleday, 1995. Davila, James R. “Aramaic Levi: A New Translation and Introduction.” Pages 125–29 in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures Volume One. Edited by Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. – “(How) Can We Tell If a Greek Apocryphon or Pseudepigraphon Has Been Translated from Hebrew or Aramaic?” JSP 15 (2005): 3–6. Delcor, Mathias. “Psaumes de Salomon,” DBSup 9/48: 214–45. Denis, A.-M. et al., Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo hellénistique (Pseudépigraphes de l’Ancien Testament), Turnhout: Brepols, 2000. De Troyer, Kristin. “Reconstructing the OG of Joshua.” Pages 105–18 in Septuagint Research: Issues and Challenges in the Study of the Greek Jewish Scriptures. Edited by Wolfgang Kraus and R. Glenn Wooden, Atlanta: SBL, 2006.

173 The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon Dimant, Devorah. “A Cultic Term in the Psalms of Solomon in the Light of Septuagint,” Textus 9 (1981): 28–51 (in Hebrew). – “Themes and Genres in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran.” Pages 27–32 in Aramaica Qumranica. Edited by Katell Berthelot and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (STDJ 94) Leiden: Brill, 2010. DiTommaso, Lorenzo. A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research 1850–1999 (JSPSup 39) Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Efron, Joshua. Studies on the Hasmonean Period (SJLA 39) Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987. Elßner, Thomas R. “Das Wagnis der Hoffnung – Ein Bund auch für uns geschlossen (PsSal 9,10).” Pages 123–137 in Weisheit als Lebensgrundlage, Texte imprimé. Festschrift für Friedrich V. Reiterer zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel, Karin Schöpflin, and Johannes Friedrich Diehl (DCLS 15) Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013. Erzberger, Johanna. “One Author’s Polyphony: Zion and God Parallelized (Bar 4:5–5:9).” Pages 79–96 in Studies on Baruch: Composition, Literary Relations, and Reception. Edited by Sean A. Adams, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016. Eshel, Hanan. “The Damascus Document’s ‘Three Nets of Belial’: A Reference to the Aramaic Levi Document?” Pages 29–40 in Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism. Edited by Lynn LiDonnici and Andrea Lieber (JSJSup 119) Leiden: Brill, 2007. Finkelstein, Israel. Hasmonean Realities behind Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (Ancient Israel and Its Literature) Atlanta: SBL, 2018. Frankenberg, Wilhelm. Die Datierung der Psalmen Salomos: Ein Beitrag zur jüdischen Geschichte (BZAW 1) Gießen: J. Ricker, 1896. Geiger, Eduard E. Der Psalter Salomo’s: Herausgegeben und erklärt, Ausburg: J. Wolff, 1871. Gordley, Matthew E. “Creating Meaning in the Present by Reviewing the Past: Communal Memory in the Psalms of Solomon,” JAJ 5 (2014): 368–92. – “Psalms of Solomon as Solomonic Discourse: The Nature and Function of Attribution to Solomon,” JSP 25 (2015): 52–88. Greenfield, Jonas C. “The Words of Levi Son of Jacob in the Damascus Document IV, 15–19 (CD),” RevQ 13 (1988): 319–22. Greenfield, Jonas C., Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel. The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary (SVTP 19) Leiden: Brill, 2004. Hann, Robert R. The Manuscript History of the Psalms of Solomon (SBLSCS 13) Chico: Scholars Press, 1982. Harris, Rendel. The Odes and Psalms of Solomon Published from the Syriac Version, Cambridge: University Press, 1911. Hilgenfeld, Adolf. “Die Psalmen Salomo’s und die Himmelfahrt des Moses, griechisch hergestellt und erklärt,” ZWT 11 (1868): 133–68. Joosten, Jan. “New Light on the Proto-Theodotion. The Psalms of Solomon and the Milieu of the Kaige Recension.” Pages 304–15 in Die Septuaginta – Geschichte, Wirkung, Relevanz. Edited by Martin Meiser, Michaela Geiger, Siegfried Kreuzer, and Marcus Sigismund, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. – “Reflections on the Original Language of the Psalms of Solomon.” Pages 31–47 in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology. Edited by Eberhard Bons and P. Pouchelle (SBLEJL 40) Atlanta: SBL, 2015. – “The Textual Basis of Scriptural References in the Psalms of Solomon,” in Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts, Proceedings of the Second International Meeting on the Psalms of Solomon. Edited by G. Anthony Keddie, Patrick Pouchelle, and Kenneth Atkinson, Atlanta: SBL, forthcoming. Lattke, Michael. Odes of Solomon: A Commentary (Hermeneia) Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009. – “Titel, Überschrift und Unterschriften der sogennanten Oden und Psalmen Salomos.” Pages 439– 47 in For the Children, Perfect Instruction. Edited by Hans-Gebhard Bethge, Karen L. King, and Imke Schletterer, Leiden: Brill, 2002. Metzger, Bruce. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: Introduction to Greek Palaeography, Oxford: University Press, 1981.

174 Kenneth Atkinson Michael, Tony S. L. “Barouch 1.” NETS, 925–27. Miller, Shem. “The Oral-Written Textuality of Stichographic Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 22 (2015): 162–88. Moore, Carey A. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions (AB 44) Garden City: Doubleday, 1977. Mukenge, Kabaselle. L’unité littéraire du livre de Baruch, Paris: Gabalda, 1998. Muraoka, Takamitsu. A Syntax of Septuagint Greek, Leuven: Peeters, 2016. Nickelsburg, George W. E. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2nd ed. 2005. Perles, Felix. Zur Erklärung der Psalmen Salomos (SOLZ 5) Berlin: Wolf Peiser, 1902. Pesch, Wilhelm. “Die Abhängigkeit des 11. Salomonischen Psalms vom letzten Kapitel des Buches Baruch,” ZAW 67 (1955): 251–63. Pouchelle, Patrick. “Critique textuelle et traduction du treizième Psaume de Salome,” JSJ 42 (2011): 508–30. Rahlfs, Alfred. Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes, Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935. – Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments, für das Septuaginta-Unternehmen aufgestellt (MSU 2) Berlin: Weidmann, 1914. Robertson, Archibald T. A Grammar of the Greek Testament in the Light of Historical Research, New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 3rd ed. 1919. Rosen, Debra and Alison Salvesen. “A Note on the Qumran Temple Scroll 56:15–18 and Psalm of Solomon 17:33,” JJS 38 (1987): 99–101. Ryle, Herbert E. and M. R. James. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ. Psalms of the Pharisees, Commonly Called The Psalms of Solomon. The Text Newly Revised from All the Mss. Edited, with Introduction, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indices, Cambridge: University Press, 1891. Schattner-Rieser, Ursula. “J. T. Milik’s Monograph on the Testament of Levi and the Reconstructed Aramaic Text of the Prayer of Levi and the Vision of Levi’s Ascent to Heaven from Qumran Caves 4 and 1,” QC 15 (2007): 139–55. Smyth, Herbert W. Greek Grammar, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. Steck, Hannes. Das apokryphe Baruchbuch: Studien zu Rezeption und Konzentration “kanonischer” Überlieferung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993. Stone, Michael E. “Amram.” Pages 12–24 in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by Lawrence Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, Oxford: University Press, 2000. – “Armenian Canon Lists III – The Council of Partaw (768 C.E.),” HTR 63 (1976): 289–300. Stone, Michael E. and Esther Eshel. “Aramaic Levi Document.” Pages 1490–91 in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. Edited by Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Thackeray, Henry St. J. A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint, Cambridge: University Press, 1909. Tov, Emmanuel. The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch (HSM 8) Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976. Viteau, Joseph. Les Psaumes de Salomon: Introduction, texte grec et traduction, avec les principales variantes de la version Syriaque par François Martin (Documents pour l’etude de la Bible) Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1911. von Gebhardt, Oscar. ΨΑΛΜΟΙ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟΣ, Die Psalmen Salomo’s. Zum ersten Male mit Benutzung der Athoshandschriften und des Codex Casanatensis herausgegeben (TUGAL 13/2) Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1895. Whitehouse, O. C. “The Book of Baruch,” APOT 2:572–53. Winninge, Mikael. Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (CBNTS 26) Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1995. Wright, Robert B. The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (JCT 1) London: T&T Clark, 2007. Wyrick, Jed. “Pseudepigraphy.” Pages 1114–17 in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

175 The Transmission History and Reception of the Psalms of Solomon Zahn, Theodor. Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1890. Ziegler, Joseph. “Die hexaplarische Bearbeitung des griechischen Sirach,” BZ N.F. 4 (1960): 174–85. – Sapientia Salomonis (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/1) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962 (3rd ed. 2017). – Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach (Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XII/2) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965 (3rd ed. 2016).





List of Contributors

Prof. Dr. František Ábel, Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia. Dr. Felix Albrecht, Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Germany. Prof. Dr. Kenneth Atkinson, Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, USA. Dr. Vasile Babota, Faculty of Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. Prof. Dr. Gilles Dorival, Professeur émérite à l’université d’Aix-Marseille, France. Prof. Dr. Nathan C. Johnson, Philosophy and Religion Department, University of Indianapolis, USA. Dr. Mika S. Pajunen, Department of Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Patrick Pouchelle, Theology Department, Centre Sèvres, Paris, France. Prof. Dr. Marc Rastoin, S.J., Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome, Italy. Dr. Julia Rath, Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany. Dr. Jason M. Zurawski, Middle East Studies Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.



Index of Ancient Sources Old Testament Gen 2:21 170 22:16–18 117, 119 49:11 71, 72 Exod 2:22 56 3 63 6:6 56 10:23 63 15 80 15:3 80 15:7 77 15:18 109 18:3 56 25:8 39 28:11 60 32:12 57 33:13 57 Lev 15:31 39 16 31 17:8–9 34 19:8 36 19:20 36 20:3 36 22:15 36 Num 17:11 76 18:32 36 19:20 36 24:17 74, 77 Deut 1:19 62 12:5 39 17 81 17:16–17 73 17:16 161 23:2–3 35 23:9 34

28:25 30:4

52, 57, 58 52, 58

Josh 7:19 136 Judg 5 8:1

155 135

2 Sam 6:16 60 7:12–16 105, 119 12:15 76 1 Kgs 4:32 165 5:12 6, 155 8 43 8:41–43 34 2 Kgs 19:25 55 24:14 56 24:15 55, 56 25:8–11 51 25:27 55 1 Chr 16:28 136 17:11 105 22:9 6 29:25 136–37 2 Chr 14:6 81 22:9 81 26:5 136 26:18 39 36:17 39 2 Esd 1:9 6

58 43

180 Index of Ancient Sources 6:9–10 34 6:16 55 6:19–21 55 12:20 136

3 Macc 1:9 34 1:13 34 6:5 76

Jdt 2:15–18 79, 81 5:19 58 9 78 9:7–14 79 9:11 79 11:23 80 13:15 76, 80 16:2 79

4 Macc 1:15–17 89 5:22–24 89 10:10–11 89

Tob 13:11 106 14:5–7 106–07 14:6 118 1 Macc 1:37 40 2:12 44 3:45 34 3:51–52 44 3:58 44 4:36–61 38 4:44–47 36 4:55 136 6:13 56 7:33 34 12:11 34 10:31 35 10:43 35 15:13 56 2 Macc 1:27 52, 58 3:32 34 3:35 34 4:29 34 4:60 34 5:15 34 5:17 39 6:12 89 6:16 89 7:30–33 89 7:36 89 9:11 76 9:16 34 10:1–9 38 10:3 36 13:23 34

Job 13:7 80 Ps 2 72 2:2 118 2:7 105 2:9 72, 77 10(11M):1 62 11(12M) 153 28(29M):10 108–09 29(30M) 19 30(31M) 19 30(31M):16 109 30(31M):24f. 20 36(37M) 19 36(37M):28–34 20 44(45M):5 108 49(50M):17 20 49(50M) 19 49(50M):5 20 49(50M):22 20 51(52M) 19 73(74M):12 108 84(85M) 19 88(89M) 19 88(89M):4f. 108 88(89M):20 20 96(97M) 19–20 96(97M):1 108–09 96(97M):8 20 96(97M):10 20 98(99M):1 108–09 109(110M) 72 109(110M):5f. 73 114f.(116M) 19 118(119M):141 170 131(132M) 19–20 131(132M):9 21 131(132M):11 108 131(132M):16 21 136(137M):4 56 144(145M) 19

Index of Ancient Sources 181 144(145M):13 108 146(147M):2 52, 58 148 19 149 19–20 Prov 22:3 135 Wis 1:1 90 1:5 91 2:12 91 3:1–6 94 3:13–14 95 6:4–5 90 6:9–11 91 6:17 93 6:17–21 94 6:18–21 91 7:8–10 93 7:11–12 93 7:15–22 91 7:17–22 93 8:10–16 93 9:10 93 9:13 93 10:14 136–37 11:9–10 92 11:11–14 93 11:15–16 93 11:20–24 93 12:2 93 12:8–9 93 12:10–11 93 16:18 93 16:16 93 19:1–3 93 Sir 36:1–10 106 36:11–17 106 39:4 56 Joel 4:9–21 4:17 (LXX)

106, 110 110

Amos 9:11 119 Mic 4:1–3 111–12 5:6–14 106 7:16–17 106

Hab 3:2–19 155 Zeph 2:1–3 106 2:9–15 106 Hag 2:21–22

106, 112

Zech 8:1–23 111 8:7–8 111 8:21–23 106 8:20–23 107, 118 8:22 112 14:10–11 111 14:20–21 111 Isa 1:24–31 110 2:2–4 106, 111–12 2:2 119 2:20–21 107 5:1–9 155 6 115 9:3–6 (LXX) 118 9:4–7 118 11 72, 80 11:1–12 119 11:1–7 118 11:4–5 111 11:4 80 11:9–10 111 11:11–14 118 11:12 81 18:7 106, 112 19:18–25 106 24:23 110 25.6–10 107 25:6–8 106 25:6 112 27:9 113, 114 27:26–27 114 29:8 106, 110 35 111 40:1–11 63 42:10–12 112, 119 43:4–7 81 43:16–21 105 45:18–25 106 45:22 112, 119 48:20 112, 119 49 115

182 Index of Ancient Sources 49:6 52, 58, 112, 119 49:22–23 106 52:10 119 54:3 63 56:7 112 59:20–21 113, 114 60:1–22 106, 111 60:5–6 106, 112 60:22 109 66:18–21 106 66:18 112, 119 66:19 106, 112 Jer 15:7 57 16:13 57 16:19–20 107 22:22 60 22:26 57 23:5 119 30:8–9 119 30:11 106, 110 31:1–25 111 31:23 111 31:33–34 114 31:38–40 111 38:33–34 (LXX) 114 39:40 56 41:17 58

Bar 3:10 56 4:5–5:9 160 4:25 106 4:31–35 106 4:36–5:9 159 4:36–37 160 5:5 160 Ezek 16:54 60 17:11–21 106 17:11 110 17:22–24 111 17:24 109 20:33–44 111 25:3 36 34:23–23 119 37:25 119 40:1–48:35 111 45:8 110 47:14 57 Dan 3:26–88 ο′θ′ 155 11:31M 40 11:39M ο′θ′ 34 12:2 ο′ 52, 58

New Testament Acts 26:14 125 Rom 1:2–7 118 1:3 119 1:3f. 119–20 1:4 119 1:6–8 119 2:3 104 2:5 104 2:17 104 3:3 104 3:9–20 118 3:21–31 116 3:21–26 101 5:11 119 5:12–21 118

5:15 119 5:17 119 5:21 119 6:4 120 7:10 104 8:3 120 8:28 104 9–11 107, 112–13 9:1–11:36 112 9:1–5 113 10:1 115 11 104, 107, 117 11:11–26 119 11:23–24 113 11:25–32 113 11:25–27 113 11:25–26 113–14, 119 11:25 114

Index of Ancient Sources 183 11:26–27 114 11:26 114 11:28–32 114 11:33–36 113 12:1–2 117 12:9–21 117 13:8–14 117 15:25–27 119 1 Cor 1:3 119 1:9 119 1:24 120 2:2 120 2:6 113 2:10 113 2:14 113 3:23 120 4:1 113 6:17 120 7:7 113 8:6 120 12:3 119 15:3–5 120 15:15–20 120 15:28 119 15:51 113 2 Cor 1:19 119

5:17 117 5:21 118 12:1–4 113 Gal 1:15–16 112 2:15 116 3:8 117 3:13–14 116 3:29 117 4:4 120 5:1 116 5:13–6:10 116 5:13–14 117 5:13 116 5:19–21 116 5:22–25 117 6:1–10 117 6:15 117 Phil 2:6–11 118, 120 2:11 119 1 Thess 2:6–7 113 2:14–16 114 Heb 5:12 165

Parabiblica 1 Henoch 90:30–38 106–07, 118 91:9 106 91:14 106

3.757–758 107 3.791 107 5.264 107 5.493 107

2 Baruch (Apocalypsis Baruch syriaca) 72 107

Psalmi apocryphi Syriaci 154 21–23, 25 154:1–10 22 154:12 22 154:18–20 22

Aramaic Levi Document 6:3 161 Odae Salomonis 171 Oracula Sibyllina 3.415–440 106 3.616 106 3.669 106 3.702–723 106 3.761 106

Psalmi Salomonis 1 1:4 1:6 1:7 1:8 2

14, 29, 35f. 51, 53 169 36 36, 40, 44, 169 1, 6, 13, 16, 29, 37f., 44, 59, 132, 134, 140f., 143f.

184 Index of Ancient Sources 2:1–25 37 2:1–13 59 2:1 36f., 51, 61, 132–35, 141, 144, 153 2:2 37f., 40, 74f., 142 2:3–6 132, 142, 145, 153 2:3 36–38, 60, 135f., 142 2:4 37f., 60, 136f. 2:5 37, 60, 134 2:6 37, 51, 53, 59–61, 64, 137, 142, 169 2:7 51, 61 2:8 51, 60f. 2:9 51, 61, 169 2:10 59–61 2:12 94 2:13 60 2:14–18 59 2:15 59 2:16 60, 135 2:17 51, 132f., 139–41, 143 2:18 59, 169 2:19–25 37 2:19 37f., 41, 59 2:20–21 59 2:22–25 59 2:22 37, 136, 169 2:23 170 2:24 169 2:25–2:31 59 2:25–27 59, 61 2:25 59, 74, 167, 169 2:26–37 37 2:26 169 2:28–31 59 2:32–36 59 2:32 59, 167 2:33 16 2:36 16, 169 2:37 16, 59 3 29, 42, 88 3:1–6 92, 154 3:3–8 14 3:4 169 3:3 14, 164 3:5–8 88 3:7–8 42, 169 3:7 42 3:8 16 3:11 167 3:12 16, 167 4 29, 42 4:1 16, 42, 56

4:6 42 4:8–15 95 4:8 42, 167 4:9 169 4:10 53, 63 4:12 167, 169f. 4:13 169 4:15 167 4:18 170 4:19 53, 63 4:20 53, 63 4:22 170 4:23 16 4:25 16 5 29, 42 5:1 15, 164 5:2 16 5:4 169 5:9–11 63 5:11 167 5:15 81 5:16 170 5:18 16 6 29, 42 6:1–2 164 6:3 169 6:5 16, 169 6:6 16f., 169 6:8 42 7 16, 29, 38f., 88 7:1 39, 51 7:2 39 7:3 39, 51 7:5 169 7:6 39, 164 7:7 164 7:8 88 7:10 88 8 1, 6, 29, 39f., 88, 132, 134f., 140f., 143f. 8:2 63 8:4 40 8:5 77 8:9 40 8:10 40, 161 8:11 40, 161, 168f. 8:12 37, 40, 74f., 161 8:13–18 132 8:13 36, 40, 142, 144 8:14 133, 144 8:15–21 39 8:15 56, 132f., 135, 141, 144

Index of Ancient Sources 185 8:16 132, 135, 142, 144 8:18 39, 44, 132, 136, 144 8:19 39, 44, 56, 132, 134f., 144, 167 8:20 39, 44, 132, 135, 144, 167 8:21 39, 44, 56, 60, 137, 142 8:22 132, 135, 142, 144, 153 8:23 16, 53 8:24–34 15 8:26 141 8:28 50–53, 58, 64, 80, 136 8:30 169 8:34 16 9 13, 16, 29, 42, 51, 54, 59 9:1 41, 51–58, 64, 167 9:2 41, 50–58, 64 9:3 16, 51, 54, 169 9:4 15, 42, 51, 54, 148, 168, 170 9:5 54 9:6 42, 54, 169 9:7 42, 54 9:8–11 54 9:8 57, 167 9:9 57 10 13, 15f., 29, 42, 88 10:1–3 42, 89 10:1–2 90 10:1 169 10:3 139 10:4 16, 42, 169 10:6–7 42 10:15 15 10:6 16 11 13, 16, 22, 29, 41, 51, 152, 159 11:1 41, 51, 167 11:2–5 41 11:2 80 11:6 167 11:7–8 41 11:7 41 11:8–9 155 11:8 94, 167 11:15 95 11:16 94f. 12 13, 29, 42 12:1–2 95 12:2 94 12:3 53 12:4 16, 53, 63 12:6 16 12:8–10 95

12:10 94 12:23 95 13 16, 29, 42, 88 13:5–8 169 13:5 51 13:6–7 92 13:8 170 13:10 16 13:12 16 14 15f., 29, 42, 88 14:1 16f. 14:2 42 14:3 16, 42, 95 14:4 95 14:5 167f. 14:7 20 14:8–9 88, 93 14:10 16 15 16, 29, 42 15:1 16, 42, 164, 168 15:3 16 15:5 76, 168f. 15:6 16 15:6–13 42 15:8 167 15:10–13 95 15:12 167f. 15:13 16 16 15f., 29, 42, 88, 125 16:1 170 16:4–6 94 16:4 125f. 16:6–13 154, 165 16:11 94 16:18 94 17–18 1, 5, 43, 103 17 7, 13, 20, 29, 51, 54, 69f., 72–76, 78–81, 88, 107f., 112, 117–19 17:1–29 54 17:1–3 61, 108 17:1 109 17:2–3 24 17:2b–18:12 150 17:4–20 61 17:4–10 61 17:4–8 108 17:4–7 41 17:4–6 36 17:5–20 110 17:5 109, 136 17:6 33, 44, 74, 136 17:6b–9 169

186 Index of Ancient Sources 17:7 41, 44, 74 17:8 74 17:9–20 109 17:11–20 61 17:11–12 51 17:11 61, 63, 74, 167 17:12 59 17:15–16 74 17:15 53, 62–64 17:16–18 53, 61f., 64, 109 17:16 16, 42, 51, 53, 62–64 17:17 53, 62–64, 169 17:18 53, 62–64 17:19–20 74 17:19 63, 168 17:20 64 17:21–46 41 17:21–44 119 17:21–35 79 17:21–33 70 17:21–25 61, 69, 78, 109 17:21 44, 119, 165 17:22–24 72, 75f., 80f. 17:22 72, 74, 76 109, 119 17:23 77, 119 17:24 71, 77, 106, 109, 119 17:25 74, 76, 78, 110, 119, 169 17:26–29 61 17:26 110, 119 17:27 110 17:28 53, 107, 110, 118 17:29–32 110

17:29 61 17:30–46 1, 54 17:30 60, 81, 106, 167 17:31–41 106 17:31 41, 43, 45, 81, 169 17:32 111, 119 17:33 71, 73, 75, 80f., 161 17:34 81, 107, 110f., 118 17:35 71, 78, 111, 119 17:36 78, 118, 169 17:37–38 119 17:37 73, 78 17:38–18:7 154 17:43 42, 53, 168 17:44–46 109 18 13, 16, 29, 35, 42f., 88 18:1–9 1, 54 18:2 16 18:5–9 43 18:5 101, 170 18:10–12 14 18:10 43f. Testamentum XII patriarcharum Testamentum Levi 18:9 106 see also → Aramaic Levi Document Testamentum Naphthali 3:2 106

Judaica / Rabbinica Flavius Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae VIII,50–129 4 XII,145–146 35 XII,251 40 XII,252 34 XIII,249 34 XIII,301 109 XIII,373 37 XIII,374 34 XIII,377 34 XIII,409 34 XIV,79 74, 109 XIV,19–20 37, 40 XIV,25 37

XIV,26–28 41 XIV,30 40 XIV,41 34 XIV,41–47 33, 41 XIV,58–71 32 XIV,59 39 XIV,65–72 37 XIV,71–72 37 XIV,73 38, 40 XIV,77–79 74 XIV,89–91 74 XIV,92–97 74 XV,180 38 XV,380–425 43 XV,391–421 35

Index of Ancient Sources 187 XV,391 43 XV,417 35 XV,421–423 43 XV,421 43 XVIII,90–95 41 XVIII,91–95 41 XX,6–14 41 XX,219 43 XX,244 38 Bellum Judaicum I,61 34 I,88 34 I,93 34 I,128 40 I,131–132 33 I,148–149 32 I,148–150 37 I,152 37 I,153 38, 40 I,155 74 I,157–158 39, 109 I,171–174 74 I,179 37 I,401 43 IV,151 32 V–VI 4 V,136–237 5 V,184–238 35 V,193–194 35 V,237 4 V,396 37 V,396–397 32 VI,124–128 35

Philo De agricultura 9–19 9120 De cherubim 3–10 9120 De congressu eruditionis gratia 79 9322 177 2 De mutatione nominum 255 9120 De posteritate Caini 130–132 9120 137 9120 De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 43 9120 De somniis 1.240 9120 2.242 9323 De vita Mosis 2.43–44 106 In Flaccum 10618 Legatio ad Gaium 10618 Legum allegoriae 1.64 9323 3.244–245 9120 Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 1.6 9323 3.18–20 9120 Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 274 9120

Dead Sea Scrolls 1QH 7:19–20 13 11:15–18 13 11:26–36 13 12:18–22 13 14:29–33 13 1QM 78 12:10–13 106 1QpHab 39 1QS 35, 73 4Q88 25 4Q161 73 4Q174 35, 73, 118 4Q252 73, 118 4Q285 73, 118

4Q380 19 4Q381 18 4Q394–399 35, 161 4Q400–407 13 4Q434 14, 16 4Q434–438 14 4Q437 14 4Q448 21 4Q504 73 4Q521 22–24 11Q5 21, 25 18:1–16 21 19:1–18 19 22:1–2 22 22:1–15 22

188 Index of Ancient Sources 22:2–7 23 22:3 23 22:6 23 22:9–10 23 22:12 22 11Q17 13 11QT 35

Damascus Document 4:15–19 161 Isaiah Pesher 24:17–18 161

Patristic and Byzantine Sources Anastasius Sinaita Quaestiones et responsiones 163 Gennadios II. Scholarios Epistula a. 1454 131–45, 15325 Johannes Zonaras 152–53, 166

Nicephorus Stichometria 163 Ps.-Athanasius Synopsis scripturae sacrae 163 Theodorus Balsamon 152–53, 166

Classical Sources Aeschylus Prometheus 324–25 125 Agamemnon 176–183 9729 1624 125 Cassius Dio Historia Romana 37.15.2–17.4 39 Cicero Pro L. Flacco 28.670 37 Tusculanae disputationes 4.25.57 9322 Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 40.2 33–34, 41 Euripides Bacchae 794–95 125

Pindarus Carmina Pythia 2.94–95 125 Plato Leges 854d 9729 862e 9729 934a 9729 944 9729 Res publica 380b 9729 Plutarchus Vitae parallelae Pompeius 39.3

39

Ps.-Plutarchus Liber Educationis 7d 9120 Placita philosophorum 874e 9322 Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 1:350 9120

Index of Words Greek ἁγίασμα 40 ἅγιος 32, 169 αἰχμαλωσία 52–53, 59–61, 64 αἰχμάλωτος 52 ἁμαρτία 36 ἁμαρτωλός 36, 59 ἀνάλημψις 170 ἄναξις 170 ἀναπτέρωσις 170 ἀνομία 36 ἄνομος 61, 63 ἀντιλεγόμενα 152, 163 ἀπάγω 53, 56 ἀπειλή 76, 78 ἀποικεσία 52–53, 55–56 ἀποικία 52 ἀποικίζω 52, 56 ἀποικισμός 52, 56 ἀπόκρυφα 152 ἀπόλλυμι 135 ἀπο(ρ)ρίπτω 53, 57–58, 64 ἀτιμόω 60 αὐτάρκεια 170 αὐτός 134 ἀφίστημι 53 βασιλεύς 79 γῆ 56 γίνομαι 64 δέ 168 διασπορά 52–53, 55, 58, 64 διάψαλμα 61 δίδωμι 136–37 δόξα 136 δοξάζω 41 δράκων 59 ἔθνος 57 ἐκδιδάσκω 89 ἐκλογή 148, 170

ἐκπετάννυμι 53, 63–64 ἐκτρίβω 77 ἐξασκέω 89 ἐξουδενόω 60 ἐξουθενόω 38 ἑξουσία 148 ἐξόω 76 ἐπίσημος 170 ἠρημόω 74 θεός 134 θραύω 76–77, 80 θυσιαστήριον 37 Ἱερουσαλήμ 136 Ἰσραήλ 136 ἰσχυρός 135–36 καθαίρω 38 καθαρίζω 76 καταβάλλω 79 καταφορά 170 κοίτη 63 κραταιός 135–36 κωλύω 134 λαός 57 λέγω 80 λογισμός 89 μέν 168 μετοικεσία 52 μετοικίζω 56 μήνισις 170 μισθοφόρος 34 νοῦς 89 οἶκος 52 ὀλεθρεύω 77 ὅσιος 17 ὅταν 168

190 Index of Words παιδεία 89 παιδεύω 91 παροικία 52–53, 62–64 πατάσσω 79 πατήρ 135 πειράω 94 περιστολή 170 πλανάω 62 πονηρός 60 ποτίζω 134 πώρωσις 114

σκορπισμός 53, 62–64 σοφία 89 συνάγω 80 συντρίβω 77, 79–80 σφραγίς 60 σώζω 63

σημείωσις 170 σκορπίζω 53, 63

φεύγω 62

τόξον 79 υἱός 136 ὑποκρίνομαι 170

Hebrew ‫ אמן‬24 ‫ אמר‬169 ‫ גויה‬169 ‫ גולה‬52

‫ גר‬34–35 ‫ מור‬169 ‫ נכרי‬34

Index of Authors Ábel, František 101, 177 Albrecht, Felix 1, 49, 54, 61, 131–38, 149, 16425, 16527, 16635, 177 Assmann, Jan 3 Atkinson, Kenneth 35, 51, 61, 72–73, 85, 102, 148, 159, 177

Le Donne, Anthony 71, 75, 7640,

Babota, Vasile 29, 177 Barrett, Charles K. 125–26 Bons, Eberhard 102, 148, 160

Nanos, Mark 116

Charlesworth, James 70–73, 77 Collins, John 69, 71–72 Crossan, John Dominic 71 Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène 132–33, 138, 14243f. Delcor, Mathias 70–71, 75, 77 Dimant, Devorah 102 Dochhorn, Jan 2 Donaldson, Terence 106–07 Dorival, Gilles 147, 177 Dunn, James 113 Efron, Joshua 102 Embry, Brad J. 102 Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 125 Gandhi, Mahatma 75 Gruen, Erich S. 50, 126 Hann, Robert R. 102, 151, 166 Harris, James Rendel 137, 150, 154, 163 Hengel, Martin 2, 7110, 126 Hilgenfeld, Adolf 136, 148, 168 Holm-Nielsen, Svend 10411

MacDonald, Dennis 127 Maier, Johann 2 Mingana, Alphonse 154 Müller, Ulrich 75

Pajunen, Mika S. 11, 51, 177 Pomykala, Kenneth 71, 74 Pouchelle, Patrick 85, 90, 102, 131, 177 Rahlfs, Alfred 132, 147, 149, 153 Rastoin, Marc 125, 177 Rath, Julia 49, 177 Ryle, Herbert Edward 5750, 81, 150, 155 Schmidt, Karl L. 50 Schüpphaus, Joachim 10411 Schwemer, Anna Maria 3 Scott, James M. 50, 64 Seifrid, Mark A. 10411 Steins, Georg 50 Stevens, Marty, E. 32 Stone, Michael 166 Stuckenbruck, Loren 71 Swete, Henry Barclay 149, 151 Trafton, Joseph 71, 102, 10827 VanLandingham, Chris 101, 11790 van Unnik, Willem C. 50 von Gebhardt, Oscar 132, 13414, 149–50, 16527, 166

James, Montague Rhodes 81, 150, 155 Jewett, Robert 113–16 Johnson, Nathan C. 4144, 69, 177 Joosten, Jan 49, 51, 55, 62, 148

Ward, Grant 102 Windsor, Lionel 118–19 Winninge, Mikael 102, 10411, 10933, 118 Wright, Robert B. 58, 102, 132, 151, 153, 167

Klausner, Joseph 70–71

Zurawski, Jason M. 85, 177

Index of Subjects Agrippa I 1 Alexander Jannaeus 29, 31, 34, 37 Alexander Polyhistor 31 Alexandria 2–3, 86, 10618 Anthedon 10618 Antigonus 31, 33 Antiochus IV 38–39, 56 Antiochus VII 32, 170 archetype 1, 134, 16635 Aristobulus II 31–34, 38, 40, 74 Artapanos of Alexandria 3 Ascalon 10618 Baiophorus 138 Byzantine empire, period 133, 138, 144, 167 Caesarea 10618 Clement of Alexandria 127 Clement of Rome 149,–51 collection of Psalms 1, 6, 11, 13–17, 22–25, 29, 49, 54, 61, 65, 87–88, 108, 159, 165 Constantine VII 138 Constantinople 131, 138–39, 141–44 conquest, see Jerusalem coping strategy 7 Crassus 33, 37, 41

– eschatological king 69, 75 Eupolemus 4–7, 31 exegesis, exegete 114–15, 2 exile 1622, 31, 49–59, 61–65, 109, 142, see also deportation; diaspora Exodus tradition 25, 3–4, 51, 58, 63–65 Ezechiel Tragicus 3 Flavius Josephus 4–7, 30, 32, 34–35, 37–39, 41, 43, 74 Gadara 10618 Gaza 10618 Gennadius II Scholarius 131–33, 136–39, 142, 144 gentiles 81 – gentile believers 120 Greek language 171 Hasmoneans 1, 31, 34, 36, 41, 43–44, 73–74, 108 Hebrew original 171 Hellenistic, see also Judaism, Hellenistic – society 96 – philosophy 86 Herod the Great 1, 5, 29, 31, 33, 35, 41, 43–45, 62, see also Herodian Herodian 1, 5, 7, 30, 160, see also temple, Herodian – anti-Herodian 1 Hezekiah 6 Hippus 10618 historical figures 2, 4, 17 holy spirit 120 Homer 127

Damascus 10618 David 6 Davidic – antetype 4 – dynasty 5 – messiah, messianism 5, 7 – stage 81 Dead Sea Scrolls 171 deportation 5227, 53, 56–57, 61, 64, see also exile; diaspora diaspora VII, 49, 64, 81 divine discipline 144 dominion 120

idealization 7 identity, cultural and religious 17, 302, 44, 1039, 116–18, 120 incarnation 120

eschatology 15, 41–43, 45, 63, 101 103–07, 110–12, 114–15, 117–20

Jerusalem 4–6, 8, 14, 16, 22–23, 31, 33, 35, 38, 49, 56, 60–61, 63–64, 70,

194 Index of Subjects 74–75, 81, 86, 90, 109–11, 119, 135–37, 142–44, 162, see also Zion – Babylonian conquest 16, 51 – Herodian conqest 54, 62 – Pompeian conquest 1, 6–8, 14, 33, 39, 51, 59, 62–63, 162, see also historical figures, Pompey – Jerusalem temple 4, 29, 32, 36, 44, 1011, 106, 135, 142 Jewish War, see war John Hyrcanus I 33–34 John Hyrcanus II 31–34, 37–41, 45 John Zonaras 152–53, 166 Jonathan the Hasmonean 31 Judaism – Alexandrian 3 – Hellenistic 2–5, 50 – Palestinian 1–5 justice, divine 13–15, 18, 20–23, 110, 141 Justus of Tiberias 31 lexical approach 64 liturgical 22–23 – function 12, 18 – elements, rubrics 13–14, 18, 22–23, 164 – tradition 171 loss of meaning 7 Maccabees 4 – Maccabean era 5 – Maccabean wars 6 Manuscripts – Septuagint MSS (Rahlfs) A 150 S 150 149 150, 166, 168 253 133–35, 137, 150–51, 163–68 260 133–34, 137–38, 150, 166–68 336 133–34, 150, 166–68 471 134, 138, 150, 166, 168 606 133, 138, 150, 168 629 133–34, 150, 166–67 655 150, 163, 165–67 659 150, 163, 165–67 769 133–34, 150, 166–68 3004 150, 166, 168 – Syriac MSS (Leiden Peshitta) Sy10h1 133, 165

Sy14k1 165 Sy16g7 165 Sy16h1 133, 165 Matthew Blastares 152–53 Mehmet II 131, 141–42 Messiah 1, 81, 120, see also Davidic Monarchy, Jewish 4–5, 10934, 17154 Moses 2–3 nationalism 4–5, 7 Nicolaus of Damascus 30 nominal clause 58, 61, 64 nostalgia 7 Palestine 2, 4, see also Judaism, Palestinian peace 6–8, 69, 81, see also Solomonic, peace pedagogy 85–97 Pentateuch 3, 414, 18, 80 Pharisees 1, 33, 86, 102, 104 Philo of Alexandria 2–3 Plato 127 politics 3 Pompey 1, 6–7, 33–34, 37–41, 44, 59, 61–63, 74, 90, see also Jerusalem, Pompeian conquest pseudepigraphy 49, 70, 101, 171 Ptolemais 10618 reception (history) 131, 144, 159, 171 redaction 25, 170–71 Sabinus (Roman official) 33 sanctuary 4, 7, 32–33, 36–41, 43, 143 162 school 104, 120 – deuteronomistic school 622 – school tradition 3 Scythopolis 10618 Second Temple Judaism 11–12, 17–25, 80, 88, 107, 120 sentiment 7 Septuagint 2, 6 Simon bar Kokhba 77 social conflicts 3 Solomon 1–2, 4–6 Solomonic, see also temple, Solomonic – peace 7 – stage 81 Strabo of Amaseia 31 subjugation 81

Index of Subjects 195 temple 4–7, 29–45 – eschatological 45, see also eschatology – Herodian 35, see also Herodian – Solomonic 4, see also Solomon Theodorus Balsamon 152–53, 166 Thomas of Aquinas 144 Torah 2, 4, 74, – observance 81, 107 trauma 7, 41 typology VII, 144

violence 35, 44, 69, 72–73, 75–78, 80–81, 88, 90, 92–93, 97 voice (grammatical) 56–58, 64 war 4–8, 71, 73, 75, 81, 161 wisdom 5, 20, 22–23, 120 Zion, see also Jerusalem 16–17, 19, 20–25, 41, 79, 10723, 114, 116