The High Priest and the Temple: Metaphorical Depictions of Jesus in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe) 9783161560712, 9783161560729, 316156071X

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament · 2. Reihe Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich)

Mitherausgeber/Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) ∙ James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) ∙ J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)

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Jonathon Lookadoo

The High Priest and the Temple Metaphorical Depictions of Jesus in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch

Mohr Siebeck

Jonathon Lookadoo, born 1987; 2010 BA in Religion: Biblical Languages, Oklahoma Baptist University; 2013 MDiv, Beeson Divinity School; 2017 PhD in Theology, University of Otago; currently Assistant Professor at Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul, Republic of Korea. orcid.org/0000-0003-2137-5744

ISBN 978-3-16-156071-2 / eISBN 978-3-16-156072-9 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-156072-9 ISSN 0340-9570 / eISSN 2568-7484 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018  Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany.  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 printed by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

For my parents

Acknowledgments Ignatius writes at several points about those who have refreshed him, and, although writing in a more comfortable setting, I am also glad of the opportunity at the end of the writing process to be able to thank those who have refreshed me. This book began as a PhD thesis at the University of Otago. I am particularly grateful for the excellent supervisory work that I received from Paul Trebilco and James Harding. Paul’s scholarship provides a model from which I have learned much and which I hope to have emulated in my own small way in the pages that follow. His willingness to read multiple drafts, quick turn-around times, and probing, big-picture questions lifted this study out of the mire of vaguely interesting observations about previous scholarship. James’s attention to detail and help with languages not only saved me from countless embarrassing mistakes but also made this study more precise. Any errors that remain are of course my own. My examiners also offered encouragements and suggestions for how to improve the manuscript when revising. I am grateful to Paul Foster, Paul Hartog, and Thomas Robinson for taking the time to examine this thesis and to David Tombs for convening the examination. I would like to thank Jörg Frey and the other editors for accepting the manuscript into the second series of the Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. I am likewise grateful to Klaus Hermannstädter for his interest in the project from an early stage and assistance throughout the project. He, Elena Müller, Henning Ziebritzki, and the team at Mohr Siebeck have made this book a reality. For their work, I am very appreciative. The Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Otago was a friendly and supportive environment in which to study. I am thankful to those in the departmental seminars for hearing and commenting on drafts of my research. The Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Biblical Studies was a helpful and encouraging place to try out new ideas, and I appreciate their willingness to shelter this relocated American. The resourcefulness of the university’s librarians, particularly the Interloans staff led by Jacinda Boivin, is much appreciated as they have often located obscure journal articles with limited information.

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Acknowledgments

Interactions with others who study early Christianity have given this project a timely boost. Richard Bauckham, Martin Bauspieß, Dirk Jongkind, and Gregory Vall have given generously of their time to hear or read semi-coherent thoughts-in-progress. An exchange between the Otago Theology Department and the Evangelisches Stift in Tübingen facilitated my research by offering a chance to improve my German and by granting access to a first-class theological library. I am grateful to Professor Drecoll for overseeing my time there. Conversations with fellow PhD students offered opportunities to share and receive help on this project as well as everyday matters in life. I am thankful for the daily lunches in the Humanities Common Room and the weekly pint at Eureka. I am especially thankful to Jonathan and Tess Hicks, who offered me a place to stay when I first arrived in Dunedin and insured that I settled in well, and to Nick Brennan, Malcolm Falloon, Luke Hoselton, Josh Hurd, and Jono Ryan, whose conversations urged me to look at both research and life with fresh eyes. Likewise, the support of friends from Christ the King Anglican Church in Birmingham, Alabama gave me a base from which I could work and to which I could seamlessly return. For this, I am grateful to Father Lyle and Mary Dorsett, the group that met for coffee at O’Henry’s, and friends like Kyle and Melissa Clark, Kyle Logan, Erin and Jeff Martin, Matthew Neely, Michael and Jennifer Novotny, Bethany Rushing, and David and Andrea Tew. Finally, this project would neither have started nor been completed without the generous support of my family. Meeting and marrying Jieun was the most joyous discovery of my time in Dunedin, and her selfless giving, inquiring mind, and novel perspectives have not only improved the book but life itself. Despite being younger, Joel and Chantelle have in many ways been a step ahead of me in life and have set an example for how things should be, while Chloe and Harper have added much joy to our weekly Skype sessions. Lastly, my parents, Fred and Charlene, have given financially and emotionally to my education for as long as I can remember. They have sacrificed much to bring me up and have encouraged me to pursue thoughts broadly and deeply. I am grateful, and this study is dedicated to them. Anyang, Feast of St. Stephen 2017

Jonathon Lookadoo

Table of Contents Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... VII List of Abbreviations .................................................................................. XV

Chapter 1: Points of Departure ............................................................. 1 1.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 1.2. Literature Review ............................................................................. 4 1.2.1. 1.2.2.

High Priestly Metaphors ...................................................... 5 1.2.1.1. Ferdinando Bergmalli ............................................. 5 1.2.1.2. Ole Jakob Filtvedt and Martin Wessbrandt ............. 5 Temple Metaphors ............................................................... 6 1.2.2.1. Peter Legarth .......................................................... 6 1.2.2.2. René Kieffer ........................................................... 9

1.3. Methodology .................................................................................. 11 1.3.1. 1.3.2.

History, Theology, and Philology ...................................... 11 Metaphor ........................................................................... 13

1.4. Further Preliminary Considerations ................................................ 15 1.4.1. 1.4.2.

Dating Ignatius .................................................................. 15 Occasional Letters ............................................................. 22

1.5. Looking Ahead ............................................................................... 24

Chapter 2: A Brief Outline of Ignatius’s Opponents..................... 27 2.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 27 2.2. Recent Scholarship ......................................................................... 28

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2.3. Ignatius’s Opponents in Philadelphia .............................................. 38 2.4. Ignatius’s Opponents in Ephesus .................................................... 46 2.5. Ignatius’s Opponents in Magnesia .................................................. 52 2.6. Conclusion ..................................................................................... 57

Chapter 3: Jesus as High Priest in Philadelphians .................... 58 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 58 3.2. The Theme of Unity in Philadelphians ........................................... 60 3.3. The Identity of the Priests and High Priest in Phld. 9.1................... 65 3.4. Jesus as High Priest in Phld. 9.1 ..................................................... 69 3.4.1. 3.4.2.

3.4.3.

The Role of the High Priest ............................................... 70 Ignatius’s High Priestly Jesus alongside Other Early Christian Texts ............................................... 74 3.4.2.1. Ignatius and Hebrews ............................................ 74 3.4.2.2. Ignatius, 1 Clement, and Polycarp......................... 77 The Ignatian High Priestly Jesus alongside Other Early Jewish Texts ................................................... 79

3.5. Jesus as Door in Phld. 9.1 ............................................................... 86 3.5.1. 3.5.2.

The Role of the Door ......................................................... 86 Other Treatments of Jesus as Door in Early Christianity .... 90

3.6. Jesus as High Priest and Door in Philadelphians ............................ 93 3.6.1. 3.6.2. 3.6.3.

Jesus as High Priest and Door in Phld. 9.1–2 ..................... 94 The Place of Phld. 9.1 in the Argument of Phld. 9.1–2 ...... 95 The Place of Phld. 9.1 in the Argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2 ... 97

3.7. Conclusion ..................................................................................... 99

Chapter 4: The Temple in Philadelphians ..................................... 100 4.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 100

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4.2. Ignatius’s Visit to Philadelphia ..................................................... 101 4.2.1. 4.2.2.

The Temple in Phld. 7.2: An Overview ........................... 101 Ignatius’s Self-Quotations ............................................... 103

4.3. The Temple in Phld. 7.2: A More Thorough Look……. ............... 106 4.3.1.

4.3.2. 4.3.3. 4.3.4.

4.3.5.

The Temple in Ignatius’s Second Quotation .................... 106 4.3.1.1. Ignatius and Greek Rhyme .................................. 109 4.3.1.2. Ignatius and Parallelism ...................................... 111 4.3.1.3. Interpreting Phld. 7.2 .......................................... 114 Philadelphian σάρξ ........................................................... 115 God in the Temple ........................................................... 119 Phld. 7.2 and Early Christian and Early Jewish Literature ............................................................. 122 4.3.4.1. Phld. 7.2 in the Context of Early Christian Literature ............................................. 122 4.3.4.2. Phld. 7.2 in the Context of Early Jewish Literature................................................. 126 The Philadelphians as the Temple of God ........................ 128

4.4. Towards a Reading of Phld. 5.1–9.2 ............................................. 132 4.4.1. 4.4.2. 4.4.3.

The Temple in the Context of Phld. 6.3–8.1 .................... 133 Phld. 6.3–8.1 in the Argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2 ............... 136 The High Priest and Temple in Phld. 5.1–9.2 .................. 138

4.5. Conclusion ................................................................................... 142

Chapter 5: The Temple in Ephesians: Part I ................................. 143 5.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 143 5.2. The Relationship between the Ephesians and God ........................ 145 5.3. The Temple and Building in Eph. 9.1 ........................................... 148 5.3.1. 5.3.2.

5.3.3.

The Text and Its Structure ............................................... 148 Stones of the Father’s Temple ......................................... 153 5.3.2.1. The Ephesians as Stones ..................................... 153 5.3.2.2. The Temple and the Building .............................. 153 5.3.2.3. The Preparation of the Stones ............................. 159 The Crane and the Rope................................................... 161 5.3.3.1. The Heights and the Crane .................................. 161

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5.3.4. 5.3.5. 5.3.6.

5.3.3.2. The Relative Pronoun, Jesus, and the Crane ........ 163 5.3.3.3. The Role of the Crane ......................................... 165 5.3.3.4. The Rope ............................................................ 167 The Guide and the Way ................................................... 171 Eph. 9.1 among Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts .. 174 5.3.5.1. Early Jewish Texts .............................................. 175 5.3.5.2. Early Christian Texts .......................................... 176 Conclusion of the Temple and Building ........................... 179

5.4. The Temple-Bearers in Eph. 9.2 ................................................... 180 5.4.1. 5.4.2. 5.4.3.

The Text and Its Structure ............................................... 180 The Background of Ignatius’s Terminology ..................... 183 The Function of the Metaphor ......................................... 187

5.5. Conclusion ................................................................................... 189

Chapter 6: The Temple in Ephesians: Part II ........................... 191 6.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 191 6.2. The Structure of Eph. 15.3 and Its Place in the Letter ................... 192 6.2.1. 6.2.2.

The Structure of Eph. 15.3 ............................................... 194 The Place of Eph. 15.3 in the Letter ................................. 196

6.3. The Ephesian Temples .................................................................. 198 6.3.1. 6.3.2.

Our Secrets ...................................................................... 198 The Plural Usage of ναοί .................................................. 201

6.4. The God who Dwells in the Temples ............................................ 203 6.5. God’s Dwelling in Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts ........... 205 6.5.1. 6.5.2.

Early Jewish Texts ........................................................... 206 Early Christian Texts ....................................................... 207

6.6. Jesus in the Temple ...................................................................... 209 6.6.1. 6.6.2.

Tension between Temple Symbolism and Christology? ... 209 Jesus in the Temples of Phld. 7.2; Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3 .............................................................. 214

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6.7. The Function of the Temples in Eph. 15.3 within the Letter ......... 217 6.8. The Function of the Temple Metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3 ......... 221 6.8.1. 6.8.2.

Two Metaphors Compared............................................... 221 The Temples in Polemic against the Opponents ............... 224

6.9. Conclusion ................................................................................... 226

Chapter 7: The Temple in Magnesians........................................... 228 7.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 228 7.2. The Argument and Role of Unity in Magnesians .......................... 229 7.2.1. 7.2.2.

The Structure of the Two Central Sections ...................... 230 The Role of Unity and Harmony ...................................... 233

7.3. The Text and Structure of Magn. 7 ............................................... 236 7.4. One Temple of God ...................................................................... 243 7.4.1. 7.4.2.

The Temple in Magn. 7.2 ................................................. 244 The One Temple in Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts ....................................................... 246 7.4.2.1. Early Jewish Texts .............................................. 246 7.4.2.2. Early Christian Texts .......................................... 247

7.5. One Altar ...................................................................................... 249 7.6. One Jesus Christ ........................................................................... 251 7.7. Magn. 7.2 in the Argument of the Letter ....................................... 259 7.8. Conclusion ................................................................................... 262

Chapter 8: Temple Fragments and Priestly Shadows ................. 263 8.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 263 8.2. Temple Fragments and Cultic Terminology .................................. 264

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8.2.1. 8.2.2. 8.2.3. 8.2.4.

Altar ................................................................................ 264 Sanctuary ......................................................................... 267 Sacrificial Terminology ................................................... 270 Household ....................................................................... 275

8.3. Priestly Shadows .......................................................................... 277 8.3.1. 8.3.2.

Priestly Activity in Cultic Metaphors............................... 278 Mediatorial Activity Elsewhere in Ignatius’s Letters ....... 280

8.4. The Relationship between Jesus and the Temple .......................... 285 8.5. Conclusion ................................................................................... 290

Chapter 9: The Vistas We Have Reached ...................................... 291 9.1. Introduction .................................................................................. 291 9.2. What We Have Seen ..................................................................... 291 9.3. Major Conclusions and Implications............................................. 293 9.4. Looking Ahead, Again.................................................................. 300 Bibliography.............................................................................................. 303 Index of References ................................................................................... 327 Index of Modern Authors .......................................................................... 347 Index of Subjects ....................................................................................... 353

List of Abbreviations The abbreviations in this work are found in Billie Jean Collins, Bob Buller, and John F. Klutsko, eds. The SBL Handbook of Style: For Biblical Studies and Related Disciplines. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014. Abbreviations that are not listed in The SBL Handbook are listed below. ABG AJEC BEFAR BibAC Bibl. BP BrDAG BRS BTH CSL EC ESCJ EUP FKDG HR I.Eph.

IJST JSPL JBTS JECH KfA MSt MVS NHMS OAF OSCC PAST PIOL PPS PPSD

Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome. The Bible in Ancient Christianity Bibliotheca Bibliothèque de la Pléiade Montanari, Franco, Madeleine Koh, Chad Matthew Schroeder, eds. The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Leiden: Brill, 2015 Biblical Resources Series Bibliothèque de théologie historique Cambridge Studies in Linguistics Early Christianity Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christia-nisme et le judaisme European University Papers Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte Historia Religionum Wankel, Hermann ed. Die Inschriften von Ephesos. Kommission für die Archäologische Erforschung Kleinasiens bei der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut; Institut für Altertumskunde der Universität Köln. 7 vols. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1979–1981 International Journal of Systematic Theology Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies Journal of Early Christian History Kommentar zu frühchristlichen Apologeten Millennium Studien/Millennium Studies Menighedsfakultetets Videnskabelige Serie Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies Oxford Apostolic Fathers Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture Pauline Studies Publications de l’Institut orientaliste de Louvain Popular Patristics Series Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate

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List of Abbreviations

PrTMS Princeton Theological Monograph Series Ps.Ign. Pseudo-Ignatius (translator and interpolator of the long recension) SAAA Studies on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles SBEC Studies in the Bible and early Christianity SBR Studies of the Bible and Its Reception SIJD Schriften des Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum SLAG Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft SLit Studia Liturgica SUC Schriften des Urchristentums SVTG Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum TC Textual Criticism: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism ThKNT Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament UALG Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte UTB Uni-Taschenbücher VCSup Vigiliae Christianae Supplements VetC Vetera Christianorum VIEG Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz WA Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke. 120 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–2009 YPR Yale Publications in Religion

Chapter 1

Points of Departure 1.1. Introduction 1.1. Introduction

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the significance of Jesus in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Although there is a small amount of textual ambiguity about precise phrases and word order, combinations of the words Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, and κύριος appear roughly 140 times in seven letters.1 Jesus is also referred to as “our hope” (ἡ ἐλπὶς ἡµῶν; Magn. 11), his flesh and blood are associated with faith and love (Trall. 8.1), and Jesus’s suffering and death provide the model for Ignatius’s own suffering and anticipated death as he is escorted across Asia by his Roman guards (Rom. 3.2–3; 5.1; 6.3).2 In addition, Ignatius designates Jesus as θεός on multiple occasions,3 links him uniquely with the Father, and emphatically insists, often in polemical contexts, that Jesus was simultaneously fully in the flesh during his time on earth.4 To put it succinctly, “Ignatius embraces a high Christology.”5 Jesus is also closely associated with the people who follow him. Ignatius prays that Magnesian Christians can share in the unity of the Father and Jesus 1 A similar count is given by Paul Foster that includes “fairly standard Christological title[s]” along with references to Jesus by name (“Christ and the Apostles in the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,” in Early Christians between Ideal and Reality, ed. Mark Grundeken and Joseph Verheyden, WUNT 342 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015], 116n.14). 2 Callie Callon is right to argue that Ignatius’s use of the term λεόπαρδοι in Rom. 5.1 is an insult rather than a reference to a military regiment (“A Re-examination of Ignatius’ Use of the Term ‘Leopards,’” JTS 66 [2015]: 585–595). This suggests treatment that might properly be described as “beastly.” Due to the high number of citations from Ignatius’s letters, the authorial prefix “Ign.” has been omitted. Ignatius’s letters to the Ephesians and Romans are abbreviated as “Eph.” and “Rom.,” while “Eph” and “Rom” stand for the letters in the New Testament of the same name. Similarly, “Pol. Phil.” refers to Polycarp’s Philippians, while “Pol.” denotes Ignatius’s Polycarp and “Phil” designates Paul’s letter to Philippi. 3 Eph. inscr.; 1.1; 7.2; 15.3; 18.2; 19.3; Trall. 7.1; Rom. inscr. (twice); 3.3; 6.3; Smyrn. 1.1; 10.1; Pol. 8.3. 4 E.g. Eph. 7.2; 18.2–19.1; Magn. 11; Trall. 9.1–2; Smyrn. 1.1–3.3; Pol. 3.2. 5 Gregory Vall, Learning Christ: Ignatius of Antioch and the Mystery of Redemption (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 97. Similarly, J. N. D. Kelly writes, “The centre of Ignatius’s thinking was Christ” (Early Christian Doctrines, 3rd ed. [London: Black, 1965], 92).

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(Magn. 1.2), while Jesus is depicted as a co-bishop with his Father when Ignatius writes to Polycarp (Pol. inscr.). Jesus’s significance for the church becomes clear when looking at Ignatius’s ecclesial typology.6 Jesus is a type of the deacons in the heavenly ecclesiology, while the Father is connected to the bishop and the apostles to the elders (Magn. 6.1; Trall. 2.1–3.1). Yet Ignatius’s typology is not employed consistently. Rather, it tells of the heavenly presence that Ignatius expected in ecclesial life while resisting strictly consistent identifications. Thus Jesus’s presence in the church extends further than his connection with the deacons alone. Bishops are in the mind of Christ (Eph. 3.2), obedience to the presbyters is linked with the law of Jesus Christ (Magn. 2), and “wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church” (ὅπου ἂν ᾖ Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, ἐκεῖ ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία; Smyrn. 8.2). Jesus’s connection to bishops, presbyters, deacons, and the entire church indicate that Ignatius’s typology is not absolutely consistent. The connections between Jesus and his people are tightened by Ignatius’s use of paired metaphors. For example, Jesus is ὁ καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (Eph. 20.1) and ὁ τέλειος ἄνθρωπος (Smyrn. 4.2). In turn, Ignatius expects that in his own death, he will be truly ἄνθρωπος (Rom. 6.2). Jesus and Ignatius are thus connected by a specific term in addition to Ignatius’s imitation of his suffering and death. This study situates itself alongside other studies of Christology and ecclesiology in the Ignatian epistles by examining another set of paired metaphors: the high priest and the temple. Jesus is referred to as high priest only in Phld. 9.1. Ignatius’s use of the term rarely receives much attention, while Stark claims more emphatically that Ignatius’s use of the term ἀρχιερεύς “has not much significance to it.”7 Yet Ignatius employs the metaphors of high priest and door in the midst of a discussion in which he outlines the relation between the gospel and Jewish scripture as well as the role of the prophets. Moreover, there is a polemical edge to Ignatius’s writing as he recounts a disagreement that he had with at least some in Philadelphia. Only a few sentences before he speaks of Jesus as high priest, Ignatius calls the Philadelphians a temple (ναός; Phld. 7.2). The Philadelphians are to be unified with their bishop and otherwise behave in such a way as to demonstrate that they are God’s temple. The rhetorical connections and role played by the high priest and temple in the argument of the letter remain to be worked out fully in chapters 3 and 4. For now it is enough to note that high priests and temples function within similar conceptual worlds. A high priest offers much of his or her service to a deity in temples. The two often go together. That these

6 See similarly John Behr, The Way to Nicaea (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 82. 7 Alonzo Rosecrans Stark, “The Christology in the Apostolic Fathers” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1912), 24.

1.1. Introduction

3

metaphors appear relatively close to one another in the same letter should raise questions about whether or not they work together in the argument. Although Ignatius refers to Jesus as high priest only once in his letters, he refers to his audience as temples on three other occasions. Two of these references come in the same letter. The Ephesians are described as stones of the temple (Eph. 9.1), while in another passage each of the Ephesians comprises a temple individually (Eph. 15.3). In addition, some of the Ephesians serve as temple-bearers (ναοφόροι) in a processional metaphor (Eph. 9.2). Jesus is not spoken of as high priest anywhere in this letter. However, chapters 5 and 6 will argue that he is present in each of these three metaphors. Similarly, Magn. 7.2 positions Jesus and the temple, along with an altar, as objects toward which the Magnesians are instructed to run. Again, Jesus is not described as a high priest, but he is once more present in connection with Ignatius’s temple imagery. This study explores the relationship between Jesus and the temple by working from the pairing of the high priestly and temple metaphors in Phld. 7.2– 9.1. From this, the study will work methodically to describe Jesus’s role within the temple in other letters. By paying close attention to these two metaphors, the study contributes a historically and literarily focused exploration of Ignatius’s Christology and ecclesiology and may be of use to future attempts to study the way in which Ignatius understands Jesus and his followers. Finally, this study touches on similar imagery in surrounding literature within Ignatius’s milieu. To attempt to integrate all of the sources that could shed light on Ignatius’s use of the temple metaphor would extend this volume unnecessarily. For example, Allen Brent has made a strong case for reading Ignatius alongside other Greek rhetors and inscriptions from the Second Sophistic movement. 8 This rhetorical development was especially popular in Greece and Asia Minor and stretched from the late-first to early-third centuries CE. Brent finds the most striking similarities with literature in the first half of the second century.9 While a discussion of Ignatius’s conceptual background is not the primary aim of this study, brief examinations of certain early Jewish and early Christian texts may help in understanding Ignatius’s letters by offering more or less contemporaneous comparative material from related movements that interacted with early Christianity in at least some instances over the course of the first two centuries CE. Although such comparison may deserve further attention in due course, the partial analysis in this study is intended to

8 Allen Brent, “Ignatius’ Pagan Background in Second Century Asia Minor,” ZAC 10 (2006): 207–232; idem, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic: A Study of Early Christian Transformation of Pagan Culture, STAC 36 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 41– 311. 9 On the Second Sophistic, see the studies of Graham Anderson, The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1993); Tim Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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Chapter 1: Points of Departure

supplement the examination of Ignatius against the background of his GrecoRoman rhetorical environment

1.2. Literature Review 1.2. Literature Review

As this compressed allusion to Brent reveals, however, this study is one of many that have taken up Ignatius’s letters. In addition to commentaries and monographs devoted to Ignatius’s thought,10 narrower studies regarding Ignatius’s understanding of episcopacy, the social world described in his letters, and his role in the parting of the ways have also added significantly to studies of Christian origins.11 Yet less has appeared with a direct focus on the high priestly and temple imagery. Two sets of studies may be mentioned briefly.

10

For commentaries, see e.g. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp: Revised Texts with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 5 parts (London: Macmillan, 1889–1891); Walter Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, HNT Ergänzungsband, Die apostolischen Väter 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1920); Robert M. Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, The Apostolic Fathers: A New Translation and Commentary 4 (Camden: Thomas Nelson, 1967); Henning Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, HNT 18, Die apostolischen Väter 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985); William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). For monographs, see e.g. Theodor Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien (Gotha: Perthes, 1873); Eduard von der Goltz, Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe: Eine dogmengeschichtliche Untersuchung, TUGAL 12.3 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1894); Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch, YPR 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960); Henning Paulsen, Studien zur Theologie des Ignatius von Antiochien, FKDG 29 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978); Vall, Learning Christ. See also the concise study of Cyril Charles Richardson (The Christianity of Ignatius of Antioch [New York: Columbia University Press, 1935]) and the collected essays of Peter Meinhold (Studien zu Ignatius von Antiochien, VIEG 97 [Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979]). 11 E.g. episcopacy: Harry O. Maier, The Social Setting of the Ministry as Reflected in the Writings of Hermas, Clement, and Ignatius, SR 1 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1991), 147–198; Alistair C. Stewart, The Original Bishops: Office and Order in the First Christian Communities (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 238–295; Ignatius’s social world: Christine Trevett, A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia, SBEC 29 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1992); eadem, Christian Women and the Time of the Apostolic Fathers (AD c. 80–160): Corinth, Rome and Asia Minor (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), 167–273; Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, WUNT 166 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 628–711; the parting of the ways: Thomas A. Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early Jewish-Christian Relations (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009); James D. G. Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity, Christianity in the Making 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 650–654, 671–672.

1.2. Literature Review

5

1.2.1. High Priestly Metaphors To begin with, the role of Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 has been explored in several articles by Ferdinando Bergamelli and a recent study by Ole Jakob Filtvedt and Martin Wessbrandt. 1.2.1.1. Ferdinando Bergamelli Although Bergamelli includes the reference to the high priest in Phld. 9.1 as part of his investigation into Jesus’s mediatorial role in Ignatius’s thought, he focuses on the image of the door rather than the high priest.12 He rightly connects his interpretation to the discussion of the gospel and archives in Phld. 8.2,13 and he views Jesus as the mediator and door through which everyone must access the Father.14 “Tutti coloro quindi che vogliono arrivare alla vera conoscenza del Padre, devono ‘entrare per mezzo di questa Porta.’” 15 Bergamelli’s focus on Jesus as an intermediary will prove instructive to the study of Jesus as high priest in chapter 3. However, the metaphor of high priest is secondary to his purposes because his articles explore the image of the door more fully. In addition, the temple metaphors are largely left out, leaving the relationship between the two metaphors unexamined. 1.2.1.2. Ole Jakob Filtvedt and Martin Wessbrandt Filtvedt and Wessbrandt have likewise taken up Phld. 9.1 in their study of Jesus’s high priesthood in early Christian texts. They correctly note that Ignatius utilizes the metaphors in order to speak about revelation, that is, the way in which God is made known to the Philadelphians.16 Jesus thus provides access to God. However, one of the chief aims of the article is to ask “what hypothesis would best explain the similarities as well as the independence” that Hebrews, 1 Clement, Phld. 9.1, Polycarp’s Philippians, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp display.17 Their preferred hypothesis is liturgical use. Although the suggestion 12 Ferdinando Bergamelli, “Gesù Cristo e gli archivi (Filadelfiesi 8,2): Cristo centro delle scritture secondo Ignazio di Antiochia,” in Esegesi e catechesi nei padri (secc. II–IV), ed. Sergio Felici (Rome: LAS, 1993), 35–47; idem, “Dal Padre al Padre: Il Padre come principio e termine del Cristo,” Salesianum 62 (2000): 421–431; idem, “Gesù Cristo Porta del Padre (Filadelfiesi 9,1): Il Cristo Mediatore e Rivelatore del Padre in Ignazio di Antiochia,” in “In Lui ci ha scelti” (Ef. 1,4): Studi in onore del Prof. Giorgio Gozzelino, ed. Sabino Frigato (Rome: LAS, 2001), 33–43. 13 Bergamelli, “Dal Padre al Padre,” 426. 14 Bergamelli, “Gesù Cristo e gli archivi,” 41–42. 15 “Therefore, all those who want to reach the true knowledge of the Father must ‘enter through the door’” (Bergamelli, “Gesù Cristo Porta del Padre,” 38). Italics are in the original. 16 Ole Jakob Filtvedt and Martin Wessbrandt, “Exploring the High Priesthood of Jesus in Early Christian Sources,” ZNW 106 (2015): 110. 17 Filtvedt and Wessbrandt, “Exploring the High Priesthood,” 97.

6

Chapter 1: Points of Departure

is plausible, the sights of the study that follows are set primarily on Ignatius’s own usage of the priestly and temple metaphors. While the question of how early Christian priestly imagery developed is interesting, it is not the question that this monograph seeks to engage. Rather, I am interested primarily in how Ignatius’s priestly depiction of Jesus occurs in his own letters and only secondarily in comparing Ignatius’s use of this metaphor with other early Christian usage. The question of how similar imagery developed across early Christian literature is left for other studies. 1.2.2. Temple Metaphors Two scholars have given more attention to the place of temple metaphors in Ignatius’s letters while also studying the interaction between priestly and temple language together.18 1.2.2.1. Peter Legarth The only monograph that treats the topic of Ignatius’s temple metaphors is Peter Legarth’s 1992 thesis from the University of Lund that was published in Menighedsfakultetets Videnskabelige Serie.19 In addition to the Danish thesis and English summary at the end of the monograph, Legarth published a condensed version of his arguments in a 1996 journal article.20 After noting the close relationship between Christology and ecclesiology in the New Testament,21 he outlines expectations for a new temple in early Jewish texts and the New Testament.22 He finds that there is consistently only one God who is predicated of the temple, although this God may be referred to in a number of ways, including θεός, ‫יהוה‬, ‫שם‬, and ‫כבוד‬.23 Messianic figures are not prominent in the depictions of the new temple, and Legarth finds that God is both the builder of the temple and the one who is to be worshipped there.24 18

David J. Downs has also noted recently that the temple images are used for the corporate union of believers but leaves space to develop the study of the metaphors (“The Pauline Concept of Union with Christ in Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 160n.49). 19 Peter V. Legarth, Guds tempel: Tempelsymbolisme og kristologi hos Ignatius af Antiokia, MVS 3 (Århus: Kolon, 1992). 20 Peter V. Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik und Christologie bei Ignatius von Antiochien,” KD 42 (1996): 37–64. For the English summary, see Guds tempel, 344–354. 21 Legarth, Guds tempel, 9–11. 22 Legarth, Guds tempel, 12–97; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 38–47. 23 Legarth, Guds tempel, 14–17, 46; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 38. 24 Although the Messiah is the builder of the temple in Sib.Or. 5.422–425, Legarth notes that this passage is balanced by the portrayal of God as the maker of the temple (Sib.Or. 5.433; Legarth, Guds tempel, 19; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 39). Likewise, although Jesus is the God who dwells among people as the Word (John 1.14), when he refers to his body as

1.2. Literature Review

7

The theocentric presentations of the temple continue in Ignatius’s writings in which the temple belongs to God (Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3; Magn. 7.2; Phld. 7.2). Yet Ignatius’s theocentric depiction of the temple becomes more complex, since he likewise refers to Jesus as θεός.25 This comes as part of Ignatius’s answer to a central question in early Christianity, namely, who is Jesus? For Ignatius, theology is Christocentric.26 A central finding of Legarth’s study develops when Ignatius’s understanding of Jesus as θεός comes into contact with his theocentric presentation of the temple. According to Legarth, whereas messianic figures play an unobtrusive role in the temples of early Jewish and early Christian texts that precede Ignatius, Jesus is a vital figure in the temple metaphors found in Ignatius’s letters. Yet his role in the temple is not always consistent, and this creates “et spændingsforhold mellem tempelsymbolisme og kristologien.”27 The tension arises from a theocentric temple metaphor on the one hand, and a Christology that portrays Jesus as both God and subordinate to the Father on the other. Legarth claims that Ignatius does not predicate θεός of Jesus in the passages in which he is portrayed as obedient to the Father, and this is due to Jesus’s subordinate role in the temple.28 Jesus is not referred to as θεός in the temple metaphors of Eph. 9.1–2, Magn. 7.2, or Phld. 7.2, but he is described as θεός in Eph. 15.3. According to Legarth, temple symbolism thus plays both a catalyzing and a reductive role in Ignatius’s Christology as it provokes Ignatius to refer to Jesus as God in some passages, while it constrains him elsewhere to speak of Jesus as a mediator or high priest.29 Legarth’s monograph is a tightly argued analysis not only of Ignatius’s temple and priestly metaphors but also of related cultic language. It is thoroughly researched and well-versed in the relevant early Jewish and early Christian texts that can shed light on Ignatius’s metaphor. The interpretations of particular Ignatian passages often demonstrate sensitivity and shed light on these underexplored images in the Ignatian corpus. However, little attention is given to the rhetorical flow of Ignatius’s letters. For example, the treatment of ναός the temple, he also speaks of his Father’s house (John 2.16; Legarth, Guds tempel, 63; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 44). 25 Eph. inscr.; 1.1; 7.2; 15.3; 18.2; 19.3; Trall. 7.1; Rom. inscr. (twice); 3.3; 6.3; Smyrn. 1.1; 10.1; Pol. 8.3. Paul R. Gilliam argues that at least some of these references bear the marks of fourth-century debates over Jesus’s identity (Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy, VCSup 140 [Leiden: Brill, 2017], 11–28). While Gilliam’s proposal deserves further attention, I simply note here that Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός at multiple points in the middle recension. 26 Legarth, Guds tempel, 131; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 47. 27 “A relationship of tension between temple symbolism and Christology” (Legarth, Guds tempel, 340). Similarly, Legarth elsewhere describes “das spannungsgeladene Verhältnis zwischen der Tempelsymbolik und der Christologie” (“Tempelsymbolik,” 63). 28 Legarth, Guds tempel, 341; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 63. 29 Legarth, Guds tempel, 343; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 63.

8

Chapter 1: Points of Departure

in Eph. 9.1 and 15.3 is separated by a study of Phld. 7.2–8.1, while the treatment of the temple in Phld. 7.2 comes early in Legarth’s examination but the high priest of Phld. 9.1 is placed at the end.30 Legarth’s thematic organization yields interesting insights into individual passages but does not respect the occasional nature of Ignatius’s letters. In addition, it obscures insights that can be drawn from consideration of the epistolary structure of each document, since the letters can stand as separate compositions. To study cultic metaphors in Ignatius’s letters while taking seriously the metaphors’ placement in particular letters may alter the more uniform presentation in Legarth’s analysis. Other questions may be raised about Legarth’s study. First, although the similarities in temples, altars, priests, and sacrificial language seem prima facie capable of being classified together, when reading through Ignatius’s letters and Guds tempel, the suspicion arises that Ignatius’s discussions of the altar on which he is sacrificed (Rom. 2.2), the one altar that grounds Philadelphian eucharistic practice (Phld. 4), and the temple that the Ephesians comprise as unified stones (Eph. 9.1) are employed for a variety of reasons. Although chapter 8 will include a larger attempt to demonstrate the variety of Ignatius’s cultic language,31 the majority of this study will focus on the temple and priestly metaphors in order to show the different ways in which Ignatius employs them. Second, Legarth refers to temple symbolism as a catalyzing and reductive force in Ignatius’s Christology, since Jesus is both God and obedient to the Father in the temple. The catalyzation comes because Jesus is included as God in the temple (Eph. 15.3). However, Legarth also sees Jesus as a reductive force, since Jesus can only be included as the person of worship in the temple if he is referred to as θεός and not, for example, if he is referred to as κύριος or Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. Yet such an attribution implies that the metaphor played a causative role in Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus as both the God who should be worshipped and the model of obedience. There may be other forces at work in Ignatius’s Christology, and if Jesus is both divine and mediator outside of the temple metaphors, this would bring into question Legarth’s ascription to the temple of a simultaneously catalytic and reductive role. It may be that the temple metaphors reflect Ignatius’s beliefs about Jesus rather than actively form them. However, the point that most requires clarification is Legarth’s claim that there is a tension-filled relationship between temple symbolism and Christology. The location of Legarth’s singular “tension” is ambiguous. Two tensions may be in place. First, it is possible that there is a tension regarding the identity of the God who is deserving of worship in the temple. Sometimes the Father is 30

Eph. 9.1: Legarth, Guds tempel, 139–183; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 48–50; Eph. 15.3: Guds tempel 207–217; “Tempelsymbolik,” 52–53; Phld. 7.2–8.1: Guds tempel, 184–206; “Tempelsymbolik,” 51–52; Phld. 9.1: Guds tempel, 323–337; “Tempelsymbolik,” 61–63. 31 See section 8.2. Although placed at the end, it is hoped that section 8.2 will justify the more detailed study of a smaller selection of texts than Legarth.

1.2. Literature Review

9

the central figure (Eph. 9.1), at other times it is Jesus (Eph. 15.3), and at still other points there is possible ambiguity (Magn. 7.2; Phld. 7.2). Thus the tension could turn on the question of who is deserving of worship. Second, there may be a tension in the role that Jesus plays in the temple metaphors. Jesus is depicted as a mediator and high priest in some texts (Eph. 9.1; Phld. 9.1), but he is the God who is to be worshipped in the temple elsewhere (Eph. 15.3). Perhaps, then, one could identify “spændingsfyldte forholder” (tension-filled relationships) in Legarth’s understanding of Ignatius’s temple metaphors rather than “et spændingsfyldte forhold” (a tension-filled relationship).32 Further, Legarth maintains that Ignatius’s Christology has not been fully integrated into the temple metaphor of Phld. 7.2 because it is the Father to whom the temple belongs and no theocentric thoughts about Jesus are to be found in the passage.33 The lack of integration between Ignatius’s attributions of θεός to Jesus and the Father’s role as the God who is worshipped in the temple seems to be a corollary of Legarth’s tension-filled relationship, but it is not entirely clear how this observation relates to the relationship. Since Legarth demonstrates his understanding through a close reading and interpretation, the tension that he perceives will be addressed fully in the exegetical chapters as the study progresses. However, two things may be noted in preparation. First, if the so-called tension between Jesus as mediator and Jesus as God can be found elsewhere in the letters, this would suggest that the tension, if there is one, exists further afield than in Ignatius’s cultic language alone. In this case, the temple would provide an example of tension in Ignatian Christology but would be unlikely to serve as the cause of the tension. Second, Legarth’s christological tension assumes that a mediatorial figure is less than God. However, if only God can reveal Godself, as Ignatius occasionally seems to hint (e.g. Eph. 19.2; Magn. 8.2), then God must serve as the revealer or mediator to humans in addition to receiving human worship. If the assumption that mediation implies tension with worship can be challenged in Ignatius’s letters, it may be possible to resolve the christological tension that Legarth finds. 1.2.2.2. René Kieffer Although Legarth’s treatment is the only monograph on Ignatius and the temple, René Kieffer has contributed an insightful chapter on the topic. Originally presented at a 1998 symposium in Tübingen, Kieffer’s contribution takes up

32

See Legarth, Guds tempel, 217; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 53. “Et spændingsfyldte forhold” is brought to the fore with reference to Eph. 15.3. 33 Legarth, Guds tempel, 205–206; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 52.

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Chapter 1: Points of Departure

Ignatius’s cultic imagery alongside other studies of the heavenly city and heavenly Jerusalem.34 Kieffer makes the case that the metaphor of the heavenly city should be linked to the Ignatian temple metaphors because God is portrayed as dwelling in the church. While Kieffer acknowledges that he is informed by Legarth’s thesis, his interest is iconographic. “Nous espérons ainsi pouvoir cerner de près l’iconographie qui détermine la symbolique du temple et de l’autel chez Ignace.”35 Kieffer works through much of the same material as Legarth and is again an insightful reader. He likewise views the temple and altar as referring to similar entities, but he collects the references in Ephesians and Philadelphians into discrete sections.36 This allows for more attention to be given to intra-epistolary connections. Despite this different focus from Legarth’s more topical study, little attention is given to the role of cultic imagery in the argumentative contexts in which they occur. For example, given the placement of the temple in Phld. 7.2 between Ignatius’s comments about Judaism in Phld. 6.1 and the archives in Phld. 8.2, one might ask how the temple metaphor aids Ignatius’s argument in this context.37 This limited attention to Ignatius’s rhetoric becomes more evident as he turns to metaphors that occur outside of Ephesians and Philadelphians. These are treated more briefly and with hardly any attention to how the imagery may be connected to the original letter. Thus, although Kieffer is right to read passages from the same letter alongside one another and that Ignatius’s imagery is often employed for polemical purposes, it remains to show how cultic metaphors contribute to Ignatius’s argument as well as to illustrate the way in which the imagery aids Ignatius’s polemic. Finally, Kieffer comments on Legarth’s christological tension with regard to Eph. 15.3. More will be said about this in chapter 6, but Kieffer rightly points out that Legarth “par suite de la présence du mot θεός, ramène trop facilement l’aspect christologique de notre texte au théocentrisme du temple chez Ignace.”38 Since Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός outside of the temple, Kieffer is correct that it is difficult to justify Legarth’s theocentric and Christocentric distinction in the temple. Theology and Christology run together for Ignatius. Yet Kieffer is in danger of making a similar mistake when he writes, “Dans les textes vraiment théocentriques comme 9,1ss, le temple est marqué par le Père et non par le Christ.”39 Yet this statement ignores Ignatius’s emphatic statement 34 René Kieffer, “La demeure divine dans le temple et sur l’autel chez Ignace d’Antioche,” in La cité de Dieu: Die Stadt Gottes: 3. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala 19.–23. September 1998 in Tübingen, ed. Martin Hengel, Siegfried Mittmann, and Anna Maria Schwemer, WUNT 129 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 287–301. 35 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 288. 36 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 289–298. 37 Kieffer treats this passage in “La demeure divine,” 295–296. 38 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 294n.20. 39 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 294n.20.

1.3. Methodology

11

that Jesus is God and his active portrayal of Jesus in the temple metaphor of Eph. 9.1. Clear examples from Ephesians would include at least Eph. 7.2 and 18.2–19.3. To make a strong distinction between theocentric and Christocentric texts without regard for Ignatius’s statements elsewhere in his letters risks distorting the proper understanding of Jesus in the temple metaphors. Further attention to the way in which these metaphors interact with other statements in nearby contexts will lessen the likelihood of making a similar mistake in this study.

1.3. Methodology 1.3. Methodology

The methodological approach utilized in this book is relatively routine for New Testament and early Christian studies as well as more broadly in classics.40 It employs the historical, theological, philological, and literary tools that have been commonplace for the past two centuries,41 although it does not do so without an awareness that both the tools and their use have been criticized. Since this study engages Ignatius’s metaphors more specifically, an additional comment about metaphor is appropriate. In neither case does this study add significantly to methodological discussions, so the comments will be succinct and aim to signal some of the general trends that have impacted the current analysis.42 The real test for this volume’s success will lie in whether the application of these rather conventional tools can shed light on Ignatius’s letters. 1.3.1. History, Theology, and Philology The interpretation of Ignatius’s letters found in the following chapters aims to be informed by knowledge of Ignatius’s environment. This broadly includes

40 For a similar methodological statement, see Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 3. 41 Of course, the theological tools have a unique place in biblical studies, since many scholars likewise have ties to or are in contact with those who have ties to theological communities who look to the Bible as a source of theological truth. 42 Perhaps George J. Brooke’s comments about historiography in the Dead Sea Scrolls may be applied here. Historiography “should be handled, not as a topic in the foreground but as a matter of background” (“Types of Historiography in the Qumran Scrolls,” in Ancient and Modern Scriptural Historiography: L’Historiographie biblique, ancienne et moderne, ed. George J. Brooke and Thomas Römer, BETL 207 [Leuven: Peeters, 2007], 230; repr. in George J. Brooke, Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, EJL 39 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013], 192). This is not to deny the importance of methodological studies of historiography but to acknowledge that this study makes little fresh contribution to the subject.

12

Chapter 1: Points of Departure

the early Christian world of the first half of the second century CE.43 Of course, this aim is frustrated to a large degree by the lack of first-hand evidence that is available about Ignatius. The sources are primarily his own letters and Pol. Phil. 9.1 and 13.1. Although Irenaeus and Origen each quote portions of Ignatius’s letters,44 our next account comes from Eusebius in the fourth century (Hist. eccl. 3.22; 3.36). Yet reading Ignatius with a view towards his historical context is not a fully formed methodology but instead signals an interpretive goal toward which to strive. The study borrows from discussions in New Testament and early Christian historical studies and is particularly indebted to Martin Hengel’s vision of New Testament research as outlined in his 1993 address to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, in which Hengel notes that he prefers not to speak of old and new methods but instead of the multiplicity of philological-historical methods that should be tested over several years.45 He concludes: Wir sollten nicht vergessen, daß vor nicht allzu langer Zeit am Fach neues Testament alle theologischen Disziplinen Anteil hatten, daß alle bedeutsamen Theologen immer auch Ausleger des Neuen Testamentes waren. Als theologische Disziplin sollten wir jedoch gleichzeitig nicht vergessen, daß wir immer auch ein – gewiß kleiner – Bereich innerhalb der Altertumswissenschaften sind und daß uns die saubere Anwendung der philologisch-historischen Methoden gerade mit diesen verbindet und wir vor allem von dort her reiche und notwendige Anregungen empfangen.46

This study aims to follow such a vision by interpreting the metaphors in Ignatius’s letters with care for historical details that may clarify them. Yet two more concerns can be noted from Hengel’s statement. First, he makes note of the place of New Testament studies as a theological discipline. To this may be added that Ignatius’s letters, while far from systematic, contain a number of theological claims, that is, claims about the identity of God and how people should live in relation to that God. This study will attempt to be sympathetic to Ignatius’s own thought when trying to understand his letters. Second, Hengel outlines the importance of philology for early Christian studies.47 Since Ignatius wrote in Greek and his letters were subsequently translated into Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, and Arabic, this study has attempted to be philologically 43

More specific comments on the date of Ignatius’s letters may be found in section 1.4.1. Irenaeus quotes Rom. 4.1 without naming Ignatius in Haer. 5.28.4, and Origen refers to Ignatius by name when citing Rom. 7.2 (Cant. prologue) and Eph. 19.1 (Hom. Luc. 6). These passages are usefully collected in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.143–144. 45 Martin Hengel, “Aufgaben der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” NTS 40 (1994): 352; idem, “Tasks of New Testament Scholarship,” BBR 6 (1996): 84. 46 Hengel, “Aufgaben,” 356. A similar statement may be found in Hengel, “Tasks,” 86. 47 Earlier in the paper, Hengel laments the degradation of philological education and responds, “Klassische Philologie und Historische Theologie sind in einer ungeschichtlich-denkenden postmodernen Welt mehr den je aufeinander angewiesen” (Hengel, “Aufgaben,” 339; idem, “Tasks,” 78). 44

1.3. Methodology

13

informed.48 Particular concerns arise about the definitions of words, grammar, and Greek rhetoric, and these are examined at appropriate times in the following pages. An additional attempt at philological comprehensiveness may be found in the text-critical footnotes for Ignatian passages that speak of the high priest and temple. However, as a study of high priestly and temple metaphors in Ignatius, this historically, theologically, and philologically focused study must say an additional word about the role of metaphor. 1.3.2. Metaphor Two ways of treating the topic of metaphors seem initially appealing. The first would begin by recognizing that all language and thought, or at least most of it, is metaphorical.49 On this first way, all manner of language could be brought in to inform the understanding of metaphor. Particularly interesting examples might include the place that so-called dead metaphors might play in a language as well as the role of metaphor in verbs of perception.50 Yet, as this example of what could be covered under a metaphorical approach to language illustrates, such an approach would take one far afield from Ignatius with little initial hope of shedding much light on his high priestly and temple metaphors. For the purposes of this study, then, it seems preferable to outline a more modest understanding of metaphors that are readily identified in literature, oratory, and poetry. Despite the relatively common understanding of metaphor that is shared reasonably widely, at least by those with similar cultural backgrounds, this second way of treating the topic suffers from the problem of definition.51

48 I have consulted the Greek, Latin, and Syriac texts in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2; 2.3, and the Greek texts of the middle recension that can be found in other editions. The textual apparatuses of several critical editions, and the comments found in commentaries and critical editions have informed the textual decisions made in this study. 49 I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1936), 92–95. 50 On dead metaphors, see Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning, 2nd ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 1952), 60–76; C. S. Lewis, “Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare,” in Rehabilitations and Other Essays (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 133–158. For a consideration of English verbs of perception within the context of IndoEuropean languages, see Eve E. Sweetser, From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure, CSL 54 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 23–48. 51 Noting that he and his students do not agree about how to define a metaphor, Wayne C. Booth observes that both parties “have found innumerable instances of what all of us happily call metaphors regardless of our definition” (“Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation,” in On Metaphor, ed. Sheldon Sacks [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979], 49).

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Chapter 1: Points of Departure

Aristotle defined four instances of metaphor: the transference of a term from genus to species, from species to genus, from species to species, and analogy.52 However, Aristotle’s definition is too large to account only for metaphors. Indeed, almost any exchange of words from one context to another could be accounted for by Aristotle’s definition. 53 Another classical definition may be found in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, where he describes a metaphor as a substitution of one thing for another. He also notes that a metaphor is typically shorter than a simile.54 The aim of Quintilian’s work is not to offer a full theory of metaphor but instead to speak of the proper implementation of metaphor in the context of rhetoric.55 With this in mind, contemporary definitions may offer a more useful place from which to begin. To begin with, it is helpful to classify the variety of ways in which metaphors have been defined. Max Black outlines three primary types of definitions for metaphors, namely, substitution, comparison, and interaction. He argues for the third variety in which a principal and a subsidiary subject are set beside one another and allowed to interact. All traits of the principal subject that correspond to the subsidiary subject can come into play within the metaphor, even if not initially intended by author or speaker, while traits that do not correspond are suppressed.56 However, Janet Soskice points out that Black’s chief example, “Man is a wolf,” takes a particular syntactical form, namely, “x is a y.” She rightly insists that metaphors do not need to take a particular syntactical form and that they resist such simplifications.57 As a working definition, this study will utilize Soskice’s working definition: “Metaphor is that figure of speech whereby we speak about one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another.”58 Such a definition fits Ignatius’s temple and high priestly 52

µεταφορὰ δέ ἐστιν ὀνόµατος ἀλλοτρίου ἐπιφορὰ ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ γένους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ τὸ γένος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ κατὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον (Aristotle, Poet. 1457b). 53 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny (London: Routledge, 1978), 17. 54 In totum autem metaphora brevior est similitudo, eoque distat, quod illa comparatur rei quam volumus exprimere, haec pro ipsa re dicitur (Quintilian, Inst. 8.6.8). 55 Erin Heim, Adoption in Galatians and Romans: Contemporary Metaphor Theories and the Pauline Huiothesia Metaphors, BibInt 153 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 31. Richards critiques treatments of rhetoric that, similar to Quintilian, regard metaphors as something extra to rhetoric (The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 90). 56 Max Black, Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 25–47. 57 Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 19. It is worth noting that not all of Black’s examples follow this form. For example, Black uses, “I like to plow my memories regularly,” as one of his examples (Black, Models and Metaphors, 28). However, Soskice’s observation is generally correct, and Black’s examples tend to follow the “x is a y” form when he turns to the interaction model (Models and Metaphors, 38–47). 58 Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 15.

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metaphors well. Briefly, Ignatius speaks of the community in terms that are seen to be suggestive of the temple and Jesus in terms that are seen to be suggestive of the high priest. Chapters 3–7 will work out the implications of these forms of speech in greater detail. Yet metaphors do not only need to be defined. They often have further consequences for those who encounter them. Two notes about what metaphors do will thus be helpful to keep in mind before proceeding further. First, metaphors have significant cognitive impacts insofar as they shape the way in which meaning is made. “Metaphors have the power to create a new reality.”59 Such a reality-shaping potency may likewise pertain to Ignatius’s metaphors as they have the capacity to shape the way in which related statements in other portions of the letter may be understood in light of the metaphor. Second, metaphors are able to shape group identity.60 This capability is of great import for Ignatius’s letters in which unity plays a consistent theme throughout.61 The high priestly and temple metaphors have the power to unite at least some of Ignatius’s hearers in a single metaphor that is intimately related to Jesus Christ. In opposition to the factious parties that Ignatius perceives as so dangerous, these metaphors offer an alternative, unified vision of the congregations to which Ignatius applies them.

1.4. Further Preliminary Considerations 1.4. Further Preliminary Considerations

With these brief methodological statements in place, it remains to highlight two further considerations that will impact the remainder of the study. These are the date of Ignatius’s letters and the importance of reading them individually. 1.4.1. Dating Ignatius Ignatian scholarship since the Reformation has often been plagued by doubts about whether the Ignatian epistles are genuine. Scholarship divided largely along denominational lines immediately after the Reformation, with Catholics and Anglicans arguing for the genuineness of Ignatius’s letters while Puritans and Presbyterians argued that the letters were spurious. These early discussions about authenticity revolved around two questions. First, which recension of Ignatius’ letters should be regarded as authentic? Second, when are the letters

59

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 145. 60 For a fuller analysis, see Heim, Adoption in Galatians and Romans, 104–110. 61 Sergio Zañartu offers a glimpse of the numerous ways in which Ignatius can speak of unity in “Les concepts de vie et de mort chez Ignace d’Antioche,” VC 33 (1979): 332–333.

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to be dated?62 The works of Theodor Zahn and J. B. Lightfoot were instrumental in setting the terms for future discussion of these issues.63 Zahn and Lightfoot argued for the authenticity of the seven letters in the middle recension over and against the traditional long recension and the shorter Syriac recension published by William Cureton.64 They also followed Eusebius by arguing for a date during the reign of Trajan in the early second century.65 Arguments regarding the authenticity of the Ignatian corpus are now undertaken almost solely on the basis of the middle recension. The picture painted by Zahn and Lightfoot has now been challenged due in large part to the work of Reinhard Hübner and Thomas Lechner, who each built upon the study of Robert Joly.66 Joly based his arguments for a date around 62

These debates were closely connected to discussions of ecclesial polity. Especially in England, Ignatius could be seen as an early advocate of Episcopal polity if genuine. Similarly, a spurious set of epistles could be leveraged in favor of a Non-conformist polity. For a fuller summary of scholarship, see William R. Schoedel, “Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch,” ANRW 27.1:286–292, 345–349; Charles Munier, “Où en est la question d’Ignace d’Antioche? Bilan d’un siècle de recherches 1870–1988,” ANRW 27.1:359–484; Allen Brent, Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 95–143; Timothy D. Barnes, “The Date of Ignatius,” ExpTim 120 (2008): 119–122; L. Stephanie Cobb, “Neither ‘Pure Evangelical Manna’ nor ‘Tainted Scraps’: Reflections on the Study of Pseudo-Ignatius,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 181–185. 63 Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers. Despite Lightfoot’s methodical work, his belief that, “no Christian writings of the second century…are so well authenticated as the Epistles of Ignatius” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.422) seems presumptuous in light of current scholarship. While his dating of Ignatius remains plausible, his confidence seems less tenable. 64 On the long recension, see Bart D. Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 460– 480; Alistair C. Stewart, Ignatius of Antioch: The Letters, PPS 49 (Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013), 111–134. For the short recension, see William Cureton, The Ancient Syriac Version of the Epistles of Saint Ignatius to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans (London: Rivingtons, 1845); idem, Vindiciae Ignatianae, or The Genuine Writings of St. Ignatius as Exhibited in the Antient Syriac Version, Vindicated from the Charge of Heresy (London: Rivingtons, 1846); idem, Corpus Ignatianum: A Complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles, Genuine, Interpolated, and Spurious (London: Rivingtons, 1849). 65 The seven letters which have come to be accepted as genuine have early attestation in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36 where Eusebius quotes from what appears to be the middle recension of Romans and Smyrnaeans. 66 Reinhard M. Hübner, “Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien,” ZAC 1 (1997): 44–72; idem, Der Paradox Eine: Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, VCSup 50 (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Thomas Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos? Chronologische und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien, VCSup 47 (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Robert Joly, Le dossier d’Ignace d’Antioche, Université libre de Bruxelles: Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres 69 (Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1979).

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160–170 CE on anomalies in Ignatian terminology and citations from later texts. He offered additional reasons for understanding Pol. Phil. 13 as inauthentic based on the apparent discrepancy with Pol. Phil. 9.1, where Ignatius seems to have died, and Pol. Phil. 13.2, where Ignatius’s status seems to be unknown. 67 Joly argues that Pol. Phil. 13 is an interpolation from a later forger and that the mention of Ignatius in Pol. Phil. 9.1 has likewise been added to the original list of the Philippian martyrs, Zosimus and Rufus. Finally, Joly argues that Trall. 8.2 is dependent on Pol. Phil. 10.2–3.68 Hübner and Lechner continue to build upon anomalies within the Ignatian corpus and Polycarp’s Philippians. They exhibit a general distrust of Eusebius’s accuracy in dating.69 They have likewise shifted the discussion by noting terminological similarities with Noetus of Smyrna, who flourished in the middle of the second century and is remembered as a modalist who argued that the Father and the Son were the same person.70 Noting that both Ignatius and Noetus use antithetical pairs with privative affixes (Eph. 7.2; Pol. 3.2; Hippolytus, Haer. 10.27), Hübner and Lechner argue that the Ignatian letters are dependent upon Noetus and were composed by a disciple of Noetus to make the case for monepiscopacy in response to gnostic developments.71

67 Joly, Le dossier, 17–22. Polycarp encourages the Philippians to follow the suffering model of Jesus and others whom they have known in Pol. Phil. 9.1 (Παρακαλῶ οὖν πάντας ὑµᾶς...ἀσκεῖν πᾶσαν ὑποµονήν, ἣν καὶ εἴδατε κατ’ ὀφθαλµοὺς οὐ µόνον ἐν τοῖς µακαρίοις Ἰγνατίῳ καὶ Ζωσίµῳ καὶ Ῥούφῳ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις). In Pol. Phil. 13.2, however, he asks for information about Ignatius and those who are with him (Et de ipso Ignatio et de his qui cum eo sunt, quod certius agnoveritis, significate). Much of Pol. Phil. 10–14, including this section of Pol. Phil. 13.2, is available only in Latin. On the manuscripts of Philippians, see Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, “Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung des Polykarp- und des Barnabasbriefes: Zwei nicht beachtete Deszendenten des Cod. Vat. Gr. 859,” VC 48 (1994): 48– 64; Paul Hartog, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, OAF (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 26–27. 68 Joly, Le dossier, 29–31. 69 Hübner, “Thesen zur Echtheit,” 45–48; Lechner, Ignatius adversus Valentinianos, 81– 113. 70 “Everybody knows that Noetos says that the Son himself is also the Father. 11For he speaks as follows: When the Father had not been born, he was rightly called ‘Father.’ But when the Father deigned to endure birth, he was born and became his own Son – not the Son of another” (ὅτι δὲ καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν υἱὸν εἶναι λέγει καὶ πατέρα οὐδεὶς ἀγνοεῖ. λέγει γὰρ οὕτως, ὅτε µὲν οὖν µὴ γεγένητο ὁ πατὴρ, δικαίως πατὴρ προσηγόρευτο. ὅτε δὲ ηὐδόκησε γένεσιν ὑποµεῖναι, γεννηθείς, ὁ υἱὸς ἐγένετο αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ, οὐχ ἑτέρου; Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.10–11). The translation and text come from M. David Litwa, Refutation of All Heresies, WGRW 40 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016), 641. 71 Hübner, “Thesen,” 53–60. See also Reinhard M. Hübner, “Die antignostische Glaubensregel des Noët von Smyrna: (Hippolyt, Refutatio IX,10,9–12 und X,27,1–2) bei Ignatius, Irenaeus und Tertullian,” MTZ 40 (1989): 297. Lechner follows Hübner at this point (Ignatius adversus Valentinianos, xxiv). Hübner proposes a date around 165–175.

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These arguments have been variously followed and developed by Markus Vinzent, Roger Parvus, Walter Schmithals, and Otto Zwierlein. Vinzent has argued that Smyrn. 3 should be read as a response to Marcionite docetism.72 Parvus has argued along different lines that Ignatius’s letters were composed by Theophorus, a purported follower of Apelles, in the middle of the second century. These letters were then corrected by a proto-catholic editor at the end of the second century.73 Schmithals has accepted the arguments of Hübner and Lechner for a late date but argues that the letters were composed to substantiate monepiscopacy in a Roman church rather than in Asia.74 Zwierlein follows the late date when arguing that Ignatius’s comments about Peter and Paul in Rome (Rom. 4.3) cannot be referred to in arguments regarding the historical deaths of the apostles.75 Thus, after a lengthy period in which the scholarly consensus regarded a date early in the second century as relatively certain, the date of Ignatius’s letters has again been challenged. Yet not all are convinced that the analyses of Hübner and Lechner require a later date for Ignatius’s letters. Hübner’s 1997 article in ZAC provoked four responses published in the journal’s immediately subsequent volumes.76 These 72 Markus Vinzent, “‘Ich bin kein körperloses Geistwesen’: Zum Verhältnis von Κήρυγµα Πέτρου, ‘Doctrina Petri,’ ∆ιδασκαλία Πέτρου, und IgnSm 3,” in Der Paradox Eine: Antignostischer Monarchianismus im zweiten Jahrhundert, by Reinhard M. Hübner, VCSup 50 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 241–286. Vinzent develops his reading of resurrection in Ignatius as a response to Marcion in Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 213. 73 Roger Parvus, A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and Other Apellean Writings (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2008). Parvus modifies the study of Joseph Turmel, who wrote under the pseudonym of Henri Delafosse (Lettres d’Ignace d’Antioche, Textes du christianisme 2 [Paris: Rieder, 1927]). 74 Walter Schmithals, “Zu Ignatius von Antiochien,” ZAC 13 (2009): 181–203. 75 Otto Zwierlein, Petrus in Rom, 2nd ed., UALG 96 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 31–33, 183–237. However, Udo Schnelle points out that Zwierlein “muss…zugeben: ‘Ein Romaufenthalt der beiden Apostel aber scheint an dieser Stelle vorausgesetzt’” (Die ersten 100 Jahre des Christentums 30–130 n. Chr.: Die Entstehungsgeschichte einer Weltreligion, UTB [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015], 305). Schnelle’s quotation comes from Zwierlein, Petrus in Rom, 32. For an overview of Peter in Ignatius’s letters, see Todd D. Still, “Images of Peter in the Apostolic Fathers,” Peter in Early Christianity, ed. Helen K. Bond and Larry W. Hurtado (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 164–165. For an account of Peter’s death that challenges Zwierlein, see Timothy D. Barnes, “‘Another Shall Gird Thee’: Probative Evidence for the Death of Peter,” Peter in Early Christianity, ed. Helen K. Bond and Larry W. Hurtado (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 76–95. 76 Andreas Lindemann, “Antwort auf die ‘Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien,’” ZAC 1 (1997): 185–194; Georg Schöllgen, “Die Ignatianen als pseudepigraphisches Briefcorpus,” ZAC 2 (1998): 16–25; Mark J. Edwards, “Ignatius and the Second Century: A Response to R. Hübner,” ZAC 2 (1998): 214–226; Hermann Josef Vogt, “Bemerkungen zur Echtheit der Ignatiusbriefe,” ZAC 3 (1999): 50–63. Vogt published two articles elsewhere (“Vertreten die Ignatius-Briefe Patripassianismus?”

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responses continue to pose helpful questions for some of the arguments on which Hübner based his case.77 Although a healthy challenge to the consensus has been put forward, the letters’ authenticity still seems defensible. For example, it is not clear that any of the arguments against the authenticity of Pol. Phil. 13.2 have yet been able to overcome the plausible suggestion made long ago by Pearson that qui cum eo sunt is a translation of οἵ µετὰ αὐτοῦ.78 A retrojected translation cannot be proven, but Pearson’s proposal is plausible and resolves the need to assume a discrepancy between this phrase and Pol. Phil. 9.1. Once the apparent contradiction in Philippians has been accounted for, it remains to observe two further matters in response. First, Hübner and Lechner too easily account for literary similarities by arguing for literary borrowing. They argue in almost every instance that Ignatius is the one borrowing from an earlier text without adequately considering the possibility that later texts may have borrowed from Ignatius or that the texts may share in a common tradition that was otherwise mediated. For example, there is no obvious reason why the similarities between Ignatius and Marcion, Apelles, Noetus, and Valentinus could not be accounted for in each case by appealing to borrowing from Ignatius or to similar traditions. In particular, the confessional material in Ignatius’s letters may be viewed just as easily in conjunction with Rom 1.3–4 and 1 Tim 3.16 as with Noetus. The antithesis between flesh and spirit is already present in Rom 1, while 1 Tim 3 demonstrates a balanced construction that is in keeping with Eph. 7.2 and Pol. 3.2.79 A similar point may be made regarding Magn. 8.2 and its purported similarities to Valentinian language where it is equally plausible that Valentinians may have TQ 180 [2000]: 237–251; “Sind die Ignatius-Briefe antimarkionitisch beeinflusst?” TQ 181 [2001]: 1–19). 77 For further critique of these and other cases for the inauthenticity of Ignatius’s letters, see Brent, Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy, 95–143. 78 Johannes Pearson, Vindiciae epistolarum S. Ignatii (Cambridge: Joann Hayes, 1672), Pars prior, 71–73. Pearson supposes (ut opinor) that the Greek text that lies behind the Latin translation, et de ipso Ignatio et de his qui cum eo sunt, would be καὶ περὶ αὐτοῦ Ἰγνατίου καὶ περὶ τῶν µετὰ αὐτοῦ. Lightfoot notes that the Latin translation includes a copular verb where the Greek clause leaves the verb implicit on four other occasions (Pol. Phil. inscr.; 3.2, 3; 9.1; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.589). Photius accepted the text before him when he writes that Polycarp “says that he sent the letters of Ignatius the God-bearer to them and asks to be better informed by them if they learn of him” (λέγει δὲ καὶ τὰς ἐπιστολὰς αὐτοῖς Ἰγνατίου τοῦ θεοφόρου ἀπεσταλκέναι, καὶ αἰτεῖται ἀναδιδαχθῆναι παρ’ αὐτῶν εἴ τι περὶ ἐκείνου διακούσαιεν; Bibl. 126; text from Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.572). Alternatively, qui cum eo sunt could be a translation of οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ. So Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.349; Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 298. On the implications of Polycarp’s Philippians as evidence for Ignatius, see further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.588–591; William R. Schoedel, “Polycarp’s Witness to Ignatius of Antioch,” VC 41 (1987): 1–10; Allen Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 315–318. 79 Edwards, “Ignatius and the Second Century,” 219.

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borrowed from Ignatius or both may develop a similar tradition, such as that reflected in Wis 18.14–15.80 A second way of responding to the thesis set forth by Hübner and Lechner has attempted to place Ignatius in the rhetorical context of early Second Sophistic rhetoric during the period of the Flavian and Antonine emperors.81 As the Julio-Claudian dynasty gave way to the Flavians, the significance of concordia and ὁµόνοια played an increasingly important role in describing the relationship between outlying cities and Rome as well as the relationships between the respective cities themselves. The language appears on coins, on inscriptions about religious ceremonies, in Roman political rhetoric from the late first and early second centuries, and is likewise found in Jewish and Christian writers at the end of the first century.82 Harmony also plays an important role in Ignatius’s discourses to the churches.83 Although dating Ignatius to a time when the Second Sophistic was a powerful movement may not satisfactorily explain every peculiarity in Ignatius’s understanding of church order, “Ignatius’s use of ὁµόνοια can be evaluated in the context of the culture and age between the Flavians and the Antonines with the result that his uses of the term are found to be in continuity with the literary, iconographic and rhetorical trends that were normative between the 80s and 130s.”84 Despite the challenge to the authenticity and date of the letters that has been proffered by Hübner and others, a date in the first half of the second century for Ignatius’s letters still seems more likely than a date in the latter half. Caroline Hammond Bammel’s 1982 declaration that “by denying the authenticity

80

Vogt, “Bemerkungen,” 52. On the similarities between Wis 18.14–15 and another Ignatian passage, Eph. 19, see Allen Cabaniss, “Wisdom 18:14f.: An Early Christmas Text,” VC 10 (1956): 97–102. 81 Most notably, see Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic; John-Paul Lotz, Ignatius and Concord: The Background and Use of the Language of Concord in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Patristic Studies 8 (New York: Peter Lang, 2007). See also Philip A. Harland, “Christ-Bearers and Fellow-Initiates: Local Cultural Life and Christian Identity in Ignatius’ Letters,” JECS 11 (2003): 481–499; Harry O. Maier, “The Politics and Rhetoric of Discord and Concord in Paul and Ignatius,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 307–324. 82 Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 41–230; Lotz, Ignatius and Concord, 37–93. 83 “If asked how this fulfilled his quest for ἕνωσις or ἑνότης, he would reply because, sacramentally, his θυσία, also a συνθυσία was effecting ὁµόνοια between individual churches, just as the threefold order secured ὁµόνοια within a church at a validly constituted eucharist. That ὁµόνοια, like the principle of political co-operation securing Hellenic unity, achieved the unity of ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία” (Brent, “Ignatius’ Pagan Background,” 232). 84 Lotz, Ignatius and Concord, 195.

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of Ignatius’ letters one dissociates them from this obscure period without solving the problems themselves” remains apt today.85 Yet this leaves available a broader range of dates for authentic Ignatian letters than was the case when the Zahn-Lightfoot consensus reigned. Paul Foster dates the letters around 125– 150 while maintaining their authenticity.86 Timothy Barnes opts for a date early in the time of Pius, perhaps around 140.87 Alistair Stewart has argued that Ignatius was taken to Rome at the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt under the auspices of Cohort I Lepidiana.88 Stevan Davies, Christine Trevett, Judith Lieu, and Paul Hartog point out reasons to date Ignatius to the time of Trajan.89 Is it possible to be any more specific than a date sometime in the first half of the second century? Although dating Ignatius’s martyrdom to the time of Hadrian or Pius cannot be definitively ruled out, it is more likely that Ignatius’s discourse should be seen in light of the conservative political program of Trajan. Even though protests have been made regarding their value in dating Ignatius, the Trajanic date of Ignatius’s martyrdom used by Eusebius and John Malalas still seems as reasonable as any other option.90 Trajan’s distrust of collegia is well-attested. For 85 Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Ignatian Problems,” JTS 33 (1982): 79. Similarly, Alistair Stewart has declared more recently, “It simply does not make sense for an elaborate apparatus of pseudonym far more sophisticated than anything else known in the period to be constructed in order to promote an unknown figure who, as unknown, would have little impact, in order to promote a movement (monepiscopacy) that was barely opposed” (Original Bishops, 238). 86 Paul Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch (Part 1),” Exp Tim 117 (2006): 492; idem, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Paul Foster (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 89. 87 Barnes, “Date,” 119–130; idem, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 15. 88 Stewart, Original Bishops, 239–240; idem, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists’: A Survey of Opinion and Some Modest Suggestions,” in Docetism in the Early Church: The Quest for an Elusive Phenomenon, ed. Joseph Verheyden et al., WUNT 402 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 144–147. For the name of the military cohort that Ignatius refers to in Rom. 5.1, Stewart here follows the proposal of D. B. Saddington, “St. Ignatius, Leopards, and the Roman Army,” JTS 38 (1987): 411–412. However, Callon has now critiqued Saddington’s possible, but somewhat tenuous, proposal because it has no manuscript support and has not discerned Ignatius’s rhetorical aims in the letter (Callon, “Re-examination,” 587–588). 89 Stevan L. Davies, “The Predicament of Ignatius of Antioch,” VC 30 (1976): 175–180; Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 3–9; Judith M. Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 25; Paul Hartog, Polycarp and the New Testament: The Occasion, Rhetoric, Theme, and Unity of the Epistle to the Philippians and Its Allusions to New Testament Literature, WUNT 2.134 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 57–60. 90 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.22, 36. In his Chronicle, Eusebius dates Ignatius’s death more precisely to the tenth year of Trajan’s reign (107 CE), which occurred during the 221st Olympiad (Josef Karst, Eusebius Werke 5: Die Chronik aus dem Armenischen übersetzt mit

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example, when Pliny asked for permission to form a company of firefighters after fire damaged Nicomedia, Trajan refused his request on the grounds that citizens who gather together for a single purpose become a political risk (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.33–34).91 Ignatius has no qualms in asking the churches to which he is writing to meet together more often (e.g. Eph. 13.1; Pol. 4.2). This suggests that the letters were written prior to the implementation of Trajan’s edict in Asia around 111–113 CE (Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96–97). Although Trajan’s edict was not systematically applied in all places, Ignatius’s freedom in asking the churches to continue to meet makes it possible to argue that the letters were written between 105–110 CE.92 Such a date also avoids the problem for a Trajanic date that Trajan was not in Rome after 113 or 114.93 Malalas writes that Ignatius was martyred during the time of Trajan’s visit to Antioch because he insulted the emperor,94 but it is not clear from Malalas’s account that Ignatius went to Rome, as the letters suggest.95 I will thus proceed on the working hypothesis that Ignatius’s letters were written during the reign of Trajan with a preference for a date in the middle of Trajan’s reign prior to the implementation of his advice to Pliny in Asia and to his Parthian campaign. 1.4.2. Occasional Letters The second matter to consider can be dealt with more summarily than the comparatively convoluted question of Ignatius’s date. This study proceeds on the assumption that Ignatius’s letters should first be engaged as individual compositions rather than as a collection.96 The epistles are inherited by current interpreters as a collection. They may even have been collected by Polycarp in the textkritischem Kommentar, GCS 20 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911], 218). John Malalas dates Ignatius’s death following an earthquake in Antioch in 115 CE (Chron. 11.276). Despite the different date, he still follows Eusebius in placing Ignatius’s death in Trajan’s reign. 91 For an overview of Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan, see Julian Bennett, Trajan Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times (London: Routledge, 1997), 116–117. 92 Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 631. See similarly Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 9. 93 For a recent treatment of Trajan’s final years and involvement in the Jewish revolt at the end of his reign, see William Horbury, Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 164–166. 94 ἐµαρτύρησε δὲ ἐπὶ αὐτοῦ τότε ὁ ἅγιος Ἰγνάτιος ὁ ἐπίσκοπος τῆς πόλεως Ἀντιοχισσων- ἠγανάκτησε γὰρ κατ’ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐλοιδόρει αὐτόν (John Malalas, Chron. 11.276). 95 Pace Étienne Decrept, who reads John Malalas alongside the Acts of Drosis to posit a persecution in Antioch following the earthquake in 115 CE. According to Decrept, this persecution took place in July 116 CE during Apollo’s festival (“La persécution oubliée des chrétiens d’Antioche sous Trajan et la martyre d’Ignace d’Antioche,” REAug 52 [2006]: 1– 29). 96 See the arguments for instituting this as a routine practice in Ignatian studies in Mikael Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter: Structure, Themes, and Rhetorical Strategies in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, ConBNT 42 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International,

1.4. Further Preliminary Considerations

23

second century (Pol. Phil. 13.2),97 and Eusebius is able to list them as a sort of collection in the fourth century.98 However, if the letters are genuinely from Ignatius of Antioch, they were composed by him as individual letters to separate churches.99 Although there is no reason to assume from the outset that Ignatius says incompatibly different things in the letters, there is likewise no reason to suspect that each letter is the same. With this in mind, the temple metaphors will first be read in the context of the letters in which they are employed and with due care to the way in which they contribute to and are clarified by the arguments in which they are found.100 Only after patiently reading in this way can something more synthetic be said, for Ignatius wrote each letter to a different group of people who would have encountered these metaphors without the benefit of immediately having the same metaphor in a different letter by which to explain it.101

2004); idem, “Follow Your Bishop! Rhetorical Strategies in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Formation of the Early Church, ed. Jostein Ådna, WUNT 183 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 317–340. Isacson’s monograph focuses primarily on the five letters to Asian churches, but he hints at how Polycarp and Romans might be included in his final chapter. 97 This proposal gains traction when one notes that Ignatius seems to have been forced to leave Troas earlier than he planned and asked Polycarp to write letters “to the churches ahead” (ταῖς ἔµπροσθεν ἐκκλησίαις; Pol. 8.1). 98 Οὕτω δῆτα ἐν Σµύρνῃ γενόµενος, ἔνθα ὁ Πολύκαρπος ἦν, µίαν µὲν τῇ κατὰ τὴν Ἔφεσον ἐπιστολὴν ἐκκλησίᾳ γράφει, ποιµένος αὐτῆς µνηµονεύων Ὀνησίµου, ἑτέραν δὲ τῇ ἐν Μαγνησίᾳ τῇ πρὸς Μαιάνδρῳ, ἔνθα πάλιν ἐπισκόπου ∆αµᾶ µνήµην πεποίηται, καὶ τῇ ἐν Τράλλεσι δὲ ἄλλην, ἧς ἄρχοντα τότε ὄντα Πολύβιον ἱστορεῖ. πρὸς ταύταις καὶ τῇ Ῥωµαίων ἐκκλησίᾳ γράφει, ᾗ καὶ παράκλησιν προτείνει ὡς µὴ παραιτησάµενοι τοῦ µαρτυρίου τῆς ποθουµένης αὐτὸν ἀποστερήσαιεν ἐλπίδος (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36.5–6). ἤδη δ’ ἐπέκεινα τῆς Σµύρνης γενόµενος, ἀπὸ Τρωάδος τοῖς τε ἐν Φιλαδελφίᾳ αὖθις διὰ γραφῆς ὁµιλεῖ καὶ τῇ Σµυρναίων ἐκκλησίᾳ ἰδίως τε τῷ ταύτης προηγουµένῳ Πολυκάρπῳ (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36.10). 99 A good example of reading Romans as a stand-alone composition can be found in Pablo Cavallero, “La retórica en la Epístola a los romanos de San Ignacio de Antioquia,” Helmantica 48 (1997): 269–321. In addition, Hermann Josef Sieben takes note of typical epistolary features within the Ignatian corpus that usefully illustrate the genre of the letter (“Die Ignatianen als Briefe: Einige formkritische Bemerkungen,” VC 32 [1978]: 1–18). 100 This does not preclude reading a statement from one of Ignatius’s letters alongside other Ignatian letters or in conversation with other early Jewish, early Christian, or GrecoRoman literature. It only means to say that Ignatius’s statements must first be understood within the context of the letter in which they are found. 101 In a review of Heinrich Schlier’s published thesis, Arthur Darby Nock similarly noted that Ignatius’s letters “are addressed to particular groups of Christians, not to the whole body throughout the world, not urbi et orbi: they are pastorals and not literature, and they are written in view of particular ecclesiastical needs to people who knew the central facts of the Gospel tradition” (review of Sobria Ebrietas: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Antiken Mystik, by Hans Lewy, and of Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen, by Heinrich Schlier, JTS 31 [1930]: 313).

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This practice of reading may lead one to question how much nuance to expect in images within occasional letters.102 It is difficult to answer this question definitively at the outset of the study. Ignatius wrote the letters while in custody as he traveled across Asia on his way to Rome. He seems to have left Troas unexpectedly and thus tells Polycarp to write to other churches on his behalf (Pol. 8.1). These observations suggest that Ignatius may not have had much time to nuance his letters. However, Ignatius utilizes a variety of images and metaphors including coins (Magn. 5.2), processions (Eph. 9.2), stars (Eph. 19.2–3), perfected human beings (Eph. 20.1; Smyrn. 4.2), plants (Eph. 10.3; Trall. 5.1; 11.1; Phld. 3.1), altars (Eph. 5.2; Magn. 7.2; Trall. 7.2; Rom. 2.2; Phld. 4.1), sacrifices (Rom. 4.2), and weaponry (Pol. 6.1). These occur in addition to the metaphors of high priest (Phld. 9.1) and temples (Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3; Magn. 7.2; Phld. 7.2) that are the primary topic of this study. Collectively, the number of images that Ignatius uses suggest that they play an important role in his letters. If so, one may hope that a detailed study of his metaphors will shed light on his letters as a whole.

1.5. Looking Ahead 1.5. Looking Ahead

Having mentioned some of the areas of Ignatian scholarship into which this study wishes to delve, examined other scholars who will prove helpful in guiding this exploration of Ignatius’s high priestly and temple metaphors but whose work can be improved, and briefly highlighted two methodological as well as two traditional Ignatian issues, it remains to give a quick overview of where the remainder of the study will go. Chapter 2 provides one final but more significant preparatory step before the study of the high priestly and temple metaphors commences properly. Since a cursory glance at the Asian letters will illustrate that Ignatius is concerned about division and urges unity in its place while a further peek at the temple metaphors will indicate that the temple metaphors are likewise concerned about unity, something should be said about Ignatius’s opponents in preparation for a study of the temple metaphors. However, once a grasp of the overall contours of this traditional dispute within Ignatian studies is in place, the commitment to read each letter individually only requires an overview of the opponents within letters in which a temple metaphor occurs, namely, Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians. Chapter 3 explores Ignatius’s only clear high priestly metaphor in Phld. 9.1. Jesus is referred to as the high priest and door in the context of an argument

102 I am grateful to my PhD examiners, particularly to Thomas Robinson, for raising this point in their comments on an earlier draft.

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that distinguishes Judaism and Christianity (Phld. 5–9). As the high priest, Jesus is superior to the Jewish priests who preceded him and serves as a mediator between the Father and his people because he has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, that is, God’s secrets. Ignatius employs a temple metaphor in the same argument that becomes the object of study in the fourth chapter. Ignatius’s temple metaphor occurs in a different section of the same argument as Ignatius reflects on his visit to Philadelphia and responds to the criticism that he endured while there. However, Phld. 7.2 is related to Phld. 9.1 in that it is part of the same Ignatian argument against Judaism. As such, chapters 3 and 4 collectively consider the relationship between Jesus as high priest and the Philadelphians as a temple in the context of Phld. 5–9. Chapters 5 and 6 function similarly in looking at the temple metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2 and 15.3. Chapter 5 begins with the earlier of the two passages and notes that Ignatius places this metaphor in the context of commendation for Ephesian refusal of docetic teachers. They refused the teachers because they are stones in the Father’s temple and are lifted from the temple into the Father’s building by a crane and rope, namely, Jesus’s cross and the Holy Spirit. Jesus again plays a mediating role between the Father and his people by lifting the Ephesians into the Father’s presence through his suffering and death. In turn, the Ephesians become participants in a cultic procession in which they carry sacred objects that make known the identity of their God. Yet Jesus’s role seemingly shifts in the temple metaphor of Eph. 15.3. Accordingly, chapter 6 considers the apparently unusual nature of Jesus’s change in role and of the Ephesians’ place as individual temples. Jesus is again present in the temple, but he is depicted as the God who is worthy of worship rather than as a high priest. Yet chapter 6 lays the groundwork for the argument that Jesus’s identity as God is intimately connected and integrated with his role as the high priest. This argument will find its completion in chapter 8. Before that, one final temple metaphor remains to be studied in Magn. 7.2. Chapter 7 returns to the familiar terrain of chapters 4 and 5 in that the Father is again depicted as the God who should be worshipped in the temple. In addition, an altar is present among the metaphorical objects that should unite the Magnesians as they run to them, so chapter 7 gives an account of the relationship between the temple and altar in this verse. Finally, this chapter considers Ignatius’s strong depiction of the unity and identity of Jesus and the Father. In Ignatius’s forceful portrayal, Jesus is the Magnesians’ example, mediator, and God. Chapter 8 attends to a loose end that will be immediately apparent to readers of Legarth and Kieffer while simultaneously drawing another set of loose ends regarding Ignatius’s Christology into a concluding argument. In light of the critique of Legarth in section 1.2.1 and the narrow focus on the relationship between temple and priestly metaphors in chapter 3–7, Ignatius’s other cultic

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language is largely left to one side until chapter 8. The rationale for this decision turns on the similarities of the temple metaphors in calls for unity, whereas Ignatius’s altar metaphors, sacrificial language, and other household discourse works to broader effect. Following a demonstration of the several purposes to which Ignatius can apply other cultic language, the chapter then argues that aspects of Ignatius’s mediatorial Christology that have been prevalent in the study of Jesus as a high priestly figure in the temple metaphors can also be located elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters. Yet Jesus’s mediation is not kept separate from Jesus’s identity as God. Indeed, Jesus only mediates as God. With this in mind, a final articulation of Jesus’s place in the temple metaphors of Phld. 7.2–9.1, Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3, and Magn. 7.2 can be undertaken. After a brief review of the ground that has been covered, chapter 9 highlights several findings and implications that this inquiry into high priestly and temple metaphors may have for other areas of Ignatian research. The book concludes as it begins, namely, by looking ahead. Following this close examination of particular Ignatian metaphors, however, it should be hoped that the view from the conclusion will offer clarification for Ignatian studies that will extend some way outside of the limited passages explored herein.

Chapter 2

A Brief Outline of Ignatius’s Opponents 2.1. Introduction 2.1. Introduction

Ignatius is an important voice in the development of early Christian identity. His calls for unity urged his audiences to come together under a single authority with what Ignatius regards as the proper teaching about God’s redemptive action in Jesus. The high priestly and temple metaphors function as part of these calls for unity.1 Jesus the high priest brings unity between God’s people and the Father, while the temple variously expresses unity in the congregation itself, between the church and the bishop, and between God and the people. Such calls for unity would, however, exclude some.2 In particular, some of Ignatius’s opponents are excluded from the calls to unity unless they repent.3 Scholarly discussion of those whom Ignatius excludes has a long tradition. Considering the identity of the opponents in each letter will enable some perspective on how the high priest and temple function, because Ignatius employs the metaphors with polemical situations in the background. After highlighting a few recent studies on Ignatius’s opponents, this chapter will then consider the identity of the opponents in the letters in which Ignatius uses the language of high priest and temple, namely, Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians.

1 Legarth writes about Magn. 7.2, “Men det er den lokale menighed i Magnesia, der bestemmes som Guds ene tempel” (But it is the local community in Magnesia that is considered as God’s one temple; italics original; Guds tempel, 220). Elsewhere he argues, “Samtidig står det klart, at målet for Jesu Kristi gerning er menighedens komme til Faderen, til Guds enhed” (At the same time, it is clear that the goal of Jesus Christ’s work is for the community to come to the Father, to God’s unity; idem, Guds tempel, 337). 2 For an analysis of Ignatius’s language about unity and division, see Joachim Rohde, “Häresie und Schisma im ersten Clemensbrief und in den Ignatius-Briefen,” NovT 10 (1969): 226–228. 3 Eph. 10.1; Phld. 3.2; 8.1; Smyrn. 9.1.

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2.2. Recent Scholarship 2.2. Recent Scholarship

Ignatian scholars have traditionally been divided into those who believe that Ignatius had a Jewish group of opponents as well as a docetic group of opponents and those who believe that Ignatius had only one group of opponents that combined these qualities.4 At the end of the nineteenth century, Theodor Zahn and J. B. Lightfoot argued that Ignatius had only one group of opponents.5 Two arguments in favor of this position are of note. First, Ignatius uses the same terms to describe both those opponents who seem to have more docetic inclinations and those whom he deems Jewish.6 Second, Ignatius refers to Jesus’s birth, suffering, death, and resurrection in Magn. 9.1 and 11. These are important elements of Ignatius’s anti-docetic polemic in Trall. 9.1–2 and Smyrn. 1.1–3.3. Yet Ignatius’s allusions to Jesus occur in the context of an extended argument against Ἰουδαϊσµός (Magn. 8.1–10.3).7 If Ignatius’s references to elements of Jesus’s life are indeed anti-docetic in Magn. 8–11, this argument is stronger than the first and would indicate that Ignatius likely encountered some sort of Jewish-Christian docetism while traveling through Asia Minor.8 4 For fuller statements about Ignatius’s opponents along with reviews of scholarship on this topic, see C. K. Barrett, “Jews and Judaizers in the Epistles of Ignatius,” in Jews, Greeks and Christians: Religious Cultures in Late Antiquity: Essays in Honor of William David Davies, ed. Robert Hamerton-Kelly and Robin Scroggs, SJLA 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 220– 232; Schoedel, “Polycarp of Smyrna,” ANRW 27.1:301–304; Charles Munier, “Où en est la question,” ANRW 27.1:398–413; Matti Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts and Rabid Dogs: The Riddle of the Heretics in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Formation of the Early Church, ed. Jostein Ådna, WUNT 183 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 345–350; Paul Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, 89–93; Hermut Löhr, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction, ed. Wilhelm Pratscher (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 111. 5 Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 356–399; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.373–388. 6 E.g. Ignatius uses botanical imagery to refer to opponents in Tralles (Trall. 6.1; 11.1), where docetic opponents seem more clearly to be in view, and in Philadelphia (Phld. 3.1), where Jewish opponents are the primary target. See also Eph. 10.3. Paul J. Donahue asserts that the use of similar terms indicates only that Ignatius considers the referents of the terms to be heretical and not necessarily identical (“Jewish Christianity in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch,” VC 32 [1978]: 83). However, Donahue does not argue this point further, and Robinson comments that one could respond in kind that “Ignatius’s use of common language indicates that Ignatius considers the opposition heretical and, as heretical, without need of more precise definition or distinction” (Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways, 125). 7 In his argument against Judaism in Phld. 5.1–9.2, Ignatius refers to Jesus’s cross, death, and resurrection in Phld. 8.2 and Jesus’s coming, suffering, and resurrection in Phld. 9.2. 8 The one-opponent hypothesis is not unique to Zahn and Lightfoot. Henri de Genouillac followed Lightfoot in arguing for a single opponent that had varying degrees of similarities to the opponents in the Pastorals, the Johannine epistles, and second-century heretics (L’église chrétienne au temps de Saint Ignace d’Antioche [Paris: Beauchesne, 1907], 240– 257). Likewise, Eduard von der Goltz insists that Ignatius’s opponents can be most easily

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The argument for a single opponent has not ended with Zahn and Lightfoot. More recently, Michael Goulder has argued that Ignatius’s opponents were Ebionites and that this designation adequately describes all the opponents in Ignatius’s letters.9 He concludes that the pressure to Judaize extends beyond Philadelphia and Magnesia, while docetic tendencies influenced Ignatius’s audience outside Ephesus, Tralles, and Smyrna.10 However, using the definition of docetism proposed by Peter Weigandt, 11 Goulder finds no evidence for docetism in a strict sense. Rather, he proposes that Ignatius’s opponents were

explained if he has only one opponent in view (Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe, 81n.1). Zahn and Lightfoot were initially followed by Bauer (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 238–240), but Bauer later attributed this complication to Ignatius himself, arguing that Ignatius combined Gnosticism and Jewish-Christianity into one heresy (Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krödel, trans. Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971], 88; trans. of Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, 2nd ed., BHT 10 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964], 92). Einar Molland perceived a single heretical group that had a docetic Christology that they claimed was supported by the Old Testament. On Molland’s reading, it is this appeal to the Old Testament that Ignatius branded Judaism (“The Heretics Combatted by Ignatius of Antioch,” JEH 5 [1954]: 1–6). In addition to focusing on what he perceived as the presence of both Judaism and docetic Christology in the background of Magn. 8–11, Leslie W. Barnard perceives Jewish influences on gnostic documents from Nag Hammadi (“The Background of St. Ignatius of Antioch,” VC 17 [1963]: 198–203). Pierre Prigent follows the conclusions of Einar Molland in his analysis of Ignatius’s opponents but then compares Ignatius’s opponents to the opponents in Rev 2–3 with particular care to identify the Nicolaitans (“L’hérésie asiate et l’église confessante de l’apocalypse à Ignace,” VC 31 [1977]: 1–22. Thomas A. Robinson thinks that the heresy faced by Ignatius was “a Gnosticism with a Jewish colouring” since anything that was part of the Christian movement in the early second century would likely have some Jewish tendencies and there are passages that are easier to explain in light of a gnostic background even in Magnesians and Philadelphians (The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church, SBEC 11 [Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1988], 207–208). Wolfram Uebele makes a case for Ignatian opponents who held to a docetic Christology that they supported with scriptural interpretation (Viele Verführer sind in die Welt ausgegangen: Die Gegner in den Briefen des Ignatius von Antiochien und in den Johannesbriefen, BWA(N)T 151 [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001], 91–92). 9 Michael D. Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” VC 53 (1999): 16–30. Goulder notes that the suggestion that the Docetists in Ignatius’s letters are Ebionites is found in Pearson, Vindiciae epistolarum S. Ignatii, Pars secunda, 33–42. 10 Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 19 (for extent of Jewish pressure), 22 (for extent of docetic tendencies). 11 Peter Weigandt, “Der Doketismus im Urchristentum und in der theologischen Entwicklung des zweiten Jahrhunderts” (ThD diss., University of Heidelberg, 1961). Neither Goulder nor I have had access to this work. Goulder uses Weigandt through his reading of Udo Schnelle, Antidoketische Christologie im Johannesevangelium, FRLANT 44 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 76–83. See further Norbert Brox, “‘Doketismus’: eine Problemanzeige,” ZKG 95 (1984): 301–314.

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Ebionites who had a “prophetic, possessionist christology.” 12 Irenaeus describes the Ebionites as having similar views to Cerinthus with respect to Jesus. The Ebionites believed that Christ descended upon Jesus after his baptism and departed from Jesus before he died.13 They also devoted special attention to expounding the prophets.14 They are thus associated with possessionist Christology and an interpretation of the prophets that was closely associated with Judaism by later Christian writers.15 Two observations are central to Goulder’s argument. First, Goulder notes Ignatius’s tendency to refer to Ἰησοῦς Χριστός or Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς rather than referring to either Ἰησοῦς or Χριστός alone.16 Although this tendency is not absolute, Goulder is correct in numerical terms that Ignatius prefers the combination of Χριστός and Ἰησοῦς to using either word alone.17 He argues that this is a polemical choice by Ignatius against his Ebionite opponents. By insisting that Jesus Christ suffered, Ignatius gives no opportunity to his opponents to say that Jesus suffered but Christ had left him.18 This argument relies on detailed textual work, but the similarity of Ignatius’s usage of the terms Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Ἰησοῦς, and Χριστός in Ignatius’s letters warns against accepting this argument without a further reason.19

12 Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 25. Italics are Goulder’s. See also idem, “A Poor Man’s Christology,” NTS 45 (1999): 338–341. 13 According to Irenaeus, the Ebionites took up Cerinthus’s understanding of Jesus (Haer. 1.26.2). See similarly Hippolytus, Haer. 7.34.1; 10.22.1. Regarding Cerinthus’s views on Jesus, Irenaeus writes, καὶ µετὰ τὸ βάπτισµα κατελθεῖν εἰς αὐτὸν τὸν τῆς ὑπὲρ τὰ ὅλα αὐθεντίας, τὸν Χριστὸν ἐν εἴδει περιστερᾶς (Haer. 1.26.1). The Latin translation resolves the ambiguous relation of the adjectival clause that follows αὐτόν to the pronoun that it describes by translating Et post baptismum descendisse in eum, ab ea principalitate quae est super omnia, Christum figura columbae. See also Hippolytus Haer. 7.33.1–2; 10.21.3. 14 Regarding the Ebionites’ view of the prophets, Irenaeus writes, quae autem sunt prophetica, curiosus exponere nituntur (Haer. 1.26.2). Hippolytus does not mention the prophets but claims that the Ebionites ἔθεσιν Ἰουδαϊκοῖς ζῶσι κατὰ νόµον (Haer. 7.34.1). 15 E.g. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.27; Epiphanius, Pan. 30. 16 Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 24; idem, “Poor Man’s Christology,” 339. He sees a similar tendency in the Johannine letters. See Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 24n.14; idem, “Poor Man’s Christology,” 342–344. 17 Ignatius uses Ἰησοῦς without Χριστός in Eph. 15.2; Magn. 1.2; Phld. 5.1. He also uses Χριστός alone in Magn. 13.2; Rom. 4.2; Smyrn. 1.1; 6.1. Although there are textual difficulties, it is possible that Ignatius also refers to Χριστός without Ἰησοῦς in Eph. 14.2; Rom. 4.1. 18 “Thus he never attributes to his opponents the view that Jesus seemed to suffer; it is always αὐτόν or Jesus Christ” (Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 24–25). 19 Allowing for some textual ambiguities, I count 104 usages of Ἰησοῦς Χριστός and 11 instances of Χριστός Ἰησοῦς in Ignatius’s letters. I have been unable to discern a difference in how Ignatius employs the two terms over and against single instances of Ἰησοῦς and Χριστός.

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Goulder’s second argument for Ebionite opponents is that Ignatius does not refer to any events in Jesus’s life between his baptism and passion.20 Goulder presumes that this is because Ignatius and his opponents agreed about Jesus’s identity between his baptism and passion. He is right that Ignatius does not mention an event in Jesus’s life between baptism and passion, although he may allude to Jesus’s teachings. 21 Yet Goulder’s argument is one from silence. Moreover, Ignatius is not the only early Christian author to focus more on Jesus’s death and resurrection than on his life. The Pauline letters also devote most of their attention to Jesus’s death and resurrection with only a few statements about his lineage and even fewer about his life.22 The seven letters in Rev 2–3 likewise make no mention of Jesus’s earthly life. Polycarp mentions Jesus’s teachings (e.g. Pol. Phil. 2.3) but says little about what Jesus did in his earthly life.23 Goulder’s proposal is difficult to prove. Moreover, the Ebionites are somewhat poorly attested in early Christian literature.24 A better one-opponent hypothesis might look for a group that is more widely known in the first and second centuries. John Marshall attempts to find such an opponent in the phenomenon of speculation about Jewish angelic mediators during the Second Temple period. With this choice, he hopes to find a historically responsible solution to the question

20

Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 26. Ignatius advises Polycarp to “be as wise as a serpent in all things and always as pure as a dove” (Pol. 2.2). Jesus advises his disciples to be as wise as serpents and pure as doves (Matt 10.16). W. R. Inge rated the likelihood that Ignatius here borrowed from Matt as a “b,” that is, having a high degree of probability that Ignatius knew this passage from Matt 10.16, partly on the basis that this statement is missing in Luke 10.3 (“Ignatius,” in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, ed. A Committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology [Oxford: Clarendon, 1905], 77). 22 E.g. Rom 1.3–4; 1 Cor 15.3–4; Phil 2.5–11. For a summary and assessment of scholarship on Paul’s use of Jesus traditions, see Gerry Schoberg, Perspectives of Jesus in the Writings of Paul: A Historical Examination of Shared Core Commitments with a View to Determining the Extent of Paul’s Dependence on Jesus, PrTMS 190 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2013), 2–11; Christine Jacobi, Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien, BZNW 213 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 9–35. 23 For a helpful discussion of scholarship on the relationship between Matt 7.1–2; Luke 6.36–38; 1 Clem. 13.1–2; Pol. Phil. 2.3, see Stephen E. Young, Jesus Tradition in the Apostolic Fathers: Their Explicit Appeals to the Word of Jesus in Light of Orality Studies, WUNT 2.311 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 107–175; Hartog, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp, 107–112. 24 The earliest clear description of the Ebionites is found in Irenaeus Haer. 1.26. Goulder’s other major source for the Ebionites is Epiphanius, who wrote in the fourth century (Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 25). 21

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of Ignatius’s opponents while not exaggerating the overly systematized connotations that “docetism” can have.25 Marshall notes three characteristics of Ignatius’s opponents.26 First, they are not under the bishop’s authority in the way that Ignatius wants. Second, they claim that Jesus did not suffer or die and may deny his resurrection.27 Third, they encourage members of the community to practice Judaism. He suggests that Ignatius’s opponents understand Jesus as an angelic being in line with speculation about angelic mediators that is attested elsewhere in Second Temple literature. He points to examples such as Raphael, who appears to Tobit as a human being only to reveal near the end of the story that he did not eat or drink but that Tobit and Tobias saw a vision (καὶ οὐκ ἔφαγον οὐδὲ ἔπιον ἀλλὰ ὅρασιν ὑµεῖς ἐθεωρεῖτε; Tob 12.19).28 Marshall demonstrates that variations on this thought are attested across a spectrum of Jewish literature.29 He argues further that angelic Christology is attested positively in the Similitudes of the Shepherd of Hermas and negatively in both the superiority of Jesus to angels in Heb 1.5–13 and the negation of Jesus’s angelic status in Gos. Thom. 13.30 Based on these observations, Marshall argues that Smyrnaeans contains the clearest remarks against those who think Jesus’s death was only apparent. Yet Ignatius thinks they should have been convinced otherwise by the prophets and the Law (Smyrn. 5.1). Marshall believes that this indicates a Judaizing strand in Smyrnaeans.31 Similarly, the anti-docetic remarks of Trall. 9 must be read against the Jewish apocalyptic language of Trall. 4. He discusses

25 John W. Marshall, “The Objects of Ignatius’ Wrath and Jewish Angelic Mediators,” JEH 56 (2005): 5. Marshall’s sensitivity to the systematic connotations of “docetism” follows Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 25. Similarly, Robinson refers to docetism as a scholarly construct based primarily on the Ignatian and Johannine letters as well as Polycarp’s Philippians (Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways, 114n.95). 26 Marshall, “Objects,” 6–9. 27 “They claim that Jesus was τὸ δοκεῖν and (perhaps thereby) deny his resurrection” (Marshall, “Objects,” 6). Bauer argues that the opponents deny the resurrection (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 226), while Grant sees this as highly uncertain (Ignatius of Antioch, 63). 28 Marshall, “Objects,” 10–11, 17. 29 See further Michael Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jüdischen Engelglaubens in vorrabbinischer Zeit, TSAJ 34 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 114–278; Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology and Soteriology, WUNT 2.94 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 109–215. 30 Marshall, “Objects,” 9–17. Marshall lists Herm. Vis. 5.2 (25.2); Man. 5.1.7 (33.7); Sim. 7.1–3, 5 (66.1–3, 5); 8.1.1–2 (67.1–2); 9.1.3 (78.3); 9.12.7–8 (89.7–8) as examples of angel Christology in Hermas (“Objects,” 14n.39). See further Bogdan G. Bucur, “The Son of God and the Angelomorphic Holy Spirit: A Rereading of the Shepherd’s Christology,” ZNW 98 (2007): 120–142. Simon Gathercole considers it unlikely that Gos. Thom. 13.2 is part of a polemic against angel Christology. He argues that Gos. Thom. 13.2 demeans Peter by placing the foolish response on his lips (The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary, TENTS 11 [Leiden: Brill, 2014], 262). 31 Marshall, “Objects,” 18–21 contains Marshall’s analysis of Ignatian texts.

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the relative pronoun in Magn. 9.1 and argues that ὅ τινες ἀρνοῦνται is a reference to Jesus’s death (τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ) rather than Jesus himself (αὐτοῦ). Finally, Philadelphians displays a similar interest in Jesus’s death while offering an extended argument against Judaism (Phld. 5.1–9.2). Since interest in Jesus’s death is typically associated with docetic opponents and interest in the Law with Judaism, Marshall concludes that a single group explains all of Ignatius’s opponents. Both Goulder and Marshall assume that if the various descriptions of the opponents throughout the seven letters can fit into qualities from a single group, Ignatius encountered a single group of opponents. The simplicity of this thought is elegant and somewhat intuitive but presumes the letters should be read as a corpus. Goulder and Marshall fail to account for Ignatius’s letters as individual compositions. Ignatius speaks of Judaism only in Magnesians and Philadelphians, while Trallians and Smyrnaeans contain the clearest antidocetic passages. Moreover, the anti-docetic passages in Trallians and Smyrnaeans seem to differ in tone and structure from remarks about Jesus in Magnesians and Philadelphians.32 Matti Myllykoski has made a different attempt to account for Ignatius’s opponents and argues for the other traditional answer to the question of Ignatius’s opponents.33 He finds that Judaizers are in view in Magnesians and Philadel-

32

Myllykoski outlines the similarities between Trall. 9–10 and Smyrn. 1–4 in two tables (“Wild Beasts,” 375–377). Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr likewise sketches similarities between Magnesians and Philadelphians (“‘Judentum’ und ‘Christentum’ bei Paulus und Ignatius von Antiochen,” ZNW 85 [1994]: 225–226). 33 Adolf Hilgenfeld argues for two opponents in Ignatius’s letters. He finds a “gnostic docetism” (gnostischer Doketismus) in Ephesians, Trallians, and Smyrnaeans and a “Christian Judaism” (christlicher Judaismus) in Magnesians and Philadelphians (Die Apostolischen Väter: Untersuchungen über Inhalt und Ursprung der unter ihrem Namen erhaltenen Schriften [Halle: Pfeffer, 1853], 226). Richardson supports the two-opponent view after noting the lack of evidence for “Judaistic docetism” (Christianity of Ignatius, 51– 54, here at 51). He considers Saturninus to be the best point of comparison for Ignatius’s docetic opponent and argues that Ignatius’s opponents do not share many similarities with Cerinthus (Christianity of Ignatius, 79–85). Hans-Werner Bartsch cautions against the view of Lightfoot that sees the opponents as believers in some sort of heresy attempting to infiltrate the community from the outside. Bartsch reframes the opponents as part of the churches to which Ignatius writes. The error is division, and Ignatius speaks of the unity of God as a solution (Gnostisches Gut und Gemeindetradition bei Ignatius von Antiochien, BFCT 2.44 [Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1940], 34–52). Regarding Lightfoot’s contention that Judaism and docetism were a single combined heresy, Grant regards it as more likely that they were separate and that the reference to Jesus’s death in Magn. 9.1 is “incidental,” at least with respect to the opponents (Ignatius of Antioch, 63, see also 54–55). Corwin sees two opponents, Jewish and docetic, with Ignatius’s position as a middle way (St. Ignatius, 52–87, esp. 60–61). Donahue’s review of arguments for a single heresy finds that such arguments support the two heresy view because Magn. 9.1 and 11 show that the Law was the primary issue for

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phians, while Ephesians, Trallians, and Smyrnaeans attest to a group that “denied the incarnation, virgin birth, true bodily suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”34 Although he thinks there are problems identifying the latter group with any known group of Docetists, he demonstrates that Ignatius focuses on his opponents’ denial of certain events in Jesus’s life while admitting that the riddle remains unsolved.35 Myllykoski does not argue that the dispute in Magnesians and Philadelphians has anything to do with the Jewish Law but thinks that more is at stake than an issue of scriptural interpretation.36 Rather, the issue with the Judaizers focuses on Christology, though this Christology is not docetic.37 Myllykoski argues that the opponents in Philadelphia and Magnesia held a primitive form of the christological statements found in Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71.38 He highlights as particularly important the dialogue between Peter and Clement in which Peter describes Jesus as the first anointed and points to the priests and prophets as forerunners whose time had ended with the arrival of Jesus (Rec. 1.48.3–6).39 Myllykoski perceives docetic Christology among

Christians (“Jewish Christianity,” 81–93). Charles Thomas Brown argues that the challenges to unity posed by Ignatius’s two opponents stem from their challenge to Ignatius’s understanding of the gospel (The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch, SBLStBL 12 [New York: Peter Lang, 2000], 179–197). Vall summarizes the situation for the two-opponent views: “Trallians and Smyrnaeans contain an antidocetic polemic (with no hint of anti-Judaizing polemic), Magnesians and Philadelphians contain an anti-Judaizing polemic (with no antidocetic polemic)” (Learning Christ, 75). Vall adds that Ephesians contains a general warning against false teaching and sexual immorality. However, the extent to which the opponents factor in Ephesians is disputed among two-opponent proponents. In addition to the works listed here, see further Barrett, “Jews and Judaizers,” 244; Josep Rius-Camps, The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius, the Martyr, OrChrAn 213 (Rome: Pontificum Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1980), 40–51; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 64–65; Schoedel, Ignatius, 12–13; Paul Trebilco, “Christian Communities in Western Asia Minor into the Early Second Century: Ignatius and Others as Witnesses against Bauer,” JETS 49 (2006): 22. 34 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 373. 35 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 374. 36 William R. Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” HTR 71 (1978): 101–106; Jerry L. Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him’: The Opponents of Ignatius of Antioch,” JECS 1 (1993): 356, 364; Matthew W. Mitchell, “In the Footsteps of Paul: Scriptural and Apostolic Authority in Ignatius of Antioch,” JECS 14 (2006): 36–40. Donahue emphasizes the importance of the Jewish Law in Magn. 9.1 and 11 (“Jewish Christianity,” 87). 37 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 356–357. 38 For introduction to the text, see F. Stanley Jones, An Ancient Jewish Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71, SBLTT 37 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 39–49. Myllykoski seems to follow Jones’s arguments that Rec. 1.27– 71 are based on an earlier Jewish-Christian source. See Jones, Ancient Jewish Source, 127– 131. 39 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 357–358.

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the opponents in Ephesians, Trallians, and Smyrnaeans.40 After comparing Ignatius’s statements to Irenaeus’s description of Saturninus, Cerinthus, and the Ebionites,41 Myllykoski argues that Ignatius’s docetic opponents share views similar to those of Cerinthus on the grounds that Saturninus is more easily dated to the end of Hadrian’s reign and thus after Ignatius.42 If Myllykoski is correct, then Saturninus would postdate Ignatius.43 Myllykoski also argues that it is questionable whether the Ebionites were in fact Jewish. He regards Goulder’s arguments for a possessionist Christology among the opponents as strong.44 However, he does not follow Goulder in identifying the opponents as Ebionites but proposes a view more akin to Cerinthus.45 Myllykoski’s proposal that there are two opponents is not new. However, his proposal that there are two christological errors, one that is Jewish and one that is docetic, is a creative way to account for the evidence of Ignatius’s letters. His chapter shows nuance and an awareness of ancient descriptions of heretics, while acknowledging limitations. Although the two-opponent hypothesis seems better able to account for the differences in argumentation between Philadelphians and Magnesians, on the one hand, and Trallians and Smyrnaeans, on the other, such a proposal still relies heavily on a synthetic reading of Ignatius’s letters as a corpus. Such a reading does not adequately acknowledge that each letter is an individual composition. Although none of the authors mentioned so far reject the individuality of Ignatius’s compositions outright, the discussion of Ignatius’s opponents requires an attempt to take seriously the differences in how Ignatius describes the opponents in each of the letters without rushing to identify them with one another. 40

Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 364–372. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.24.1–2; 26.1; 26.2 contain descriptions of Saturninus, Cerinthus, and the Ebionites, respectively. 42 On Cerinthus, see Charles E. Hill, “Cerinthus, Gnostic or Chiliast?: A New Solution to an Old Problem,” JECS 8 (2000): 135–172; Matti Myllykoski, “Cerinthus,” in A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics’, ed. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen, VCSup 76 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 213–246. 43 However, Zahn argued that the opponents held similar views to Saturninus, noting that he was “Zeitgenosse und Mitbürger des Ignatius” (Ignatius von Antiochien, 395). Uebele allows a wider timeframe of 100–130 for Saturninus’s activity (Viele Verführer, 159). For a useful comparison of the christological views of Saturninus, Ignatius, and other texts that may have a Syrian provenance, see John J. Gunther, “Syrian Christian Dualism,” VC 25 (1971): 86–87. 44 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 366–367; Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 24–26. 45 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 371–372. By limiting the Cerinthian similarities of Ignatius’s opponents to those with a docetic Christology, Myllykoski’s proposal avoids the critique of Richardson that Ignatius’s opponents cannot be related to Cerinthus because the evidence linking Cerinthus to Jewish practices is unclear (e.g. Richardson, Christianity of Ignatius, 85). Richardson’s comments are directed against Lightfoot’s claim that Cerinthus held views that may be regarded as both Jewish and docetic (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.264). 41

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Along these lines, Jerry Sumney argues that analyses of Ignatius’s opponents must proceed with more methodological rigor. Building on his earlier study of Paul’s opponents in Corinth, he claims that the occasional nature of the letter genre should be respected when identifying Ignatius’s opponents.46 The opponents must be determined with reference to each individual letter since letters written for different audiences may not have the same figures in view.47 Sumney proposes that the diverse contexts in which Ignatius’s descriptions of his opponents are found are variably reliable. He describes the contexts of Ignatius’s statements as polemical, apologetic, didactic, and “conventional epistolary periods,” such as greetings and thanksgivings. 48 He considers thanksgivings and didactic sections to be the most reliable descriptions of opponents because they are the least likely sections for exaggerated portrayals to occur. Further, the types of statements that Ignatius makes about his opponents are distinguished as explicit reports, allusions, and affirmations to Ignatius’s audience.49 Affirmations yield information to Ignatius’s opponents only after mirror-reading.50 They cannot be used to introduce new information about the opponents but may contribute to the understanding of the opponents as introduced by other statements. Only explicit statements should be used to introduce new information about Ignatius’s opponents because they alone provide clear understanding.51 Using this methodology, Sumney concludes that there were Judaizers who disagreed with Ignatius about the interpretation of scripture in Philadelphians, docetists in Smyrnaeans, and no evidence for opponents in Magnesians.52 Sumney’s methodology attempts a rigorous reading of the evidence that takes seriously the fact that each letter was sent to a discrete gathering of Christians. His reading is useful for establishing a minimum number of descriptions of the opponents.53 Yet he risks offering a piecemeal reading of each letter by

46

Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him,’” 347. Sumney’s earlier study is Identifying Paul’s Opponents: The Question of Method in 2 Corinthians, JSNTSup 40 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 77–120. He has since refined his method and applied it more broadly to the Pauline letters in “Servants of Satan”, “False Brothers”, and Other Opponents of Paul, JSNTSup 188 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 20–32. 47 Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him,’” 347. 48 Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him,’” 347. 49 Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him,’” 348. 50 On mirror reading, see John M. G. Barclay, “Mirror-Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case,” JSNT 31 (1987): 73–93; Bryan R. Dyer, Suffering in the Face of Death: The Epistle to the Hebrews and Its Context of Situation, LNTS 568 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 61–74. 51 Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignoranty Deny Him,’” 348. 52 Sumney, “Those Who ‘Ignorantly Deny Him,’” 349–364. 53 Goulder (“Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 16n.2) and Marshall (“Objects,” 2n.2) regard Sumney’s position as “minimalist.” Although neither Goulder nor Marshall accepts Sumney’s

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privileging certain statements about the opponents in certain sections of the letter. This way of reading struggles to account fully for each statement’s unique place in the argumentative flow of Ignatius’s letter. The criteria that Sumney employs call for a rejection of the possibility that certain statements may connect across various contexts in the same letter.54 In principle, Sumney’s belief that one should begin with explicit statements about the opponents seems sound. Yet the way in which Ignatius’s letters flow rhetorically must also be kept in mind. Although Sumney’s insistence that each letter should be read individually offers a helpful corrective to the tendency to read Ignatius’s letters as a corpus rather than as unique letters,55 the statements about the opponents must also be studied with a view to the rhetorical purpose that they serve within the whole of each particular letter. The results of this sketch leave little doubt that Ignatius’s letters were composed in polemical contexts. Nor should there be any doubt that determining exactly who the opponents are has been something upon which it is difficult to agree. The approach taken in the rest of the chapter will consider recent calls to examine the letters individually. Yet the desire to respect Ignatius’s rhetorical emphases demands an examination of Ignatius’s basic reasons for his dismissal of the opponents. Ignatius seems to divide his audience into two categories using two criteria. Ignatius divides his audiences into those who are inside the unity about which he writes and those who are outside of that unity. The criteria that he uses to come to this conclusion include, first, alignment with God through proper understanding of what God has done in Jesus and, second, submission to the correct ecclesial authorities at the head of which is the bishop of the local congregation.56 Ignatius’s basic division and the criteria by which he groups those categories will become clear in the analysis of the opponents that follows. This analysis is important because the high priest and temple function, at least in part, as polemical images. Ongoing research into interactions between various Jewish and Christian groups as well as added awareness of the diversity represented in these groups should serve as a caution to taking simple divisions at face

methodology, their statements nevertheless point to a positive role that his methodology can play in establishing a minimum that can be known about Ignatius’s opponents. 54 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 351. 55 For studies of Ignatius’s letters as individual compositions, see Cavallero, “La retórica,” 269–321; Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 31–179; idem, “Follow Your Bishop!” 317– 340. For studies of Ignatius’s opponents in particular letters, see Sumney, “Those Who Ignorantly Deny Him,” 349–364; Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 690–699. 56 Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways, 125.

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value when constructing history.57 Armed with a clearer idea of recent scholarship on the issue, the remainder of this chapter will offer sketches of Ignatius’s opponents by reading Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians as individual compositions while keeping in mind the complex interactions between various Jewish and Christian groups in the second century.

2.3. Ignatius’s Opponents in Philadelphia 2.3. Ignatius’s Opponents in Philadelphia

In Philadelphians, Ignatius juxtaposes Ἰουδαϊσµός with Χριστιανισµός and περιτοµὴ ἔχων with ἀκρόβυστος, but he forms the juxtaposition in an unexpected way. Ἐὰν δέ τις Ἰουδαϊσµὸν ἑρµηνεύῃ ὑµῖν, µὴ ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ. ἄµεινον γάρ ἐστιν παρὰ ἀνδρὸς περιτοµὴν ἔχοντος Χριστιανισµὸν ἀκούειν ἢ παρὰ ἀκροβύστου Ἰουδαϊσµόν. ἐὰν δὲ ἀµφότεροι περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ µὴ λαλῶσιν, οὗτοι ἐµοὶ στῆλαί εἰσιν καὶ τάφοι νεκρῶν, ἐφ’ οἷς γέγραπται µόνον ὀνόµατα ἀνθρώπων. But if anyone expounds Judaism to you, do not listen to him. For it is better to listen to Christianity from a man who has circumcision than to Judaism from an uncircumcised (man). But if neither speak about Jesus Christ, to me these are tombstones and graves of the dead, on which are written merely human names (Phld. 6.1).

Ignatius’s use of Χριστιανισµός is the earliest extant usage of this word.58 Although this alone may be enough to justify a detailed study of the passage with respect to how Ignatius identifies the Philadelphian community, the unusual combinations of Ἰουδαϊσµός with ἀκρόβυστος and Χριστιανισµός with περιτοµὴν ἔχων have led to questions about the identity of these preachers. Who is the circumcised man who preaches Christianity? Who is the uncircumcised man who preaches Judaism?

57 Interactions between Jewish and Christian groups are often plotted using a model known as the parting of the ways. For a classic statement, see James D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity, 2nd ed. (London: SCM, 2006), 312–318. This model has been critiqued in recent years, particularly by Annette Yoshiko Reed and Adam H. Becker, “Introduction: Traditional Models and New Directions,” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, TSAJ 95, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 1–33. Similarly, diversity in early Christianity is often plotted along various trajectories. This model was given its classic statement by Helmut Koester, “Conclusion: The Intention and Scope of Trajectories,” in Trajectories through Early Christianity, ed. Helmut Koester and James M. Robinson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 269–279, but the trajectories model has been critiqued by Larry Hurtado, “Interactive Diversity: A Proposed Model of Christian Origins,” JTS 64 (2013): 445–462. 58 BDAG, s.v.; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 64. The word also occurs in Magn. 10.3; Rom. 3.3; Mart. Pol. 10.1.

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The identity of circumcised preachers of Christianity may be easier to understand. It is possible that Ignatius describes the earliest disciples.59 Ignatius’s comment in Magn. 9.1 that those who lived according to the old practices came to new hope and ceased Sabbath worship may strengthen this connection, but this presumes already that the same opponents are in view in Magnesians and Philadelphians. Nothing in Phld. 6.1 indicates that the disciples are in view. Although the apostles are mentioned in Phld. 9.1, their place parallel to the patriarchs and prophets makes it unlikely that the disciples’ transition from one way of life to another is in view in Philadelphians. Niebuhr’s claim that Paul is the circumcised man who preaches Christianity may be strengthened by the proposal that Ignatius has introduced the Pauline terms of περιτοµή and ἀκρόβυστος.60 Although it is possible that Ignatius has Paul in view, such an interpretation is probably too specific in the context of Phld. 6.1.61 Ignatius’s warning against “anyone” (τις) who interprets Judaism and the generic “man” (ἀνήρ) who is circumcised point toward a more general interpretation. It is preferable to understand Ignatius’s statement as a reference to ethnic Jews who believe in Jesus.62 No indication is given about what other differences of belief or practice may have existed between this group and the rest of the Philadelphians. Nevertheless, the simplest identification of this group understands them as ethnically Jewish members of the Philadelphian congregation. Their profession of what Ignatius considers Christianity puts them in good standing with him, and there is no indication that they are significant players in the tension at Philadelphia. What sort of Judaism is preached by the man who is uncircumcised is difficult to answer based on Phld. 6.1 alone. It is possible that the Judaism against which Ignatius warns is connected to another Philadelphian Jewish community that did not follow Jesus. John the Seer wrote to the Philadelphians that they would be delivered from “the synagogue of Satan” (ἡ συναγωγὴ τοῦ σατανᾶ; Rev 3.9). This may indicate a tension between the church in Philadelphia and

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Schoedel, Ignatius, 202–203. Niebuhr, “‘Judentum’ und ‘Christentum,’” 229–230. 61 Donahue (“Jewish Christianity,” 89) and Trebilco (Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, SNTSMS 69 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 28) speak more helpfully of Paul as an example of the sort of man that Ignatius speaks about. Schoedel thinks Ignatius injects circumcision into the debate “under the influence of Pauline models” (Ignatius, 203). 62 Magnus Zetterholm, The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation Between Judaism and Christianity (London: Routledge, 2003), 222; Oskar Skarsaune, “Evidence for Jewish Believers in Greek and Latin Patristic Literature,” in Jewish Believers in Jesus, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 505–510. See further Paul Foster, Colossians, BNTC (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 15. 60

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the local Jewish community.63 Yet Judaizing in Gentile communities likely indicates some attraction to Judaism on the part of Gentiles and may indicate a certain amount of influence from surrounding Jewish communities. 64 Ἰουδαϊσµός preached by an uncircumcised man may refer to the Judaism propagated by Gentile converts to Judaism that had some relation to Jewish communities outside of the church.65 If this is the case in Ignatius’s letters, the uncircumcised man may consider himself Jewish, despite his unwillingness to undergo circumcision. The evidence for full-fledged, uncircumcised Jewish converts in the first and second centuries is slim at best. John Nolland concludes that “none of the texts brought forward stand scrutiny as firm evidence for a first-century Jewish openness to the possibility of accepting as a Jewish brother a convert to Judaism who felt unable to undergo circumcision.”66 The same holds true early in the second century. It is more likely that the uncircumcised practitioner of Judaism in Phld. 6.1 identifies as Gentile without converting to Judaism. Rather, the man whom Ignatius describes is attracted to Jewish practices,67 but this attraction to Judaism does not to denote a conversion without circumcision. Such a position takes seriously Ignatius’s description in Phld. 6.1 while not positing a Jewish community for which there is little evidence other than one interpretation of this verse. The uncircumcised man who preaches Judaism is ethnically Gentile but desires to imitate Jewish practices in some way. Unfortunately, Ignatius does not say more about the practices by which such a person demonstrated their attraction to Judaism in Philadelphia. He simply dismisses such actions as something less than Χριστιανισµός.

63 For more on the conflict depicted in Rev 2.9 and 3.9, see Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 332–333; Philip L. Mayo, “Those Who Call Themselves Jews:” The Church and Judaism in the Apocalypse of John, PrTMS 60 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2006), 51–76; David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 164–165, 237. 64 Michele Murray argues that the synagogue that is depicted in Rev 2.9 and 3.9 are ethnic Gentiles attracted to Judaism (Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE, ESCJ 13 [Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004], 73–81. However, Shaye J. D. Cohen considers it simpler and more likely that the Jews referred to in Rev 2.9 and 3.9 were non-Christian Jews (The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 25–27. 65 Barrett, “Jews and Judaizers,” 234–235; Eduard Schweizer, “Christianity of the Circumcised and Judaism of the Uncircumcised,” in Jews, Greeks and Christians: Religious Cultures in Late Antiquity. Essays in Honor of William David Davies, ed. Robert HamertonKelly and Robin Scroggs, SJLA 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 245–246; Jakob Speigl, “Ignatius in Philadelphia: Ereignisse und Anliegen in den Ignatiusbriefen,” VC 41 (1987): 369–370. 66 John Nolland, “Uncircumcised Proselytes?” JSJ 12 (1981): 194. 67 Richardson, Christianity, 53; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 103; Zetterholm, Formation of Christianity, 204–205; Skarsaune, “Evidence,” 506, 508.

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Thus in Phld. 6.1, Ignatius describes an ethnic Jewish member of the Jesus movement as a circumcised man who preaches Christianity while the uncircumcised man who preaches Judaism seems to be an ethnic Gentile who is attracted to Jewish practices. Ignatius expects both to be in the audience. It seems reasonable, then, to think that both are inside the Philadelphian church. Although little can be said about the motives of the Gentile practitioners of Judaism, something can be said about what their Judaism consisted in, at least insofar as it concerns Ignatius. A first reading of Phld. 6.1 may lead to the conclusion that circumcision was a point of contention between Ignatius and his Jewish opponents in Philadelphia. Donahue supposes that food laws may also have played a role in the dispute since unity is prominent in Philadelphians and table fellowship was an important way in which to demonstrate solidarity with another.68 However, food laws are not mentioned anywhere in the letter, and circumcision plays only a minor role in Philadelphians. Although the role of circumcision and table fellowship may have been the major issue in Gal 2.1– 14, the problem that Ignatius perceives is different.69 Ignatius is more interested in the role that interpretation of the Jewish scripture should play in relation to Jesus.70 Three reasons may be given in favor of understanding Ignatius’s disagreement with Gentiles who were attracted to Judaism with reference to different interpretive priorities. First, given the significance that interpretive issues had while Ignatius was in Philadelphia (Phld. 8.2),71 understanding Judaism with 68

Donahue, “Jewish Christianity,” 89–90. On the issue of disagreement in Gal 2.1–14, see the still useful account of the evidence in Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, WBC 41 (Dallas: Word, 1990), lxxxviii–c. Niebuhr observes that Paul’s use of Ἰουδαϊσµός in Gal 1.13–14 substantiates his qualification to speak on the issue in Galatia and is thus not entirely negative (“‘Judentum’ und ‘Christentum,’” 219–220). 70 Lieu, Image and Reality, 46–49; eadem, Neither Jew nor Greek: Constructing Early Christianity, SNTW (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 132–133; Zetterholm, Formation of Christianity, 205; Skarsaune, “Evidence,” 508. 71 There is a broad consensus that Ignatius refers to Jewish scriptures when he speaks about the archives (ἀρχεῖα) in Phld. 8.2. See Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.270–271; Franz Xaver Funk, Patres apostolici, 2 vols., (Tübingen: Laupp, 1901–1913), 1.270; Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 261; Corwin, St. Ignatius, 58–59; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 106; Pierre-Thomas Camelot, Ignace d’Antioche: Lettres: Lettres et Martyre de Polycarpe de Smyrne, 4th ed., SC 10 (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 127–129; Paulsen, Studien, 57; Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” 97–101; idem, Ignatius, 208; Jakob Speigl, “Ignatius in Philadelphia: Ereignisse und Anliegen in den Ignatiusbriefen,” VC 41 (1987): 364; Vall, Learning Christ, 28. Martin Hengel takes a closely associated view and understands the archives as the place in the church where scriptures were kept (Studies in the Gospel of Mark [London: SCM, 1985], 77–78). However, Zahn understands εὐάγγελιον to define ἀρχεία (Ignatius von Antiochien, 378–379). Heinrich Schlier proposed that the archives refer to their books of revelation, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen, BZNW 8 (Gießen: 69

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reference to biblical interpretation makes sense of Ignatius’s denigration of his Philadelphian opponents as “pillars and tombs of the dead” (Phld. 6.1).72 While it is possible that Ignatius has introduced the topic of circumcision, castigated certain members of the community for their views of circumcision, and not explained why, it is easier to understand the severity of Ignatius’s remarks in relation to the larger problem of scriptural interpretation, which he goes on to clarify in Phld. 8.2–9.2. Circumcision may be introduced under Pauline influence but a distinctive view of the archives is a more significant marker of Judaism in Philadelphia. Second, this interpretation of Judaism also makes sense following Ignatius’s outline of the prophets’ place vis-à-vis Jesus in the verse immediately preceding his discussion of circumcision (Phld. 5.2).73 Ignatius’s previous visit and earlier introduction of the prophets’ belief in the gospel (Phld. 5.2) helps to account for his dismissive statements in Phld. 6.1. There were likely both ethnically Jewish and ethnically Gentile Christians in the Philadelphian church, but the Judaism to which Ignatius refers so caustically designates those in the community who give too great a place to the archives.74 Finally, this reading fits well with the protasis with which Ignatius begins: if anyone should interpret (ἑρµηνεύῃ) Judaism to you (Phld. 6.1).75 Although it is likely the case that the ethnically Gentile group with which Ignatius takes issue was attracted to Jewish practices, the issue that Ignatius has in mind is not primarily circumcision but the impact that Jesus’s coming has had on how Jewish scripture should be read.76 Two further matters must be addressed regarding Ignatius’s Philadelphian opponents. First, in light of the difficulties of identifying particular groups of Philadelphian Judaizers, Shaye Cohen argues that Ignatius refers to the circumcised and uncircumcised men only as rhetorical constructs.77 On this view, Ignatius’s references to circumcision are used to further his argument and do not Alfred Töpelmann, 1929), 109n.2. Finally, Harry Y. Gamble suggests that the archives refer to a congregational library (Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995], 152–153). 72 “Ignatius, however, was not so much interested in the discussion of particular practices, but in the underlying hermeneutics of Scripture” (Tobias Nicklas, Jews and Christians? Second Century ‘Christian’ Perspectives on the ‘Parting of the Ways’ [Τübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014], 125). 73 See also Ignatius’s continuation of this discussion in Phld. 9.1–2. 74 Sieben understands the theme of the entire letter to be the relationship between the prophets and gospel or Old and New Testaments (“Die Ignatianen als Briefe, 17). 75 Schoedel, Ignatius, 203. 76 Philo uses ἑρµενεύω with reference to Moses’s interpretation of divine oracles (Mut. 125). For similar uses of the word, see Sophocles, Oed. col. 398; Plato, Ion 535a; Luke 24.27 (D); LSJ, s.v. II.1; BDAG, s.v. 1. 77 Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Judaism without Circumcision and ‘Judaism’ without ‘Circumcision’ in Ignatius,” HTR 95 (2002): 395–415. See also Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 139.

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refer to a specific circumcised or uncircumcised group living in Philadelphia when Ignatius visited. The view is initially enticing and would explain the difficulty scholars have in determining a precise historical referent for Ignatius’s language. On the view that I have proposed here, Ignatius speaks primarily to people who were already in the Philadelphian church and not to outsiders. The direction of Ignatius’s conversation does not change if his opponents are rhetorical constructions rather than historical realities. However, the argument would likely lose its rhetorical effectiveness among the audience if the opponents were not known by the Philadelphians. What Ignatius writes about his opponents surely construes them in a way that is favorable to his arguments. Yet to suppose that he has made them up completely makes Ignatius not only historically unreliable in reconstructions of Judaism in Philadelphia but rhetorically ineffective as well. It is the latter point which decides against understanding the Philadelphian Jewish opponents as rhetorical constructs without a recognizable referent in the audience’s community. A second issue has been raised by Christine Trevett, who challenges the traditional dichotomy between one-opponent and two-opponent proponents in Ignatian scholarship. In addition to docetic and Jewish opponents, she perceives a third group that objects to Ignatius’s calls for unity under the bishop but that is not so distant in other theological beliefs.78 A key piece of evidence for Trevett stems from Ignatius’s depiction of himself as a prophet in Phld. 7.1–2.79 Since Ignatius refers to the temple in this passage, her statements are particularly worth considering. Trevett notes the diversity of early Christianity and outlines this diversity in geographical terms. Since Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch but wrote most of his letters to churches in Asia, Trevett focuses on both Syria and Asia.80 She notes that early Christian prophets are highly respected in Did. 11–13, a document that is often associated with Syria. The prophets are free to offer the eucharistic prayers as they wish (ὅσα θέλουσιν; Did. 10.7) and should receive hospitality (Did. 11.1; 12.1). She perceives a tension in the letters of Ignatius between prophets and charismatics on the one hand and ecclesial officers on the other. She thinks this is most evident in the Eucharist that Ignatius claims should only be held under the bishop’s authority (Phld. 4; Smyrn. 8.1–2). Trevett argues that this contrasts with the freedom given to prophets in Did. 10.7.81 In response to this conflict, Ignatius presents himself as a charismatic bishop 78

Christine Trevett, “Prophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity: A Third Error Combatted by Ignatius?” JEH 34 (1983): 1–18; eadem, A Study of Ignatius, 194–199. 79 Trevett offers a useful and concise presentation of prophecy in Ignatius’s letters between Revelation and Montanism in Montanism: Gender, Authority, and the New Prophecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 38–39. 80 On Syria, see Trevett, “Prophecy,” 2–4; eadem, A Study of Ignatius, 40–51. On Asia, see Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 75–113. 81 Trevett, “Prophecy,” 11–13.

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(Phld. 7.1–2) and urges Polycarp to do the same (Pol. 2.2).82 The bishop should be a charismatic figure within the church in addition to being an overseer. Trevett argues that Ignatius’s calls for unity do not fit easily with his comments about docetic or Jewish opponents. Rather, a third group of opponents must be in view who objected to Ignatius’s calls for monepiscopacy. 83 In Asia this group may have been associated with the communities whose voices can be heard in the Johannine letters or Revelation.84 Trevett’s allowance for a third error is helpful insofar as it does not get trapped in the overly simplistic question of whether Ignatius interacted with one or two groups. Room should be left for more options based on close readings of the letters as individual compositions. However, it is not clear that Trevett’s supposition that episcopal authority “threatened to exclude the exercise of the prophetic group” holds true.85 Ignatius elsewhere presents himself as a charismatic figure who can prophesy (Trall. 4.1–5.1) and encourages Polycarp to ask for revelation as well (Pol. 2.2). He prophesies in support of the bishop in Phld. 7.1–2. Ignatius is thus a charismatic and prophetic bishop. Yet it remains to be seen how Ignatius attempts to bring prophecy under episcopal authority such that only the bishop can prophesy. While Ignatius and Polycarp may have been able to prophesy, nothing is said about the prophetic capabilities of Onesimus, Damas, Polybius, or the unnamed bishop of Philadelphia. Although Ignatius desires all to be united under the bishop’s authority, it is difficult to argue that Ignatius attempts to limit prophecy only to the bishop. Trevett’s strongest argument comes from a comparison of the prophetic role in the Didache with the prophetic bishop in Ignatius’s letters. She proposes that the prophets’ freedom in the Eucharist as described in Did. 10.7 conflicts with Ignatius’s claim that the Eucharist is only valid if held under the bishop’s authority Yet even in this case, it is not clear that Ignatius is at odds with Did. 10.7. The focus of Did. 9–10 is on what words should be used when giving

82 Trevett, “Prophecy,” 7–8. See also Peter Meinhold, “Schweigende Bischöfe: Die Gegensätze in den kleinasiatischen Gemeinden nach den Ignatianen,” in Glaube und Geschichte, ed. Peter Manns and Erwin Iserloh (Baden-Baden: Grimm, 1958), 479. 83 Trevett, “Prophecy,” 13–18. 84 Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 194–199; eadem, Montanism, 39. On the Johannine opponents, see Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 237–292; Paul Hartog, “The Opponents of Polycarp, Philippians, and 1 John,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 375–391. On the opponents in Rev 2.1–7, see Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 293–350. 85 Trevett, “Prophecy,” 18. This supposed opposition of authorities coincides with many descriptions of how church authority developed in the first century. The development of this scholarly consensus over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is described in detail by James Turnstead Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 61–179.

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thanks for the Eucharist (Did. 9.1; 10.1), and the author reports on what prayers should be said during the Eucharist.86 That the prophets are allowed to give thanks as they wish likely has more to do with what words they should say,87 that is, they can give thanks with whatever words they desire (ὅσα θέλουσιν).88 Nothing is said about whether they can hold a separate Eucharist. The conflict described in Ignatius’s letters seems to have more to do with teachers and bishops than with bishops and charismatics.89 Still, Trevett’s attempt not to limit herself to the simple bifurcation of past scholarship is salutary. In light of Ignatius’s consistent calls for unity even outside those sections where an opponent is clearly named, it may be that some in Philadelphia questioned episcopal authority on grounds other than Jewish teachings. It is not clear how organized the opposition to the Philadelphian bishop was, and it seems best not to imagine a well-formed charismatic party. Yet even if there is limited evidence for a discrete group that opposed the bishop, Ignatius’s emphasis on unity suggests that there were some who, for whatever reason, were loath to obey the authorities that he esteemed so highly. Although the comparison of Phld. 7.1–2 and Did. 10.7 does not result in a stark contrast since Did. 10.7 gives guidance on how the prophets speak rather than how they celebrate, there is some opposition to the bishop in Philadelphia. Ignatius’s response is to focus on what he perceives as the solution, namely, unity. In addition, Ignatius’s polemics are concerned instead with the issue of how the archives are interpreted by some Gentiles in the Philadelphian church who are attracted to Judaism. They grant more authority to the archives than Ignatius thinks is appropriate. He reckons these opponents as part of Judaism. The argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2 explains Ignatius’s position, and the images of the high priest and temple function within this argument. 86 On the Jewish background of the prayers in Did. 9–10, see Christoph Markschies, Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire: Prolegomena to a History of Early Christian Theology, trans. Wayne Coppins, BMSEC 3 (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2015), 136–141; trans. of Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen: Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der antiken christlichen Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 160–166. 87 “[E]ven the ritual formulas used at the meal setting can be supplemented by prophets” (Jonathan Schwiebert, “Pray ‘in this Way’: Formalized Speech in Didache 9–10, in The Didache: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle in Early Christianity, ed. Jonathan A. Draper and Clayton N. Jefford, ECL 14 [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015], 203). 88 Alistair Stewart-Sykes, “Prophecy and Patronage: The Relationship between Charismatic Functionaries and Household Officers in Early Christianity,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 170. Kurt Niederwimmer also considers the problematic issue to be what the prophets can say during the Eucharist (Der Didache, KAV 1 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989], 205). 89 See Stewart-Sykes, “Prophecy and Patronage,” 177–182, esp. 181; Stewart, Original Bishops, 285–288.

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2.4. Ignatius’s Opponents in Ephesus 2.4. Ignatius’s Opponents in Ephesus

The situation in Ephesus is somewhat different from the one that Ignatius describes in Philadelphia. Onesimus has praised the orderliness (εὐταξία) of the Ephesians to Ignatius since they live truthfully and do not allow factions to dwell among them (Eph. 6.2). 90 On the contrary, “you [the Ephesians] no longer listen to someone unless [that person] speaks about Jesus Christ in truth” (οὐδὲ ἀκούετέ τινος πλέον ἢ περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ λαλοῦντος ἐν ἀληθείᾳ).91 This unwillingness to listen to false teaching is alluded to again when Ignatius says that he knows of some who have passed on from Ephesus with evil teaching (κακὴ διδασκαλία) but against whom the Ephesians “stopped their ears” (βύσαντες τὰ ὦτα; Eph. 9.1). Teachers of whom Ignatius does not approve had passed through Ephesus, and the Ephesians did not listen to whatever it was that made their teaching evil. Ignatius joins Onesimus in applauding the Ephesians for rejecting these teachers but does not offer a thorough statement of what was problematic about the teachers.

90 It is likely that αἵρεσις maintains the connotation of “faction” rather than the later meaning of “false teaching,” though the factions that the Ephesians disallowed in their presence seem to have come about due to teaching that Ignatius considered wrong. See further Schoedel, Ignatius, 58n.3. Since Onesimus was a common name in antiquity, there is no reason to suppose that the Onesimus in Ephesians is the same man on whose behalf Paul wrote Philemon. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.32; Helmut Koester, “Ephesos in Early Christian Literature,” in Ephesos: Metropolis of Asia. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its Archaeology, Religion and Culture, ed. Helmut Koester, HTS 41 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 134. 91 The middle recension reads τινος πλέον εἴπερ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This reading is accepted by Funk (Patres apostolici, 1.218–219) and Joseph A. Fischer (Die apostolischen Väter, SUC 1 [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1956], 146). In conjunction with this choice, Funk draws attention to Jesus’s true speech as the mouth of God in Rom. 8.2. However, this reading strains the sense of Ignatius’s statement in Eph. 6. Although Schoedel may put it too strongly when he calls the reading “grammatically impossible,” he correctly observes that other Ignatian opponents speak wrongly in Trall. 9.1 and Phld. 6.1 (Schoedel, Ignatius, 58n.2). The variant manuscripts indicate the same is likely also true here. The long recension reads τινος ἢ µόνου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This is periphrastic and, though the reading makes sense within the sentence, it is unable to make sense of the variants that have arisen in the manuscript tradition. The Latin reading (aliquem amplius quam Jesum Christum) suggests a possible Greek Vorlage of τινος πλέον ἣπερ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, while the Armenian text suggests a possible Vorlage of εἰ µὴ περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. In light of the difficulties in the manuscript tradition, I have chosen to follow Lightfoot’s emendation: τινος πλέον ἢ περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.46–47). Lightfoot emends the text in a way that is close to the meaning of the Armenian text, while accounting for the suggested Vorlage of the Latin translation. It would not be impossible to mistake ΗΠΕΡΙΙΣΟΥ, the emended text, for ΗΠΕΡΙΣΟΥ, the suggested Vorlage behind the Latin translation. This reading might also account for the Greek middle recension due to similarities in sound.

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Nevertheless, Ignatius includes hints about the problematic teaching in his polemically oriented christological statements. Although Onesimus praises the Ephesians for not listening to anyone who does not speak truthfully about Jesus, Ignatius still warns them that they should not be deceived (Eph. 8.1). This implies that there is something by which the Ephesians could yet be deceived. Ignatius tells them that some are accustomed to carrying the name in wicked deceit while acting in ways that are unworthy of God (εἰώθασιν γάρ τινες δόλῳ πονηρῷ τὸ ὄνοµα περιφέρειν, ἄλλα τινὰ πράσσοντες ἀνάξια θεοῦ; Eph. 7.1). He advises that such people must be shunned like wild animals and compares such teachers to rabid dogs.92 There is only one physician (εἷς ἰατρός ἐστιν) who is Jesus Christ our Lord (Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος ἡµῶν; Eph. 7.2). Between these book-ending references to Jesus as physician and Lord, Eph. 7.2 places six descriptions that are paired to emphasize and hold together characteristics of Jesus that might be assigned more easily to his humanity or origin from God if stated by themselves.93 Jesus is both born and unborn. Likewise, he is both from Mary and from God. Ignatius’s insistence on holding these descriptions together occurs between his references to false teachers in Eph. 6.2 and 9.1. This suggests that something in this description of Jesus would have been objectionable to the teachers and that Ignatius counters by holding both descriptions equally and simultaneously. Ignatius confirms the Ephesian position while softly admonishing the Ephesians in advance against possible additional encounters with the false teachers. Precisely what it was that was problematic about the teachers becomes clearer in Eph. 18.2–19.3. Ignatius insists that “our God Jesus Christ was conceived by Mary in accordance with the plan of God, from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit” (ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς ἐκυοφορήθη ὑπὸ Μαρίας κατ’ οἰκονοµίαν θεοῦ ἐκ σπέρµατος µὲν ∆αυίδ, πνεύµατος δὲ ἁγίοῦ; Eph. 18.2).94 Ignatius then reminds the Ephesians that Jesus was born (ἐγεννήθη) and baptized (ἐβαπτίσθη). Jesus’s baptism occurred so that the water might be cleansed by his suffering.95 Ignatius follows this by listing three further events surrounding the life of Jesus that Ignatius refers to as mysteries (µυστήρια) that

92

In referring to his opponents as dogs, Ignatius uses a standard rhetorical dismissal found widely across ancient literature (Uebele, Viele Verführer, 29–30). Pliny the Elder notes the difficulty of curing rabies in Nat. 25.6 and offers advice to heal it in Nat. 28.43. 93 On the structure of Eph. 7.2, see Uebele, Viele Verführer, 44–45; Vall, Learning Christ, 99–100. 94 Economy is an important element in Ephesians. The word is used in the Ignatian letters only in Eph. 6.1; 18.2; 20.1. The incarnation takes a central place in Ignatius’s discussion of God’s plan (Mikael Tellbe, Christ-Believers in Ephesus, WUNT 242 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 291n.176). 95 On this phrase, see Gregory Vall, “Lucis Mysterium: Ignatius of Antioch on the Lord’s Baptism,” NV 8 (2010): 153–157; idem, Learning Christ, 292–296.

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were hidden from the ruler of this aeon (Eph. 19.1).96 These are Mary’s virginity, her giving birth, and the Lord’s death (ἡ παρθενία Μαρίας καὶ ὁ τοκετὸς αὐτῆς ὁµοίως καὶ ὁ θάνατος τοῦ κυρίου). When Ignatius inquires about how these mysteries were revealed, his answer tells the story of Jesus’s incarnation in which Jesus is described as a star that was worshipped by other stars (Eph. 19.2). Because “God appeared humanly” (θεοῦ ἀνθρωπίνως φανερουµένου), magic, bonds, ignorance, old kingdoms, and death began to be dissolved (Eph. 19.3). As in Eph. 7.2, Eph. 18.2–19.3 holds together descriptions of Jesus that might more often be considered fitting of God with those that fit more easily in descriptions of Jesus as a human being. However, the emphasis lies on Jesus’s humanity in this passage. He was born, baptized, and died. It is through these events that God brings about his plan to destroy the cosmic forces. This emphasis on Jesus’s humanity seems to be anti-docetic in its polemical orientation. Although the severity of the polemic is not as sharp as in Trall. 9.1–2 or Smyrn. 1.1–3.3, Ignatius warns against evil teaching (κακὴ διδασκαλία) that corrupts faith (Eph. 16.2). This evil teaching that Ignatius mentions before his statements about Jesus’s incarnation recalls the evil teaching that he reports he had learned about in Eph. 9.1. In light of the focus on Jesus’s humanity and the similarities in Ignatius’s descriptions of the teachers, it seems likely that the Ephesians encountered docetic teachers whom they rejected but about whom Ignatius nevertheless offers warnings in the form of statements about Jesus that Ignatius considered correct.97 In addition, Ignatius calls attention to the need for the Ephesian church to be unified, and it is possible that these calls for unity represent more than generic instructions. Ignatius instructs the Ephesians to be unified as he praises Onesimus and other members of the Ephesian delegation that came to see him (Eph. 1.3; 2.2; 3.2). He remarks that it is fitting for the Ephesians “to run together with the mind of the bishop” (συντρέχειν τῇ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου γνώµῃ; Eph. 4.1) and uses the image of a chorus to depict the unity that the Ephesians should demonstrate (Eph. 4.2). He later urges the Ephesians not to resist the bishop so they can be subject to God (σπουδάσωµεν οὖν µὴ ἀντιτάσσεσθαι τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ, ἵνα ὦµεν θεῷ ὑποτασσόµενοι; Eph. 5.3). Although Ignatius elsewhere connects the bishop to the authority of Jesus or the Father and instructs his readers to be

96

David Daube’s proposal that τρία µυστήρια κραυγῆς should be connected to specific cries surrounding Jesus’s birth and death fails to read Eph. 19 on its own terms (“τρία µυστήρια κραυγῆς: Ignatius, Ephesians, XIX, 1,” JTS 16 [1965]: 128–129). Rather, κραυγῆς simply corresponds to ἡσυχία (T. J. Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness: From Paul to the Second Century, BZNT 219 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015], 143). 97 Uebele goes so far as to say that a connection between the divine Redeemer and material was “undenkbar und unmöglich” (Viele Verführer, 57).

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obedient to the bishop,98 the language of resisting the bishop occurs only here in the middle recension. The language may be shaped by his citation of Prov 3.34 in Eph. 5.3. Ignatius notes that the one who refuses to meet together exhibits pride (ὑπερηφανεῖ), “for it is written, ‘God opposes the proud’” (γέγραπται γάρ, ὑπερηφάνοις ὁ θεὸς ἀντιτάσσεται). This citation from Prov 3.34 is close to the one found in Jas 4.6, 1 Pet 5.5, and 1 Clem. 30.2.99 However Ignatius knows this proverb, he expects it to carry authority and introduces it with a citation formula (γέγραπται γάρ).100 Ignatius’s use of an authoritative saying indicates the force with which he aims to emphasize his point. He concludes from this that the Ephesians should not oppose their bishop. Ignatius next instructs the Ephesians that they should increasingly fear the bishop the more that someone notices that the bishop is silent. He reasons that the Ephesians must accept everyone whom the Master of the house sends to care for his household affairs. Onesimus seems to lie in the background of both these statements. καὶ ὅσον βλέπει τις σιγῶντα ἐπίσκοπον, πλειόνως αὐτὸν φοβείσθω. πάντα γὰρ ὃν πέµπει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης εἰς ἰδίαν οἰκονοµίαν, οὕτως δεῖ ἡµᾶς αὐτὸν δέχεσθαι, ὡς αὐτὸν τὸν πέµψαντα. τὸν οὖν ἐπίσκοπον δῆλον ὅτι ὥς αὐτὸν τὸν κύριον δεῖ προσβλέπειν. And the more someone sees that the bishop is silent, let that one fear him all the more. For we must receive everyone, whom the Master of the house sends into his own household affairs, as the sender himself. Therefore, it is clear that we must look to the bishop as to the Lord himself (Eph. 6.1).

What does Ignatius mean by describing Onesimus as silent? It may simply mean that Onesimus is quiet-natured or that he is not gifted in speech.101 It is possible that Onesimus lacks the spiritual gifts by which to pray or prophesy extemporaneously.102 Onesimus may also have struggled to refute opponents 98 Ignatius draws connections between the bishop’s authority and the Father in Magn. 3.1; 6.1. He draws similar connections to the bishop’s authority and Jesus in Eph. 3.2. 99 The substitution of θεός for κύριος and the frequency with which this verse is cited in other early Christian literature leave open the possibility that Ignatius knew this verse without direct knowledge of Prov 3.34. However, Maren R. Niehoff’s comments on the differences between Jas 4.10 and 1 Pet 5.5 could be extended to Ignatius (“The Implied Audience of the Letter of James,” in New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity, ed. Gary Anderson, Ruth Clements, and David Satran, STDJ 106 [Leiden: Brill, 2013], 76). Each author implements the verse to further their own arguments. 100 A similar formula precedes Ignatius’s citation of Prov 18.17 in Magn. 12 but is not used before his reference to Isa 52.5 in Trall. 8.2. 101 Lightfoot refers to a “quiet and retiring disposition” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.46). Bauer raises the possibility “daß dem Bischof von Ephesus die Rednergabe versagt war” (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 206). 102 Christine Trevett, “Apocalypse, Ignatius, Montanism: Seeking the Seeds,” VC 43 (1989): 319–321. She draws attention to what she sees as similar tradition in Matt 10.14–15;

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in debate.103 Whatever Ignatius means by describing Onesimus as silent, the location of this description following an exhortation not to resist the bishop likely indicates that Onesimus’s silence is a reason why some have opposed the bishop.104 Monepiscopacy does not seem to have been universally established in early second-century Ephesus.105 The various early Christian documents that are associated with Ephesus suggest that there were multiple early Christian groups.106 These include a Pauline group associated with the author of the Pastorals, the opponents discussed in the Pastorals, a Johannine group associated with the author of the Johannine letters, the group that “went out” from the Johannine community, possibly the descendants of the Nicolaitans, and perhaps additional groups not addressed explicitly in the literature associated with Ephesus.107 Although Ignatius depicts himself as writing to all Christians in Ephesus, the presence of various groups allows for the possibility that some dissension existed within the Christian community. Ignatius writes partly to strengthen support for Onesimus in his role as bishop during what appears to be a time of transition in the leadership of the Ephesian Christian community.108 Ignatius does not write to introduce monepiscopacy to Asia as something new.109 He writes with the expectation that his readers will already be familiar with what his words mean, while attributing the episcopacy to a particular individual. 110 Monepiscopacy is a known practice at this time, but it is contested in the Ephesian church. One of the apparent reasons for opposition in Ephesus was Onesimus’s silence.

Did. 4.1; 11.1–6; 12.1–5. Stewart-Sykes has argued in response that the issue in secondcentury Ephesus has more to do with the bishop’s role as teacher and that “there is no correlation between claims of charisma and opposition to the bishop,” “Prophecy and Patronage,” 181. 103 Schoedel, Ignatius, 56. 104 Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 658. 105 Schoedel, Ignatius, 49; Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 658–660; Stewart, Original Bishops, 269–281. 106 Koester, “Ephesos,” 133, though Koester offers a different set of groups from the one offered here and suggests a more competitive model of interactions. 107 Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 645–647. 108 For careful argument of this proposition, see Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 654–669. 109 This is different from Patrick Burke, who proposes that Ignatius introduces monepiscopacy to Asia (“The Monarchial Episcopate at the End of the First Century,” JES 7 [1970]: 499–518, esp. 516–518). 110 Robinson notes that Ignatius writes about monepiscopacy in a way that expects his readers to recognize it, even if it might be contested (Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways, 99–102).

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Ignatius claims that Onesimus acts in imitation of his Master. Jesus accomplished things which are worthy of the Father in his silence. The one who obtains Jesus’s word is able truly to hear his stillness (Eph. 15.2).111 However, Ignatius does not say precisely what this stillness is until the end of the letter when he shows that silence plays an integral role in the outworking of the divine plan. The three mysteries that Ignatius discusses “were done in the stillness of God” (ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ θεοῦ ἐπράχθη; Eph. 19.1). Jesus acted worthily of his Father even when he was a silent teacher by completing what he was called to do (Eph. 15.1). God accomplished the mysteries of redemption in Jesus’s incarnation and death while remaining still. Onesimus imitates God in his silence. It is difficult to identify precisely what Ignatius means by Onesimus’s silence, but it seems to have been regarded by some as a weakness in Onesimus’s ability to execute his episcopal responsibilities. Ignatius’s theological argument in Eph. 15.1 answers those who perceive Onesimus’s silence as a reason for opposition, but he does not simply “make a virtue of this weakness.”112 Rather, Onesimus enacts God’s plan through his silent imitation of Jesus. Ignatius redefines Onesimus’s perceived weakness not only out of necessity but also from theological reflection on the implications of Jesus’s divinity and messiahship for ecclesial ministry.113 Silence is the way that God effected his plan in Jesus, and it is the way that the bishop should effect God’s plan in imitation of Jesus. Silence plays a revelatory function as the manner in which God reveals Jesus (Eph. 19.1).114 Accordingly, the Ephesians should come together more often for the Eucharist, since the powers of Satan are destroyed when the church gathers together (Eph. 13.1). In sum, Ignatius seems to have two opponents in mind in Ephesians. The first group spreads false teaching about Jesus, but the Ephesians have rejected their teaching and sent them on their way. The teachers seem to have offered a docetic Christology of some sort, but there is little more that can be said about the content of the teaching. Ignatius warns them to continue their vigilance and offers clear christological teaching that holds together Jesus’s humanity and

111 The words ἡσυχία and σιγή are synonymous and do not refer to different concepts within Ignatius’s letters. 112 Schoedel, Ignatius, 56. Schoedel is correct that Ignatius’s diction is shaped by the problem in Ephesus, but Schoedel’s wording leaves open the possibility that Ignatius’s argument is simply ad hoc and convenient when it seems to stem from theological reflection. This will be argued in more detail in chapter 6. 113 Henry Chadwick, “The Silence of Bishops in Ignatius,” HTR 43 (1950): 169–172; Vall, Learning Christ, 277–282. 114 Although it is true that revelation occurs in silence insofar as the mysteries were accomplished, Lang correctly notes that silence represents a time of previous concealment in Eph. 19.1. A similar motif is found in Rom 16.25–27 (Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness, 143).

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divinity while emphasizing that one element of the teaching cannot be separated from the other. The second group is likely present in Ignatius’s audience and questions the extent of the bishop’s authority. Ignatius refers to this as “resisting the bishop” and warns the Ephesians that they should not hold separate meetings. This is particularly true of Eucharistic meetings, since Satan’s power is destroyed through these. An additional reason for opposition to the bishop in Ephesus concerns Onesimus’s silence. It is difficult to say exactly what this silence may be, but Ignatius closely connects this perceived weakness to his theological reflection on God’s redemptive actions in silence.

2.5. Ignatius’s Opponents in Magnesia 2.5. Ignatius’s Opponents in Magnesia

Deciphering who Ignatius’s opponents are in Magnesians has often impacted how one views the opponents in other letters. Because of Ignatius’s juxtaposition of Ἰουδαϊσµός and Χριστιανισµός in Magn. 10.3 and the confession about events in Jesus’s life that truly (ἀληθῶς) happened in Magn. 11, this letter plays a key role for those who argue that Ignatius faced a single opponent.115 Others have tried to describe the Magnesian opponents as Jewish while downplaying the docetic overtones of the Christology.116 The primary question that must be answered is what Ignatius means when he refers to Judaism in Magnesians. It is possible that Ignatius refers to the same phenomenon as in Phld. 6.1, but this should not be assumed from the start. An understanding of Ἰουδαϊσµός must be sought with reference to how Ignatius depicts his opponents in Magnesians. One proposal has focused on Judaism with reference to following the Torah. Rather than mentioning circumcision as in Phld. 6.1, Ignatius discusses the keeping of the Sabbath in Magn. 9.1. The Sabbath is contrasted with living according to the Lord’s Day. These indicate two different lifestyles.117 The reference to diverse lifestyles may be confirmed by the exhortation to live according to Christianity in Magn. 10.1 (κατὰ Χριστιανισµὸν ζῆν).118 It may be that Ignatius has this difference in mind when he contrasts Judaism and Christianity. If this is the case, Ignatius may refer to Jewish practices when he speaks of Judaism in Magnesians. Judaism could then be a reference to the

115

Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.124–125; Molland, “Heretics,” 1–6; Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 20–21; Marshall, “Objects,” 19. 116 Richardson, Christianity of Ignatius, 51–54. Donahue challenges the use of Magnesians by proponents of the one-opponent view (“Jewish Christianity,” 83–86). 117 Niebuhr, “‘Judentum’ und ‘Christentum,’” 232. Corwin notes the ambiguity of the reference but nevertheless notes that the opponents “apparently observed the Sabbath” (St. Ignatius, 58). 118 Donahue, “Jewish Christianity,” 88.

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law-keeping practices of some elements of the Magnesian Christians. However, this view fails to account for the specificity of Ignatius’s statements about Jesus, particularly in Magn. 11. The particular statements about Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection as well as the chronological setting during the time of Pilate seem unlikely to be helpful in a polemical argument if the argument is aimed at one group that is attracted to the Jewish law and another that is not. When Ignatius warns the Magnesians not to be deceived by “false opinions and old myths” (ταῖς ἑτεροδοξίαις µηδὲ µυθεύµασιν τοῖς παλαιοῖς; Magn. 8.1), he may refer to scriptural interpretation that grants too much authority to the Old Testament. Such a way of interpreting scripture would be similar to the one described in Philadelphians.119 The interpretive practice may depend too heavily on the prophets, since Ignatius makes a point of arguing that even the prophets “lived in accordance with Christ Jesus” (κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἔζησαν; Magn. 8.2) and “became his disciples in the spirit, waiting for him like a teacher” (µαθηταὶ ὄντες τῷ πνεύµατι ὡς διδάσκαλον αὐτὸν προσεδόκων; Magn. 9.2).120 The placement of the prophets in relation to Jesus is a similar move to the one that Ignatius makes in Phld. 5.2 and 9.2. The hypothesis that the Jewish opponents in Magnesia interpret scripture in a way that Ignatius considers problematic is thus drawn from two pieces of evidence: the identification of false opinions and old myths with Jewish scripture and the link that Ignatius draws between the prophets and Jesus. However, it is not likely that “false opinions and old myths” refer to the Old Testament. This identification is made by noting the similarities between Ignatius’s language and the Pastorals.121 Timothy is warned “not to hold to myths and endless genealogies” (µηδὲ προσέχειν µύθοις καὶ γενεαλογίαις ἀπεράντοις; 1 Tim 1.4) and to “reject profane and silly myths” (τοὺς δὲ βεβήλους καὶ γραώδεις µύθους παραιτοῦ; 1 Tim 4.7), while Titus is instructed 119

Molland, “Heretics,” 6; Prigent, “L’hérésie,” 21; Barrett, “Jews and Judaizers,” 242– 243. As they argue for all of Ignatius’s opponents, Molland and Prigent argue that the opponents in Magnesians use the Old Testament to support a docetic Christology of which Ignatius disapproves. Schoedel thinks that the scriptural interpretation was used in Magnesia to justify the observance of Jewish customs (Ignatius, 118). 120 Charles E. Hill plausibly suggests that Ignatius’s reference to the prophets being raised by Jesus in Magn. 9.2 refers to a resurrection performed in the underworld (Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 91). 121 Schoedel, Ignatius, 117. However, Schoedel notes that one “cannot assume that the situation in the Pastorals and in Ignatius was the same simply because they share a common polemical vocabulary” (Ignatius, 118). See the various sketches of the opponents in the Pastorals in I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 40–51; Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 209–235; Dillon T. Thornton, Hostility in the House of God: An Investigation of the Opponents in 1 and 2 Timothy, BBRSup 15 (Winona Lake: Eisenbraums, 2016), 237–279.

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to tell the Cretans “not to hold to Jewish myths and the commandments of people who are turned away from the truth” (µὴ προσέχοντες ἰουδαϊκοῖς µύθοις καὶ ἐντολαῖς ἀνθρώπων ἀποστρεφοµένων τὴν ἀλήθειαν; Titus 1.14). Yet the language of “myths” belongs more broadly to the polemical vocabulary of the ancient world than the Pastorals alone.122 Philo dismisses the foundational narratives of other nations as myths before highlighting the immorality that he associates with Greco-Roman festivals (Cher. 91). Josephus accused Greek historians of a tendency to favor myth over historical veracity (C. Ap. 1.25).123 Although Ignatius could refer to the Old Testament when he speaks of false opinions and old myths, further reason is needed to identify this language as a reference to the Old Testament. This further reason for identifying the error against which Ignatius fights as poor interpretation of the Old Testament may lie in his treatment of the prophets. Ignatius links the prophets closely with belief in Jesus (Magn. 8.2; 9.2). He says that those who lived according to old ways came to new hope (οἱ ἐν παλαιοῖς πράγµασιν ἀναστραφέντες εἰς καινότητα ἐλπίδος ἦλθον; Magn. 9.1) and contrasts the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day.124 The references to the prophets are striking and sound similar to Ignatius’s comments in Phld. 5.2; 9.2. 125 However, Ignatius approaches the problem in Magnesia differently from how he did in Philadelphia. Rather than narrating a first-person account that directly counters what Ignatius views as a problematic interpretation of scripture, Ignatius relates the prophets to Jesus. They lived in accordance with Jesus and were inspired by his grace (Magn. 8.2). They waited expectantly for Jesus as their teacher because they were disciples in the Spirit (Magn. 9.2). Since the prophets lived in this relation to Jesus, “those who still persist in Judaism should abandon their misleading myths and wicked practices and embrace the grace offered by the mystery of Christ.”126 Only through Christ will the prophets be properly understood. Yet Ignatius does not limit himself to the terms of the discussion in Philadelphians. He relates Ἰουδαϊσµός to a christological matter. Uebele and Myllykoski have both proposed that Judaism in Magnesians is related to problematic Christology. Uebele argues that Ignatius faces the same opponents in 122

Lieu, Image and Reality, 28. See also Plato, Tim. 26e; Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 1.25.4; Philo, Exsecr. 162; Josephus, A.J. 1.22; C. Ap. 2.256; 2 Pet 1.16; 2 Clem. 13.3. 124 The long recension reads γράµµασιν for πράγµασιν in Magn. 9.1. This may indicate an early interpretive tradition identifying the Judaism in question with the scripture. However, the long recension also reads νόµον ἰουδαϊκόν for Ἰουδαϊσµός in Magn. 8.1. It is more likely that the interpolator of the long recension perceived a connection with the practices of the Jewish law than that the reading stems from Ignatius. 125 Molland correctly argues that those who came to new hope are the prophets (“Heretics,” 3). The prophets are also mentioned in Smyrn. 5.1. 126 Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness, 139. 123

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Magnesians that he faced in Ephesians.127 On his view, the opponents held a docetic Christology that they supported with a particular way of reading scripture. Ignatius refers to this as Judaism. Ignatius’s statement that some deny Jesus’s death (Magn. 9.1) and his summary narrative about Jesus’s birth, suffering, and resurrection (Magn. 11) are important for Uebele’s argument. The summary narrative in Magn. 11 may provide evidence for docetic opponents in Magnesians, particularly since Ignatius uses the word ἀληθῶς to emphasize Jesus’s genuine humanity. 128 Despite this similarity, it is unlikely that the summary narrative in Magn. 11 is told in opposition to a docetic Christology. Ignatius’s narrative is much briefer in Magn. 11 than the narratives in Trallians or Smyrnaeans. Moreover, the brief statements in Magn. 9.1 and 11 are the primary places in which one finds these purported echoes of a docetic Christology. Given the seriousness with which Ignatius treats the subject in Trallians and Smyrnaeans, the christological error that Ignatius perceives in his Magnesian opponents likely falls along different lines. Myllykoski argues that the Magnesian opponents hold a Christology that is a forerunner to the more developed Christology espoused in Rec. 1.27– 71.129 In this text, Peter describes Jesus as the first who was anointed (Rec. 1.45.4). He notes that Aaron was anointed as the first high priest and that anointing marks people out as kings, prophets, or priests (Rec. 1.46.2–3). He then offers an a fortiori argument pointing to Jesus’s superiority because he was anointed with ointment taken from the tree of life (Rec. 1.46.4). After Jesus there is no need to anoint anyone else because Jesus is high priest, prophet, and king (Rec. 1.48.5–6). Myllykoski thinks that Ignatius’s interest in priests and prophets can be explained if his opponents “drew upon a primitive form of this kind of tradition.”130 However, Ignatius does not give particular attention to depicting Jesus as high priest or king. Rather, he focuses only on the prophets in Magnesians. 131 Rec. 1.27–71 offers evidence of a Christology that was interested in Jesus’s prophetic status and was known as Jewish by later authors, but it is questionable how helpful the later work is in illuminating Ignatius’s opponents. It is more helpful to be content with what Ignatius himself says about his opponents. This description is modest and does not easily coalesce with what is known of other early Christian groups. Ignatius claims that at least some of his opponents deny Jesus’s death (Magn. 9.1). His reminder of Jesus’s time

127

Uebele, Viele Verführer, 58–66. The same word appears in what seem to be more clearly anti-docetic summary narratives in Trall. 9.1–2 and Smyrn. 1.1–3.3. 129 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 357. 130 Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 358. 131 The lack of overt attention to Jesus as high priest also tells against Myllykoski’s view, although I will argue that Jesus’s mediation serves a priestly role in Magn. 7.2. 128

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in history during the governorship of Pilate may indicate that Ignatius did not think that his opponents fully appreciated Jesus’s humanity (Magn. 11). The repeated references to the prophets indicate that the opponents’ understanding of the prophets is the most likely candidate that led Ignatius to refer to them as proponents of Judaism. However, it is not clear precisely what their understanding of the prophets was. Uebele and Myllykoski point to the opponents’ misuse of the prophets to support their problematic Christology, and both imply that Ignatius wants to decrease the importance of the prophets since his opponents depend too heavily on them. 132 Yet Ignatius closely links the prophets to Jesus. He does not downplay the prophets but places them in right relation to God’s central revelation in the Word that came forth from silence. For Ignatius, the prophets make sense when understood through Jesus. To separate the prophets from Jesus or to elevate them over Jesus, as Ignatius seems to think that his opponents are doing, skews the revelation of the Father in the Son. When it comes to the statements about the prophets, the limitations of Magn. 8–11 only allow later interpreters to notice that the understanding of the prophets is an important issue. The passage does not allow further clarification on the opponents’ use of the prophets. The christological statements that Ignatius makes indicate that he perceives at least some of his opponents deny Jesus’s death and downplay his humanity. Yet there is one more issue that Ignatius takes up in addition to the prophets and Christology. The letter is also concerned about unity with the bishop. Ignatius frames Magnesians with multi-faceted references to unity.133 He begins by praying that the Magnesians may experience the unity of flesh and spirit, faith and love, and Jesus and the Father (Magn. 1.2). A similar list appears in Magn. 13.1 with two exceptions. The Holy Spirit is added to the union of Father and Son, and Ignatius also hopes for unity in the beginning and the end (Magn. 13.1). Ignatius spends much of the early part of the letter discussing unity under proper ecclesial authorities. He praises the Magnesian bishop and other leaders (Magn. 2). He urges the Magnesians to celebrate a unified service in which the bishop, elders, and deacons are accorded their proper place (Magn. 6.1). He also insists that no one should act apart from the bishop (Magn. 7.1). In particular, some in Magnesia seem to have been troubled by the young age of Damas (Magn. 3.1). Others pay lip service to the bishop but continue to meet without him. Anti-episcopal activity thus represents another error that troubles Ignatius.134 Yet, other than the bishop’s age, Ignatius says little about why some Magnesians are reticent to accept Damas’s authority.

132

Uebele, Viele Verführer, 62; Myllykoski, “Wild Beasts,” 360–361. Vall, Learning Christ, 91–96. 134 Trevett, “Prophecy,” 1–18. 133

2.6. Conclusion

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Instead, he emphatically insists that the Magnesians be unified around a series of simple items, one of which is the temple (Magn. 7.1–2).

2.6. Conclusion 2.6. Conclusion

Attempts to identify the opponents in Ignatius’s letters have made it clear that they were composed in a polemical context. The high priestly and temple metaphors are employed in some of these acerbic situations. However, studies have not agreed about precisely who the opponents are. Ignatius identifies his opponents as those who stand outside of the unity of God and seems to offer two implicit criteria for how he adduces this: their view of Jesus and their view of the bishop.135 After these observations, this chapter has attempted to read the opponents as Ignatius depicts them in each individual letter. Ignatius describes a Jewish group in Philadelphia with whom he differs about the relationship between scriptural interpretation and the gospel. He claims that the archives should not be interpreted in a way that runs contrary to the gospel because the archives contribute to the unity that comes from the gospel. He is further worried about the prospect of some who are opposed to the unnamed bishop in Philadelphia. A second set of opponents is described in Ephesians. Ignatius is aware of a group of teachers who hold a docetic Christology, but the Ephesians have rejected them. He nevertheless offers warnings against deficient views of Jesus. However, Ignatius is concerned further with how Onesimus’s leadership is understood by the Ephesians. It seems that some are worried by Onesimus’s silence, and Ignatius writes in part to urge them to obey their bishop because the chief mysteries of God’s economy likewise took place in silence. Finally, Ignatius depicts a “Jewish” issue in Magnesians that involves both the prophets and the right understanding of Jesus. Ignatius insists that the prophets must be understood in relation to Jesus and that such an interpretation is the only one that rightly makes sense of the prophets. Moreover, Ignatius is again worried that some in Magnesia hold meetings apart from the bishop. His emphasis on unity is intended to correct these opponents. This basic description of the opponents in Ignatius’s letters will be kept in mind as the study proceeds through the various references to the high priest and temple in Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians. Chapter 3 now turns to examine the way in which Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 contributes to the larger argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2, the central section in which Ignatius’s polemics against his Philadelphian Jewish opponents is found.

135

Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways, 125.

Chapter 3

Jesus as High Priest in Philadelphians 3.1. Introduction 3.1. Introduction

It is not uncommon when reading about Phld. 9.1 to find only a brief treatment of Ignatius’s claim that Jesus is high priest and door. This is the only place in the seven letters that Jesus is referred to by either term, and it does not seem to play as significant a role within the Ignatian corpus as Jesus’s suffering, death, or obedience to the Father. Although Lightfoot includes some helpful comments about the nature of Ignatius’s comparison of the priests and high priest, he mentions only that Ignatius is following the author of Hebrews and that Jesus is referred to as high priest in other early Christian texts.1 Bauer is likewise brief in his treatment of the passage, noting that Phld. 9.1 continues the comparison made in Phld. 8.2 between old and new covenants before listing a slew of references to Jesus as high priest in early Christian literature.2 The connection between Phld. 8.2–9.1 is tight, and there seems to be a relatively coherent argument that runs throughout Phld. 5.1–9.2. Perhaps after the analysis of the conflict in Philadelphia and the opponents that Ignatius encountered that is required of any commentary on Phld. 7.1–8.2, it is too much to expect what appears to be a one-off reference to Jesus as high priest and door to be thoroughly explored in a commentary.3 A few studies have developed the place of Phld. 9.1 in Ignatius’s thought more fully, typically with a view to some other aspect of Ignatius’s thought. William Schoedel uses Phld. 9.1 to substantiate his reading of Phld. 8.2. He sees the language about Jesus as high priest functioning similarly to Heb 9 and argues that the secrets that Ignatius mentions are exegetical secrets with which

1 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.274. It is not clear whether Lightfoot suggests direct influence. However, he is correct that reading Phld. 9 alongside the high priest in Hebrews can be illuminating. See section 3.2.4.1. 2 Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 261. Grant offers a useful but again very brief treatment of this passage (Ignatius of Antioch, 106–107). 3 However, the brevity on this passage is evident even in certain monographs and theses. For example, in his thesis, Stark does not view Phld. 9.1 as important for Ignatius’s Christology, writing that Ignatius’s “use of σωτήρ, ἀρχιερεύς, and ὁ Χριστός has not much significance in it” (“Christology,” 24).

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only the high priest should be concerned.4 On Schoedel’s reading of Ignatius, these exegetical secrets belong to Jesus alone and should not concern Ignatius’s opponents. “It is enough to recognize the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and to know that Scripture pointed to him.”5 This reading supports Schoedel’s claims that Ignatius’s Philadelphian opponents are heavily engaged in scriptural interpretation and that Ignatius lost an exegetical dispute to his opponents which forced him to appeal to Jesus as a higher authority.6 Schoedel is correct to point out that the disagreement in Philadelphia was, at least to a significant degree, an exegetical disagreement.7 However, Gregory Vall has objected to the low estimation of Ignatius’s exegetical abilities based on this one passage.8 Other treatments of Jesus as high priest can be found in the studies of Peter Meinhold and Peter Legarth. Meinhold uses Ignatius’s analysis of Jesus as high priest to discuss Ignatius’s view of history. He attempts to show that Ignatius claimed “das Christentum ist die neue und doch alte Religion” in contrast to the “Judaism” of his Philadelphian and Magnesian opponents that is now simply outdated.9 The image of Jesus as high priest is put to use in an exploration of how Ignatius understood history. Legarth explores Phld. 9.1 within his larger study of Ignatius’s temple language.10 However, Legarth’s focus is on the symbolism of the temple within Ignatius’s letters, and the consideration of Phld. 9.1 comes at the end of his analysis of this imagery. Although his treatment will be instructive to this chapter at points, Phld. 9.1 is not fully explored with reference to what the high priest image contributes to the letter as a whole, how Phld. 9.1 functions in the polemic against Judaism, or how the high priestly metaphor is linked with the temple imagery in Phld. 7.2. This chapter will attempt a fuller analysis of Ignatius’s claim that Jesus was high priest by interpreting Phld. 9.1 within its setting in the letter. After looking at the importance of unity and its multifaceted use in Philadelphians, a brief overview of suggestions for how the priests and high priest should be identified will be given in order to test the current consensus that the priests refer to the Levitical priesthood and the high priest refers to Jesus. Ignatius claims that Jesus is superior to the Levitical priesthood because he was entrusted with the 4 Schoedel, Ignatius, 209. Corwin likewise sees Ignatian polemic in the identification of Jesus as high priest, but she identifies his opponents as Essene-Christians or Essenes (St. Ignatius, 111). For Corwin’s identification of the opponents, see St. Ignatius, 57–65. Trevett rightly notes that Corwin’s interpretation came at a time when Christian parallels to Judaism were being avidly sought and that “her theory does not hold water” (A Study of Ignatius, 130). 5 Schoedel, Ignatius, 210. 6 See further Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” 97–106. 7 On Ignatius’s opponents in Philadelphia, see the discussion in section 2.3. 8 Vall, Learning Christ, 27–33. 9 Meinhold, Studien, 41. 10 Legarth, Guds tempel, 323–337; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61–63.

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Holy of Holies to be God’s agent to make known the divine secrets. Jesus also grants access to the Father for all of God’s people throughout all time as the door to the Father. Both of these images are used by other early Christian texts, and the priestly image is an important feature of texts from Second Temple Judaism, such as the Aramaic Levi tradition, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Sib. Or. 5. For the purposes of studying Ignatius’s temple and priestly language, it will be instructive to conduct a thorough analysis of Ignatius’s language in Phld. 9.1 both on its own merit and alongside other early Christian and early Jewish examples. After these analyses, it will be clear that Ignatius employs these metaphors as a participant in a larger tradition. Yet he forms these images to fit the argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2 and depicts Jesus as the final agent who reveals the Father to his people while bringing the people into the Father’s presence.

3.2. The Theme of Unity in Philadelphians 3.2. The Theme of Unity in Philadelphians

Although it is not attested in early literature, Pope Benedict’s appellative, Doctor Unitatis, would have been apt for Ignatius.11 Although the bequest of this unofficial title long postdates him, 12 unity is a prominent and multifaceted theme in all Ignatian epistles. The insistence on unity is sometimes understood to be most emphatic when Ignatius urges believers to be unified within the church.13 The church must be unified under the proper ecclesial authority structure, which includes bishops, presbyters, and deacons as its central components. Unity in these authorities represents obedience to God because the authorities

11 Benedict XVI, Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2008), 16. Similarly, Vall, Learning Christ, 88. Although Corwin acknowledges Phld. 8.1 is written with the divisions of Philadelphia in view, she argues that “in a more important sense it could be taken as affirming what he holds to be the deepest experiences of human life” (St. Ignatius, 247). 12 The earliest reference seems to be from Benedict XVI himself in a Lenten address given on 14 March 2007 (“Saint Ignatius of Antioch,” http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedictxvi/en/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070314.html). Last accessed 28 March 2018. 13 E.g. “What is almost invariably uppermost in his [Ignatius’s] mind when such words occur, is the unity of the Church preserved by implicit obedience to the bishop as well as to Jesus Christ. Union and unity exist primarily between the members of the Christian brotherhood, and this unbroken harmony established in the Church reflects that concord and oneness of will (ὁµόνοια) among believers that is also to be found in God” (Richardson, Christianity of Ignatius, 33). “In any event, it is significant that the term ἕνωσις (‘union’) as Ignatius uses it evidently refers primarily to the solidarity of the Christian community” (Schoedel, Ignatius, 21).

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were put in place by God (Phld. 1.1).14 They typologically represent God’s order in the earthly church.15 Yet unity plays a multifaceted role in the Ignatian letters and is not merely the social glue by which the church can live together. Within Ignatius’s account of the divine plan, there is also a unity of flesh and spirit, faith and love, and Jesus and the Father.16 The flexibility and importance of unity within Ignatius’s letters can be well-illustrated by an examination of its role in Philadelphians that explores the ways in which Ignatius speaks of unity with God, among the Philadelphians, and in God’s plan. Unity with God is symbolized in the one Eucharist that gains its significance because of what Jesus accomplished in his own flesh and blood. Since Jesus is unique and singular, the Eucharist should also be celebrated in unity as a singular event. Ignatius argues that the prophets participated in this unity because they anticipated Jesus in their proclamation (Phld. 5.2). Ignatius emphasizes the unity that the congregation should have with God by the repetition of “one.”17 There is one flesh, one cup that leads to unity with his blood, one altar, and one bishop (Phld. 4).18 Unity with the bishop also represents unity with God because the bishop has obtained his position on account of divine love (Phld. 1.1). Thus, whoever belongs to Jesus is likewise unified with the bishop, while anyone who follows someone who causes division will not inherit the kingdom of God (Phld. 3.2–3). 19 However, Ignatius’s comments about the Philadelphians and the bishop point to a unity with implications beyond union with God alone. Being unified with God is closely connected with the unity that the Philadelphians should demonstrate among themselves. The insistence on unity is most emphatic when Ignatius urges believers to be unified within the church. 14

See also Eph. 6.1; Magn. 3.1–2; Trall. 2.1–3.1. Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 23–30. Charles E. Hill notes that Ignatius’s treatment of the apostles “assumes a self-contained set of relationships between God, Christ, and the apostles, which forms patterns of continuing relevance for Ignatius and his readers now in relation to the bishop and the rest of the community” (“Ignatius and the Apostolate: The Witness of Ignatius to the Emergence of Christian Scripture,” in Studia Patristica XXXVI, ed. Maurice F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold [Leuven: Peeters, 2001], 230). 16 This tripartite unity is observed by Vall (Learning Christ, 91–96) and is based on Magn. 1.2; 13.1. See the similar expression in Smyrn. 12.2. 17 This repetition will be found again in chapter 7 while exploring Magn. 7.1–2. 18 Both the repetition of the number and the frequent use of verbs with the prefix συν- are found elsewhere in Greco-Roman discussions of concord. E.g. the repetition of one: Dio Chrysostom, Apam. (Or. 41) 10; Aelius Aristides, Or. 23.62; συν-prefix: Dio Chrysostom, In cont. (Or. 48) 1; Aelius Aristides, Or. 27.39. See further Maier, “The Politics and Rhetoric of Discord,” 316. 19 Ignatius is likely drawing on 1 Cor 6.9–10. See further Paulsen, Studien, 32–33; Paul Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” in The Reception of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 164–165. 15

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Because ecclesial unity is the way in which union with God is demonstrated, the church must be one under the proper ecclesial authority structure. This structure includes bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Unity with these leaders represents obedience to God not only because they were put in place by God but also because they are types of heavenly authorities.20 The Philadelphians are thus an eternal joy, “particularly if they are at one with the bishop and the elders and the deacons who are with them” (µάλιστα ἐὰν ἐν ἑνὶ ὦσιν σὺν τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τοῖς σὺν αὐτῷ πρεσβυτέροις καὶ διακόνοις; Phld. inscr.).21 Ignatius’s instructions regarding unity are also important when he begins to discuss the differences between Judaism and what he regards as the proper understanding of Jesus. In order to oppose such Ἰουδαϊσµός, he instructs the Philadelphians to gather in one place with an undivided heart in order to strengthen themselves against the ruler of this aeon (Phld. 6.2).22 Even when he was in Philadelphia, his message about unity was consistent since he had instructed them to pay attention to the bishop, the council of elders, and the deacons.

20 Ignatius praises the unnamed bishop because he obtained his service “not from himself” (οὐκ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ), “nor through people” (οὐδὲ δι’ ἀνθρώπων), “nor according to vanity” (οὐδὲ κατὰ κενοδοξίαν), “but in the love of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (ἀλλ’ ἐν ἀγάπῃ θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Phld. 1.1). On the interplay of Ignatius’s language in Phld. 1.1 and Paul’s language in Gal 1.1, see Annette Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus: Intertextuelle Studien zur Intention und Rezeption der Pastoralbriefe, NTOA 52 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 174. 21 Three textual issues arise in this short phrase. First, some manuscripts of the Greek long recension omit ἐάν. Lightfoot is probably correct that this arises from an omission due to similar letters in the following two words (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.250; 2.3.204). Second, the third-person verb ὦσιν is first person in the Latin translation (simus), and a further variant is found in the Latin manuscripts between the subjunctive and indicative (simus or sumus). While simus should be preferred to sumus in the Latin manuscripts, the verb is second person in the Armenian translation. These respective changes in person result in a more personal address from Ignatius to the Philadelphians (on the level of intimacy in types of greetings, see Terrence Y. Mullins, “Greeting as a New Testament Form,” JBL 87 [1968]: 419–422). Yet even if the phrase sounds somewhat distant on its own, the third-person verb fits Ignatius’s third-person greeting to “the church in Philadelphia.” Moreover, although Ignatius’s greeting does not conclude smoothly in this letter but instead leads directly into the body of the letter, the third-person verb may indicate that this is part of Ignatius’s greeting rather than the body. Similarly, in 2 John 1 a third-person pronoun is used while its first-person counterpart is employed in 2 John 4 (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.250). Finally, σὺν αὐτῷ is omitted in the Greek long recension and the Armenian translation. This may be an attempt to smooth over a perceived redundancy after σὺν τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ, but the best manuscripts contain the phrase and there seems to be no reason for its omission on text-critical grounds. The influence of the article over both πρεσβυτέροις and διακόνοις indicates that the prepositional phrase should likewise be read in conjunction with both words. 22 See the discussion of Ignatius’s Philadelphian opponents in section 2.3.

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However, Ignatius’s emphasis on the unity that the Philadelphians should demonstrate among themselves is only one element of the way in which Ignatius discusses unity. God’s actions, in which the Philadelphians have been included through Jesus, are likewise one. The unity of God’s activity is worthy of further elaboration because much of Ignatius’s discussion on this topic comes in Phld. 8.2–9.2 and thus relates more directly to this chapter. After mentioning his visit to the Philadelphians in Phld. 6.3–8.1, Ignatius then describes a further question that arose while he was in Philadelphia regarding how the archives (ἀρχεῖα) should be understood.23 There is a broad consensus that Ignatius refers to Jewish scripture when he speaks about the archives.24 Ignatius initially claims that the gospel is written in the archives (λέγοντός µου αὐτοῖς ὅτι γέγραπται),25 but his opponents are not convinced and respond, “That is the question” (πρόκειται). Ignatius then responds that the archives that cannot be changed are Jesus Christ, the cross, his death, his resurrection, and the faith that comes through him.26 The appeal to Jesus and his life 23 A textual issue arises in the manuscripts regarding whether ἀρχείοις (archives) or ἀρχαίοις (ancient things) should be read, particularly in the first occurrence in Phld. 8.2. It is easiest to explain the other variants in the manuscript on the supposition that ἀρχείοις is the earlier reading, since it is the more difficult of the two readings. Conversely, ἀρχαίοις seems to reflect an early and correct interpretation of the archives as the Jewish scriptures, that is, the “ancient writings.” See further Richard Rothe, Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche und ihre Verfassung: Ein geschichtlicher Versuch (Wittenberg: Zimmermann, 1837), 392n.40; Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.270–272; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.270–273; Schoedel, Ignatius, 208n.7. 24 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.270–271; Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.270; Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 261; Corwin, St. Ignatius, 58–59; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 106; Camelot, Lettres, 127–129; Paulsen, Studien, 57; Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” 97– 101; idem, Ignatius, 208; Speigl, “Ignatius in Philadelphia,” 364; Vall, Learning Christ, 28. See also the literature cited in section 2.3. 25 Ignatius’s other two uses of γέγραπται also appear when he refers to scripture. In Eph. 5.3, Ignatius cites Prov 3.34 LXX, though the similarities between his citation and Jas 4.6, 1 Pet 5.5, and 1 Clem. 30.2 complicate searches into the precise text that Ignatius had before him. Ignatius cites Prov 18.17 LXX in Magn. 12. The author of the long recension also employs Prov 3.34 in a letter from Pseudo-Ignatius to Hero as part of a tripartite warning from Ignatius to avoid pride (ὑπερηφανίαν φεῦγε), hate falsehood (ψευδολογίαν βδελύττου), and watch out for envy (φθόνον φυλάττου; Ps.Ign. Hero 5.1). See further Felix Albrecht, “Göttliche Demut und teuflischer Hochmut: Exegetische Beobachtungen zu Prov 3,34 LXX,” BN 155 (2012): 33–34. 26 On ἡ πίστις ἡ δι’ αὐτοῦ, see Ferdinando Bergamelli, “‘Fede di Gesù Christo’ nelle lettere di Ignazio di Antiochia,” Salesianum 66 (2004): 652–657. Bergamelli rightly argues that Ignatius depicts Jesus as the agent through whom faith comes to the Philadelphians. Roy A. Harrisville (“ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ: Witness of the Fathers,” NovT 36 [1994]: 240n.37) seems to see the faith of the Philadelphians going back to Jesus in Phld. 8.2. He connects this passage to Augustine’s statement that love of God (charitas Dei) refers to God’s act of making humans lovers of God, righteousness of God (iustitia Dei) refers to God’s making

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as “the unchangeable archives” (τὰ ἄθικτα ἀρχεῖα) stems from an implicit question of how one should understand the relationship between the archives and the gospel. The question at work in Phld. 8.2 is one of hermeneutical priorities. Although Ignatius does not explicitly state the priorities of his opponents, his own understanding of the archives begins with Jesus and works backward to the way in which Jesus’s life and death fulfill the archives. Ignatius understands them in light of events that occurred in the gospel.27 Ignatius immediately reinforces this hermeneutical point in Phld. 9.1. He claims that the priests are good but the high priest is better (καλοὶ καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς, κρεῖσσον δὲ ὁ ἀρχιερεύς). There is a progression that moves from earlier to later and from good to better. Although the priests are good, the high priest who follows surpasses the priests. This results in significant differences between the priests and high priest, but the continuity between the two in the divine economy should not be overlooked. Ignatius thus revisits a point that he has already discussed in Phld. 5.2. There Ignatius starts with the prophets and their anticipation of Jesus. This mirrors the direction of Ignatius’s description of the divine economy in Phld. 9.1. Philadelphians 5.2 begins with what is older, namely, the prophets and priests, and concludes with what is more recent, that is, Jesus and the high priest. The direction of Phld. 5.2 and 9.2 is the opposite of what is found in Phld. 8.2, where Ignatius begins with the gospel and works in chronological reverse to the archives. However, the goal is the same in all cases: Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic expectation, archives, and priestly mediation. Ignatius concisely summarizes the unity of God’s redemptive activity in Phld. 9.2 when he claims that “all things together are good” (πάντα ὁµοῦ καλά ἐστιν). Without eliminating the differences between the various elements in the archives and gospels to which Ignatius calls attention, this statement pithily encapsulates the multifaceted nature of unity as applied to the Philadelphians’ unity with God, their unity with their leadership, and the unity of the divine

humans righteous, and the salvation of the Lord (Domini salus) refers to human salvation through the Lord as well as “the faith of Jesus Christ by which we are made faithful” (et fides Jesu Christi, qua nos fideles facit; Augustine, Spir. et litt. 32 [PL 44:237]; see also Gal 2.16). Although Harrisville’s reading of Augustine, which is his primary point in the article, seems likely, Ignatius’s emphasis in Phld. 8.2 lies instead on the faith that Jesus brings to the Philadelphians. 27 Regarding Phld. 8.2, Brown concludes, “Ignatius makes no appeal to written Christian documents” (The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch, 18). However, it is plausible that εὐάγγελιον refers to a written document or documents to balance the reference to the archives as written documents. So Goulder, “Ignatius’ ‘Docetists,’” 17n.4; Charles E. Hill, “Ignatius, the ‘Gospel,’ and the Gospels,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 273.

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economy. An examination of Phld. 9.1 must take into account Ignatius’s insistence on unity and the many roles that this theme plays throughout the letter. With this firmly in mind, a thorough exploration of the text itself can be more helpfully undertaken.

3.3. The Identity of the Priests and High Priest in Phld. 9.1 3.3. The Identity of the Priests and High Priest in Phld. 9.1

Ignatius’s discussion of Jesus’s death and resurrection as the inviolable archives is followed by a comparison of the priests and high priest. In light of the focused study of this verse, it will be useful to have the text firmly in mind before proceeding. The text of Phld. 9.1 is accompanied by a translation, while the footnotes highlight the most significant textual problems and explain the reasons for preferring the reading in the text used in this chapter. καλοὶ καὶ28 οἱ ἱερεῖς, κρεῖσσον29 δὲ ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ὁ πεπιστευµένος τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, ὃς µόνος πεπίστευται τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ· αὐτὸς ὤν30 θύρα τοῦ πατρός, δι’ ἧς εἰσέρχονται31 Ἀβραὰµ καὶ

28 The long recension strengthens the contrast between priest and high priest by reading µέν for καί. However, both the Greek and the Latin of the middle recension attest καί (et). The conjunction is omitted entirely in the Armenian translation. 29 The long recension corrects the neuter comparative to match the masculine singular subject and most likely reads κρείσσων, or perhaps κρείττων. For a fuller list of long recension readings, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.215. A similar textual problem arises with confusion between πλείων and πλεῖον in Pol. 1.3. These difficulties may have arisen due to aural similarities between -ον and -ων. The use of the neuter comparative modifying a nonneuter noun is found in Prov 20.6, 23 (LXX) and Matt 12.41–42, and it should also be preferred in Phld. 9.1. 30 The Greek and Latin manuscripts of the middle recension agree in reading the thirdperson personal pronoun + participle. The Greek long recension and Armenian translation contain an indicative verb (ἐστίν) rather than the participle, and the long recension include a demonstrative pronoun (οὗτος) rather than the personal pronoun. Lightfoot thinks that the Armenian translation displays a tendency to change participles into indicative verbs (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.274), and the general superiority of the manuscripts of the middle recension in this verse makes the reading αὐτὸς ὤν preferable, though it does leave the verse without an explicit indicative verb in either of the main clauses. The two main clauses in the verse are connected by unstated copulative verbs. 31 The present tense is attested by the Armenian translation in addition to the Greek and Latin of the middle recension. The long recension reads εἰσῆλθον, perhaps indicating a desire to acknowledge the temporally prior place (from Ignatius’s perspective) of the subjects of this verb.

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Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακὼβ καὶ οἱ προφῆται καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι καὶ ἡ ἐκκλησία.32 πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ.33 The priests are also good, but the high priest, who has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of God, is better. He is the door of the Father, through which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets and the apostles and the church enter. All these things are for the unity of God (Phld. 9.1).

This statement connects with what precedes in Phld. 8.2. However, Ignatius does not clearly identify the referent of either the priests or the high priest. The majority of scholars have identified the priests as the Levitical priests referred to in the Jewish scriptures and the high priest as Jesus, but this identification is rarely tested. It is important to recall that other possibilities have been proffered that deserve consideration. Reflection on earlier scholarship will help to ensure that the majority opinion is not accepted uncritically even though its conclusions will be accepted in the remainder of the chapter. It is possible to make sense of Ignatius’s statement on its own without much reference to the remainder of the letter. A high priest is clearly better than any other priests by virtue of his position alone.34 The high priest demonstrates his authority in that he is allowed to enter the Holy of Holies once a year where other priests were not allowed to go. However, it is nearly impossible to interpret the high priest as the Jewish high priest of the Old Testament if the sentence is to make sense within Ignatius’s argument. If the reference was to the Jewish high priest, the verse would interrupt the argument from Phld. 5.1–9.2. While it is possible that Ignatius simply failed to be coherent, better and more charitable understandings of Phld. 9.1 are available. A reading that has occasionally been put forth involves interpreting the priestly language in Phld. 9.1 with reference to the members of the Philadel-

32 The Coptic translation omits ἡ ἐκκλησία. It is possible that the translator omitted ἡ ἐκκλησία to include only those references which are prior to the church, that is, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. While this suggestion can hardly be proven, ἡ ἐκκλησία should be considered textually secure since it is found in virtually all of the other manuscript traditions. 33 The Latin translation reads fidei in place of θεοῦ. However, the Greek middle recension and Armenian translation read θεοῦ, and the long recension likewise provides support for θεοῦ, although it includes a more elaborate statement (ἑνότητα τοῦ ἑνὸς καὶ µόνου ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ). In light of the multiplicity of support in favor of θεοῦ and the ease with which dei could potentially be exchanged with fidei, θεοῦ has been selected as the earliest reading. Lightfoot is correct that the similarity to Eph 4.13 could have affected the Latin translator, although his supposition must of course remain hypothetical in the absence of further study of the Latin translation (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.275). 34 Since Ignatius’s discussion takes place with reference to a Jewish priestly system that, at least in the extant written instructions, did not invest women with priestly authority, the masculine pronoun is used to refer to the priests.

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phian church. This interpretation coincides well with what is known in systematic theological terminology as “the priesthood of all believers.”35 On such an understanding, the high priest is to be understood as Jesus, but the other priests to whom Ignatius refers are to be identified as the Philadelphian believers. Such a reading is found in the work of Richard Rothe, who reads Phld. 8.2–9.1 in conjunction with Ignatius’s admonitions to the Philadelphians to pray for him in Phld. 5.1. According to Rothe, the entire Philadelphian congregation plays a priestly role by interceding for Ignatius. This functions as part of Rothe’s claim that Ignatius knows nothing of a clerical Christian priesthood.36 Further questions could be asked regarding Rothe’s claims in an analysis solely of his work, in particular about what Rothe’s definition of priesthood entails and what is to be done with the three-tiered structure of church leadership found elsewhere (e.g. Magn. 5.1–6.1; Trall. 2.1–3.1). In a chapter focused on Phld. 9.1, however, it is enough to observe that Rothe’s reading of Phld. 8.2 focuses on the intercession mentioned as part of the inviolable archives at the expense of the verse’s larger contrast between the archives and inviolable archives. In so doing, Rothe has mistaken a secondary, albeit intriguing, element of Ignatius’s letter and missed the primary point.37 Rothe’s question should not be disparaged since important inquiries can be made regarding what Ignatius means when he says that he wants to be justified by the Philadelphians’ prayer

35 The priesthood of all believers may be most strongly associated with Martin Luther in his repudiation of sacerdotalism, and the doctrine has been variously received and reconceived by later Protestant theologians. In a 1520 sermon, Luther said, “So wirts klar, das nit allein der priester die meß opffert, ßondern eynis yglichen solcher eygener glaub, der ist das rechtt priesterlich ampt, durch wilchs Christus wirt fur gott geopfert, wilchs ampt der priester mit den euserlichen geperden der meß bedeuttet, und sein alßo alsampt gleych geystliche priester fur gott” (WA 6.370). See the helpful overview of Luther’s ecclesiology and the important role of priesthood in it in David P. Daniel, “Luther on the Church,” The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’ubomír Batka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 333–352. Yet the concept of the priesthood of all believers can be dated much earlier. Employing language that draws on Exod 19.6, 1 Pet 2 ascribes a “holy priesthood” (ἱεράτευµα ἅγιον; 2.5) and “royal priesthood” (βασίλειον ἱεράτευµα; 2.9) to all the letter’s recipients. Likewise, Rev 1.6 praises Jesus for making John and his recipients “priests to the God and Father of him” (ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ). 36 “Die ἱερεῖς sind also nicht Kleriker, sondern die Philadelphischen Christen selbst, und die Stelle zeugt, wie gesagt, grade davon, daß der Verfasser ein allgemeines christliches Priesterthum anerkennt, ja daß ihm die Vorstellung von einem solchen lebendig und geläufig ist” (Rothe, Die Anfänge, 732). 37 This was already pointed out, if somewhat dismissively, by Lightfoot. He argued that the contrast was between the priests and high priests and claimed that this identification “is so directly demanded by the context, that it is strange any other interpretation should have been maintained” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.274).

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in Phld. 8.2.38 Yet, as argued in section 2.3, the primary dispute between Ignatius and his opponents is the role of the archives. Rothe’s identification of the priests as the Philadelphian believers may have worked for his own nineteenthcentury German Protestant audience, but it does not make sense of the argument within Phld. 5.1–9.2. The earliest evidence for an interpretation of this passage comes from the long recension of the letters. Almost in direct contrast to Rothe’s anti-clerical interpretation,39 the interpolator of these letters seems to have understood this passage as a reference to authority structures within the church. Such an interpretation is evident from the addition of a reference to “the deacons of the word” (οἱ τοῦ λόγου διάκονοι) following the mention of the priests.40 The priests (οἱ ἱερεῖς) represent those who elsewhere in the Ignatian letters are called presbyters (πρεσβύτεροι), while the deacons referred to in this verse are the deacons who serve in Philadelphia. The high priest thus refers to the bishop. The higher place and greater authority granted to the bishop comes from the special relationship that he has with God. The Holy of Holies and the secrets of God are entrusted directly to the bishop. Thus the bishop is greater than (κρείσσων) the priests and deacons simply by virtue of what God has entrusted to him.41 Such an interpretation of this passage seems to fit with statements in other Ignatian letters about the bishop’s relationship to God and the way God reveals himself in the churches (Magn. 6.1; Trall. 3.1). However, by arguing that the bishop is entrusted with God’s secrets and the Holy of Holies, the long recension significantly expands the impact of these other statements as they appear in the middle recension. Moreover, it is difficult to see what this interpretation adds at this point in the argument of Phld. 5–9. The discussion of meeting together and uniting with the bishop is strongest in Phld. 6.2–7.2. The argument takes a slightly different turn in Phld. 8.2 that continues through Phld. 9.2. The focus in this section concerns the relationship between the gospel and events

38 See Olavi Tarvainen, Faith and Love in Ignatius of Antioch, tr. Jonathon Lookadoo (Eugene: Pickwick, 2016), 54–55; trans. of Glaube und Liebe bei Ignatius von Antiochien, SLAG 14 (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 1967), 67; Brian J. Arnold, Justification in the Second Century, SBR 9 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017), 60–67. 39 This point is not lost on Rothe (Anfänge, 732–735). 40 καλοὶ µὲν οἱ ἱερεῖς καὶ οἱ τοῦ λόγου διάκονοι· κρείσσων δὲ ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ὁ πεπιστευµένος τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, ὃς µόνος πεπίστευται τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ· καλαὶ αἱ λειτουργικαὶ τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάµεις. ἅγιος ὁ παράκλητος, καὶ ἅγιος ὁ λόγος, ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς υἱός, δι’ οὗ ὁ πατὴρ τὰ πάντα πεποίηκεν καὶ τῶν ὅλων προνοεῖ· οὗτός ἐστιν ἡ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ἄγουσα ὁδός, ἡ πέτρα, ὁ φραγµός, ἡ κλείς, ὁ ποιµήν, τὸ ἱερείον, ἡ θύρα τῆς γνώσεως, δι’ ἧς εἰσῆλθον Ἀβραὰµ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακώβ, Μωσῆς καὶ ὁ σύµπας τῶν προφητῶν χορός, καὶ οἱ στύλοι τοῦ κόσµου οἱ ἀπόστολοι, καὶ ἡ νύµφη τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὑπὲρ ἧς, φέρνης λόγῳ, ἐξέχεεν τὸ οἰκεῖον αἷµα, ἵνα αὐτὴν ἐξαγοράσῃ. πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα τοῦ ἑνὸς καὶ µόνου ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ. (Ps.Ign. Phld. 9.1). 41 In keeping with the majority of long recension manuscripts, this word has been spelled with an ω rather than an ο.

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that preceded Jesus’s actions. Given the tendency of the long recension to expand Ignatius’s statements and the distortion it causes within Phld. 8.2–9.2, it is worth considering another possible interpretation of the priests and high priest. An interpretation that has been popular in more recent scholarship understands the priests with reference to the Israelite priesthood and the high priest as referring to Jesus.42 Although too often little is done in commentaries to test or explain this interpretation, it is the best identification of the priests and high priests because it makes sense of an otherwise tight argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2. Ignatius moves from the Jewish scriptures to events in Jesus’s life in two other places in this pericope. First, the reference to the prophets who proclaimed and hoped for Jesus in Phld. 5.2 moves more clearly from the prophets who preceded Jesus to the fulfillment of the prophetic hope in Jesus himself. This movement can be found again in Phld. 9.2 where Ignatius repeats that the prophets proclaimed Jesus, but their proclamation was perfected in the gospel. Second, Ignatius moves from Jewish scripture to the events of the gospel in Phld. 8.2, and the archives are then to be interpreted in light of Jesus. Thus the temporally later element fulfills the expectation of the earlier, while Phld. 8.2 also claims that the archives can be understood through the gospel. This argument continues in Phld. 9.1. The priests refer to the Israelite priests whose role is described in the archives.43 When Ignatius refers to the high priest, he refers to Jesus himself.

3.4. Jesus as High Priest in Phld. 9.1 3.4. Jesus as High Priest in Phld. 9.1

This chapter has now noted the important role that unity plays throughout Philadelphians while also identifying the high priest in Phld. 9.1 as Jesus and the priests as the Levitical priests. Such an interpretation follows the identification of the contemporary consensus but is stronger for having reflected on other ways in which the high priest and priests have been identified. At this point, a fuller engagement can take place with what Ignatius means when he represents Jesus as high priest and how this portrayal contributes to the argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2. Although Ignatius is not the only early Christian author to attribute high priesthood to Jesus and does not describe the priests in as much detail as 42 The interpretation is favored in the commentaries of Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 106– 107; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 86–87; Schoedel, Ignatius, 209–210. 43 Although Ignatius’s opponents clearly valued the archives to a degree that Ignatius did not approve, it is not clear to what degree the priests were held in high esteem by Ignatius’s opponents. It is possible the priests were “überschwänglich gepriesen” (so Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 240), but Ignatius may also introduce the priests as an analogy to develop his arguments along similar lines to those in Phld. 8.2.

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the prophets, the two descriptions of Jesus as high priest function uniquely well within Phld. 5.1–9.2. 3.4.1. The Role of the High Priest Ignatius describes Jesus as the high priest in two primary ways. First, he writes very simply that Jesus is better (κρεῖσσον) than the other priests. Second, Jesus has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies (ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ὁ πεπιστευµένος τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων). Ignatius defines the Holy of Holies as the secrets of God in an immediately following epexegetical statement (ὃς µόνος πεπίστευται τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ). He defines the referent of τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων not as a physical space where God dwells but as God’s secrets.44 Finally, he adds a third modifier by which to understand the high priest better and employs the image of the door to illustrate Jesus’s relationship to the Father and his place in the divine economy. This will be considered separately since it adds something else to Ignatius’s image of Jesus as high priest, but one should observe from the outset that the high priest and door work together in Phld. 9.1. With the two primary descriptions Ignatius aims to illustrate the superiority of Jesus over the priests and the unique role that he plays in the divine economy without destroying continuity with the earlier expression of God’s plan. As in the case of the archives, looking backward after Jesus’s death and resurrection allows Ignatius to argue that the singular act of God in Jesus is the summit of what God has done before. What does Ignatius mean when he says that Jesus is better than (κρεῖσσον) the priests? Elsewhere Ignatius speaks of the Romans’ silence as a better work (κρείττονι ἔργῳ) than if they spoke on his behalf because their silence will bring him to God through death (Rom. 2.1). Silence by the Roman church is a superior act in this situation than alternative options. In his letter to Polycarp, Ignatius instructs slaves to continue in their servitude so that they may attain the better freedom given by God (ἵνα κρείττονος ἐλευθερίας ἀπὸ θεοῦ τύχωσιν; Pol. 4.3).45 The freedom that is given by God is greater than freedom sought for self-advancement. In both cases, Ignatius compares something that is inferior to something that is superior. So also in Phld. 9.1 Ignatius refers to Jesus as 44 The adjective ἅγιον can be used substantively to refer to the temple or sanctuary in the neuter singular (Num 3.38; 1 Macc 10.42) or neuter plural (Jdt 4.12; 1 Macc 3.43). Ignatius here follows the custom of referring to the Holy of Holies as τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων found in Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures (1 Kgs 8.6 [3 Kgdms 8.6]; 2 Chr 4.22). Gerd Theißen sees an allusion to a cosmic temple in Phld. 9.1 in which the Holy of Holies stands for the divine realm (“die Welt Gottes;” Untersuchung zum Hebräerbrief, SNT 2 [Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1969], 48). 45 J. Albert Harrill argues that Ignatius is responding to a concern that some slaves may have been seeking to become Christians in order to achieve freedom (“Ignatius, Ad Polycarp. 4.3 and the Corporate Manumission of Christian Slaves,” JECS 1 [1993]: 115–116).

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superior to the priests. In his suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus demonstrated that he is the high priest par excellence and is thus better than the Israelite priests. It is important to note that Ignatius does not completely disparage the Israelite priests in this comparison. He refers to the priests as good (καλοί).46 In the context of a polemical argument against an opponent that Ignatius regards as in some sense Jewish (Phld. 6.1), this is a concession of sorts.47 Ignatius concedes a point with which his Philadelphian interlocutors would likely agree. Yet Ignatius can make this concession because it is a point on which the two sides are in genuine agreement.48 He gives no evidence of making this rhetorical move unwillingly or begrudgingly, nor does his language suggest that he is conceding a point that he would rather not. Holding together the goodness of the priests with the superiority of Jesus as high priest is in keeping with Ignatius’s argument throughout this section of the letter. As the prophets looked forward to the coming of Jesus and scripture must be read backward from him, so Jesus fulfills the priestly role that was previously given to certain Israelites because he is the unique high priest. With this in mind, care should be taken in describing the parallelism as antithetical.49 The priests and high priests are set parallel to one another, and the high priest is superior to the priests. Yet to the degree that “antithetical” connotes that one element is good and another is bad, the term does not adequately describe Ignatius’s thought in Phld. 9.1. Jesus’s superiority comes not because of some moral failure on the part of the Israelite priests.50 It comes because Jesus is uniquely situated as high priest in a way that his predecessors were not. It is this that he describes next. 46

Zahn argues that Ignatius’s language in Phld. 9.1–2 recalls 1 Tim 1.8 (Ignatius von Antiochien, 614). In particular, he notes that just as the law is referred to as good (καλός) if (ἐάν) it is used lawfully (1 Tim 1.8), so the priests are good (καλοί; Phld. 9.1) and all things are good (καλά) if (ἐάν) the Philadelphians believe in love (Phld. 9.2). In light of other positive statements about Paul by Ignatius (e.g. Eph. 12.2; Rom. 4.3), it is possible that Ignatius has here also oriented his language in a Pauline direction. However, Merz is right that Phld. 9.1–2 cannot be used on its own as positive evidence for Ignatius’s knowledge of the Pastorals (Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus, 161). 47 Schoedel, Ignatius, 209. 48 See similarly Vall, Learning Christ, 240. 49 E.g. Paulsen, Studien, 170: “Sie [eine neue christologische Definition] ist zunächst polemisch abgegrenzt, indem den ἱερεῖς der ἀρχιερεύς antithetisch kontrasiert [sic!] wird.” 50 Although Ignatius does not highlight mistakes made by Jewish priests, failures were attributed to the priesthood by such texts as T. Levi 16.1–17.1; Pss. Sol. 2.3, 13; 8.12–13. Kenneth Atkinson notes that, for the Psalms of Solomon, “the most important accusation against them [the Jerusalem priests] is that they have corrupted the temple cult” (“Perceptions of the Temple Priests in the Psalms of Solomon,” in The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, ed. Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, EJS 40 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2015], 85].

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The second way in which Ignatius describes Jesus as high priest is with reference to the Holy of Holies. The high priest was commissioned in the Torah to enter the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifices on Yom Kippur. Lev 16.1–34 details the way in which the rite was to be performed and includes a warning that Aaron, who is Israel’s high priest at this point in the Pentateuchal narrative, should not enter the Holy of Holies any time he chooses (Lev 16.2). This is an annual occurrence (Lev 16.29–34). Two goats were selected, and the high priest cast lots to decide between the two goats. One goat was sacrificed to the Lord (Lev 16.15; 11QTa [11Q19] XXVI, 5–6).51 The other was released to Azazel and carried the peoples’ sins away from the camp into the wilderness (Lev 16.20–22; 11QTa [11Q19] XXVI, 11–13). 52 The purpose of the day was to purge the Tabernacle and people from Azazel (Lev 16.16).53 While the particularities of the rite as described in Lev 16 were not fully agreed upon by later interpreters,54 the full, earthly enactment of the sacrificial rite must have ceased after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.

51 Alex Samely observes that the discussion of Yom Kippur in 11QTa (11Q19) occurs as part of an “extended section on daily and festival sacrifices in 13.17 to col. 29, which contains a progression through the first seven months of a festival year” (“Observations on the Structure and Literary Fabric of the Temple Scroll,” in The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed. R. Timothy McLay, LSTS 83 [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015], 252). 52 Jacob Milgrom usefully sketches three views on the significance of the goat released to Azazel. The first is that of a “scapegoat” or a goat that simply departs and takes the peoples’ sin with it. This view seems to be evident in the traditions of Greek and Latin translation. Second, Azazel may also refer to a difficult place and thus the goat’s final destination. This has traditions in the Targums and midrashic interpretation. Finally, the view of Milgrom himself is that Azazel refers to a demon to whom the goat has been sent but whose power has been eviscerated by the action of the high priest. See further Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (AB 3a; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1020–1021, 1071–1079. 53 In CD XIV, 19, complemented by 4QDa (4Q266) 10 I, 12–13, the messiah may be the agent of atonement if ‫ יפקר‬is understood as a Piel verb (so Géza G. Xeravits, King, Priest, Prophet: Positive Eschatological Protagonists of the Qumran Library, STDJ 47 [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 36–38, 215–216) rather than a Pual verb (as in the translation of Joseph M. Baumgarten and Daniel R. Schwartz, “Damascus Document,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls II: Damascus Document, War Scrolls, and Related Documents, ed. J. H. Charlesworth [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995], 57). ‫ כפר‬occurs in the Piel stem in CD II, 5; III, 18; IV, 6; IV, 9–10; XX, 34, which provides good reason for taking it as a Piel in CD XIV, 19. On this reading, the messiah is involved in the rite of atonement as God’s agent working on God’s behalf to bring forgiveness to the people for their failure to follow “the rule of the settlement of the camp” (‫ ;סרך מושב כל המחנות‬CD XIV, 3). 54 For example, see the different interpretations in 11QTa (11Q19) XXVI, 7–10 and m.Yoma 3.3. See further the concise summary of Milgrom along with the literature cited there, Leviticus 1–16, 1046–1048, 1063–1064.

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Atonement themes may lie in the background of Phld. 9.1,55 but the point upon which Ignatius draws most emphatically is that the priest entered the Holy of Holies alone (‫ ;וכל־אדם לא־יהיה באהל מועד בבאו לכפר בקדש עד־צאתו‬Lev 16.17).56 He writes that the high priest alone (ὃς µόνος) has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies.57 Ignatius further specifies what he means by Holy of Holies and explains that it refers to “the secret things of God” (τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ). Elsewhere Ignatius uses “secret things” with respect to human secrets that God knows (Eph. 15.3; Magn. 3.2; Phld. 7.1). Here he uses the word to refer to God’s own secrets. Schoedel argues that these secrets are secrets that can be discovered through exegesis. He draws attention to Barn. 6.10 where, in an exposition of Exod 33.1, the author praises the Lord for giving wisdom and understanding concerning the secrets of the Lord (τῶν κρυφίων αὐτοῦ).58 Such an understanding may be partially in view in Phld. 9.1. Following the discussion about the relationship between scripture and the gospel in Phld. 8.2, the argument that the exegetical secrets that his Philadelphian opponents seek have instead been entrusted to Jesus the high priest may be partially in view. However, Ignatius’s interest in Jesus’s revelatory role indicates that room needs to be left in the definition of secret things for matters that cannot only be explored exegetically. Ignatius’s claim that the high priest has been entrusted with God’s secrets is in keeping with what he says elsewhere in his letters about Jesus as God’s revelation.59 In his high priestly role, Jesus has been entrusted (πεπίστευται) with God’s own secrets about himself. These are not simply secrets that can be revealed by exegesis but secrets about the very identity of God. As the Israelite high priest was the only priest admitted to the Holy of Holies, so Jesus is the only one entrusted with God’s secrets. This does not mean that Jesus continues to keep these things secret. To be entrusted with something means that one’s role is to take something safely from one person to another.60 In this case, Jesus 55

Note the reference to Jesus’s death and resurrection in Phld. 9.2. This is not necessarily to say that Ignatius consciously had Lev 16.1–34 in mind. This ritual was known in other Jewish literature as well and may also have been known more broadly. 56 The Greek translation reads καὶ πᾶς ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἔσται ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τοῦ µαρτυρίου εἰσπορευοµένου αὐτοῦ ἐξιλάσασθαι ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ ἕως ἂν ἐξέλθῃ. 57 Schoedel rightly draws attention to similar acclamations of Jesus as the one physician (Eph. 7.2) and one teacher (Eph. 15.1; Ignatius, 210). 58 Schoedel, Ignatius, 209. 59 E.g. Eph. 19.2–3; Magn. 8.2; Rom. 8.2. See further section 8.3.2. 60 N. T. Wright’s lively discussion of ἐπιστεύθησαν in Rom 3.2 is also on the right track for defining πεπίστευται in Phld. 9.1 (“Romans 2.17–3.9: A Hidden Clue to the Meaning of Romans?” JSPL 2 [2012]: 2–8; repr. in N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul, 1978–2013 [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013], 490–495). James Harding points out that Paul’s use of παραλαµβάνω and παραδίδωµι plays a similar role in 1 Cor 11.2, 23; 15.3, although Paul serves as the mediator of traditions from Jesus whereas Ignatius depicts Jesus as mediating from the Father (“Understanding in All Things: The Revelation and Transmission of

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is to take those things that God has stored up in himself and make them known to his creation through his death and resurrection. He safely delivers the secrets of God to the people of God because he successfully completed that to which he was called in his incarnation, namely, his death and resurrection. Ignatius develops further the theme of unity that runs throughout the letter since Jesus the High Priest can only reveal the Father if he is one with the Father.61 Ignatius identifies Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 and describes him as better than the priests and entrusted with the Holy of Holies. Ignatius uses the rites surrounding Yom Kippur described in Lev 16 to develop his analysis of Jesus’s unique revelatory role by clarifying that the Holy of Holies represents God’s secrets with which Jesus was entrusted. Jesus is superior to the Israelite priesthood because of his unique relationship to the Father and can thereby reveal God’s secrets to the Philadelphians. 3.4.2. Ignatius’s High Priestly Jesus alongside Other Early Christian Texts Ignatius is one of several early Christians who refers to Jesus as high priest in their writings. In keeping with the focus of this chapter on Phld. 9.1, treatment of this motif elsewhere must be selective and will explicitly engage only those treatments of Jesus as high priest with which Ignatius has the most in common. These include Hebrews, 1 Clement, and Polycarp’s Philippians. 3.4.2.1. Ignatius and Hebrews One of the earliest and most detailed attributions of high priesthood to Jesus is found in Heb 5–10. Throughout the text,62 but particularly in chapters 5–10, the author argues for and emphasizes that Jesus has fulfilled the priestly duties regarding sacrifice and continues to be active in the priestly role of intercessor.

Divine Insight in the Qumran Scrolls and the New Testament” [PhD diss., University of Sheffield, 2001], 268–273). 61 Similarly Corwin, St. Ignatius, 134. However, Corwin regards the connection between Father and Son to be imperfectly shown in this passage. “The figure is not wholly successful” (134). Unfortunately she does not elaborate about why the figure is unsuccessful. Since she follows Ignatius in discussing the image of the door directly following this comment about the high priest, it is possible that the need to mix the metaphor could be regarded as demonstrating an unsuccessful attempt to connect Father and Son. Although it is not clear that this is what Corwin means, the images of high priest and door are closely connected in Ignatius’s letter and collectively contribute more than can be understood by isolating them. 62 Although in its current form Hebrews exhibits some epistolary characteristics (esp. Heb 13.18–25), it is best understood as a sermon or oration. See further Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 11–16. However, Samuel Bénétreau argues that Hebrews is better understood as a letter (L’épître aux Hébreux, 2 vols., Commentaires évangéliques de la Bible [Vaux-sur-Seine: Edifac, 1989–1990], 1.26).

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In an interesting twist, the priest who offers the sacrifice has become the sacrifice as well. A detailed analogy is drawn between Jesus and Melchizedek in Heb 7.1–28.63 This connection between Melchizedek and a final eschatological figure is found in certain other texts, among which 11QMelch (11Q13) is probably the most well-known. 64 The development of the argument in Hebrews stems from the author’s connection of Ps 110.1 (109.1 LXX), “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool under your feet” (κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν µου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου), with Ps 110.4 (109.4 LXX), “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek” (σὺ εἶ ἱερεὺς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχίσεδεκ).65 In language that alludes to Ps 110.4, Heb 6.20 depicts Jesus as the forerunner who entered God’s presence as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Jesus’s high priesthood is thus detached from the Levitical priesthood. The author then summarizes the story of Melchizedek’s interactions with Abraham (Heb 7.1–3; Gen 14.17–20) before drawing attention to the superiority of the Melchizedekian over the Levitical priesthood. This latter argument is based on Abraham’s tithe (Heb 7.4–10) and the perfection of the Levitical priesthood that comes through Jesus as a high priest in that order (Heb 7.11–19). The clearest similarities between the treatment of Jesus in Phld. 9.1 and Hebrews are that he is a high priestly figure and that he is better than or perfects the Levitical priesthood.66 The emphasis on Jesus as human and tempted in Heb 63

See also Heb 5.5–10. The claim that Jesus is high priest is first made in Heb 2.17–18 but is not explicitly connected to Melchizedek in the first instance. 64 See Florentino Garcia Martinez et al., Discoveries in the Judean Desert XXIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 221–241. 65 Psalm 110.1 is often interpreted with respect to Jesus in early Christian texts, e.g. Matt 22.44; Mark 12.36; Luke 20.42; Acts 2.34; 1 Cor 15.25; Eph 1.20; Col 3.1; Heb 1.13; 1 Pet 3.22. See further David H. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity, SBLMS 18 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973); Martin Hengel, “‘Setze dich zu meiner Rechten!’ Die Inthronisation Christi zur Rechten Gottes und Psalm 110,1,” in Studien zur Christologie, ed. Martin Hengel, WUNT 201 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 281–367; idem, “Sit at my Right Hand!” in Studies in Early Christology, ed. Martin Hengel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 119–225; Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 29–31; repr. in Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 21–23; David R. Anderson, The King-Priest of Psalm 110 in Hebrews, SBLStBL 21 (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 87–135. 66 Ignatius uses the adjective κρεῖσσον while Hebrews speaks more often of perfection or completion. On the importance of τέλος and related words in Hebrews, see the helpful analysis of Benjamin J. Ribbens, Levitical Sacrifice and Heavenly Cult in Hebrews, BZNW 222 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016), 169–178. A similar statement to Phld. 9.1 is found negatively stated in Heb 7.11. “If perfection came through the Levitical priesthood – for the people were given legislation during it – what further need would there be to establish another high priest in the order of Melchizedek rather than the order of Aaron?” (εἰ µὲν οὖν τελείωσις διὰ τῆς Λευιτικῆς ἱερωσύνης ἦν, ὁ λαὸς γὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῆς νενοµοθέτηται, τίς ἔτι χρεία κατὰ τὴν

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2.17–18 and 5.5–10 fits well with Ignatius’s emphasis elsewhere on Jesus’s humanity and suffering (e.g. Eph. 18.2–19.3; Trall. 9.1–2), but this is not a primary polemical focus in Philadelphians.67 Ignatius does not use priestly language in the same way as is found in Hebrews, and, although Ignatius and Hebrews share a similar way of speaking about Jesus, Hebrews illuminates Phld. 9.1 more in terms of what Ignatius does not say than for what he does. An immediately obvious difference between the two texts is the amount of space given to expounding the image of Jesus as high priest in each text. The exegetical detail that the author of Hebrews offers in support of the claim that Jesus is high priest and to illustrate the implication of this claim stands a long way off from the simple statement that Ignatius makes. A more significant difference for the interpretation of the image in Phld. 9.1 is the way that each text refers to the high priest’s role in Yom Kippur and finds different significance for what this says about Jesus. Hebrews 9 analyzes the significance of Yom Kippur with a view to the sacrifice and atonement in the ritual that is then interpreted as fulfilled in Jesus’s death.68 Although most of the precise elements of the ritual are not of immediate concern in Phld. 9.1, the reference to the high priest’s entry into ἅγια ἁγίων indicates that Yom Kippur is in view (Heb 9.3).69 The importance of this day in the argument of Hebrews is that Jesus the high priest sacrificed his own blood once and for all (ἐφάπαξ) to purify the conscience of the letter’s audience (Heb 9.11–14). Jesus is both the priest and the sacrifice whose perfect execution of the sacrifice completed the previous covenant. Ignatius uses Yom Kippur to a different effect. Rather than focusing on the sacrifice, he highlights that it was only (µόνος) the high priest who entered into τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων. Since Jesus is the only high priest who has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, only he can hand over the Holy of Holies to God’s people. Having interpreted the Holy of Holies as God’s secrets, Ignatius claims that Jesus is the one high priest who, in contrast to the Levitical priests, can properly take up and make known these divine secrets to the people whom God desires to reveal his secrets.

τάξιν Μελχισέδεκ ἕτερον ἀνίστασθαι ἱερέα καὶ οὐ κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Ἀαρὼν λέγεσθαι). The question implies that it was necessary to have a new high priest because of the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood. 67 This similarity is not to claim that Ignatius was influenced by or even knew Hebrews. Although certain thematic similarities may be found in the letters of Ignatius and Hebrews, there is nothing in the letters to indicate whether or to what degree Ignatius knew Hebrews. See further Inge, “Ignatius,” 75. 68 Filtvedt and Wessbrandt, “Exploring the High Priesthood,” 99. 69 A text-critical issue arises at this point in Heb 9.3. The reading ἅγια ἁγίων is likely earliest and attested by ‫א‬, A, D, and 33 among others. However, the reading τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων is found in B, K, L, and 1241. This is the same reading as in Phld. 9.1. Two other readings are found in P and 1739, which read ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, and P46, which reads ἀνά.

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77

The two interpretations are not necessarily incompatible.70 Both interpretations position Jesus in a way that is different from and in some way superior to the Levitical priesthood. However, Ignatius differs from Hebrews in his treatment of Yom Kippur by emphasizing that it was the high priest alone who entered the Holy of Holies. The language of blood and the details of the furniture within the tabernacle are thus missing from Phld. 9.1 while present in Heb 9.1–14. 3.4.2.2. Ignatius, 1 Clement, and Polycarp Ignatius’s letters and Hebrews are not the only early Christian texts to refer to Jesus as high priest. In a passage that is much more closely related to Heb 1 than Phld. 9.1 is, 1 Clem. 36 refers to Jesus as messiah (Χριστός), high priest of our offerings (ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς τῶν προσφορῶν ἡµῶν), and the patron and helper of our weakness (ὁ προστάτης καὶ βοηθὸς τῆς ἀσθενείας ἡµῶν). In these roles, Jesus is the one through whom the gifts of God are made available to the Corinthian church (1 Clem. 36.2). Jesus is the agent who gives God’s generous gifts to the people as their benefactor.71 Clement then refers to Heb 1.3–4 (1 Clem. 36.2), Heb 1.7 (1 Clem. 36.3), Heb 1.5 (1 Clem. 36.4), and Heb 1.13 (1 Clem. 36.5).72 1 Clem. 36 makes a similar point to Heb 1, albeit in a different

70

Vall offers a reading that highlights similarities between Phld. 9.1 and Heb 9.1–14, noting in particular that Ignatius uses the distinction between priests and high priest as a “‘parable’ prefiguring the relationship between the covenants” (italics original; Learning Christ, 241). 71 “Cl 36 conclut une longue réflexion sur les dons de Dieu. Le rôle du Christ est alors rappelé: Il est le sauveur. Son activité est précisée par une hymne en cinq phrases: par Lui, nous accédons à la vraie connaissance de Dieu” (Philippe Henne, La christologie chez Clément de Rome et dans le Pasteur d’Hermas, Paradosis 33 [Freiburg: Editions universitaires Fribourg suisse, 1992], 105). 72 Andrew F. Gregory, “1 Clement and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 152–153; Clare Rothschild, “The Reception of Paul in 1 Clement,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 133. Of course Heb 1.7 is likewise a reference to Ps 104.4 (103.4 LXX), Heb 1.5 to Ps 2.7, and Heb 1.13 to Ps 110.1 (109.1 LXX). The close connections between 1 Clem. 36 and Heb 1 make it likely that 1 Clem. 36 is not quoting the Psalms apart from some early Christian tradition. Ernst Κäsemann (Das wandernde Gottesvolk: Eine Untersuchung zum Hebräerbrief, FRLANT 55 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1938], 107) and Gerd Theißen (Untersuchungen zum Hebräerbrief, 33–37) argue that the tradition is held in common between the two texts and does not come from one text’s knowledge of the other. Gareth Lee Cockerill has pointed out that such an argument would be more convincing if there was other evidence that each text borrowed from the same tradition. It is possible that both texts draw from a common tradition, but without further evidence it is more plausible to posit that the

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order, namely, that Jesus is greater than the angelic creation. The attribution of the high priestly office is again used to show the superiority of Jesus. Despite these similarities to Heb 1, 1 Clem. 36 utilizes the priesthood motif differently. The point is not simply that Jesus is superior to the angels but that God’s gifts come through him as our high priest.73 The five-fold repetition of διὰ τουτοῦ in 1 Clem. 36.2 highlights the role of Jesus as the one who brings God’s gifts to his people. The language that Ignatius uses is different, but fits well with 1 Clem. 36.1–2 on this point. Although the preposition διά is not found in the three clauses describing Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1, entrusting something to someone has another end beyond the person to whom something is entrusted. Jesus similarly functions as an agent who works for the benefit of God’s people in 1 Clem. 36.2. To be sure, the specific elements of the divine gifts in 1 Clem. 36.2 and Phld. 9.1 are enumerated differently. Nevertheless, Jesus gives these gifts to the people as the agent who was entrusted by God to deliver them safely. The motif of the high priest as agent in 1 Clement extends beyond the exposition in 1 Clem. 36 and is also found in the context of prayer. Prayer is offered twice in 1 Clement with the hope that the prayer for the community will be granted “through Jesus Christ, our high priest and benefactor” (διὰ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως καὶ προστάτου ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; 1 Clem. 61.3; 64).74 The various requests for which Clement has prayed are to be answered by God and made effective through the agency of Jesus his high priest.75 This motif is taken over but modified by Polycarp. Rather than praying that a request be answered through Jesus, he addresses prayer to Jesus as high priest. He prays to both the Father and “the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God, Jesus Christ” (ipse sempiternus pontifex, dei filius Iesus Christus) that the Philippians will be encouraged in their faith and given an inheritance among the saints (Pol. Phil. 12.2).76 Although prayer is addressed most often to God the Father, it is not later text (probably 1 Clement) knew the earlier text (“Heb 1:1–14, 1 Clem. 36:1–6 and the High Priest Title,” JBL 97 [1978]: 437–440). 73 Annie Jaubert highlights another difference between 1 Clem. 36 and Heb 7 when she points out that 1 Clem. 36 shows little to no interest in Melchizedek (“Thèmes lévitiques dans la prima Clementis,” VC 18 [1964]: 199). For a further discussion of similarities and differences on the high priestly depiction of Jesus in 1 Clement and Hebrews, see Michael Mees, “Das Christusbild der ersten Klemensbriefes,” ETL 66 (1990): 314–316. 74 Filtvedt and Wessbrandt, “Exploring the High Priesthood,” 106–107. 1 Clement 64 does not include τῶν ψυχῶν after προστάτου. 75 Although Mees makes reference to 1 Clem. 36 rather than 1 Clem. 61.3; 64, his words apply well to the prayers at the end of the letter: “Es ist aber auch die Formel, mit der die liturgischen Gebete heute noch schließen Per Christum Dominum nostrum, die voraussetzt, daß Christus in der Herrlichkeit des Vaters ist und sich dort für uns einsetzt” (“Das Christusbild,” 316). 76 Hermut Löhr considers it likely that the subject of the verb “give” (det) is the Father alone, since the verb is singular and “among his saints” (inter sanctos suos) is more likely to be linked with the Father (Studien zum frühchristlichen und frühjüdischen Gebet: Eine

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79

surprising to find some early Christian prayer addressed to both the Father and Jesus.77 Yet Polycarp has modified the image of high priest as it is applied to Jesus by 1 Clement and Phld. 9.1. Jesus the high priest is not only the agent through whom God releases gifts, entrusts secrets, and answers prayers. He is worthy of receiving prayer and acts alongside the Father to answer it. Such cooperation between the Father and Son is not new and does not represent an entirely novel development in views of Jesus, but it is different from the use to which the high priest image is put by Clement and Ignatius. In sum, applying the image of the high priest to Jesus as Ignatius does is not a unique action. He shares this way of speaking with other early Christian texts. As in Hebrews and 1 Clement, Ignatius claims some sort of superiority for Jesus over the Levitical priesthood with this image. As in 1 Clement, Jesus is an agent who mediates between God and his people. In line with what Ignatius has already written in Philadelphians, Ignatius is keen to show in Phld. 9.1 that Jesus is the only one to whom the Holy of Holies was entrusted. Jesus plays a singular role as the one priest who makes known the secrets of God. 3.4.3. The Ignatian High Priestly Jesus alongside Other Early Jewish Texts Ignatius was not the only author to attribute priestly characteristics to Jesus as God’s final eschatological agent. A similar phenomenon can also be found in some Jewish texts from the Second Temple period. This section will examine material from the Aramaic Levi Document, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Sib. Or. 5 with a view to comparing Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as high priest with priestly and final eschatological agents mentioned in these texts. The reason for selecting these texts is the similarity of certain aspects of the eschatological agents in them and in Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus in Phld. 9.1. The comparison is important because of the prominent position that Ignatius’s juxtaposition of Χριστιανισµός and Ἰουδαϊσµός holds within the argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2. Attention will be given to the ways in which priestly language functions in the particular texts examined in this section, and no attempt will be made to characterize Second Temple priestly messianic figures fully.78 The Untersuchung zu 1 Clem 59–61 in seinem literarischen, historischen, und theologischen Kontext, WUNT 160 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 154n.53). However, despite the grammatical difficulty, it is better to understand the Father and Son, which are both in the nominative case, as subjects of the singular verb. The twofold address of the prayer to the Father and Jesus and the use of Father and Son as twofold object of belief suggest that the singular verbs of the prayer may further stress the singular identity of Father and Son in Pol. Phil. 12.2. 77 E.g. 2 Cor 12.8–9; Acts 7.59–60; Rev 1.5–6. On Jesus’s role in Pauline prayers, see Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 138–140. 78 The diversity of early Jewish depictions of messiah is widely accepted and reflected in the title of Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green, and Ernest Frerichs, Judaisms and Their

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comparison is instead between Jesus in Phld. 9.1 and priestly messiahs in particular Second Temple texts. The Aramaic Levi Document is a reconstructed text that is partially extant in both Greek and Aramaic and should likely be dated either to the third century BCE or perhaps early in the second century BCE.79 Although Levi is not depicted as a messianic figure in this text, he is described as a mediating figure in two ways. First, he mediates by offering sacrifices. Levi is invested with the priestly garments and explains that “I became a priest of the God of eternity and I offered all of his sacrifices. And I blessed my father during his lifetime, and I blessed my brothers. Then they all blessed me, and my father also blessed me” ( ‫והוית כהין לאל עלמיא וקרבית כל קרבנוהי וברכת לאבי בחיוהי וברכת לאחי אדין‬ ‫ ;כולהון ברכוןי ואף אבא ברכני‬Ar. Levi 5.4–5).80 Levi is marked out as the priest and assumes the corresponding position of honor. In accordance with this, he is blessed by his father and brothers. However, Levi is not allowed simply to rest in his honored position. Rather, Levi is given the position by God so that he may in turn bless God’s people. In the narrative, this is primarily his father and brothers, but the blessings probably extend to their descendants. Thus Levi is given the priesthood so that he can mediate between the God of eternity and his family in sacrifices. A second way in which Levi exhibits both the place of honor and his duty to serve as mediator comes in his reception and dissemination of wisdom. Early in the narrative, Levi prays for the holy spirit (‫ )רוח קודשא‬as well as for counsel, Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). See further James H. Charlesworth, “From Messianology to Christology: Problems and Prospects,” in The Messiah: Development in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 3–35. However, Horbury is right that this diversity does not completely do away with the coherence of the word (Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ [London: SCM, 1998], 64–108). See further John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 11–19; Kenneth Pomykala, “Messianism,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, ed. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 938–942; Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 34–63. 79 On the manuscripts and date of the Aramaic Levi Document, see the discussions and literature cited in Robert A. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to Testament of Levi, EJL 9 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1996), 34–52, 131–135; Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary, SVTP 19 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1–6, 19–22. The Hasmonean date of the oldest manuscripts at Qumran, particularly 4QLevif (4Q214b), provides a terminus ante quem. In addition, the Aramaic Levi Document seems to be quoted in CD IV, 15– 19 (Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Words of Levi Son of Jacob in Damascus Document IV.15– 19,” RevQ 13 [1988]: 319–322) and may have served as a source for Jub. 30.1–32.9. 80 Versification, text, and translation of the Aramaic Levi Document are based on Greenfield, Stone, and Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document. No attempt is made to note doubtful letters in this brief discussion, since these notations have been made thoroughly in their text.

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wisdom, knowledge, and strength (Ar. Levi 3.6). 81 After Levi’s lessons in priestly duties, he likewise instructs his children to teach reading and writing and to study wisdom (Ar. Levi 13.4–7).82 In addition to offering another clear example of the expectation that Levi should pass on what he receives and Levi’s role as an intermediary between his teacher and his children, this text brings to the fore the sapiential role of Levi’s priesthood in the Aramaic Levi Document.83 Just as Levi prayed for wisdom and received cultic teaching from Isaac when “he began to instruct me and to teach me the law of the priesthood” (‫ ;שארי לפקדה יתי ולאלפא יתי דין כהנותא‬Ar. Levi 5.8),84 so also Levi began to teach his children all that was on his mind at the end of his life ( ‫ושריתי לפקדה‬ ‫ ;הנון כל די הווה עם לבבי‬Ar. Levi 13.1). Levi is to reveal that with which he has been entrusted through instruction. Although the mode of manifestation is not made clear, Jesus also reveals the secrets with which he was entrusted by the Father to the Philadelphians.

81

This prayer appears to be loosely based on Isa 11.1. Michael E. Stone connects Levi’s interest in reading and writing to the scribal habits of the third-century authorial community and suggests that it is the instructional function of the text that attracted these wisdom motifs (“Ideal Figures and Social Context: Priest and Sage in the Early Second Temple Age,” in Ancient Israelite Religions: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson, and D. S. McBride [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 578–580; repr. in “Ideal Figures and Social Context: Priest and Sage in the Early Second Temple Age,” in Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Armenian Tradition, ed. Michael E. Stone, SVTP 9 [Leiden: Brill, 1991], 262–264). Kugler, on the other hand, argues that the author had an interest in “sapientalizing the priesthood” and that the priestly teaching role was elevated in accordance with this interest (From Patriarch to Priest, 129n.234). Although both are probably right that Ar. Levi 13 provides evidence for a connection between priestly and scribal duties, on the one hand, and an interest in wisdom, on the other, it is difficult to see how a decision can be made about which interest tales priority. 83 In addition to highlighting the priesthood’s connection to wisdom and books, Greenfield, Stone, and Eshel observe the indebtedness of the Aramaic Levi Document to Deut 33.10 and Mal 2.6–7 at this point (The Aramaic Levi Document, 34–35). Martha Himmelfarb also notes that Isaac’s legal instructions in Ar. Levi 5.8–10.14 is largely in accordance with Torah instructions and argues that the Aramaic Levi Document does not represent a sectarian perspective (“Earthly Sacrifice and Heavenly Incense: The Law of the Priesthood in Aramaic Levi and Jubilees,” in Between Temple to Torah: Essays on Priests, Scribes, and Visionaries in the Second Temple Period and Beyond, TSAJ 151 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 61– 72). 84 See also the similar passage in T. Levi 9.6–9. Isaac’s blessing of Levi is recorded differently in Jub. 31.11–17, while the law of the priesthood occurs in a modified form and is placed in Abraham’s mouth (Jub. 21.5–20). On the priesthood discourse in Jub. 21, see Himmelfarb, “Earthly Sacrifice and Heavenly Incense,” 72–77. 82

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The Aramaic Levi Document likely served as a source for the later Testament of Levi, which is now found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.85 Levi and Judah are often connected in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and their personae as priest and king are anticipated to extend beyond the time of their death.86 While connected to Judah, Levi elsewhere plays a greater role than Judah in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. For example, Reuben instructs his children to approach Levi with a humble heart to receive a blessing from him, “for he will bless Israel and Judah because the Lord chose him to rule over all the peoples” (αὐτὸς γὰρ εὐλογήσει τὸν Ἰσραὴλ καὶ τὸν Ἰούδαν, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐξελέξατο κύριος βασιλεῦσαι πάντων τῶν λαῶν; T. Reu 6.11).87 In two places within the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi’s superiority to Judah is illuminating to the reading of Phld. 9.1. The first is found when Naphtali describes two visions he had when he was forty years old (T. Naph. 5–6). In the visions of the sun and moon standing still as well as of the sinking of Jacob’s ship, Levi and Judah are set apart from the other ten brothers (T. Naph.

85

On the connections between the Aramaic Levi Document and the Testament of Levi, see Marinus de Jonge, “The Testament of Levi and ‘Aramaic Levi,’” RevQ 13 (1988): 367– 385; repr. in “The Testament of Levi and ‘Aramaic Levi,’” in Jewish Eschatology, Early Christian Christology and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Collected Essays of Marinus de Jonge, ed. H. J. de Jonge, NovTSup 63 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 244–262; Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 174–177. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are the product of a Christian community in their current form, but the role of the Christian community in bringing them into their current form is disputed. It may be that an originally Jewish Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. were later interpolated by Christians. For this view, see R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 2.282–367; Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 177–178. However, others have argued that the products are entirely a result of Christian or Jewish-Christian composition or at least that the originally Jewish elements can no longer be isolated from their Christian interpolation. For this view, see Marinus de Jonge, “Christian Influence in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” NovT 4 (1960): 182–235; Joel Marcus, “The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Didascalia Apostolorum: A Common Jewish Christian Milieu?” JTS 61 (2010): 596–626. The latter position is also appealed to favorably in Robert A. Kugler, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 37– 39. For fuller summaries of scholarship, see Marinus de Jonge, “The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Christian and Jewish: A Hundred Years after Friedrich Schnapp,” NedTT 39 (1985): 265–275; repr. in Jewish Eschatology, Early Christian Christology and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Collected Essays of Marinus de Jonge, ed. H. J. de Jonge, NovTSup 63 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 233–243; Elizabeth E. Shively, Apocalyptic Imagination in the Gospel of Mark: The Literary and Theological Role of Mark 3:22–30, BZNT 189 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 92–93. 86 E.g. T. Sim. 7.1–2; T. Iss. 5.7–8. 87 See further T. Reu 6.8; T. Jud. 25.1–2. Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge are probably right to see ἐν αὐτῷ ἐξελέξατο as a Hebraism formed on analogy with ‫( בחר בו‬The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, SVTP 8 [Leiden: Brill, 1985], 107).

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83

5.2–3; 6.6). Yet in both stories Levi’s position is greater than Judah’s.88 In addition to the important place that is ascribed to Levi throughout the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Naphtali’s vision of the shipwreck sheds light on Phld. 9.1 since the separation of the brothers gives way to their reunification through Levi’s prayer. When he prays, the storm ceases and all of the brothers end up safely on the land with Jacob (T. Naph. 6.8–10).89 Ignatius’s emphasis on the unity of God’s people is a stronger and more thoroughgoing element of Philadelphians than it is in T. Naph. 6. Nevertheless, the people of God find their unity as a result of priestly activity in both texts. The second place in which Levi and Judah’s relationship is discussed in broader terms is found in T. Levi 17–18.90 The chronology of T. Levi 16–17 is organized around different sevenfold frameworks, but the chronology of T. Levi 17.1–8 assigns one priest to each jubilee. The priesthood becomes progressively debauched. Although the first priest was good, the corruption of the seventh is unspeakable (µιασµός, ὅν οὐ δύναµαι εἰπεῖν; T. Levi 17.8). All of this sets the scene for God to raise a new priest after the old priesthood fails (T. Levi 18.2). The words of the Lord will be revealed to the new priest,91 and his judgments will be righteous in contrast to the priesthood that has preceded him. The priest’s star will rise in heaven like a king (T. Levi 18.3). The image of the star recalls the language that Balaam used in Num 24.17 and that was applied to various messianic figures in some Second Temple texts.92 The heavenly temple will be opened, and the Father’s voice will come over the new priest (T. Levi 18.6). Finally, “he will open the doors of paradise” (αὐτὸς ἀνοίξει τὰς

88 Levi and Judah grab hold of the sun and moon, setting themselves apart from the others. Yet Levi seizes the sun, becomes like it, and is given date palms, while Judah grasps the moon, becomes luminous, and has twelve rays of light put under his feet (T. Naph. 5.4–5). Likewise, both brothers end up on the same piece of wreckage away from the others, but it is Levi’s prayer that curtails the star that had sunk the boat (T. Naph. 6.6–8). 89 Hollander and de Jonge note that “this motif belongs to the scheme ‘storm on the sea – intervention of a ‘man of God’ – storm ceases – people are saved’” that can be found in narratives such as Matt 8.23–27; Mark 4.35–41; Luke 8.22–25 (The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 314). 90 For more on the portrayal of Levi throughout the Testament of Levi, see James Kugel, “Levi’s Elevation to the Priesthood in Second Temple Writings,” HTR 86 (1993): 7–10. 91 In addition to comparing T. Levi 18.2 to Jesus’s revelation of God’s secrets in Phld. 9.1, one might also note the revelation of secret knowledge in lists such as those found in 1 En. 60.11–25; 2 En. 23; 2 Bar. 59.5–11. See further Michael E. Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature,” in Magnalia Dei=The Might Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. Werner E. Lemke, Patrick D. Miller, and F. M. Cross (New York: Doubleday, 1976) 414–454; repr. in Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Armenian Tradition, ed. Michael E. Stone, SVTP 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 379–418. 92 E.g. T. Jud. 24.1; CD VII, 18–20; 4QD (4Q266) 3 III, 19–21; 4QTest (4Q175) 9–13.

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θύρας τοῦ παραδείσου; T. Levi 18.10) recalling Levi’s report of the angel opening the door of heaven to him when he received the priesthood (T. Levi 5.1). There are important similarities between the figure of Levi in the Testament of Levi and Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1.93 First, both T. Levi 18 and Phld. 9.1 place the appearance of the eschatological priest at the conclusion of the Levitical priesthood. However, Ignatius states that the priests were good, while T. Levi 17 describes the progressive decay that will occur within the Levitical priesthood before God sends a greater priest. Second, Ignatius claims that Jesus was entrusted with God’s secrets so that he could give them to the people of God. The priest in T. Levi 18 will give the Lord’s majesty to his children. Although both priests are important because of what God has given to them, the priests have responsibilities toward God’s people. Like Sib. Or. 3, Sib. Or. 5 stems from Egypt, likely between 70 and 132.94 In its current form, the text is comprised of six oracles. Oracles 2–5 contain a statement about a final redeemer (Sib. Or. 5.108–110, 155–161, 256–259, 414– 433).95 The redeemer of Sib. Or. 5.414–433 provides a final interesting point of comparison with Phld. 9.1 because he is involved in the construction of a tower that is visible to all people and in the establishment of God’s temple. 93

Although Christoph Berner does not argue extensively that T. Levi 18 is a Christian composition since his article focuses on T. Levi 16–17, this seems to be his position (“The Heptadic Chronologies of Testament of Levi 16–17 and Their Sources,” JSP 22 [2012]: 47). Gerbern S. Oegema leaves open the possibility that some material from T. Levi 18 is of Jewish origin but has been reworked by a Christian redactor (Der Gesalbte und sein Volk: Untersuchungen zum Konzeptualisierungsprozeß der messianischen Erwartungen von den Makkabäern bis Bar Koziba, SIJD 2 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994], 76–81; idem, The Anointed and His People: Messianic Expectations from the Maccabees to Bar Kochba, JSPSup 27 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 77–81). See also Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest, 189. The negative portrayal of the priests in T. Levi 16–17 anticipates a redemptive concluding note, so there seems to be a good reason for expecting T. Levi 18 to be original, even if redacted in its present form. 94 For more on the date and provenance, see John J. Collins, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism, SBLDS 13 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974), 94–95; John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE to 117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 225. The prominence of Nero demands a date after 70 CE. The favorable reference to Hadrian requires a date prior to 132 CE and suggests a date of final composition between 118–132 CE. However, it is not necessary for all sections to have been composed at the same time. 95 Although Johannes Geffcken argued that the redeemer of Sib. Or. 5.256–259 is entirely Jewish in its current form (Komposition und Entstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina, TU 23 [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903], 22–30), this passage seems to have undergone Christian redaction. Oegema thinks that Sib. Or. 5.256 is originally a Jewish composition while Sib. Or. 5.257– 259 reflect Christian redaction (Der Gesalbte und sein Volk, 226; The Anointed and His People, 227). Collins is less certain about how but concludes that Sib. Or. 5.256–259 has probably undergone Christian interpolation. For more on the structure of Sib. Or. 5, see Collins, The Sybilline Oracles, 73–74.

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There is little that would designate this messiah as a specifically priestly eschatological agent. No mention is made of his involvement in sacrifices or prayers, and he is probably better characterized as a warrior messiah and final judge.96 Yet however the redeemer is characterized, he should probably be considered as a messiah figure.97 Two elements are particularly worth noting. First, the man who comes from the heavenly expanses is involved in establishing the sanctuary (καὶ κόσµον κατέθηχ’ ἅγιόν τ’ οἶκον ἐποίησεν; Sib. Or. 5.422).98 The heavenly man builds the sanctuary after the destruction of the wicked nations that has been described earlier in the oracle. Yet the temple belongs to God because he created it (θεὸς ὑφιβρεµέτης, κτίστης ναοῖο µεγίστου; Sib. Or. 5.433). Although the temple is God’s, the heavenly man is allowed to build it as God’s final eschatological agent. Similarly, Ignatius claims that Jesus was entrusted with the Holy of Holies as high priest, but his reference to Jesus as door immediately reiterates the purpose for which Jesus is high priest. His high priesthood allows him to serve as God’s agent by bringing the divine secrets to the people of God and granting them access to the Father. Second, it is notable that the sanctuary that the man builds for God includes a tower that touches the clouds and that elicits God’s praise from all creation (Sib. Or. 5.422–428).99 This includes faithful and just people along with the 96 Oegema, Der Gesalbte und sein Volk, 226; idem, The Anointed and His People, 227. The scepter that the redeemer carries in his hands is reminiscent of Jacob’s words to Judah in Gen 49.10 as well as Balaam’s prophecy in Num 24.17. The depiction of “the man from the heavenly expanses” in Sib. Or. 5.414–433 may also derive in part from Dan 7.13 and Isa 11.1–5. Similar combinations of royal and judicial traits may be found in 1 En. 46.3–5; 48.2– 7; 49.1–4; 51.3; 4 Ezra 13.2–13. 97 Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, WUNT 207 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 480–481. William Horbury argues further that the “man” (ἄνθρωπος) in Sib. Or. 5.414 is part of a tradition of messianic interpretation of Num 24.7 (LXX) and Isa 19.20 (Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 84, 102–103). 98 I follow Collins in preferring the text of Aloisius Rzach for Sib. Or. 5.422 over the text of Geffcken (“Sibylline Oracles,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. [Garden City: Doubleday, 1983–1985], 1.403n.z3). Rzach’s text can be found in Χρησµοὶ Σιβυλλιακοί: Oracula Sibyllina (Prague: Tempsky, 1891), 125, while Geffcken’s text is found in Die Oracula Sibyllina, GCS 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902), 124. Rzach’s text results from a conjectural emendation, but the conjecture seems likely in the context. 99 Horbury argues that associations between royalty, Jerusalem, and the temple stem from reflection on Davidic kingship as presented in the narratives of David and Solomon as well as Pss 2, 122, and 132 (“Land, Sanctuary, and Worship,” in Early Christian Thought in its Jewish Setting, ed. J. P. M. Sweet and J. M. G. Barclay [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], 207; repr. in “Jerusalem in Pre-Pauline and Pauline Hope,” in Messianism among Jews and Christians: Biblical and Historical Studies [London: T&T Clark, 2003], 189). While this is probably right, these associations are pushed outside of the borders of the Davidic kingdom in Sib. Or. 5.414–433.

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sun and the moon. It is clear that this expands the praise of God beyond the borders of Israel, but it is less clear whether “the faithful and just” include nonJews. In either case, the expansive view of the redemption that is effected by the heavenly man who builds God’s temple is analogous to Ignatius’s claim in Phld. 9.1 that Jesus’s high priesthood provided access to all of God’s people from Abraham to the church. Whereas Sib. Or. 5.414–433 pushes the view of God beyond geographic boundaries and into the realm of cosmic praise, Phld. 9.1 pushes the temporal boundaries so that Jesus is the high priest who was entrusted with the Holy of Holies for all of God’s people.

3.5. Jesus as Door in Phld. 9.1 3.5. Jesus as Door in Phld. 9.1

Ignatius thus partakes in a tradition of speaking about Jesus as high priest that is attested in other early Christian texts, though not all texts use the image in the same way. Ignatius uses an additional image in Phld. 9.1 to complement the argument that he makes throughout Phld. 5.1–9.2. He refers to Jesus as the door of the Father (αὐτὸς ὤν θύρα τοῦ πατρός). This image is likewise attested in other early Christian texts but must be understood within Ignatius’s own letter before comparisons with other texts may become enlightening. 3.5.1. The Role of the Door Ignatius uses the image of the door to communicate the role that Jesus plays in granting them access to the Father and thereby identifying the people of God.100 Not only is Jesus the high priest through whom the full and atoning sacrifice was made, he is the access point by which the people enter into union with the Father. By entering through Jesus, the Philadelphians can be identified as part of the people of God. It is important to clarify how the genitive (τοῦ πατρός) modifies the nominative (θύρα). It is possible to understand the Father as the possessor of the door or the one who has authority over the door. As supporting evidence for this reading, one could note that Jesus is elsewhere referred as the son by Ignatius (Magn. 8.2; Rom. inscr.). Fathers stood above sons in the usual hierarchical order of things within the Roman Empire.101 The phrase would

100

Henning Paulsen argues that Ignatius’s use of the door is a stronger statement of what was later referred to as solus Christus than the image of the high priest (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 86). 101 “The most significant feature of the Roman household (familia) was that its power was concentrated in the hands of the male head, the paterfamilias” (James S. Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1999], 237). See further idem, “Jewish and Christian Families in First-Century Rome,” in Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome,

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then connect Jesus to the Father in an intimate, perhaps unique, manner. Yet this interpretation is not the only point that Ignatius intends to make by referring to Jesus as the door. The image of the door communicates inclusion as part of the Father’s people. As he is about to articulate in the following clause, Ignatius uses the image of the door to communicate the inclusion of the entire people of God into the Father. Jesus is the entrance by which access to the Father is obtained. The genitive can also be understood as referring to the goal for which the door is the access point. The last suggestion is proved right by the prepositional phrase that follows. Jesus is the door through which (δι’ ἧς) God’s people enter. Jesus is the entryway on the other side of which stands the Father. Ignatius uses the preposition διά with Jesus as the object of the preposition seven other times in his letters.102 While Ignatius uses the phrases ἐν Χριστῷ and εἰς Χριστόν more often and to various effects, his use of the prepositional phrase διὰ Χριστοῦ is more uniform but no less important. When writing to the Ephesians, Ignatius employs choral imagery, instructing them to sing to the Father with one voice through Jesus Christ (διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Eph. 4.2). Jesus is the agent who takes the song of the Ephesian church to the Father. Jesus is also the one through whom faith comes to the Philadelphians (ἡ πίστις ἡ δι’ αὐτοῦ; Phld. 8.2).103 Whereas in Eph. 4.2 Jesus takes the Ephesian song from the Ephesians to the Father, Jesus brings faith to the Philadelphians. Ignatius uses the image of the door in Phld. 9.1 to a similar effect as his διὰ Χριστοῦ language. The image of the door furthers the Philadelphians’ understanding of Jesus’s activity as mediator. In Phld. 8.2, Jesus is the one who brings faith to the Philadelphians; he mediates faith from the Creator to the created people of God. The direction of his mediation continues in the same direction in the image of the high priest. Jesus is entrusted with the Holy of Holies and thus makes God’s secrets known to human beings. The door continues the discussion of Jesus’s mediating activity, but the direction of the mediation is reversed. Whereas the two previous mentions have seen Jesus mediating from the Father to the church, the people of God enter through Jesus to meet the Father through Jesus the door. Although Ignatius does not linger over the question of how Jesus fulfills his role as mediator, this is a significant part of his Christology that he explains with reference to the images of both high priest and door.

ed. Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 143–144; idem, The Greco-Roman World, 237–241. 102 Eph. 4.2; Magn. 5.2 (twice); 7.1; 8.2; 9.1; Phld. 8.2. This count only includes instances where Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κυριοῦ, αὐτοῦ, and οὗ function as the object of the preposition. 103 Bergamelli, “Fede di Gesù Christo,” 652–657.

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Jesus enables the Philadelphians’ faith, makes God’s secrets known to them, and grants the Philadelphians access to the Father through his mediation. Ignatius has already argued that Jesus’s actions took place to unify the Philadelphian church (Phld. 1.1; 2.1–2), but he enlarges his claim in Phld. 9.1 to place the Philadelphians in their proper place as part of the single people of God that stretches through time in the divine economy. It is not only the Philadelphians that enter into the Father’s presence through Jesus the door. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also enter through Jesus.104 Israel’s prophets as well as the apostles and the church likewise come through Jesus. By using the image of the door Ignatius argues that the events of Jesus’s death and resurrection mark the central revelation of God’s plan to human beings. All these things enter into the unity of God (πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ; Phld. 9.1). This has been seen as part of a tendency within the Ignatian letters to remove God’s earlier revelatory acts from the realm of history and to Christianize Jews who lived prior to Jesus.105 Keeping in mind that the point of Ignatius’s letters is to urge unity in the present within the churches to which he is writing that is based on Jesus’s death and resurrection, it is unsurprising that Ignatius does not linger on the question of God’s revelation to Israel. While the significance of Torah and God’s faithfulness to Israel may have been a concern in certain Pauline letters, these questions do not seem to have played a major role in the rhetorical focus of the Ignatian letters.106 Yet it is too strong to claim that Ignatius removes God’s revelation to the Jews from history. He compresses the narratives so that he can emphasize his primary point. In Phld. 9.1 the point is that all the figures that Ignatius lists enter into the unity of God through Jesus the door. While it may be tempting to see Ignatius reading ahistorically, it is significant that the list of figures comes in the order of historical appearance, first the patriarchs, then the prophets, the apostles, and the church. Ignatius has not mentioned these figures without any reference to history. He has instead truncated the past and mentioned only a few of the most significant biblical 104

Brown, The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch, 185. Schoedel claims that Ignatius “virtually eliminates any distinction between the saints of the two testaments,” while arguing that Ignatius still “suggests (however carefully) the incompleteness of the prophets” (Ignatius, 201). Even the use of terms such as “Christians” and “Jews,” risk imparting anachronistic connotations. See the essays in Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, TSAJ 95 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). “Church,” “Christians,” and “Jews” are used in this study as a shorthand to recognize that there were attempts at group differentiation in the second century even if those groups were not differentiated in the same way by each author. 106 Robert B. Sloan offers a helpful analysis of Ignatius’s rhetorical focus on unity in his essay (“‘Center,’ ‘Horizon,’ and Rhetorical Focus in Ignatius of Antioch,” in Thriving in Babylon: Essays in Honor of A. J. Conyers, ed. David B. Capes and J. Daryl Charles, PTMS 152 [Eugene: Pickwick, 2011], 19–53). 105

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figures as representatives of God’s earlier work so that he can continue with the focus of the letter, namely, unity. He shows an awareness of history but is at greater pains to show that Jesus is the climactic center of God’s revelation who physically suffered, died, and was raised in time. The polemical context of Phld. 5.1–9.2 and the encounter that Ignatius had already had with the Philadelphians may have led him to say more about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity than in his other letters.107 Yet a look at other second-century literature shows that this polemic could have been carried out differently.108 For example, after offering a tentative affirmation of Jewish monotheistic worship (Diogn. 3.1–5), the author of Diognetus assumes that Diognetus will already know about Jewish food laws, Sabbath practice, circumcision, and fasting rituals. Indeed, he does not think Diognetus has anything to learn from him about such matters but simply dismisses them as “ridiculous and not worth a word” (καταγέλαστα καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξια λόγου; Diogn. 4.1). Ignatius could have offered a similar dismissal of his Jewish opponents and simply refused to engage,109 but his argument is more nuanced than Diogn. 3–4. Ignatius explains the way in which the patriarchs and prophets are to be located within God’s economy. They anticipated and hoped for Jesus so that, like Ignatius’s Philadelphian audience, they likewise found their place in the Father’s presence through Jesus the door. This is not to say that Ignatius’s account of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is robust or fully articulated. Ignatius is brief on this topic, while other second-century literature, such as Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, offers the chance to glean a fuller perspective.110 Questions of Jewish and Christian identity in the second century are complex, and the texts that promise some hope for answers are far from uniform in their answers.111 One might wish for Ignatius to have said more on this topic than is available in his extant letters, but he does not collapse history or 107

While this relationship is also important in Magn. 8–10, the discussion in Phld. 5.1– 9.2 is both longer and has more specific information about what might be referred to as “historical” elements of Judaism, particularly the priests, prophets, patriarchs, and scripture. 108 For further comparison of Ignatius with other second-century literature, see Vall, Learning Christ, 216–230. 109 This comes close to the interpretation that Schoedel has proposed as the correct understanding of Phld. 8.2 where Ignatius refuses to engage in exegesis because of his lack of supposed skill. See Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” 104–106; Mitchell, “In the Footsteps of Paul,” 36–40. 110 See Lieu, Image and Reality, 103–154. 111 To take one example, while physical circumcision is regarded as stemming from the enlightenment of an evil angel in Barn. 9.4, Irenaeus interprets it more positively as a sign of Abraham’s faith (Epid. 24). This is part of Irenaeus’s extended summary narrative of the divine economy in Israel’s history that runs from Epid. 4–42. On the outline of Epid., see John Behr, On the Apostolic Preaching: St. Irenaeus of Lyons, PPS 17 (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 17–23.

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fail to acknowledge Israel’s place in the divine economy even though they are not his primary rhetorical focus. Instead, he orients all things around Jesus who brought unity in his death and opened the way for all people to enter the Father’s presence as the fullness of God’s revelations. All these things, particularly all of God’s people, enter into the unity of God (Phld. 9.1). 3.5.2. Other Treatments of Jesus as Door in Early Christianity It is instructive to compare Ignatius’s letter with other early Christian literature not only to understand how Phld. 9.1 is to be understood within the Ignatian discourse about the relationship between Jews and Christians but also for further clarification about what it means to identify Jesus as the door. In another letter written to the Philadelphians, this one purportedly dictated by the risen and ascended Jesus, Jesus is identified as “the one who opens and no one can close and the one who closes and no one can open” (ὁ ἀνοίγων καὶ οὐδεὶς κλείσει καὶ κλείων καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίγει; Rev 3.7). He has the key of David and states that he has set an open door before the Philadelphians (θύρα ἠνεῳγµένη; Rev 3.8). The door referred to here is likely the same door that the author will enter at the conclusion of the letters (Rev 4.1).112 It thus leads to the revelation that is found in the remainder of the book. The image is similar to what Ignatius writes in Phld. 9.1, but Ignatius’s use of the image carries an important difference with it.113 In Rev 3.7–8 Jesus has opened the door to the Philadelphians and invites them to enter. Ignatius depicts Jesus as the door itself. He is not only the one who invites and controls those who may enter like a doorkeeper. He is the very means by which entry to the Father is obtained. Ignatius’s use of the door allows a more direct relationship to adhere between Jesus and the people of God than that depicted in Rev 3.7–8. He may draw on Ps 118.19–20 (117.19–20 LXX) and offer another view into how this text was used in early Christianity. While the psalmist’s prayer that the doors of righteousness be opened might have originally referred to a Temple ritual,114 some Christian interpreters understood the gates with reference to Jesus. After quoting Ps 118.19–20,115 Clement’s interpretation allows that many gates may 112 Ernst Lohmeyer, Die Offenbarung des Johannes, HNT 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1953), 35; Hermann Lichtenberger, Die Apokalypse, ThKNT 23 (Stuttgart; Kohlhammer, 2014), 109. This reading seems to be preferable to the interpretation of the door as a reference to the beginning of Christian work in Philadelphia. However, the use of the door with reference to the beginning of an activity can be found in Acts 14.27; 1 Cor 16.9; 2 Cor 2.12; Col 4.3. 113 Christine Trevett discusses the relationship between Revelation and Ignatius’s letters in more detail (“Apocalypse, Ignatius, Montanism,” 325–327). 114 See the helpful discussion about possible rituals in Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Borger, Die Psalmen III: Psalm 101–150 (NEchtB; Würzburg: Echter, 2012), 692–693. 115 The quotation of Ps 118.19–20 (117.19–20 LXX) closely resembles Rahlfs’s text in the Göttingen Septuagint, with the exception of the ἵνα-clause in 1 Clem. 48.2. The addition

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be open (πολλῶν οὖν πυλῶν ἀνεῳγυιῶν) but that the gate that is in righteousness is the one that is in Christ (ἡ ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ αὕτη ἐστιν ἡ ἐν Χριστῷ; 1 Clem. 48.4). The door through which the righteous enter in Ps 118.20 is interpreted with direct reference to Jesus in 1 Clem. 48.2–4.116 Yet the door is not Jesus himself as it is in Ignatius. Rather, the door is ἐν Χριστῷ.117 Two things should be noted that have a bearing on Phld. 9.1. First, 1 Clem. 48.2–4 interprets the door of Ps 118.19–20 in close association with Jesus. Second, the door is not identified as Jesus himself as in Phld. 9.1. Jesus is identified explicitly as the door in John 10.7, 9. Whether Ignatius directly uses the Gospel of John, Johannine traditions, or other traditional material held in common is a difficult question to answer precisely.118 Both John and Ignatius identify Jesus as the door (θύρα) through whom the people of God enter (εἰσέρχοµαι).119 Yet John’s identification is developed differently, and the image shifts between door and shepherd. John’s statement is placed in the

of ἵνα in Ps 117.19 (LXX) is attested in 1219 and Hesychius of Jerusalem’s commentary on Psalms. However, both 1219 and Hesychius’s commentary maintain the indicative voice in the following verb (ἐξοµολογήσοµαι), whereas Alexandrinus, the Syriac and Coptic translations, and Clement of Alexandria join 1 Clem. 48.2 in reading the subjunctive (ἐξοµολογήσωµαι). The indicative is found in 1 Clem. 48.2 as well as in Codex Hierosolymitanus and the Latin translation of 1 Clement. See further the critical apparatus in Alfred Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis, 3rd ed., SVTG 10 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1979), 286. 116 Horacio E. Lona, Der erste Clemensbrief, KAV 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 516. 117 Andreas Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe, HNT 17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 140–141. 118 I leave open the question of literary dependence and am instead situating Ignatius and John within a common way of speaking. Paulsen correctly draws attention to Johannine connections in his comments on Phld. 9.1 but does not think these connections are strong enough to derive literary dependence (Studien, 171). His comments are not far removed from von der Goltz, who is uncertain about literary dependence but concludes that “starker geistiger Verwandtschaft stehen bleiben” (Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe, 143). Zahn argued that Phld. 9.1 shows more affinities with Herm. Sim. 9 [78–110] than with John 10 (Ignatius von Antiochien, 618). Titus Nagel thinks it is possible that Ignatius draws on John 10 and Ps 118. 20 (117.20 LXX) while 1 Clement and ninth parable of the Shepherd of Hermas draw independently on Ps 118. 20 (117.20 LXX) (Die Rezeption des Johannesevangeliums im 2. Jahrhundert: Studien zur vorirenäischen Aneignung und Auslegung des vierten Evangeliums in christlicher und christlich-gnostischer Literatur, ABG 2 [Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000], 249). Charles E. Hill thinks that Ignatius knows and gives evidence of the authority of John, 1 John, and possibly 2 John (The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 442–443). 119 For more on the historical and religious background of the door in John, see C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to John, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1978), 372. Much of Barrett’s information is also useful in considering Phld. 9.1 but is not as directly pertinent as the information considered here.

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mouth of Jesus as part of a speech that he gives following the healing of a man who was born blind (John 9.1–41). Jesus is the shepherd for whom the doorkeeper opens, who enters through the door, and whose sheep follow him (John 10.1–5).120 When his audience does not understand what he means (John 10.6), Jesus clarifies that he is both the door and the shepherd. He is the door through whom any who enter may be saved. Those who came before him were thieves and robbers (John 10.7–10). He is also the good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep (John 10.11, 17–18) and who knows both his sheep and the Father (John 10.14–16). The dialogue moves from a statement that Jesus is the shepherd who enters through the door to a declaration that Jesus is the door before returning to show where the significance of Jesus’s role as shepherd lies. 121 John distinguishes Jesus from false messianic predecessors by using these two images.122 Ignatius also uses two images to identify Jesus in Phld. 9.1, but his more compact statement does not allow him to switch back and forth in his explanation of the two images. While Ignatius seems to use a tradition that is also evident in the Gospel of John, he writes of Jesus as the door to highlight the unity and continuity over time that is found through Jesus among God’s people. Another early Christian text that used the image of a gate (πύλη) to similar effect as Ignatius’s door can be found in Herm. Sim. 9 (78–110). The parable is an extended allegory that depicts the construction of the church as the construction of a tower. This is a conscious development of Hermas’s third vision (Herm. Sim. 9.1.1–3 [78.1–3]).123 It is again difficult to determine the traditions that Herm. Sim. 9 uses with respect to its development of the door image. The use of the word πύλη recalls Ps 117.19–20 (LXX), but the development 120

Thus both the door and the shepherd are introduced in John 10.1–5; see Jörg Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten, WUNT 307 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 318. J. A. T. Robinson (“The Parable of the Shepherd,” ZNW 46 [1955]: 233–240; repr. in Twelve New Testament Studies [London: SCM Press, 1962], 67–75) and Raymond E. Brown (The Gospel According to John, 2 vols., AB 29 [Garden City: Doubleday, 1966–1970] 1.391–393) propose that two parables have been fused together. This view has not convinced most scholars. See George R. Beasley-Murray, John, 2nd ed. WBC 36 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 166–167; J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 578n.3. Whatever the pre-Johannine history of these verses, they fit together well within John 10.1–18 and should be read as a single parable. 121 75 P and a number of manuscripts in Coptic translation minimize the effect of this interchange by reading ὁ ποιµήν for ἡ θύρα in John 10.7. On the text-critical problems in John 10.7–10, see Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium, 4 vols., HThKNT 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1966–1984), 2.363. 122 “The contrast is between the one shepherd who enters legitimately and the ‘thief’ and the ‘robber’ who goes up from elsewhere to gain access to the sheep” (Michaels, John, 578). 123 The angel of repentance draws attention to the difference in guides between the third vision (Herm. Vis. 3 [9–21]) and the ninth parable, while also promising greater accuracy in his explanation in accordance with Hermas’s increased spiritual vitality.

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and explanation of the image is more elaborate in Herm. Sim. 9.12.1–5 [89.1– 5] than any other Christian text from the first or second century. After taking note of an enormous rock with a gate chiseled into it (Herm. Sim. 9.2.1–2 [79.1–2]), Hermas asks that the significance of what he has seen be explained to him. Both depict the Son of God but the door appears younger because it represents Jesus as he was revealed in the last days of the consummation (ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡµερῶν τῆς συντελείας φανερὰς ἐγένετο; Herm. Sim. 9.12.3 [89.3]). He was revealed so that those who are about to be saved through it (δι’ αὐτῆς) may enter into the kingdom of God. No one will enter into the tower except through the one door, that is, “through the name of the Son who was loved by him [the Father]” (διὰ τοῦ ὀνόµατος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἀγαπηµένου ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ; Herm. Sim. 9.12.5 [89.5]). The explanation of the door is more developed in Herm. Sim. 9.12 [89] than in Phld. 9.1, but the motif of a single entrance through Jesus represented by a single door is an important similarity between the texts.124 Ignatius’s use of the door image is thus to be situated within a shared early Christian way of speaking about Jesus. Two points of comparison are particularly worth highlighting. First, as in John 10, Herm. Sim. 9.12 (89), and perhaps 1 Clem. 48, Jesus is the door through whom all believers enter, but Ignatius explicitly includes the patriarchs and prophets along with the apostles and the church. Entry through the door unifies the Philadelphian believers in the Father’s presence not only with other believers across all ethnicities and geographic regions but also with believers throughout all time. Ignatius does not remove Israel’s history but reads all history through God’s revelation in Jesus. The people of God meet the Father through Jesus. Second, Ignatius combines the image of the door with the image of the high priest. While the door is not a standalone image in John 10 or Herm. Sim. 9 [78–110], Ignatius pulls the images of high priest and door together in a unique manner. In so doing, he explains not only who Jesus is but also who the Philadelphians are to become. It is to this combination of images in Phld. 9.1 that I now turn.

3.6. Jesus as High Priest and Door in Philadelphians 3.6. Jesus as High Priest and Door in Philadelphians

A significant amount of the discussion within this chapter has thus far been concerned with articulating the importance of the images of Jesus as high priest and door separately from another and with reference to similar language in other early Christian texts. Such a division of these images has heuristic bene-

124

Robert Joly observes a further similarity between Ignatius’s description of who enters through the door and the prophets, apostles, and teachers who are stones in the temple in Herm. 9.16.4 [92.4] (Le dossier, 55).

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fits insofar as it allows for closer exploration of particular elements within Ignatius’s language while comparing his use of these images with similar instances in other literature. The division of high priest and door in this chapter has enabled a closer examination of the way in which each image contributes to Ignatius’s articulation of who Jesus is. Yet the two images are closely connected in Phld. 9.1 and cannot finally be read apart from each other in this passage. 3.6.1. Jesus as High Priest and Door in Phld. 9.1–2 The high priest and the door work together to depict Jesus as the mediatorial agent in the divine plan who makes the work of God available to the people and grants the people access to God. Collectively, these two images put Jesus forward as the focal point of God’s redemptive plan. This does not discount the other activities that took place within the economy or the people who have been involved in the plan. Instead it places them in their proper relation with the unity of God that has come through the revelation of Jesus. Ignatius keeps the images of high priest and door closely connected grammatically and functionally in Phld. 9.1. The close grammatical connection stems from the lack of an indicative verb within an independent clause. The two indicative verbs within the verse come within dependent clauses that further describe the priest as the one to whom the secrets of God are entrusted (πεπίστευται) and the door as the one through whom the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and church enter (εἰσέρχονται). The two independent clauses in the verse are connected by unstated copulative verbs. No verb is explicitly written when Ignatius writes, “The priests were good, but the high priest is better” (καλοὶ καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς, κρεῖσσον δὲ ὁ ἀρχιερεύς). Likewise, the entire verse leads Ignatius to conclude, “All these things are for the unity of God” (πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ). The meaning of the sentences is clear from a grammatical standpoint, but the main sentences in Phld. 9.1 are each linked only by implicit copulative verbs. The connection between the priest and the door is likewise made without an indicative verb. As Ignatius shifts from using the image of the high priest to the image of the door, he connects the two images by means of a participle: he is the door of the Father (αὐτὸς ὤν θύρα τοῦ πατρός). The adverbial use of the participle makes the image of the door grammatically dependent upon the copulative sentence comparing Jesus the high priest to the Levitical priesthood. In doing this, the two images are bound in such a way that they cannot be grammatically separated within Ignatius’s letter. While the connection between the door and priest subordinates the door to the priest grammatically, the function and meaning of the high priest and door are found in the way the images coalesce in Jesus. The priest and door work together to show the way in which Jesus acts as mediator between God the

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Father and his creation. Jesus is entrusted with the secrets of God as the high priest. As the high priest who faithfully carried out his duties in his passion, death, and resurrection (Phld. 8.2; 9.2), Jesus gives these secrets to the people of God. Having been entrusted with the secrets of God, he has made them available to the people to whom the Father intended to make them known.125 The image of the high priest is used to show the direction of Jesus’s mediation from the Father to his people. The image of the door works in the opposite direction. The people of God, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, the apostles and the church, all enter into the Father’s presence through the same door. The genitive modifier τοῦ πατρός links Jesus with the Father and clarifies the goal to which the door leads. Jesus allows the entire people of God to enter into the Father’s presence. In order to show the two directions in which Jesus’s mediation works, Ignatius employs two different metaphors. These images depict Jesus working on behalf of someone other than himself. The close connection between the two images in Phld. 9.1 works to show that Jesus is the agent who grants access to the Father and who makes the works of the Father available to his newly constituted people. 3.6.2. The Place of Phld. 9.1 in the Argument of Phld. 9.1–.2 The last clause of Phld. 9.1 is another sentence in which the copulative verb is implicit and thus mirrors the first sentence of the verse in its construction. It is also an indication of how all of Phld. 9.1 should be read: all these things are for the unity of God (πάντα ταῦτα εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ). The referent of πάντα ταῦτα seems to be the entire list of people who have already been mentioned in the verse. This includes not only the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and church but also the Levitical priests and the high priest. All of these together are εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ. Having already sketched the key role that the theme of unity plays in Philadelphians,126 it remains to ask about the significance of εἰς. The preposition marks unity as the purpose or goal after which all of these elements strive. Ignatius claims that each element of God’s plan that he has listed in Phld. 9.1 comes as a summary and lens through which to understand a significant element of what God has done in Jesus. In this way Jesus brings unity with the Father to God’s people.127 Through the actions that Jesus took to fulfill his role as high priest and door, the prophets, priests, and other characters in the archives and in the church can be seen with the entire scope of God’s unifying plan in view.

125

Filtvedt and Wessbrandt, “Exploring the High Priesthood,” 110–111. See section 3.2. 127 Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61–63. 126

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This claim is significant in light of the tendency to downplay the importance of the Jewish scriptures and certain elements therein within Ignatius’s letters.128 Yet Ignatius himself is quick to point out that this gives a unique role to Jesus. He says that there is something distinctive (ἐξαίρετον) about the gospel.129 Ignatius then lists three elements of the gospel that make it distinctive: the coming of the Savior (τὴν παρουσίαν τοῦ σωτῆρος),130 his passion (τὸ πάθος αὐτοῦ), and the resurrection (τὴν ἀνάστασιν; Phld. 9.2). This is not a complete list of what makes the gospel distinctive.131 Ignatius alludes to elements of the gospel in summary fashion to remind the Philadelphians of the special significance that the gospel has within God’s plan. This is something that he has already told them when he was present with them in Philadelphia (Phld. 8.2). Ignatius reiterates that the prophets proclaimed about him (Phld. 5.2; 9.2). However, “the gospel is the perfection of immortality” (τὸ δὲ εὐαγγέλιον ἀπάρτισµά ἐστιν ἀφθαρσίας; Phld. 9.2). In the events that took place in Jesus, God’s redemptive plan comes to its full expression. This was already anticipated by the prophets and participated in proleptically by the priests and patriarchs. The distinctiveness of the gospel comes in Jesus’s revelation of God and his plan for the entire people of God. Yet the distinctiveness of Jesus does not do away with the elements of the divine plan that occurred before Jesus. Ignatius concludes that “all things are good together if you believe in love” (πάντα ὁµοῦ καλά ἐστιν, ἐὰν ἐν ἀγάπῃ πιστευήτε). This sentence helps to clarify the indivisibility of faith and love within Ignatius’s letters,132 but its function is greater in Phld. 9. The entire plan

128

E.g. Schoedel sees Ignatius appealing to Jesus because he was having difficulty establishing his point from scripture (Ignatius, 209). 129 Although ἐξαίρετος does not appear in any of the literature that now comprises the New Testament, the word is used in a similar way to Ignatius by Justin to describe the distinctiveness of philosophy (Dial. 2.4) and by Philo to describe the particular joy that came to Abraham through Isaac (Leg. 3.86). In his citation of Job 5.5, Clement uses the word slightly differently to describe those who will not be delivered (i.e. separated from) evil (αὐτοὶ δὲ ἐκ κακῶν οὐκ ἐξαίρετοι ἔσονται; 1 Clem. 59.9). 130 Joly rightly mentions Ignatius’s use of παρουσία with reference to his earthly life as unusual in early Christian literature (Le dossier, 67). He notes that similar uses can be found later in the second century in Justin (1 Apol. 49.7) and Kerygma Petrou (Clement Alex., Strom. 6.15.128). 131 Fuller accounts of the way in which Ignatius wrote about Jesus’s life may be found in Eph. 18.2–19.3; Trall. 9.1–2; Smyrn. 1.1–3.3. 132 Citing Phld. 9.2, Olavi Tarvainen succinctly writes, “‘Wenn ihr in Liebe glaubt…’ – auch dieser Satz zeigt die enge Zusammengehörigkeit, die Untrennbarkeit von Glaube und Liebe bei Ignatius” (Glaube und Liebe, 18; “‘If you believe in love…’ – this clause also shows the close connection, the inseparability of faith and love in Ignatius” Faith and Love, 3–4).

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can now be understood most clearly when viewed through the lens of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.133 The conclusion that all things are good together (ὁµοῦ) again calls to mind the Ignatian emphasis on unity. Jesus and the actions that he accomplished in his life are the focal point through which Ignatius understands the entirety of God’s plan and the glue that binds it together into one unified redemptive act. As noted in section 3.2, unity is a key theme in Ignatius’s theology and his understanding of how redemption involves the Philadelphian church. Ignatius focuses much of his rhetorical energy on unity in Phld. 5.1–9.2, but the way in which unity functions can be seen more clearly now that Ignatius’s statements in Phld. 9.1–2 about Jesus’s role as the unifying element of God’s plan has been more thoroughly examined. The argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2 can now be sketched in light of the conclusion in Phld. 9.1–2. 3.6.3. The Place of Phld. 9.1 in the Argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2 Having urged the Philadelphians to be united under the bishop, Ignatius alludes to his own position as one who expects martyrdom in Phld. 5.1. In so doing, he aligns himself with Jesus, admits that he is imperfect (ἀναπάρτιστος), and notes that the prayer of the Philadelphian church will perfect him (ἡ προσευχὴ ὑµῶν εἰς θεόν µε ἀπαρτίσει). He exhorts them to love the prophets because they anticipated Jesus and were included “in the unity of Jesus Christ, saints who are worthy of love and admiration” (ἐν ἑνότητι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ὄντες, ἀξιαγάπητοι καὶ ἀξιοθαύµαστοι ἅγιοι; Phld. 5.2).134 In addition to the theme of unity that runs throughout the letter, Ignatius introduces perfection and the prophets in Phld. 5.1–2 and will close with perfection and prophets in Phld. 9.2. By his perfection through martyrdom and the Philadelphians’ prayer, Ignatius hopes to attain Jesus who perfected the prophets and enables them to be understood fully in his own death.135 With this reference to the prophets, Ignatius advises the Philadelphians not to listen to anyone who interprets Judaism to them (Phld. 6.1). He perceives the problem with what he calls Judaism as stemming from a misinterpretation of scripture, or perhaps more specifically, the prophets whom he has just mentioned.136 Ignatius allows that it is better to listen to Christianity (Χριστιανισµός) 133 Funk interprets “all” as the Old and New Testaments (Patres apostolici, 1.273). However, it is better understood as the entire redemptive plan that the writings now known as the Old and New Testaments describe. 134 For additional parallels between Phld. 5.1–6.1 and 8.2–9.2, see Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 149. 135 The statements about prayer in Phld. 5.1 have little to do with any priestly role assigned to the congregation. Pace Rothe, Die Anfänge, 731–732. 136 Schoedel points to the verb ἑρµενεύω and its use with reference to scriptural interpretation in Philo, Mut. 125 and Luke 24.27 (Ignatius of Antioch, 202).

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from someone who is circumcised than it is to listen to Judaism (Ἰουδαϊσµός) from someone who is uncircumcised. Ignatius defines Judaism as in some way not making what he regards as proper reference to Jesus. Disagreements about circumcision and Jewish law alone are not the primary problem that Ignatius addresses in Phld. 5.1–9.2. The disagreement seems to have come about regarding the place and role of Jesus over and against the prophets and other elements of the Jewish scriptures.137 The point that Ignatius wants to make is that Jesus must be the topic of discussion because he is the one in whom Ignatius and the Philadelphians, like the prophets before them, are to have their hope. Thus Ignatius writes that if either Christianity or Judaism fail to speak about Jesus, “they are tombstones and graves of the dead on whom merely human names are written” (Phld. 6.1). When Ignatius begins to recount his experience more fully, two problems are brought forward. The first comes from Ignatius’s insistence that the church be united under the bishop, elders, and deacons (Phld. 6.3–8.1). Since this section includes one of Ignatius’s references to the temple, it will be discussed more fully in the following chapter. For now it is sufficient to note that Ignatius has dealt with unity throughout many of the earlier portions of the letter and that the insistence on unity in the church under the bishop stems from what Jesus did in his life and death. Following schism denies Jesus’s suffering, and unity in the Eucharist stems from the belief that Jesus had only one flesh (Phld. 3.3; 4). The Philadelphians are to become imitators of Jesus because he imitated his Father (Phld. 7.2). The second problem concerns the relationship between the gospel and the archives (Phld. 8.2). Ignatius does not want to replace the archives with the gospel but understands the archives in light of what happened through the gospel. Ignatius immediately mentions the priest and high priest (Phld. 9.1). Within the context of the argument from Phld. 5.1–9.2, the claim that the high priest is better does not empty the Levitical priesthood of its significance. Instead, it places them in relation to Jesus the high priest. As high priest he makes the secrets of God available to the people on whose behalf he was first entrusted with them. When Ignatius shifts to the image of the door, he shows Jesus’s role as agent working in the opposite direction as Jesus provides access to the Father and makes the works of God’s people effective throughout all time. Jesus unifies the people of God in his actions as priest and door. Since this perfection was expected by the prophets, Ignatius concludes that all things together are good provided faith and love are evident as they were evident in Jesus’s life.

137

See section 2.3.

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Ignatius keeps the theme of unity at the center of Philadelphians, and the theme is particularly prominent throughout the polemic against his Jewish opponents in Phld. 5.1–9.2. These opponents regarded scripture in a different way from Ignatius, who makes sense of scripture based on Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. The image of high priest contributes to Ignatius’s discussion by offering him another example of how scripture has been redefined after Jesus while simultaneously connecting Jesus to the priests who predated him. Jesus is thus superior to the Levitical priesthood but linked with it in such a way that God’s plan is unified. Moreover, the metaphors of high priest and door allow Ignatius to express the way in which Jesus unifies God and God’s people in Philadelphia. Jesus mediates between the Father and the people by revealing the Father’s secrets to the Philadelphians as their high priest. Likewise, he mediates between the Philadelphians and God by offering the Philadelphians access to the Father. While Ignatius shares these metaphorical ways of describing Jesus with other early Christian and early Jewish texts, he has integrated these terms smoothly into his own letter so that the focus is on the unity of the Philadelphians with God and with one another through Jesus. Yet Ignatius has more to say about the Philadelphians in Phld. 7.2 when he instructs them to keep their flesh as the temple of God. It is to this passage and its relation to Phld. 9.1 that the next chapter turns.

Chapter 4

The Temple in Philadelphians 4.1. Introduction 4.1. Introduction

One would generally expect a priest to have a place in which to serve. Given this recognition and the important place of Jesus within Ignatius’s letter, it is somewhat surprising that more attention has not been given to the possibility of a connection between Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 and the Philadelphians as temple in Phld. 7.2. Paulsen makes no mention that Ignatius designates the church as temple in his commentary on Phld. 9.1 even though the temple and priest are only separated by two verses.1 Bauer likewise did not note any connections between the two images.2 Isacson’s treatment of the two passages also fails to make any such connections.3 Although Vall juxtaposes Phld. 7.2 and 9.1 in discussions of unity and faithfulness within Ignatius’s letters, 4 he does not draw particular attention to the presence of priestly and temple language in these two verses. Legarth devotes significant space to Phld. 7.2–8.1 and 9.1 in his study of the temple in Ignatius. While he articulates how Jesus works within the church in Phld. 9.1 and will continue to be an invaluable dialogue partner in this chapter, he gives little evidence that the images of priest and temple may be connected beyond their inclusion in a study of the topic. On the contrary, he argues that the Christology of Phld. 7.2–8.1 is not integrated with the symbolism of the temple.5 Kieffer’s study juxtaposes Phld. 7.2–8.1 and 9.1 along with Phld. 4, but regarding the high priest’s role in the temple Kieffer says only that Ignatius

1 Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 86–87. Similarly, he makes no prospective mention of Jesus as high priest in his commentary on Phld. 7.2, even though he notes the “christologische Zentierung aller Einzelaspekte” in Ignatius’s speech (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 85). 2 Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 260–261. 3 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 142–144, 149–150. 4 Vall, Learning Christ, 45 (unity), 170–171 (faithfulness). 5 “Resumerende kan det konstateres, at kristologien ikke bliver integreret i tempelsymbolismen i Phld 7,2–8,1” (In summary, it can be noted that the Christology is not integrated into the temple symbolism in Phld. 7.2–8.1; Legarth, Guds tempel, 205). See similarly Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 54.

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uses language from the Jerusalem temple without worrying about the concrete referent of the terms.6 This chapter will argue that the image of the temple and the metaphor of the high priest should be read together as part of Ignatius’s larger argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2. It will begin by noting that Ignatius mentions the temple in his report of his visit to Philadelphia. This mention of the temple will be explored as part of Ignatius’s self-quotations in Phld. 7.1–2, and its relationship to the Judaism that worries Ignatius in Philadelphia will also be sought. Having prepared the ground for a more thorough examination of the temple image in Phld. 7.2, the next section will begin by looking at the temple as one of five statements in Ignatius’s second quotation. Understanding the meaning of σάρξ within Ignatius’s letters more generally and within Philadelphians in particular will aid in the quest to understand what it means to keep the flesh as the temple of God. Since the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are mentioned in Phld. 7, the chapter will next examine what θεοῦ means in the phrase ναὸν θεοῦ. Finally, chapter 4 will build on the work of the previous chapter by discussing how the temple and high priest are used in Ignatius’s argument from Phld. 5.1–9.2. The temple and high priest work closely together in Ignatius’s argument as he seeks to depict the Philadelphians’ place as part of the people of God in whom Jesus mediates as high priest.

4.2. Ignatius’s Visit to Philadelphia 4.2. Ignatius’s Visit to Philadelphia

This section lays the groundwork upon which a more detailed analysis of Phld. 7.2 can be built by offering a brief overview of where the temple is found in the letter, and examining the way in which Phld. 7.2 contributes to Ignatius’s account of his time with the Philadelphian church. 4.2.1. The Temple in Phld. 7.2: An Overview The centrality of the theme of unity as well as its multi-faceted significance in Philadelphians were key to understanding how Jesus serves as the one mediator between God and God’s people in the previous chapter.7 Ignatius is a person who is set on unity because God dwells where there is unity (Phld. 8.1). Unity is also symbolized in the singularity of the Eucharist because Jesus is unique

6 “Ignace emploie des termes techniques du temple juif sans se soucier de leur connotation concrète” (Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 296). Here Kieffer has in mind the Jewish Temple’s destruction in 70 CE. 7 In particular, see section 3.2.

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(Phld. 4.1).8 The most common way in which Ignatius speaks of unity in Philadelphians is with respect to ecclesial authorities. Ignatius calls the Philadelphian church an eternal and enduring joy, “particularly if you are at one with the bishop, the elders who are with him, and the deacons who are appointed in the mind of Jesus Christ” (Phld. inscr.).9 The unnamed Philadelphian bishop’s unity with God remains Ignatius’s primary topic as he transitions into the body of the letter (Phld. 1.1–2), and those who are unified with the bishop also belong to God and Jesus (Phld. 3.2). Ignatius’s statements demonstrate knowledge of the situation in Philadelphia. He reminds the Philadelphians that he had visited them earlier as he passed through Asia.10 He recounts part of his time with the Philadelphians in Phld. 6.3–8.2. The mention of the temple occurs in this section. This description of his visit forms the central part of the argument from Phld. 5.1–9.2, and his past visit increases the likelihood that his description of his time there is accurate, even if polemically oriented. A report of his trip that was entirely fabricated could be easily falsified by his readers and would risk diminishing the position from which Ignatius makes his arguments. Such a description would be rhetorically ineffective since he depicts his conversations as occurring publicly and before others in the church. The account describes a visit that must have been filled with tension. Ignatius says that he has a blameless conscience about what happened in Philadelphia, both openly and in private. No one can claim that he was a burden while he was with them (Phld. 6.3). He then recounts what he said to the Philadelphians regarding unity with the church authorities. Some in Philadelphia thought that others in the community had tipped Ignatius off about an underlying division (Phld. 7.2). Ignatius insists that this was not the case but that he spoke as a person who was determined only to establish unity.11 Ignatius closes his account of the visit with a report of the exchange about the archives. In addition to the question about unity under church authority, the question about the archives concerns the proper relationship between Jesus and God’s earlier interactions with God’s people as recorded in scripture.12 A related question is raised regarding the prophets and God’s people in Phld. 5.2; 9.1–2. While this chapter will conclude by considering Phld. 5.1–9.2 in its entirety, the majority 8 Elsewhere, Ignatius objects strongly to the possibility of multiple Eucharists, baptisms, and agape meals in Smyrn. 8.1–2. Maier is probably correct to set these multiple celebrations in the context of Greco-Roman households and house churches (The Social Setting of the Ministry, 148). 9 µάλιστα ἐὰν ἐν ἑνὶ ὦσιν σὺν τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τοῖς σὺν αὐτῷ πρεσβυτέροις καὶ διακόνοις ἀποδεδειγµένοις ἐν γνώµῃ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 10 Ignatius writes to the Philadelphians after traveling through Philadelphia and Smyrna. He reports that he is now in Troas (Phld. 11.2). 11 Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 105. 12 Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” 97–106; Vall, Learning Christ, 27–33.

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of the chapter is concerned with the question of unity under proper authority as it is answered in Phld. 6.3–8.1, since Ignatius uses the temple in response to this issue. His use of the temple occurs in the context of a polemical report about his visit to Philadelphia. 4.2.2. Ignatius’s Self-Quotations While narrating his interaction with the Philadelphians in Phld. 7.1–2, Ignatius recalls two quotations that recapitulate his primary point regarding unity with proper authority. Ignatius understands his speech to have been divinely inspired and prophetic. He places several descriptions in his account to indicate that this is how he understood his speech. Ignatius then sets the two quotations parallel to one another with the second quotation clarifying and expanding the first. Ignatius indicates that his speech was given in a setting in which he encountered opposition.13 Thus Ignatius’s hypothetical protasis in Phld. 7.1 probably reflects a genuine opposition. In light of the evidence for opposition earlier in the letter,14 “even if someone desired to deceive me according to the flesh” (εἰ γὰρ καὶ κατὰ σάρκα µέ τινες ἠθέλησαν πλανῆσαι; Phld. 7.1) should be understood as a real desire on the part of some in Philadelphia to show that Ignatius was speaking falsely. When deception does not work, some claim that Ignatius had learned ahead of time about the division in the Philadelphian church (Phld. 7.2). 15 Ignatius’s counter to this statement implies that such foreknowledge would have harmed his case that his speech was prophetic. Ignatius speaks again in the context of opposition, but the opponents have shifted tactics. No longer is the desire to deceive Ignatius but to discount his word as illegitimate and not from God. In contrast, Ignatius is emphatic that his speech is divinely inspired and prophetic. The completion of the protasis “if someone wanted to deceive me” is simply “the Spirit is not deceived because it is from God” (ἀλλὰ τὸ πνεῦµα οὐ πλανᾶται, ἀπὸ θεοῦ ὄν; Phld. 7.1). In a sentence that not only substantiates Ignatius’s claim to be speaking truly but also anticipates the second objection of his opponents, Ignatius writes that the Spirit knows where it comes from and where it is going. Moreover, the Spirit “exposes hidden things” (τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχει; Phld. 7.1). 16 Both of Ignatius’s responses were delivered in the 13

Speigl, “Ignatius in Philadelphia,” 361. See the calls for unity in Phld. inscr.; 3.2–3; 4, which imply a lack of harmony, and the opposition to Judaism in Phld. 6.1. 15 Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 105. 16 On the similarities between Ignatius’s description of the Spirit and those found in John 3.8 and 1 Cor 2.10, see Inge, “Ignatius,” 65, 82; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 104–105; Corwin, St. Ignatius, 69; Paulsen, Studien, 36–37; Schoedel, Ignatius, 205–206; Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 199; Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius and the Writings that Later Formed the New 14

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Spirit.17 Both are likewise introduced by formulas that grant divine authorization to what is said. Ignatius reports that he “cried out among those who were there” and “spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God” (ἐκραύγασα µεταξὺ ὤν, ἐλάλουν µεγάλῃ φωνῇ, θεοῦ φωνῇ; Phld. 7.1).18 In contrast to those who suspected that Ignatius already knew about the division, he responds, “The one in whom I am bound is my witness that I knew from no human flesh. Rather the Spirit was preaching, saying these things” (µάρτυς δε µοι, ἐν ᾧ δέδεµαι, ὅτι ἀπὸ σαρκὸς ἀνθρωπίνης οὐκ ἔγνων. τὸ δὲ πνεῦµα ἐκήρυσσεν λέγον τάδε; Phld. 7.2). Far from the merely human authority that his opponents accuse him of having, this second formula claims not only that the Spirit spoke through him but that Jesus also bears witness to Ignatius’s words.19

Testament,” 184; Brent, Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy, 39; Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek, 422. 17 The long recension of Phld. 7.1 emphasizes even more strongly that Ignatius’s speech was given in the Spirit by adding, “For I have received it (the Spirit) from God” (παρὰ γὰρ θεοῦ αὐτὸ εἴληφα). Christopher Rowland points out that the return of the Spirit and prophetic activity are likewise characteristic of the Pauline letters (“Prophecy and the New Testament,” in Prophecy and the Prophets in Ancient Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, ed. John Day, LHBOTS 531 [New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012], 419). E.g. Rom 12.6; 1 Cor 12.1–14.40; Eph 4.11; 1 Thess 5.19. 18 “[Ignatius] shared with many others in the Graeco-Roman world the belief that a sudden loud utterance marked the inrush of the divine” (Schoedel, Ignatius, 205). See the account of the Sibyl prophesying to Aeneas in Vergil, Aen. 6.42–45, 77–82, 98–103. See also Trevett, “Prophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity,” 5; eadem, “Apocalypse, Ignatius, Montanism,” 317–318. Two textual problems arise in this phrase. First, rather than ὤν, some long recension manuscripts read ὧν. This reading is followed by Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 268n.1; Oscar von Gebhardt, Adolf von Harnack, and Theodor Zahn, Patrum apostolicorum opera, 5th ed. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906), 105. The change in this reading is marginal, as Zahn himself indicates when he describes the difference as “textkritisch gleichgültig” (Ignatius von Antiochien, 268n.1). Nevertheless, the presence of the participle in the middle recension, the translations, and some of the long recension manuscripts makes it the better attested reading. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.267. Second, the Greek text of the middle recension omits θεοῦ φωνῇ, and the long recension reads οὐκ ἐµὸς ὁ λόγος ἀλλὰ θεοῦ. However, the Latin translation reads Dei voce, and this reading is followed by the Syriac and Armenian translations. The reading represented in the translations is most likely to be correct because it is the most difficult reading. The readings in the Greek manuscripts are probably attempts to handle the repetition in µεγάλῃ φωνῇ, θεοῦ φωνῇ. The middle recension solves the problem by omitting the second part of the phrase, while the long recension paraphrases it. 19 The one in whom (ἐν ᾧ) Ignatius is bound refers to Jesus. Ignatius also speaks of himself as bound in Christ Jesus in Trall. 1.1; Rom. 1.1; Phld. 5.1. Similarly, Ignatius tells the Ephesians that he has been bound (δέδεµαι) in the name (Eph. 3.1). He connects his bondage (δέδεµαι) to Jesus’s sufferings in Trall. 10.1 and Smyrn. 4.2. On the role of ἐν Χριστῷ in Ignatius’s theology, see Helmut Korn, Die Nachwirkungen der Christusmystik des Paulus in den Apostolischen Vätern (Borna: Robert Noske, 1928), 69–82.

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Ignatius thus depicts himself as a prophetic voice in the midst of the Philadelphians.20 In addition to Ignatius’s speech “in the Spirit” and the presence of authorization formulas, Trevett has noticed three other elements of this passage that indicate that Ignatius’s message is prophetic speech.21 First, the references to the volume of Ignatius’s voice are prophetic in connotation. This is particularly true in Revelation where prophetic utterance often occur with a “loud voice.”22 Second, Ignatius claims to be the voice of God and thereby fulfills early Christian expectation of what prophecy is to be.23 Prophecy is the speech of God to his people through one representative. Third, Trevett argues that Ignatius’s speech was tested.24 The testing of prophecy is witnessed in other texts describing the reception of prophecy in early Christianity.25 When Ignatius is accused of not relying on revelation, Trevett understands this accusation and Ignatius’s response to be part of the process of testing prophecy. This final piece of evidence is possible, but it is not the only way to read the brief and selectively narrated story of Ignatius’s time in Philadelphia. Trevett’s scenario is a plausible reading of Phld. 7.1–2, but the passage makes sense if other opponents who make no appeal to testing prophecy are in view.26 Nevertheless, Trevett’s larger point that Ignatius depicts himself as a prophet and his message as a word from God is convincing. The prophetic message that Ignatius brings comes in two parts. Ignatius’s first statement is concise and to the point. “Pay attention to the bishop, the presbytery, and deacons” (τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ προσέχετε καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ καὶ διακόνοις; Phld. 7.1). The call for unity under proper authority is depicted as a call that comes directly from God via Ignatius’s mouth. The second part of the

20

“Die Worte, die Ign Philad 7,2 als eine pneumatische Aeusserung des Ignatius stehen, die er mitten in vernünftiger bewusster Rede tat, geben eine Anschauung von pneumatischer Verzückung in der Gemeindeversammlung, wobei der Redende vorbringt, was der Geist ihn reden heisst” (Rudolf Knopf, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter: Geschichte der christlichen Gemeinden von Beginn der Flavierdynastie bis zum Ende Hadrians, [Tübingen: Mohr, 1905], 252). See also Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 104–105; Paulsen, Studien, 122. 21 Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 135–136. Maier also sees Phld. 7.1–2 as prophetic (Social Setting, 160). One might add to Trevett’s list that Ignatius has just prayed that his witness will not be a word against any of them (Phld. 6.3). This seems to indicate that Ignatius understood his words to be imbued with a special authority. 22 Rev 1.10; 5.2, 12; 6.10. 23 Clare K. Rothschild, Hebrews as Pseudepigraphon: The History and Significance of the Pauline Attribution of Hebrews, WUNT 235 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 193. 24 See further Trevett, “Prophecy and Anti-Episcopal Activity,” 9. 25 E.g. 1 Cor 14.29; 1 Thess 5.20–21; 1 John 4.1–3; Did. 11.7–12; Herm. Mand. 11.7–17 (43.7–17). See further Jannes Reiling, Hermas and Christian Prophecy: A Study of the Eleventh Mandate, NovTSup 37 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 66–73. 26 Trevett herself acknowledges that the usual language of testing prophecy is not used in Phld. 7.1–2 (A Study of Ignatius, 136).

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message receives the same authority. This prophetic message clarifies and expands the first. “Do nothing without the bishop. Guard your flesh like the temple of God. Love unity. Flee division. Be imitators of Jesus Christ, just as he also was of his Father” (χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου µηδὲν ποιείτε, τὴν σάρκα ὑµῶν ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ τηρεῖτε, τὴν ἕνωσιν ἀγαπᾶτε, τοὺς µερισµοὺς φεύγετε, µιµηταὶ γίνεσθε Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ; Phld. 7.2). The first command links the second quotation back to the first. The four imperatives that follow explain what it will look like to act in accordance with the bishop. In order to understand how the image of the temple contributes to Ignatius’s rhetorical purposes in Philadelphians, a more thorough examination of the way in which these five imperatives hold together will be required.

4.3. The Temple in Phld. 7.2: A More Thorough Look 4.3. The Temple in Phld. 7.2: A More Thorough Look

Ignatius’s reference to the temple occurs as part of his argument against Judaism in Phld. 5.1–9.2. The Judaism that Ignatius considers dangerous to the Philadelphian community seems to have attracted Gentiles and is concerned with how to interpret Jewish scriptures. This interpretation of the Jewish scriptures occurs without what Ignatius understands as proper appreciation for how God’s redemptive action in Jesus affects scriptural interpretation. This group seems to have caused problems for the bishop in Philadelphia and also caused tension for Ignatius during his stay in the city. Moreover, Ignatius is also troubled by some who do not support the bishop.27 This section will thoroughly examine the temple in Phld. 7.2 while keeping in mind the opponents against whom Ignatius writes. 4.3.1. The Temple in Ignatius’s Second Quotation Ignatius recounts his speech in Phld. 7.2 as part of a prophetic utterance that he spoke while with the Philadelphians in the course of his journey across Asia. He insists that he only knew because God spoke through him and reminds the Philadelphians of what the Spirit said with a rhythmically composed series of imperatives. Before proceeding further, it will be helpful to have the complete text of Phld. 7.2 in view.

27

On Ignatius’s opponents in Philadelphians, see section 2.3.

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οἱ28 δὲ ὑποπτεύσαντές29 µε ὡς προειδότα30 τὸν µερισόν τινων λέγειν ταῦτα· µάρτυς δέ µοι, ἐν ᾧ δέδεµαι, ὅτι ἀπὸ σαρκὸς ἀνθρωπίνης31 οὐκ ἔγνων. τὸ δὲ πνεῦµα ἐκήρυσσεν32 λέγον33 τάδε· χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου µηδὲν ποιείτε, τὴν σάρκα ὑµῶν ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ τηρεῖτε,34 τὴν ἕνωσιν ἀγαπᾶτε, τοὺς µερισµοὺς φεύγετε, µιµηταὶ γίνεσθε Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ. But some suspected that I said these things because I knew ahead of time about the division of some. But the one in whom I am bound is my witness that I did not know from human flesh. Rather the Spirit was preaching, saying these things, “Do nothing without the bishop. 28

The long recension reads εἰ for οἱ. However, a participle is found in the middle recension and Latin translation and is also indicated by the Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian translations. These readings indicate that the article is more probable. 29 The word ὑποπτεύσαντες is likely to be the earliest reading to which textual critics can return based on the current manuscript evidence. This reading is based on the Latin translation, which renders the phrase quidam autem suspicati me, and the probable corruption of the participle in the middle recension, which reads πτέσαντες. The reading of the long recension, ὑποπτεύετε, likely uses the correct verb, but the second person and present tense make this reading a difficult fit in the rest of the middle recension. On the text-critical problems in the beginning of Phld. 7.2, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.266–268; Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.270. 30 The Latin translation reads ut praescientem, which likely reflects a Greek text similar to ὡς προειδότα. The long recension reads προµαθόντα, but this reading seems to be secondary. Zahn is sympathetic to the Syriac and Armenian translations, which seem to reflect a Greek text such as ὥσπερ εἰδότα (Ignatius von Antiochien, 268). However, Lightfoot notes that the Latin and Greek manuscripts of the middle recension are generally the stronger evidence, and both are in agreement at this point (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.268). 31 The Latin translation is again close to the middle recension and reads a carne humana. The Syriac and Armenian translations drop the reference to flesh and simply read “from human beings,” while the long recension reads ἀπὸ στόµατος ἀνθρώπου. 32 The long recension reads ἐκήρυξέ µοι. The different tense and indirect object clarifies that Ignatius spoke to the Philadelphians after being inspired by the Spirit. The long recension may be an attempt to distance the Spirit from direct speech to the Philadelphians, which could be understood on the basis of the middle recension. Yet the Latin translation reads similarly to the middle recension (praedicavit), while the Syriac and Armenian translations contain verbs for shouting. Thus the middle recension offers the best reading at this point. 33 The Latin recension likewise contains a participle, dicens. A spelling discrepancy takes place in the Greek manuscripts. The manuscripts of the long recension are split, with some reading λέγον and others λέγων. The middle recension follows the latter reading. While there is no change in meaning based on this change in spelling, the participle should be preferred to the indicative verbs found in the Syriac and Armenian translations. I have followed Bart D. Ehrman (The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., LCL 24–25 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003], 1.290) and Michael W. Holmes (The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], 242) in preferring λέγον. 34 This reading follows the long recension. The middle recension reads τηρῆτε and may represent a simple difference in spelling since both forms could be used as imperatives. However, τηρῆτε can also be subjunctive in form. Whatever spelling is followed, the form should be parsed as an imperative in keeping with the Latin translation and the other imperatives in the series. I have again followed Ehrman (Apostolic Fathers, 1.290) and Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 242) in the above reading.

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Keep your flesh as the temple of God. Love unity. Flee divisions. Be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he was of his Father” (Phld. 7.2).

In response to those who thought that Ignatius knew about the divisions ahead of time, he argues that the Spirit gave him something to say. Ignatius’s report of what he said is carefully crafted paraenesis to correct a mistake that he perceives as misguided.35 He instructs the Philadelphians not to act apart from the bishop, to guard their flesh, to love unity, to flee division, and to imitate Jesus. Although much of what Ignatius says in Phld. 7.2 may be found elsewhere in Philadelphians or his other letters, these instructions are not simple restatements of Ignatius’s common paraenetic themes.36 Rather, Ignatius conveys his directions in twenty-eight carefully ordered words consisting of three rhyming couplets.37 As the argument will soon attempt to show, the couplets function as more or less parallel statements. Each couplet works together to illuminate Ignatius’s message about how the Philadelphians should act in unity. The rhyme can best be illustrated by breaking Ignatius’s speech at the rhyming words. An English translation has also been provided that attempts in some way to imitate the rhyme.38 A χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπισκόπου µηδὲν ποιεῖτε, A’ τὴν σάρκα ὑµῶν ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ τηρεῖτε, B τὴν ἕνωσιν ἀγαπᾶτε, B’ τοὺς µερισµοὺς φεύγετε, C µιµηταὶ γίνεσθε Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, C’ ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ

Without the bishop, nothing complete Like the temple of God, your flesh keep. Love union. Hate division. Of Jesus Christ imitators be As also of his Father was he

In the first couplet, both lines end in -εῖτε. Each verb is comprised of three syllables, and the normal verb inflections produce a euphonic sound. 39 The 35

Isacson argues that the “terseness” of Ignatius’s message indicates that the words that he uses have been deliberately selected (To Each Their Own Letter, 143). 36 E.g. bishop: Phld. 3.1; 4; 7.1; unity: Phld. 3.2; 4; 5.2; 9.1; division: Phld. 2.1. On these themes in other letters, see Schoedel, Ignatius, 205n.5. 37 Vall, Learning Christ, 57. See also Legarth, Guds tempel, 186; Heinrich Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter bis auf Irenäus (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1899), 86–87. 38 Weinel likewise mimics Ignatius’s rhyme in his translation (Wirkungen, 86): “Ohne den Bischof in keinem Ding verfahret; Euer Fleisch als einen Tempel Gottes wahret! Die Einigkeit liebt; Die Spaltungen flieht! Werdet ähnlich Jesu, dem Christ, Wie er es selbst seinem Vater ist!” 39 J. D. Denniston notes that the juxtaposition of words with similar endings does not seem to have bothered Greek speakers in the same way that this juxtaposition may have been

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second couplet ends similarly in ᾶτε/ετε but is set apart from the first with its shorter, antithetical statements. The final couplet contains only one verb. This allows for a different rhyme. In this case the rhyme occurs in two-syllable words that each have the masculine singular genitive ending -οῦ. The third couplet is also connected by a ὡς-clause and the use of Jesus as an example to imitate in the first half because of his actions toward the Father in the second half.40 Ignatius’s speech is thus not an indiscriminate outburst at his opponents.41 The rhymes at the end of each couplet link the lines together as particular contributions to Ignatius’s larger point. They organize Ignatius’s speech into smaller pieces in order to draw attention to how these pieces function as part of a larger collection. There is also a euphonic quality to Ignatius’s rhymes. Finally, the rhyming structure sets Ignatius’s speech apart from the rest of the letter. Ignatius has already set the speech apart as a prophetic word in his account of his time in Philadelphia (Phld. 6.3–7.2). 42 The rhyming structure gives further evidence for how Ignatius portrays himself in this speech. He speaks to the Philadelphians as a prophet who has been inspired by the Spirit to instruct the Philadelphians. 4.3.1.1. Ignatius and Greek Rhyme There are two elements of this reading of Phld. 7.2 that require attention. The first concerns the claim that Ignatius’s speech rhymes. Although it is not necessary for poetic or prophetic passages to rhyme, it is not unusual for rhymes or other elements of assonance to be utilized in Greek literature.43 For example, Theocritus records a lullaby that concludes ὄλβιοι εὐνάζοισθε καὶ ὄλβιοι ἀῶ ἵκοισθε (Id. 24.9).44 Authors may include double rhymes at the beginning and frowned upon more often by Latin speakers (Greek Prose Style [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952], 124). 40 Other examples of ὡς used in elliptical statements include Jos. Asen. 12.7; Matt 13.43; 26.55; Mark 10.15; Rom 13.13; 1 Cor 9.26; 13.11; Gal 3.16; Eph 5.8. 41 Brent understands Phld. 7.2 as such an outburst (Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy, 41). 42 See section 4.2.2. 43 Rhymes are not the only way in which Greek literature and rhetoric could employ sounds to affect readers and listeners. On the general use of euphony in Greek literature, see Denniston, Greek Prose Style, 124–139; W. B. Stanford, The Sound of Greek: Studies in the Greek Theory and Practice of Euphony, Sather Classical Lectures 38 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 74–98; Michael Silk, “Assonance, Greek,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower, Anthony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 186. 44 “Happily may you sleep, and happily may you come to dawn.” Stanford highlights further euphonic elements in Theocritus Id. 24.7–8 that suggest that the repetition of -οισθε is not merely incidental (The Sound of Greek, 80–81).

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end of each line, as Plato does in Hippias Maior. In contrast to Socrates, Hippias states his preference for praising ancients rather than those who are currently alive, εὐλαβούµενος µὲν φθόνον τῶν ζώντων, φοβούµενος δὲ µῆνιν τῶν τετελευτηκότων (Hipp. maj. 282a).45 Euripides employs a series of lines that all end in -ται for Heracles’s speech while he is drunk. βροτοῖς ἄπασι κατθανεῖν ὀφείλεται κοὐκ ἔστι θνητῶν ὅστις ἐξεπίσταται τὴν αὔριον µέλλουσαν εἰ βιώσεται τὸ τῆς τύχης γὰρ ἀφανὲς οἷ προβήσεται (Alc. 782–785).46

Finally, rhymes may be employed in proverbial statements. Two examples of such proverbial instances may suffice. In Menelaus’s response to Telemachus, the infinitives anchor the two parts of the axiom: χρὴ ξεῖνον παρεόντα φιλεῖν, ἐθέλοντα δὲ πέµπειν (Homer, Od. 15.74).47 Elsewhere, when the poet calls on the muses, he employs a rhyme that breaks off his request from his previous description of Agamemnon and the Achaeans. The rhyme plays on the feminine plural ending of Μοῦσαι and ἔχουσαι: ἔσπετε νῦν µοι, Μοῦσαι, Ὀλύµπια δώµατ’ ἔχουσαι (Homer, Il. 2.484).48 Although rhyming could be regarded as so common as to be unnoteworthy in a language that is as highly inflected as Greek and is much less often exploited to poetic effect than in English, these examples illustrate that rhymes can be employed in a variety of situations. A rhyming structure can likewise be found in Phld. 7.2. Because Ignatius has already set this speech apart as a prophetic clarification of his initial statement in Phld. 7.1, the rhyme can be understood as an intensification and further demarcation of Ignatius’s prophetic speech. The repetition of endings further unifies Ignatius’s speech into a coherent unit that is set apart from the rest of the report. 45 “Being cautious against envy for the living, while fearing the wrath of the dead.” Further examples of rhymes formed by homeoteleuton at the beginning and end of lines in the literature of Demosthenes and Isocrates may be found in Denniston, Greek Prose Style, 135– 136. 46 Arthur S. Way translates these lines as “From all mankind the debt of death is due / Nor of all mortals is there one that knows / If through the coming morrow he shall live: / For trackless is the way of fortune’s feet” (Euripdes: Ion, Hippolytus, Medea, Alcestis, vol. 4, LCL [London: William Heinemann, 1912], 471). C. A. E. Luchnig and H. M. Roisman note that the rhyme is broken in the following line by moving ἁλίσκεται to the penultimate position (κἄστ’ οὐ διδακτὸν οὐδ’ ἁλίσκεται τέχνῃ; Euripides, Alc. 786). They then suggest that Heracles’s rhyme might provide another indication of his inebriation (Euripides’ Alcestis with Notes and Commentary, OSCC 29 [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003], 140). 47 “One should love the present guest, but send out the one who desires (to go).” 48 “Tell me now, o Muses, who have houses at Olympus.” G. S. Kirk rightly observes that the invocation of the muses in Il. 2.484–493 prepares the reader for the catalog of Achaean leaders and ships to be a major episode in Il. 2.484–760 (The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 1 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], 160).

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4.3.1.2. Ignatius and Parallelism In addition, a second matter should be addressed in this interpretation of Phld. 7.2, namely, the claim that the statements are parallel. Although this appears to be somewhat straightforward in the last four lines, it is not clear from the first two lines alone that parallelism is at work. However, examples can be supplied to suggest that early Christian and early Jewish prophetic and poetic literature often employed parallelism.49 When John sees seven angels holding the final seven plagues, he also sees those who have conquered the beast singing on a glass sea (Rev 15.1–2). Their song begins with a parallel structure that highlights God’s actions and his name twice each: µεγάλα καὶ θαυµαστὰ τὰ ἔργα σου, κύριε ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ. δίκαι καὶ ἀληθιναὶ αἱ ὁδοί σου, ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν ἐθνῶν (Rev 15.3).50 In the midst of an apocalyptic book that has just mentioned the appearance of another sign in the form of seven plagues, a two-fold parallelism is employed in praise.51 Mary utilizes a similarly parallel structure in her song of praise in the Lukan infancy narrative: µεγαλύνει ἡ ψυχή µου τὸν κύριον, καὶ ἠγαλλίασεν τὸ πνεῦµά µου ἐπὶ τῷ θεῷ τῷ σωτῆρί µου (Luke 1.46– 47).52 The parallelism continues later in the song as she proclaims: καθεῖλεν δυνάστας ἀπὸ θρόνων καὶ ὕψωσεν ταπεινούς πεινῶντας ἐνέπλησεν ἀγαθῶν καὶ πλουτοῦντας ἐξαπέστειλεν κενούς (Luke 1.52–53).53

49

Such examples may build from examples found in biblical Hebrew poetry, on which, see James Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 1–58; Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, 2nd ed., BRS (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), passim. 50 “Great and marvelous are your works, o God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O king of nations.” Observing the description of this song as a song of Moses and the Lamb, Pierre Prigent rightly emphasizes the guarantee to the nations that God’s ways are just on the basis of the judgment that is executed in Rev 15 and its similarities to the judgments executed on behalf of the Israelites in the exodus (Commentary on the Apocalypse of Saint John, tr. Wendy Pradels [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001], 460–462). 51 See also Rev 4.11; 5.9–10. 52 “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” 53 “He has brought down the powerful from thrones / and lifted up the humble. / He has filled the hungry with good things / and has sent the rich away empty.” In Zechariah’s song, the execution of redemption in Luke 1.68 parallels the raising of the horn of salvation in Luke 1.69. Further narratival parallels are developed by Luke between the characters of Jesus and John the Baptist in Luke 1–2. However, Joseph Verheyden is correct that these parallels function to differentiate Jesus and John as much as to associate their origins (“Creating Differences through Parallelism: Luke’s Handling of the Tradition of John the Baptist and Jesus in the Infancy Narrative,” in Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities, ed. Claire Clivaz et al., WUNT 281 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 137–160).

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Likewise, parallel statements can be found throughout prophetic books in the Septuagint. In Isa 13.10, the prophet writes, καὶ σκοτισθήσεται τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνατέλλοντος, καὶ ἡ σελήνη οὐ δώσει τὸ φῶς αὐτῆς.54 Elsewhere, the Old Greek of Isaiah parallels the rolling up of heaven like a scroll and the falling of the stars like leaves from a vine: καὶ ἑλιγήσεται ὁ οὐρανὸς ὡς βιβλίον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἄστρα πεσεῖται ὡς φύλλα ἐξ ἀµπέλου καὶ ὡς πίπτει φύλλα ἀπὸ συκῆς (Isa 34.4).55 The parallelism is not difficult to see. Heaven and stars can be set sideby-side, while rolling up and falling away are both destructive actions. However, when the Markan Jesus quotes Isa 13.10 and something close to Isa 34.4, the stars are set parallel to the powers rather than to the heavens. ὁ ἥλιος σκοτισθήσεται, καὶ ἡ σελήνη οὐ δώσει τὸ φέγγος αὐτῆς, καὶ οἱ ἀστέρες ἔσονται ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πίπτοντες,56 καὶ αἱ δυνάµεις αἱ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς σαλευθήσονται (Mark 13.24–25)57

54

“And the rising of the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.” “Heaven shall roll up like a scroll, and all the stars shall fall like leaves from a vine and as leaves fall from a fig tree” (Isa 34.4). Translation from Moisés Silva, “Isaiah,” in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 850. In her careful analysis of Old Greek Isaiah, Mirjam van der Vorm-Croughs observes that the repetition of φύλλα is one instance of a larger trend in Old Greek Isaiah to render the subject repetitively (The Old Greek of Isaiah: An Analysis of Its Pluses and Minuses, SCS 61 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014], 179–180). 56 The Matthean parallel does not include the periphrastic construction and instead reads καὶ οἱ ἀστέρες πεσοῦνται ἀπὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (Matt 24.29). 57 “The sun will be darkened / And the moon will not give its light / and the stars will fall from heaven / and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken” (Mark 13.24–25). Both the Markan text and the Old Greek of Isaiah may attempt to capture different elements of what is reflected in the Masoretic text of Isa 34.4, which reads ‫ונמקו כל צבא השמים ונגלו‬ ‫“( כספר השמים וכל צבאם יהול כנהל עלה מגפן וכנבלת מתאנה‬And all the host of heaven will dissolve, and the heavens will be rolled like a scroll, and all their host will wither like a leaf withering on a vine and withering on a fig tree”). On the use of early Christian citations as a textual witness to the Greek Old Testament, see the comments of Johannes de Vries and Martin Karrer, “Early Christian Quotations and the Textual History of the Septuagint: A Summary of the Wuppertal Research Project and Introduction to this Volume,” in Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity: Textgeschichte und Schriftrezeption im frühen Christentum, SCS 60 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 4–6 and Martin Karrer, “Der Text der Septuaginta im frühen Christentum: Bericht über das Wuppertaler Forschungsproject,” in Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity: Textgeschichte und Schriftrezeption im frühen Christentum, SCS 60 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2013), 25–26, 44–49. Gert J. Steyn similarly concludes, “The mere listing of the reading of a particular NT eclectic text in the critical apparatus of LXX editions is not sufficient. These NT manuscripts – such as the two papyri discussed in this contribution – form part of the pool of textual witnesses that ought to be considered during the process of reconstructing a LXX text” (“Two New Testament Papyri on the Quotations in Hebrews and their Possible Value in the Reconstruction of LXX Texts,” in Die Septuaginta – 55

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Additional instances of such parallel statements can also be found in the context of wisdom and poetry. For example, Pseudo-Phocylides writes, πάντα δίκαια νέµειν, µηδὲ κρίσιν ἐς χάριν ἕλκε (Ps.-Phoc. 9).58 The author advocates a fair administration of justice using the phrase δίκαια νέµειν,59 and extends the contrast with a negative example of how not to dispense justice.60 A contrast between the lowly and powerful may be found in Wis 6.6: ὁ γὰρ ἐλάχιστος συγγνωστός ἐστιν ἐλέους, δυνατοὶ δὲ δυνατῶς ἐτασθήσονται.61 Rather than the antithetical example of parallelism in Wis 6.6, Syriac Menander parallels anxiety and sadness as well as death and lack of life, when he writes, “If you are anxious you shall die; and if you are sad, you shall never (really) live” (Syr. Men. 389–390).62 In short, examples of parallelism may be found in early Christian and early Jewish prophetic and poetic literature. It is thus not surprising that Ignatius has employed it in Phld. 7.2. Ignatius depicts himself as a prophet and employs a parallel, rhyming structure to further this portrayal. It remains to say something about his prophetic message. The message largely concerns the unity of the church around proper ecclesial authorities.63

Texte, Theologien, Einflüsse: 2. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 23.–27.7.2008, ed. Wolfgang Kraus and Martin Karrer, WUNT 252 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010], 255). 58 “Always dispense justice and stretch not judgment for favor.” This translation closely follows Pieter W. van der Horst, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, SVTP 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 117. Van der Horst rightly points out that ἐς χαριν can mean “for favor” or “for a favor” as in Jdt 8.23; 10.8. See LSJ, χάρις, VI 2a. See also Pascale Derron, Pseudo-Phocylide: Sentences – Texte établi, traduit, et commenté, Budé (Paris: Société d’édition les belles lettres, 1986), 3n.2. 59 On the use of this phrase in Greek texts, see Walter T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, CEJL (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 89. Among the texts that he cites, see especially, Josephus, A.J. 7.147; Sib. Or. 1.272, 295; 2.49. 60 Derron includes a list of parallel passages that illuminates the literary background against which this statement should be read (Pseudo-Phocylide, 37). 61 “For the lowest person is pardonable in mercy, but the powerful will be powerfully tested.” 62 The numbering and translation used for Syr. Men. follows Tjitze Baarda, “The Sentences of the Syriac Menander,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983–1985), 2.583–606, here at 603. A similar passage to Syr. Men. 389–390 may be found in Sir 30.24: ζῆλος καὶ θυµὸς ἐλαττοῦσιν ἡµέρας, καὶ πρὸ καιροῦ γῆρας ἄγει µέριµνα (“Jealousy and anger shorten days, and worry leads to old age before its time”). 63 “Cuál es el contenido del pregón del Pneuma? Es la unidad con el Obispo y la comunidad” (What is the content of the Spirit’s proclamation? It is unity with the bishop and the community; José Pablo Martin, “La pneumatologia en Ignacio de Antioquia,” Salesianum 33 [1971]: 401).

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4.3.1.3. Interpreting Phld. 7.2 Ignatius’s carefully selected words enhance how the Philadelphians should understand his earlier instruction that they should pay attention to the bishop, presbytery, and deacons (Phld. 7.1). This theme is immediately resumed in the first line of the first couplet. The structure of the rhyme implies that the meaning of the first couplet’s second line is connected to this. This is more clearly the case in the second and third couplets, but the presence of these clearer examples increases the likelihood that the first couplet works in a similar fashion. The loose similarities to the structure of early Jewish and early Christian poetry explored in section 4.3.1.2 further increase the likelihood that the two lines in this couplet mutually interpret one another. Whatever it means to guard the flesh as God’s temple, it is connected to the harmony that Ignatius desires with the bishop. The second couplet develops Ignatius’s instruction not to act without the bishop by pairing unity and division. The Philadelphians should love unity and stay far away from divisions. While Ignatius continues to develop the theme of unity under the bishop, the unqualified references to concord and fragmentation expand the scope of his instruction. Unity under the bishop is a significant theme in Philadelphians, but it is not the only form of unity that Ignatius discusses. 64 By mentioning unity and division without further specification, Ignatius allows these other meanings to enter the picture even in his instruction to be unified under the bishop. Finally, Ignatius tells the Philadelphians to imitate Jesus in the final couplet. Ignatius urges the imitation of Christ or God in other letters,65 but his instructions to the Philadelphians add a different component to these. The reason that Jesus should be imitated is because he was an imitator of the Father.66 This imitation of Jesus will lead the Philadelphians to act in accordance with the bishop since “as many as belong to God and Jesus Christ are with the bishop” (Phld. 3.2).67 Yet this final couplet likewise expands what Ignatius has said about behaving in accordance with the bishop. This way of acting is intimately connected to following Jesus and operating in unity not only with the bishop but also with God.68 64

See section 3.2. E.g. Eph. 1.1; Trall. 1.2; Rom. 6.3. 66 H. H. Drake Williams, “‘Imitate Me:’ Interpreting Imitation in 1 Corinthians in Relation to Ignatius of Antioch,” Perichoresis 11 (2013): 80–81. 67 “The Philadelphians are enjoined to model the divine example of unity (Jesus and the Father) in their own ranks by uniting with the bishop” (Lotz, Ignatius and Concord, 170). 68 “Unidad entre los cristianos en torno al obispo, y unidad con Cristo y Dios. Dos aspectos coincidentes de la unidad ignaciana” (Unity between Christians around the bishop and unity with Christ and God. Two coinciding aspects of Ignatian unity; Martin, “La pneumatologia,” 401). 65

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Ignatius has carefully arranged the words that he uses to convey his message to the Philadelphians. The rhyme in each couplet links the material in these lines together, while the rhyme of the overall structure works in conjunction with Ignatius’s introductory phrases to set his quotation apart as prophetic speech that has been inspired by the Spirit. The entire quotation defends Ignatius’s earlier statement that the Philadelphians should pay attention to the proper ecclesial authorities (Phld. 7.1), but each couplet contributes to this aim in a different way. The image of the temple works with the first line of the first couplet to resume Ignatius’s injunction to be loyal to the bishop. Yet Ignatius relates the image of the temple more specifically to the flesh. The significance of this attribution must now be considered. 4.3.2. Philadelphian σάρξ Ignatius uses the word σάρξ in more than one way, although his usage likely has fewer nuances than Paul’s use of the term. 69 Nevertheless, the way in which Ignatius pairs flesh and spirit sits comfortably within early Christian tradition and within Pauline and Johannine discourse in particular.70 Ignatius can use σάρξ in a negative way in his letters, but the majority of the times that the word appears it is morally neutral. Because flesh is discussed in all of the Ignatian letters, a brief overview of how the word functions in the corpus is fitting. However, this section will focus on how the word is used in Philadelphians and more specifically on its meaning in Phld. 7.2. Ignatius can use σάρξ to discuss a way of living that is less than what he desires. He calls the Magnesians to assume the character of God by respecting one another. They should not view their neighbor in a fleshly manner (κατὰ σάρκα) but should demonstrate love in Jesus Christ (ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Magn. 6.2). The flesh is deficient to live up to the call of love that is found in Jesus. Ignatius tells the Romans that he is not writing to them in accordance with the flesh but in accordance with the mind of God (οὐ κατὰ σάρκα ὑµῖν ἔγραψα, ἀλλὰ γνώµην θεοῦ; Rom. 8.3). The flesh is again depicted as something less than what God intends. Similarly, Ignatius commands the Romans not to love his flesh, by which he desires them not to act in opposition to God’s plan for Ignatius’s death (Rom. 2.1). Ignatius does not act according to this lower standard and expects that this will carry weight in the Roman church. Ignatius more often uses σάρξ in a morally neutral sense. Thus Onesimus is the bishop over the Ephesians in the flesh (ἐν σαρκί; Eph. 1.3), that is, in the physical realm in which Onesimus and the Ephesians live. Because Ignatius 69

Vall, Learning Christ, 122. Yet Horacio E. Lona may well be correct that Ignatius employs σάρξ in as semantically complex a manner as anyone except Paul in early Christian literature (“Der Sprachgebrauch von ΣΑΡΞ, ΣΑΡΚΙΚΟΣ bei Ignatius von Antiochien,” ZKT 108 [1986]: 383). 70 Schoedel, Ignatius, 23.

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has seen the bishop, he can say that he has seen the entire Ephesian congregation. The word σάρξ simply refers to the sphere of space and time in which human life is experienced. Jesus died and was raised in this sphere, but the phrase ἐν σάρκι takes an additional nuance when Ignatius explains the significance of this event to the Smyrnaeans. When he says that Jesus was “nailed” (καθηλωµένον) in the flesh, flesh indicates not the realm in which Jesus was crucified but the material that was fastened to the cross (Smyrn. 1.2). Similarly, Jesus was raised in the flesh (ἐν σαρκί; Smyrn. 3.1),71 and he ate with his disciples “as a fleshly being” (ὡς σαρκικός; Smyrn. 3.3).72 Ignatius emphasizes the corporeal nature of Jesus’s body without any hint that σάρξ is somehow deficient.73 Ignatius mentions σάρξ six times in Philadelphians.74 In the first of these occurrences, he appeals to Jesus’ flesh in the context of eucharistic celebration to keep unity in the church (Phld. 4). The single Eucharist unifies the church and is undergirded by Jesus’s suffering (Phld. 3.3; 4). To become schismatic represents disagreement with Jesus’s suffering because his suffering is signified in the celebration of the Eucharist. Ignatius mentions Jesus’s one σάρξ in this context along with the single cup, altar, and bishop.75 Jesus’s flesh serves as a unifying symbol in Phld. 4 and is implicitly linked to Jesus’s passion by eucharistic terminology. Yet Ignatius elsewhere refers to Jesus as coming in the flesh in addition to mentioning him in the context of eucharistic symbolism.76 In these passages, Jesus’s flesh is the physical material of which his body is comprised. Both meanings seem to be in play in Phld. 4.77 Jesus’s flesh is uniquely represented in the Eucharist because God took on human flesh in historical space and time. When Ignatius next speaks of Jesus’s flesh in Phld. 5.1, the historical referent of Jesus’s flesh is not forgotten. The simile that compares the gospel and the flesh as something to which Ignatius flees does not allow the reference to Jesus’s flesh as a historical reality to be dismissed. Ignatius flees to the gospel as to something tangible. This sets up the argument

71

Lona, “Der Sprachgebrauch von ΣΑΡΞ,” 389–390. Ignatius also mentions that Jesus ate and drank in Trall. 9.1, but he mentions Jesus’s eating and drinking between his birth and trial before Pilate rather than after the resurrection. 73 Paulsen draws attention to the use of σαρκοφόρος in Smyrn 5.2 and the significant place of σάρξ in a letter that seems to have docetic opponents in view (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 92). 74 Phld. 4.1; 5.1; 7.1; 7.2 (2x); 11.2. 75 Similar passages occur in Eph 4.4–6; Magn. 7.2. 76 Jesus is referred to as both flesh and spirit in Eph. 7.2; Magn. 1.2. He is similarly referred to as flesh and blood in Trall. 8.1; Rom. 7.3, but these latter references occur in the context of the Eucharist. 77 “This emphasis on Christ’s ‘flesh’ is probably linked in Ignatius’s mind with the need to stress the historical reality of the incarnation and passion of the divine Lord” (Schoedel, Ignatius, 199). 72

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that runs from Phld. 5.1–9.2 against those who do not properly interpret scripture. Ignatius closes the letter by noting that Burrhus has been his amanuensis who has traveled with him from Smyrna to Troas (Phld. 11.2). He says that the Lord will bless the Smyrnaeans and Ephesians because they sent Burrhus with him. He describes the churches as those who hope in Jesus in flesh, soul, spirit, faith, love, and harmony. By including the flesh along with soul and spirit, Ignatius depicts the flesh as one component that makes up the human person.78 The Ephesians and Smyrnaeans can demonstrate their hope in Jesus through the flesh. Flesh is not a deficient part of the human being. Rather, it is one element that comprises the person and through which the person acts. Three of Ignatius’s six usages of σάρξ occur in Phld. 7.1–2. In addition to Ignatius’s command to keep the flesh as the temple, Ignatius contrasts the prophetic speech given to him by God’s Spirit with the fleshly thought and actions of his opponents. His opponents wanted to deceive him “according to the flesh” or “in a fleshly manner” (κατὰ σάρκα), but the Spirit by whom Ignatius prophesies would not be deceived since it is from God (ἀπὸ θεοῦ ὄν; Phld. 7.1). This attempt at deception did not thwart Ignatius’s instruction to submit to the ecclesial authorities. Ignatius continues to use a similar dichotomy between flesh and Spirit after his opponents modified their tactics. When their initial deceit was unsuccessful, they suspect that Ignatius knew about the division because someone had informed him. Ignatius uses an oath formula to insist that he did not know about the situation in Philadelphia from a human source (ἀπὸ σαρκὸς ἀνθρωπίνης; Phld. 7.2).79 Rather, it was the Spirit who proclaimed through him and whose speech Ignatius records in his rhyming précis. Ignatius’s opponents fail to recognize that his speech does not have merely human, that is, fleshly, authority. Although the flesh is juxtaposed with the Spirit in Phld. 7.1 and found to be a less authoritative way of acting when followed in opposition to the Spirit, the flesh is not inherently deficient. Rather, the actions of Ignatius’s opponents in the flesh are problematic because they occur apart from the Spirit. Their actions fail to recognize the authoritative origin of Ignatius’s words. The opponents rely on themselves to accomplish something that runs counter to what 78 This point holds true even if one follows the middle recension in omitting πνεύµατι. However, the inclusion of the word in the manuscripts of the long recension, the Latin translation’s reading of spiritu, and the presence of the word in the Coptic translation makes it more likely that πνεύµατι should be included. It is also included in the Armenian translation, but the order of ψυχῇ, πνεύµατι is transposed. 79 Ignatius’s oath is best located alongside similar Hellenistic idioms that invited deities to testify on the speaker’s behalf. See Lucian, Phal. 1.1; Philo, Ebr. 139; Josephus, A.J. 5.113; C. Ap. 2.290. Similar phrases are found in the Pauline letters at Rom 1.9; 2 Cor 1.23; Phil 1.8; 1 Thess 2.5, 10; 1 Tim 2.6. See further Matthew V. Novenson, “‘God is Witness:’ A Classical Rhetorical Idiom in Its Pauline Usage,” NovT 52 (2010): 355–375.

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God has said through Ignatius. The attempt to deceive Ignatius and the suspicion that he does not speak with divine authority are wrong actions done under the authority of the flesh that has been divided from the Spirit. The flesh is not intrinsically against the Spirit but has been wrongly exercised. Ignatius tells the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as the temple of God (Phld. 7.2). The flesh is not used pejoratively here but is put in proper relation to God. The flesh is to be a temple. The opponents have used the flesh for further deception and suspicion within the Philadelphian community. The proper use of the flesh is as a temple. Flesh includes the physical matter that makes up the Philadelphians’ bodies. All actions done with the body should be done with the knowledge that they are God’s temple. However, this does not exhaust what flesh refers to in Ignatius’s quotation. It also includes the way in which believers in Philadelphia conduct the life that they live in their flesh.80 Where the opponents were deceptive and suspicious in their use of the flesh, the rest of the Philadelphians should use the flesh in a way that recognizes that it is inhabited by God. Although Ignatius’s command to keep the flesh as God’s temple includes the physical material of the body in its scope, the meaning of σάρξ extends to any action, thought, or desire that occurs in human existence. The temple is an all-encompassing image. When Ignatius tells the Philadelphians to keep “your flesh” (σάρκα ὑµῶν) as the temple, he uses a second-person plural pronoun to speak to the entire Philadelphian congregation. The act of keeping the flesh as a temple is to be a communal enterprise because all Philadelphian Christians are to follow this teaching. In this way, it contributes to the unity for which Ignatius calls throughout his letter, particularly in the immediately following couplet. Ignatius does not leave the command at the level of the general community. The command applies to the entire community but is to be carried out by the individuals who comprise the community.81 Ignatius intends for each of the Philadelphians to obey what he has written. The Philadelphians, all and individually, should conduct themselves in every human activity as if they are God’s temple. The flesh is not inherently bad in Ignatius’s letters. When rightly related to the Spirit, it can even operate powerfully. It is a significant part of a human being, but σάρξ is put to a variety of uses as an anthropological element. Elsewhere in Philadelphians, flesh is something that Jesus took on, but Ignatius is particularly concerned that the way that his opponents have acted separates

80 “Gemeint ist also der Mensch in seiner konkreten Erscheinung, deshalb auch in seiner Anfälligkeit” (Lona, “Der Sprachgebrauch von ΣΑΡΞ,” 403). The reference to “Anfälligkeit” takes note of the weakness of the flesh that is evident in how the opponents operate in their flesh. However, in the context of paraenesis, Ignatius’s connotation can be expanded to include human activity. 81 Legarth, Guds tempel, 189–190; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 51; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 296.

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flesh from the Spirit. Ignatius instructs the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as God’s temple. He does not restrict the meaning of this command only to the Philadelphians’ actions in their physical bodies. Indeed, everything that is part of the human enterprise is encompassed by the flesh and should be considered God’s temple. All Philadelphian Christians should follow Ignatius’s instruction as individuals within a unified group. 4.3.3. God in the Temple If the Philadelphians are to do everything in the realm of human existence with the knowledge that they are God’s temple, one may next ask who this God is. At one level, the answer is obvious: the God to whom Ignatius refers in Phld. 7.2 is the one God whose race the Philadelphians are to run (Phld. 2.1) and to whom they should intercede for Ignatius (Phld. 5.1). Everything that the Philadelphians do should be done in accordance with this God (Phld. 4). The uniqueness of this one God unifies the Philadelphians. It is fitting that God should be mentioned as the rightful owner of the temple not only because being within a temple is the rightful place of a divinity but also because Ignatius desires both God and the image of the temple to unify the Philadelphians. Ignatius mentions God in the same breath as the Spirit, Jesus Christ, and the Father.82 Each of these substantives occurs in Phld. 7.2. Without dismissing Ignatius’s belief in the unique and complete claim that the one God has on the Philadelphians, a reader of Phld. 7.2 may justifiably ask whether Ignatius refers to the Spirit as θεός in the phrase ναὸν θεοῦ since Ignatius understands his prophetic speech as legitimate because the Spirit spoke through him. Yet it is Jesus whom Ignatius calls as his witness and urges the Philadelphians to imitate. Could θεός here designate Jesus? Or does Ignatius refer to the Father as God? Alternatively, is it possible that Ignatius distinguishes the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit but invokes all three in his mention of θεός, thereby granting them all a place in the temple? Although there is no reason to impose a later Trinitarian understanding on the second-century bishop, the union of these terms suggests an incipient Trinitarianism. 83 Still, it remains questionable whether Ignatius

82

A similar reference to the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit occurs in Phld. inscr. See also Eph. 9.1; Magn. 13.1. On Ignatius’s nascent Trinitarianism, see Vall, Learning Christ, 110– 115. Martin’s statement that there is no reflection on the divine essence may be slightly overstated since the Spirit seems to be assumed in Magn. 13.1. “Pero no como reflexion sobre la esencia divina, sino como imperative general de unidad salvifíca, es decir, el hombre debe ser salvado en esta unidad” (“La pneumatologia,” 447). However, he is correct that Ignatius’s emphasis is on the Spirit’s salvific and unifying work among God’s people, although distinction between immanent and economic Trinity was largely a post-Nicene phenomenon. 83 Thomas G. Weinandy, “The Apostolic Christology of Ignatius of Antioch: The Road to Chalcedon,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed.

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here invokes a developing Trinitarian reflection in his use of the word θεός. Having laid out these interpretive possibilities, it remains to test each suggestion. Ignatius does not offer a detailed description of τὸ πνεῦµα in Phld. 7.1–2. Yet the Spirit in these two verses is almost certainly God. This Spirit inspires Ignatius to prophesy and legitimates his speech as authoritative in contrast to his opponents who act only in the strength of their own flesh. The Spirit is an active agent that is sent from God, knows where it comes from and where it goes, and exposes the hidden things (Phld. 7.1). Given the detailed discussion about Trinitarian relations in the fourth and fifth centuries, it is tempting to say more about how Ignatius views the Spirit. However, this is all that is said in Phld. 7.1–2, and any further description risks anachronism. Although Ignatius depicts the Spirit working in coordination with the Father and Son, he does not further illuminate whether the Spirit is a distinct person from the Father and Son. In light of this ambiguity, it is unlikely that Ignatius refers to the Spirit alone as the God of the temple. It is not unusual for Ignatius to refer to Jesus as God in his letters.84 He describes the Ephesian church as a congregation that has been chosen in suffering “by the will of the Father and Jesus Christ our God” (ἐν θελήµατι τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡµῶν; Eph. inscr.). Similarly, he greets the Roman church “in Jesus Christ our God” (ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ τῷ θεῷ ἡµῶν; Rom. inscr.).85 However, there is no clear reference to Jesus as God in Philadelphians. This is not to suggest that Ignatius does not consider Jesus to be God, but the lack of clear reference suggests that mentioning it directly may not have added to the argument of this letter. This suspicion may be strengthened by noting that Magnesians, the other letter in which Ignatius mentions Ἰουδαϊσµός, also contains no unambiguous reference to Jesus as θεός. Although there is no reason to think that Ignatius has set aside his belief that Jesus is God in Philadelphians, there is also no reason to think that he has designated Jesus alone as θεός in Phld. 7.2. This leaves two options for the referent of θεός. Ignatius either refers to the Father alone as God or has referred to the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit as God. In light of the mentions of the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit in close proximity Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 83–84. 84 Elsewhere Ignatius explicitly refers to Jesus as God. See Eph. inscr.; 1.1; 7.2; 18.2; 19.3; Trall. 7.1; Rom. inscr. (twice); 3.3; Smyrn. 1.1; Pol. 8.3. Jesus is also referred to as God in Smyrn. 10.1 in Mediceo Laurentianus 57.7 and the Latin translation. However, Χριστοῦ is omitted in Berlin Papyrus Codex 10581 and the Armenian translation, making the referent of θεοῦ ambiguous. 85 On the importance of this phrase not only in Ignatius’s greeting but also as a foreshadowing of the letter-body, see Jonathon Lookadoo, “Christocentric Letters: Christology in the Greetings of Ignatius’s Letter to the Romans,” JBTS forthcoming.

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in Phld. 7.2, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that Ignatius uses θεός with an incipient Trinitarian reference. It is unclear whether Ignatius’s reference to the Spirit implies that the Spirit is personal in the same sense that Jesus and the Father are, but Ignatius sees the Spirit as divine legitimation for his speech. If the Spirit is to be included in the divine identity and is mentioned in such close proximity to Ignatius’s use of the more general term θεός, it is possible that Ignatius has an incipient Trinitarian referent in view when he tells the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as the temple of God. It is difficult to rule this interpretation out definitively. On balance, though, it seems better to understand θεός as a referent to the Father.86 First, Ignatius has already applied the word θεός to the Father in Philadelphians. He greets the Philadelphians as the church of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (ἐκκλησίᾳ θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Phld. inscr.).87 He affirms that the bishop received his authority in the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (ἐν ἀγάπῃ θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Phld. 1.1). Nor does every reference to God as the Father require Ignatius to use the form θεὸς πατήρ. Those who are with the bishop belong simply to God and Jesus Christ (θεοῦ εἰσιν καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Phld. 3.2).88 There is a tendency in this letter to refer to the Father as θεός. Second, Ignatius writes that the Spirit comes from God just prior to the command to keep the flesh as God’s temple. This confirms that the Spirit is divine, but it also implies that the words θεός and πνεῦµα are used to denote distinct, albeit closely related, persons. While πνεῦµα is the divine revealer who speaks through Ignatius, θεός is the origin of τὸ πνεῦµα. Finally, it is worth noting that referring to the Father as God has precedence in other early Christian literature. In particular, Paul’s greetings often come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.89 Although these arguments do not decisively rule out an incipient Trinitarian referent for θεός in Phld. 7.2, Ignatius’s tendency to refer to the Father as θεός in this letter when both the Father and 86

This is not to deny that the Spirit is divine or to argue that the Father is in view every time the word θεός is used. Rather, the argument is that θεός is more likely to refer to the Father than to be an incipient Trinitarian reference in the phrase ναὸν θεοῦ as found in Phld. 7.2. 87 This text is represented by the Latin translation of the middle recension as well as the Coptic translation. The Greek middle recension, the long recension, and the Armenian translation read κυρίου, or its equivalent, after καί. The Greek texts place the word before Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, but the Armenian translation suggests κυρίου ἡµῶν should be placed at the end of the phrase. 88 The distinction between θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in the first part of Phld. 3.2 (ὅσοι γὰρ θεοῦ εἰσιν καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, οὕτοι µετὰ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου εἰσίν) is continued in the second part of the verse (καὶ ὅσοι ἂν µετανοήσαντες ἔλθωσιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς ἐκκλησίας, καὶ οὗτοι θεοῦ ἔσονται, ἵνα ὦσιν κατὰ Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν). Belonging to God is belonging to the Father. Τhis is related to but distinct from being in accordance with Jesus Christ. 89 Rom 1.7; 1 Cor 1.3; 2 Cor 1.2; Gal 1.3; Eph 1.2; Phil 1.2; 2 Thess 1.2; 1 Tim 1.2; 2 Tim 1.2; Titus 1.4; Phlm 3.

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Jesus are in view, the use of θεός as the origin of the Spirit, and the precedence for similar references to the Father as θεός in early Christian literature make it likely that θεός denotes the Father in the phrase ναὸν θεοῦ. Ignatius’s intriguing mentions of the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit in Phld. 7.1–2 seem to indicate an incipient Trinitarianism. All contribute in different ways to testify that Ignatius’s speech was prophetic and divinely inspired. Yet when Ignatius refers to ναὸν θεοῦ, it is more likely that the Father is the referent of θεός than that the word carries a Trinitarian meaning. This is important for the interpretation of Phld. 7.2, of course, but it will also be important to keep in mind to whom the temple belongs in later chapters. It is unwise to think from the outset that Ignatius will always see the Father as the one who dwells in the Temple or use the temple to the same rhetorical effect. On the balance of arguments about how he uses θεός in Philadelphians, it seems that it is the Father whose temple the Philadelphians’ flesh should be. 4.3.4. Phld. 7.2 and Early Christian and Early Jewish Literature Of course, Ignatius is not the only author to refer to his audience in terms of the temple. An expression nearly identical to Phld. 7.2 can also be found in 2 Clem. 9.3 and Acts Paul 3.5. Ignatius’s line of thought may also be comparable to that espoused by Paul in 1 Cor 6.19. Purity of the flesh in the temple is likewise an issue discussed in 11QT (11Q19). These texts will be explored in order to understand Phld. 7.2 better, although this understanding may come about by taking stock of similarities, differences, or both. 4.3.4.1. Phld. 7.2 in the Context of Early Christian Literature 2 Clement exists in only three manuscripts,90 and it has proved particularly difficult to date. For the purposes of this comparative exercise, a date anywhere in the second century is sufficient.91 After a stirring theological introduction (2

90

The manuscripts include Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Constantinopolitanus, and a Syriac translation of the New Testament with 1–2 Clement at the end. On the manuscripts of 2 Clement, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1.1.116–147; Christopher Tuckett, 2 Clement: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, OAF (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1–6. 91 Dates generally range from early in the second century to a time during the episcopacy of Bishop Soter (166–174 CE). A second-century date seems likely, and a date in the middle of the second century seems least problematic. Regarding the date of 2 Clement, see further Ernst Baasland, “Der 2. Klemensbrief und frühchristliche Rhetorik: ‘Die erste christliche Predigt’ im Lichte der neueren Forschung,” ANRW 27.1:88–89; Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.159–160; Paul Parvis, “2 Clement and the Meaning of the Christian Homily,” Exp Tim 117 (2006): 267–268; idem, “2 Clement and the Meaning of the Christian Homily,” in The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Paul Foster (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 37; Wilhelm Pratscher, “The Second Epistle of Clement,” in The Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction, ed.

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Clem. 1–2), ethical paraenesis takes center stage in 2 Clem. 3–14.92 The author introduces a key theme in 2 Clem. 8.1 by urging the audience, “Therefore, while we are on earth, let us repent” (ὡς οὖν ἐσµὲν ἐπὶ γῆς µετανοήσωµεν). The theme of repentance then runs through much of 2 Clem. 8–9. The audience is instructed to keep their flesh pure in 2 Clem. 8.6 (τηρήσατε τὴν σάρκα ἁγνήν),93 while 2 Clem. 9.1–5 offers some thoughts about the role of flesh in the resurrection. The author insists that the flesh must be raised and judged because people are saved in a fleshly state (2 Clem. 9.1–2). “Therefore, we must keep the flesh as the temple of God” (δεῖ οὖν ἡµᾶς ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ φυλάσσειν τὴν σάρκα).94 In the context of a discussion about resurrection, σάρξ seems to refer simply to the material of the human body.95 The flesh will participate in the resurrection, and it is necessary on account of this claim to keep the flesh as God’s temple in the present. Flesh is immensely valuable, and an ethical life in the present is required in order to reflect this worth and to participate in the future resurrection. A similar statement to Phld. 7.2 and 2 Clem. 9.3 may be found in the beatitudes of Acts Paul 3.5.96 As Paul enters Onesiphorus’s house, people kneel for Wilhelm Pratscher, tr. Elisabeth G. Wolfe (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 88–89; Tuckett, 2 Clement, 62–64. 92 Karl P. Donfried perceives a tension between the theological statements in 2 Clem. 1– 2 and the paraenesis in 2 Clem. 3–14. The perception of tension leads him to argue that 2 Clem. 1.4–8 reflects the theology of the audience rather than the author (“The Theology of Second Clement,” HTR 66 [1973]: 489–490). However, Alistair Stewart-Sykes has argued that Donfried does not consider all the options and that the statements of 2 Clem. 1–14 make sense if one presumes a catechetical setting for 2 Clement, perhaps a sermon given prior to baptism (From Prophecy to Preaching: A Search for the Origins of the Christian Homily, VCSup 59 [Leiden: Brill, 2001], 183–184). Stewart-Sykes’s proposal is plausible given the amount of general theological and ethical exhortation in 2 Clement and the lack of a clearly demonstrable problem against which the sermon argues. 93 Baasland conveniently collects and usefully analyzes the rhetorical force of purity language in 2 Clement for both its impact on an anthropological horizon and the content of the commands (Baasland, “2. Klemensbrief,” 131–133). 94 For parallels to this statement, see the collection of references in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1.2.230 and Rudolf Knopf, Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel, Die zwei Clemensbriefe, HNT Ergänzungsband, Die apostolischen Väter 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1920), 166. 95 “‘Flesh’ for the author of 2 Clement seems to be simply the physical ‘body’ of human beings. There are no overtones of any negative associations with the human σάρξ” (Tuckett, 2 Clement, 203). 96 Citations from the Acts of Paul follow the numeration of Willy Rordorf, “Actes de Paul,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, ed. François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain, vol. 1, BP (Saint Herblain: Gallimard, 1997), 1115–1177. On the date and composition history of Acts Paul 3–4, see the works of and literature cited in Jeremy W. Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Introduction and Commentary, WUNT 2.270 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 23–24; Glenn Snyder, The Acts of Paul: The Formation of a Pauline Corpus, WUNT 2.352 (Τübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 100–147.

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prayer, bread is broken, and “God’s word about self-control and resurrection” (λόγος θεοῦ περὶ ἐγκρατείας καὶ ἀναστάσεως) is pronounced.97 The beatitudes that follow in Acts Paul 3.5–6 center around these two themes. The first five beatitudes focus on self-control, while the second five beatitudes provide an eschatological focus that follows from the opening mention of resurrection. The last three beatitudes again emphasize self-control.98 Paul’s second beatitude blesses those who keep the flesh pure. “Blessed are those who keep the flesh pure because they will become the temple of God” (µακάριοι οἱ ἁγνὴν τὴν σάρκα τηρήσαντες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ναὸς θεοῦ γενήσονται; Acts Paul 3.5). In the context of self-control, σάρξ should be understood with reference to the material of the body.99 Paul’s sermon in Acts Paul 3.5 highlights the benefits of the renunciation of sexual pleasure.100 Thus the blessing is given to those who forswear intercourse. If someone does this, that person will become God’s temple. The future tense of γενήσονται is noteworthy in comparison with Phld. 7.2. Where Acts Paul 3.5 offers the claim to be God’s temple as a future possibility, Ignatius employs the image as a motivator for action in the present because the Philadelphians’ flesh is already God’s temple. A final early Christian text that should be mentioned in this comparison is 1 Cor 6.19. In contrast to Acts Paul 3.5, the imperative in 1 Cor 6.19 follows the indicative.101 Like Acts Paul 3.5, sexual activity is in view in 1 Cor 6.19.102

97 I have utilized the text in Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Andreas Lindemann is likely correct that this phrase does not refer to any specific Pauline tradition (Paulus im ältesten Christentum: Das Bild des Apostels und die Rezeption der paulinischen Theologie in der frühchristlichen Literatur bis Marcion, BHT 58 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1979], 69). However, elements of both this phrase and the beatitudes that follow may have absorbed or reinterpreted Pauline theology. 98 Martin Ebner, “Paulinische Seligpreisungen à la Thekla: Narrative Relecture der Makarismenreihe in ActThecl 5f.,” in Aus Liebe zu Paulus? Die Akte Thekla neu aufgerollt, ed. Martin Ebner, SBS 206 (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2005), 69–70; Richard I. Pervo, The Acts of Paul: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Eugene: Cascade, 2014), 102. 99 On σάρξ in the Acts of Paul, see Peter W. Dunn, “The Acts of Paul and the Pauline Legacy in the Second Century,” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1996), 175–178. Dunn rightly notes that the use of the term is simplified in comparison with Paul’s more nuanced usage, but he is also correct that the Acts of Paul is closer to Paul than to a figure such as Valentinus insofar as the Acts of Paul stresses the continuity between this world and the next. 100 Merz helpfully compares and contrasts this notion with the Pauline letters (Die fiktive Selbstauslegung, 328). On the use of the New Testament in the Acts of Paul, see further Pál Herczeg, “New Testament Parallels to the Apocryphal Acta Pauli Documents,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, ed. Jan N. Bremmer, SAAA 2 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996), 142–149. 101 Dunn, “The Acts of Paul,” 171. 102 Ebner, “Paulinische Seligpreisungen,” 68.

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However, Paul is concerned about illicit sexual activity with a prostitute.103 Rather than discussing σάρξ, Paul tends to employ the word σῶµα in 1 Cor 6.12–20.104 As in 2 Clem. 9.1–5 and Acts Paul 3.5–6, the future resurrection of the body again serves as an important motivator for proper ethical activity (1 Cor 6.14). However, unlawful intercourse joins one’s body with the sexual partner so that the body becomes one with a prostitute (1 Cor 6.15–16). Thus after instructing the Corinthians to avoid prostitution in 1 Cor 6.18 because this sin is committed against one’s own body, Paul asks his audience, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit in you, which you have from God?” (ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὸ σῶµα ὑµῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν ἁγίου πνεύµατός ἐστιν οὗ ἔχετε ἀπὸ θεοῦ; 1 Cor 6.19). Although the second-person plural addressees might indicate a collective noun, it is better to understand τὸ σῶµα ὑµῶν with reference to individual bodies in the context of a discussion about prostitution.105 Paul refers to the Corinthians as a temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells rather than the temple of God. Nevertheless, Paul’s statement represents an important point of comparison for Phld. 7.2 as it is may be the earliest written reference in a Christian text that speaks of individuals as temples. Moreover, these individuals are spoken to as a collective, indicating that the sexual activity of individuals affects the status of the group as it seeks to live an ethical life that reflects the power of the crucified and risen Jesus.106 Similarly for Ignatius, the separation of a few individuals proves costly to the entire group in Philadelphia. 103 Paul refers to πορνεία in 1 Cor 6.13, 18, while he refers to a πόρνη in 1 Cor 6.15, 16. In addition, πορνεύω is employed as a participle in 1 Cor 6.18. On the range of sexual misbehavior that can be referred to with the πορν-lexeme, see BDAG s.v.; Bruce Malina, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication?” NovT 14 (1972): 10–17; Joseph Jensen, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication? A Critique of Bruce Malina,” NovT 20 (1978): 161–184. More recently, Kyle Harper has argued that Jewish and Christian usage of the word was broader than most GrecoRoman definitions (“Porneia: The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm,” JBL 131 [2011]: 363–383). 104 σῶµα is employed in 1 Cor 6.13, 15–16, 18–20. The exception to this is when Paul quotes Gen 2.24 in 1 Cor 6.16: ἔσονται γάρ, φησίν, οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα µίαν. 105 Constantine Campbell, “From Earthly Symbol to Heavenly Reality: The Tabernacle in the New Testament,” in Exploring Exodus: Literary, Theological and Contemporary Approaches, ed. Brian S. Rosner and Paul R. Williamson (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008), 185; idem, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 290–292. 106 On the mysterious power of the crucified Jesus, see 1 Cor 1.10–4.21 and especially 1 Cor 2.6–16. The multivalent reception of the latter passage and its use in ante-Nicene early Christian formation has been adroitly explored by Jennifer R. Strawbridge, “A Community of Interpretation: The Use of 1Corinthians 2:6–16 by Early Christians,” in Studia Patristica LXIII, ed. Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 69–80; eadem, The Pauline Effect: The Use of the Pauline Epistles by Early Christian Writers, SBR 5 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 24–56.

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Ignatius’s text is one of several that are concerned about purity and a metaphorical temple in early Christianity. The temple in Phld. 7.2, 2 Clem. 9.3, Acts Paul 3.5, and 1 Cor 6.19 all refer to individuals as the temple. Yet the community of believers in which the individual has found a home is not far from view, particularly in Phld. 7.2 and 1 Cor 6.19. An individual’s actions impact the group. The focus on purity in the three second-century texts is noteworthy in the context of a temple metaphor since ethical activity is now described as cleanliness in relation to God. In addition, the repetition of σάρξ in these texts may represent a further focusing of the line of thought found in 1 Cor 6.19 regarding the need to join the body to the Lord. However, there are two significant ways in which Ignatius stands apart from these texts in his utilization of the temple image in Phld. 7.2. First, the temple is employed in the context of anti-Jewish polemic. By applying the temple image to Christians, Ignatius has reinterpreted a traditional Jewish image for his community of Christ-followers.107 Second, he employs the temple metaphor with reference not only to ethical purity but with particular reference to the obedience of proper ecclesial authorities. The parallelism of Ignatius’s opening statements in Phld. 7.2 indicates that purity involves unity with the bishop. 4.3.4.2. Phld. 7.2 in the Context of Early Jewish Literature Despite the presence of similar statements in Phld. 7.2, 2 Clem. 9.3, and Acts Paul 3.5, the purity of the flesh and its connection to the temple was by no means an exclusively early Christian point of consideration. To take one example from Second Temple literature, 11QT (11Q19) XLV–XLVII offers sustained reflection on the importance of the purity of the flesh and of objects in relation to the temple.108 Purity of the flesh concerns physical impediments to temple worship in 11QT (11Q19) XLV. The author offers two examples of impurity that result from male emissions. In instances of a nocturnal emission or ejaculation during intercourse, a man is not allowed to enter the temple for three days (11QT [11Q19] XLV, 7–8, 11). A blind person is regarded as impure and unable to

107 The Epistle of Barnabas likewise reinterprets traditional Jewish imagery for a new audience and cites the temple in Barn. 4.11; 16.1–10. On these passages, see sections 6.5.2 and 7.4.2.2. 108 George Brooke notes that in the latter half of the Temple scroll “there is an abbreviated hypertextual presentation of Deut 12 onwards” (“Hypertextuality and the ‘Parabiblical’ Dead Sea Scrolls,” in In the Second Degree: Paratextual Literature in Ancient Near Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Culture and Its Reflections in Medieval Literature, ed. Philip S. Alexander, Armin Lange, and Renate J. Pillinger [Leiden: Brill, 2010], 48; repr. in Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, ed. George J. Brooke with the assistance of Nathalie LaCoste, EJL 39 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013], 71)

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enter the temple (11QT [11Q19] XLV, 12–14).109 Finally, contact with corpses and leprosy place one in an unclean state such that they cannot come into the temple (11QT [11Q19] XLV, 17–18). Provisions are made for those who are temporarily in any of these states. These include washing and waiting for specified periods of time. For those who are permanently blind, the text simply says that they shall not enter “and shall not defile the city in which I dwell because I, Yahweh, dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever and always” ( ‫ולוא יטמאו את העיר אשר אני שוכן בתוכה כי אני יהוה שוכן בתוך בני ישראל לעולם‬ ‫ ;ועד‬11QT [11Q19] XLV, 13–14).110 Purity is intimately connected with the bodily conditions of the children of Israel in 11QT (11Q19) XLV. Purity also extends beyond one’s person, and 11QT (11Q19) XLVII discusses the cleanliness of animal hides and the utensils made out of them. Different levels of purity are required for life in other cities and life in the templecity. In other cities, people are to make the utensils out of animal hides, but such utensils are not allowed in the holy city (11QT [11Q19] XLVII, 8–9). “For their purity shall be like their flesh, and they shall not defile the city in which I cause my name and my temple to dwell” ( ‫כי כבשרמה תהיה טהרתמה‬ ‫ ;ולוא תטמאו את העיר אשר אנוכי משכן את שמי ומקדשי בתוכה‬11QT [11Q19] XLVII, 10–11). Since the animals under discussion are impure in their flesh, the utensils that are made out of their skin are unclean by extension. Hides are pure in accordance with the purity of the flesh from which it comes (11QT [11Q19] XLVII, 15). The temple and city cannot be defiled because God dwells in their midst. Similarly, Ignatius calls the Philadelphians to live a pure life in their flesh because God dwells in them like a temple. He urges them to an ethical life with his call to keep the flesh like the temple. Purity demands a life of unity under the proper ecclesial authorities that God has appointed in the midst of his people. Ignatius draws upon a notion of purity that finds much in common with that found in 11QT (11Q19) XLV–XLVII. Being attentive to the flesh is required because God dwells in the midst of the community. Yet the objects vary about whose purity 11QT (11Q19) and Philadelphians are concerned. The former is concerned with the physical person and the utensils that they handle. The latter maintains focus on people in their physical state but is less specific about which states may defile a person. Ignatius expends ink about morality in general and about unity in particular.

109 Johann Maier notes that 1QM VII, 4–5 and 1QSa II, 3–11 contain similar statements (The Temple Scroll: An Introduction, Translation and Commentary, JSOTSup 34 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985], 116). 110 On the names for God utilized in the Temple scroll, see Samely, “Observations,” 267.

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4.3.5. The Philadelphians as the Temple of God We have seen that the prophetic speech in which Ignatius uses the temple is a tightly organized poetic arrangement in which the six lines work together to make a single point. The couplets into which the lines are organized bring further clarity to the ways in which the lines work together. The second and third couplets develop what is found in the first while clarifying how the Philadelphians should act in accordance with the bishop. The flesh that they are to keep as God’s temple refers to the physical material of which the Philadelphians are comprised. By extension, Ignatius uses it to refer to that which exists in the realm in which the Philadelphians live or, put another way, in the perceptible realm of everyday life. The God to whom the temple belongs is the Father. His role in the image is to dwell in the temple. Although Ignatius employs an image elsewhere in early Christian and early Jewish literature, he integrates the metaphor into his argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2. Having looked briefly at the context, recalled the key place of unity in Philadelphians, and examined these exegetical pieces in Phld. 7.2, it is now time to consider what Ignatius means by the phrase, “Keep your flesh as the temple of God” (τὴν σάρκα ὑµῶν ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ τηρεῖτε). When Ignatius urges the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as the temple of God, he means that they should watch over and maintain every area of their life in a way that is fitting for God to dwell in it. The verb τηρέω has the sense of taking care of something or observing it closely.111 On its own, this command may not require direct action, nor is it particularly specific about how the instruction should be accomplished. Although this sort of keeping watch may not directly instruct specific action, the action is often implied. Moreover, Ignatius places the verb parallel to ποιέω and means for the Philadelphians to actively take up both imperatives. When Ignatius uses the temple metaphor, he instructs the Philadelphians to maintain both the physical material that makes up their bodies and their actions in the sphere of life in which their flesh is operative in such a way that it can properly belong to God. If Ignatius had wanted to say only this, though, he could have stated it in simple prose. This raises the question of how the image of the temple contributes to Ignatius’s larger point. What makes the temple a fitting image for this point in Ignatius’s letter? The temple has two connotations that fit with Ignatius’s argument in Phld. 5.1–9.2. First, the temple hints at holiness. Ignatius claims that he speaks because he is divinely inspired. As such, his words are holy because they originate directly from God and are thus different from other words. The actions

111

See the similar usage in Rev 1.3; 22.7, 9. See further BDAG, s.v. 3. Legarth observes that the only place in which the formula τηρεῖν τινα ὡς τινα appears in Ignatius’s letters is Phld. 7.2 (Guds tempel, 187).

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that Ignatius commands in Phld. 7.2 were not recognized as holy by all of Ignatius’s addressees. Those who heard Ignatius’s speech and recognized its origin would also recognize that the words are holy. The temple is an apt image to communicate what Ignatius means. As the place where a deity dwells, a temple in antiquity was set apart from other places. It was located on earth, but it was different from most other places because a god dwelled there. Ignatius stood in a tradition in which there had historically been only one temple in Jerusalem.112 The use of the image of the temple against opponents whom Ignatius terms Jewish increases the likelihood that Ignatius plays off the Jerusalem temple.113 Before its destruction, the temple was an area that was set apart and regarded by Jews as the place where the one God was uniquely present.114 Steps were taken to protect the sanctity of the temple because it was set apart by God. Ignatius’s instructions work in an analogous way. He urges the Philadelphians to live as if they had been set apart by God and to demonstrate that they understand that Ignatius’s speech has likewise been set apart by God by doing this. One may still wonder in what way the flesh is related to God’s temple. Legarth mentions two interpretive options. 115 He suggests that the phrase τὴν σάρκα ὑµῶν ὡς ναὸν θεοῦ τηρεῖτε could mean, “Giv agt på jeres kød, der har den egenskab at være Guds tempel.”116 Alternatively, the phrase may mean “Bevar jeres kød i den egenskab at være Guds tempel.”117 The different translations of the verb can be left aside since the verb has been discussed above. The respective translations are helpful because they highlight different relationships between the flesh and the temple. The first translation depicts the flesh as something that the Philadelphians inherently are. The flesh persists as 112

It is difficult to determine precisely to what degree Ignatius has been informed by traditions from the Jewish scriptures or exactly how much authority he gave them. That he was influenced by them can be seen in his citation of scripture in Eph. 5.3; Magn. 12; Trall. 8.2. Within Philadelphians, Ignatius refers to the prophets (Phld. 5.2; 9.2), the priesthood (Phld. 9.1), and the patriarchs (Phld. 9.2). 113 It is interesting to note that the destruction of the Jerusalem temple is not mentioned in Ignatius’s letters. For example, the destruction of the temple is employed in polemic against Jews in Barn. 16.1–5. One could hypothesize about Ignatius’s knowledge or find possible reasons in Ignatius’s audience. Yet perhaps all that one can say with a high degree of probability is that Ignatius did not consider the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem to aid his communicative aims. 114 “During the period of the second temple even the Jews of the Diaspora respected the centrality of Jerusalem and its temple” (Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Temple and the Synagogue,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 3: The Early Roman Period, ed. William David Davies, William Horbury, and John Sturdy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 300). 115 Legarth, Guds tempel, 187. 116 “Pay attention to your flesh, which has the property of being God’s temple.” 117 “Keep your flesh in the capacity to be God’s temple.”

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the temple of God. The second translation depicts the flesh as a possible temple for God. It is possible that the flesh could be the temple of God, but it is also possible that the flesh will not attain this status.118 Ignatius’s command implies that the flesh can err. Thus he instructs them to maintain their flesh in such a way that it can be God’s temple. As holiness is required to participate in temple worship, so also holiness is required in the flesh if it is to be God’s temple. The flesh is not inherently God’s temple but is in some way potentially God’s temple. It is not easy to answer further inquiries into what this may mean for the flesh. The flesh does not exist in the state of being God’s temple but can and should be maintained in this state. It is possible that God is present in human flesh or that God is present in the fleshly realm through the Philadelphians’ flesh when they keep God’s commands. It is also possible that the Philadelphians claim the fleshly realm as God’s temple by maintaining their flesh in accordance with God’s commands when they act in the fleshly realm. However, Ignatius’s letter does not allow the question to be probed further with any certainty. All that can be said is that Ignatius’s statement should not be interpreted to mean that the flesh inherently has the property of being God’s temple, but it can become God’s temple in some sense. In striving to be God’s temple, the Philadelphians must live holy lives. Unity is the second connotation of the temple image that fits Phld. 5.1–9.2. The primary way in which the temple connotes unity draws upon the unique status the Jerusalem temple was to have for those who worshipped there.119 God created the world and could be worshipped anywhere, but God was uniquely present in the temple. The temple was set apart as a unifying symbol for Second Temple Jews. Ignatius’s use of the temple in Phld. 7.2 comes in a section in which he calls for unity with the bishop. Immediately prior to this instruction, Ignatius commands the Philadelphians not to do anything without the bishop. The temple supports this teaching because there is only one temple, and it belongs to the only God. Ignatius’s instruction to keep the flesh in this way urges further unity because he views it as the proper way to act in the temple. The Philadelphians should come together in the act of keeping their flesh holy to demonstrate their unity as part of the single people of God. As there is only one temple, so there is only one God to whom the temple belongs,

118 Legarth uses the word “egenskab” in both translations. To represent this similarity in English translations, one might translate “pay attention to your flesh, which has the quality of being in God’s temple” and “keep your flesh in the quality of being God’s temple.” The issue is whether the property, capacity, or quality (egenskab) of the flesh is intrinsic (har den egenskab; has the quality) or extrinsic (i den egenskab; in the quality). 119 It is worth noting, however, that other Jewish temples could be found at Elephantine, Leontopolis, and Samaria.

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one way to act in the temple, and one people who should keep the flesh as the temple. The temple may highlight the unity of the Philadelphians in another way since the spatial metaphor of the temple supports Ignatius’s instruction to hold one Eucharist.120 As the temple was a place to which worshippers came, so Ignatius desires the Philadelphians to meet together to celebrate the Eucharist. However, the meaning of the metaphor has been transferred from a particular structure in Jerusalem to the flesh. Although the Philadelphians should come together to a particular place in order to celebrate the Eucharist, the more important connotations of the temple in Phld. 7.2 is that the Philadelphians should unite in the action to which Ignatius calls them under the bishop. The spatial metaphor has not disappeared completely. These actions are to be accomplished by human flesh in the fleshly realm. However, the temple supports Ignatius’s instruction because it calls them to active unity in support of the bishop. The temple in which the Philadelphians are to be unified is referred to as ναὸν θεοῦ. How does the genitive function in this phrase?121 The temple has so far been described as the temple of God or as God’s temple. The former is a generic English translation of the Greek genitival phrase, while the latter indicates possession. It is probably best to classify θεοῦ grammatically as a genitive of possession. The temple was dedicated to a deity and thus could be said to belong to that deity in some way. Accordingly, Ignatius’s instruction for the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as God’s temple can be interpreted as a command to maintain every area of their life in a way that indicates that their flesh belongs to God. Although the genitive in the phrase ναὸν θεοῦ may be grammatically classified as a genitive of possession, the grammatical classification does not exhaust the way in which the relationship between God and the temple can be described. Ignatius follows the summary of his prophetic speech by noting that he did everything in Philadelphia as a person who was set on unity (ἄνθρωπος εἰς ἕνωσιν κατηρτισµένος). He continues, “But where there is division and wrath God does not dwell” (οὗ δὲ µερισµός ἐστιν καὶ ὀργή, θεὸς οὐ κατοικεῖ; Phld. 8.1). The phrases are outside of Ignatius’s account of his prophetic speech but contribute to the same argument in which the speech is rhetorically useful. This observation is significant for two reasons. First, it shows that the influence of the temple extends beyond the prophetic speech in Phld. 7.2. The image of the temple also affects the way in which Ignatius speaks of God in the following sentence. God dwells in the temple but not where there is division and wrath. This will be important to remember when the time comes to discuss the

120

The instruction to keep a single Eucharist is found in Phld. 4, but the image of the temple may supply additional support for this command. 121 For a more detailed answer to this question, see Legarth, Guds tempel, 202–203.

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role of Phld. 7.2 within Phld. 5.1–9.2 and to consider whether there is a relationship between the temple and the high priest. Second, it is important to note that Phld. 8.1 further clarifies how the temple should be understood in Phld. 7.2. It sheds more light on God’s role in the temple. Not only does the temple belong to God but God is also present in the temple. In the context of Ignatius’s instruction, this means that God is present among the Philadelphians when they guard their flesh in a way befitting of their call to be God’s temple. Alongside the placement of the temple parallel to the command not to act without the bishop, Ignatius’s elaboration in Phld. 8.1 also gives additional evidence that the temple is a unifying image in Phld. 7.2. God is not present where there is division and wrath but is uniquely present among the Philadelphians when they act together with the bishop in holiness. Ignatius’s statements in Phld. 7.2–8.1 show that the temple’s significance cannot be limited only to Ignatius’s prophetic speech. It urges the Philadelphians to unity and functions as part of the argument that runs from Phld. 5.1–9.2.

4.4. Towards a Reading of Phld. 5.1–9.2 4.4. Towards a Reading of Phld. 5.1–9.2

Ignatius’s argument in Philadelphians begins with a strong affirmation of the bishop (Phld. 1.1–2) followed by general instructions to the Philadelphian community on harmonious living (Phld. 2.1–4.1). The exhortations narrow in focus as Ignatius begins to respond to the problems that he encountered while he was in Philadelphia. He flees to the gospel and apostles (Phld. 5.1) but also loves the prophets (Phld. 5.2).122 These statements hint at how Ignatius will respond when he introduces the chief problem in the Philadelphian church, namely the disagreement about how the archives and gospel relate (Phld. 8.2– 9.2). He refers to this problem as Ἰουδαϊσµός in Phld. 6.1 and urges the Philadelphians to flee from the ruler of this age by being “in undivided heart” (ἐν ἀµερίστῳ καρδίᾳ; Phld. 6.2). The theme of unity runs throughout this letter, but the argument of the letter reveals the problem in Philadelphia gradually. 123 Having seen that the temple symbolizes unity in Phld. 7.2 while its influence extends beyond the prophetic speech into Phld. 8.1, the role of the temple in the first autobiographical section (Phld. 6.3–8.1) and in the increasingly specific polemic against Judaism (Phld. 5.1–9.2) must now be considered. After this, the relationship between the priest and temple will be studied with a view to how these symbols contribute collectively to Ignatius’s argument. 122

Schoedel rightly thinks that the vocative ἀδελφοί µου marks a transition in the letter (Ignatius, 201). Lightfoot notes that the Armenian translation places this vocative in the previous sentence. However, it belongs at the beginning of the second sentence and thus starts a new section (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.258–259). 123 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 153–154.

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4.4.1. The Temple in the Context of Phld. 6.3–8.1 Ignatius echoes his earlier instruction to flee division and evil teaching in Phld. 2.1 when he tells the Philadelphians to flee (φεύγετε) the evil schemes and traps of the ruler of this age (Phld. 6.2).124 As he moves from the introduction of Judaism in the letter to his stay with the Philadelphians, he begins with a report about his prayers (Phld. 6.3). He thanks God and then prays that the Philadelphians will not encounter what he said as a witness against them.125 Ignatius gives thanks for two related reasons. First, he notes that he has a clean conscience with regard to his time among the Philadelphians (εὐσυνείδητός εἰµι ἐν ὑµῖν). Second, none of the Philadelphians can boast privately or publicly that Ignatius burdened someone in either a small or large matter (οὐκ ἔχει τις καυχήσασθαι οὔτε λάθρα οὔτε φανερῶς ὅτι ἐβάρησά τινα ἐν µικρῷ ἢ ἐν µεγαλῷ). The latter may be at least a partial cause of the former. The proposal that Ignatius refers to Judaism when he says that he has not burdened the Philadelphians is tenuous.126 The primary reason that one might accept this suggestion is that Ignatius makes this comment in the context of a polemical argument against Judaism. However, it is more likely in the autobiographical context of Phld. 6.3–8.1 that Ignatius refers to his use of position.127 The βαρ–lexeme is used similarly in autobiographical passages in the Pauline corpus.128 Ignatius thus 124 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 139. However, it is difficult to see how Isacson’s proposal that Phld. 2.1–6.2; 6.3–8.1; 8.2–9.2 are distinct rhetorical sections fully accounts for the similarities between Phld. 5.1–2 and 9.1–2. Rather, Phld. 5.1–9.2 is best viewed as a large section with three distinct movements: Phld. 5.1–6.2; 6.3–8.1; 8.2–9.2. 125 Ignatius prays similarly about what he writes to the Trallians (Trall. 12.3). 126 This has been proposed by C. J. Hefele, who connects Ignatius’s language about being a burden to the idea of Judaism as a yoke (e.g. m.Avot 3.5). He then paraphrases Ignatius’s thought as “nemini jugum Judaismi imponere studui” (Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, 4th ed. [Tübingen: Laupp, 1855], 216n.1). This position has been affirmed more recently by Sieben (“Die Ignatianen als Briefe,” 17n.50). 127 It is possible that this use of position might be demonstrated in the reception of food and accommodation (Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 104; Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 136) or the act of burdening the Philadelphians with his opinion (Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 142). Other early Christian literature discusses the possibility of leaders taking advantage of a community with regard to money, food, and other support (Matt 10.8–15; 2 Cor 11.9; 12.16; Phil 1.15; 4.15–20; 1 Thess 2.1–12; 1 Tim 5.16; Did. 11–13; Herm. Mand. 11.11–12 [43.11– 12]). The presence of this motif elsewhere makes it likely that Ignatius’s understanding of burden similarly involves support in Phld. 6.3. 128 E.g. 2 Cor 11.9; 12.16; 1 Thess 2.9; 2 Thess 3.8. Although the case for Ignatius’s direct dependence on a specific Pauline text in this verse can only be acknowledged as extremely tentative, as even Inge recognizes with his “d” rating (“Ignatius,” 70), it is more likely that Ignatius uses a rhetorical topos found in Pauline literature than that he borrows a Pauline phrase from one of these verses. See further Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 266–267; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.265; Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 104; Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 141.

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introduces his autobiographical section by clarifying that his conscience is clean because he did not misuse his authority when he was with the Philadelphians. This preemptively clears away an important objection and allows Ignatius to deal more directly with other objections to his authority in Phld. 7.1–2. By removing any suggestion that he has burdened the Philadelphians, Ignatius can now depict himself as a prophet.129 The ways in which Ignatius accomplishes this have been explored already. 130 Ignatius’s two quotations come from the Spirit and urge unity with the proper ecclesial authorities. The Philadelphians are instructed to pay attention to the leaders (Phld. 7.1) and not to act separately from the bishop (Phld. 7.2). Ignatius’s prophetic discourse thus has a polemical purpose that challenges those who are opposed to the bishop. The temple functions within this prophetic discourse to sharpen the polemic against those who interpret Judaism and to call for unity.131 As the Philadelphians keep their flesh as God’s temple, they will find themselves united in their attempts to live holy lives that eschew division and imitate Jesus. Keeping the flesh as the temple encompasses more than acting in accordance with the bishop, but acting with the bishop is part of keeping the flesh as the temple. As Ignatius continues his account of his time in Philadelphia, his words play on the image of the temple that he used in his prophetic speech. First, he tells them that God does not dwell where there is division and anger (οὗ δὲ µερισµός ἐστιν καὶ ὀργή, θεὸς οὐ κατοικεῖ; Phld. 8.1). 132 One way to depict God’s presence in the temple was to describe God as dwelling in the temple.133 God dwells in the Philadelphians as a temple, and this is not evident when their community is characterized by division. On the contrary, they should exhibit unity in the church that is fitting for the one temple that is inhabited by the one God. Ignatius reminds them that it was with the vital importance of unity in mind that he spoke as he did when he was with them. The image of the temple continues to influence Ignatius’s account of his visit in the following sentence. “Therefore, the Lord forgives all who repent if they repent into the unity of God and the council of the bishop” (πᾶσιν οὖν µετανοοῦσιν ἀφίει ὁ κύριος, ἐὰν µετανοήσωσιν εἰς ἑνότητα θεοῦ καὶ συνέδριον τοῦ

129

Other early Christian texts that speak of the proper relationship of prophets to provisions and wages include Did. 11.3–6; 11.12–13.7; Herm. Mand. 11.12 (43.12). 130 See section 2.2. 131 Kieffer introduces his analysis of Phld. 7.2 by mentioning the Jewish opponents in Philadelphia (“La demeure divine,” 295). However, he does not draw out the polemical function of the temple within the letter. 132 The text follows that found in the middle recension. The long recension places these words in Ignatius’s mouth while he was in Philadelphia (ἐπιλέγων καὶ τοῦτο ὅτι) and seems to expand the text found in the middle recension (οὗ διάστασις γνώµης καὶ ὀργὴ καὶ µῖσος, ἐκεῖ θεὸς οὐ κατοικεῖ). 133 E.g. Josephus, B.J. 5.458; Matt 23.21.

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ἐπισκόπου; Phld. 8.1).134 Ignatius connects this phrase to the statement that God does not dwell where there is division and anger with the conjunction οὖν. A strictly logical use of οὖν is probably not in view here. Such a reading would understand this statement about forgiveness as the conclusion to the premises that Ignatius acted as a person who was set on unity and that God does not dwell where there is division and anger. Nothing in Philadelphians implies that forgiveness logically follows from Ignatius’s statements about unity and division. Rather, οὖν is used to show the close association of Ignatius’s statements to his Philadelphian audience.135 The temple is in part a symbol of unity, and God does not dwell where there is division. Yet forgiveness is possible if the divisive elements return to unity with proper ecclesial authorities. Ignatius’s discussion of repentance and forgiveness occurs in conjunction with the discussion of the temple. The presence of such language in a context in which the image of the temple looms nearby is perhaps not surprising. Neither is it surprising that the call for repentance involves a turning from division to unity. Those who repent are forgiven and welcomed into the temple. Indeed, they become part of the temple as they participate in ecclesial unity and thereby fulfill part of the command to keep the flesh as the temple of God. There is, however, a change in the active agent as Ignatius shifts to discuss forgiveness. God (θεός) continues to dwell in the temple, but the Lord (ὁ κύριος) forgives those who repent.136 Ignatius often uses ὁ κύριος to identify Jesus.137 This is also the case in Phld. 8.1. Jesus forgives those who return to unity with the Father and the council of the bishop. This interpretation is confirmed by Ignatius’s final statement in this section of the argument. “I believe in the grace of Jesus Christ, who will release every bond from you” (πιστεύω τῇ χάριτι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὃς λύσει ἀφ’ ὑµῶν πάντα δεσµόν; Phld. 8.1). Jesus not only forgives 134 The Greek long recension clarifies that µετανοοῦσιν is a participle by adding τοῖς immediately before the participle. Although this is the correct interpretation of the text, it likely represents a clarification of an earlier text form represented by the Greek middle recension. The long recension also attempts to avoid the repetition of µετανοέω by reading ἐὰν συνδράµωσιν for ἐὰν µετανοήσωσιν. 135 Legarth, Guds tempel, 198. 136 The long recension and Montacutianus give evidence for ὁ θεός in Phld. 8.1. However, the Greek middle recension, Caiensis 395, the Armenian translation read or imply ὁ κύριος. James Ussher’s collations of Montacutianus were used by Lightfoot. The latter reading should be accepted based on superior attestation in the manuscripts. For the Latin manuscripts of Phld. 8.1, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.36. For Lightfoot’s description of the manuscripts and manner of collation, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.5–12. Some of Ussher’s collations are recorded in In polycarpianam epistolarum ignatianarum syllogen annationes (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1644). 137 Ignatius refers to Jesus as κύριος in Eph. 15.3; 17.1; 19.1; Magn. 7.1; Trall. 8.1; 10.1; Phld. inscr.; Smyrn. 1.1; 4.2; 5.2; Pol. 1.2; 5.1; 8.3. He refers to κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in Phld. inscr.; 1.1; 4; 9.2; 11.2; Smyrn. 1.1; Pol. inscr. and to Ἰησοῦς Χριστός ὁ κύριος ἡµῶν in Eph. 7.2.

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the Philadelphians who repent. He will also release them from bondage. The reference to bondage likely refers to power exercised by Satan that results in division within the church.138 Ignatius is eager to see the opponents forgiven and welcomed again into the Philadelphian church that is to be God’s temple.139 Ignatius draws this autobiographical section to a close with his statement of belief in Phld. 8.1. With the opening of Phld. 8.2, Ignatius presses into the final section of the argument that runs through Phld. 5.1–9.2. Ignatius addresses his Jewish opponents’ propensity for division in Phld. 6.3–8.1 and insists that the Philadelphians act in unity with the proper ecclesial authorities. One way in which Ignatius calls for this unity is by using the image of the temple. The connotations of purity that seem to be present in the command to keep the flesh as the temple of God are present in Phld. 7.2 but ultimately are dwarfed in significance by the power of the image to call for unity. As the Philadelphians keep their flesh as God’s temple and are thereby unified in this task, God will dwell in them, Jesus will forgive the divisive parties who return to this temple, and the bonds that resulted in division will be broken. 4.4.2. Phld. 6.3–8.1 in the Argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2 Having looked at the role of the temple in Phld. 6.3–8.1 and in particular at the way in which the language of Phld. 7.2–8.1 is shaped by the image of the temple, it will be helpful to show the way in which Phld. 5.1–9.2 holds together with a view to the role that the temple plays in the entire argument. After concluding a general call for unity in Phld. 4, Ignatius addresses the Philadelphians directly as ἀδελφοί µου (Phld. 5.1) and profusely expresses his love and joy for the Philadelphians. He asks them to pray for his imperfections as he proceeds towards his death. He begins to address the problem of Judaism by speaking about the authorities that he uses. Ignatius relies on the gospel and the apostles. However, this does not mean that he thinks less of the prophets. The prophets proclaimed, hoped, and waited on the gospel (Phld. 5.2).140 They 138 Schoedel, Ignatius, 206. Ignatius speaks elsewhere about the release from cosmic bondage in Eph. 19.3. Corwin’s claim that grace is “essentially a soteriological word” in Ignatius’s letters would add weight to this interpretation of Phld. 8.1 (St. Ignatius, 164), but the bonds to which Ignatius refers seem to refer to division whether or not she is correct on this point. More often he speaks of his own bonds, by which he refers to his own imprisonment (Eph. 11.2; Magn. 1.2; Trall. 12.2; Smyrn. 10.2; 11.1; Pol. 2.3). 139 On the possibility of repentance for the Philadelphian opponents or for Ignatius’s Jewish opponents more broadly, see Schoedel, Ignatius, 206; Brown, Gospel and Ignatius, 168n.44; Vall, Learning Christ, 29. Peter Lampe cites Phld. 7–8 as evidence that various Christian groups could coexist, though the letter also gives evidence of tensions that could develop among coexisting groups (From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, tr. Michael Steinhauser [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003], 396n.29). 140 A similar use of εἰς with regard to the prophets and Jesus may be found in Barn. 5.6: οἱ προφῆται, ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ἔχοντες τὴν χάριν, εἰς αὐτὸν ἐπροφήτευσαν.

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were saved by believing in the gospel and were in unity with Jesus Christ as a result. Ignatius anticipates what he will say in Phld. 9.1–2. He then warns them not to listen to anyone who interprets Judaism if they do not speak about Jesus Christ (Phld. 6.1). After introducing the proper interpretative priorities in Phld. 5.1–6.2, Ignatius can now name the improper priorities that he sees in Philadelphia as Ἰουδαϊσµός. He concludes that the Philadelphians should flee from these evil schemes and traps and instead be together with an undivided heart (Phld. 6.2). In the first part of the argument (Phld. 5.1–6.2), Ignatius starts to address the problem of Judaism by introducing the prophets’ hope in the gospel and by showing the way in which he also relies upon the gospel. As Ignatius moves to the second part of the argument (Phld. 6.3–8.1), he describes his own actions when he was in Philadelphia. He portrays himself as a prophet who did not misuse his authority and consequently maintains a good conscience. Ignatius gives two quotations that form a précis of what he said in Philadelphia and mentions the temple in the second quotation. The temple serves as a call for the Philadelphians to live a pure life in unity with the ecclesial authorities. Where the prophets looked forward to the gospel in Phld. 5.2 and thus legitimated the gospel by correctly acknowledging their current place in relation to Jesus, the Philadelphians are to act in a way befitting their status as God’s temple. Unlike Ignatius’s treatment of the gospel in relation to the prophets, no mention is made of any forerunner to the temple. The Philadelphians are simply urged to act according to their status as God’s temple. When unity is found among the Philadelphians, God will dwell in them and Jesus will forgive those who return to this unity. Ignatius describes the problem in Philadelphia in the greatest detail only in the final section of the argument (Phld. 8.2–9.2). The primary issue that has given rise to Ignatius’s difficulties in Philadelphia and the response in Phld. 5.1–9.2 is a disagreement about the relationship between the gospel and archives. The disagreement in Philadelphia leads Ignatius to affirm that the cross, death, and resurrection of Jesus are the inviolable archives (Phld. 8.2). The gospel does not do away with the archives, but the archives must be viewed in proper relation to the gospel. Similarly, Jesus the high priest is superior to the Israelite priesthood because he has been entrusted with God’s secrets (Phld. 9.1). This does not discount other priests who came before Jesus. Ignatius still refers to them as good. The priests are positioned relative to Jesus who is the door through which the entire people of God enter into the Father’s presence. Ignatius then returns to the prophets about whom he already spoke in Phld. 5.2 and reaffirms that they proclaimed Jesus’ suffering and resurrection ahead of time (Phld. 9.2). However, the gospel is the completion of immortality (τὸ δὲ

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εὐαγγέλιον ἀπάρτισµά ἐστιν ἀφθαρσίας; Phld. 9.2).141 Ignatius concludes that all of these things together are good if the Philadelphians believe in love. The temple is part of an argument that utilizes the prophets, archives, priests, and patriarchs. Ignatius uses all of these figures in various ways to show that God’s redemptive work in Jesus has been prefigured in the past. This does not devalue God’s earlier actions but views them through the lens of God’s final work in Jesus who offers unity with God. The temple stands out in this argument because it is the only symbol whose past significance Ignatius does not highlight. Ignatius employs the prophets at the beginning and end of his argument to show that they anticipated Jesus. The patriarchs gained access to the Father through Jesus even though they lived in the past. Ignatius argues that the gospel and archives must be viewed in proper relation to each other based partly on these examples. The high priest and temple images function coherently in the argument’s rhetorical structure but stand apart because they have referents in the present. The high priest is Jesus who is present in the community making known the secrets of God and granting access to the Father. Although Ignatius brings the present element of Jesus’s service to the fore in Phld. 9.1, the past import of the high priest is recalled through the comparison with the Israelite priesthood. The Philadelphians are to be the temple in which God dwells, but this image stands out because Ignatius uses it without reference to its past significance. It remains to explore the relationship between the high priest and temple within the argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2. 4.4.3. The High Priest and Temple in Phld. 5.1–9.2 The prophets, temple, archives, priests, and patriarchs are variously utilized by Ignatius to demonstrate the way in which the Philadelphians should interpret God’s past redemptive actions in light of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The high priest and temple stand apart from the other images in this argument because they are given special significance in the present. Jesus is the high priest through whom the Philadelphians participate as part of God’s people through all time, and the Philadelphians are the temple in which God resides. Legarth rightly takes account of the theocentric orientation of the temple in Phld. 7.2–8.1.142 The temple belongs to God and stands for God’s presence in the community.143 Legarth argues that Ignatius’s Christology is not integrated into the symbolism of the temple in Phld. 7.2–8.1. For Legarth, Ignatius urges 141 Funk explains that “evangelium perfecit opus immortalitatis, quod lex et prophetae inceperunt” (Patres apostolici, 1.273). 142 Legarth, Guds tempel, 184–206. 143 “Det hedder i Phld 7,2e, at templet tilhører Gud. Med andre ord er ναός stedet for Guds nærvær” (It indicates that in Phld. 7.2e the temple belongs to God. In other words, ναός is the place for God’s presence; Legarth, Guds tempel, 191). See also idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 51.

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the Philadelphians to imitate Jesus, but this instruction is separate from, though parallel to, the temple image.144 The temple of God, the dwelling of God, and the unity of God give rise to the temple motif in Phld. 7.2–8.1, but Ignatius’s statements about Jesus are not incorporated into this image. This leads to the conclusion that Ignatius alternates between two separate strands of thought because the Christocentric exhortation to unity was difficult to integrate into the temple.145 Two elements of his argument that Ignatius’s theocentric and Christocentric expressions are not integrated in Phld. 7.2–8.1 will be addressed here. A better reading must take into account the place of both Phld. 7.2–8.1 and Phld. 9.1 within the argument of Phld. 5.1–9.2. First, Legarth notes that Ignatius can speak about unity in the letter with several nuances. He speaks of the “unity of God” in Phld. 8.1, and the Father seems to be the one to whom Ignatius refers.146 Yet this does not mean that Ignatius speaks only about unity with God when the topic arises. Although Legarth rightly notes that unity is connected to the Father in Phld. 8.1,147 unity must also be connected exclusively to the Father in Phld. 7.2 for this observation to further the argument that Ignatius does not integrate theocentric and Christocentric thought. Yet ἕνωσις is unqualified in Phld. 7.2. In addition, Ignatius refers to the unity of Jesus Christ when discussing the prophets’ place in relation to Jesus (Phld. 5.2). The respective roles played by God and Jesus in bringing unity to the church are outlined in a more collaborative fashion in Phld. 3.2. Those who belong to God and Jesus Christ are with the bishop, and those who come to the unity of the church through repentance belong to God so that they may live according to Jesus Christ. The unity of the church involves belonging to God and living according to Jesus. In short, Ignatius outlines the church’s unity with respect to both God and Jesus in Philadelphians. Legarth claims that the theocentric character of the temple in Phld. 8.1 has affected the way in which Ignatius refers to unity.148 This is a possibility, but

144

Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 52. “Endelig fremgår det, at der sker en alternering af teocentriske og kristocentriske udtryk. Når Ignatius i v. 2e gør brug af tempelsymbolet, bevæger han sig i teocentriske tankebaner. Kristocentriske udtryk i formaningen til enhed ville det derimod være vanskeligt for Ignatius uden videre at indføre ved hjælp af tempelsymbolet. Han valgte derfor at introducere efterfølgelsesmotivet” (Finally, it is clear that there is an alteration of the theocentric and Christocentric expression. When Ignatius makes use of the temple symbol in v. 2e, he moves along theocentric lines of thought. Christocentric expression in the exhortation to unity would, however, be difficult for Ignatius to bring in simply with the help of the temple symbol. He therefore chose to introduce the imitation motif; Legarth, Guds tempel, 200). 146 See similarly Phld. 9.1; Smyrn. 12.2; Pol. 8.3. 147 Legarth, Guds tempel, 203. 148 Legarth, Guds tempel, 204. 145

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given the variety of ways in which Ignatius speaks about unity in Philadelphians it may be better not to speculate about why Ignatius chooses these words.149 Legarth finds evidence for his supposition by noting that references to God and Jesus occur together in Phld. 3.2 but are not collocated in Phld. 8.1. Yet this stems partly from a misidentification of ὁ κύριος in Phld. 8.1. This is the second element of Legarth’s argument that must be addressed. When Legarth inquires about whether ὁ κύριος refers to the Father or Jesus, he acknowledges that Ignatius often employs the title to refer to Jesus but notes that this observation alone cannot confirm that Ignatius uses the word in that manner in Phld. 8.1.150 He argues that ὁ κύριος here refers to the Father for two reasons. First, he claims there has been no talk of Jesus in the immediately preceding context. Second, he notes that οὖν continues the thought from what Ignatius has said in the previous sentence. Regarding the first argument, it is difficult to know how far back in the letter one should extend the context. Yet it does not seem like too great a stretch to note that ὁ κύριος in Phld. 8.1 is separated from Ignatius’s command to become imitators of Jesus by only two short sentences (Phld. 7.2). Although God the Father dwells in the temple in Phld. 7.2, Jesus is not absent from the context. With respect to the second argument, Legarth is correct that οὖν connects the sentence in which it is found to the previous one. The previous sentence states that God does not dwell where there is division and anger. However, Richardson takes κύριος in Phld. 8.1 as a reference to Jesus and claims that there is no clear example of κύριος as a reference to the Father in Ignatius’s letters .151 Ignatius is more likely to designate Jesus as ὁ κύριος in Phld. 8.1 because he refers to the Father as θεός in this section. Further, Ignatius affirms his belief in Jesus’s grace in the next sentence. This declaration follows nicely from Ignatius’s statement that “the Lord forgives all who repent” if “the Lord” refers to Jesus. On balance, it is more likely that Ignatius designates Jesus as ὁ κύριος in Phld. 8.1. If Ignatius refers to Jesus as Lord in Phld. 8.1, it does not follow necessarily that Legarth’s argument that Ignatius’s theocentric and Christocentric statements may be integrated into the image of the temple. It certainly seems to be the case that Ignatius has not integrated the two elements as clearly as he did in Phld. 3.2. Although Jesus and the Father both play important roles in Phld. 7.2–8.1, these are not identical roles. Moreover, it may be better to examine the argument from Phld. 5.1–9.2 for clues about how Ignatius speaks about Jesus and the Father. Ignatius addresses similar themes in Phld. 3.2 and Phld. 149

Legarth, Guds tempel, 202. On unity in Philadelphians, see section 3.2. Legarth, Guds tempel, 205. On Ignatius’s use of the title κύριος, see further Michael Rackl, Die Christologie des heiligen Ignatius von Antiochien: Nebst einer Voruntersuchung: Die Echtheit der sieben Ignatianischen Briefe verteidigt gegen Daniel Völter (Freiburg: Herder, 1914), 169–171. 151 Richardson, Christianity of Ignatius, 41, 97n.62. 150

4.4. Towards a Reading of Phld. 5.1–9.2

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7.2–8.1, but the polemical argument of the letter gradually gets more specific throughout. Such contextual changes may have affected how Ignatius addresses the Father and Jesus. Jesus is referred to only once within Ignatius’s prophetic exclamations in Phld. 7.1–2, but it is important to look at what Jesus does within that exclamation. He is an example to imitate because he imitates the Father (Phld. 7.2). This is part of the same quotation in which the Philadelphians are instructed to keep their flesh as the temple of God. Although Ignatius speaks elsewhere of the imitation of Jesus, imitation is closely aligned with the temple in Philadelphians. By imitating Jesus as he imitates the Father, the Philadelphians will likewise imitate the Father. This connection between Jesus and the Father continues in Phld. 8.1: the Lord forgives those who repent if they repent to the unity of God. Jesus plays an important role that is closely associated with the Philadelphians and the Father. In this case, Jesus forgives the divisive elements of the church who repent. In receiving this forgiveness, they can receive unity with God as Jesus frees them from bondage. The Father is the ultimate goal in both instances, while Jesus plays an intermediary role. The Father is the goal of Philadelphian imitation, but the Philadelphians are to imitate Jesus as an intermediary who makes it possible to know how to imitate the Father. Similarly, unity with the Father is the goal of repentance, but Jesus forgives those who repent to this unity. Jesus thus plays a mediating role in the same prophecy as Ignatius’s temple metaphor and in the portion of the letter that immediately follows. Legarth is right that Ignatius’s statements in Phld. 7.2–8.1 do not fit exactly with what Ignatius writes in Phld. 3.2. However, Jesus’s role in Phld. 7.2–8.1 fits well with his role as high priest and door in Phld. 9.1. As the high priest who has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies, Jesus reveals God’s secrets to God’s people. As the door, Jesus grants all of God’s people throughout history access to the Father. Hence, these metaphors depict Jesus’s mediation. In both Phld. 7.2–8.1 and Phld. 9.1, Jesus mediates between the Father and Philadelphians, thereby bringing unity between the two parties. Despite the obvious strengths of Legarth’s study, its thematic approach may have hindered this observation. Although the comparison of Phld. 7.2–8.1 with Phld. 3.2 is justified and makes sense on thematic grounds, the contextually closer comparison is with Phld. 9.1.152 Ignatius has not yet spoken of Jesus as high priest and door in Phld. 7.2–8.1, but the statements that he makes about Jesus are consistent with what he will say in Phld. 9.1. Far from not being integrated, the christological elements of Ignatius’s comments in Phld. 7.2–8.1 fit well with what he says about Jesus’s priesthood. Jesus the high priest serves as an agent in the temple of God through whom the people can have unity with the Father. 152 He deals with Phld. 7.2–8.1 in chapter 3 of the Ignatian material but leaves Phld. 9.1 until chapter 13.

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4.5. Conclusion 4.5. Conclusion

This chapter has addressed Ignatius’s instruction to the Philadelphians that they keep their flesh as God’s temple. The statement functions in parallel with his command to obey the bishop and urges the Philadelphians to unity. Keeping the flesh as the temple thus has a twofold meaning for Ignatius. First, the flesh must be kept pure because it is God’s temple. The Philadelphians must live an ethical life, and the remainder of Ignatius’s prophetic speech suggests that imitation of Christ is key. Second, the Philadelphians must keep their flesh unified with the proper ecclesial authorities. A unified life is vital for the Philadelphians because they are God’s temple, and God has appointed both the leaders and the leadership structure in Philadelphia. This chapter has also argued that the placement of the temple and high priest in near proximity (Phld. 7.2; 9.1) and their presence as part of the same argument against Judaism offer grounds for reading these metaphors together. The priest is active in the Philadelphian temple as a mediator on behalf of the Father and the people, while the Philadelphians live as God’s temple by maintaining a holy life that is simultaneously characterized by unity. Unity will play a stronger role in the metaphors of Eph. 9.1– 2, while the role of Jesus in the temple will prove similar to Ignatius’s description of Jesus as high priest.

Chapter 5

The Temple in Ephesians: Part I 5.1. Introduction 5.1. Introduction

The longest extant letter from Ignatius was written to the Ephesians while he was staying north of Ephesus in Smyrna (Eph. 21.1). The Ephesians sent a delegation to meet Ignatius that included Onesimus, Burrhus, Crocus, Euplus, and Fronto (Eph. 1.3–2.1). Onesimus and Burrhus were, respectively, the bishop and deacon in the Ephesian church. It is not clear what role the other men played, but they seem to have been officers or highly ranked members of a Christian community in one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire.1 Ephesus was nearer to Smyrna than Magnesia, Tralles, or Rome, to which Ignatius also wrote from Smyrna.2 Its importance among Asian cities was due in part to its strategic location,3 but the status of Ephesus grew as it received a number of new buildings and expanded the imperial cult in the late first and early second centuries.4

1

The population of Ephesus is usually estimated between 200,000 and 250,000. See the discussions in L. Michael White, “Urban Development and Social Change in Imperial Ephesos,” in Ephesos: Metropolis of Asia: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture, ed. Helmut Koester (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 40–49; Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 17. However, J. W. Hanson has argued that population estimates for Roman-era Asian cities should be revised downward, proposing a population around 22,400–89,600 in Ephesus (“The Urban System of Roman Asia Minor and Wider Urban Connectivity” in Settlement, Urbanization, and Population, ed. Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson, Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy 2 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011], 254). On estimating the population of the Roman Empire and the percentage of Christians within it during the first three centuries CE, see further Thomas A. Robinson, Who were the First Christians? Dismantling the Urban Thesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 24–40. 2 Strabo writes that Smyrna and Ephesus are separated by 320 stadia, that is, roughly 60 kilometers, if measured in a straight line (αὐτὸ οὖν τὸ ἐξ Ἐφέσου µέχρι Σµύρνης ὁδὸς µὲν ἐστιν ἐπ’ εὐθείας τριακόσιοι εἴκοσι στάδιοι; Geogr. 14.1.2). 3 Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus, 17–18. 4 White, “Urban Development,” 49–56. Daniel Schowalter analyzes the depiction of Trajan in buildings constructed during his reign and argues that Trajan lived up to Pliny’s call for moderation in his portrayal of himself at Ephesus. He then contrasts this moderation with the Temple of Zeus Philios at Pergamum in which Zeus and Trajan seem to stand side by

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A central theme in the letter is Ignatius’s attempt to articulate the Ephesians’ relationship to God. This theme will be important for understanding the way in which the temple metaphor functions in Ignatius’s letter. 5 Ignatius refers to both the Father and Jesus as God in Ephesians. This is evident even from Ignatius’s greeting in which he calls the Ephesian church “blessed with greatness by the fullness of God the Father” (τῇ εὐλογηµένῃ ἐν µεγέθει θεοῦ πατρὸς πληρώµατι) and speaks of “the will of the Father and Jesus Christ, our God” (θελήµατι τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ θεοῦ ἡµῶν; Eph. inscr.).6 Ignatius writes this letter after his visit to Philadelphia but before the letter that he wrote to that church.7 It is polemically oriented against those who oppose Onesimus and those who teach a docetic Christology. However, Ignatius’s polemic in Ephesians is the softest used in the letters to Asian churches. Ignatius twice refers to the Ephesians as a temple. This chapter will cover Ignatius’s first use of the metaphor in Eph. 9.1–2, while the following chapter will explore Ignatius’s second metaphor in Eph. 15.3. After clarifying the various ways in which Ignatius highlights the relationship between the Ephesians side (“Honoring the Emperor: The Ephesians Respond to Trajan,” in 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos: Akten des Symposions Wien 1995, ed. Herwig Friesinger et al. [Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999], 121– 126). Schowalter proposes the rivalry between Pergamum and Ephesus, a possible desire of Trajan to emulate Augustus who was already honored in Pergamum, and the possibility that the temple was not finished until Hadrian’s reign as possible reasons for this discrepancy. 5 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 74–75. 6 A textual issue arises in the second phrase that has implications for this point. The reading followed here is the one found in the Greek and Latin witnesses to the middle recension. However, the Greek long recension reads θελήµατι θεοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡµῶν, thereby referring to the Father as θεός and removing this designation from Jesus. The short recension omits the conjunction and indicates a likely Greek Vorlage of θελήµατι πατρὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ θεοῦ ἡµῶν. This also removes the tension of simultaneously referring to both the Father and Jesus as θεός in the same inscription. The Armenian translation seems to omit θελήµατι and specific references to the Father. It instead gives evidence for the reading θεοῦ καὶ κυρίου ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. The long recension demonstrates an expansive tendency at this point and is the only Ignatian textual tradition to connect θεοῦ and πατρός. It also brings the Ignatian greeting closer to those found in the Pauline corpus (e.g. Rom 1.7; 1 Cor 1.3; 2 Cor 1.2; Gal 1.3; Eph 1.2; Phil 1.2; 1 Thess 1.1; 2 Thess 1.1; 1 Tim 1.2; 2 Tim 1.2; Phlm 3; similarly 2 John 3). Likewise, the omission of καί is only supported by the short recension and should be rejected since it is widely attested. Finally, the Armenian translation is the only support for omitting πατρός entirely. The variety of textual transmission of this phrase can be explained best by accepting the Greek and Latin of the middle recension as the earliest text while the other manuscripts witness various modifications and omissions. On these grounds, θεοῦ should be understood in apposition to Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 7 Philadelphia is located east of Smyrna and was visited prior to Ignatius’s meeting of the Ephesian delegation in Smyrna (Eph. 21.1). Ignatius wrote Philadelphians from Troas which was located on the Aegean coast northwest of Smyrna (Phld. 11.2).

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and God, this chapter will examine Ignatius’s detailed development of the temple image in Eph. 9.1. The Ephesians serve as stones in the Father’s temple, while God’s role in the temple is described in incipient Trinitarian terms. The chapter will next consider Ignatius’s description of the Ephesians as templebearers (ναοφόροι) in Eph. 9.2 with a dual focus on Ignatius’s use of GrecoRoman cultic imagery and the role of this description in Ephesians. Collectively, the descriptions of the Ephesians as stones and temple-bearers identify them in relation to God by depicting them in a passive role in the construction of the temple along with an active responsibility to carry God about in their daily lives. However, a full comparison of the temple metaphors in Ephesians must wait until the next chapter, since Ignatius employs the metaphor twice in this letter.

5.2. The Relationship between the Ephesians and God 5.2. The Relationship between the Ephesians and God

Ignatius begins to write about the way that the Ephesians are related to God in his greeting. Since the Ephesians are blessed with greatness by the fullness of God the Father, Ignatius connects the blessing of the Ephesians directly to the Father. Using language that is similar to Paul’s letter in Eph 1.3–14, Ignatius tells the Ephesians that they were marked out from others and thus were defined in advance. The church was marked out for adoption in Eph 1.5 (προορίσας ἡµᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν). Ignatius speaks of the church as marked out before the aeons for the purpose of enduring and unchanging glory (τῇ προωρισµένῃ πρὸ αἰώνων εἶναι διὰ παντὸς εἰς δόξαν παράµονον ἄτρεπτον; Eph. inscr.). God chose the Ephesians before the foundation of the world (ἐξελέξατο ἡµᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσµου; Eph 1.4),8 while Ignatius greets the Ephesians as a church that “has been unified and chosen in true suffering” (ἡνωµένην καὶ ἐκλελεγµένην ἐν πάθει ἀληθινῷ; Eph. inscr.). 9 The passive voice of 8 For further parallels between Eph 1.3–14 and Eph. inscr., see Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 29; Schoedel, Ignatius, 37; Nils Alstrup Dahl, Studies in Ephesians: Introductory Questions, Text- and Edition-Critical Issues, Interpretation of Texts and Themes, ed. David Hellholm, Vermund Blomkvist, and Tord Fornberg, WUNT 131 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 31; Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus, 172–173. 9 Harry O. Maier, The Social Setting of the Ministry, 165. The reading accepted here is the one found in both the middle and long recensions. Lightfoot rightly noted that the use of the accusative participles to describe the church with dative participles preceding and following is awkward. Hence, although the Armenian translation suggests the omission of ἡνωµένῃ, Lightfoot followed what he took to be the Greek Vorlage of the Syriac and Armenian witnesses in reading dative participles (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.24–25). He was followed in this decision by Kirsopp Lake (The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols. LCL 24–25 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912], 1.172). Yet the location of the participles following εἶναι εἰς still allows for the possibility that the participles modify ἐκκλησίᾳ because the infinitive

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ἐκλελεγµένην depicts the choice as something that was not accomplished by the Ephesians but by the will of the Father and Jesus. From his greeting, Ignatius claims that the existence of the Ephesian church is due to their relationship with God and that God acted first in this relationship. As Ignatius begins to praise the Ephesians, he writes that they obtained their name in Jesus and became imitators of God (Eph. 1.1). Much of the opening section is devoted to charting the relationship between God and Jesus, on the one hand, and the bishop and the Ephesians on the other. He does this by outlining connections between the mind (γνώµη) of the Father, Jesus, and the bishop (Eph. 3.2). It is because of the bishop’s relation to Jesus that Ignatius instructs the Ephesians to be united with the bishop. He develops a choral metaphor for the Ephesians by which they can sing together to the Father through Jesus (Eph. 4.2). One of the reasons that Ignatius thinks that the Ephesians should meet together is that the prayer of the bishop and the church have more power collectively than separately. Ignatius quotes Prov 3.34 to show that God opposes the proud, whom Ignatius here defines as those who do not meet in unity with the bishop (Eph. 5.3). However, the bishop has been sent by God, whom Ignatius designates the master of the house (ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης) who must be received as God (Eph. 6.1). When Ignatius moves to discuss Onesimus’s report, he praises the Ephesians for listening only to someone who speaks about Jesus Christ (Eph. 6.2). In contrast to Ignatius’s Ephesian audience, their opponents do things that are unworthy of God (τινὰ πράσσοντες ἀνάξια θεοῦ; Eph. 7.1). The Ephesians should not be deceived by the opponents’ Christology, because the Ephesians belong to God (Eph. 8.1). The Ephesians are stones in the Father’s temple and are lifted up to the Father by Jesus the crane using the Holy Spirit as a rope (Eph. 9.1). They should thus pray constantly for others because there is still hope that they might repent to God and imitate Jesus in his willingness to be unjustly treated (Eph. 10.1–2).10 In doing this, they “abide in Jesus Christ fleshly and spiritually” (µένητε ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ σαρκικῶς καὶ πνευµατικῶς; Eph. 10.3). If Ignatius has not already been instructing the Ephesians from within an eschatological perspective, he sets the instructions from Eph. 11.1–20.1 in an unmistakably eschatological context with the simple declaration that these are the last times (ἔσχατοι καιροί; Eph. 11.1). Whether it comes by fear of God’s could have taken an accusative pronoun as its subject. Thus the sentence should be read with an unstated and thus implicit pronoun for which the antecedent is ἐκκλησίᾳ. The accusative participles function adjectivally to describe the church at Ephesus, though this is admittedly somewhat clumsy. See further Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 192; Schoedel, Ignatius, 38n.27. The reading that I have followed is also found in the texts of Fischer (Die apostolischen Väter, 142), Camelot (Lettres, 56), Ehrman (Apostolic Fathers, 218), and Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 182). 10 The scope of the outsiders expands in Eph. 10 to include more than the opponents. Ignatius instructs the Ephesians to pray more broadly for other people (τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων).

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wrath or love of God’s grace, Ignatius desires for the Ephesians only to be found in Jesus, leading to true life.11 Not only are they a passageway for those who are killed for God but, on account of their relation to God, they are fellowinitiates with Paul (Eph. 12.2). At this point, Ignatius again urges the Ephesians to meet together often because the powers of Satan are destroyed in the harmony of the Ephesians’ faith (ἐν τῇ ὁµονοίᾳ ὑµῶν τῆς πίστεως; Eph. 13.1). The way in which the Ephesians should teach and act should also be based on the words and actions of God. Jesus is the one teacher “who spoke and it was done” (ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο). Moreover, the things that Jesus did in silence are worthy of the Father (Eph. 15.1). Ignatius concludes that nothing is hidden from the Lord. Rather, he indwells the Ephesians, and they are his temples (Eph. 15.3). The Ephesians’ status as temples contrasts with the false teachers about whom Ignatius again warns in the immediately following passage.12 They are corrupters of households (οἱ οἰκοφθόροι) who will not inherit the kingdom of God and are filthy since they corrupt the faith for which Jesus died (Eph. 16.1– 2). Conversely, the Lord was anointed so that he could breathe immortality on the church (πνέῃ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀφθαρσίαν; Eph. 17.1). Ignatius then plays on wisdom language but defines it in christological terms. Knowledge is Jesus Christ, and he is the one who sends the gift that some foolishly reject (Eph. 17.2). A wise person would see that Jesus was born of Mary and died (Eph. 18.2–19.1). Such a person would likewise notice that Jesus was a star hidden from the aeons and would take its place among the other stars in forming a chorus around Jesus (Eph. 19.2).13 Having sketched the economy briefly,14 Ignatius hopes to write more, particularly if the Ephesians gather together in Jesus Christ and obedience to the bishop (Eph. 20.1–2). The Ephesians’ unity under the bishop is thereby closely connected to the actions of Jesus Christ. Ignatius farewells the Ephesians in God the Father and Jesus Christ (Eph. 21.2). He thus closes the letter by assuming the relationship between the Ephesians and God after variously praising the Ephesians and instructing them to act in ways befitting their relation to God. There is a reciprocity in Ignatius’s understanding of the Ephesians’ relation to God, but the reciprocity is unequal since God initiates the relationship through his choice of the Ephesians and has 11

Zañartu rightly notes that Ignatius sees the Christian life intertwined with the life of Christ because Christ is life for the Christians (“Les concepts,” 331–332). 12 If Eph. 9.1 refers to the false teachers, it seems most likely that they have come from outside the church and been rejected by at least the majority of the church in Ephesus (Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch, 97). Lechner points out the thematic and structural parallels between Eph. 6–9 and 16–20 and argues that these passages form the macrostructure of the letter (Ignatius adversus Valentinianos, 128–129). 13 Vall correctly perceives that the celestial chorus echoes Ignatius’s earlier instruction in Eph. 4.2 that the Ephesians should form a chorus (Learning Christ, 138). 14 On the centrality of God’s work in the world through his economy, see Tarvainen, Faith and Love, 58 (Glaube und Liebe, 70–71); Vall, Learning Christ, 33–40.

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revealed himself in Jesus. In light of this, the Ephesians have both an exalted status to be praised and duties to fulfill. Ignatius emphasizes this status in Eph. 9.1, while also alluding to the need for the Ephesians to act properly.

5.3. The Temple and Building in Eph. 9.1 5.3. The Temple and Building in Eph. 9.1

This brief outline of the Ephesians’ relationship to God sets the stage for the textual analysis of Eph. 9.1–2 and 15.3. The results of this thematic outline will be brought to bear immediately on Eph. 9.1 where Ignatius outlines the Ephesians’ relation to the Father, Son, and Spirit. This section will begin by examining the text and structure of the passage. I will then examine the relationship between the Ephesians and the Father. Ignatius emphasizes this relationship by referring to the Ephesians as stones in the Father’s temple. However, these are no stationary stones. They are moved by Jesus the crane and the Holy Spirit, who is depicted as a rope. Finally, Ignatius refers to faith and love as the guide and way that aid the Ephesians on their journey. Although Ignatius’s metaphor is not completely integrated, I will argue that the temple is the controlling metaphor in which the guide and way can be included. This change in emphasis sets the stage for Eph. 9.2 where Ignatius portrays the Ephesians using the language of a cultic procession. 5.3.1. The Text and Its Structure Before proceeding further, it will again be helpful to consider both the text of Eph. 9.1 and the way in which Ignatius structures what he has written. The textual history of Eph. 9.1–2 is complicated by the presence of three additional witnesses to the text compared with those for Phld. 7.2 and 9.1. These include references to Eph. 9.1–2 in Antiochus the Monk’s first homily in the Pandectes, the Sacra Parallela of John of Damascus, and the Syriac short recension.15 ἔγνων δὲ παροδεύσαντάς τινας ἐκεῖθεν,16 ἔχοντας κακὴν διδαχήν, οὗς οὐκ εἰάσατε σπεῖραι εἰς ὑµᾶς, βύσαντες τὰ ὦτα, εἰς τὸ µὴ παραδέξασθαι τὰ σπειρόµενα ὑπ’ αὐτῶν, ὡς ὄντες λίθοι ναοῦ

15 I have used the text of Antiochus the Monk’s Pandectes scripturae sacrae in PG 89:1415–1848. The citation of Eph. 9.1 is found at PG 89:1432. For the Sacra Parallela, I have also used Karl Holl, Fragmente vornicänischer Kirchenväter aus den Sacra Paralella, TUGAL 20.2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899), 18. The complete text of John of Damascus’s Sacra Parallela may be found in PG 95:1070–96:442. The Syriac text is available in Cureton, Corpus Ignatianum, 15–38; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.79–81. 16 The long recension reads δι’ ὑµῶν, while the Armenian seems to correspond with πρὸς ὑµᾶς. However, ἐκεῖθεν is attested in the Greek middle recension and supported by the Latin translation, which reads inde. The latter reading should be preferred. The two former readings may be explained as later attempts to clarify the travels of the false teachers.

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πατρὸς, ἡτοιµασµένοι17 εἰς οἰκοδοµὴν θεοῦ πατρός,18 ἀναφερόµενοι εἰς τὰ ὕψη διὰ τῆς µηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς19 ἐστιν σταυρός, σκοινίῳ20 χρώµενοι τῷ πνεύµατι τῷ ἁγίῳ· 21 ἡ δὲ22 πίστις ὑµῶν ἀναγωγεὺς ὑµῶν,23 ἡ δὲ ἀγάπη ὁδὸς ἡ ἀναφέρουσα εἰς θεόν.24

17

According to Lightfoot, Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus 57,7 reads ναοῦ πρσ ἡτοιµασµένοι. Lightfoot conjectures that the text should read ναοῦ προητοιµασµένοι and supposes that the original ο was mistaken by the scribe for a σ. (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.52–53; see also Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 190; Stewart, Ignatius, 34). However, the Latin translation reads templi Patris parati, the Armenian translation suggests a reading like ναοῦ πατρὶ ὑµῶν θεοῦ ἡτοιµασµένοι, and Antiochus reads ναοῦ θεοῦ ὑπάρχει ἡτοιµάσµενος. The short recension seems to read καὶ ἡτοιµασµένοι εἶτε. The long recension contains a discussion of Trinitarian relations based on passages from John and is not helpful in establishing the text. Lightfoot’s conjecture is unnecessary because the variations in the witnesses that are most useful in establishing the text include a reference to the Father or God. Instead, πρσ in the Greek middle recension should be taken as an abbreviation for πατρός and may be an example of nomen sacrum. This reading is in line with the Latin translation. It also explains the slightly more expansive texts attested in Antiochus and the Armenian translation, while the short and long recensions must be explained in light of the concerns of their authors. On nomina sacra, see Larry W. Hurtado, “The Origin of the Nomina Sacra: A Proposal,” JBL 117 (1998): 655–673; idem, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 95–134. 18 Several long recension manuscripts read οἰκοδοµὴν θείαν πατρός, while the Armenian translation attests a different reading of ναοῦ πνευµατικοῦ. However, the Greek middle recension, the short recension, and Antiochus are united in support of the reading οἰκοδοµὴν θεοῦ πατρός. The Latin translation also attests this text, reading aedificationem Dei Patris or aedificatione Dei Patris. In either case, οἰκοδοµὴν is most likely the earliest reading and should be preferred on the basis of stronger manuscript evidence. The accusative is demanded in Greek following εἰς, but either the accusative or ablative case can follow the Latin preposition in. 19 This reading follows the Greek middle recension. Antiochus reads ὅ, while the Latin translation reads quae to match the feminine gender of machinam. The long recension reads somewhat differently and contains no relative pronoun. On this problem, see the discussion in section 5.3.3.2. 20 This reading follows the Greek middle recension. Antiochus and the long recension both spell the word σκοίνῳ rather than following the diminutive form as in the middle recension. 21 Antiochus omits τῷ ἁγίῳ and reads only τῷ πνεύµατι, while the short recension is more expansive and likely mirrors the structure of the previous relative clause in supporting a reading such as ὅς ἐστιν τῷ πνεύµατι τῷ ἁγίῳ. The Latin translation follows the Greek middle recension in translating spiritu sancto. However, the reading of the long recension cannot be definitively ruled out: τῷ πνεύµατι ἁγίῳ. Although it is tempting to see Antiochus’s omission of the adjective as a more likely earlier text due to its relative brevity, the wide attestation of the adjective probably indicates that it is the earlier reading. However, the choice to read the second definite article is made solely on the basis of the attestation in the usually stronger witness of the middle recension. 22 John of Damascus omits δέ. This is probably because he did not need to connect the clause to what comes before.

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Now I know that some passed by from there who have an evil teaching. You did not allow them to sow among you, stopping the ears in order not to receive the things that are sowed by them since you are stones in the Father’s temple, having been prepared for the building of God the Father, taken up to the heights through the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using the Holy Spirit as a rope. Your faith is your guide, and love is the way that carries up into God (Eph. 9.1).

Ignatius creatively mixes three metaphors in this brief passage to show the way in which the Ephesians’ reaction to those who “have evil teaching” demonstrates that they are part of God’s people.25 Each metaphor is introduced by a new conjunction. Ignatius opens the passage by restating that he knows (ἔγνων δέ) about itinerant teachers who passed on from there. This alludes to what Ignatius heard from Onesimus. The Ephesians do not listen to anyone who does not speak truthfully about Jesus (Eph. 6.2).26 After introducing this statement using δέ, Ignatius develops an agrarian metaphor in which the teachers are sowers, but the Ephesians reject their faulty seed. This is because (ὡς) they are

23

The reading ἀναγωγεὺς ὑµῶν is found in the Greek middle recension. Although the Latin translation omits any sign of the prefix, it seems to attest a similar reading by translating dux vester. John of Damascus changes the second person pronoun to ἡµῶν, while Antiochus omits the pronoun and abbreviates the word to ἀγωγεύς. The Latin translation proves unhelpful, since dux could be a translation of either ἀναγωγεύς or ἀγωγεύς. The predicate nominative should follow the Greek middle recension and John of Damascus against Antiochus on the strength of the middle recension’s witness elsewhere. The long recension continues the chain of passive participles found in the preceding clauses by reading πίστει δὲ ἀναγόµενοι. The middle recension should be followed here against the long recension, since the long recension continues its expansive tendency while perhaps also changing the grammar to match the earlier clauses. 24 This reading follows the Greek middle recension and Antiochus, although Antiochus inserts the article following the preposition. John of Damascus and the Greek long recension read πρός instead of εἰς, but there is again a disagreement about the object of the preposition. John of Damascus omits the article after the preposition and further alters the participle by reading ἄνω φέρουσα πρὸς θεόν. The long recension reads οὐρανόν following the preposition: ἀγάπῃ κουφιζόµενοι ἐκ γῆς πρὸς οὐαρνόν. The Latin translation reads referens in Deum. Although the Latin translation does not help with the decision about the preposition or the article, it further clarifies the object of the preposition against John of Damascus and the long recension. The difference in meaning between εἰς and πρός as well as the difference between the arthrous and anarthrous objects is negligible. 25 Schoedel, Ignatius, 65–67. Schoedel counts the processional language of Eph. 9.2 as a fourth image. Conversely, Martin combines the language from Schoedel’s four images into three: sowing, the construction of the temple, and the way to God (“La pneumatologia,” 410). Although Martin is helpful in demonstrating that the language of the various images cannot be easily separated, Schoedel’s outline should be preferred since it follows Ignatius’s text more closely. 26 Zahn paraphrases, “Ja, ihr hört nicht einmal auf einen Anderen ausser Christus” (Ignatius von Antiochien, 258–259).

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stones in the Father’s temple.27 With this second image, Ignatius develops an incipient Trinitarian picture of the Father’s temple in which Jesus and the Spirit also play roles as mediators between the Father and his people. The false teachers are not included in the temple.28 Ignatius alters the image somewhat when he refers to the Ephesians’ faith as a guide and their love as a path. As in the first image used in this passage, the guide and the way are introduced with δέ. Although the various images are separated by conjunctions, Ignatius employs all of them in service to his larger portrayal of the Ephesians’ relationship to God and the teachers’ place outside of this relationship. While all of the metaphors serve the same rhetorical purpose, the three metaphors cannot be mapped in the same place. The agrarian metaphor stands farther away from the temple and guide and is thus further removed from the remaining metaphors. The close relationship between the temple and the guide becomes clearer in Eph. 9.2 where cultic imagery continues the influence of the temple. Eph. 9.2 brings the image of the guide under the influence of the temple by sandwiching the guide between references to the temple. This will be shown in more detail in section 5.3.4. The reason for the distance between the sower and the temple may be because the image of sowing refers to teachers whom Ignatius, Onesimus, and the Ephesians do not believe share their relationship with God. As the metaphors of the sowers and the stones are not easily reconciled in Eph. 9.1, so the teachers and the Ephesians did not share fellowship in Ephesus. However, Ignatius’s combination of agrarian and building metaphors is not without precedent.29 Paul combines metaphors similarly in 1 Cor 3, where he emphasizes that God grew the Corinthians while he and Apollos worked in the field (1 Cor 3.6–8) before referring to the Corinthians as God’s building and temple (1 Cor 3.9–17). This juxtaposition of botanical and building imagery is also evident in the Greek translation of Isa 61.3–4 where Zion’s mourners will be called a plant of the Lord (φύτευµα κυρίου). Immediately after this Isaiah 27 With a participle ὡς can indicate “the reason for an action as one who, because” (BDAG, s.v. 3aβ). Similar usages of ὡς may be found in Acts 28.19; 2 Pet 1.3. Since Luke 11.4 supplies γάρ (καὶ ἄφες ἡµῖν τὰς ἁµαρτίας ἡµῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίοµεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡµῖν), a causal nuance might be supplied in Matt 6.12. The Matthean text reads, καὶ ἄφες ἡµῖν τὰ ὀφειλήµατα ἡµῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡµεῖς ἀφήκαµεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡµῶν (Matt 6.12). However, the Matthean conjunction might simply compare the forgiveness that is requested from God with the forgiveness that is given by people. 28 Robinson is probably correct that the false teachers had translocal links similar to those held among the Ignatian churches such that the false teachers could likely expect to travel and be received hospitably (Ignatius of Antioch, 187). However, it is difficult based on Eph. 9.1 to answer whether they had such links in Ephesus or whether they had expected Onesimus’s church to receive them. 29 Ignatius’s metaphor is compared in more detail to early Jewish and early Christian texts in section 5.3.5.

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says, “They will build eternal desolations; they will raise up the formerly devastated places” (καὶ οἰκοδοµήσουσιν ἐρήµους αἰωνίας, ἐξηρηµωµένας πρότερον ἐξαναστήσουσιν).30 In outlining the ideal Qumran community, 1QS says that the twelve men and three priests who are perfect in all that has been revealed have come to Israel, and “the council of the community shall be founded on truth (vacat) for an eternal planting, a holy house for Israel, and the foundation of the Holy of Holies for Aaron” ( ‫למטעת עולם בית קודש‬...‫נכונה ]ה[עצה היחד באמת‬ ‫ ;לישראל וסוד קודש קודשים לאהרון‬1QS [1Q28] VIII, 5–6).31 Ignatius gives no evidence that he draws directly on any of these texts, but he combines metaphors that had been combined by other writers before him. However, he keeps some distance in his use of the metaphors by not referring to the false teachers when discussing the temple.32 The images of the guide and way are placed between the images of the temple and cult. They aid Ignatius in clarifying the Ephesians’ relationship with God. Yet the guide and the way remain separate despite this close connection. In addition to the conjunction (δέ), the metaphor that Ignatius uses for faith and love are kept distinct from the temple by Ignatius’s choice of verbs. He uses four participles to connect the various elements of the temple metaphor. The Ephesians are (ὄντες) stones that have been prepared (ἡτοιµασµένοι) for the building of the Father. The stones are lifted up (ἀναφερόµενοι) to the heights by a crane using (χρώµενοι) a rope. These participles grammatically tie the temple metaphor together. When Ignatius discusses faith and love, the participles give way to implied copulative verbs.33 The significance of these phrases for the meaning of the metaphor will be explored in more detail. For now, it is important to note that these images are separated by different verb connections within each metaphor. In sum, Ignatius structures Eph. 9.1 by using different conjunctions to separate each metaphor. He keeps some distance between the agrarian and temple language but connects the temple and guide more closely by sandwiching the 30 See also Jer 1.10; 18.9; Ezek 36.9–10; Amos 9.11–15; Odes Sol. 38.17–22. In light of this juxtaposition attested in other texts, it is also worth noting the juxtaposition of an allegorical discussion of a willow tree’s branches (Herm. Sim. 8 [67–77]) and an allegorical representation of the church as a tower (Herm. Sim. 9 [78–110]) in Michigan Papyrus 129 and Codex Athous. Reading the Similitudes of the Sherpherd of Hermas in these manuscripts would result in a progression from botanical to building imagery. 31 Similarly, 1QS (1Q28) XI, 8 says that God unites the elect to be the council of the community “and a foundation of the building of holiness for an eternal planting” ( ‫וסוד מבנית‬ ‫)קודש למטעת עולם‬. 32 Although what Legarth means by “ortodoksi” and “heterodoksi” must be parsed carefully, he summarizes this point well, “Templets grænse er grænsen mellem ortodoksi og heterodoksi” (“The temple’s border is the border between orthodoxy and heterodoxy;” Guds tempel, 153). 33 A similar structure with implied copulative verbs was noted in Phld. 9.1.

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guide between the temple and cultic imagery. Ignatius further marks these metaphors by connecting the temple and the guide through distinct verbal markers. 5.3.2. Stones of the Father’s Temple After this study of the structure of Eph. 9.1–2, the significance of the metaphor within the structure will be explored in more detail. This exploration will occur in three unequal movements. First, the way in which the stones are identified as stones should be examined along with the orientation of the temple and building toward the Father. Second, it remains to answer what Ignatius means by referring to both a temple and a building that are oriented toward the Father. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was popular to consider Ignatius’s similarities to gnostic literature, but this has given way to an eschatological understanding of the temple and building in more recent studies.34 This study will attempt to take adequate account of both the spatial and temporal elements of the metaphor. The next section will address what Ignatius means when he speaks of the preparation of the stones for the Father’s building and when this preparation occurs. 5.3.2.1. The Ephesians as Stones Ignatius’s description of the Ephesians as stones in the Father’s temple begins his most elaborate temple metaphor. To refer to the Ephesians as stones (λίθοι) recognizes the presence of individual Ephesian Christians in the temple by taking account of their plurality. However, the point that Ignatius wants to emphasize with this image is their place in the temple. The incorporation of all Ephesians into a single location drives the metaphor in Eph. 9.1. Because of their place in the temple, they did not receive the teaching of those who do not belong to the temple.35 Although the temple in Eph. 9.1 recognizes Ephesian individuals, Ignatius underlines the importance of the community so that the temple community serves as a guarantor of right teaching.36 5.3.2.2. The Temple and the Building As in Phld. 7.2, the temple in Eph. 9.1 is oriented toward the Father (ναὸς πατρός). This is more clearly a patricentric expression than in Phld. 7.2 but is 34

Of course, even prior to the twentieth century, scholars contrasted historical and eschatological focuses in early Christian texts with gnostic tendencies. For example, Zahn writes with regard to the canonical gospels, “Nicht die Gnosis, sondern der durchaus historisch geartete Glaube der alten Kirche hat unter den zusammenbrechenden Trümmern der antiken Welt eine neu aufgebaut” (“Der Geschichtsschreiber und sein Stoff im Neuen Testament,” ZKW 9 [1888]: 582–583). 35 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 55. 36 Legarth, Guds tempel, 145.

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similar to the interpretation of ναὸς θεοῦ in chapter 4.37 Ignatius adds a second image in Eph. 9.1 when he claims that the Ephesians are not only stones in the Father’s temple but also stones that have been prepared for the building of God the Father (ἡτοιµασµένοι εἰς οἰκοδοµὴν θεοῦ πατρός). Two questions arise when considering the way in which ναός and οἰκοδοµή relate in this passage. First, do these images refer to separate entities? Second, how do they interact within Ignatius’s larger scheme of three primary metaphors in Eph. 9.1? Both the short and long recensions refer only to the building and omit reference to the temple. In both cases, this omission aids a different rhetorical focus from the one that is evident in the middle recension. The short recension omits references to Ignatius’s opponents. In so doing, it emphasizes the parenetic elements of Ephesians by moving quickly from Ignatius’s desire to exhort the Ephesians (Eph. 3.2) to the need to act rightly with respect to the flesh and spirit (Eph. 8.1–2) because the Ephesians do everything in Jesus and as the Father’s building (Eph. 9.1).38 Following Ignatius’s praise of the Ephesians in response to the teachers, the long recension adds a statement contrasting the spirit that deceives people (τὸ λαοπλάνον πνεῦµα) and the Holy Spirit (τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦµα) before weaving together a series of comments on relationships between members of the Trinity with citations from John.39 The long recension then affirms that Jesus will rescue the Ephesians from the deceptive spirit since he founded them on the rock and is joining them together into the building of God the Father (συναρµολογουµένους εἰς οἰκοδοµὴν θεοῦ πατρός). While these passages contribute to the larger aims of the short and long recensions, the omission of ναός may also reflect an interpretation that views the temple and building as referring to the same entity. Since both are oriented toward the Father in the middle recension, these later recensions may omit what they saw as a redundancy. Although this suggestion would need to be considered in more detail when interpreting the short and long recensions, the references to temple and building are unlikely to refer to the same entity in the middle recension for two reasons. First, Ignatius could have simply repeated ναός if he wanted to refer to the same object. It is true that οἰκοδοµή could be used to refer to a temple,40 but Ignatius’s use of the word only in this passage mitigates against such an understanding of Eph. 9.1.41 Second, the different tenses of the participles that describe the relationship of the stones to the temple and building increase the 37

See the discussion in section 4.3.3. References are given according to the middle recension. The short recension creatively splices these together. 39 These include John 14.24; 16.13, 14; 17.4, 6. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.3.256–257. 40 E.g. 1 Esd 5.70; Eph 2.21; Barn. 16.1. 41 In addition to its attestation in the short, middle, and long recensions of Eph. 9.1, οἰκοδοµή is also found in the long recension of Phld. inscr. ([κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός] ὃς κατὰ 38

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likelihood that Ignatius refers to different entities. The significance of this change in tenses will be discussed below. For now it is enough to note that the change in tenses along with the use of different words increase the probability that Ignatius refers to separate entities. Yet οἰκοδοµή should not be understood as another image in addition to the sowers, temple, and guide. The building can be distinguished from the temple, but it must be interpreted in conjunction with the temple because the stones are incorporated into both. Recent scholarship is largely in agreement that ναός and οἰκοδοµή refer to distinct entities that should be interpreted together in some way.42 However, the way in which these dual images interact has been more difficult to articulate. Schlier argued that Ignatius’s use of οἰκοδοµή borrows from language such as that found in Acts of Archelaus 7–9.43 Reference is made to a crane (µηχανή) that is used to lift the soul into the heavens where it is purified and then lives in the heavenly building.44 Schlier sees the same picture at work in Eph. 9.1.45 While the Ephesian congregation is already part of the Father’s ναός on earth, they are simultaneously in the heavenly οἰκοδοµή, that is, the heavenly church through the cross. Philipp Vielhauer follows Schlier in seeing Eph. 9.1 as part of the same background as Acts of Archelaus 7–9, but he does not think that the temple and building refer to the earthly and heavenly community. He asserts that the participles in Ignatius’s metaphors are subordinated to ὄντες rather than coordinated. Working from this, he argues that the Ephesians are (ὄντες) simultaneously both the temple and the building.46 Using some of the parallels adduced by Schlier, Bartsch argues similarly that Ignatius takes over a connection between the building and the way as these images are attested in Mandaean

τὸ ἴδιον βούληµα ἐστήριξεν αὐτοῦ βεβαίως τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἐπὶ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδοµῇ πνευµατικῇ ἀχειροπιήτῳ). In Eph. 9.1, one might appeal to the similar occurrence of mutually interpreting but distinct images of a field, building, and temple in 1 Cor 3.6–17. 42 Schlier, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 110–124; Bartsch, Gnostisches Gut, 30n.1; Legarth, Guds tempel, 143–160; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 48–50; Kieffer “La demeure divine,” 289–291. 43 For an introduction to the Acts of Arechelaus and the place of the text within Manichean thought, see Jason BeDuhn and Paul Mirecki, “Placing the Acts of Archelaus,” in Frontiers of Faith: The Christian Encounter with Manicheism in the Acts of Archelaus, NHMS 61 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 1–22. 44 Schlier helpfully includes what he regards as the relevant passages from the Acts of Archelaus in Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 110–112. 45 Schlier, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 119–120. 46 Philipp Vielhauer, Oikodome: Das Bild vom Bau in der christlichen Literatur vom Neuen Testament bis Clemens Alexandrinus (Karlsruhe: Begr. Tron, 1939), 155–156; idem, “Oikodome: Das Bild vom Bau in der christlichen Literatur vom Neuen Testament bis Clemens Alexandrinus,” in Oikodome: Aufsätze zum Neuen Testament, ed. Günter Klein, vol. 2, TB 65 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1979), 145–147.

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literature.47 However, he does not see the building as a depiction of the heavenly church but argues that Ignatius uses the building to speak of union with God. According to Bartsch, the similarities between Ignatius and gnostic literature are most evident not in Ignatius’s use of images but in his view of God.48 However, it is not clear to what degree conceiving of the relationship between ναός and οἰκοδοµή solely in spatial terms adequately explains Ignatius’s thought in Eph. 9.1. Ignatius does not refer to a heavenly church elsewhere in his letters.49 Although Ignatius has an interest in certain cosmic elements, the heavenly church does not seem to be one of them.50 Ignatius advises the Ephesians to seek peace because both heavenly and earthly battles are abolished through peace (Eph. 13.2). When Ignatius refers to heavenly matters (τὰ ἐπουρανία) in Trall. 5.1, he goes on to claim knowledge of the heavenly realms, angelic topography, and the orders of cosmic rulers, but he does not claim knowledge of a heavenly church (Trall. 5.2). Additionally, Schlier’s use of sources has been critiqued for anachronistically drawing parallels between texts and uncritically assuming the earlier text bears witness to the same phenomenon as the later text.51 The Acts of Archelaus most likely date to the fourth century,52 and the Mandaean literature that Bartsch relies upon is likewise late. Although it is not out of the realm of possibility that Ignatius knows some notion of a heavenly temple, it is unlikely that a heavenly temple with a heavenly congregation is the primary referent of οἰκοδοµή in Eph. 9.1. Others have argued that οἰκοδοµή introduces a future aspect into the metaphor. Kieffer argues that the preposition εἰς indicates that the Father’s construction extends beyond the realized Ephesian ναός and thus introduces a “perspective dynamique” to the οἰκοδοµή.53 Similarly, Legarth understands the relationship between temple and building as an expression of an already/not yet eschatology.54 This eschatologically focused perspective contrasts not only with an understanding of the building as the heavenly temple but also with a swath of

47

Bartsch, Gnostisches Gut, 31. Bartsch, Gnostisches Gut, 31–34, esp. 33. Bartsch critiques Schlier for finding similarities between Ignatius and gnostic literature in particular images and instead proposes that the similarities involve a more general view of God. 49 Reinhart Staats, “Die katholische Kirche des Ignatius von Antiochien und das Problem ihrer Normativität im zweiten Jahrhundert,” ZNW 77 (1986): 253–254. 50 Legarth, Guds tempel, 156–157. Ignatius’s interest in the cosmic implications of Jesus’s incarnation are evident in Eph. 19.2–3. For Ignatius’s use of words related to οὐρανός, see Staats, “Die katholische Kirche,” 253n.111. 51 Bartsch, Gnostisches Gut, 32; Legarth, Guds tempel, 157. Andreas Lindemann suggests that Schlier’s comparison of Ignatius and gnostic literature is unnecessary if one simply allows for Ignatius’s knowledge of 1 Corinthians (Paulus im ältesten Christentum, 206n.219). 52 BeDuhn and Mirecki, “Placing,” 9. 53 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 292. 54 Legarth, Guds tempel, 154; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 49. 48

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Ignatian scholarship that thinks Ignatius primarily has a realized eschatology.55 However, understanding the building as future-oriented takes account of its place in Ephesians. Ignatius mentions the final wrath and the intervening grace as reasons to be found in Christ (Eph. 11.1). His statement that these are the last times (ἔσχατοι καιροί) introduces the latter part of the letter that contains Ignatius’s comments about the defeat of Satan’s powers when the Ephesians gather (Eph. 13.1) and the appearance of Jesus as a star who vanquishes magic and evil (Eph. 19.2–3). The interpretation of the temple and building in Eph. 9.1 has thus revolved around two axes. The first understands the relationship on a spatial axis with the temple representing the Ephesians and the building representing the heavenly congregation. The second interprets the relationship with respect to a temporal axis in which the temple stands for the Ephesians in the present while the building refers to the Ephesians’ union with the Father in the future. The objections to the spatial interpretation have rightly pointed out that such understandings do not adequately account for Ignatius’s eschatological language elsewhere and rely too heavily on later sources. However, interpreting the metaphor only in temporal terms risks failing to take notice of the spatial elements of the metaphor.56 Legarth and Kieffer are correct to see Eph. 9.1 as an eschatologically oriented statement that fits with what Ignatius writes in Eph. 11–19, but they do not fully account for why Ignatius employs a spatial metaphor. Although he does not refer to a heavenly congregation when using οἰκοδοµή, two suggestions can be given for the spatial function of the building that can coincide with the meaning of the metaphor on the temporal axis. First, Ignatius uses a spatial metaphor in order to depict the Ephesians’ union with God. This union is already underway. The Ephesians are stones in the Father’s temple. However, they are in the process of being incorporated into

55

Theodor Preiss argued that Ignatius conformed Paul’s notion of eschatology as futureoriented into something more Hellenistic and less concerned with history (“La mystique de l’imitation du Christ et de l’unité chez Ignace d’Antioche,” RHPR 18 [1938]: 225–226). See similarly von der Goltz, Ignatius, 37–41; Munier, “Ou en est la question,” 424–427. Hennie Stander perceives a tension in Ignatius’s letters between realized and future eschatology (“Eschatology in the Second Century Theologians,” in Eschatology of the New Testament and Some Related Documents, ed. Jan G. van der Watt, WUNT 2.315 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 587–588). Albert Mellink has rightly observed that Ignatius maintains traditional eschatological notions such as Christ’s return (Smyrn. 10.2; Pol. 3.2), final judgment (Eph. 5.3; 15.3; Smyrn. 6.1), and the imminent end of all things (Eph. 11.1; 14.1; Rom. 10.3; “Death as Eschaton: A Study of Ignatius of Antioch’s Desire for Death,” [PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2000], 321–327). Hill similarly considers it inaccurate to represent Ignatius without an eschatology (Regnum Caelorum, 85n.30). 56 Legarth may try to account for this when he notes that Schlier sees the building as a heavenly temple (Guds tempel, 158). However, the spatial implications of the metaphor are less important for Legarth than the temporal ones.

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the Father’s building. The Ephesians’ union with God occurs as part of a process that brings them into closer relation with the Father. As the Ephesian stones continue to obey the bishop and reject false teaching, they enter into a closer relationship with the Father as they become part of the Father’s building. Although the process takes place over time, Ignatius pictures this as part of a spatial metaphor. The οἰκοδοµή is related to but distinct from the ναός such that the stones in the ναός are not yet in the οἰκοδοµή. On this reading, the distinction is temporal and introduces an eschatological element into the metaphor. However, it is not only a temporal distinction. Ignatius uses the metaphor’s spatial quality to demonstrate that the Ephesians’ eventual inclusion in the Father’s building is not a function of time alone. Rather, the Ephesians are brought into God’s building by the crane and rope. The work of Jesus and the Spirit are illustrated in the space provided by the metaphors. To ignore the spatial element of Ignatius’s metaphor risks diminishing this. Second, Ignatius employs a spatial metaphor to portray the Ephesians as stones who participate in a not yet complete people of God. Ignatius says more about the Ephesians’ active participation when he refers to them in cultic terms in Eph. 9.2. This will receive attention in due course. Yet the recognition that God’s people are still to be completed helps to make sense of an otherwise odd element in Ephesians. Immediately following the four images in Eph. 9.1–2, Ignatius instructs the Ephesians to pray unceasingly for other people (καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἄλλων δὲ ἄνθρώπων ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθε) and goes on to discuss their behavior with regard to those who might make them angry, blaspheme, and otherwise act savagely (Eph. 10.1). Their behavior toward those outside of the congregation is important because there is still hope that outsiders might repent and obtain God (ἔστιν γὰρ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐλπὶς µετανοίας ἵνα θεοῦ τύχωσιν; Eph. 10.1).57 Legarth interprets these others as a reference to the teachers whom Ignatius opposes in the letter, particularly in Eph. 6.2–9.2. 58 Ignatius’s reference to other people has more often been understood with regard to all who are not part

57 Ignatius has two reasons to recommend virtuous living in Eph. 10.1. First, such practices assist in reaching outsiders who still have time to repent. Second, right Christian behavior demonstrates to outsiders that the Ephesian Christians are respectable. See similarly Paul Foster, “Mission and Ethics in the Writings of Ignatius of Antioch,” in Sensitivity towards Outsiders: Exploring the Dynamic Relationship between Mission and Ethics in the New Testament and Early Christianity, ed. Jacobus Kok et al., WUNT 2.364 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 523. 58 Legarth, Guds tempel, 140. See similarly Hilgenfeld, Die apostolischen Väter, 192; Kenneth Heim, Eucharist and Excommunication: A Study in Early Christian Doctrine and Discipline, EUP 23 (Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1973), 218–219.

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of the Christian gathering in Ephesus rather than limiting it to the false teachers.59 Legarth argues that καὶ…δέ in Eph. 10.1 should be understood as a copulative conjunction.60 He draws his conclusion that Ignatius still has the teachers in view from this observation and from terminological similarities between Eph. 10.1–3 and other passages where Ignatius discusses his opponents. However, the terminological similarities to which Legarth points may also be understood as part of Ignatius’s tendency to differentiate the churches from all other people, though his opponents are often the primary focus of exclusion. It may not be clear precisely whom Ignatius has in view in Eph. 10.1, but the open reference to ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι tips the balance slightly in favor of a reference to all who are outside the Ephesian church rather than the false teachers alone. Even if Legarth’s case for understanding ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι as a reference to the teachers is not finally convincing, he is correct to argue that Eph. 10.1– 3 connects closely with Eph. 9.1–2. The possibility of repentance that Ignatius leaves open in Eph. 10.1 fits with the depiction of the building as incomplete. The Ephesians may already be stones in the temple, but there are more stones yet to be incorporated into the building. The building is still to be completed in the future, seems to be larger than the temple, and remains open to others joining the Ephesians in the building. To appreciate the nuances of the way in which Ignatius relates the building and the temple demands that one appreciate both spatial and temporal elements of the relationship. 5.3.2.3. The Preparation of the Stones Ignatius places the Ephesians in relation to the Father by marking their relation to both the temple and the building with participles in different tenses. He uses the present tense with regard to the temple and the perfect tense with regard to the building. Ignatius’s use of ὄντες designates a state in which the Ephesians presently exist as part of the Father’s temple. When Ignatius depicts the Ephesians as being prepared (ἡτοιµασµένοι) for the Father’s building, the perfect tense alludes to an action already accomplished by God but which has ongoing significance for the Ephesians. By taking part in this yet to be completed process, the Ephesians will be able to be incorporated into the Father’s building. Two further matters regarding the stones are worthy of note. 59 Lightfoot paraphrases the prepositional phrase as “for unbelievers” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.57). Bauer sees a reference in Ephesians to “Nichtchristen” (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 209), a position that is maintained by Paulsen (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 36). See similarly Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 41; Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 6; Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 193; Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 56–57; Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 241; Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch, 188n.83; Vall, Learning Christ, 372. 60 Legarth, Guds tempel, 140.

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First, Ignatius’s use of the perfect participle is reminiscent of the participles that he uses to describe the Ephesians in his initial address to them. Ignatius greets the Ephesians as an ἐκκλησία that is εὐλογηµένη, προωρισµένη, ἡνωµένη, and ἐκλελεγµένη. These perfect participles give way to a present participle as Ignatius writes to an ἐκκλησία that is (οὔση) in Ephesus (Eph. inscr.). Similarly, the Ephesians are (ὄντες) stones and have been prepared (ἡτοιµασµένοι) for God’s building in Eph. 9.1. The interplay between perfect and present tenses is interesting in both verses.61 Perhaps most striking is that the perfect participle in Eph. 9.1 speaks again of an action accomplished by God that assures the Ephesians of their place in relation to him but that has ongoing, and thus yet to be completed, effects. In addition to being blessed with the greatness of God and marked out before the ages, the Ephesians are being prepared for God’s building that is still under construction. The rest of the metaphor will illustrate how the preparation that the Ephesians are now undergoing will eventually be completed with the Ephesians’ union with the Father in his building. Second, Ignatius uses an image that was available to him from the building of physical structures. When Vitruvius archives the various types of stones, he recommends that builders using the soft stones from the quarries near Rome should begin preparing the stones by quarrying them at least two years prior to building.62 They should be removed from the quarry during the summer and should remain in an open place on the ground. Any stone that is damaged by weathering within two years is fit only for the foundation and should not be used in the building’s edifice (Architectura 2.7.5). Pliny the Elder writes similarly that the two-year preparatory period is a remedy for stones that have been quarried in the summer and are of a doubtful quality (remedium est in lapide dubio aestate cum eximere nec ante biennium inserere tecto, domitum tempestatibus; Nat. 36.170).63 Ignatius’s depiction of the Ephesians as stones under-

61

In addition to inquiring further about the possible exegetical significance of this change in tenses, the four perfect participles and one present participle in Eph. inscr. are almost balanced by the three present participles and one perfect participle in Eph. 9.1. 62 Virtruvius describes the stones from Saxa Rubra and Pallia as soft (molles; Architectura 2.7.1). Soft stones can be handled more easily during construction but are prone to crumbling when left open and unprotected in a building (Architectura 2.7.2). The proximity of these quarries to Rome may explain why Vitruvius explains how to prepare the stones a few paragraphs later. 63 Pliny includes an extensive study of marble (Nat. 36.1–126). For an outline of Pliny’s lengthy study of marble, see Agnès Rauveret, Pline l’ancien: Histoire naturelle livre xxxvi, Budé (Paris: Société d’édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1981), 30–34. In light of Vitruvius’s interest in describing architecture in a way that is useful to Augustus in his building of Rome, Antonio Corso and Elisa Romano suggest that Vitruvius’s failure to include marble in his list of building elements in Architectura 2 makes a date around 25 BCE most likely since marble was not yet extensively used in Rome during this time (Vitruvio: De architectura, 2 vols. [Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1997], 188n.78).

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going preparation fits with other ancient statements and would likely be a familiar sight to a church in Ephesus where this kind of “haulage of materials” would be familiar amidst a surge of building activities.64 5.3.3. The Crane and the Rope After placing the Ephesians within the Father’s temple and clarifying that they are yet to be integrated completely into the Father’s building, Ignatius next takes up the way in which the Ephesians are moved into the building. The transportation of the Ephesians into union with the Father will only be completed eschatologically. Moreover, it is only accomplished by Jesus and the Holy Spirit and is depicted by Ignatius using a mechanical metaphor. The Trinitarian picture that results from Ignatius’s metaphor portrays the Father as the goal towards which the temple and building are oriented while Jesus and the Spirit serve closely intertwined mediatorial roles in bringing the stones from the Father’s temple into the Father’s building. 5.3.3.1. The Heights and the Crane The Ephesians are again passive in Ignatius’s analogy. They do not lift themselves into the Father’s building but are instead lifted up (ἀναφερόµενοι) into the heights by a crane. The process of being lifted up into the building is ongoing. The prepositional phrase εἰς τὰ ὕψη continues the spatial element of the metaphor. The Ephesians are brought into a different space that represents union with God in the future as part of the growing people of God. Although ὕψος can often be a circumlocution for heaven,65 it sometimes refers not to a location that is high but to the height itself. Width, length, height, and depth are used to describe the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (τὸ πλάτος καὶ µήκος καὶ ὕψος καὶ βάθος...τὴν ὑπερβάλλουσαν τῆς γνώσεως ἀγάπην τοῦ Χριστοῦ; Eph 3.18–19), while the height to which love leads is indescribable in 1 Clem. 49.4 (τὸ ὕψος εἰς ὅ ἀνάγει ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνεκδιήγητόν ἐστιν).66 Similarly, the emphasis in Eph. 9.1 lies on the measure or extent of the heights to which the Ephesians are carried up. The location that serves as the endpoint is the Father’s building. Although Schlier understood Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus as µηχανή to be dependent upon earlier gnostic usage, the crane was an image that was available to Ignatius from the building projects around him.67 Vitruvius begins Book

64

Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 78. E.g. Luke 1.78; 24.49; Eph 4.8 (Ps 67.19 [LXX]); 1 Clem. 36.2; Justin, Dial. 39.5; Sib. Or. 8.235. 66 See similarly the equal length, width, and height of the heavenly city that are described in Rev 21.16. 67 Corwin sees the building metaphor as appropriate in Ephesus but sees him drawing on building changes in Antioch (St. Ignatius, 37–38). 65

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10 of Architectura by describing the sorts of lifting machines necessary for the construction of sacred and public buildings.68 He describes how a crane may be made with two pieces of wood along with a rope and pulley system while other ropes are used to stabilize the crane (Architectura 10.2.3). He goes on to offer advice about how to lift particularly heavy or unwieldy loads (Architectura 10.2.5) before describing Chersiphron’s machine to bring columns down from the quarries near Ephesus to the construction site for the Temple of Artemis (Architectura 10.2.11–12).69 Philo seems to appeal to a lifting device that carried gods to hover above the stage in theatrical productions when he complains that “the myth writers” (οἱ µυθογράφοι) “have brought in new gods as if from a crane” (θεοὺς καινοὺς ὥσπερ ἀπὸ µηχανῆς εἰσαγαγόντες; Spec. 1.28).70 He later explains that it is the duty of all people “not to introduce other (gods) as if from a crane to receive of the same honors” (καὶ µὴ καθάπερ ἀπὸ µηχανῆς εἰσποιεῖν ἑτέρους ἐπὶ µετουσίᾳ τῶν ἴσων τιµῶν; Spec. 2.165).71 Josephus describes how Herod built baskets (λάρνακες) in which to store soldiers who destroyed Galilean rebels who were hiding in caves on the side of a hill (A.J. 14.420–430). The baskets were lowered “by a machine from the top of the hill” (διὰ µηχανῆς ἀπὸ κορυφῆς τοῦ ὄρους; A.J. 14.423). Schlier observes an interesting parallel between Ignatius’s use of µηχανή and that found in Acts of Archelaus 7–9.72 The cross acts as a lifting device into the heavenly building. However, he incorrectly concludes that Ignatius must 68

Primumque instituemus de îs, quae aedibus sacris ad operumque publicorum perfectionem necessitate comparantur (And first we will explain the machines which must be provided for temples, and for the execution of public works; Architectura 10.2.1). Translation by Frank Granger, Vitruvius: On Architecture, 2 vols., LCL 251, 280 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933–1935), 2.279. 69 Corso and Romano note that Vitruvius’s account of Chersiphron represents a digression from a section that otherwise focuses on lifting machines (Vitruvio, 1373n.62). Vitruvius seems to insert this story at this point because it involves the transportation of large loads using machines. 70 Socrates refers to such lifting devices when he explains that some try to dodge the problem of how language developed by appealing to the gods as the originators of language. Socrates thinks that this is equivalent to “the tragic poets, who, when something is at a loss have recourse to introducing the gods on machines” (οἱ τραγῳδιοποιοὶ ἐπειδάν τι ἀπορῶσιν ἐπὶ τὰς µηχανὰς καταφεύγουσι θεοὺς αἴρουντες; Plato, Crat. 425d). Aristotle criticizes Euripides’s Medea for resolving the plot “by machine” (ἀπὸ µηχανᾶς). Rather, the µηχανά should only be used to describe things that occur outside of the play and not, as in Med., to remove the heroine at the conclusion of the play (Poet. 1454b). 71 Philo more commonly uses µηχανή with reference to means. Thus he explains that fathers and creators aim to preserve, respectively, their children and creation from harm by every means (µηχανῇ πάσῃ; Opif. 10). See similarly Migr. 150; Spec. 1.149; 2.9, 114; Virt. 34; 218. In Spec. 3.93, µηχανή may be used again to refer to means, but it may refer to a device that is held in preparation by evil villains and is related to the schemes (τέχνη) that they put into practice. 72 Schlier, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 110–123, especially 110–112.

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have borrowed from a similar line of thought. On the contrary, references to lifting machines can be found with regard to the building of physical temples, the lifting of gods in theatrical productions, and the raising and lowering of various objects.73 It is likely that Ignatius depicts the cross as this type of machine in Eph. 9.1 rather than that Ignatius engages with a proto-gnostic stream of thought. 5.3.3.2. The Relative Pronoun, Jesus, and the Crane If the depiction of the cross as a crane is likely linked to the physical shape of ancient cranes, precisely how the image functions remains to be seen. The role of the crane in the Ignatian metaphor will be explored in section 5.3.3.3. Before that, this section will address a grammatical difficulty that arises in the verse. Two genitives (τῆς µηχανῆς; Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) follow the preposition διά, and these are in turn followed by an epexegetical relative clause. It seems reasonably clear that the object of the preposition is τῆς µηχανῆς. What is not as clear is the antecedent of the relative pronoun. This ambiguity in Ignatius’s grammar warrants further consideration. Neither the gender nor the antecedent of the relative pronoun is immediately clear. The three textual witnesses that are most helpful in establishing the gender of the relative pronoun are a homily by Antiochus the Monk, the Greek middle recension, and the Latin translation of the middle recension. Antiochus records a neuter relative pronoun: διὰ τῆς µηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅ ἐστι σταυρός (Hom. 1).74 The neuter gender of the relative pronoun does not match a specific noun in the prepositional phrase or the relative clause. However, the antecedent of the relative pronoun could be understood as the entire prepositional phrase, τῆς µηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. The Greek middle recension reads διὰ τῆς µηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν σταυρός. The masculine relative pronoun would seem to take the masculine Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ as its antecedent. The Latin translation offers another alternative: per machinam Jesu Christi, quae est crux. The Latin translation offers two additional options for an antecedent. The antecedent of quae could be either machinam or crux, both of which are feminine nouns. One expects the relative pronoun in both Greek and Latin to follow its antecedent and to match it in gender and number, so the ordinary identification of the antecedent in the Latin translation would be machinam.

73 Further, Tarvainen observes that it would not be surprising if similar terminology was used in religious texts, since the search for God is also presented as a search for what is above rather than on earth in other religious texts (Faith and Love, 6 [Glaube und Liebe, 21]). Tarvainen’s claim could be enhanced by comparison with other Roman religious texts, but he is correct that terminological similarities are not enough to substantiate Schlier’s argument. 74 The Greek text can be found in PG 89:1432.

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However, quae and ὅς could be evidence for the same reading if the gender of both relative pronouns is attracted to the noun in the relative clause. Given the difficulties in determining the gender of the relative pronoun, Antiochus’s reading seems to be the easiest of the readings to account for grammatically. The relative pronoun is neuter so that the entire phrase, τῆς µηχανῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, serves as its antecedent. The combination of the easier reading and the seventh-century date for Antiochus suggest that the neuter relative pronoun was introduced into the manuscript tradition at a later date than the masculine relative pronoun.75 When the Greek middle recension and Latin translation are compared, ὅς is the most likely reading because grammatically it is the lectio difficilior. Additional evidence in support of ὅς ἐστιν may be found in Magn. 15, where Ignatius farewells “those who have obtained an unwavering spirit, which is Jesus Christ” (κεκτηµένοι ἀδιάκριτον πνεῦµα, ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός). The relative pronoun in Magn. 15 is masculine by attraction to Ἰησοῦς Χριστός and does not match the antecedent’s gender.76 The grammatical antecedent of ὅς in Eph. 9.1 is best understood as µηχανῆς for three reasons.77 First, the connection between the crane and the cross is natural. The two pieces of wood that were used in basic cranes and the two pieces of wood that comprised many crosses seem to be the reason why these two images are connected in Eph. 9.1.78 Second, Ignatius’s somewhat unusual use of explanatory relative clauses elsewhere in his letters increases the likelihood that in Eph. 9.1 the attraction of the relative pronoun to the predicate

75 Robert M. Grant dates Antiochus’s homilies in Pandectes to ca. 620 CE (“The Appeal to the Early Fathers,” JTS 11 [1960]: 21; idem. “The Apostolic Fathers’ First Thousand Years,” CH 31 [1962]: 427). 76 Ignatius uses ὅς ἐστιν in Eph. 9.1; Magn. 8.2; 15. The masculine pronoun is also found in the Greek middle recension to Eph. 20.2; Trall. 8.1; 11.2, but more serious textual difficulties arise in these verses. 77 Legarth asserts that ὅς is a “construction ad sensum for ἥ.” The relative pronoun takes µηχανῆς as its antecedent and “of course” (naturligvis) does not take Jesus as its antecedent (Legarth, Guds tempel, 164n.96). Similarly, Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.54. The repetition of early Christian texts that depict the cross as a crane at least implies that the antecedent of ὅς is µηχανῆς. Such lists are found in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.54; Funk, Patres apostolici, 221; Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 208–209; Schoedel, Ignatius, 66–67; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 35. 78 See the literature cited in section 5.3.3.1 and Vitruvius, Architectura 10.2.1, in which Vitruvius begins to describe how the crane should be constructed: Tigna duo ad onerum magnitudinem ratione expediuntur (Two beams are carefully made ready for the size of the load). On Greco-Roman language for crucifixion, see John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, WUNT 327 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 5–11.

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nominative rather than the antecedent belongs to Ignatius.79 Third, the difficulties in the manuscript tradition are best explained by seeing the various changes in the Latin translation, Antiochus’s transcription, and the long recension as evidence for an early interpretive tradition in which the antecedent was understood as the crane but which tried in various ways to solve the grammatical infelicity of Eph. 9.1. Because it is the lectio difficilior and in light of other instances in Ignatius’s letters where the relative pronoun is attracted to the predicate nominative, ὅς ἐστιν should be understood as the earliest reading to which the textual critic can return. 5.3.3.3. The Role of the Crane However, proper grammatical identification does not complete the discussion of the crane’s function in the temple. In lifting the stones from the temple to the building, the crane brings them into union with the Father. This lifting involves a process that symbolizes a change in the Ephesians’ relationship to the Father. As the Ephesians continue to exist as the Father’s temple and resist the seeds sown by the false teachers, they are lifted by the crane to be incorporated into the Father’s building.80 Yet the depiction of the crane as a cross indicates something about how this process of union comes about, namely, through suffering. Two different sufferings are in view. The passive stance of the Ephesians in Eph. 9.1 and the consistent connection of the cross with Jesus in early Christian texts brings Jesus’s suffering into primary view. The Ephesians are lifted into the Father’s building only because of what Jesus accomplished in the events of his passion.81 This relates Eph. 9.1 closely to the description of

79

For further references of Ignatius’s use of explanatory relative clauses, see Graydon F. Snyder, “The Text and Syntax of Ignatius ΠΡΟΣ ΕΦΕΣΙΟΥΣ 20:2c,” VC 22 (1968): 9–10; Schoedel, Ignatius, 98. 80 Ignatius participates in a tradition of pious reflection on the cross that is attested elsewhere in the second and third centuries. For example, the cross speaks in place of Jesus in Gos. Pet. 10.39–42 and Codex Baroccianus 180. The text of the latter can be found in M. R. James, Apocrypha Anecdota: A Collection of Thirteen Apocryphal Books and Fragments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893), 162. Likewise, a cross is left in the underworld at the request of God’s saints following Jesus’s descent into the underworld in Gos. Nic. 10(26).1 (numbering according to J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation Based on M. K. James [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993]), and Peter refers to the cross as a hidden mystery while telling of “the unspeakable grace that is spoken in the name of the cross” (Acts Pet. 37.1). Similar reflection can be found already in the first century in texts such as Matt 10.38; 16.24; Mark 8.24; Luke 9.23; 14.27; Gal 6.14. See further Paul Foster, “Do Crosses Walk and Talk? A Reconsideration of Gospel of Peter 10.39–42,” JTS 64 (2013): 100–103. 81 Martin correctly notes that Ignatius´s reference to the cross “encierra ya un contenido soteriológico cósmico tradicional” (contains a cosmic, soteriological, traditional content; “La pneumatologia,” 411).

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Jesus as ἐν θανάτῳ ζωὴ ἀληθινή and πρῶτον παθητός in Eph. 7.2 and the references to Jesus’s suffering and death in Eph. 18.2–19.1. Ignatius’s depiction of the crane that lifts the Ephesians into God’s presence as a cross is consonant with other descriptions of Jesus’s suffering in the letter. The second suffering that comes into view is that which is secondarily experienced by the Ephesians. Although being lifted from the Father’s temple to the Father’s building signifies a certain belonging to the Father already, the process of being lifted must be undergone via a cross. Ignatius greets the Ephesians as a church that is “unified and chosen in true suffering” (ἡνωµένην καὶ ἐκλελεγµένην ἐν πάθει ἀληθινῷ; Eph. inscr.).82 The Ephesians are commanded to imitate Jesus in the way that he was mistreated and rejected (Eph. 10.3).83 Jesus’s baptism is likewise connected with suffering and may offer insight into how Ignatius viewed the Ephesians’ baptism (Eph. 18.2). Ignatius insists that the process that brings the Ephesians from the temple to the building will involve suffering. The crane mediates between the Ephesians and the Father. The Ephesians already have some access to the Father. They are already included in his temple. Yet the future union with the Father that is symbolized by the placement of the Ephesians in the Father’s building is only possible as the Ephesians are lifted by the crane. In this way, the crane is similar to Jesus’s role in Phld. 9.1 as both function as mediators between the Father and the recipients of the respective letters by granting the recipients access to the Father. While Jesus’s mediation in Phld. 9.1 moves between the Father and the people as well as the people and the Father, the emphasis in Eph. 9.1 lies on the crane’s lifting in an upward direction. The mediation is only depicted as occurring in one direction as Jesus brings the Ephesians up to the Father. Yet the crane operates with the implicit approval of the Father in whose temple and building the crane works. The christological statement is similar, since Jesus is portrayed as a mediator in both texts. As a mediator, Jesus plays a priestly role in Eph. 9.1 insofar as a priest serves as an intermediary between the deity who is worshipped and the 82

Philip L. Tite’s comment about Pauline greetings seems transferrable at this point to Ignatius in Ephesians. Tite concludes, “[M]y study has demonstrated that Paul opened his letters by attempting to direct and shape the particular communicative situation that each letter addresses” (“How to Begin, and Why? Diverse Functions of the Pauline Prescript within a Greco-Roman Context,” in Paul and the Ancient Letter Form, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Sean A. Adams, PAST 6 [Leiden: Brill, 2010], 98). So also, Ignatius’s greeting in Eph. inscr. foreshadows what will be made more explicit in the letter body. 83 Along with the Father, Jesus is involved in electing the Ephesians (Eph. inscr.), while he also serves as an example to imitate (Eph. 10.3). Nor is Ignatius alone in holding both of these claims about Jesus together. Paul Hartog observes that similar christological statements are found in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (“The Christology of the Martyrdom of Polycarp: Martyrdom as Both Imitation of Christ and Election by Christ,” Perichoresis 12 [2014]: 137–151).

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worshipper. The emphasis on one-directional movement of the crane follows the upward and future orientation of the temple metaphor at this point in the letter. As the temple in Eph. 9.1 looks forward to the building in which the Ephesians will experience union with the Father, so the crane is the mediator that enables the Ephesians to attain their goal. At this point, some brief conclusions about Ignatius’s christological statements in Eph. 9.1 can be made before continuing to examine what he says about the Holy Spirit. Ignatius depicts Jesus as a crane by identifying him with the symbol that was beginning to serve as a shorthand for the most distinctive event in Jesus’s life. The cross symbolizes Jesus’s death. By referring to the cross, Ignatius appeals to Jesus’s death as the means by which the Ephesians are brought from the Father’s temple into the Father’s building. The depiction of Jesus’s role in the temple is thus consistent with Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus as the priestly mediator who reveals and gives access to the Father in Phld. 9.1. Jesus mediates between the people and the Father by bringing the people into union with the Father. 5.3.3.4. The Rope Ignatius develops the temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1 using incipient Trinitarian terms. The final piece of the temple metaphor depicts the rope that is attached to the crane. Ignatius identifies this rope as the Holy Spirit (σχοινίῳ χρώµενοι τῷ πνεύµατι τῷ ἁγίῳ). As with the other participles in the metaphor, the grammatical subject of the participle is λίθοι. Legarth argues that the stones, that is, the Ephesians, use the rope in order to enter into the heights. This restructures Ignatius’s metaphor so that the Ephesians take an active part in entering into the Father’s building. As Legarth understands the phrase, Ignatius allows the image to dissolve into absurdity.84 However, Ignatius gives the Ephesians a role in the metaphor and protects himself against the possible misunderstanding that the Ephesians should be completely passive in the building process. Although Legarth’s reference to absurdity primarily seems to concern the way in which the previously inactive stones become active, the absurdity may be heightened when he notes that the Holy Spirit also works to aid the Ephesians in becoming the temple building.85 When Ignatius uses χρώµενοι, he employs a verb that often functions as a deponent.86 Since the participle modifies λίθοι, Legarth is correct that the Ephesians, who are represented by the stones, are the grammatical subject of this 84 “Tilsyneladende føler Ignatius sig fri til på det betegnende plan at føre billedet ved i en absurditet” (Ignatius seemingly feels free at the level of meaning to lead the image into an absurdity; Legarth, Guds tempel, 167). 85 Legarth, Guds tempel, 168. 86 Ignatius uses the verb similarly in Trall. 6.1; Rom. 9.1; Phld. 4. See further Acts 27.17; 1 Cor 7.21, 31; 9.12, 15; 2 Cor 1.17; 13.10; 1 Tim 1.8; 5.23; Herm. Vis. 3.2.8 (22.8); Herm.

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participle. Yet it is unnecessary to argue that Ignatius allows his metaphor to slip into absurdity. Although χρώµενοι does not function as a true passive, its similar form to the two preceding passive participles offers a clue to a better interpretation. The participle must be active, but the stones are not the actors. Rather, it is preferable to understand the participle to refer to a process in which the Holy Spirit functions as a rope for three reasons. First, Ignatius has already shown a proclivity to refer to his subjects using terms that are ambiguous or even grammatically incorrect. This is evident in the immediately preceding clause where Ignatius uses a masculine relative pronoun to refer to a feminine antecedent. Second, the rope is part of the crane to which the Ephesians relate as passive objects. Taking account of the passive manner in which the Ephesians relate to the crane increases the likelihood that they are related in a similar way to the rope that is connected to the crane. Finally, of the three other characters who populate Ignatius’s temple metaphor to this point, only Jesus is active. The Father and Ephesians have thus far been passive. The Holy Spirit’s agency and activity are not immediately clear, since the Holy Spirit is the object of a verb that seems to have an active voice.87 However, in the absence of stronger evidence, Legarth’s assertion that the Ephesians actively make use of the Holy Spirit should not be accepted. Despite the grammatical difficulties, the Holy Spirit somehow works in conjunction with Jesus as part of the crane to lift the passive stones into the Father’s building. Although the incipient Trinitarian terms in Ignatius’s metaphor are not thoroughly explicated, this lack of explanation is significant because it shows that such terms can be used with minimal clarification and can thus be assumed to be widely recognizable.88 Yet if the terms are not thoroughly explained at every turn, their placement in Ignatius’s metaphor remains suggestive of the way in which Ignatius understands their work.89 The Spirit works together with Jesus to lift the stones into the heights and thus plays a mediatorial role alongside

Sim. 9.16.4 (93.4); Plutarch, Mor. 668F; 715D; P.Oxy. 1029.25. Since most of the literature with which BDAG is concerned uses the verb in this way, it lists χράοµαι only as a deponent. 87 The dative τῷ πνεύµατι τῷ ἁγίῳ is the object of the participle χρώµενοι, while σχοινίῳ serves as the object complement. For similar uses of two datives following a form of χραόµαι, see Josephus, C. Ap. 1.227; Justin, Dial. 7.1; Athenagoras, Leg. 32.1. 88 Martin, “La pneumatologia,” 412. Martin goes on to explain, “El valor de este texto, desde el punto de vista de la historia del dogma, consiste en que además de ofrecernos la primitiva fórmula triádica de los cristianos, la interpreta plásticamente, descubriéndonos el sentido que las primeras comunidades daban a una fórmula ya impuesta en el lenguaje” (The value of this text, from the point of view of the history of dogma, consists in that, in addition to offering us the primitive triadic formula of Christians, artistically interpreted, it makes known to us the meaning that the first communities gave a formula that was already imposed on the language; “La pneumatologia,” 413). 89 Anthony C. Thiselton, The Holy Spirit in Biblical Teaching, through the Centuries, and Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 167.

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Jesus. “Apart from the Spirit, the cross stands inert, a vast machine at rest, and about it lie the stones of the building unmoved.”90 The temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1 requires the presence of the rope in order to make the movements of the cross effective. The Spirit applies the salvific work of Jesus to the Ephesians in order to bring them into union with the Father. The constraints of the metaphor do not allow Ignatius to speak further about the way in which this is accomplished.91 The Spirit is simply depicted as a co-mediator working in conjunction with Jesus the crane to bring the Ephesians into the Father’s building. Writing at the end of the second century, Irenaeus’s use of images to describe God’s work may shed light on Ignatius’s letter. Irenaeus depicts the Son and the Spirit as the Father’s mediators when he speaks of them as God’s hands. Perhaps playing on the statement that God formed a human being from the dust (Gen 2.7), Irenaeus explains that human beings were “formed by his [God’s] hands, that is, by the Son and the Spirit, to whom also he said, ‘Let us make man’” (per manus eius [Dei] plastamus est, hoc est, per Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, quibus et dixit, faciamus hominem; Haer. 4 praef. 4).92 Irenaeus emphasizes that there was no other intermediary in the creative process. Rather, God himself created human beings with his own hands (Haer. 4.20.1). Yet Irenaeus’s insistence that there was no intermediary does not discount the mediatorial role of the Son and the Spirit, since they are equally God with the Father. Irenaeus uses the image of the hands polemically to counter his opponents’ claims that creation was accomplished by a lesser divinity. Irenaeus likewise refers to the role of the Father’s hands in his discussion of the resurrection. Both flesh and spirit must be raised because they were both made by God’s hands (Haer. 5.6.1).93 He then reads Jesus’s statements referring to his own body as a temple (John 2.19–21) alongside Paul’s statement 90 Henry Barclay Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London: MacMillan, 1912), 15. 91 The other recensions and translations generally follow the middle recension in offering little interpretation with regard to the Holy Spirit, but the long recension indicates earlier in Eph. 9.1 that the Holy Spirit will not speak about itself but about the Lord. This seems to be influenced by the quotation of John 16.13 and contrasts with the deceptive Spirit that is characteristic of the false teachers. Conversely, the middle recension seems to identify the false teachers with the fleshly (οἱ σαρκικοί) who are not able to do spiritual things (πνευµατικά; Eph. 8.2). 92 Irenaeus’s interpretation of God’s statement exploits the ambiguity of the plural verb in Gen 1.26 to Trinitarian effect. On the Spirit’s role in creation according to Irenaeus, see Thiselton, The Holy Spirit, 174. 93 Irenaeus likewise appeals to the hands in order to show that God is complete in Godself while being involved in the whole life of a person (Haer. 5.16.1). Eric Osborn helpfully observes that this continuity runs counter to what Irenaeus’s opponents seem to have believed (Irenaeus of Lyons [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 91–93), although David Jorgensen offers a reminder that Irenaeus has portrayed his opponents in a particular way (“Nor is One Ambiguity Resolved by Another Ambiguity: Irenaeus of Lyons and the

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that the Corinthians are a temple in which the Spirit dwells (1 Cor 3.16). Noting Paul’s statements that the Corinthians should not be engaged in sexual misconduct due to their place as God’s temple (1 Cor 6.15), Irenaeus concludes that his opponents are blasphemous to think that God would not raise his own temple or the members of his own body in the resurrection (Haer. 5.6.2). God works through his hands to effect creation and resurrection. As in Ignatius’s use of the crane and the rope, Irenaeus employs the image of hands to depict the coordinated mediatorial work of the Son and the Spirit even in raising up the Temple. Another Irenaean image may relate more closely to Ignatius’s reference to the crane. Assuming the connection between the cross and a tree,94 Irenaeus reads the story of Elisha throwing wood into the Jordan and bringing the ax head to the surface as a reference to the restoration effected through Jesus’s cross (2 Kgs 6.6 [4 Kgdms 6.6]; Haer. 5.17.4). Irenaeus explains that this demonstrates that what human beings had lost in an incident involving a tree in Eden would be restored by the tree that is Jesus’s cross. Hippolytus uses a different image to depict the coordinated efforts of the Son and Spirit in elevating believers into the Father’s presence. The church is compared to a ship in which Jesus is the experienced pilot (ἔµπειρος κυβερνήτη). The cross is carried like a trophy in the ship. The Spirit is the wind that propels the ship, while the ship contains a “ladder in it that is a sign of Christ’s suffering and that leads into the heights in the sailyard, taking believers into the ascent of the heavens” (κλίµαξ ἐν αὐτῇ εἰς ὕψος ἀνάγουσα ἐπὶ τὸ κέρας, εἰκὼν σηµείου πάθους Χριστοῦ, ἕλκουσα τοὺς πιστοὺς εἰς ἀνάβασιν οὐρανῶν; Antichr. 59). Irenaeus and Hippolytus develop their various images for Jesus and the Spirit differently from Ignatius. Nevertheless, they are enlightening to readers of Eph. 9.1 because they demonstrate a wider tendency to refer to the cross using images of ascent and to depict Jesus and the Spirit working together to bring believers into the Father’s presence. The crane and rope work together in Eph. 9.1 in order to bring the Ephesians into the Father’s building. The crane is incomplete without the rope, since Ignatius’s suggestive depiction of Jesus as the cross indicates µηχανή refers to the wooden frame. Likewise, the rope is useless without the frame. Both Jesus and the Spirit mediate between the Father and the Ephesians to bring them into the building. The image of the rope that would be tied to the stones before they are lifted may suggest that the Holy

Rhetoric of Interpretation,” in Beyond the Gnostic Gospels: Studies Building on the Work of Elaine Pagels, STAC 82 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 124–147; idem, Treasure Hidden in a Field: Early Christian Reception of the Gospel of Matthew, SBR 6 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016], 31–84). 94 E.g. Gal 3.13; Justin, Dial. 96. See also Irenaeus, Haer. 5.18.3.

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Spirit makes the cross’s power effective in the life of the Ephesians. 95 The crane and the rope work together to bring the stones into the Father’s building. Although Ignatius again stretches language, his metaphor does not dissolve into absurdity when he refers to the Spirit. While the grammatical subject of χρώµενοι is λίθοι, Ignatius is much more interested in the process of how the stones come into the Father’s building. As elsewhere in the temple metaphor, Ignatius portrays the construction of the temple as something that occurs outside of the Ephesians’ realm of influence. As in other metaphorical depictions of Jesus and the Spirit in Irenaeus and Hippolytus, both work together on behalf of the Ephesians as the crane and the rope. The two are distinguished, but they are involved in the same mediatorial work. Their mediation enables the Ephesians to be brought into the Father’s presence as part of his people that is yet to be completed. 5.3.4. The Guide and the Way Ignatius introduces a third metaphor into Eph. 9.1 when he speaks of faith as a guide and love as the way that leads to God. Although this metaphor is different from the temple metaphor that precedes and the cultic metaphor that follows, it deserves brief comment not only because of its proximity to these metaphors but also because the temple metaphor extends its influence over the guide and the way. While this chapter has already referred to faith as a guide, it is worth noting that the definition of ἀναγωγεύς has been disputed. Since a change in the definition of this word could impact the way in which faith and love relate to the temple, this matter will be considered first. Next, this section will consider how the metaphor works while simultaneously considering the influence that the temple metaphor extends over the metaphor of the guide and way. The inner workings of faith and love as well as the way in which Ignatius’s explanation has been influenced by the preceding temple metaphor are distinguishable but not easily separable matters and will be treated together. Precisely what Ignatius means when he refers to the Ephesians’ faith as ἀναγωγεύς is not easy to determine because he offers little in the way of interpretive hints.96 Lightfoot thinks the word refers to another lifting machine of

95 This has been argued for more forcefully by Jules Lebreton, who writes, “Cette comparaison du Saint-Esprit et du câble n’est pas sans signification: c’est en effet par l’EspritSaint que la force de la croix nous est appliquée” (Histoire du dogme de la Trinité des origines au concile de Nicée, 3rd ed., 2 vols., BTH [Paris: Beauchesne, 1928], 2.327). 96 Legarth helpfully outlines three possibilities that have been taken up in previous commentaries and translations before raising the possibility that a combination of nuances may be at work in Eph. 9.1 (Guds tempel, 169n.164).

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some sort.97 He points to Eustathius of Thessalonica’s use of the word for corroborating evidence. Eustathius compares the eyes of Argus to a machine that lifted water.98 Hence, Lightfoot considers ἀναγωγεύς and ὁδός as part of Ignatius’s temple metaphor. He concludes that the crane is the cross, the rope is the Holy Spirit, faith is “the motive power, which sits and keeps the machinery in motion,” and the path is love.99 This definition keeps ἀναγωγεύς within the temple metaphor but does not adequately engage the syntactical features of Eph. 9.1. A conjunction, δέ, separates ἀναγωγεύς and ὁδός from the temple metaphor as does the absence of participles. Although Lightfoot may be correct that the technology to which Eustathius refers was available during the time of Ignatius, the primary attestation of ἀναγωγεύς referring to a lifting machine comes from the twelfth century CE.100 It is difficult to find usages of the word contemporaneous with Ignatius. Nevertheless, examples of the word can be found from the fifth century CE that indicate ἀναγωγεύς could refer to a guide. As Proclus advances his request to Helios, he addresses Helios as the guide of souls (ψυχῶν ἀναγωγεύς; Hymn. 1.34).101 Proclus relies on his knowledge that the sun guides the souls upward to the Father of all things.102 Hermias uses the same phrase with reference to Eros when he describes the way in which many are led by Eros: ἄλλος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ὡς θεὸς Ἔρως, πολλῶν ἀγαθῶν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὢν χορηγὸς καὶ ἀναγωγεὺς τῶν ψυχῶν (Schol. Phaedr. 9.26). By setting χορηγός and ἀναγωγεύς parallel to one another, Hermias may indicate that there is a similarity in the trait each word ascribes to Eros, namely, choral leader and guide. Although there is no reason to think that Ignatius has in mind the Neoplatonic systems of thought found in these later writers, his use of the word ἀναγωγεύς coincides more closely with their usage of the word. Faith acts as a guide that leads the Ephesians up to God. In describing faith and love as the guide and way, Ignatius gives the Ephesians an active role in this metaphor while maintaining that God is likewise active in conjunction with the Ephesians. When Ignatius refers to πίστις ὑµῶν, 97

In his commentary, he suggests “a lifting engine,” while he offers “windlass” in his translation (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.54, 546). 98 Eustathius’s text is printed in Gottlieb Lukas Friedrich Tafel, Eustathii Opuscula (Frankfurt am Main: Sumptibus Sigismundi Schmerber, 1832), 328. 99 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.54. 100 Thus Schoedel critiques Lightfoot’s view as anachronistic (Ignatius, 67n.20). 101 On the structure of the hymn, see R. M. van der Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translation, Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 151–152. 102 This becomes clearer when the full address is examined: ἀλλά, θεῶν ὤριστε, πυριστεφές, ὄλβιε δαῖµον εἰκὼν παγγενέταο θεοῦ, ψυχῶν ἀναγωγεῦ (Hymn. 1.33–34). In Hymn. 1.32, Proclus speaks of the court of the Father, who is probably the Demiurge. Helios originates from the Father and seems to guide souls back to the Father in Proclus’s address. See further van der Berg, Proclus’ Hymns, 177.

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ὑµῶν should be understood as a subjective genitive. The faith that Ignatius describes is that which the Ephesians exercise. However, the second instance of ὑµῶν functions either as an objective genitive or as a possessive genitive. The Ephesians’ faith leads them as their guide. Ignatius does not explain precisely what πίστις is, but the image of the guide indicates that it goes ahead in leading the Ephesians to God. Two elements of πίστις seem to be in view. First, a guide must be trusted to lead properly. Second, a guide must be followed faithfully. Both trust and faithfulness are needed in order for the guidance to be successful. Since Ignatius does not elaborate on what he means by πίστις, it seems preferable to allow the image to influence the meaning of the word such that trust and faithfulness are both in view when Ignatius speaks of the Ephesians’ πίστις in Eph. 9.1. Ignatius sets ἀγάπη parallel to πίστις. Whereas trust is the guide that leads the Ephesians, love is the path along which the Ephesians must walk with their guide. Yet ἀγάπη is not modified by a genitive pronoun in the way that πίστις is. Where it is clear that it is the Ephesians who must practice faithfulness, it is not as clear whose love provides the path. This ambiguity occurs as part of a transition in how Ignatius depicts Ephesian activity. The Ephesians are passive in the preceding temple metaphor, while they are active in the metaphor of the cultic procession that follows in Eph. 9.2. Since it was the Ephesians to whom Ignatius attributes πίστις, it would not be surprising if Ignatius likewise refers to the love that they should demonstrate.103 Yet in this transition from the Ephesian passivity as stones in the temple to their activity in the cult, the absence of qualification in Ignatius’s use of the word ἀγάπη may be significant. The reference to ἀγάπη without genitive modification allows God’s love to come into view alongside the Ephesians’ love. The love that God showed to the Ephesians in Jesus’s cross and that grants them access into the Father’s building provides a path to God that the Ephesians should join with their own love.104 While the guide and way form a distinguishable metaphor from the immediately preceding temple metaphor, the influence of the temple metaphor remains evident in the upward orientation of the guidance and way. Although the 103 This interpretation is enhanced when one notes that Ignatius refers to the Ephesians’ love elsewhere in the letter (Eph. 2.1; 4.1). 104 Ignatius later speaks of Jesus’s love in Eph. 20.1 where he hopes to write more about Jesus’s faith, his love (τῇ αὐτοῦ ἀγάπῃ), his suffering, and resurrection. Although Schoedel understands αὐτοῦ as an objective genitive with regard to faith and love (Ignatius, 96), the use of αὐτοῦ following πάθει must be subjective. The preceding parallel repetition of αὐτοῦ following πίστει and ἀγάπῃ recurs as part of the same chain. Each of the genitive pronouns is better understood as a subjective genitive. See further Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 457n.1; Ian G. Wallis, The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions, SNTSMS 84 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 190–191; Bergamelli, “Fede di Gesù Christo,” 657–660; Teresa Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 513.

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prefix on ἀναγωγεύς does not significantly change the lexical meaning,105 its presence in an already upward-oriented metaphor subtly enhances the vertical direction of the guidance.106 Where the Ephesians were previously compared to stones being lifted from the temple, their faith now acts as a guide that leads them up. The path that love directs the Ephesians along also seems to be oriented upward because it carries them upward (ἀναφέρουσα).107 The prepositional phrase εἰς θεόν depicts the goal to which love leads as union with God. However, God is again pictured as dwelling above just as the Father’s building is located above the temple. The preposition εἰς provides further continuity with the previous metaphor. In the temple metaphor, the stones are being prepared for the building (εἰς οἰκοδοµήν) and are lifted by the crane into the heights (εἰς τὰ ὕψη). There is nothing about the phrase εἰς θεόν that demands that God be pictured as above the Ephesians, but the influence of the temple metaphor extends to the depiction of God as not only the goal, but the upwardly oriented goal, to which love leads. Ignatius explains the role of faith and love in the Ephesian church by using a metaphor that is distinct from but influenced by the temple metaphor. The Ephesians’ trust and faithfulness acts as a guide that leads them up and thereby gives them an active role that was lacking from the temple metaphor. Love carries them along a path that leads to God, but Ignatius does not clarify whose love carries the Ephesians. By doing this, he leaves a place for God and the Ephesians to act in this image. Although this metaphor should be distinguished from the temple metaphor, the influence of the temple remains evident in the upward trajectory on which faith and love lead as well as in the final goal of love εἰς θεόν. 5.3.5. Eph. 9.1 among Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts Thus far the chapter has read Eph. 9.1 with a focus on how the temple metaphor functions within the letter. However, Ignatius’s metaphor can be fruitfully compared with other metaphorical expressions in the late Second Temple period and the decades that followed soon after. Texts from Qumran and an elaborate series of metaphors from 1 Cor 3 demonstrate that other authors portrayed communities as temples, while certain early Jewish texts portray the construction of temples. Finally, two early Christian texts provide enlightening parallels

105

BDAG, s.v. The long recension may indicate that the upward trajectory was important in early interpretation, though it draws faith and love back into the temple metaphor even more closely with the plural passive participle ἀναγόµενοι. 107 The long recension again indicates the upward orientation more clearly when it says that the Ephesians are raised up from earth to heavens by love (ἀγάπῃ κουφιζόµενοι ἐκ γῆς πρὸς οὐρανόν). 106

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with Eph. 9.1 in their use of stone imagery to describe members of the community. 5.3.5.1. Early Jewish Texts In some texts, the Qumran community forms the new temple. Bertil Gärtner begins his chapter on temple symbolism at Qumran by noting that one of the most basic features “was a conviction that the ‘presence’ of God, the Spirit of God, was no longer bound to the temple in Jerusalem but to the true and pure Israel represented by the community.”108 This is perhaps best illustrated in 1QS (1Q28). As mentioned briefly in section 5.3.1, 1QS (1Q28) VIII, 5–6 uses a similar cluster of metaphors to Eph. 9.1 and orders them along the same lines. Yet there are more similarities beyond the order of the metaphors. Just as the Ephesian community is depicted as a temple, so also the Qumran community is “a holy house for Israel” (‫ )בית קודש לישראל‬and “the foundation of the Holy of Holies for Aaron” (‫ ;סוד קודש קודשים לאהרון‬1QS [1Q28] VIII, 5–6).109 Further metaphors are applied to the community including a rampart and cornerstone (1QS [1Q28] VIII, 7). After a series of regulations regarding behavior in the community, 1QS (1Q28) IX, 3–6 develops the earlier temple metaphor. When right behavior exists among the people, they shall be set apart as a holy house for Aaron (‫ ;בית קודש לאהרון‬1QS [1Q28] IX, 6). As Aaron’s holy house, the community becomes the temple and thereby replaces the temple in Jerusalem. Ignatius’s language functions similarly insofar as the Ephesians are portrayed as the Father’s temple. However, the Rule of the Community adds something that is not found in Ignatius’s temple metaphors. The community’s prayers and perfect lives replace the burnt and free will offerings.110 The actions of the community thus take on an atoning role that is not present in Eph. 9.1. Eph. 9.1 not only describes the community as a temple, but it also describes the building of that temple. When discussing Sib. Or. 5.414–433 in section 3.4.3, we observed the building of a temple and tower. The man from heaven “made a holy house” (ἅγιόν τ’ οἶκον ἐποίησεν; Sib. Or. 5.422) and “founded a great and immense tower over many stadia” (ἔπλασσεν πολλοῖς ἐν σταδίοισι µέγαν καὶ ἀπείρονα πύργον; Sib. Or. 5.423–424). The messiah is involved in the building of the temple. God (θεός) is also distinguished from the messiah as “the high-thundering, the founder of the great temple” (ὑψιβρεµέτης, κτίστης 108

Bertil Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament: A Comparative Study in the Temple Symbolism of the Qumran Texts and the New Testament, SNTSMS 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 16. 109 “Here we see the sect itself serving as a substitute for the temple in which the sons of Aaron would normally serve” (Lawrence H. Schiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010], 88). 110 In addition to 1QS (1Q28) IX, 3–6, the community’s atoning work is evident at 1QS (1Q28) V, 6–7; VIII, 6–10.

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ναοῖο µεγίστου; Sib. Or. 5.433). Although the relationship between the man and the temple has already been discussed, this passage is worth noting again because of the building of the temple in the eschaton. Ignatius analogously describes the incorporation of the Ephesian stones into the Father’s building through Jesus’s salvific work. Likewise, T. Benj. 9.2 describes the placement of God’s temple at the eschaton, which will surpass the first temple in its magnificence.111 Similarly, the Animal Apocalypse describes the rolling up of the old house, a reference to the temple or to Jerusalem, and the construction of a new house in its place (1 En. 90.28–29).112 The new house is greater and loftier than the first and contains the flock of sheep that represent the people of God.113 Ignatius shows an interest in portraying the community as a temple and in its construction that is also found in these Second Temple texts. Admittedly, these parallels are of a very general nature, and there is no suggestion that Ignatius knows the specific texts discussed here. However, the similarities are worth noting and illustrate that Ignatius is not so far removed from metaphors and traditions found in Second Temple Judaism as his caustic remarks about Ἰουδαϊσµός in other letters might initially suggest. 5.3.5.2. Early Christian Texts The temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1 may also be fruitfully compared to Paul’s imagery in 1 Cor 3.16–17.114 Paul mixes botanical, building, and temple metaphors in 1 Cor 3.5–17 as Ignatius does in Eph. 9.1. Rather than referring to individuals as in 1 Cor 6.19,115 the temple metaphor of 1 Cor 3.16–17 speaks of the Corinthian community as a temple. Paul asks the Corinthians if they have forgotten that they are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit lives in them (οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ναὸς θεοῦ ἐστε καὶ τὸ πνεῦµα τοῦ θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑµῖν; 1 Cor 3.16).

111

Hollander and De Jonge connect the temple imagery in T. Benj. 9.2 to Benjamin’s tribal allotment in Josh 18.11–28 (The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 435). 112 George W. E. Nickelsburg notes the interest in 1 Enoch in spatial dimensions as well as a tendency not to use place names. Jerusalem is not referred to by name in 1 En. 90.26– 36 (“The Apocalyptic Constitution of Reality in 1 Enoch,” in Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium, ed. John J. Collins and James H. Charlesworth, JSPSup 9 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991], 55). 113 I follow the translation of Daniel Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse: “All Nations Shall Be Blessed”: With a New Translation and Commentary, SVTP 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 225. 114 Although Paul begins discussing a building (οἰκοδοµή) in 1 Cor 3.9, Nijay K. Gupta argues that “what is most probable is that Paul begins with a broad architectural metaphor, and progresses towards a temple metaphor with clues that anticipate his literary trajectory” (Worship that Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic Metaphors, BZNW 175 [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010], 67). 115 See section 4.3.4.1.

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As such, they are holy (ἅγιος).116 If someone corrupts God’s temple, God will corrupt that person (εἴ τις τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φθείρει, φθερεῖ τοῦτον ὁ θεός; 1 Cor 3.17). The corruption about which Paul is worried has to do with the Corinthian misunderstanding of the gospel and the focus on wisdom, rhetoric, and personalities.117 Paul has heard reports about divisions that have occurred around various leaders in the community (1 Cor 1.11–13). The metaphors in 1 Cor 3.6– 17 serve as an explanation for who these figures are, namely, servants in God’s redemptive plans (1 Cor 3.5). Rather than the corrupting effect of identifying with particular leaders, everything belongs to the Corinthians through Christ, while they also belong to Christ (1 Cor 3.21–22). In place of teachers, Paul positions the gospel of Christ. The temple metaphor by which he portrays the Corinthians as a holy community shares with Ignatius’s metaphor an interest in unity. However, Paul expresses this in terms of holiness in the present, whereas Ignatius describes the Ephesians as a present temple in the process of being built into a building by God. While stone language is missing from 1 Cor 3.16–17,118 Ignatius also speaks of the Ephesians as stones in the Father’s temple. Stone imagery is employed in 1 Pet 2.5 in the description of early Christians as a spiritual house (οἶκος πνευµατικός). In the midst of a parenetic section urging the audience to give up evil and slander, Peter commands the audience to come to Christ the living stone (προσερχόµενοι λίθον ζῶντα; 1 Pet 2.4).119 In scriptural citations, Peter also refers to Jesus as a cornerstone laid in Zion (1 Pet 2.6 [Isa 28.16]), a stone that was rejected by builders (1 Pet 2.7 [Ps 117.22 LXX]), a stone that causes stumbling, and a rock that causes offense (1 Pet 2.8 [Isa 8.14]).120 The audience 116 Paul seems to preview his language of holiness in the greeting when he refers to the Corinthians as “those who have been made holy in Christ Jesus” (ἡγιασµένοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ) and “called saints” (κλητοῖς ἁγίοις; 1 Cor 1.2). See Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor 1,1–6,11), EKK 7.1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1991), 104. 117 See similarly Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 161. Fee effectively brings out the present situation of the Corinthians in Paul’s words in 1 Cor 3.17. 118 Paul does speak of “expensive stones” (λίθους τιµίους) in the context of the building at 1 Cor 3.12. Annette Weissenrieder understands the term here as a reference to marble (“‘Do You Not Know that You are God’s Temple?’: Towards a New Perspective on Paul’s Temple Image in 1 Corinthians 3:16,” in Contested Spaces: Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament, ed. David L. Balch and Annette Weissenrieder, WUNT 285 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 404, 406). 119 I refer to the author of the letter as Peter, following the name of the sender in 1 Pet 1.1. For a case for the letter’s pseudonymity, see Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 1–43; for a case that is more sympathetic to Petrine authorship, see Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 5–19. 120 On the text-critical problems regarding Isa 8.14, Isa 28.16, Rom 9.33, and 1 Pet 2.6– 8, see Dietrich-Alex Koch, “The Quotations of Isaiah 8,14 and 28,16 in Romans 9,33 and 1

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is thus portrayed in similar terms to Jesus when referred to as living stones (λίθοι ζῶντες; 1 Pet 2.5).121 Because of their relation to Jesus, the audience is formed into a community of priests, stones in a temple, and sacrifices. Everything required of a worshipping community is found in the audience itself through its relation to Jesus. Likewise, Ignatius depicts the Ephesian stones as a temple on account of its relation to God, and Jesus’s place in the temple is one of mediation along with the Spirit in Eph. 9.1. Jesus’s role in the sacrifices of 1 Pet 2.5 is likewise mediatorial (διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). Yet 1 Pet 2.4–10 offers more sustained reflection on Jesus, whereas Ignatius presents an incipiently Trinitarian temple metaphor. In addition, 1 Pet 2.4–10 draws Jesus more closely together with the audience by depicting both as stones,122 while Ignatius speaks of Jesus’s involvement with the stones but distinguishes him more sharply than 1 Pet 2 by depicting him as a crane. The stone and temple imagery are combined differently in Herm. Vis. 3 (9– 21) and Herm. Sim. 9 (78–110). Both passages narrate visions of the construction of a tower (πύργος) that Hermas is shown by a figure who serves as an interpreter. In the first one, Hermas is shown a vision of a tower under construction. Stones are brought to the building site. Some fit perfectly and are incorporated into the tower, while others are thrown away from the tower (Herm. Vis. 3.2.4–9 [10.4–9]). The woman who reveals the vision explains that the tower is the church (Herm. Vis. 3.3.3 [11.3]).123 The stones that are brought to the building site represent people, some of whom are built into the church and some of whom are broken and thrown away from the church (Herm. Vis. 3.5–7 [13–15]).124

Peter 2,6–8 as Test Case for Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament,” ZNW 101 (2010): 223–240; Katie Marcar, “The Quotations of Isaiah in 1 Peter: A Text-Critical Analysis,” TC 21 (2016): 8–14. 121 John H. Elliott, 1 Peter: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 37B (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 408. 122 Andrew M. Mbuvi sees a chiastic structure in the use of stone imagery in 1 Pet 2.4– 10 that centers on Jesus as the cornerstone and the stone that God has laid in Zion in 1 Pet 2.6 (Temple, Exile and Identity in 1 Peter, LNTS 345 [London: T&T Clark International, 2007], 96). If so, the portrayal of the believers as stones is integrated with the depiction of Jesus as a stone. 123 Later in the vision, Hermas learns that the woman is herself another representation of the church (Herm. Vis. 3.11–13 [19–21]). “The church both reveals and is that which is revealed” (B. Diane Lipsett, Desiring Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, Aseneth [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011], 32). 124 Norbert Brox rightly points out that this passage depicts the church “wie sie [die Kirche] warden soll” (Der Hirt des Hermas, KAV 7 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991], 129).

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The lengthier description of the tower in Herm. Sim. 9 (78–110) develops this metaphor.125 Both the vision and the interpretation are longer in Herm. Sim. 9 than in Herm. Vis. 3. Stones are again brought to the construction site, but they come from under the water (Herm. Sim. 9.3.3 [80.3]; 9.4.3 [81.3]), from the mountains (Herm. Sim. 9.4.4–8 [81.4–8]), and from a nearby plain (Herm. Sim. 9.6.6–8 [83.6–8]). Some are beautiful, but others are unsuitable. The master tests the stones by striking them. The stones that break are removed from the tower (Herm. Sim. 9.6.3–5 [83.3–5]). Of these, some are cleaned, recut, and placed back in the tower. Others are taken back to the mountain and thus removed from the tower altogether (Herm. Sim. 9.7–9 [84–86]).126 As in the earlier vision, the tower signifies the construction of the church, and the stones stand for people who are included or excluded from the church. The stones that are cleaned and recut represent various types of people in the Christian community who are not yet ready to be included as full members because of their riches or business (Herm. Sim. 9.30.4–9.31.6 [107.4–108.6]). In both passages, the tower denotes the church, and the stones represent individuals who are brought into the church or who are rejected. As in Eph. 9.1, the stones are passive and the construction is undertaken by a heavenly building crew. The allegories in Hermas are far more intricate, but the motif of stones being passively included into a building project is reminiscent of Eph. 9.1. However, there is one notable difference between the two texts. Ignatius speaks of the exclusion of some by using another metaphor altogether. They are sowers who are not included in the temple. The stones in the temple metaphor include only those who are being incorporated into the Father’s building. In this respect, Ignatius is closer to 1 Cor 3.16–17 and 1 Pet 2.5 where temple and stone imagery includes only members of the community. Hermas sees all people as stones, only some of which will be finally placed in the tower. The character of the tower is thus sacred, but there are other stones in the metaphor that are not included in the tower. 5.3.6. Conclusion of the Temple and Building This lengthy section has worked through the most elaborate of Ignatius’s temple metaphors. The structure of Eph. 9.1 separates the Ephesians from the false teachers not only by including them in the temple but also by placing the false teachers in a separate metaphor. The Ephesians are stones in the temple that 125 Brox, Der Hirt des Hermas, 375–377; Carolyn Osiek, The Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 220; David Hellholm, “The Shepherd of Hermas,” in The Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction, ed. Wilhelm Pratscher (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 226–228. 126 Osiek highlights that the unity of the church which seems to be achieved at Herm. Sim. 9.9.7 (86.7) is confirmed when the tower becomes one stone in Herm. Sim. 9.13.5 (90.5; The Shepherd of Hermas, 220).

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are being prepared for future union with the Father in his building that is yet to be completed and will include more stones than are currently in the temple. They are being lifted into this union by Jesus the crane, whom Ignatius identifies closely with the cross. The Holy Spirit is the rope that makes the crane effective in lifting the Ephesians. Jesus and the Spirit thus serve mediating roles in Eph. 9.1 and work together to bring the Ephesians into contact with the Father. Ignatius then switches the metaphor to speak of faith and love as a guide and way along which the Ephesians must travel. Although this metaphor is distinct from the temple metaphor, the influence of the temple continues to be felt in the upward orientation of the guidance and the road into God. Ignatius’s portrayal of the community as a temple and stones is part of a motif found in other early Jewish and early Christian texts along with his interest in the construction of the temple. The temple metaphor extends its dominance in Eph. 9.2 when Ignatius changes metaphors again to describe a processional metaphor that stems from the Ephesians’ place as stones in the temple.

5.4. The Temple-Bearers in Eph. 9.2 5.4. The Temple-Bearers in Eph. 9.2

Following the seed, the temple, and the guide and way, the processional metaphor shifts the focus to depict the way in which the Ephesians should behave in the present. This section will begin as usual by paying close attention to the text and structure of Eph. 9.2 in order to show how the passage fits within the rhetorical flow of Ignatius’s letter. It will then examine the conceptual background from which Ignatius draws the cultic terms that he uses. The final section will explore the way in which the processional metaphor functions and what it says about the Ephesians. This section will pave the way for the analysis of the two references to the temple in Eph. 9 and their role in the entire letter that will occur following the analysis of the temple in Eph. 15.3 in the next chapter.127 5.4.1. The Text and Its Structure Before proceeding further, it will again be helpful to place the text and translation at the beginning of the analysis that follows.

127

See sections 6.6.2 and 6.8.

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ἐστὲ οὖν καὶ σύνοδοι πάντες, θεοφόροι καὶ ναοφόροι, 128 χριστοφόροι, 129 ἁγιοφόροι, 130 κατὰ πάντα131 κεκοσµηµένοι132 ἐν ἐντολαῖς133 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ·οἷς καὶ ἀγαλλιώµενος134 ἠξιώθην δι’ ὧν 128 The Armenian translation seems not to have had ναοφόροι in its Vorlage, while Antiochus reads ναὸς θεοῦ. Antiochus’s change to the singular is consistent throughout his sermon, and his placement of ναὸς θεοῦ following χριστοφόρος enables him to interpret θεοφόρος in conjunction with χριστοφόρος. His change from ναοφόροι to ναὸς θεοῦ most likely reflects a harmonizing tendency with what has preceded in Eph. 9.1. The word should be included in the text based on the presence of ναοφόροι in the middle and long recensions as well as templiferi in the Latin translation. 129 The long recension omits χριστοφόροι, and the Armenian translation also gives evidence for a reading that does not include χριστοφόροι. However, the word is included in the Greek middle recension and the Latin translation (Christiferi). In addition to its attestation in better manuscripts, χριστοφόροι should be retained because it is still attested in Antiochus’s text. However, Antiochus explains the meaning of God-bearers in terms of Christbearers, reading θεοφόρος ἤγουν χριστοφόρος. He thus uses χριστοφόρος to define θεοφόρος. In so doing, he more closely connects θεός and Χριστός than in the text of the middle recension. Although Antiochus explains the meaning of the words, the presence of this explanation increases the likelihood that both θεοφόροι and χριστοφόροι are to be included in the earliest text. 130 This word is attested in the middle and long recensions, the Latin translation, and the Armenian translations. Antiochus seems to be periphrastic when he reads ἁγιοδρόµος. 131 Antiochus reads καὶ τὰ πάντα, but this seems to confuse the text. This confusion, along with his periphrastic tendency in Eph. 9.2, mitigates against accepting this reading even though it is the more difficult reading. The Armenian implies a Vorlage of καὶ παντῶς, but this is likely an adverbial interpretation of the prepositional phrase that is found in the middle recension, Latin translation, and long recension. 132 The middle recension reads κεκοσµιµένοι, but this is likely a variant spelling of κεκοσµηµένοι that is attested in the long recension. 133 The Armenian translation is expansive in its understanding of the prepositional phrase, indicating a Vorlage of ἐν πάσαις ἐντολαῖς. Antiochus reads ἐν ταῖς ἐντολαῖς, while the Latin translation reads in mandatis. The shortest reading omits the preposition and simply reads ἐντολαῖς and is found in the Greek middle recension. Although it is grammatically possible that the dative ἐντολαῖς was later clarified with the addition of the preposition, Ignatius more often uses prepositional phrases. The reading of the middle recension is best understood as an omission of the preposition. However, this omission is easier to understand if the text from which the middle recension copied did not use an article and instead read ἐν ἐντολαῖς. 134 Although the Greek long recension lengthens this section with a reference to 1 Pet 2.9, the relevant section reads δι’ οὓς ἀγαλλιώµενος ἠξιώθην. The Latin middle recension corresponds closely when it says, quibus et exultans dignificatus. A reading that very nearly approximates the Latin recension and its corresponding section in the Greek long recension is accepted by Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.56), Funk (Patres apostolici, 1.220), Lake (Apostolic Fathers, 1.184), Camelot (Lettres, 66), Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 190), and Stewart (Ignatius, 34). However, the Greek middle recension reads ἀγαλλιῶµαι ὅτι and is followed by Fischer (Die apostolischen Väter, 148) and Ehrman (Apostolic Fathers, 1.228). The Greek long recension and Latin translation preserve what appears to be the marginally more difficult reading, since the indicative verb that is preserved in the Greek middle recension provides a clearer sense of how the words relate to one another. For this reason, I have followed the Greek long recension and Latin translation.

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γράφω προσοµιλῆσαι ὑµῖν καὶ συγχαρῆναι ὅτι κατ’ ἄλλον135 βίον οὐδὲν ἀγαπᾶτε εἰ µὴ µόνον τὸν θεόν. Therefore, you are all fellow-travelers, God-bearers and temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, holy-object-bearers, decorated in every way in the commandments of Jesus Christ. I also am delighted in you because I have been counted worthy to address you through the things I write and to rejoice together because you love nothing in any life except God alone (Eph. 9.2).

Ignatius begins his fourth metaphor by using a conjunction as he did to begin the previous three. The conjunction that he uses in Eph. 9.2 is different from the conjunctions used to begin the previous three metaphors. Ignatius indicates that this metaphor somehow follows from what has been said before by using the conjunction οὖν. He develops this metaphor in a way that continues what has been said before and maintains dependence upon the earlier metaphors. Yet he also sets the processional metaphor apart by using a different verbal structure. The sowing metaphor applies active verbs and participles to the Ephesians, while the temple metaphor speaks about the Ephesians only with participles that are passive in form. The cultic imagery comes closest to the structure of the metaphor of the guide and the way. However, the metaphor that precedes the processional metaphor differs because it does not explicitly state the copulative verb that is found in Ignatius’s description of the Ephesian procession. The processional metaphor is comprised of five nouns and a participle that collectively describe the Ephesians. As all of the Ephesians have been involved in the preceding metaphors, so also the entire congregation is symbolized in the procession. However, Ignatius does not say which members of the congregation are to be identified specifically within each role in the procession. This is generally in keeping with the tone of the previous metaphors. All of the Ephesians plugged their ears in response to the teachers, are stones in the Father’s temple, and are led along the way by faith and love. Likewise, all of the 135 I have followed the reading of the Greek middle recension and Latin translation, which reads secundum aliam vitam. This is the text found in Funk (Patres apostolici), Fischer (Die apostolischen Väter, 148), Camelot, (Lettres, 66), and Schoedel (Ignatius, 68n.28). Zahn and Lightfoot propose emendations due to the difficult nature of the text. Zahn suggests καθ’ ὅλον βίον (Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn, Patrum apostolicorum opera, 89), but this suggestion has not been widely followed. Lightfoot proposes κατ’ ἀνθρώπων βίον or κατ’ ἀνθρώπινον βίον on the supposition that the abbreviated form ανων (or ανινον) could be confused with αλλον (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.57). He also sees the long recension reading, οὐδὲ κατὰ σάρκα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλὰ κατὰ θεόν, as support for his conjecture. Ηis emendation has been followed by Lake (Apostolic Fathers, 1.184), Holmes (Αpostolic Fathers, 190), and Stewart (Ignatius, 34). Although the long recension may support Lightfoot’s emendation, it may also be understood as an expansion or clarification of an ambiguous text (κατ’ ἄλλον βίον). In the absence of further manuscript evidence, the reading in the Greek middle recension and Latin translation should be accepted because it has better manuscript support and is the more difficult reading.

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Ephesians participate in the procession. As will become clear in the analysis that follows, each of the terms that Ignatius uses in the metaphor represents a different role in the procession, but the metaphor does not specify which part is played by which portion of the church. It only implies that each of the Ephesians have a part. The reference to a procession is fitting following the temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1 because processions took place in conjunction with the worship of gods in the temple. Cultic processions brought the worship of a god from the temple into the streets. The specific importance of this for Ignatius’s letter will be explored below. For now it is enough to note that the Ephesians are both stones in the temple and participants in a cultic procession on behalf of the God whose temple they comprise. Ignatius’s metaphor is more likely designed to stretch the imagination rather than to be pushed to its logical limits. The Ephesians are both stones and processors. These apparently contradictory images point to different roles that Ignatius is urging the Ephesians to recognize are simultaneously true. Thus the cultic imagery with which Ignatius begins Eph. 9.2 should be set apart as a fourth metaphor because the metaphor follows the structural markers found in the preceding metaphors.136 5.4.2. The Background of Ignatius’s Terminology Ignatius employs imagery in Eph. 9.2 that comes from the cultic processions of Greco-Roman deities.137 These occurred in conjunction with official temple worship but were also important activities for other associations. 138 Understanding the background of the metaphor will aid in better comprehending the way in which Ignatius describes the Ephesians and their relationship to God. It will be beneficial first to explore the terms that Ignatius uses in comparison to literary and epigraphic texts from a similar milieu. Yet this yields only a partial understanding of the way in which the metaphor of the cultic procession depicts the Ephesians. Thus it will next be helpful to examine two descriptions of Ephesian processions and compare these texts with Eph. 9.2.

136 Schoedel suggests that this image is suggested to Ignatius from the image of travel that precedes it (Ignatius, 67). It is possible that the guide and the way made Ignatius think about a religious procession, but this is difficult to say. It may be better to observe that the procession metaphor coincides well with the potential for movement implied in the preceding metaphor. 137 Camelot, Lettres, 66n.2. Ignatius seems to have no problem in mixing metaphors from different origins, in this case, the Jewish temple in Eph. 9.1 and Greco-Roman processional rites in Eph. 9.2. 138 Harland, “Christ-Bearers and Fellow-Initiates,” 496–497; Brent, “Ignatius’ Pagan Background,” 218–220.

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Ignatius depicts the Ephesians as θεοφόροι in the same way that he introduces himself as θεοφόρος in Eph. inscr. 139 Ignatius portrays the Ephesians as the bearers of sacred objects that were carried in cultic processions. By calling them θεοφόροι, he compares them to priests who carried deities in processions. For example, in a relief from Lanuvium, a priest of Cybele is shown wearing a crown with three gods.140 The center god is Zeus, while Attis looks on from both sides. 141 The priest served as θεοφόρος in the procession. 142 A similar crown with busts of three gods can be found on the head of L. Lartius Anthus, whose brother appointed him basket-bearer (κιστοφόρος) in the temple of Bellona.143 The θεοφόροι were given the honor of carrying the gods through cultic processions. There are other examples of functionaries in cultic processions whose roles are described in terms ending with -φόρος.144 Diodorus describes a procession that celebrated the arrival of Zeus in Egypt. Zeus’s shrine was carried from Egypt to Libya before being carried back into Egypt to represent his entry (Bibl. Hist. 1.97.9). Herodotus describes a similar procession in which an image of a deity was carried away from the temple on the day before a feast in order to celebrate his entry into the temple on the day of the feast (Hist. 2.63). Plutarch

139 He likewise introduces himself as θεοφόρος in the other six letters. See Magn. inscr.; Trall. inscr.; Rom. inscr.; Phld. inscr.; Smyrn. inscr.; Pol. inscr. 140 Brent dates this relief to the mid-second century CE (Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 160). For further lists of the use of θεοφόρος and related terms with regard to crowned figures, see Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 160–164. 141 This relief is included as plates 13 and 14 in Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 336–337. See further Henri Graillot, Le Culte de Cybèle: Mère des dieux à Rome et dans l’empire romain, BEFAR 117 (Paris: Fontemoing, 1912), 237. 142 Suetonius describes Domitian likewise wearing a golden crown with the effigies of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva (Dom. 4.4). See further Allen Brent, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian, VCSup 45 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 175–177; idem, “Ignatius and Polycarp: The Transformation of New Testament Traditions in the Context of Mystery Cults,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 335. 143 The inscription at the base of the relief reads L. Lartio Antho Cistophoro aedis Bellonae Pulvinensis fecit C. Quinctius Rufinus Fratri et Domino suo pientissimo cui et monumentum fecit interius agro Apollinis Argentei Quinctius Rufinus. The text of the inscription may be found in Eugénie Sellers Strong, “Sepulchral Relief of a Priest of Bellona,” Papers of the British School at Rome 9 (1920): 207. A description of the relief and its relevance for Ignatius’s letters can be found in Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 161, while plates 15 and 16 (p. 338) provide images of the relief. 144 On the reception of χριστοφόρος in early Christian literature, see Franz Joseph Dölger, “Christophoros als Ehrentitel für Martyrer und Heilige im christlichen Altertum,” in vol. 4 of Antike und Christentum (Münster: Aschendorff, 1934), 73–80.

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maintains that Isis revealed divine mysteries to those who carried sacred vessels and those who wore the sacred garments (ἱεραφόροις καὶ ἱεροστόλοις). These figures are those who bear the sacred writings about the gods in their souls and cover them with secrecy (Mor. 352B).145 The gods themselves could be adorned with clothing (Diodorus, Bibl. Hist. 16.92.5), but more often members of the processional were adorned with clothing or items that were representative of the god. An example of where such language may be used is found in Xenophon’s Ephesiaca.146 The Ephesian setting of the early part of the novel makes this example all the more fitting to compare to Ignatius’s letter to Ephesus. The novel begins with Eros setting out against Habrocomes because Habrocomes had slighted the god (Ephes. 1.2.1). A local festival for Artemis (τῆς Ἀρτέµιδος ἐπιχώριος ἑορτή) is under way in which Ephesian virgins and ephebes had to march seven stadia from the city to Artemis’s temple (Ephes. 1.2.2).147 As the leader of the ephebes, Habrocomes finds himself at the head of the procession (ἐν τῇ ποµπῇ τὰ πρῶτα ἐφέρετο).148 The local virgins are richly decorated (τὰς ἐπιχωρίους παρθένους κεκοσµηµένας πολυτελῶς; Ephes. 1.2.2),149 and each of 145 Plutarch describes initiates calling upon Isis, “because she is wise, as has been said, and reveals divine things to those who truly and justly are called ‘bearers of sacred vessels’ and ‘wearers of sacred garments.’ These are the ones who carry the holy word about the gods in their soul – clean of all superstition and futility – as if in a basket” (σοφὴν οὖσαν, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, καὶ δεικνύουσαν τὰ θεῖα τοῖς ἀληθῶς καὶ δικαίως ἱεραφόροις καὶ ἱεροστόλοις προσαγορευοµένοις. οὗτοι δ’ εἰσὶν οἱ τὸν ἱερὸν λόγον περὶ θεῶν πάσης καθαρεύοντα δεισιδαιµονίας καὶ περιεργίας ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ φέροντες ὥσπερ ἐν κίστῃ; Mor. 352B). See further Camelot, Lettres, 66n.2; Schoedel, Ignatius, 67; Harland, “Christ-Bearers,” 494. 146 For a concise discussion of dating the Ephesiaca, see Jeffrey Henderson, Longus – Daphnis and Chloe: Xenophon of Ephesus – Anthia and Habrocomes, LCL 69 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 207–210. While taking account of the difficulties of dating Xenophon’s story, Henderson argues that internal evidence suggests a date no later than the mid-first century CE. 147 This is roughly 1.3 kilometers. The temple of Artemis was regarded as one of the wonders of the ancient world, and the worship of Ephesian Artemis extended throughout the empire. See the descriptions in Antipater, Greek Anthologies 9.58; Pausanias, Descr. 4.31.8; 7.5.4; Vitruvius, Architectura 7.pref.16. The temple was not only a cultic center but was also filled with works of art (Pliny the Elder, Nat. 35.36, 40) and was known as the treasury of Asia (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 31.54–56; Aelius Aristides, Or. 23.24). On the temple’s financial significance, see Beate Dignas, Economy of the Sacred in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor, OCM (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 141–156. 148 Guy M. Rogers infers from the case of Habrocomes that young men could join the νέοι after they completed their times as ephebes and could remain part of the νέοι until the time to enter the Gerousia came at the age of fifty (The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos: Cult, Polis, and Change in the Graeco-Roman World, Synkrisis [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012], 106). 149 Note the similarity to Ignatius’s description of the Ephesians as decorated in the commandments. See further Harland, “Christ-Bearers,” 487n.14.

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the girls “was decorated as for a lover” (ὡς πρὸς ἐραστὴν ἐκεκόσµητο; Ephes. 1.2.4).150 Anthia, whom Habrocomes comes to love because of Eros, leads this section of the procession (Ephes. 1.2.5). In addition to the ephebes and virgins that take center stage in the novel, the procession also includes sacred objects (τὰ ἱερά), torches, baskets, incense, horses, dogs, and hunting equipment (Ephes. 1.2.4). When the procession finishes, the whole crowd goes to the temple for the sacrifice (ἦλθον δὲ εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν θύσοντες ἅπαν τὸ πλῆθος), and the procession comes to an end (Ephes. 1.3.1). Although the focus of the romance is on Habrocomes and Anthia, the story opens on a procession involving groups of people and sacred objects that is conceptually similar to the metaphor employed by Ignatius in Eph. 9.2. The narrative also notes the adornment of the virgins just as Ignatius describes the adornment of the Ephesians. Another inscription from Ephesus dates to the early second century CE and provides additional insight into Ephesian cultic processions. The Salutaris inscription (I.Eph. 27) describes the establishment of a cultic procession of Artemis through the city as well as a monetary foundation for the temple.151 The inscription dates from 104 CE and provides for a procession of thirty-one statues and images. Nine of these statues were of Artemis, and the statues were dedicated by various groups within Ephesus. The act of dedication associated these groups closely with Artemis as worshippers of the Ephesian goddess. Thus one statue of Artemis was dedicated by the town council (I.Eph. 27.157– 160), while another was dedicated by the Ephesian people (I.Eph. 27.178– 179).152 Yet the statues were not limited to Artemis alone but also included representations of Trajan (I.Eph. 27.150–152), the Senate (I.Eph. 27.160–161), the Roman people (I.Eph. 27.165), and Augustus (I.Eph. 27.174–175). The procession was to occur approximately every two weeks and processed from the porch of Artemis’s temple to the Magnesian Gate, then by the state agora, along Curetes Street, past the theater, out the Koressos Gate, and back to the

150

Translation from Henderson, Longus, 217. An important reason that is stated for the establishment of the fund is that Artemis was the founder (ἀρχηγέτιν) of Ephesus (I.Eph. 27.20). For a description of the physical appearance, preservation, and contents of the inscription, see Hermann Wankel, ed., Die Inschriften von Ephesos, Kommission für die Archäologische Erforschung Kleinasiens bei der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut; Institut für Altertumskunde der Universität Köln, vol. 1a (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1979), 167–171. 152 A full list of statues in the procession may be found in Guy M. Rogers, The Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City (London: Routledge, 1991), 84–85. 151

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temple.153 With over 260 participants filling the streets of Ephesus in the processional alone, it likely lasted at least ninety minutes and would have had a significant effect on traffic.154 Ignatius’s depiction of the Ephesians as θεοφόροι, ναοφόροι, χριστοφόροι, and ἁγιοφόροι draws from this background and gives an important and honored role to the Ephesian church.155 They are to enact these roles as they become involved in a procession. The way in which these roles are to be embodied are further clarified by Ignatius’s description of their clothing. As those who are decorated in every way with the commandments of Jesus (κατὰ πάντα κεκοσµηµένοι ἐν ταῖς ἐντολαῖς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), the Ephesians’ procession is not a physical procession in the same way that Artemis was processed around Ephesus. Ignatius uses the processional imagery to depict the Ephesians as people who are actively involved in making known the commandments of God. Although Plutarch may have depicted those who dressed in sacred garments as initiates who covered the teachings of Isis in secrecy (Mor. 352B), Ignatius urges the Ephesians to parade Jesus’s commandments publically in front of their fellow citizens. He demonstrates his understanding of the commandments by his willingness to die. Likewise, he encourages the Ephesians to be imitators of Jesus who are fanned into flame by Jesus’s blood (Eph. 1.1; 10.3). 5.4.3. The Function of the Metaphor Having analyzed the structure of Ignatius’s metaphor and briefly examined the background of the language from which it draws, it remains to study the way in which the metaphor works within Ignatius’s letter. The metaphor continues to speak of the Ephesians’ relationship to God by endowing them with an active role to play in making God known in a metaphorical procession. Along with the description of the temple in Eph. 15.3 this active role that the Ephesians have in Eph. 9.2 will be put in conversation with their passive role in Eph. 9.1 in section 6.6.1. The current section will consider Eph. 9.2 by inquiring about the way in which the Ephesians can fulfill the functions assigned to them, asking what it means to be adorned in the commandments of Jesus, and exploring how what Ignatius writes here contributes to the joy he expresses at the end of Eph. 9.2. However, it is first appropriate to consider the language used of God in the processional metaphor. Antonio Quacquarelli proposes a Trinitarian structure 153 For fuller study of the route and rituals, see Rogers, Sacred Identity, 85–107. See also the briefer descriptions in Harland, “Christ-Bearers,” 491–492; Trebilco, Early Christians in Ephesus, 28–29; Hans Willer Laale, Ephesus (Ephesos): An Abbreviated History from Androclus to Constantine XI (Bloomington: Westbow Press, 2011), 216–217. 154 Rogers, Sacred Identity, 110. 155 Note the honored place in the theater that was given to the χρυσοφοροῦντες of Ephesian Artemis (I.Eph. 27.431–446).

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in Eph. 9.2 that mirrors the Trinitarian structure of the temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1. He proposes that this Trinitarian structure plays a more important role in Eph. 9.2 than Greco-Roman processional resonances.156 This is an intriguing argument due to the proximity of ἁγιοφόροι to a clear reference to the Holy Spirit and the theme of the Ephesians’ relationship to God throughout the letter. Harland finds this position unconvincing in light of the way in which the – φόρος suffix is used in Greco-Roman literature. He leaves open the possibility that Ignatius makes an allusion to the Holy Spirit when he refers to the Ephesians as ἁγιοφόροι, but he sees the strongest resonances of the word in the language of cultic processions. 157 Harland is correct that the word resonates strongly with such language, but the possibility that Ignatius says something more about God should be explored further. The three-fold reference to those who carry God (θεοφόροι, χριστφόροι, ἁγιοφόροι) functions in a proto-Trinitarian manner alongside the reference to those who carry the temple (ναοφόροι). The cultic metaphor reflects the structure of the temple metaphor in Eph. 9.1 with a proto-Trinitarian allusion placed alongside a temple reference. The Ephesians are to carry this God with them as they process through the streets of Ephesus. However, the Ephesian procession differs from the Artemis procession in that this carrying does not occur with set times and physical statues. The procession that Ignatius depicts involves the entirety of the Ephesians’ life. It is significant that he refers to both himself and the Ephesians as θεοφόρος, since he is a God-bearer on his way to death.158 His allusions to the Ephesians’ suffering also point to a particular way in which they are to be God-bearers, namely, in suffering. Alongside Ignatius’s own willingness to endure difficulties as one who bears God, the election of the Ephesians in suffering (Eph. inscr.) and the instructions to imitate Jesus insofar as he was mistreated (Eph. 10.3) support the notion that the significance of the –φόροι suffix is intimately connected with the Ephesians’ suffering. This contrasts with the false teachers who seem to have recently visited the area. While Ignatius insists that Jesus is the only physician and offers true life in death, the bite of the false teachers is difficult to heal (Eph. 7.1–2). The willingness to suffer that Ignatius urges the Ephesians to demonstrate throughout his letter has been partly exhibited in their rejection of the false teachers’ seed. This action seems to be indicated in part by the presence of an indicative verb (ἐστέ). By rejecting this teaching, the Ephesians continue to carry the

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Antonio Quacquarelli, “Ἁγιοφόρος in Ignazio di Antiochia,” VetC 25 (1988): 9. Harland, “Christ-Bearers,” 487n.14. 158 Candida R. Moss notes that this expansive tendency within Ignatius’s letter is extended further in the Antiochene Martyrdom of Ignatius (“Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma: Pauline Reception in the Antiochene Acts of Ignatius,” in Intertextuality in the Second Century, eds. D. Jeffrey Bingham and Clayton N. Jefford, BAC 11 [Leiden: Brill, 2016], 92–94). 157

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items in their sacred procession well. The refusal of false teaching and the willingness to suffer demonstrate that the Ephesians are adorned with the commandments of Jesus. The Ephesians have taken what Jesus has commanded and decorated themselves with it like the clothes worn in the cultic procession. It is not easy to describe precisely how Ignatius might define ταῖς ἐντολαῖς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, but the Ephesians have enacted whatever the commands are by holding to proper teaching and thereby demonstrating a willingness to suffer. For this reason, Ignatius expresses the joy that he receives from addressing them. The Ephesians have been given a place of honor in their roles as Godbearers, and Ignatius likewise receives honor because he is able to address them in writing (δι’ ὧν γράφω προσοµιλῆσαι ὑµῖν). Yet Ignatius does not rejoice only in the honor that comes to him. His joy comes about because the Ephesians do not love anything that comes from another life (κατ’ ἄλλον βίον).159 This difficult phrase should be read in contrast with what follows. Rather than loving anything from this life, they love only God. Ignatius thus finds joy for two reasons. First, he can rejoice because he has been honored since the honored Ephesians are listening to his written address. Second, he can rejoice because he knows through Onesimus’s report that they are already partly enacting what he is calling for by rejecting the false teachers and thereby holding to Jesus’s commands.

5.5. Conclusion 5.5. Conclusion

Eph. 9.1–2 contains the most elaborate of Ignatius’s temple metaphors. The metaphor occurs in a polemical context in which he lauds the Ephesians for their refusal of false teachers with a problematic Christology. Against this, Ignatius depicts the Ephesians as stones of a single temple that is united and belongs to the Father. In addition, the united Ephesian stones are being elevated into the Father’s building by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who work together as crane and rope. Of particular interest to Ignatius is that the Ephesians are lifted by Jesus’s cross, which suggests that the temple metaphor depicts a salvific drama and also that the Ephesians may encounter suffering as they reject these teachers. Still more important for the purposes of this study is the depiction of Jesus as a mediator between the Ephesians and the Father. Jesus serves a priestly role as he enables the Ephesian stones to be unified in God’s building. Unity and mediation are important themes in Eph. 9.1 as they were in Phld. 7.2–9.1. Yet Ignatius continues to portray faith and love as the guide and way by which the Ephesians obtain their unity with God. Moreover, the Ephesians have responsibilities to act properly and to announce their status as stones in 159

5.4.1.

On the textual difficulties surrounding this phrase, see the text-critical note in section

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the temple by carrying God’s sacred objects in a procession. Ignatius thus mixes his metaphors so that they create a robust and complex picture of unity within the Ephesian church. This communal metaphor gives way later in the letter to a temple metaphor that portrays individual Ephesians as temples and offers a different role to Jesus in Eph. 15.3. The second temple metaphor in Ephesians and the position of Jesus within this letter are the subject of the next chapter.

Chapter 6

The Temple in Ephesians: Part II 6.1. Introduction 6.1. Introduction

After examining the role of the temple and temple-bearers in Eph. 9.1–2, it is fitting to consider the way in which Ignatius employs the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3. This chapter can presume the discussion about Ignatius’s interest in the Ephesians’ relation to God from section 5.2. However, two matters make Eph. 15.3 an unusual reference to temples in the Ignatian corpus. First, this is the only point at which Ignatius speaks of plural ναοί in his letters. Although the singular references to the temple may refer collectively to a group of individual Christians in the other letters, the significance of the plural reference in Eph. 15.3 will need to be considered. Of greater import for this monograph is that this is the only reference to the temple in which θεός seems clearly to refer to Jesus. Although this possibility was considered when studying Phld. 7.2 and will be examined again when looking at Magn. 7.2, Eph. 15.3 is the clearest reference to Jesus as the God who dwells in the temple. Such a presentation of Jesus differs from what is found in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1 in which Jesus serves as a mediator. The christological significance of this placement of Jesus will receive due consideration in what follows in light of Legarth’s belief that there is a tension-filled relationship between the symbolism of the temple and Christology.1 This chapter will begin by analyzing the structure of Eph. 15.3 and its rhetorical place in the letter. It will next consider the significance of the plural ναοί and the way in which the Ephesians can fulfill Ignatius’s desire that they may be God’s temples. The description of the Ephesians as temples is closely connected with Ignatius’s discourse on secrets in Eph. 15.3. With these factors in place, the chapter can then consider the role of Jesus as the God who dwells in the Ephesian temples and the dwelling of God in other early Jewish and early 1 “Dette er imidlertid kun muligt, når det samtidig pointers, at Jesus Kristus er vor Gud i os, og dermed har Ignatius i virkeligheden bevidnet tempelsymbolets teocentriske karakter og det spændingsfyldte forhold mellem tempelsymbolisme og kristologi” (However, this is only possible when it is simultaneously emphasized that Jesus Christ is our God in us, and thus Ignatius has actually borne witness to the theocentric character of the symbolism of the temple and the tension-filled relationship between the symbolism of the temple and Christology; Legarth, Guds tempel, 217 [italics original]).

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Christian texts. I next compare the role of Jesus in the temple metaphors already discussed and consider the function of the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 within the argument of the entire letter. Finally, the chapter will conclude with reflections on the way in which the various temple metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2 and 15.3 contribute to Ignatius’s letter as a whole.

6.2. The Structure of Eph. 15.3 and Its Place in the Letter 6.2. The Structure of Eph. 15.3 and Its Place in the Letter

Before proceeding further, it will again be helpful to establish the text upon which this chapter will be based. After this, the structure of the text will be examined and its place in the letter briefly explored. Although a fuller study of the rhetorical role of the temple within Ephesians may be found later in this chapter, some preliminary consideration should be given to the relation of Eph. 15.3 with what precedes and follows, since this has not always been agreed upon and will influence the exegesis.

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οὐδὲν2 λανθάνει τὸν κύριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡµῶν ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ3 ἐστιν.4 πάντα οὖν ποιῶµεν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν κατοικοῦντος, ἵνα ὤµεν αὐτοῦ ναοὶ καὶ αὐτὸς5 ἐν ἡµῖν6 θεὸς ἡµῶν,7 ὅπερ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡµῶν.8 ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶµεν αὐτόν.9 2

Antiochus reads οὐδὲν γὰρ λανθάνει (Hom. 22; PG 89.1501). However, the Greek middle and long recensions, the Latin translation, the Syriac fragments, and the Armenian translations do not attest a conjunction. In light of the overwhelming external evidence and the role of the conjunction with Antiochus’s homily, these witnesses should be preferred over Antiochus. 3 Antiochus reads ἐγγὺς αὐτοῦ (Hom. 22; PG 89.1504), while the Greek middle and long recensions read ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ. The translations give evidence for similar texts but are not helpful in determining the case of the noun. The change in case does not alter the meaning. Both the genitive and dative cases are attested in conjunction with ἐγγύς (genitive: John 3.23; Rom 10.8 [Deut 30.14]; Herm. Sim. 8.6.5 [72.5]; dative: Acts 9.38; 27.8; 1 Clem. 27.3). The dative may be tentatively preferred because it appears in the stronger witnesses. 4 Antiochus reads εἰσιν. The Greek middle and long recensions read ἐστιν. Antiochus’s text is similar to the Latin translation (sunt). However, the singular verb should be preferred. Neuter plural subjects can take singular verbs in Greek, and it is more likely that a singular verb would be changed into a plural verb to match a plural subject than that a plural verb would be made singular in the same situation. 5 The Greek middle recension reads αὐτὸς ᾖ ἐν ἡµῖν, while the long recension reads αὐτὸς ἐν ἡµῖν. The middle recension solves a potential grammatical problem, since ὤµεν cannot be the verb in the second clause. It may also subtly heighten the contrast between the first person plural subject of ὤµεν and the third person singular αὐτός. However, the Latin translation seems to agree with the long recension in leaving the second copulative verb unstated (ut simus ipsius templa, et ipse in nobis Deus noster). Although the meaning of the reading in the long recension and Latin translation is not difficult to ascertain, these witnesses attest to the more difficult reading and should be preferred to the Greek middle recension. 6 The repetition of ἐν ἡµῖν and ἡµῶν appears most likely to be the earliest reading to which one can return on the basis of current manuscript evidence (see the immediately following note). This apparent repetition of modifiers for θεός seems to have created problems in the manuscript and translation tradition. The Armenian translation resolves the issue by omitting ἐν ἡµῖν. The prepositional phrase should be maintained on the basis of its inclusion in the Greek middle and long recensions, the Latin translation, and Syriac fragments. 7 The Greek long recension and Syriac fragments suggest that ἡµῶν should be omitted. Lightfoot follows these two witnesses in omitting the genitive pronoun but does so only because Ignatius’s statement indicates that θεός is a predicate nominative and the inclusion of the pronoun “interferes slightly with this sense” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.70). However, his text-critical basis for omitting ἡµῶν is weak. The pronoun is included not only in the Armenian translation but also in the Greek middle recension and the Latin translation. Although it may be repetitive, both ἐν ἡµῖν and ἡµῶν should be included in the text. See similarly Funk, Patres apostolici 1.224–226; Lake, Apostolic Fathers, 1.188; Fischer, Die apostolischen Väter, 154; Camelot, Lettres, 72; Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.234; Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 194; Stewart, Ignatius, 38. 8 The relative clause (ὅπερ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡµῶν) is omitted by the Armenian translation and Syriac fragments. Lightfoot suggests that this may be due to homeoteleuton (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.71). This is a possible explanation but only in the case of the Armenian translation. In its current form, the fragmentary witness to the Syriac translation omits the first instance of ἡµῶν. The Armenian translation may have skipped from θεὸς

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Nothing is hidden from the Lord, but even our secrets are near to him. Therefore, let us do everything like he dwells in us in order that we may be his temples and he our God in us, which indeed he is and which will be revealed before us. On account of these things, let us love him rightly (Eph. 15.3).

6.2.1. The Structure of Eph. 15.3 After Ignatius’s description of faith and love in Eph. 14.1–2 and discussion about stillness and silence in Eph. 15.1–2, he offers a two-part proposition. Nothing is hidden from Jesus; rather, Jesus even knows the things that the Ephesians keep secret. Based on this claim, Ignatius urges the Ephesians to do everything like Jesus dwells in them. The purpose of acting in this manner is so that the Ephesians can be Jesus’s temple and he can be their God. Ignatius then explains in a relative clause (ὅπερ) that Jesus is already their God.10 Since there is no neuter noun in the clause that precedes the relative pronoun, αὐτὸς ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν, to which the relative pronoun can refer, this entire phrase should be understood as the antecedent. Two issues arise at this point. First, it is unclear how far the influence of the relative pronoun extends. Does καὶ φανήσεται κ.τ.λ. begin a new clause, or does it form the second part of the relative clause? Second, how is the prepositional phrase ἐξ ὧν to be understood? In modern editions, the extent of the relative clause is clarified by where an editor places the punctuation in the text. Ehrman places a full stop after ἐστιν and thus closes the relative clause.11 The words that follow begin a new clause that is grammatically unrelated to what precedes it. Ehrman then translates ὅπερ…ἡµῶν, “as in fact he is. And he will be made visible before our eyes.”12 The dwelling of God in the present is separated slightly from the revelation of God in the future. Placing the full stop after ἐστιν has the advantage of coinciding with other epexegetical relative clauses in Ephesians, including the one in Eph. 9.1 that was explored in the previous chapter.13 In these clauses, Ignatius often uses a relative pronoun with ἐστιν to clarify something that he has ἡµῶν to προσώπου ἡµῶν and thereby deleted the relative clause, but since no equivalent to θεὸς ἡµῶν occurs in the Syriac fragments, this is not a viable explanation for the absence of the relative clause in Syriac. In any case, the Greek middle recension and Latin translation agree in including the relative clause. The clause should be included on the strength of these witnesses. 9 The long recension does not include the text from the relative clause to the end of the verse. Rather, it reads, Χριστὸς ἐν ἡµῖν λαλείτω, ὡς καὶ ἐν Παύλῳ. τὸ πνεῦµα τὸ ἅγιον διδασκέτω ἡµᾶς τὰ Χριστοῦ φθέγγεσθαι παραπλησίως αὐτῷ. 10 Although the relative pronoun ὅ is connected with the particle -περ, the term “relative pronoun” will continue to be used in this thesis since the meaning is not changed significantly. 11 Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.234. 12 Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.235. 13 See section 5.3.3.2.

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said or to associate two words closely. Similar clauses appear in Eph. 14.1; 17.2; 18.1; 20.2. Yet in these other occurrences of a relative pronoun with ἐστιν, Ignatius adds a predicate nominative. Ignatius uses no such word in Eph. 15.3. Holmes does not place any punctuation after ἐστιν but instead places a comma after ἡµῶν and a full stop after αὐτόν.14 On this reading, ὅπερ is the subject of both ἐστιν and φανήσεται. Holmes then translates, ὅπερ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡµῶν, “as, in fact, he really is, as will be made clear in our sight.”15 God both is and will be present in the people. In support of this reading, it seems to account for the presence of the two hortatory subjunctives (ποιῶµεν; ἀγαπῶµεν) by viewing them as structural markers. Following the statement that nothing is hidden from the Lord, Ignatius urges the Ephesians to do (ποιῶµεν) everything like the Lord dwells in them. He concludes similarly that the Ephesians should love (ἀγαπῶµεν) the Lord rightly. The ἵναclause that follows ποιῶµεν explains the purpose for which the Ephesians should act as Ignatius commands, and the relative clause explains something about Jesus. The presence of καί...καί may also support extending the influence of the relative pronoun. The close proximity of the conjunctions would connect the two verbs as correlative conjunctions if the relative pronoun is taken to be the subject of both verbs. 16 They could be appropriately translated as “both…and.”17 Although it is tempting to align this relative clause with Ignatius’s other epexegetical relative clauses that use only ἐστιν, noting the presence of the hortatory subjunctives better accounts for the structural markers of Eph. 15.3.18 The neuter relative pronoun likely takes the phrase αὐτὸς ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν as its antecedent, and Ignatius explains that this both is the case and is yet to be revealed.

14 Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 194. The same punctuation is found in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.70–71; Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.226; Camelot, Lettres, 72; Stewart, Ignatius, 38. It is also assumed in von der Goltz, Ignatius von Antiochien, 24. Fischer does not place a comma after ἡµῶν but otherwise fits into this category (Die apostolischen Väter, 159). 15 Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 195. Holmes does not conclude the sentence until after the phrase ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶµεν αὐτόν. The relation of this prepositional phrase will be described below. 16 See the similar use of καί...καί to connect phrases in Matt 10.28; John 7.28; 12.28; Acts 26.29; 1 Cor 1.22; Phil 2.13; 4.12. 17 BDAG, s.v. 1.b.η.f. 18 As an additional argument in support of this position, one might argue that the omission of ὅπερ…ἡµῶν in some manuscripts indicates that this clause was understood as a single relative clause with two verbs since it was deleted as a whole. However, this omission of this phrase could also be due to homeoteleuton. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.71.

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Ignatius next exhorts the Ephesians to love Jesus. The prepositional phrase ἐξ ὧν provides a causal link between the exhortation that follows and the theologically motivated purpose statements that precede.19 A similar usage of ἐκ is found in John 19.12 where Pilate seeks to release Jesus “because of” (ἐκ τούτου) Jesus’s claim in the previous verse that Pilate’s authority had been given by God and that Pilate would commit a greater sin (µείζονα ἁµαρτίαν) by handing Jesus over to crucifixion. In addition, following Jesus’s teaching in John 6 that his followers must eat his flesh and his additional claim that no one can come to him without the Father’s permission, many of Jesus’s followers depart “on account of this” (ἐκ τούτου; John 6.66). Ignatius employs ἐκ in a similar manner in Eph. 15.3. 20 The love that he exhorts the Ephesians to demonstrate toward Jesus is based on their status as temple and his role as the God who dwells in them. The two hortatory subjunctives thus form a frame in which Ignatius places his description of the Ephesians as temples and Jesus as God. These exhortations follow from Ignatius’s claim that nothing is hidden from the Lord. Before proceeding into a full study of the temple in Eph. 15.3, though, it will be helpful to give some consideration to the rhetorical setting in which this verse is found. 6.2.2. The Place of Eph. 15.3 in the Letter In previous studies of the temple in Ignatius, Eph. 15.3 has been connected to what follows in Eph. 16 rather than the preceding paragraphs. Legarth notes the presence of οἰκοφθόροι in Eph. 16.1 and argues that “corrupters of the household” plays on the connection between ναός and οἰκοδοµή in Eph. 9.1. Although the language of Eph. 16.1 is similar to that found in 1 Cor 6.9,21 Legarth proposes that Paul’s warning earlier in the letter to the one who corrupts the temple of God (τις τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φθείρει; 1 Cor 3.17) provides a better parallel.22 Ignatius’s reference may have a slightly different meaning as 19 This explanation differs from the translation of Stewart, which sees the love referred to in the prepositional phrase as the means by which Jesus’s presence will be apparent among Ignatius and the Ephesians (Ignatius, 39). 20 Schoedel rightly notes the causal nuance of ἐξ ὧν (Ignatius, 78). See also Mart. Pol. 3.2. 21 Inge rates the likelihood of Ignatius’s dependence on 1 Cor 3.16 at Eph. 15.3 as a “c” (“Ignatius,” 65). Foster includes Eph. 15.3 and 1 Cor 3.16 in a list of references to Ignatius’s letters “where the correspondence is light but, none the less, dependence is not improbable” (“The Epistles of Ignatius and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” 167n.36). See also Alexandre Faivre and Cécile Faivre, “Genèse d’un texte et recours aux Écritures: Ignace, aux Éphésiens 14,1–16,2,” RevScRel 65 (1991): 189–190. 22 Legarth, Guds tempel, 308–312; Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60. Lightfoot considers the passage to be a combination of language from 1 Cor 3.16; 6.9, 10, 19 (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.71).

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he goes on to refer to the corruption of the faith of God with evil teaching (πίστιν θεοῦ ἐν κακῇ διδασκαλίᾳ φθείρει; Eph. 16.2),23 but Legarth’s proposal is intriguing and plausible. Kieffer presses the point further when he argues that the temple, house, and corruption of the house refer to the same earthly realm while the kingdom of God refers to the world to come.24 The rhetorical function of the temple in Eph. 15.3 will be explored in further detail after the exegesis.25 However, three observations can be noted from the outset in favor of interpreting Eph. 15.3 as part of an argument stretching back at least to Eph. 14.1 rather than forward to Eph. 16.1–2.26 First, the direct address, ἀδελφοί µου, in Eph. 16.1 likely indicates the start of a new section. The continuities in vocabulary between Eph. 15–16 are important, but they are better seen as part of the larger continuity within the letter. Ignatius emphasizes Jesus’s humanity throughout Eph. 16.1–20.2, while more interest is shown in the Ephesians’ relation to the bishop in Eph. 11.1–15.3. Second, the Ephesians’ status as temples in Eph. 15.3 follows from Ignatius’s claim that nothing, not even the Ephesians’ secrets, is hidden from God.27 Ignatius’s comment about secrets is closely linked to the discussion of silence in Eph. 15.1–2 in which Jesus teaches in silence through words and actions. Although the meaning of this cryptic passage will receive more attention in due course, it is enough for now to notice that silence and secrecy are related themes in Eph. 15. The place of Ignatius’s reference to the temple in a purpose clause explaining the exhortation that is based on God’s knowledge of secrets tightens the connections between Eph. 15.3 and what precedes it. Finally, Ignatius’s instruction to love Jesus rightly closes what Ignatius said in Eph. 14.1 23 Although the long recension contains a similar play on the φθειρ- stem as is found in the middle recension, it reads differently at Eph. 16.2 and includes a citation of 2 Cor 6.14 in addition to what seems to be a reference to 1 Cor 6.9 found in the middle recension. This means that the long recension is unhelpful in deciding whether the object of the preposition is κακῇ διδασκαλίᾳ, as in the manuscript of the Greek middle recension, or κακοδιδασκαλίᾳ, as in John of Damascus’s Sacra Parallela (see text in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.1.215). Lightfoot prefers κακοδιδασκαλίᾳ because the same word is found in Phld. 2.1 and John of Damascus preserves the proper reading of καταξιοπιστευόµενοι in Trall. 6.2 against the Greek middle recension (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.72, 167). However, Ignatius uses two words (κακὴν διδαχήν) in Eph. 9.1 when he refers to the same opposing teaching. Moreover, in John of Damascus’s version of Eph. 16.2, he omits the phrase πίστιν θεοῦ in the same section of the Sacra Parallela. This places some doubt on the quality of John’s citation at this point. Finally, as a secondary argument in favor of κακῇ διδασκαλίᾳ in Eph. 16.2, the Latin translation also uses two words as the object of the preposition (in mala doctrina). 24 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 293. 25 See section 6.7. 26 E.g. Schoedel, Ignatius, 75–78. However, I will argue below that Eph. 11.1–15.3 forms a relatively cohesive unit. 27 Grant also notes the link between things that do not escape notice in Eph. 14.1 and the lack of hiddenness in Eph. 14.1 (Ignatius of Antioch, 44–45).

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about love as the Ephesians’ τέλος. As nothing about the eschatological battle will escape the Ephesians’ notice if they have faith and love (ὧν οὐδὲν λανθάνει ὑµᾶς, ἐὰν τελείως εἰς Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν ἔχητε τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην; Eph. 14.1), 28 so the Ephesians’ secrets do not escape the Lord’s notice (οὐδὲν λάνθανει τὸν κύριον; Eph. 15.3). For this reason, they should love him rightly (ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶµεν αὐτόν; Eph. 15.3). Ignatius’s reference to the temple in Eph. 15.3 is located within the conclusion of a section in which he discusses the Ephesians’ duties to their bishop and transitions into another section on the teachers who passed through Ephesus. Yet the temple imagery in Eph. 15.3 is more tightly connected to the preceding discussion about the bishop than it is to what follows. With this view of the structure of Eph. 15.3 and preliminary understanding of the rhetorical context in place, the meaning of Ignatius’s temple imagery at this point in the letter may now be more ably explored.

6.3. The Ephesian Temples 6.3. The Ephesian Temples

The depiction of the Ephesians as temples in Eph. 15.3 is unique among Ignatius’s temple references because it is the only plural occurrence of ναός within his letters. In this analysis of the Ephesians as temples, the reference to the Ephesians’ secrets will serve as the starting point. Although Ignatius does not offer much aid in defining τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡµῶν, this is a fitting place to begin for two reasons. First, ἡµῶν is the first reference to the Ephesians in the plural after Ignatius’s discussion of silence that uses singular subjects to refer to Jesus and the one who hears his silence (Eph. 15.1–2). Second, the reference to τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡµῶν is similar to τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῦ θεοῦ that Jesus reveals in Phld. 9.1. The location of another reference to secrets near a reference to a temple is striking and worthy of some comment. 6.3.1. Our Secrets Ignatius’s reference to our secrets (τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡµῶν) reintroduces the Ephesian congregation directly into the letter’s discourse following their disappearance after Ignatius claims that nothing is hidden from the Ephesians (ὑµᾶς) if they have faith and love (Eph. 14.1). The explanation of faith and love that follows occurs in the third person singular without making direct reference to the Ephesians (Eph. 14.2). The description of Jesus’s silence and “the one who has obtained Jesus’s word” (ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτηµένος) continues the third person discourse (Eph. 15.1–2). Ignatius includes himself among the Ephesians by 28 Ignatius qualifies τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην with the relative clause ἥτις ἐστὶν ἀρχὴ ζωῆς καὶ τέλος.

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speaking of “our secrets” and thus sets up the first-person plural exhortations that follow.29 Yet Ignatius does not clarify what he means by secrets. He only says that the secrets are near to Jesus (ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ). The secrets may be matters about the Ephesians that are near to Jesus and known by him but about which the Ephesians do not need to be ashamed. Alternatively, the secrets may refer to matters that the Ephesians would like to keep hidden from Jesus but which Ignatius claims they cannot hide. On the basis of Eph. 15.3 alone, it might be possible to read the passage with a morally neutral definition of secrets such as the first proposal. However, this possibility decreases in likelihood when Ignatius’s usage of the word is considered throughout his corpus. More importantly, the latter definition enables Ignatius’s logic from Eph. 14.1–15.3 to come into clearer view. Elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters, the terms τὰ κρυπτά and τὰ κρύφια refer to secret matters that the addressees are trying to keep hidden from God. When Ignatius writes to the Magnesians in support of Damas’s episcopacy, the reasons for following the bishop include not only the fittingness of obeying one who is empowered by the Father but also the belief that to deceive the bishop is really to deceive God. The account such a person must give is not given to flesh but to God who knows the secrets (τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον οὐ πρὸς σάρκα ὁ λόγος, ἀλλὰ πρὸς θεὸν τὸν τὰ κρύφια εἰδότα; Magn. 3.2).30 Ignatius writes similarly about the Spirit when recounting what happened to him in Philadelphia. Although some of the Philadelphians wanted to deceive him, the Spirit was not deceived because the Spirit reveals the secrets (τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχει). The only other usage of τὰ κρυπτά is modified by τοῦ θεοῦ in Phld. 9.1. The reference to God’s secrets in Phld. 9.1 is primarily to the Father’s outworking of the redemptive plan that is revealed in Jesus.31 The negative connotations of the words in Magn. 3.2 when human subjects are in view significantly increases the likelihood that a similarly negative meaning is also in view in Eph. 15.3. In addition to Ignatius’s use of the terms, a negative usage of τὰ κρυπτά and τὰ κρύφια can be found in other early Christian letters. In the context of a discussion of Torah that is written on the heart, Paul refers to a day of judgment on which God will judge peoples’ secrets (τὰ κρυπτὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων; Rom

29 The use of the first-person plural may be part of Ignatius’s desire to be remembered among the Ephesians. He hopes always to have a share among the Ephesians in the resurrection, despite his place as a convict (Eph. 11.2). He begins the letter by noting that he received the entire Ephesian congregation in the form of Onesimus and the others who visited them (Eph. 1.1, 3). 30 The long recension reads differently at this point, offering biblical examples of younger individuals whom God used in preference to their older counterparts in order to support the youthful bishop. 31 See section 3.4.1.

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2.16).32 These secrets are related to the inner thoughts of Paul’s interlocutors and may either condemn or vindicate them (Rom 2.15). Paul uses τὰ κρυπτά similarly when he argues that prophecy is a more useful gift than tongues to demonstrate before unbelievers who come to the Corinthian gatherings. One of the reasons that Paul lists is that the secrets of the unbeliever’s heart will be revealed (τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς καρδίας αὐτοῦ φανερά γίνεται; 1 Cor 14.25). This revelation will lead the unbeliever to worship God based on the recognition that God is present among the Corinthians. In a later letter to Corinth, Paul argues that they should put away shameful secrets (ἀπειπάµεθα τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς αἰσχύνης; 2 Cor 4.2) because the Corinthians are being transformed into glory (2 Cor 3.18). In this passage, Paul is clear about the negative connotations of τὰ κρυπτά.33 Paul’s usage of τὰ κρυπτά and τὰ κρύφια connotes negative secrets that one tries to hide from God or another. The notion that God knows all secrets is relatively consistent in early Christian texts. If the phrase τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡµῶν is not clearly negative in the sentence in Eph. 15.3, the need to interpret it in this way becomes clearer when Eph. 15.3 is read as a part of the argument from Eph. 14.1–15.3. Ignatius begins by telling the Ephesians that none of what he describes regarding Satan and the powers (Eph. 13.1–2) is hidden from the Ephesians if they have faith and love for Jesus perfectly (ὧν οὐδὲν λανθάνει ὑµᾶς, ἐὰν τελείως εἰς Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἔχητε τὴν πίστιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην; Eph. 14.1). After explaining that faith is the beginning of life and love is the end, he argues that faith and love in unity are God (τὰ δὲ δύο ἐν ἑνότητι γενοµένα θεός ἐστιν).34 This should not be understood as a strict identification of God with the unity of faith and love. Ignatius often writes in pairs or triads to emphasize the importance of unity.35 Ignatius here outlines

32 Paul uses language that is found elsewhere in scripture (e.g. Isa 51.7; Jer 31.33). See further C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans 1–8, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 162–163. 33 However, in a still later letter to the Corinthian church, the Romans point out that everything is near to God and thus known by God (1 Clem. 27.3). Something broader seems to be in view than secrets alone, since the claim that nothing is hidden from God’s will is followed by a quotation from Ps 19.1–3 (Ps 18.1–3 [LXX]; 1 Clem. 27.6–7). See also Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 40. 34 This reading follows the Latin, Syriac, and Armenian translations. The Greek middle recension reads θεοῦ for θεός, but it is difficult to see why such a reading should be changed in translation. If the genitive in the Greek middle recension is subjective, God is acting in faith and love by God is theologically unproblematic. However, the potential identification of God with faith and love could raise more problems. The long recension offers a different reading: τὰ δὲ δύο ἐν ἑνότητι γενοµένα θεοῦ ἄνθρωπον ἀποτελεῖ. In addition to solving the potential theological problem of identifying God with faith and love, the long recension plays on the ἀρχή/τέλος language found in Eph. 14.1. The translations should be followed, since they preserve the lectio difficilior. 35 Martin, “La pneumatologia,” 386.

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that God is present where there is faith and love.36 Nevertheless, if things are not hidden from the Ephesians when they demonstrate faith and love, this premise can be taken to be truer of Jesus, since Jesus also demonstrates faith and love (Eph. 20.1). Thus Ignatius claims that nothing is hidden from the Lord, even matters that the Ephesians would rather keep secret. Ignatius’s use of τὰ κρυπτά in Eph. 15.3 is best understood in the same way as his use of the phrase in his other letters not only for the sake of continuity across the corpus but more importantly because it makes sense in the argument of Eph. 14–15. The secrets that the Ephesians may not want Jesus to know are near to him. 6.3.2. The Plural Usage of ναοί Ignatius follows his statement that “our secrets” are near to the Lord by urging the Ephesians to join him in doing everything like he dwells “in us” (ἐν ἡµῖν). The plural verb and object of the preposition continue their influence into the ἵνα-clause in which the temple metaphor is found. The motivation that Ignatius provides for acting in this way is that he and the Ephesians may be temples of the Lord (ἵνα ὦµεν αὐτοῦ ναοί).37 The plural usage of the temple depicts each Ephesian Christian as a temple in which Jesus dwells. This differs from the description of the Ephesians as stones in the Father’s temple. In Eph. 9.1, the Ephesians are recognized as individuals with the image of stones, but the individual stones are part of the single temple. The focus lies on the singular temple. Ignatius alters the image in Eph. 15.3 to describe each Ephesian Christian as a temple.38 He portrays each believer as a locus of God’s dwelling rather than a participant in God’s presence in the community.39 This shift in the metaphor is significant for understanding the way in which Ignatius views the relationship of individuals to Jesus. Even so, although Ignatius describes individuals as temples, his instructions are the same to each person. “Let us do all things like he dwells in us” may assume individuals in the first person plural verb and pronoun, but this instruction applies equally to all. 36 Tarvainen, Faith and Love, 2–3 (Glaube und Liebe, 17); Schoedel, Ignatius, 76. Similarly, Vall writes that Eph. 14.1 is “typical of the way Ignatius employs predications of identity in order to express relations of participation” (Learning Christ, 111). 37 The second purpose that Ignatius suggests, namely, so that “he may be our God in us” will be discussed in section 6.4. 38 Corwin, St. Ignatius, 257. 39 Legarth, Guds tempel, 212–213. Legarth differentiates between divine dwelling (guddommelig bolig) and cultic place (kultsted). He observes that the suggestion of divine presence seems to be enough to suggest the temple as an appropriate metaphor. Cultic suggestions are rarer in Ignatius’s letters. The same thing is also true in Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 where the cultic connotations are almost entirely muted and the Holy of Holies is interpreted as the secrets of God (τὰ κρυπτὰ θεοῦ). This leads Ignatius to discuss Jesus’s mediation in terms of revealing the Father’s purposes and granting access to the Father rather than using sacrificial terms.

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This unity is based on Jesus. As the same Jesus dwells in each of them, everyone should act individually in the manner that is appropriate in view of this recognition. The status of each Ephesian believer as a temple does not remove that person from the community. Rather, the role that everyone is to fulfill as temple may heighten the collective motivation by bestowing a greater status on each member of the community. Since the temple in Eph. 15.3 provides the purpose for which the Ephesians are to act rightly, it will be helpful to consider what Ignatius means when he urges the Ephesians to do all things like God dwells in them. Ignatius’s instruction can be understood as the all-encompassing teaching that it appears to be on the surface. Such a broad meaning is similar in scope to Ignatius’s teaching about faith and love in Eph. 14.1–2. Yet the intervening material in Eph. 15.1– 2 shapes the primary way in which Ignatius’s instruction should be heard. He writes that Jesus spoke and acted silently in a way that was worthy of the Father (Eph. 15.1). Jesus’s silence supports Onesimus’s position as one who is silent (Eph. 6.1). Onesimus’s silence thus mirrors Jesus.40 “The one who has obtained Jesus’s word” (ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτηµένος; Eph. 15.2) and is able to hear Jesus’s silence seems to be a widely applicable referent.41 However, the resonance of this remark with Ignatius’s earlier description of Onesimus indicates that the person who has best obtained Jesus’s word is the Ephesian bishop. When Ignatius teaches the Ephesians to do all things like God dwells in them, he instructs them above all to follow the bishop. By designating all Ephesian Christians as temples in whom Jesus dwells, Ignatius furthers his call to support the bishop. The temples should recognize the one who has truly obtained Jesus’s word and silence. They are enabled in this recognition by the same Jesus who dwells in them and whose silence Onesimus has obtained. Ignatius’s image serves to bring the entire Ephesian community’s relation to Jesus into view. Although Onesimus and the other ecclesial authorities should be obeyed, each Ephesian Christian is a temple in whom Jesus dwells. Each temple is to be engaged in the act of supporting the bishop by doing everything like God dwells in them.

40

Werner Bieder’s concept of a continuum of ecclesial silence provides a useful way of conceptualizing Ignatius’s statements (“Zur Deutung des kirchlichen Schweigens bei Ignatius von Antiochien” TZ 12 [1956]: 37). 41 “In Cristo silenzio e parola si fondono, proprio perché la rappresentanza del Padre e la natura della divinità sono entrambe caratteristiche della Sua persona” (In Christ, silence and word merge precisely because the representation of the Father and the divine nature are both characteristics of his person; Luigi Franco Pizzolato, “Silenzio del vescovo e parola degli eretici in Ignazio d’Antiochia,” Aev 44 [1970]: 208).

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6.4. The God who Dwells in the Temples 6.4. The God who Dwells in the Temples

Although there may have been secrets that the Ephesians wanted to hide from God, Ignatius is clear that even these matters are near to Jesus. The image of the temple further illustrates this since Jesus dwells in every Ephesian. This section examines the God who dwells in the Ephesians by interpreting Ignatius’s reference to the God who dwells in the temple. Section 6.4 sets out the main pieces of evidence as well as the line of argument taken in this chapter. The evidence evaluated and some of the argument will be similar to what is found in Legarth’s study of Eph. 15.3.42 Ignatius refers to Jesus with four terms in Eph. 15 and adds various descriptions to each in order to supplement the Ephesians’ understanding. Following his claim that silence with authenticity is better than speech that is accompanied by an inauthentic life and his additional claim that it is good to teach if someone does what they say (Eph. 15.1),43 Ignatius depicts Jesus as the only true teacher. He is the one teacher who spoke and it happened (εἷς οὖν διδάσκαλος, ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο; Eph. 15.1).44 Ignatius earlier described Jesus as the one physician (εἷς ἰατρός) in polemic against the false teachers (Eph. 7.2). In Eph. 15.1, he again appeals to Jesus’s unique status in support of Onesimus’s place as the rightful bishop because he is silent (Eph. 6.1) just as the things that Jesus accomplished in silence are worthy of the Father.45 Ignatius next refers to Jesus when he describes the one who has obtained Jesus’s word (ὁ λόγον

42

Legarth, Guds tempel, 207–217; idem “Tempelsymbolik,” 52–53. Although Ehrman translates the infinitive εἶναι and µὴ εἶναι as “to exist” and “not exist” (Apostolic Fathers, 235), Stewart’s translation of “to be authentic” and “whilst being inauthentic” is likely closer to Ignatius’s meaning (Ignatius, 37). Holmes similarly translates the phrases as “be real” and “not be real.” Ehrman’s translation may be suitable insofar as existence is taken as a way of speaking about a genuine life, but Ignatius’s emphasis is on right living. This emphasis is better captured by the notion of genuineness or authenticity. Such an interpretation seems to be implicit in the addition of citations from 1 Cor 4.20 and Rom 10.10 found in the long recension. See also Schoedel, Ignatius, 77 and Vall, Learning Christ, 276, who note that silence is a relative value for Ignatius and not the only true mark of an Ephesian Christian. Schoedel further draws attention to Dio Chrysostom, Nicom. (Or. 38) 30. However, Ehrman follows other translators who leave the meaning of the words more ambiguous (e.g. Camelot, Lettres, 71: être/sans être; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 39: zu sein; nicht zu sein). 44 In Hom. 22, Antiochus reads ὡς rather than ὅς (PG 89.1501). However, the Greek middle recension, Syriac fragments, and Latin and Armenian translations present the stronger manuscript evidence in their unanimous attestation of ὅς. The long recension incorporates biblical citations. 45 Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as εἷς διδάσκαλος thus occurs in a polemical context (Knopf, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter, 211). 43

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Ἰησοῦ κεκτηµένος) as able to hear Jesus’s silence (Eph. 15.2).46 Ignatius refers to Jesus by his personal name rather than a title but little else is added to the description in Eph. 15.1. The bishop is supported by Ignatius’s description of Jesus as the one teacher who spoke creation into existence and acted in a manner worthy of the Father even when silent, because Onesimus can hear Jesus’s silence in his silence and is able to be known while silent (Eph. 15.2).47 Ignatius next refers to Jesus as the Lord (ὁ κύριος) from whom nothing is hidden (Eph. 15.3). The Lord knows both silent and spoken things. Following the statements about Jesus in Eph. 15.1–2, κύριος should be taken as a reference to Jesus rather than the Father. The noun κύριος is the antecedent of αὐτοῦ in the genitive absolute that follows and with which Ignatius marks the reason behind his exhortation. The motivation behind Ignatius’s and the Ephesians’ actions should be that Jesus dwells in them as Lord. Ignatius reported to the Ephesians about Onesimus’s praise of them earlier in the letter. The bishop told Ignatius that heresy does not dwell among them (ἐν ὑµῖν οὐδεµία αἵρεσις κατοικεῖ; Eph. 6.2). Now Ignatius writes that God dwells in them (αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν κατοικοῦντος). Although ἐν ὑµῖν may have the nuance of “among you” in Eph. 6.1, the plural usage of temples that follows immediately after ἐν ἡµῖν indicates that “in you,” that is, in each individual Ephesian Christian, should be preferred in Eph. 15.3.48 The Lord from whom nothing is hidden is near to all the Ephesians’ secrets because he dwells in them. The introduction of the word θεός provides the fourth term with which Ignatius refers to Jesus in this short section. Ignatius modifies θεός in two ways.

46 Antiochus’s Hom. 22 contains a slightly longer reading: Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (PG 89.1501). In addition to containing the shorter reading, the stronger evidence for the reading Ἰησοῦ is attested in the Greek middle recension along with the Latin and Armenian translations. This statement is altered significantly in the long recension. Where the middle recension describes the one who has obtained Jesus’s word as able to hear his silence, the long recension reads ὁ κύριος ἡµῶν καὶ θεὸς Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστός, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος, πρῶτον ἐποίησεν καὶ τότε ἐδίδαξεν, ὡς µαρτυρεῖ Λουκᾶς, οὗ ὁ ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ διὰ πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν. The christological continuity that the text of the long recension shows with Eph. 15.1 and the lack of historical reference to the Ephesians indicates, however, that it is a product of later redaction. 47 Ignatius typically refers to Jesus’s redemption of human beings or, occasionally, of the cosmos. However, here he refers to Jesus’s role in creation when portraying Jesus as the Ephesian teacher. See further Trevett, A Study of Ignatius, 160. Although it is possible that Ignatius words draw from Ps 33.9 (32.9 LXX; e.g. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.69; Inge, “Ignatius,” 63; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 40), Ignatius’s expression is closer to the language repeated in Gen 1 (Joachim Jeremias, “Zum Logos-Problem,” ZNW 59 [1968]: 82; Schoedel, Ignatius, 77). Yet given the small amount of text on which to base a judgment, it may be best not to insist too strongly in favor of either choice as a source for Ignatius’s words. 48 Legarth, Guds tempel, 211.

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First, Jesus is ἐν ἡµῖν θεός. 49 Following the earlier statement that the Lord dwells in Ignatius and the Ephesians and the plural usage of ναοί to describe both parties, the prepositional phrase should again be understood with a locative nuance. God dwells in Ignatius and the Ephesians. Second, Jesus is θεὸς ἡµῶν, that is, the God whom Ignatius and the Ephesians worship. As the God toward whom the temple is oriented and the God with whom Ignatius and the Ephesians identify, Jesus takes up the position that was given to the Father in the temple metaphors studied so far.50 Ignatius modifies his description of God not only with the first person pronoun but also by using a relative clause. He explains that it is both currently the case and yet to be revealed that Jesus is the Ephesians’ God. A similar tension was found in Eph. 9.1 where the Ephesians are presently stones yet are still being incorporated into God’s building. The relative clause introduces an eschatological tension into the way the Ephesians relate to Jesus on an individual basis. He is currently their God, but this has yet to be completely revealed. Although the Ephesians live in the last times (Eph. 11.1), Ignatius probably has in mind that the revelation of Jesus as their God will occur when Satan and his powers are fully destroyed.51 Jesus is referred to as διδάσκαλος, Ἰησοῦς, κύριος, and θεός in Eph. 15. Although I have argued that Jesus is present in the temples in Phld. 7.2 and Eph. 9.1 as a mediator, Eph. 15.3 is the only clear reference to Jesus dwelling in the temple as the God who is worshipped. Yet Ignatius is not alone in depicting God as dwelling in the temple.

6.5. God’s Dwelling in Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts 6.5. God’s Dwelling in Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts

Although Ignatius’s use of a plural reference to temples applied to individuals differs from the metaphors in Phld. 7.2 and Eph. 9.1, Eph. 15.3 can, like the earlier metaphors, be usefully compared to certain early Jewish and early Christian texts. These texts likewise speak of God dwelling in the temple. As in Eph. 15.3, God’s rightful residence is in the temple. Yet the discussion of

49

Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.26) and von der Goltz (Ignatius von Antiochien, 21– 28) observe a tendency in Ignatius to modify θεός in some way when applying the term to Jesus. For example, Jesus is θεὸς ἡµῶν in Eph. inscr.; 18.2. Another example of such modification may be found in Eph. 15.3. However, Stark persuasively disputes Lightfoot’s generalization and argues that Ignatius uses the term without qualification in Eph. 1.1; Trall. 7.1; Smyrn. 10.1 (“The Christology in the Apostolic Fathers,” 25). 50 The different depictions of Jesus’s role in the temple will be discussed in section 6.6.2. 51 The present tense verbs used in Eph. 13.1 to describe the destruction of Satan’s forces indicate that Satan’s destruction is a process in which the Ephesians participate but which has yet to be fully completed. Hill notes that the destruction of Satan’s forces is a prerequisite for Ignatius to attain God (Regnum Caelorum, 86).

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God’s presence in the temple can be used for more purposes than Ignatius’s focus on unity. 6.5.1. Early Jewish Texts References to residing in the temple long predate Ignatius. Although God’s dwelling among his people is already hinted at in the Exodus narratives,52 Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple sets the tone for God’s dwelling in the temple. A cloud fills the temple that represents God’s presence (1 Kgs [3 Kgdms] 8.10–11), and Solomon prays for God to reside in the temple in a unique sense while acknowledging that the temple cannot contain him (1 Kgs [3 Kgdms] 8.27–31).53 Likewise, Isaiah sees the train of God’s robe in the temple (Isa 6.1–5), and Ps 132 concludes with God describing Zion as the place that he will inhabit (Ps 132.13–15). However, the Exile provoked a problem for this view because the temple was destroyed.54 Ezekiel sees the Lord’s glory departing from the temple (Ezek 10.1–22). Ezra dates the completion of the Second Temple to 515 BCE (Ezra 6.13–18), but even after some Jews returned from the Exile, Zechariah still looks forward to the time when God will inhabit Jerusalem again (Zech 2.1–5). This is not to say that all post-Exilic or Second Temple texts saw a continued Exile and looked forward to God’s return to the Jerusalem temple.55 Some pictured God already in the temple. Ben Sira describes Wisdom dwelling in Israel and serving in the temple (Sir 24.8–12). “[Wisdom] ministered in the holy tabernacle before him, and so she was established in Zion” (Sir 24.10). When Heliodorus tries to confiscate the temple funds in 2 Macc 3, the people rejoice at his downfall in the temple courts because it represented “the appearance of the Almighty Lord” (τοῦ παντοκράτορος ἐπιφανέντος κυρίου; 2 Macc 3.30). In each of these passages, God’s presence is uniquely connected with Jerusalem and more specifically with the temple. Not everyone understood God to be associated with the Second Temple in this way. However, the importance of God’s

52

E.g. Exod 29.46; 40.34–38. G. K. Beale points out that the cloud likewise harkens back to the Exodus narrative (The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God [Downers Grove: IVP, 2004], 36). 54 See further N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 104–108; Ari Mermelstein, Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism: Reconceiving Historical Time in the Second Temple Period, JSJSup 168 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 7–10. 55 This point is well made by Mermelstein, Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism, 10–14. Much of the rest of his study observes different strategies used by Second Temple authors to understand their history. 53

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presence dwelling in the temple was shared either as a memory, a current reality, or a hope. In Eph. 15.3, Ignatius picks up on the motif of God dwelling in the temple and applies it to Jesus’s relationship with the Ephesians. 6.5.2. Early Christian Texts As noted in sections 4.3.4.1 and 5.3.5.2, Paul employs temple imagery in 1 Cor 3.16–17 and 1 Cor 6.19. He also uses temple imagery in another letter to the Corinthians in 2 Cor 6.14–7.1.56 Paul urges the Corinthians not to be unequally yoked (ἑτεροζυγοῦντες) with unbelievers. He goes on to a list of contrasts that culminates with Paul asking, “What agreement is there for the temple of God (ναῷ θεοῦ) with idols?” (2 Cor 6.16). He explains, “For we,” that is, Paul and the Corinthians, “are the temple of the living God” (ἡµεῖς γὰρ ναὸς θεοῦ ἐσµεν ζῶντος; 2 Cor 6.16). Paul and the Corinthians are spoken of in plural terms, but they collectively comprise the single temple of God.57 The fittingness of the temple metaphor at this point in the passage is explained with a scriptural quotation. God said, “I will dwell in them (ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς), and I will be their God and they will be my people.” 58 This composite quotation emphasizes God’s place as the one who resides in the Corinthians and thereby establishes them as God’s people and temple. For this reason, the Corinthians must live holy lives by being separate from unbelievers in order to come into a familial relationship with God (2 Cor 6.17–18). 59 Paul exhorts the Corinthians to cleanse themselves and to live in holiness (2 Cor 7.1).60 The language of God’s dwelling is utilized more emphatically in Barn. 16. Following the discussion of the Sabbath in Barn. 15, the author argues that Jews went astray by placing their hope in a building (οἰκοδοµή) “like it was 56 The place of 2 Cor 6.14–7.1 within the letter is disputed. Some view this section as an interpolation or a collection of an earlier Pauline fragment. Perhaps the best evidence for this view is that 2 Cor 6.13 and 2 Cor 7.2 read smoothly when read consecutively. However, this section maintains an indicative-imperative section and demonstrates verbal and conceptual links with the preceding chapter. Although I regard 2 Cor 6.14–7.1 as Pauline, the following discussion can make sense if the paragraph is regarded as part of 2 Corinthians or a later insertion. See further Margaret E. Thrall, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994–2000), 1.3–49; Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 8–51. 57 Of course, Paul refers to the Corinthians as ναοί in 1 Cor 6.19. 58 See Lev 26.11–12; Ezek 37.27. 59 Paul’s words are similar to Isa 52.11; Ezek 20.34, 41; 2 Sam 7.14, 8 (2 Kgdms 7.14, 8). 60 Thomas Schmeller usefully contextualizes Paul’s exhortation to purity within Second Temple literature (Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (2 Kor 1,1–7,4), EKK 8.1 [NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener, 2010], 377–378). See also George H. Guthrie, 2 Corinthians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 360.

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God’s house” (ὡς ὄντα οἶκον θεοῦ; Barn. 16.1). After claiming that it was wrong to set apart a physical temple, Barn. 16.2–5 cites authoritative sources that give evidence for God’s inability to be contained in the temple. 61 The passage speaks about the temple and the people being handed over. Yet the author wants to know whether there is a temple of God and answers in the affirmative. God himself is building the temple (Barn. 16.6). How will this temple be built? The answer has to do with the dwelling place of the heart (τὸ κατοικητήριον τῆς καρδίας). This dwelling was a corrupt place before belief in God and served as a house for demons (οἶκος δαιµωνίων; Barn. 16.7). Yet the dwelling place will be built in the name of the Lord by receiving forgiveness, hoping in the Lord’s name, and becoming new in the process. “Then, in our dwelling place, God truly dwells in us” (διὸ ἐν τῷ κατοικητηρίῳ ἡµῶν ἀληθῶς ὁ θεὸς κατοικεῖ ἐν ἡµῖν; Barn. 16.8).62 God’s word, God’s commands, and Jesus himself open the door and bring them into the temple (Barn. 16.9). Hope for salvation comes “in the one who dwells and speaks in him [the person who desires salvation]” (εἰς τὸν ἐν αὐτῷ κατοικοῦντα καὶ λαλοῦντα; Barn. 16.10). According to Barn. 16, this is the spiritual temple (πνευµατικὸς ναός) that rightly understands scripture. Ignatius employs the language of God dwelling in the temple in ways that fit well with 2 Cor 6.16 and Barn. 16. Moreover, Eph. 15.3 describes Jesus indwelling each Ephesian believers individually. Although Barn. 16 seems to conceptualize the temple in terms of God individually residing in believers, 2 Cor 6.14–7.1 is less clear. However, the use of the singular ναός suggests Paul’s temple reference here applies to the community.63

61

On the question of sources in Barn. 16, see James Carleton Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and Background, WUNT 2.64 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 172–174. 62 Tatian also speaks of the person who seeks the Holy Spirit as a temple in whom God dwells (κατοικεῖν ἐν αὐτῷ θεὸς βούλεται; Or. Graec. 15.5). See further Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, “Anmerkungen zur Übersetzung,” in Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung: Tatian, Rede an die Griechen, ed. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, SAPERE 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 145n.253. Although he does so differently from the Epistle of Barnabas, Tatian also mentions demons in close proximity to his temple language (Or. Graec. 15.6–7). On Tatian’s depiction of demons, see Andrei Timotin, “Gott und die Dämonen bei Tatian,” in Gegen falsche Götter und falsche Bildung: Tatian, Rede an die Griechen, ed. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath, SAPERE 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 274–286. 63 This conclusion is also reached by Albert L. A. Hogeterp when he writes, “Paul’s notion of the community as Temple should be understood in contrast to unbelief from the part of Gentiles, Jews, and opponents of Paul alike” (Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpretation of Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence, BTS 2 [Leuven: Peeters, 2006], 377).

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6.6. Jesus in the Temple 6.6. Jesus in the Temple

Having explored the significance of Ignatius’s use of the plural ναοί in Eph. 15.3 and noted that God dwells in temples in other early Jewish and Christian literature, this section considers Jesus’s place in the temple more fully. I will first take up Legarth’s arguments and evidence for the claims that Eph. 15.3 reflects a “tension-filled relationship” (spændingsfyldte forhold) between temple symbolism and Christology by arguing that the tension is not as strong as Legarth thinks when Eph. 15.3 is read as part of an individual letter sent to a particular church.64 Next, I bring Jesus’s role in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1 into conversation with Jesus’s role in Eph. 15.3 in order to show that Jesus’s presence in the temple assumes that he is also God in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1. Eph. 15.3 highlights a different implication of how Jesus is to be understood. Although the orientation of the temple toward Jesus in Eph. 15.3 differs from Phld. 7.2 and Eph. 9.1, Jesus is hardly absent from the temple in any of these passages. This observation slackens the tension that Legarth finds in Eph. 15.3. 6.6.1. Tension between Temple Symbolism and Christology? For a reader familiar with early Christian literature composed roughly between 50–130 CE, a moderately surprising element of the way in which Ignatius talks about Jesus is his relatively frequent use of the word θεός with reference to Jesus. In addition to Eph. 15.3, Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός thirteen times in his extant letters.65 No earlier corpus from a single author contains as many such references to Jesus. Of course, referring to Jesus as θεός is not the only way in which to designate Jesus as God. However, Ignatius is unusual in distributing these references with such density, and the six descriptions of Jesus as θεός in Ephesians are the most found in any single Ignatian letter. Legarth perceives a tension between Ignatius’s Christology and the symbol of the temple in Eph. 15.3. After surveying texts in which a new temple and messiah appear in the Old Testament, early Jewish literature, and the New Testament, Legarth judges that the temple has a theocentric character that remains largely unshaken even into Christian texts that were written after Jesus’s resurrection.66 Having surveyed this background, Legarth argues that Ignatius must refer to Jesus as θεός in Eph. 15.3 in order for the temple to be oriented toward him because the temple can only be focused on God.67 Only in this way can Ignatius connect the temple to Jesus. However, Jesus is not always referred to as θεός and sometimes plays a mediating role in the temple. The tension to 64

Legarth, Guds tempel, 217; idem “Tempelsymbolik,” 53. Eph. inscr.; 1.1; 7.2; 18.2; 19.3; Trall. 7.1; Rom. inscr. (twice); 3.3; 6.3; Smyrn. 1.1; 10.1; Pol. 8.3. 66 Legarth, Guds tempel, 12–97; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 38–47. 67 Jesus is also referred to as θεός in John 1.1; 20.28; Rom 9.5; Titus 2.13; Heb 1.8. 65

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which Legarth refers seems to lie primarily in this depiction of Jesus in the temple as mediator and God. Since Ignatius refers to Jesus as κύριος in the preceding clauses, it is possible that Ignatius could have connected Jesus to the temple as the Lord, that is, as the one who shares the name most often used for ‫יהוה‬. Paul seems to make such a move when he refers to Jesus as κύριος by referring to a text that used the Tetragrammaton.68 Legarth offers three reasons that Ignatius does not employ κύριος in this manner.69 First, Ignatius does not set κύριος in an explicitly Old Testament frame of reference. Closely connected to this, Ignatius does not use a YHWH expression about Jesus in his citations from the Old Testament.70 In other words, his scriptural citations do not apply ‫יהוה‬/κύριος to Jesus. Legarth’s third argument relies on the observation that Ignatius rarely uses κύριος of the Father.71 In contrast, θεός is a word that Ignatius uses with reference to both Jesus and the Father. Legarth’s observation regarding the usage of κύριος and θεός is correct. However, it is not clear how this final observation might introduce a tension into the relationship between temple symbolism and Christology. The tension that Legarth perceives has little to do with whether κύριος is a shared name between the Father and Jesus. Legarth’s first two arguments presume that the use of κύριος-language in early Christian texts did not assume a scriptural frame of reference but that scripture must be cited in conjunction with a reference to Jesus as κύριος to signal an Old Testament context. Since Ignatius does not use the term κύριος with κύριος-texts, it is possible that Ignatius may not have had an Old Testament framework in mind for the title. However, this is only a possibility, and Legarth does not allow for the alternative possibility that traditions developed in which reference to Jesus as κύριος implicitly drew upon earlier Christian 68 As just one example, one could note the studies of 1 Cor 8.6 and the apparent use of Deut 6.4 by N. T. Wright, “Monotheism, Christology and Ethics: 1 Corinthians 8,” in The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology, ed. N. T. Wright (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 120–136; Richard Bauckham, “Paul’s Christology of Divine Identity,” in Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 210–218; Chris Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology, WUNT 2.323 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 82–86; R. W. L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 12–13. See also the evidence for use of the Shema in 1 Cor 12 in Andrew Byers, “The One Body of the Shema in 1 Corinthians: An Ecclesiology of Christological Monothesism,” NTS 62 (2016): 517– 532. 69 Legarth, Guds tempel, 213. 70 This differs from Paul’s letters in which Paul makes use of a variety of scriptural traditions that refer to ‫יהוה‬/κύριος in their original context. See further David B. Capes, “YHWH Texts and Monotheism in Paul’s Christology,” in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Wendy F. S. North (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 120–137. 71 Legarth depends on evidence that he lays out earlier in the book (Guds tempel, 133).

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exegesis in which κύριος was applied to Jesus in an explicitly scriptural frame of reference. The way in which Ignatius received the tradition of referring to Jesus as κύριος is important but difficult to assess. While κύριος-language was often used with reference to Jesus, it is less clear whether the lack of explicit Old Testament citations should be understood as evidence that the language is used without knowledge of its dependence on language from the Greek Old Testament or earlier Christian usage of κύριος that occurred within a scriptural framework.72 The absence of evidence should not count decisively in favor of Ignatius’s ignorance. Moreover, the presence of creation language in Eph. 15.1 should be noted in a discussion of whether κύριος in Eph. 15.2 is placed in an Old Testament frame of reference. Although not a κύριος-text per se, the presence of an allusion to an act of the God that is described in scripture and is now attributed to Jesus is striking in view of Legarth’s proposal. Jesus is the one teacher who spoke creation into being. Although Ignatius does not use κύριος at this point, he portrays Jesus acting as creator in a role that was demarcated as belonging to God in Gen 1.1–2.3. In addition to the change from κύριος to θεός, the repetition of the first-person plural pronoun in the phrase ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν seems redundant. Unnecessary redundancy makes it likely that the text-critical problems that arise in this phrase are best solved by keeping the repetition in place. The redundant text is in this case the more difficult reading. Although Legarth’s arguments against a κύριος-Christology in Ignatius may be questioned, they are employed to clear the ground for his fuller treatment of the tension between temple symbolism and Christology. The central claim is that Ignatius can only orient the temple in Eph. 15.3 toward Jesus if he refers to Jesus as θεός.73 The identification of Jesus not only as κύριος but also as θεός is necessary for him to be the object of worship in the temple because Jesus cannot be the focal point of the temple only as κύριος. On Legarth’s reasoning, since κύριος is used primarily of Jesus, Ignatius must refer to Jesus as θεός if he is to dwell in the temple. Because the phrase ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν does not occur elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters, Legarth argues that “udtryksformen er enestående, og den forklares bedst som en ad hoc formulering, der er fremprovokeret af udsagnet om Herrens (dvs. Jesu Kristi) templer.” 74 ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν parallels Ignatius’s earlier expression that the Lord is αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν κατοικοῦντος. Both expressions 72 Legarth goes so far as to claim that “κύριος i realiteten optræder som egennavn for Jesus” (κύριος acts in reality as a proper name for Jesus; Guds tempel, 214). 73 “Kun under forudsætning af denne identifikation har Kyrios-betegnelsen kunnet være forbindelsesled mellem tempelsymbolisme og kristologi hos Ignatius.” (Only assuming this identification has the Kyrios-term been able to be a link between temple symbolism and Christology in Ignatius; Legarth, Guds tempel, 214). 74 “[T]he form of the expression is unique and is best explained as an ad hoc formulation that is provoked by the saying about the Lord’s (i.e. Jesus Christ’s) temples” (Legarth, Guds tempel, 214).

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identify Jesus as the one who dwells in the Ephesians.75 Legarth claims that θεός further specifies the way in which κύριος is used in Eph. 15.3. He is concerned to show that Jesus’s claim to being θεός is qualified when he is in the temple. Jesus is “our” God who dwells “in us.” Ignatius is driven to speak of Jesus in this way by the theocentric quality of the temple in which Jesus dwells. As additional evidence, Legarth notes that the relative pronoun is neuter and thus that the relative clause that draws the metaphor to a close does not modify θεός. Noting that the question of the Ephesians’ relation to Jesus stands as a central issue in Eph. 15, he suggests that what both is and will be revealed denotes the Ephesians’ relation to Jesus rather than Jesus himself.76 The explanation offered by Ignatius in the relative clause is needed because of the unusual statement that immediately precedes it. Legarth notes the theological risk that is implicit in Ignatius’s inclusion of Jesus as God and further argues that the temple symbolism has created a tension in Ignatius’s understanding of Jesus by forcing him to add an extra description of Jesus as “our God in us.” If the redundancy of the phrase ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν is grammatically difficult for Ignatius’s readers, including those reflected in the long recension, Syriac fragments, and Armenian translations who omitted one of the pronouns,77 the parallelism of this phrase with αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν κατοικοῦντος make the repetition easier to accept. Although Legarth perceives a tension that gives rise to ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν, Ignatius has used complementary structures and parallelism in both Phld. 7.2 and Eph. 9.1. Ignatius sets the imperatives in Phld. 7.2 parallel with one another in three sets of two pairs each. In Eph. 9.1, the Father’s temple and the building are parallel structures, while Jesus and the Spirit complement each other as the crane and rope that lift the stones into the building. Ignatius employs repetition in Eph. 9.2 with the -φόρος suffix. It is not as surprising as Legarth implies that Ignatius uses parallelism and repetition in Eph. 15.3. Moreover, although Legarth makes much of the change in reference to Jesus from κύριος to θεός, Ignatius does not constrain himself to only one term for Jesus. In Eph. 1.1, he writes that the Ephesians obtained their name “in Jesus Christ our Savior” (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ σωτῆρι ἡµῶν). Immediately afterward, he encourages them to be imitators of God (µιµηταὶ ὄντες θεοῦ) and clarifies the referent of θεός by writing that they should be rekindled by God’s blood (ἐν

75 Ignatius elsewhere uses the two terms to refer to Jesus in Eph. 7.2; Smyrn. 1.1. He may also use the terms together to designate Jesus in Smyrn. 10.1; Pol. 8.3. 76 Legarth, Guds tempel, 216–217. Legarth’s translation of Eph. 15.3 reflects this grammatical decision. It reads, “[F]or at vi kan være hans templer og han selv være vor Gud i os. Netop således er det, og således skal det åbenbares for vort ansigt derved, at vi på rette vis elsker ham” (So that we may be his temples and he himself may be our God in us. Just as it is and as it shall be revealed before our face by the fact that we love him rightly; Guds tempel, 208). 77 See the text-critical footnotes in section 6.2.

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αἵµατι θεοῦ). Ignatius refers to Jesus as Jesus Christ, Savior, and God consecutively. Elsewhere Ignatius describes Jesus as a physician (ἰατρός) before referring to him again as Jesus Christ our Lord (Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος ἡµῶν; Eph. 7.2). A transition from θεός to κύριος occurs in Eph. 18.2–19.1 where Ignatius explains that “our God Jesus the Christ” (ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστός) was born of Mary and concludes the parallel description of Jesus’s life with “the Lord’s death” (ὁ θάνατος τοῦ κυρίου).78 Although Legarth is correct to point out the parallelism of κύριος and θεός in Eph. 15.3, it is difficult to see a tension between Christology and temple symbolism when one piece of the evidence for christological tension occurs repeatedly in portions of the letter where the temple is not in view. Legarth’s claim that the change in terms and the repetition in this section occurred in response to christological tension proves to be questionable at best, since changes in terms and repetition occur elsewhere in the letter. It is true that ὅπερ does not seem to take θεός for its antecedent, although, as the consideration of the relative pronoun in Eph. 9.1 showed, Ignatius is not always careful to match the gender of the antecedent and relative pronoun.79 However, proposing that the relative pronoun should be connected to Ignatius’s following exhortation to love is a more difficult suggestion.80 It is better to take the entire phrase αὐτὸς ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς αὐτοῦ as the antecedent, since it precedes the relative pronoun. The relative clause does not modify θεός but the entire phrase ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς αὐτοῦ. The clause shows that Jesus is the Ephesians’ God who currently lives in them, and it anticipates a later time when this fact will be revealed in their presence. Although Legarth’s objection to taking the antecedent as θεός leads him to reject such a revelation of Jesus in the Ephesians’ presence, this interpretation is allowable when the antecedent is understood as the entire phrase and has the additional benefit of keeping the antecedent prior to the verb in keeping with Ignatius’s more common use of relative pronouns. Moreover, this understanding places an eschatological tension in the temple metaphor of Eph. 15.3 that was also found in the relationship between the temple and building of Eph. 9.1 and is fitting with the eschatological outlook of Eph. 11–20 following Ignatius’s declaration that he and the Ephesians occupy the last times (Eph. 11.1).81 Having engaged Legarth’s arguments for finding tension due to a change of terms, repetition, and a problematic relative clause, one might pose a further question to Legarth’s claim to find tension between Christology and temple 78 Paul Trebilco points out that the references to “our God” in Eph. inscr.; 15.3; 18.2 stress that the Ephesians belong to Jesus (Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012], 293n.104). 79 See section 5.3.3.2. 80 Legarth, Guds tempel, 216–217. 81 See section 6.7.

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symbolism. In light of Ignatius’s lack of inhibition when referring to Jesus as θεός in his letters, could a similar tension be found in Ignatius’s other uses of θεός? If not, it is curious why one should expect a tension in Ignatius’s Christology in Eph. 15.3. Moreover, the tension that Legarth perceives between Christology and temple symbolism does not come about because Jesus is in the temple. Jesus has a role in the temple in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1–2. Something else is at work here, and it seems to indicate that Jesus has a multi-faceted role to play in Ignatius’s temple metaphors. 6.6.2. Jesus in the Temples of Phld. 7.2; Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3 The tension that comes about in comparing Eph. 15.3 with Ignatius’s other references to the temple is not that Jesus is referred to as God in the temple. Rather, the change in Eph. 15.3 is that Jesus is central in the temple and, as the central figure in the temple, that he is the focus of worship. The Ephesians are referred to as his temples (ἀυτοῦ ναοί), and Jesus is the God of Ignatius and the Ephesians (ἐν ἡµῖν θεός ἡµῶν). The language applied to Jesus in Eph. 15.3 more closely resembles that applied to the Father in whose temple the Ephesians are depicted as stones in Eph. 9.1 (λίθοι ναοῦ πατρός) or the building for which the Ephesians are being prepared (οἰκοδοµὴν θεοῦ πατρός) than the mediatorial language that is applied to Jesus in Phld. 9.1 and Eph. 9.1. Likewise, God’s temple (ναὸν θεοῦ) belongs to the God whom the Philadelphians should worship in Phld. 7.2, and chapter four argued that θεός refers to the Father in this verse.82 The genitive that modifies ναός in each verse refers to the God who owns the temple and is thus worthy of worship within the temple. Ignatius places both the Father and Jesus in this position in separate metaphorical instances. Legarth’s claim that there is a tension between temple symbolism and Christology rests not only on the claim that the temple is a theocentric institution, for which he argues not only in Ignatius’s letters but also in earlier Second Temple and early Christian literature, but also on the assumption that Ignatius does not introduce this tension elsewhere. The application of θεός to Jesus five other times in Ephesians speaks against a tension between Christology and temple symbolism. Rather, Ignatius offers a multifaceted picture of Jesus in his temple metaphors. Although only a switch of linguistic metaphor at first glance, the change from seeing tension to multiple facets in Ignatius’s metaphors allows one to better describe the coherence between Ignatius’s understanding of Jesus and the church. Tension indicates two poles between which the object under discussion lies. Conversely, a single object can have multiple facets. It is not necessary to understand Ignatius’s presentation of Jesus in Eph. 15.3 as stretched to fit with his Christology and temple symbolism as may be implied by the tension metaphor. Jesus is θεός elsewhere in his letters. Ignatius’s 82

See section 4.3.3.

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presentation of Jesus as high priest and mediator, on the one hand, and God who is worthy of worship, on the other, articulates instead two important facets in Ignatius’s understanding of Jesus. Ignatius describes Jesus as high priest in Phld. 9.1 in part to set Jesus over and against the earlier priests as superior. Jesus fulfilled that toward which the earlier priests pointed. Ignatius does not point to a moral failure on the part of the priests. The failure of their mediation results from something much deeper. Only Jesus was entrusted with God’s secrets that are represented by the Holy of Holies. Accordingly, only he can serve as the door through which all of God’s people gain access to the Father. This includes people who lived in times chronologically prior to Jesus’s incarnation. This description of Jesus’s mediation is set within a larger argument in which Ignatius counters opponents whom he met in Philadelphia and characterizes in terms of Ἰουδαϊσµός. The reference to Jesus as high priest comes in the same argument as Ignatius’s instruction to the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as God’s temple. Because it is paired with the instruction to do nothing apart from the bishop, the temple is best understood with regard to unity in the church. Yet Jesus’s mediation is hinted at even in Ignatius’s brief instruction using the temple metaphor. Jesus is an example to imitate because he imitated his Father (Phld. 7.2), and he forgives sin, gives grace, and releases the Philadelphians from their bond (Phld. 8.1). Jesus is present in the temple as a mediator, but Ignatius explains this most fully following his discussion of the archives in order to contrast Jesus’s high priesthood with the Israelite priests (Phld. 9.1). Jesus’s mediation is similarly at work in Eph. 9.1. As the crane that lifts the Ephesians from the Father’s temple to the Father’s building, Ignatius describes Jesus, along with the Holy Spirit who serves as the rope, as a mediator between the metaphorical temple and the Father. Although the opponents that Ignatius has in view have changed from Phld. 5–9, Jesus’s mediation between the people and the Father is still of primary importance. The image varies, but the mediatorial practice remains the same. When Ignatius gives the Ephesians an active role in the cultic procession, they continue to carry Christ because he is the one who brings them into the Father’s presence. However, as an object in the cultic procession Christ is also set apart as an object of worship. Two reasons may be given for Jesus’s worthiness of such adoration. First, at the broadest level, the multiple ascriptions of θεός to Jesus along with references to Jesus as Savior, Physician, and Teacher indicate that Jesus is worthy to receive the Ephesians’ worship. Ignatius goes to great lengths in this letter to emphasize that Jesus’s worthiness of worship lies more precisely in the observation that God became human in Jesus (Eph. 1.1; 7.2; 18.2–20.1). Second, and more specific to the context of Eph. 9, Jesus is worthy of worship because he is the Ephesians’ mediator. His mediation between the Ephesians and the Father is most evident in the work that Jesus accomplished on the cross that lifts the

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Ephesians into the Father’s presence. Ignatius hints in Eph. 9 that Jesus should be worshipped as mediator. The hint that Jesus is to be worshipped by being carried in the cultic procession is made more explicit when Ignatius records that the Ephesians are Jesus’s temples, that is, temples in which Jesus is worshipped (Eph. 15.3). Jesus is the God toward whom the temple is oriented and the central focus of worship in the individual Ephesian temples in which he dwells. Moreover, Ignatius states that Jesus is currently the Ephesian God in the relative clause, while also allowing for Jesus’s status as God to become more clearly evident as it is revealed in their presence over time. The Ephesians are again depicted as temples that are not yet fully formed. The Ephesians were described earlier in the letter as stones in the Father’s temple that were still being prepared for God’s building, and the incompleteness of this description continues to have traction in the second temple metaphor of the letter. In the second metaphor, the Ephesians are temples in the present awaiting a future revelation of the God who indwells them. Yet Jesus is the object of worship in both the present and the future. Thus far the observation that Jesus has been present in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1–2 primarily as a mediator whose mediation depends on his divinity has led to the conclusion that there is no significant tension between temple symbolism and Christology. Rather Ignatius shows multiple facets of his Christology through his temple symbolism. But why is Jesus the central focus of the temple in Eph. 15.3? Part of this answer relates to Ignatius’s rhetorical aims in Eph. 11–15 and will be engaged in section 6.7. Here one thing may be noted in response to why Ignatius places Jesus in the temple. Although Ignatius does not differentiate the temples from one another, the Ephesians are individually accounted for in the plural usage of ναοί. Jesus was earlier depicted as a crane lifting multiple stones into the Father’s presence. In Phld. 9.1, Jesus is the door through whom all God’s people met the Father. The plural usage of temples in Eph. 15.3 brings Jesus into the central position of worship for multiple Ephesian Christians, just as the other descriptions of his mediation have multiple individuals in view. While the degree to which these individuals are differentiated varies based on Ignatius’s rhetorical needs,83 Jesus’s position as the object of worship in the temple occurs when Ignatius has individuals in view. It seems to be that Ignatius places Jesus as the object of worship in individual Ephesian temples because he is worshipped on account of his mediation.

83 For example, the Philadelphians are addressed in concert in Phld. 7.2 to emphasize their unity with the bishop, while the individuals listed in Phld. 9.1 are named to illustrate that all came to the Father through Jesus. Similarly, Eph. 9.1 acknowledges plural stones but does not differentiate the stones greatly because they were unified against the false teachers. In acknowledging individuals with a plural temple metaphor, Ignatius takes a different track in Eph. 15.3 which works in concert with his concern for unity with Onesimus.

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While Legarth claims that there is a tension between presenting Jesus as mediator and object of worship, but I suggest the better way in which to encapsulate this relationship is in terms of facets. Ignatius describes Jesus’s actions differently in each temple metaphor to illustrate the centrality of Jesus’s role in the church while conforming his portrayal of Jesus to the rhetorical needs within Ignatius’s respective letters. It remains now to explore what facet Eph. 15.3 brings to the multifaceted description of Jesus within the context of Eph. 11–15.

6.7. The Function of the Temples in Eph. 15.3 within the Letter 6.7. The Function of the Temples in Eph. 15.3 within the Letter

Ignatius’s metaphorical reference to the Ephesians as temples in Eph. 15.3 functions as part of his argument from Eph. 11.1–15.3. Three connections can be noted between Eph. 15.3 and the section of the letter in which it is found. First, Ignatius speaks of his desire to be found ἐν Χριστῷ in the early portions of this section. When he comes to the temple, he reverses this language and finds that Jesus is present in the Ephesians. Second, when Ignatius notes that Jesus both is and will be revealed as God in the Ephesian temples, he mirrors the eschatological orientation of Eph. 11.1–15.3. Finally, the temple metaphor strengthens Ignatius’s support of Onesimus as the bishop in Ephesus because it is connected to the silence discussed in Eph. 15.1–2 that in turn resumes Ignatius’s earlier comments about Onesimus’s silence in Eph. 6.1. Not only should the Ephesians recognize Onesimus’s authority because Jesus dwells in them, they should also imitate Onesimus’s silent actions as those who have obtained Jesus’s word. With this overview in place, each of these points can now be outlined further. With the notice that these are the last times, Ignatius introduces the focus on judgment and identifies where he would like to be found. Both he and the Ephesians should respond to the comments in such a way as to be found in Christ Jesus (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εὑρεθῆναι; Eph. 11.1). In Eph. 11.2 and 12.2,84 Igna-

84 Harland shows that Ignatius’s language in Eph. 12.2 is part of the cultural milieu evident in inscriptions about mystery religions in Asia Minor (“Christ-Bearers,” 483–487). Brent sees Ignatius’s language as part of a martyr procession that is choreographed by Ignatius (Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, 122–123).

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tius’s desire to be found with the Ephesians and Paul has a metaphorically locative nuance.85 Spatial metaphors are developed that align Ignatius in the presence of the Ephesians and behind Paul.86 Yet Ignatius’s desires represented in these spatial connotations are governed by his desire to be found in Christ. After beginning the sequence with this wish in Eph. 11.1, Ignatius urges the Ephesians not to allow anything to be fitting without Jesus. Ignatius identifies Jesus as the one in whom he carries his bonds (ἐν ᾧ τὰ δεσµὰ περιφέρω) and identifies his bonds as his spiritual pearls (Eph. 11.2).87 Being in Christ is also significant for the Ephesians. Ignatius writes that they have always agreed with the apostles in the power of Jesus Christ (ἐν δυνάµει Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). This may be evidenced by Ignatius’s statement that Paul remembers the Ephesians in every letter in Christ Jesus (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; Eph. 12.2). Although Ignatius’s use of locative language is most concentrated in Eph. 11–12, it continues to be found throughout the section. Jesus serves as the goal toward whom the Ephesians should orient their faith and love (εἰς Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν; Eph. 14.1).88 Ignatius closes this section as he began it not only by returning to the first person plural but also by employing locative language. Ignatius’s use of locative metaphors in the temple ensures that the earlier locative phrases should not be understood in a strictly literal sense, since it is difficult to conceive how Ignatius could carry his bonds in Christ while Christ is simultaneously the Lord who dwells in Ignatius and the Ephesians (αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡµῖν κατοικοῦντος; Eph. 15.3). Likewise, Jesus is their God who resides in the temple (ἐν ἡµῖν θεός ἡµῶν). Ignatius mirrors the beginning of the section by repeating locative phrases but reverses the direction. No longer are people in Jesus but Jesus is in the people. The temple metaphors enable Ignatius’s switch. By doing this, Ignatius can tie 85

David L. Eastman raises the intriguing possibility that Eph. 12.2 is alluded to in Paul’s speeches in Pseudo-Marcellus, Pass. Holy 62 (iam pedes mei viam caelestem ambulat) and Acts Pet. Paul 83 (ἤδη γὰρ οἱ πόδες µου τὴν οὐράνιον ὁδεύουσιν ὁδόν). See The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul, WGRW 39 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015), 393n.5. Along with the translations and recensions, a date for these two works in “the fifth or early sixth century” (Eastman, Ancient Martyrdom Accounts, 224) could demonstrate continued interest in Ignatius beyond the scope of what is studied in this thesis. See further David L. Eastman, “Ignatius, Pseudo-Ignatius, and the Art of Pauline Reception,” EC 7 (2016): 213–229. 86 Harry O. Maier notes that Ignatius’s use of temple imagery is also spatially oriented as Ignatius uses it to bring about ὁµόνοια (“Paul, Ignatius and Thirdspace: A Socio-Geographic Exploration,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 175). 87 The reading of the prepositional phrase is found in the Latin translation (in quo) and the Greek long recension (ἐν ᾧ), though the long recension adds that Ignatius carries his bonds from Syria to Rome. This addition includes words found in Rom. 5.1 of the middle recension. The Greek middle recension of Eph. 11.2 reads ἐν τῷ rather than ἐν ᾧ. 88 On Ignatius’s use of “in Christ” to represent union with Christ, see Downs, “The Pauline of Concept of Union,” 148–149.

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a unifying thread around Eph. 11–15 that highlights the Ephesians’ relationship to Jesus. They are present in their relation to Jesus because Jesus is present in them. By portraying the Ephesians as temples in whom God dwells and highlighting the various ways in which they are in Christ, Ignatius emphasizes that two parties are involved in the relationship. It is not the case that the relationship between Jesus and his people can be described with regard to only one side. The Ephesians are in Christ and may thus be found in true life (εἰς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ζῆν; Eph. 11.1). Yet this life only comes to them because Jesus is the God who dwells in them and allows them to function as temples. The description of God’s presence in the temple also provides a link to the eschatological discussion that began in Eph. 11.1. Although Ignatius continues to write with an eschatological orientation in Eph. 16.1–20.2,89 the remarks in Eph. 15.3 provide a connection with Eph. 11.1–15.3 that ties this section together.90 After announcing that he and the Ephesians are living in the last times, he suggests either fear of the coming judgment or love for the present grace as the proper response (ἢ γὰρ τὴν µέλλουσαν ὀργὴν φοβηθῶµεν, ἢ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν χάριν ἀγαπήσωµεν; Eph. 11.1). This introduces an important nuance into Ignatius’s eschatological beliefs. Once he announces this eschatological orientation, he maintains both its present and future significance for the Ephesians. Remnants of this distinction may be found throughout Eph. 11–15. For example, the Ephesians are to meet together more frequently, because they destroy the powers of Satan as they do so (Eph. 13.1). Satan is destroyed by the activities of the Ephesians in the present. However, as Ignatius urges the Ephesians to faith and love in Eph. 14, he tells them that a tree will be revealed by its fruit and those who profess to be Christ’s will be seen by what they do (οὕτως οἱ ἐπαγγελλόµενοι Χριστοῦ εἶναι δι’ ὧν πράσσουσιν ὀφθήσονται; Eph. 14.2).91 In 89 Schoedel describes Eph. 11.1–19.3 “as a loosely organized unit devoted to exhortation (11.1, 2; 13.1; 15.3; 16.1), frequently recalling last things and the defeat of Satan (11.1; 13.1–2; 14.2; 15.3; 16.2; 19.3), yet digressing often” (Ignatius, 71). Although it is possible to demur from the claim that Ignatius digresses and to show a stronger organization than Schoedel allows, he rightly observes the preponderance of eschatologically oriented exhortation. One can extend Schoedel’s description of eschatological features by noting that Ignatius is still concerned with clarifying the rest of God’s plan in Eph. 20.1 and depicting the breaking of bread as an antidote that brings eternal life in Eph. 20.2. The eschatological orientation remains in place even as Ignatius announces his plans to write in the future. 90 For a fuller attempt to outline Eph. 11.1–20.2, see Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 58–71. Judith Lieu righty notes the difference between Ignatius’s depiction of the Eucharist in Eph. 20.2 and that of Did. 9–10, which sees the Eucharist as symbolic of the gathering of the scattered church (Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 164). 91 The Greek middle recension reads οἱ ἐπαγγελλόµενοι Χριστιανὸς εἶναι and is followed by the Latin translation, which reads repromittentes Christiani esse. The Latin translation highlights a possible difficulty in the Greek middle recension by reading the plural Christiani for the singular Χριστιανός. The Latin translation matches the plural subject with a plural

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this way, Ignatius places the Ephesians’ faith and love in the context of a future judgment that has not yet been realized. The temple participates in Ignatius’s eschatological orientation because Jesus is already God among Ignatius and the Ephesians in the present, but he is yet to be revealed among them completely (ὅπερ καὶ ἐστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπον ἡµῶν; Eph. 15.3). Ignatius’s instruction to love Jesus rightly after this eschatological description of Jesus’s presence may also be worth noting as a frame with Ignatius’s exhortation to love in Eph. 11.1. While there is no corresponding repetition of fear, the temple frames the eschatologically oriented section that begins in Eph. 11.1 by focusing on both Jesus’s current place as God in the temple while allowing for a further revelation of Jesus’s divinity in the future. Finally, the temple is employed following Ignatius’s discussion of silence (Eph. 15.1–2). The discussion of silence is reminiscent of Ignatius’s earlier description of Onesimus as silent (Eph. 6.1). Following the positive description of Onesimus and the other Ephesian delegates who visited him as well as the instructions to unity with which the letter began (Eph. 1.1–5.3), Ignatius says that the bishop should be feared the more he is silent since he was sent by the master (ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης) to institute the master’s plan (ἰδίαν οἰκονοµίαν). When Ignatius argues that Jesus teaches in his silence (Eph. 15.1), he implicitly links Onesimus to Jesus. The bishop should be followed because he is acting like Jesus and has obtained his word (Eph. 15.2).92 The temple metaphors draw each of the Ephesians together in support of Onesimus by portraying them as individual temples and describing each of them in the same way. The Ephesians are Jesus’s temples and should thus recognize Onesimus as someone who demonstrates that he has obtained Jesus’s word by being silent. By using the temple metaphor, Ignatius signals the need for unity among the Ephesians. Yet the temple serves not only as a sign of unity with the bishop at the top of the hierarchy but also gives the Ephesians an important role in conjunction with the bishop. They are not observers of Onesimus’s authority. Rather, they should actively recognize that Onesimus is the correct leader because Jesus dwells in them, and Onesimus has obtained his word. The Ephesians confirm Onesimus’s authority because they are temples in which Jesus resides. This reading of the temple fits with the indirect descriptions in Eph. 15.1–2. Although Jesus is described in specific terms as a teacher, Ignatius begins with a

predicate nominative. However, the Greek long recension and Armenian translation preserve what is likely the earlier reading (Χριστοῦ). They are followed by Antiochus (Hom. 57; PG 89.1605) and John of Damascus. Combined with the variation between the Greek and Latin middle recensions, the consistency of these four witnesses comprises slightly stronger external evidence. 92 Allen Brent observes that Onesimus’s silence is a characteristic of Christ’s (“History and Eschatological Mysticism in Ignatius of Antioch,” ETL 65 [1989]: 314).

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general statement preferring silence and authenticity to speech and inauthenticity. This is followed by his comment about “the one who has obtained Jesus’s word” (ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτηµένος). When Ignatius continues the general nature of his statement by saying that nothing is hidden from the Lord and then includes himself in the exhortation to act like Jesus dwells in them, he leaves open the possibility for all Ephesian Christians to obtain Jesus’s word through silence. Ignatius supports the bishop by raising the status of all Ephesians, since those who understand Jesus in silence should recognize Jesus’s word and Onesimus’s prior understanding of that word through his own silence. As temples in whom Jesus dwells, they are on their way to being like Onesimus. Yet they must simultaneously recognize Onesimus’s authenticity. This twofold usage of the temple in support of Onesimus’s silence is the third way in which the temple metaphor relates to the argument of Eph. 11–15. The various descriptions of the Ephesians being in Jesus are reversed in the temple where Jesus dwells in the Ephesians. The depiction of Jesus as the God who is and who will be revealed among the Ephesians fits with the eschatological orientation of this section that begins in Eph. 11.1. Ignatius uses the temple metaphor as part of the argument in Eph. 11.1–15.3. Yet one may wonder how the temple metaphors of Eph. 9.1–2 and 15.3 relate to one another and contribute to the letter as a whole.

6.8. The Function of the Temple Metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3 6.8. The Function of the Temple Metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3

When Ignatius wrote to the church at Ephesus, he wrote the longest of his seven extant letters and recorded his desire to write even more (Eph. 20.1–2). Perhaps it is unsurprising in a letter of this length that the temple metaphor appears twice. Yet Ignatius does not use a temple metaphor multiple times in any of his other letters, and only includes one in Philadelphians and Magnesians. Two things seem to be particularly noteworthy in his use of the temple in Ephesians. First, when the comparison of the two metaphors is pursued further, different nuances in Ignatius’s depictions of the Ephesians and God emerge in Eph. 9.1– 2; 15.3. Second, the temple metaphors are strategically used in polemic against separate errors. One can then inquire about the way in which the temple metaphors contribute to Ignatius’s rhetorical aims in the entire letter. 6.8.1. Two Metaphors Compared The variance in complexity between the two metaphors is relatively clear. The different lengths of the two passages increases the likelihood that Eph. 9.1–2 is a more complex passage than Eph. 15.3 from the beginning. The earlier temple metaphor comprises 59 words, while the latter contains a more concise 18

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words.93 Yet length is not the only mark of complexity. This count of the temple metaphor includes the temple, guide and way, and processional metaphors from Eph. 9.1–2.94 Ignatius weaves multiple metaphors together in Eph. 9, and this results in a more intricate portrayal of the Ephesians and God. Moreover, Ignatius creates a temple metaphor that is under construction in Eph. 9.1–2. Although the temple seems to be more or less complete, it is in the process of being incorporated into a building. A crane and rope are present to lift the stones from the temple into the building. The temple in Eph. 15.3 is far from a static picture, and the description of God as both present and yet to be revealed leaves open the possibility of God’s future work in the temples. Nevertheless, the metaphor in Eph. 9.1–2 provides a fuller description of the Ephesians’ relationship to the God who is in the temple than the metaphor in Eph. 15.3. The differences in complexity leads to varying pictures of the Ephesians and God in Eph. 9.1–2 and 15.3. These alternative portrayals are not mutually exclusive. Rather, the different metaphors allow Ignatius to emphasize particular facets of each party in the relationship. When the Ephesians are described as stones in the temple in Eph. 9.1, such a description acknowledges the Ephesian Christians individually. However, the temple and the building are the focus of the metaphor. The stones are an integral part in the construction process, but they are not the central point of the metaphor. Rather, the unified collection of stones is the central point on which the metaphor turns. However, the Ephesians are active when they are described in Eph. 9.2. The processional metaphor allows Ignatius to describe the Ephesians as carriers of the sacred objects as they process through their daily lives. In addition, Ignatius offers some hint at individuation in Eph. 9.2 not only by using plural nouns but also by distinguishing between θεοφόροι, ναοφόροι, χριστοφόροι, and ἁγιοφόροι. Ignatius does not press his point, but the differentiation is likely in view of the descriptions of various individuals who play discrete roles in religious processions in Xenophon, Ephes. 1.2.3 and the Salutaris inscription (I.Eph. 27).95 The temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 is similar to the metaphor in Eph. 9.1 insofar as the Ephesians are depicted as individuals but not distinguished further. Yet the status of the Ephesians in Eph. 15.3 is different from their status in the metaphor of Eph.

93 These numbers count the respective passages from ὡς ὄντες λίθοι ναοῦ...ἐντολαῖς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Eph. 9.1–2) and ἵνα ὦµεν αὐτοῦ ναοί...πρὸ προσώπου ἡµῶν (Eph. 15.3). 94 For the purposes of this count, I have included the three metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2 together. This is not to dissolve differences between the three respective metaphors but to acknowledge the influence of the temple over the following metaphors as argued in 5.3.1. The three metaphors in Eph. 9.1–2 could be divided into the temple (28 words), the guide and way (14 words), and the procession (17 words). These counts are more similar in length to Eph. 15.3. Yet the temple metaphor proper in Eph. 9.1 is still more complex in its view of the temple and the God in the temple. 95 See section 5.4.2.

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9.1. Rather than portraying the Ephesians as individual stones in a single temple, the metaphor shifts as each Ephesian Christian is depicted as an individual temple. Such a depiction increases the individuality, since the relationship that one has with God as a temple is different from the relationship that a stone in a temple may have with the God who dwells in it. The Ephesians are individuated in this metaphor in a way that is analogous to, but clearer than, Eph. 9.2. Although Eph. 15.3 is simpler than Eph. 9.1–2, its description of the Ephesians as temples allows it to take up elements of both the temple and building as well as the cultic procession of Eph. 9.1–2. The portrayals of God differ most clearly in Eph. 9.1 and 15.3. The depiction of God again seems to be complementary rather than contradictory, but the presence of such differences are again striking because they appear in the same metaphor used in the same letter. The portrayal of God in Eph. 9.1 has strong Trinitarian overtones. Although Ignatius does not specify the relations between the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the way that later writers will,96 it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ignatius includes some sort of nascent Trinitarian description of God in Eph. 9.1.97 Ignatius’s interest in the metaphor is to show how each member functions within God’s Ephesian temple. The Father is the central focus of worship in both the temple and the building. Jesus is the mediator who lifts the Ephesian stones from the temple into the building by acting as a crane. The Ephesians’ place in the developing building comes as a result of Jesus’s death on the cross. The Holy Spirit works in conjunction with Jesus as the rope by which the Ephesians are transported. Taken together, the Father is the nucleus of the metaphor while Jesus and the Spirit work alongside him to complete his building. However, Ignatius’s description of Jesus as God elsewhere in the letter (Eph. inscr.; 1.1; 7.2; 15.3; 18.2; 19.3) and the intimate association of Jesus with the Spirit (Eph. 18.2) along with the triadic description of Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit indicates that an incipient Trinitarianism underlies the temple in Eph. 9.1. Although it is possible that Trinitarian echoes resound into the processional metaphor with the use of θεός, Χριστός, and ἅγιος,98 this point should not be pressed too hard since Ignatius uses vocabulary found in similar ways to that found in Greco-Roman inscriptions. 99 The commandments with which the Ephesians are adorned seem to have been given by Jesus Christ, indicating that

96 The interpolations of the long recension with citations from John 14–16 are a good example. Ps.Ign. Eph. 9.1 uses these references to identify more specifically how the Father, Son, and Spirit are related. 97 Vall, Learning Christ, 114–115. 98 Quacquarelli, “ἁγιοφόρος,” 1–10. 99 Harland, “Christ-Bearers,” 487–497; Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, 50–62.

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Jesus’s role as mediator is not the only role that he plays in Ignatius’s metaphor.100 There is little else about Ignatius’s view of God to be gained from Eph. 9.2. However, this reminder that Jesus plays multiple roles in Ignatius’s letters is important to remember when examining the different picture of God in Eph. 15.3. There the temple is oriented around Jesus who is the God worthy of worship in the temple. Moreover, Jesus indwells each Ephesian believer individually whereas the earlier temple metaphor brings the Ephesians to the Father. The notion of the God who is worshipped is reversed from Eph. 9.1, but the description of Jesus as God maintains a similarity with the portrayal of Jesus as crane in that Jesus comes to the Ephesians in both images. Although Jesus is worshipped as God in Eph. 15.3, this similarity with Eph. 9.1 leaves open the possibility that Jesus’s status as God is revealed, at least in part, by his mediation on the cross. This may help to explain the linkage between descriptions in Ephesians of Jesus as θεός and mentions of Jesus’s humanity or suffering (Eph. 1.1; 7.2; 18.2; 19.3). The key way in which Jesus demonstrated that he was God was on the cross by which he showed that he is ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν. 6.8.2. The Temples in Polemic against the Opponents Although the relative simplicity of the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 contrasts with the more complex metaphor of Eph. 9.1–2, the connections between Jesus as God and mediator point to a strong continuity between the metaphors. This continuity can best be examined by looking at the contribution of the temple metaphors to the letter as a whole. Jesus’s role in the metaphors provides the basis from which this subsection begins. Throughout this chapter, a case has been made for understanding these differences as part of a multi-faceted description of Jesus rather than a tension-filled relationship. It is when these portrayals of Jesus are put in their polemical context over and against Ephesian opponents that the differences in Ignatius’s metaphors not only become clear but also are made understandable. When he writes Eph. 6.2–10.3, Ignatius has a set of teachers in view who do not understand Jesus’s humanity, suffering, and death in the same way that he does. Following the introduction of Onesimus’s praise that the Ephesians have no heresy (αἵρεσις) among them and the stylized characterization of Jesus as the one physician able to heal the bite of the false teachers, Ignatius recounts the presence of the itinerant teachers in Ephesus and the Ephesian refusal to listen to them. In this context, Jesus is portrayed in mediatorial terms in which he raises the Ephesian stones from the temple into the building. As noted in chapter 5, the metaphor has an eschatological component in addition to a spatial component. The temporal component allows Ignatius to emphasize that the Ephesians are not complete, but the spatial component depicts Jesus working 100

Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ functions as a subjective genitive.

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from low to high. Jesus’s mediation lifts the Ephesians into the heights from the temple to the building. Moreover, the mediation comes through the cross. The depiction of Jesus counters what seems to have been the view of Jesus held by Ignatius’s opponents by insisting that Jesus only lifts people into the Father’s building by means of the cross. When Ignatius instructs the Ephesians in Eph. 15 to do everything like Jesus dwells in them, he uses this exhortation after his discussion of silence and secrets. Jesus is the God in the temple who is deserving of worship in Eph. 15.3. He dwells in the Ephesians and empowers them to understand his silence while also allowing them to recognize Onesimus’s grasp of Jesus’s silence. Recognizing Onesimus’s silence resumes the discussion from Eph. 6.1. Yet Jesus’s place in the center of the temple and his close connection to Onesimus through silence is drawn more integrally into the fabric of the letter when one notes that the bishop is connected to Jesus in Eph. 3.2.101 The bishop is not always typologically linked in this way. In Magn. 6.1 and Trall. 3.1, the bishop is linked to the Father.102 Ignatius portrays Jesus as the center of the temple in order to support Onesimus against objections that he was silent because Onesimus is able to understand God’s silence by virtue of both his silence and his typological connection to God. In this polemical situation, Jesus’s authority must come from a position of greater worth than Onesimus or the Ephesians. Thus Ignatius describes Jesus as God without focusing on his death as he did in Eph. 9.1. In addition to setting Jesus in his polemic against the opponents, Ignatius also provides structure to his letters in his use of the temple metaphor. The body of the letter divides broadly into four main sections: Eph. 1.1–6.1; 6.2– 10.3; 11.1–15.3; 16.1–19.3. The temple metaphors occur in the latter portions of the two middle sections. This position at the end aids in providing continuity across the letter, particularly since the more complex metaphor precedes the simpler metaphor and allows Ignatius to resume and modify his earlier discussion without introduction. The polemic in each section, lighter though it may be when compared to letters to the other Asian churches, is broadly organized against those who do not support Onesimus (Eph. 1.1–6.1; 11.1–15.3) and against the false teachers (Eph. 6.2–10.3; 16.1–19.3). By placing the temple metaphors near the end of the two middle sections, Ignatius builds a structural bridge between the two sections of the letter and provides cohesion to his treatment of the two opponents that seem to be in view in Ephesians.

101

The bishop is described similarly in Trall. 2.1. A point that is made very well in Brent, “Ignatius and Polycarp,” 332; idem, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 26–29; idem, “The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch,” JEH 57 (2006): 434–437; idem, “Tertullian on the Role of the Bishop,” in Tertullian and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 1 (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 169. 102

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The bridges come into clearer view in Eph. 16.1 when Ignatius describes the opponents as οἱ οἰκοφθόροι. The οἶκος-prefix echoes Ignatius’s discussion of the building (οἰκοδοµή) in Eph. 9.1 as well as his description of God (οἰκοδεσπότης) and God’s plan (οἰκονοµία) to which Onesimus has been assigned in Eph. 6.1.103 The placement of οἱ οἰκοφθόροι following the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 forms an additional bridge between Eph. 11.1–15.3 and 16.1–19.3. While Ignatius’s reference to the opponents should not be mistaken as a continuation of the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3, the interplay of an οἶκος-word and a temple metaphor follow more naturally after Ignatius’s combination of the two in Eph. 9.1. Finally, the temple in Eph. 15.3 functions in a way that is similar to its role in Phld. 7.2 and Eph. 9.1, namely, as a call to unity. The individuality of the metaphor in which the Ephesians are portrayed as distinct temples does not allow the Ephesians to withdraw from the community into their own inward worship of the God who dwells in them. Rather, the metaphor seeks to empower the Ephesians to recognize the leader whom God has placed over them. In this way, the call to do everything like the Lord dwells in them becomes a call to act in support of the bishop. The Ephesians are recognized as individuals, but they are instructed to act in unity. The temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 thus provides further continuity with the calls to unity in the letter as the Ephesians should form a chorus (Eph. 4.2), join in prayer with the bishop (Eph. 5.2), and be lifted from their position as stones in God’s temple into God’s building (Eph. 9.1). The status of the Ephesians as separate temples in Eph. 15.3 is raised from their position as stones in the temple in Eph. 9.1, but the metaphors have the depiction of unity in Ephesus as a common motif between them.

6.9. Conclusion 6.9. Conclusion

Chapter 6 has addressed a second temple metaphor in Ephesians that occurs in a different rhetorical context from the one found in Eph. 9.1. Rather than discussing false teachers as he did in Eph. 6.2–9.2, Ignatius takes up the issue of obedience to the bishop in Eph. 11.1–15.3. At the conclusion of a section in which he offers a rationale for unity under Onesimus in Ephesus, Ignatius urges the Ephesians to do all things as if God dwells in them. God’s dwelling in them not only identifies the Ephesians as temples but also offers a reason for their unity with Onesimus. Ignatius links human secrets that are known by God to

103 The economy becomes the central element used by Ignatius as he concludes his final section in conversation with his docetic opponents (Eph. 18.2; 20.1). See further Jonathon Lookadoo, “The Role of the Star in Ephesians 18–20: Ignatius of Antioch, Polymorphic Christology, and Second Temple Stars,” JECH 7 (2017): 73–74, 77.

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the Ephesians’ status as temples. The Ephesians thus have no place to act on their own because God will know and it will contradict their status as temples. Jesus’s role is also different in this temple metaphor. He is not a high priestly agent who mediates between the Father and the people as he is in Eph. 9.1. Rather, he is the God who is to be worshipped by each of the Ephesian temples. However, there is no real tension to be found in this change. Ignatius depicts Jesus’s role in the temple in a way that is consistent with how he depicts Jesus elsewhere. Jesus is uniquely identified with the Father and worthy of worship. In light of other references to Jesus in Ignatius’s letters and particularly in Ephesians, this chapter has taken up Legarth’s arguments that there is a tension-filled relationship in Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus in the temple and has argued that Ignatius’s portrayal is largely coherent. Yet it remains to look at one further temple metaphor and one additional way in which Jesus is portrayed in the following chapter.

Chapter 7

The Temple in Magnesians 7.1. Introduction 7.1. Introduction

In addition to the letter that was sent to the Ephesians, Ignatius also wrote to Christians in Magnesia on the Meander while he was in Smyrna (Magn. 15). Magnesia was located approximately 23 kilometers south of Ephesus on the Lethaeus, a tributary of the Meander River.1 The further specification differentiates this Magnesia from the nearby Magnesia by Sipylus, both of which were colonized by the Magnetes.2 Ignatius’s letter is the earliest secure reference to the presence of Christians in Magnesia. It may be that followers of Jesus were already in Magnesia in the 50s CE. Acts mentions conversions across Asia that happened during the journeys of Paul and his associates (Acts 19.10, 26), and Paul greets the Corinthians on behalf of the churches in Asia (1 Cor 16.19). These broader geographical references may include Magnesian Christians. However, Ignatius’s letter to the community of Jesus-followers in Magnesia is the earliest extant reference to Christian activity specifically in this city. Ignatius indicates two primary reasons for writing. First, he urges the church to demonstrate unity and focuses particularly on the unity that they should model with regard to their bishop. As in Philadelphians, unity in Magnesians is a multifaceted concept that extends beyond the church’s actions with its bishop, but the focus on the bishop is particularly important due to Damas’s relative youth (Magn. 3.1). The second reason for Ignatius’s letter regards Judaism, against which Ignatius unfolds a historical argument for the worship of Jesus with particular reference to the Jewish prophets. An additional reason for writing is likely that the Magnesians sent a delegation to see him in Ephesus.

1 Strabo, Geogr. 14.1. See the useful description of Magnesia’s geography and history in Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.98–103. 2 Lene Rubinstein gives a brief history of Magnesia on the Meander in “Ionia,” in An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation, ed. Magens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1081–1082. On the Magnetes, see Henry Dickinson Westlake, “Magnetes,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower, Anthony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 887–888.

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He writes this letter in response to them and to advance Christian networks in Asia.3 The reference to the temple occurs at a central place in the letter as Ignatius transitions from an extended discussion of the harmony that the Magnesians should demonstrate to a forceful argument against Judaism. The repetition the number one in Magn. 7.1–2 ties these sections together as it forms the culmination of what has come before while the cultic overtones of several terms preview what is to come. This chapter will explore Ignatius’s use of the temple metaphor in this setting by first outlining in more detail the structure and flow of this portion of Ignatius’s letter. After establishing the text, the chapter will then look further at the temple in the context of Ignatius’s emphasis on singular items. I will briefly inquire about the degree to which Ignatius’s use of the terms ναός and θυσιαστήριον overlap in Magn. 7.2. Perhaps the most intriguing element in this section of Magnesians is the focus on Jesus and his unique relationship to the Father. Accordingly, this chapter will outline the contours of Ignatius’s Christology in this portion of the letter before asking about how the Magnesians should act in light of the unique relationship between Father and Son. This seems appropriate in light of Jesus’s role in the temple in Phld. 7.2– 9.1, Eph. 9.1–2, and Eph. 15.3. Finally, the chapter will illustrate the role that Jesus and the temple metaphor play within Ignatius’s arguments in the letter.

7.2. The Arguments and Role of Unity in Magnesians 7.2. The Arguments and Role of Unity in Magnesians

Ignatius’s greeting to the Magnesians is the shortest found in the letters to Christian communities. Only Pol. inscr. is shorter. The greeting associates Jesus and the Father closely as the Magnesians are described as blessed by the Father’s grace in Christ Jesus (τῇ εὐλογηµένῃ ἐν χάριτι θεοῦ πατρὸς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ σωτῆρι ἡµῶν) and greeted by Ignatius in God the Father and in Jesus Christ (εὔχοµαι ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ πλεῖστα χαίρειν; Magn. inscr.). Following a short statement containing the reasons for his birth (Magn. 1.1–2), the body of the letter is comprised of two primary sections (Magn. 2.1– 7.2; 8.1–11.1). These are followed by further exhortations to right action that reprise much of what has already been said in order to further buttress Ignatius’s instructions (Magn. 12.1–13.2) before Ignatius concludes with a postscript that includes instructions to pray, greetings from others, and Ignatius’s own farewell (Magn. 14–15).4 Because the temple is located at the end of the 3

Ignatius mentions that the Ephesians and “the other churches” (αἱ λοιπαὶ δὲ ἐκκλησίαι) send greetings to the Magnesians (Magn. 15). Ignatius may extend the network further by asking the Magnesians to pray for the Syrian church that Ignatius has left behind (Magn. 14). 4 See the similar outline in Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 78–79. The outline above is close to Schoedel’s on Magn. inscr.–10.3, but Schoedel lumps Magn. 11–15 together as

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first primary section and immediately prior to the second, these sections will be given attention below. In addition, the various ways in which Ignatius puts unity and harmony to use will be engaged since the temple metaphors already examined in Philadelphians and Ephesians have been utilized as symbols of unity. 7.2.1. The Structure of the Two Central Sections Ignatius urges the Magnesians to demonstrate unity under the proper church order in Magn. 2.1–7.2, but the argument does not proceed in a linear fashion. It begins with Ignatius’s mentioning that he has seen the Magnesian delegation (Magn. 2.1–2). The delegates at least included the bishop (Damas), presbyters (Bassus and Apollonius), and a deacon (Zotion).5 Ignatius begins Magn. 2.1 with “since then” (ἐπεὶ οὖν), indicating that what follows is a subordinate clause. However, Ignatius breaks the flow of the sentence after his description of Zotion by using an adversative δέ at the beginning of Magn. 3.1.6 It is not until Magn. 6.1 that the thought begun in Magn. 2 is completed.7 Ignatius there indicates that, since he has seen the entire Magnesian congregation in the delegation that they sent, he writes to exhort them to do everything in accordance with God’s harmony.8 The principle way in which this is to be demonstrated is by following the proper leadership structures because the leaders represent God’s presence in the community. The bishop represents God (θεός), the elders represent the council of the apostles (συνέδριον τῶν ἀποστόλων), and the deacons have been entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ (πεπιστευµένοι διακονίαν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Magn. 6.1). The Magnesians should respect one another, love their neighbor in Jesus Christ, and be unified with the bishop (Magn. 6.2). Although interspersed with other material, this is the chief line of argument in Magn. 2.1–6.2.

“Closing and Farewell” (Ignatius, 128–133). Paulsen’s outline tends to follow individual chapter divisions (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 47). 5 Each of these representatives have common second-century Asian names. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.110–112; Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 220–221. 6 Paulsen observes similar sentence structures in Eph. 1.2; Magn. 5.1–2; Rom. 1.1 (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 48). 7 Isacson points out that the sentences in Magn. 2.1–5.2 are connected, even if the connections are loose and lack a main clause (To Each Their Own Letter, 83). Schoedel notes the digression but does not take note of the support offered to the larger argument (e.g. Ignatius, 108). 8 David M. Reis notes that visual language is employed by Ignatius “to assert his intimate understanding of each congregation, even though whatever knowledge he did have derived, in most cases, through select representatives” (“Surveillance, Interrogation, and Discipline: Inside Ignatius’ Panopticon,” in Studia Patristica XLV, ed. Jane Baun et al. [Leuven: Peeters, 2010], 376).

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The additions in Magn. 3.1–5.2 support Ignatius’s argument. Following the account of seeing Damas and the Magnesian delegation and in anticipation of his coming instruction to obey the bishop, Ignatius urges respect for the bishop in spite of his youth (Magn. 3.1). He cites the elders as an example of the correct way to relate to the bishop because they have seen that he has the Father’s wisdom. Deception of the bishop is thus deception of God (Magn. 3.2), and it is right to be genuine Christians by obeying the bishop (Magn. 4).9 This call to be genuine Christians leads Ignatius to set out a series of dualisms in which he notes that life and death are set before the Magnesians and that each of them will soon go to their proper places (Magn. 5.1).10 Yet Ignatius again breaks off and offers further reflection on the differences between the ways of life and death rather than the destination to which they go. This is done by comparing two coinages. One belongs to God, while the other belongs to the world. Ignatius concludes his comparison of the coins with the paradoxical statement that God’s coin, that is God’s way of life, demands that Ignatius and the Magnesians voluntarily take up Jesus’s death in order to have Jesus’s life in them (Magn. 5.2).11 Although much of the focus in this section is on the bishop and typology of church leadership,12 the letter is addressed to the entire Magnesian community and Ignatius’s instructions encompass more than the correct church order. The Magnesians are to do everything in the harmony of God (ὁµόνοια θεοῦ; Magn. 6.1).13 Although ordered unity is the primary theme of Magn. 2.1– 7.2, it is not the only topic addressed. The imitation of Jesus likewise plays a significant role. 9

Schoedel sees three digressions: “(a) on the youth of the bishop (3.1–2); (b) on being Christian (4); (c) on the ‘two ways’ (5.1–2)” (Ignatius, 107). This is possible, but the close connections between hiddenness in Magn. 3.2 and genuineness in Magn. 4 make it more likely that Magn. 4 follows Magn. 3.1–2. If so, Ignatius only digresses twice. 10 There are two ways (ὁδοὶ δύο) in Did. 1.1 that lead respectively to life and death. A similar tradition is attested in Barn. 18.1, but the two ways are characterized by light and darkness rather than life and death. For a further collection of texts attesting to the two ways, see Alistair C. Stewart, On the Two Ways, Death or Life, Darkness or Light: Foundational Texts in the Tradition, PPS 41 (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010). 11 Graydon F. Snyder, “The Historical Jesus in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch,” BR 8 (1963): 7. 12 On the typological features of Ignatius’s understanding of church order, see Allen Brent, “Ignatius of Antioch and the Imperial Cult,” VC 52 (1998): 42–44; idem, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 23–29; idem, “Ignatius’ Pagan Background,” 221–226. Brent helpfully locates Ignatius’s language within Second Sophistic rhetorical practices, but he insists that Ignatius’s typology links the bishop to the Father, the presbyters to the council of apostles, and the deacons to Jesus. While Ignatius makes these typological connections (Magn. 6.1; Trall. 3.1), he elsewhere connects Jesus to the bishop’s authority (Trall. 2.1) and to the gospel (Phld. 5.1). Although his typology fits the rhetorical conventions of his day, Ignatius does not fix it within absolute boundaries. 13 Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 83.

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The imitation ethic is important to recall when studying Magn. 7.1–2. While this passage will be discussed in more detail as the chapter continues, Magn. 7.1 opens with Ignatius bolstering his instructions to obey the bishop in unity by appealing to Jesus’s unity with the Father in his incarnation. Similarly, Magn. 7.2 closes with an account of Jesus’s oneness with the Father throughout his incarnation. Ignatius supports his recurring exhortations to be “one” with appeals to Jesus on either side. Unity and the imitation of Jesus’s example are thus closely related. The emphasis on Jesus allows Ignatius to transition smoothly to his next section. The argument against Judaism is historically oriented and relies upon the notion that the Magnesians cannot continue in Jewish practice after Jesus. To do so confesses that God’s grace has not been received (Magn. 8.1). Thus Ignatius regards it as absurd to discuss Jesus Christ and practice Judaism (ἄτοπόν ἐστιν, Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν λαλεῖν καὶ ἰουδαΐζειν; Magn. 10.3).14 Ignatius does not reject scripture or scriptural figures.15 Rather, he appeals to the prophets in support of his position. They lived in accordance with Jesus Christ and suffered because of this way of life (Magn. 8.2). They were his disciples in the spirit and waited for him as their teacher (οἱ προφῆται µαθηταὶ ὄντες τῷ πνεύµατι ὡς διδάσκαλον αὐτὸν προσεδόκων; Magn. 9.2). Rather, Ignatius argues against practices that may have stemmed from particular readings of scripture that he considered Jewish. The emphasis on a way of living may be demonstrated by the use of terms like ζάω (5 times), ἀναστρέφω, πράσσω, ζωή, and πρᾶγµα in Magn. 8.1–10.3. Jesus is the true revelation of the Father (Magn. 8.2), and because of this he should be worshipped on the Lord’s Day rather than on the Sabbath (Magn. 9.1). Recognition of the Father’s revelation in Jesus requires change. The things accomplished by Jesus offer the Magnesians hope, and Ignatius’s desire is that they do not turn away from their hope (τῆς ἐλπίδος ἡµῶν, ἧς ἐκτραπῆναι µηδενὶ ὑµῶν γένοιτο; Magn. 11).16

14 It is possible that ἄτοπον may have the nuance of “evil” or “wicked” as in Luke 23.41. However, “absurd” seems to capture the sense better, since the immediately preceding context focuses on distinctions between old/new and spoiled/preserved. See similarly Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.553 (monstrous); Lake, Apostolic Fathers, 207 (monstrous); Funk, Patres apostolici, 239 (absurdum); Camelot, Lettres, 91 (absurde); Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 64 (absurd); Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 54 (nicht am Platz); Schoedel, Ignatius, 126 (ridiculous); Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.251 (outlandish); Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 209 (utterly absurd); Stewart, Ignatius, 51 (outlandish). Bauer’s translation seems to go in a related but slightly different direction (unstatthaft; Die Briefe des Ignatius, 228). 15 Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek, 559. 16 The long recension reads the subjunctive γένηται rather than the optative γένοιτο. The middle recension has been followed since it is generally the more reliable witness, though both the evidence upon which to make a decision and the difference in meaning between the two words is slim in this instance.

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Ignatius uses the temple metaphor at the end of his extended comments regarding Magnesian unity under the proper ecclesial order. In addition, the cultic overtones of ναός seem to prepare the letter for a transition from a discussion of ordered unity to one of Judaism. Yet both arguments and the temple metaphor are part of a single letter in which unity and harmony are central themes. 7.2.2. The Role of Unity and Harmony As in the previous two Ignatian letters, unity and harmony play important roles in his paraenesis within Magnesians. Although these are central concepts throughout the letter, Ignatius prominently locates the multifaceted nature of union in Magn. 1.2 and 13.1 by mentioning various elements of unity in a similar order.17 Ignatius prays “for the union of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ, our eternal life, of faith and love, to which nothing is preferred, and more importantly of Jesus and the Father” (ἕνωσιν εὔχοµαι σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύµατος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ διὰ παντὸς ἡµῶν ζῆν, πίστεώς τε καὶ ἀγάπης ἧς οὐδὲν προκέκριται, τὸ δὲ κυριώτερον Ἰησοῦ καὶ πατρὸς; Magn. 1.2). Near the end of the letter Ignatius urges the Magnesians to stand in the Lord’s decrees “so that you may prosper with regard to everything that you do in flesh and spirit, faith and love, in the Son and Father and in the Spirit, in the beginning and in the end” (ἵνα πάντα ὅσα ποιεῖτε, κατευοδωθῆτε σαρκὶ καὶ πνεύµατι, πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν υἱῷ καὶ πατρὶ καὶ ἐν πνεύµατι, ἐν ἀρχῇ καὶ ἐν τέλει; Magn. 13.1).18 Ignatius repeats flesh and spirit, faith and love, and Jesus and the Father in the same order.19 This list is expanded in Magn. 13 to include a reference to the Spirit alongside the Father and Son as well as a temporal reference to the beginning and the end. Lightfoot has suggested that there is a slight difference between ἕνωσις and ἑνότης that corresponds roughly to the difference in the English words “union” and “unity.” However, it is difficult to find a substantial difference in Ignatius’s use of the two terms.20 Without disregarding the possibility of some nuance, 17 Vall, Learning Christ, 91–96. Vall sets the relevant portions of Magn. 1.2; 13.1 in parallel columns on pp. 95–96. 18 The long recension omits ἐν υἱῷ…ἐν τέλει, though it is not clear why. The Greek middle recension, Latin translation, and Armenian translation include the phrase and provide the stronger external support. 19 Terrence E. Pollard helpfully notes the necessity of both unity and distinction between Jesus and the Father throughout Magnesians (Johannine Christology and the Early Church, SNTSMS 13 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970], 31–32). The distinction between the two is required for them to work as a type of the unity that Ignatius calls for in Magnesia. 20 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.109. Lightfoot suggests that the difference is one of process (ἕνωσις) and result (ἑνότης). BDAG describes ἕνωσις as “the quality or state of being in complete accord” (ἕνωσις, s.v.), while ἑνότης is defined as “a state of oneness or of being in harmony and accord” (ἑνότης, s.v.).

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the more important element seems to be Ignatius’s consistent use of both words throughout his letters.21 As in Philadelphians, Magn. 1.2 and 13.1 suggest a multifaceted use of unity in Ignatius’s letters. Ignatius insists upon anthropological unity of flesh and spirit that is christologically oriented in the person. The flesh and spirit with which the Magnesians should be united parallels the flesh and spirit that Jesus took on in his incarnation.22 The Magnesians are to exhibit faith and love together, since nothing is better than the exercise of these two in unison. Immediately prior to Ignatius’s statement, the Magnesians are praised for their love. Ignatius takes their love as the basis upon which to address them in faith (Magn. 1.1). Yet the most important union for which Ignatius prays is the Magnesian participation in the union of Jesus and the Father. Ignatius clarifies that this will be attained by enduring abusive treatment from the ruler of this age (Magn. 1.2). The relationship between Jesus and the Father is central to Magn. 6–8, but Magn. 13.1 illustrates that Ignatius has a nascent Trinitarianism. In addition, Ignatius’s hope that the Magnesians will prosper in the beginning and the end turns the focus to time.23 In all its facets, the Magnesians’ union should be consistent across time. These different angles from which Ignatius explores unity at the beginning and end of the letter are in addition to the union that the Magnesians should demonstrate with respect to their leaders. To be sure, unity under the proper leadership structure lies near to hand. The lengthy section calling for unity with the bishop in Magn. 2–7 follows immediately after the prayer in Magn. 1.2. Likewise, Ignatius continues in Magn. 13.1 to insist that the Lord’s decrees should be followed with the bishop, presbytery, and deacons (µετὰ τοῦ ἀξιοπρεπεστάτου ἐπισκόπου ὑµῶν καὶ ἀξιοπλόκου πνευµατικοῦ στεφανοῦ τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου ὑµῶν καὶ τῶν κατὰ θεὸν διακόνων; Magn. 13.1). Yet the presence of intricate exhortations to unity at the beginning and end of the letter enhance

21

See the tabulation of words related to unity in Sloan, “‘Center,’” 35–51. Horacio E. Lona emphasizes the historical orientation of Ignatius’s phrase but insists that flesh and spirit are not anthropological components that comprise the human body in Magn. 1.2 (“Der Sprachgebrauch von ΣΑΡΞ,” 397–398). This reduces the meaning of Ignatius’s statement. Union with Christ is brought to the fore in Ignatius’s third pair of Magn. 1.2, that is, the unity between Jesus and the Father. Although Ignatius describes the Magnesians in incarnational terms in the first pair, flesh and spirit refer to the Magnesians’ flesh and spirit and, in an analogous manner, to Jesus’s flesh and spirit. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.108; Vall, Learning Christ, 92–94. 23 It is possible that πάντα ὅσα ποιεῖτε κατευοδωθῆτε alludes to Ps 1.3. See Grant, Ignatius of Antioch, 66; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 56; Schoedel, Ignatius, 130; Vall, Learning Christ, 49–51. Although the evidence is slim upon which to adjudicate either for or against an allusion, one piece of evidence in support may be the nearby citation of Prov 18.17 in Magn. 12. 22

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the likelihood that the treatment of unity in the middle of the letter will be similarly multifaceted.24 One final and related matter should be mentioned briefly before attention can be focused more narrowly on Magn. 7. Ignatius speaks of harmony (ὁµόνοια) alongside and apparently synonymously with union and unity. ὁµόνοια is part of Ignatius’s larger set of terms that are to bring the Magnesians together. When Ignatius completes the protasis with which he began Magn. 2.1–7.2, he urges the Magnesians to do all things in God’s harmony (ἐν ὁµονοίᾳ θεοῦ; Magn. 6.1). He then specifies that the harmony in which the Magnesians should act is demonstrated by observing the proper ecclesial order that is itself a model of God and God’s salvific actions.25 Prior to his instruction to act in God’s harmony, Ignatius utilizes two images by which to divide matters. He first mentions two ways of life before spending more time demonstrating how there are similarly two types of coins. The Magnesians should show that they are coins that have been imprinted with God’s stamp by being willing to suffer as Jesus did (Magn. 5.2). Ignatius employs an image that was used in Second Sophistic literature and stems from coins that marked times of concord between cities.26 Dio Chrysostom uses numismatic imagery to great effect in calling the Nicomedians to peace with the Nicaeans.27 Ignatius’s use of ὁµόνοια is likewise analogous to other early Jewish and early Christian uses. Josephus recounts that Herod promised to appoint advisors who would be responsible for maintaining concord even after his death (B.J. 1.460). Perhaps most notably, 1 Clem. 20 appeals to the harmony of creation as a model for the Corinthians to follow (1 Clem. 20.3, 10–11).28 Ignatius employs ὁµόνοια in line with his own

24

Similarly, Isacson notes that the exordium of Magn. 1.2 offers an indication of the content that follows (To Each Their Own Letter, 80). 25 Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, “Enforcing Priesthood: The Struggle for the Monopolisation of Religious Goods and the Construction of the Christian Religious Field,” Beyond Priesthood: Religious Entrepreneurs and Innovators in the Roman Empire, ed. Richard L. Gordon, Georgia Petridou, and Jörg Rüpke, RVV 66 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017), 317– 319. 26 Lotz highlights similarities between Ignatius’s metaphors and the ὁµόνοια coins minted in Asia from the late first century CE (Ignatius and Concord, 37–65). See also Brent, Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, 245–247, 340–341. 27 Although the Nicomedians may see ὁµόνοια as impossible to achieve (Nicom. [Or. 38] 6) due to each city’s respective quests for titles of honor (Nicom. [Or. 38] 30), Dio Chrysostom envisages the two cities bound in fraternal harmony (Nicom. [Or. 38] 42). On the issue of titles between the cities, see Louis Robert “La titulare de Nicée et de Nicomedie: La gloire et la haîne,” HSCP 81 (1977): 1–39. 28 Odd Magne Bakke, Concord and Peace: A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement with an Emphasis on the Language of Unity and Sedition, WUNT 2.143 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 160–167. W. C. van Unnik helpfully draws attention to similarities between 1 Clem. 20 and early Jewish literature (“Is 1 Clement 20 Purely Stoic?” VC 4 [1950]:

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rhetorical aims as he calls the Magnesians to unity and supports his statements about harmony with language and images that were popular under the Flavians and Antonines. However, harmony should not simply be understood as the Magnesians’ obedience to church authorities. After greeting the Magnesians on behalf of the Ephesians and “the rest of the churches” (αἱ λοιπαὶ ἐκκλησίαι), Ignatius farewells the Magnesians “in the harmony of God” (ἐν ὁµονοίᾳ θεοῦ; Magn. 15). The harmony that the Magnesians should have belongs to God and extends across city boundaries. Even here, Ignatius’s multifaceted understanding of unity is evident.

7.3. The Text and Structure of Magn. 7 7.3. The Text and Structure of Magn. 7

The structure of Magn. 2.1–10.3 has now been surveyed, and unity and harmony have been explored as the central themes in the letter. Before proceeding with a more detailed study of the temple metaphor in Magn. 7.2, it will again be helpful to have a clear idea of what text forms the basis of the study in this chapter and to examine the structure of the passage in which Ignatius employs the temple metaphor. Although the temple only appears in Magn. 7.2, Magn. 7.1 will also be included due to its close literary connection through the repetition of “one” in both passages.

181–189). See further D. W. F. Wong, “Natural and Divine Order in 1 Clement,” VC 31 (1977): 81–87; Lona, Der erste Clemensbrief, 249–274.

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1

ὥσπερ οὔν29 ὁ κύριος30 ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς οὐδὲν ἐποίησεν,31 ἡνωµένος ὤν,32 οὔτε δι’ ἑαυτοῦ οὔτε διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων, οὕτως µηδὲ ὑµεῖς ἄνευ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων 33 µηδὲν πράσσετε.34 µηδὲ πειράσητε εὔλογόν τι φαίνεσθαι35 ἰδίᾳ ὑµῖν,36 ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ µία προσευχή,

29 The Syriac fragments and Armenian translation may reflect different conjunctions between Magn. 6–7. The Syriac may have had δέ for its Vorlage, while the Armenian offers evidence for the coordinating conjunction (καί). However, the Greek middle recension, most manuscripts of the Latin translation, the Greek long recension, and John of Damascus attest οὖν. The strong external attestation makes this reading the one most likely to be earliest. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.121. For further text-critical remarks on Magn. 7.1, see Gilliam, Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy, 37–41. 30 John of Damascus reads ὁ κύριος ἡµῶν (Holl, Fragmente, 20). Yet the Greek middle and long recensions, along with the Latin translation, omit the pronoun and provide the stronger external evidence. 31 The Greek middle recension and John of Damascus read the aorist verb ἐποίησεν. They are supported by the perfect tense in the Latin translation (fecit). However, the long recension supplies the present tense ποιεῖ, while the Armenian translation may indicate the imperfect tense. Although Ignatius speaks of Jesus’s actions in the present elsewhere (e.g. Eph. 20.1), the imperative that follows this statement requires Jesus’s example to be in the past as in Magn. 13.2. Moreover, the aorist tense has the stronger external support. 32 The Syriac fragments, Armenian translation, and John of Damascus are witnesses for a text without the participial phrase ἡνωµένος ὤν. The long recension also omits the phrase but inserts a citation from John 5.30. The Greek and Latin middle recensions both include the participial phrase. Collectively, the latter probably provide marginally stronger support than the other witnesses. In addition, Smyrn. 3.3 includes the comment that Jesus ate and drank with his disciples καίπερ πνευµατικῶς ἡνωµένος τῷ πατρί, and shows that Ignatius could use this manner of speaking in a passage whose textual witnesses include a reference to unity in the midst of a parenthetical statement. On the text of Smyrn 3.3, see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.297–298; Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.278; Fischer, Die apostolischen Väter, 206. 33 John of Damascus does not include καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, but the Greek middle recension, Latin translation, and Armenian translations give evidence for the inclusion of the phrase and provide stronger support. In addition, the Greek long recension omits τῶν πρεσβυτέρων but instead includes πρεσβύτερος, διάκονος, and λαϊκός. It is possible that the long recension expands an earlier reading of τῶν πρεσβυτέρων or that it offers evidence of a different Vorlage. In any case, τῶν πρεσβυτέρων is the earliest reading to which one can return based on the evidence available. 34 The Greek middle recension reads πράσσεται for πράσσετε. However, it is alone in this reading. Operimini is found in the Latin translation, and the imperative seems to be warranted by the context. 35 The Greek middle recension reads φαίνεσθε for φαίνεσθαι. Again, the stronger support lies in the Latin translation, which reads apparere. 36 The Syriac fragments suggest a text along the lines of ἄνευ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου. The long recension completes the sentence differently from either the Syriac translation or middle recension by reading µηδὲ τι φαινέσθω ὑµῖν εὔλογον παρὰ τὴν ἐκείνου γνήµην· τὸ γὰρ τοιοῦτον παράνοµον καὶ θεοῦ ἐχθρόν (Ps.Ign. Magn. 7.1). The Syriac translation may represent a repetition from the previous use of the phrase (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.122). The long recension is typically more expansive and also strengthens the earlier wording. The stronger

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µία δέησις, εἷς νοῦς, µία ἐλπὶς ἐν ἀγάπῇ, ἐν τῇ χαρᾷ τῇ ἀµώµῳ, ὅ37 ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, οὗ ἄµεινον οὐθέν ἐστιν.38 2πάντες39 ὡς εἰς40 ἕνα41 ναὸν συντρέχετε θεοῦ,42 ὡς ἐπὶ ἕν θυσιαστήριον, ἐπὶ ἕνα43 Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν ἀφ’ ἑνὸς πατρὸς προελθόντα καὶ εἰς ἕνα ὄντα καὶ χωρήσαντα. evidence is represented by the collective witness of the Greek middle recension, Latin and Armenian translations, and John of Damascus. This evidence is reflected in the text above. 37 The Greek middle recension reads εἷς rather than ὅ. The neuter relative pronoun is attested by the Latin translation and John of Damascus. The long recension and Armenian translations read differently and are likely later attempts to clarify Ignatius’s thought or to solve this textual problem. Lightfoot emends the text to ὅς and suggests that it explains the discrepancy between the two best readings because “it stands mid-way between the two extant readings” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.122). He also points out that the masculine relative pronoun is used elsewhere and seems to modify entire clauses when it does not match an antecedent noun in gender. Both observations are correct, but the emendation still seems unnecessary. The neuter relative pronoun is used by Ignatius to modify phrases rather than nouns in the same way as the examples of the masculine relative pronoun given by Lightfoot (Eph. 17.2; 18.1; Trall. 8.1; Rom. 5.1; 7.3; Smyrn. 5.3), although textual discrepancies often arise in the manuscript tradition. If one accepts the evidence of the Latin translation and John of Damascus, a similar usage of the relative pronoun would be understood here. Further, the divergence in the manuscript tradition can be satisfactorily explained without appealing to ὅς as a middle way. This can be done by accepting ὅ as the earliest reading and understanding εἷς as a later scribal emendation in keeping with the repetition of εἷς throughout Magn. 7.1– 2. 38 Antiochus the Monk reads οὐδὲν θυµηδέστερον for ἄµεινον οὐθέν ἐστιν (Hom. 80; PG 89:1673). However, the Greek middle and long recensions, the Latin translation, and the Armenian translation offer evidence in support of ἄµεινον οὐθέν ἐστιν, although the long recension spells οὐθέν as οὐδέν. The stronger manuscript evidence seems persuasive against Antiochus’s reading. 39 The Greek middle recension and Antiochus read πάντες οὖν. Yet since the conjunction is lacking in the Latin translation, Armenian translation, and Greek long recension, the earliest reading should probably also exclude to any conjunction. 40 The long recension reads εἷς εἰς. This may be an instance of dittography, or it may reflect an enhancing of the repetition of one found throughout Magn. 7.1–2. In either case, the stronger manuscript attestation is found in the Greek middle recension, Latin translation, and Armenian translation, which also offer the shorter reading. 41 This reading follows the Latin and Armenian translations. The Greek middle recension omits ἕνα, while the Greek long recension reads τόν. The evidence for ἕν as a modifier of θυσιαστήριον and for ἕνα as a modifier of Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν suggests that ἕνα should also be read as a modifier of ναόν. 42 The Armenian translation suggests that θεοῦ should be omitted, while the Greek long recension places the genitive after the noun that it modifies and before the verb (ναὸν θεοῦ συντρέχετε). The inclusion of θεοῦ in the Greek middle and long recensions as well as the Latin translation is strong external attestation in favor of its inclusion. Although the meaning is not significantly affected by its position, the genitive should likely go after the verb in keeping with the Greek middle recension and Latin translation. 43 The Armenian translation seems not to include ἐπὶ ἕνα. This places Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν in apposition to θυσιαστήριον and may reflect an interpretive decision on the part of the translator to identify the altar as Jesus. However, ἐπὶ ἕνα or an equivalent is found in the Greek middle recension, Greek long recension, and Latin translation. Yet although these traditions

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1 Therefore, as the Lord did nothing without the Father since he was united with him, neither through himself nor through the apostles, so you do nothing without the bishop and the elders. Do not try to make something appear blessed on your own, but in the common way, one prayer, one request, one mind, one hope in love, in which is blameless joy, which is Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is better. 2All of you run together as to one temple of God, as to one altar, to one Jesus Christ, the one who came forth from the Father and was with the one, and returned.

After Ignatius’s instructions for the Magnesians to respect one another and to be unified with the bishop (Magn. 6.2), he cites the relationship of Jesus and the Father as a model for the Magnesians to follow. They should not act without the bishop and elders in the same way that the Lord did not do anything apart from his Father. Ignatius gives a negative command, not to justify acting apart from the bishop, and follows it with a positive command, to meet and share in single-minded prayer and hope.44 All of this should be done in joy because Ignatius associates Jesus with joy. He continues the teaching on unity by commanding his readers to run together to the temple, the altar, and Jesus. Finally, he expands the mention of Jesus with another reference to his unity with the Father.45 The passage thus focuses on Jesus and is particularly interested in the unity between Jesus and the Father. This section opens and closes with references to the Father and Son. First, Ignatius highlights that all of Jesus’s actions took place in union with the Father (ἡνωµένος ὤν; Magn. 7.1). Moreover, he did not act apart from his Father by using his apostles to accomplish something separately from the Father. The emphasis lies on Jesus’s actions in the incarnation. The closing reference to Jesus is similarly interested in the incarnation but are unanimous in their inclusion of a preposition and numeric adjective, a different textual problem arises. The Greek middle recension, a variant tradition in the Greek long recension, and the collations of the Latin translation in Montacutianus read ὡς ἐπὶ ἕνα (ut in unum). The external evidence for ὡς is nearly balanced, so arguments must rely upon internal evidence. The presence of ὡς prior to ναόν and θυσιαστήριον seems to expect an additional ὡς prior to Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν. In light of this, the lectio dificilior is the omission of ὡς that has been preferred here. 44 Schoedel notes that Ignatius’s negative command is targeted at groups that might act on their own. This is evident elsewhere when the singular ἰδία is used with a plural noun or pronoun (e.g. Matt 17.19; 24.3; Mark 4.34; Gal 2.2; Ignatius, 116). 45 As Legarth rightly notes (Guds tempel, 229n.42), there seems to be a loosely chiastic structure in Magn. 7. A: Jesus and the Father are united. B: The Magnesians should be one (prayer, etc.) B’: The Magnesians should be one (temple, etc.) A’: Jesus and the Father are united. Although this structure seems to be present and is broadly helpful in outlining the passage, Jesus is also connected to love and joy in Magn. 7.1 without mentioning the Father or “one.” The chiastic structure is thus only to be observed at a broad level.

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views Jesus’s actions from a different perspective. Whereas the opening reference to Jesus focuses on his actions during the incarnation, the closing summary outlines Jesus’s entire incarnation. He came forth from the Father into his incarnation, was united with the Father while he was incarnate, and returned to the Father. The language is similar to the way in which the Johannine Jesus describes himself. “I came out from the Father (ἐξῆλθον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός) and have come into the world. I am leaving the world again, and I am going to the Father” (πορευόµαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα; John 16.28). Ignatius utilizes traditional language and motifs while simultaneously expressing his own christological formulations.46 In the middle reference to Jesus that follows the first list, Ignatius connects Jesus to joy. “Which is Jesus Christ” (ὅ ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός; Magn. 7.1) is not a strict identification of Jesus with joy but provokes reflection on the way in which Jesus provides the Magnesians with joy. The narrative allusions at the beginning and end of Magn. 7 indicate that Jesus is the Magnesians’ joy because of what he accomplished in the incarnation. The interest in the incarnation at Magn. 7.1–2 can be found in several places within the letter. One clear way in which Ignatius draws attention to Jesus’s incarnation later in the letter is through his brief rehearsal of Jesus’s birth, suffering, and resurrection during the time of Pilate (Magn. 11). The allusions to Jesus’s incarnation in Magn. 7 anchor another way in which Ignatius discusses Jesus in Magn. 6 that likewise focuses on Jesus’s humanity. Instead of focusing on particular events that occurred while Jesus took on human flesh, Ignatius makes repeated mention of Jesus’s incarnation with a view to Jesus’s relationship to the Father. He first looks to this story following the completion of the protasis that began in Magn. 2.1 and is resolved in Magn. 6.1. Urging the Magnesians to act in conjunction with church authorities, Ignatius claims that the deacons have been entrusted with Jesus’s ministry. In turn, Jesus is described as the one who was beside the Father before the ages and was manifest at the end (ὃς πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ πατρὶ ἦν καὶ ἐν τέλει ἐφάνη; Magn. 6.1). The emphasis lies on Jesus’s “appearance” in the incarnation.47 Jesus’s revelation at the end is a reference to his revelation as a human being, and his position beside the Father refers to his place with the Father prior to the incarnation. A similar reference to Jesus is found in Magn. 8.2. Ignatius notes that the prophets lived in accordance with Jesus and convinced the disobedient “that there is one God who revealed himself through Jesus Christ, his Son, who is his word that came forth from silence, who pleased the one who sent him in every way” (ὅτι εἷς θεός ἐστιν, ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ 46

Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 51. See also John 8.42; 13.3; 14.12, 28; 16.10, 17. Links between the portrayals of Jesus in John and Magn. 7.2 are discussed in more detail in section 7.6. 47 The long recension alters the middle recension’s accent on the incarnation to focus on Jesus’s eternal begetting by the Father.

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αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ λόγος ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθῶν, ὅς κατὰ πάντα εὐηρέστησεν τῷ πέµψαντι αὐτόν; Magn. 8.2). Reference is again made to points in time, but the mention of God’s self-revelation in terms of the Johannine λόγος clarifies that the incarnation is primarily in view. Ignatius refers to the Father as the one who sent Jesus. Variations on “the one who sent him” are likewise concentrated in Diogn. 7.2–6 and employed with reference to the Father’s sending of Jesus in the incarnation.48 For Ignatius, Jesus’s revelation of the Father indicates their close connection. Moreover, this connection persists in Jesus’s incarnation as he pleased his Father in every way.49 The christological statements in Magn. 7 occur in close proximity to these statements about Jesus. They elucidate the statements in Magn. 6.1 and 8.2 by more explicitly indicating the unity of Jesus and the Father and by noting that Jesus returned to the Father after the incarnation. The discussion of unity between Jesus and the Father in Magn. 7.1 makes clear what is implicit in Ignatius’s allusion to the procession in Magn. 6.1. It also allows Ignatius to restate his instruction to act in unity with the bishop in terms of imitating Jesus. An additional reason to obey the bishop is because Jesus demonstrated obedience to his Father. The temporal references in Magn. 7.2 illustrate Ignatius’s dexterity in telling the story of Jesus. The narrative could highlight the incarnation at the end because this acts reveals the Father (Magn. 6.1; 8.2), or it could be extended to describe Jesus’s continued unity with the Father after the incarnation (Magn. 7.2). Jesus and the Father are one at all points in the narrative framework. The allusions to Jesus frame everything that is said in Magn. 7.1– 2 while also continuing and expanding what Ignatius says about Jesus in Magn. 6–8. Even with statements about Jesus at the beginning and end and with an additional reference to Jesus in between, much of Magn. 7 takes up the issue of unity in the Magnesian congregation. The christological focus motivates the communal unity. After an admonition not to justify action on their own, Ignatius begins the next clause with ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό (Magn. 7.1).50 There is no verb in the clause. The long recension offers a likely hint as to how the passage should be read: πάντες ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ ἅµα συνέρχεσθε (Ps.Ign.

48 Hill notes the similarities to Johannine language (e.g. John 8.29) in The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church, 363; idem, “‘The Orthodox Gospel’: The Reception of John in the Great Church Prior to Irenaeus,” in The Legacy of John: Second-Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel, ed. Tuomas Rasimus, NovTSup 132 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 282n.147. See also the similarities between John 3.16 and Diogn. 10.2. 49 See further section 8.3.2. 50 J. D. Deniston’s explanation of the eliminative force of ἀλλά as “substituting the true for the false” may encapsulate the force of the conjunction in Magn. 7.1 (The Greek Particles, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1954], 1). Alternatively, “substituting right from wrong” may describe its usage here slightly better.

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Magn. 7.1).51 The middle recension’s pithy prepositional phrase should be understood with imperatival force following the earlier imperative. Ignatius’s terse statement suggests that this prepositional phrase may indicate that the Magnesians should act in unity “in the same place.”52 The phrase is used to similar effect in Acts 2.44. After Pentecost, all the believers gather in the same place (πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό).53 Yet the locative nuance does not seem to be primary in Magn. 7.1.54 The use of the prepositional phrase supports Ignatius’s instruction not to justify anything done apart from the bishop by offering contrasting actions to be undertaken together. It is preferable to understand ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό with reference to the unified manner and purpose in which the Magnesians should act. Rather than attempting to make separate actions seem blessed, they should act, “together,” “in the common way,” or “for the common purpose.” Ignatius follows this by repeating the number one and thus emphasizing the unity that should be evident in the Magnesian community. The repetition of “one” can be divided broadly into two groups that are each punctuated by allusions to Jesus. There are four items in the first list: one prayer, one request, one mind, and one hope (µία προσευχή, µία δέησις, εἷς νοῦς, µία ἐλπίς; Magn. 7.1). All of these should exist in the Magnesian community with love and joy. Ignatius then defines joy in terms of Jesus and notes his superiority to all things. The second list is shorter but Ignatius’s modifications to the last item result in five repetitions of the number one. Ignatius calls the Magnesians to run together to one temple, one altar, and one Jesus Christ (εἰς ἕνα ναόν, ἐπὶ ἕν θυσιαστήριον, ἐπὶ ἕνα Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν; Magn. 7.2). As discussed earlier, Ignatius then specifies that Jesus proceeds from the one Father (ἀφ’ ἑνὸς πατρός) and was with the one (εἰς ἕνα ὄντα) even while incarnate. Along with the συν– prefix in Ignatius’s imperative (συντρέχετε), the repeated usages of the number one function as an emphatic call for the Magnesians to be unified under the bishop and thus complete the section of the letter that was begun in Magn. 2.1. Moreover, the cultic connotations of προσευχή, δέησις, ναός, and θυσιαστήριον provide a transition into Ignatius’s discussion of Judaism in which he contrasts not only the prophets and Jesus but also the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.

51

Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 89n.26. Thus both Schoedel’s interpretation of the phrase in conjunction with the prayer that follows (“one prayer in common;” Ignatius, 116) and Zahn’s connection to the preceding words (“Versucht nicht, dass irgend etwas vernünftig erscheine euch privatim, sondern gemeinsam;” Ignatius von Antiochien, 345) misunderstand the force of Ignatius’s phrase. Although the reader is “left to supply the connecting links,” the prepositional phrase stands on its own (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.122). 53 See also Acts 1.15; 2.1, 47; 4.26. 54 The prepositional phrase is given a locative interpretation by Lotz, Ignatius and Concord, 89. 52

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Ignatius was not alone in utilizing repetitions of the number one to rhetorical effect.55 Marcus Aurelius insists that there is one universe, one God, one substance, one law, a common reason, and one truth (Med. 7.9).56 Before Marcus, Epictetus employed a similar repetition to instruct his students not to allow desires to get in the way of happiness. In recalling what previous philosophers have taught, Epictetus insists that the world is one city (µία πόλις) and that there is one substance from which the world is made (ἡ οὐσία, ἐξ ἧς δεδηµιούργηται, µία; Diatr. 3.24.10). Nor is such repetition limited to GrecoRoman philosophers alone. Following the description of the messiah in T. Jud. 24, T. Jud. 25.3 looks forward to a time when the Israelites will again be the Lord’s one people and have one tongue (εἷς λαὸν κυρίου καὶ γλῶσσα µία). Ignatius’s use of this repetitive formula is similar to other rhetorical motifs utilized by other early Christian texts in the first two centuries CE,57 and Ignatius employs his repetition as part of an imperatival call for unity.58 Although Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and T. Jud. 25 point to their respective lists as things that exist or will exist without regard to the readers’ actions, Ignatius urges the Magnesians to participate in the various items that he lists by demonstrating unity. Having established the text and seen that Magn. 7.1–2 is christologically framed while furthering Ignatius’s calls for unity, the chapter can now explore the temple in more detail.

7.4. One Temple of God 7.4. One Temple of God

In order to follow the structure of Magn. 7.2, in which Ignatius lists the temple, altar, and Jesus consecutively, while also setting Ignatius’s use of the temple in its early Jewish and early Christian context, section 7.4 will first explore the way in which Ignatius speaks of the temple in Magn. 7.2. It then looks further 55

For a more detailed list, see Maier, “The Politics and Rhetoric of Discord,” 316. However, Marcus places the number after the noun that it describes: κόσµος τε γὰρ εἷς ἐξ ἁπάντων, καὶ θεὸς εἷς διὰ πάντων, καὶ οὐσία µία καὶ νόµος εἷς, λόγος κοινὸς πάντων τῶν νοερῶν ζῴων, καὶ ἀλήθεια µία, εἴγε καὶ τελειότης µία τῶν ὁµογενῶν καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου µετεχόντων ζῴων. 57 E.g. 1 Cor 6.16–17; 12.13; Eph 4.4–6; Justin Dial. 63.5; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.113.2–114.1. 58 Ignatius is not wholly unique in this. For example, Eph 4.4–6 seems to provide theological rationale for the paraenesis that precedes in Eph 4.1–3 while simultaneously transitioning into the discussion of gifts and leadership that comprises Eph 4.7–16. However, Ignatius differs from many of the Stoic, Jewish, and Christian examples of repetition in that he includes the repetition as part of his instruction rather than as a metaphysical appeal. See further Martin Dibelius, “Christianisierung einer hellenistischen Formel,” NJahrb 35/36 (1915): 224–236. 56

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afield to illustrate that Ignatius’s speech about the one temple of God can be viewed alongside certain early Jewish and early Christian texts. Section 7.5 will then continue the study of Magn. 7.2 by examining the way in which Ignatius speaks of one altar. 7.4.1. The Temple in Magn. 7.2 Ignatius’s command that the Magnesians should “all run together” (πάντες...συντρέχετε) develops his call to unity in Magnesia by urging the Magnesians to participate in one activity. The verb συντρέχω can denote the physical act of running in a group,59 and Ignatius’s metaphorical use capitalizes on the physical act.60 The Magnesians should move through life in unison with their ecclesial leaders.61 The metaphorical nuance is enhanced by ὡς. The adverb adds a note of unreality to the metaphor of physical running, since the Magnesians should run together “as to one temple” (ὡς εἰς ἕνα ναόν). There is no need for the adverb following the verb when it is used in the sense of running together in Jdt 6.62 As Achior is brought before the elders, “each of their young men and the women ran together into the assembly” to hear Achior’s report (συνέδραµον πᾶς νεανίσκος αὐτῶν καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν; Jdt 6.16).63 The audience of 1 Pet 4.4 is counseled to continue to live by God’s will even though their neighbors are surprised that they “do not participate together in the same excess of debauchery” (µὴ συντρεχόντων ἡµῶν εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν τῆς ἀσωτίας ἀνάχυσιν). 64 With the addition of ὡς following συντρέχω, Ignatius

59

E.g. Mark 6.33; Acts 3.11. By maintaining a close metaphorical connection to the physical act, Ignatius differs from the use of the verb in 1 Clem. 35.8 (Ps 50.18 [49.18 LXX]) in which συνέτρεχες αὐτῷ indicates a close association of activity but not necessarily the act of running together. This usage is attested in Barn. 4.2. In contrast to both passages, Ignatius maintains the metaphorical sense of running in unison toward the temple. For similar uses, see further BDAG, s.v. 2; LSJ, s.v. I.b; PGL, s.v. B.2. BrDAG, s.v. C suggests “to come together in something” as a figurative meaning. 61 Legarth argues that the verb has the meaning “at forsamles” (to gather) rather than “at løbe i fællesskab” (“to run in communion;” Guds tempel, 219–220). 62 This is evident in the translation of Kieffer, who only notes the first ὡς parenthetically “(littéralement: comme)” and who does not account for the second ὡς (“La demeure divine,” 298). Similarly, Paulsen notes only the first instance of the adverb but does so without resorting to parentheses (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 51). 63 See also Josephus, A.J. 3.307. Louis Feldman notes that this phrase is not found in Num 14.2 but seems to be Josephus’s addition (Flavius Josephus: Judean Antiquities 1–4 [Leiden: Brill, 2004], 325). A similar grammatical construction can be found in 2 Macc 6.11. 64 See also Diodorus, Bibl. Hist. 4.42.3; 16.92.5. 60

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urges the Magnesians to run in agreement as if they were running to God’s temple.65 The prepositional phrase marks the goal toward which the Magnesians should run.66 Ignatius directs the Magnesians to run toward the temple, for this will unite them into a unified activity aimed at a collective target. This combination of verb and preposition functions more like Prov 1.16 than Rev 9.9. In Prov 1.16, the feet of the wicked run towards evil (οἱ γὰρ πόδες αὐτῶν εἰς κακίαν τρέχουσιν), while Rev 9.9 compares locust wings to the sound of chariot-horses running into battle (ὡς φωνὴ ἁρµάτων ἵππων πολλῶν τρεχόντων εἰς πόλεµον). Where Prov 1.16 describes the goal after which foolish feet run, the horses run into the midst of battle.67 In Magn. 7.2, εἱς τὸν ναόν provides the goal of the Magnesians’ running. As illustrated in previous chapters, Ignatius uses ναός as a symbol of congregational unity that his respective audiences either are or should strive to be. The temple again functions as such in Magn. 7.2, while it marks out the community in which God dwells. God is present in the temple and is likewise present among the Magnesians. They have been blessed by God’s grace (Magn. inscr.), bear God’s stamp in suffering (Magn. 5.2), and witness God’s presence in their leaders (Magn. 3.1; 6.1). God’s presence challenges the straightforward reading of the metaphor that the Magnesians should run as (ὡς) toward God’s temple, since God is already present among the Magnesians. Yet the combination of the imperative συντρέχετε and the use of ὡς resists an interpretation of the metaphor such that the Magnesians simply are God’s temple. Ignatius demands that the Magnesians continue to strive in unison to demonstrate that they are God’s temple by living in the unity that is suitable for the temple. The tension in the metaphor is not easily resolved to show either that the Magnesians already exist as the temple or are becoming the temple. Both are true. In this way, Magn. 7.2 may have some similarities to the eschatological tension that is more clearly evident in the temple metaphor of Eph. 9.1. Given Ignatius’s ability to refer to the Father or Jesus when using θεός, it is again necessary to ask about the referent of θεός in the phrase εἰς ἕνα ναὸν θεοῦ. The genitive following ναός indicates whose temple is meant and which God is to be worshipped in the temple. Although Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός in Eph. 15.3, two factors argue against this identification of θεός in Magn. 7.2. First, Ignatius does not clearly use θεός to identify Jesus at any other point in Magnesians. Second, Ignatius clearly refers to Jesus as the third item in the 65 Ignatius elsewhere instructs the Smyrnaeans to “run together…as God’s household managers and attendants and servants” (συντρέχετε...ὡς θεοῦ οἰκονόµοι καὶ πάρεδροι καὶ ὑπηρέται; Pol. 6.1). 66 BDAG, s.v.; LSJ, s.v. I. b; Legarth, Guds tempel, 219n.4. 67 The preposition εἰς likewise extends the action into a place in 2 Kgs (4 Kgdms) 11.13; 2 Chr 23.12; Jdt 6.16.

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same list as the temple. The Magnesians are to run not only to the temple but also to one Jesus Christ (ἐπὶ ἕνα Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν).68 To refer to Jesus twice in the list risks being redundant, particularly with the christological frame that Ignatius has placed around Magn. 7. Since there is no compelling evidence to the contrary, the identification of Jesus as θεός in Magn. 7.2 should be rejected unless all other identifications are less plausible. The two best options are to understand θεός in Magn. 7.2 as an incipient Trinitarian reference or as an indication of the Father. In light of the unity that Ignatius seeks in the Son, Father, and Spirit (Magn. 13.1), a nascent Trinitarian reference is tempting in Magn. 7.2. Yet Ignatius typically lists the members of the Trinity when he indicates this understanding of God. Moreover, Ignatius clearly connects θεός to the Father in Magn. inscr.; 3.1; 5.2. Elsewhere in the letter, Ignatius pairs θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in such a way as to differentiate the two. Ignatius praises Zotion because he submits to the bishop as if to God’s grace (χάριτι θεοῦ) and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ (νόµῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Magn. 2).69 For this reason it is best to understand θεός in the temple metaphor of Magn. 7.2 with respect to the Father.70 In sum, Ignatius urges the Magnesians to run together toward the goal of the temple, that is, to the community in which God the Father resides. This is both already the case among Christians in Magnesia and will become more evidently true as the Magnesians do all things in unity. Insofar as they demonstrate unity, the Magnesians both are and must continue to live as God’s temple. 7.4.2. The One Temple in Early Jewish and Early Christian Texts As in chapters 3–6, it will be helpful to compare Magn. 7.2 to other early Jewish and early Christian texts. In keeping with Ignatius’s emphasis on harmony and the repetition of εἷς in Magn. 7.2, this section will focus on texts that see the temple as a sign of unity. At various points, Philo, Josephus, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and the Epistle of Barnabas employ temple language in this way. 7.4.2.1. Early Jewish Texts Philo draws a connection between the one God and the one temple that should be built for him. In his allegorical commentary on the Law, he explains that Moses did not allow for many temples to be built. “Since God is one, there is also only one temple” (ἐπειδὴ εἷς ἐστιν ὁ θεός, καὶ ἱερὸν ἓν εἶναι µόνον; Spec. leg. 1.67). Jewish sacrificial practice cannot be performed in one’s own house 68

See the discussion in section 7.6. Similarly, the bishop is connected to θεός in Magn. 6.1, while the deacons are linked to the ministry of Jesus. In this case, θεός likewise indicates the Father. 70 Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 53; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 299. 69

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but must take place in the temple (Spec. leg. 1.68). Philo then recalls the number of people who came to the temple at every festival to “some common shelter and secure asylum from the troubles and toils of life” (τινα κοινὸν ὑπόδροµον καὶ καταγωγὴν ἀσφαλῆ πολυπράγµονος καὶ ταραχωδεστάτου βίου; Spec. leg. 1.69). The singularity of the temple is representative of the unique identity of God and is shared in common by the people. Baruch’s prayer in 2 Bar. 48 contains a similar line of reasoning regarding the one God, but Baruch connects God’s special identity to the Law instead of the temple. The Israelites are a people of the Name because they “received one Law from the One” (2 Bar. 48.24).71 Although 2 Bar. 48 does not make much of the temple, the one Law and one God bind the Israelites together as one people.72 Josephus places a larger list of single objects in A.J. 4.200–201 in which the singular relationship between the various entities mutually inform and strengthen one another. As Josephus recounts God’s instructions for establishing cities after the Canaanite conquest, God calls for one holy city (ἱερὰ πόλις µία), one temple (νεὼς εἷς), and one stone altar (βωµὸς εἷς ἐκ λίθων). The reason behind these instructions is that there is one God and one Hebrew people (θεὸς γὰρ εἷς καὶ τὸ ἑβραίων γένος ἕν; A.J. 4.200–201).73 Similarly, Josephus begins his account of the Decalogue by noting that the first commandment teaches that God is one (A.J. 3.91). When he addresses the opening of the Decalogue elsewhere, he again insists that there is one temple for the one God (C. Ap. 2.193). In both Philo and Josephus, one of the reasons for the existence of an exclusive temple is that there is one true God. 2 Bar. 48.24 attests to a similar line of thought, but the emphasis in 2 Bar. 48 falls on Torah. However, the connection between a unique God and the importance of single representative elements remains and binds the people together in unity. For Philo and Josephus, as for Ignatius, one of these objects is the temple. 7.4.2.2. Early Christian Texts Like Ignatius, Paul also employs the temple metaphor to portray unity in the congregation in Eph 2.11–22.74 Moreover, he does so in a letter in which he

71

Translation from A. F. J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983–1985), 1.636. 72 Similarly, 2 Bar. 78.4 asks rhetorically, “Are we not all, the twelve tribes, bound by one captivity as we also descend from one father?” 73 Feldman, Flavius Josephus, 399. 74 Despite ongoing debates about the authorship of the letter, I speak of the author as Paul in keeping with the name of the sender in Eph 1.1. For arguments that the letter was written by Paul, see Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 2–61. For arguments that the letter is pseudonymous, see Ernest Best, Ephesians, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 6–36.

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utilizes a repetition of one (Eph 4.4–6). In a discussion of Jew-Gentile reconciliation in Eph 2, Paul emphasizes that Jesus is the one who enables unity. He is “our peace” (ἡ εἰρήνη ἡµῶν) and has torn down the dividing wall (τὸ µεσότοιχον; Eph 2.14). In Christ, Jews and Gentiles are made a new person and reconciled into one body (Eph 2.15–16). Jesus proclaims peace and grants access to the Father (Eph 2.17–18). Given this focus on Jesus’s role, it is no surprise that he forms the cornerstone (ἀκρογωνιαῖος) as Paul shifts to the temple metaphor.75 Yet while Jesus is primary in the passage, he is not alone. The apostles and prophets form the foundation (θεµέλιος) on which the Ephesian temple is constructed (Eph 2.20). 76 With the cornerstone and foundation in place, believers are described as a building that is joined together (οἰκοδοµὴ συναρµολογουµένη) and that grows into a holy temple in the Lord (αὔξει εἰς ναὸν ἅγιον ἐν κυρίῳ; Eph 2.21). Although the foundation and cornerstone are set, the temple is in the process of coming together as Jews and Gentiles are reconciled in Christ. Thus Paul concludes the section, “In whom (the Lord), you also are being built into God’s dwelling place by the Spirit” (ἐν ᾧ καὶ ὑµεῖς συνοικοδοµεῖσθε εἰς κατοικτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν πνεύµατι; Eph 2.22). The dynamic growth of the temple in Eph 2 contrasts with Ignatius’s portrayal of a set temple toward which the Magnesians run, but the two metaphors have in common that they both symbolize unity.77 The temple metaphor is also employed in paraenesis to encourage unity in Barn. 4.11. The ethical instruction is set in the context of eschatological teaching in Barn. 4.4–5 and the audience is warned about the fragile nature of covenants with reference to Moses’s actions on Sinai (Barn. 4.6–9).78 Among the things that are instructed, the audience should “gather together and seek together what is commonly beneficial” (ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνερχόµενοι συνζητεῖτε περὶ τοῦ κοινῇ συµφέροντος; Barn. 4.10). Scripture is utilized to warn against those who are wise in their own sight before the author exhorts, “Let us become spiritual. Let us become a perfect temple for God” (γενώµεθα πνευµατικοί·

75 On the definition of ἀκρογωνιαῖος, see Frank Thielman, Ephesians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 179–183. 76 Best (Ephesians, 281–284) and Muddiman (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, BNTC [London: Continuum, 2001], 142) rightly argue that the prophets in Eph 2.20 are early Christian prophets rather than a reference to prophets whose writings comprise scripture. Gerhard Sellin views the genitives τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ προφητῶν as epexegetical (Der Brief an die Epheser, KEK 8 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008], 236). 77 The theme of unity in reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles is helpfully encapsulated in Sellin’s subtitle for Eph 2.19–22: Das Haus für alle (Der Brief an die Epheser, 230.). 78 The author cites Exod 34.28; 32.7. See further Clare K. Rothschild, “Epistle of Barnabas and Secession through Allegory," in New Essays on the Apostolic Fathers, by Clare K. Rothschild, WUNT 375 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 207–208.

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γενώµεθα ναὸς τέλειος τῷ θεῷ; Barn. 4.11).79 Although no further cultic imagery is developed in Barn. 4, the use of the temple in a call for unity is similar to its usage in Magn. 7.2. Both utilize a singular temple in instructions for the community to be unified. However, the use of πνευµατικός in conjunction with the temple at Barn. 4.11 is absent from Magn. 7.2 and prepares the way for the discussion of the πνευµατικὸς ναός in Barn. 16.10. In Magn. 7.2, Ignatius continues from the temple image to discuss the altar.

7.5. One Altar 7.5. One Altar

Ignatius relies on the same verb (συντρέχετε) and repeats ὡς as he moves to his next topic. The Magnesians are to run “as to one altar” (ὡς ἐπὶ ἕν θυσιαστήριον; Magn. 7.2). Ignatius uses a different preposition, opting for ἐπί rather than εἰς, but it is difficult to find a significant variance in the meaning of the two words in Magn. 7.2.80 Both prepositions indicate the goal toward which the Magnesians should run together.81 A similar use of the same verb and preposition occurs in one of Judith’s speeches. After beheading Holofernes in Jdt 13, she describes the way that the Assyrian soldiers will run to Holofernes’s tent (συνδραµοῦνται ἐπὶ τὴν σκηνὴν Ὁλοφέρνου; Jdt 14.3) and be terrified when they do not find him there.82 The preposition represents the goal toward which the Assyrians will run as it does in Ignatius’s instruction to the Magnesians.83 The altar represents the goal toward which the Magnesians should strive together. The question that now must be raised concerns the significance of the altar. Like the temple, the altar seems to draw its metaphorical force from the scriptural traditions that precede Ignatius’s letters. In particular, the altar metaphor in Magn. 7.2 should be understood with reference to the sacrificial altar in the Jerusalem temple.84 However, since the altar is not qualified by a genitive, one may wonder whether it is possible that Ignatius has connected the altar in a 79 James Carleton Paget raises the possibility of Pauline influence in Barn. 4.10–11 due to the use of δικαιόω in Barn. 4.10 and the temple in Barn. 4.11. See “The Epistle of Barnabas and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 241; idem, “Paul and the Epistle of Barnabas,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 95. 80 See the similar treatment of the two prepositions in Legarth, Guds tempel, 219n.4. 81 BDAG, ἐπί 4.b.ε.; LSJ, ἐπί c.I.2. 82 David A. deSilva points out that Judith’s actions reveal her honor for God in part because she is concerned about the purity of the temple (Jdt 8.21, 24; 9.9, 13; “Judith the Heroine? Lies, Seduction, and Murder in Cultural Perspective,” BTB 36 [2006]: 58). 83 Legarth, Guds tempel, 219n.4. 84 Legarth, Guds tempel, 222–223; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 294, 298–299.

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more specific manner. Legarth and Kieffer argue that Ignatius links the altar to Jesus. Legarth raises and accepts the possibility “at Ignatius i Magn 7,2 i mere almen forstand forestiller sig alteret som stedet for Jesu Kristi nærvær.”85 Since the altar follows the temple but is connected to Jesus, “Tanken kan være den, at som Gud er nærværende i templet og virker der, således er Jesus Kristus nærværende og virkende i alteret.”86 Kieffer tries to draw out the connection between God’s temple, Jesus’s altar, and ecclesial unity. “Le lien qui existe entre l’Eglise comme temple de Dieu et le Christ comme autel a probablement une signification ecclésiale: l’unité de l’Eglise est fondée sur l’unique autel qui est en son centre, Jésus Christ.”87 The close connection that Ignatius draws between the temple and the altar is clear in his instructions to the Magnesians. The two words follow each other in successive places in his second list of “ones” and are conceptually near to one another. Altars are often part of temple precincts. Yet it is not as clear that the connections between Jesus and the altar can be made in the way that Legarth and Kieffer propose. The temple belongs to the Father because he is the God who is deserving of worship and to whom the temple has been devoted. This is indicated by the genitive noun. Ignatius uses a different construction when speaking about the altar. The usage of ἐπί may indicate some connection between the altar and Jesus, but the relationship between Jesus and the altar is not one of possession as in the case of the temple. Nor is it a relationship that identifies Jesus as the altar, since that would mean that ὡς ἐπὶ ἕν θυσιαστήριον, ἐπὶ ἕνα Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν must be prepositional phrases that stand in apposition to one another. If the relationship was one of apposition, then the connection between the altar and Jesus might be the one described by Legarth and Kieffer.88 Yet the repetition of ἐπί following the single use of εἰς is the only evidence that might suggest that the altar and Jesus stand in an analogous relationship to the temple and God. Since it is more likely that both εἰς and ἐπί function synonymously to mark the goals toward which the Magnesians should run, the evidence for the connection turns out to be slim.89

85 “That in Magn. 7.2 Ignatius imagines the altar as the site of Jesus Christ’s presence in a more general sense” (Legarth, Guds tempel, 227). Elsewhere, Legarth notes the nearby reference to Jesus and proposes, “daß Ignatius einen Zusammenhang zwischen dem einen Altar und dem einen Jesus Christus zu verstehen gibt” (“Tempelsymbolik,” 53). Lightfoot states similarly that “Jesus Christ Himself is compared to the one altar” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.123). 86 “The thought may be that as God is present in the temple and works there, so Jesus Christ is present and working in the altar” (Guds tempel, 227). 87 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 299. 88 Neither Legarth nor Kieffer makes any grammatical argument for their exegesis. 89 The case for the connection between Jesus and the altar might be strengthened if Lightfoot’s supposition that ναόν...θεόν should be read for ναόν...θεοῦ was correct. This would

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A more telling connection is the repetition of ὡς in Magn. 7.2. The adverb denotes the way in which the Magnesians should run together to the temple and altar but not to Jesus. The temple and altar are metaphors such that the Magnesians should live in unity as if they were running toward the temple and altar. Both serve as symbols of unity, since there is only one temple and one altar within that temple. Jesus stands apart as a goal toward which the Magnesians should run in a different way, a way that is less metaphorical and does not necessitate another reoccurrence of ὡς. The altar, on the other hand, is connected to the temple by the repetition of ὡς and serves as an additional symbol of unity that centers on a cultic object.90 It symbolizes the unity that should be characteristic of the Magnesians’ actions with regard to their ecclesial leaders and to one another. The cultic metaphors not only indicate the central way in which the Magnesians should exhibit their unity but also prepare Ignatius’s path to discuss Judaism as a potential cause of dissension in Magn. 8.1–10.3. Thus there is no particular reason to suspect that the altar has any unique connection to Jesus in Magn. 7.2. Ignatius uses the same preposition in front of the altar and Jesus, but all prepositions in the list of Magn. 7.2 function synonymously to mark the goal of Ignatius’s imperative. The altar continues the repetition of the number one, adds to the cultic overtones of Magn. 7, and facilitates the transition from unity in Jesus with authority (Magn. 2.1–7.2) to unity in Jesus against Judaism (Magn. 8.1–10.3). Jesus is not linked more closely to the altar than to any of the other words in Magn. 7.1–2. Rather, the final reference to Jesus completes the christological frame and expresses the unity between Jesus and his Father.

7.6. One Jesus Christ 7.6. One Jesus Christ

The prepositional phrases that follow Ignatius’s instruction that the Magnesians should run together (συντρέχετε) conclude with “toward one Jesus Christ” (ἐπὶ ἕνα Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν; Magn. 7.2). The preposition ἐπί again marks the goal sharpen the connection between the temple and God, since the Magnesians would run together “as toward the temple, that is, to God” and likewise run together “as to the one altar, to the one Jesus Christ” (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.123). However, there is no manuscript evidence to support his emendation. 90 It is worth mentioning the centrality of the cult in Legarth’s interpretation of Magn. 7.2. For example, when Ignatius mentions the temple, “karakteriserer Ignatius magnesiernes forsamling, dvs. deres forsamling til gudstjenste, og han beskriver den kristne menighed i Magnesia som Guds ene tempel” (“Ignatius characterizes the Magnesians’ assembly, that is, their assembling for worship, and he describes the Christian community in Magnesia as God’s one temple;” Guds tempel, 220). The centrality of cultic metaphors should not limit their significance to worship alone. According to Ignatius, the Magnesians’ entire life should be characterized by the unity and harmony befitting of a temple.

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toward which the Magnesians should run.91 However, the final prepositional phrase stands apart from the two that precede it, since it is not modified by ὡς.92 The action for which Ignatius calls when he writes συντρέχετε...ἐπὶ ἕνα Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν is metaphorical but in a different sense from the action of running to the temple and altar.93 For the Magnesians to run toward one Jesus Christ is to do everything in their life in the pursuit of unity in Christ. They are to run toward Jesus as the singular goal who is present in their community. The reference to the one Jesus Christ mirrors the reference to the Lord not acting without the Father in Magn. 7.1. The christological frame of Magn. 7.1– 2 was examined in section 7.3 and placed in the context of other references to Jesus and the Father in Magn. 6–8. Ignatius uses this mention of Jesus to conclude both the repetition of “one” and to conclude the close of the christological frame. To understand the way in which Ignatius’s reference to the one Jesus interacts with the temple and altar, however, requires a further look at the way in which Ignatius describes Jesus. The portrayals of Jesus in Magn. 7.1–2 contain similar language to that used to describe the Johannine Jesus. This was briefly mentioned in section 7.3 but is worth mentioning in more detail now since the characterization of Jesus in Magn. 7.2 resonates strongly with Johannine diction. Jesus draws attention to his relationship with the Father at several points in the Gospel of John. For example, Jesus insists that anyone who belongs to the Father will also love him since he has come from the Father. “For I came from God and have come” (ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἥκω; John 8.42).94 Such statements are not limited only to Jesus’s origins in the Father. Before he washes the disciples’ feet, Jesus knows “that he came from God and is going to God” (ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ὑπάγει; John 13.3). This extends Jesus’s relationship to the Father in order to show that Jesus will return to the Father, although the present tense of ὑπάγει is necessary from the perspective of the narrative in the midst of Jesus’s incarnation. Within Jesus’s ministry, he insists repeatedly that he does nothing on his own authority (ἀπ’ ἐµαυτοῦ ποιῶ οὐδέν) but only speaks as the

91

See again BDAG, s.v. 4.b.ε.; LSJ, s.v. c.I.2. Corwin notes that the reference to Jesus in Magn. 7.2 “occurs as the climax of a passage urging unity on the church” (St. Ignatius, 144). 93 Similarly, Isacson, To Each Their Own Letter, 89. 94 66 P reads ἐξελήλυθα for ἐξῆλθον. This early witness to the text reduces the tension between the aorist ἐξῆλθον and the perfective sense of ἥκω in this text. However, the presence of ἐξῆλθον in P75, ‫א‬, B, C, D, E, F, and W presents overwhelmingly stronger evidence for ἐξῆλθον as the best-preserved text. 92

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Father has taught him (John 8.28).95 Elsewhere he claims, “I and the Father are one” (ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσµεν; John 10.30).96 Ignatius’s elaboration of the one Jesus to whom the Magnesians should run fits with these Johannine portrayals of Jesus. John points to Jesus’s pre-incarnate and post-incarnate unity with the Father, while Jesus insists throughout the Gospel that he acts solely in accordance with the Father. Similarly, Ignatius links Jesus to the Father before, during, and after the incarnation (τὸν ἀφ’ ἑνὸς πατρὸς προελθόντα καὶ εἰς ἕνα ὄντα καὶ χωρήσαντα; Magn. 7.2). Ignatius differs from John in that he uses προέρχοµαι to describe Jesus’s origins.97 Schlier attributes Ignatius’s difference in terminology to his indebtedness to gnostic literature and uses Theodotus as an example.98 Clement of Alexandria records how Theodotus describes Jesus as “our light” (τὸ φῶς ἡµῶν), drawing on John 8.12. Jesus passes through a boundary and leads other angels with him, at which point Theodotus notes that Jesus “had redemption inasmuch as he proceeded from the Pleroma” (καὶ αὐτὸς [Ἰησοῦς] µὲν τὴν λύτρωσιν ὡς ἀπὸ πληρώµατος προελθὼν εἶχεν; Exc. 35.2).99 Theodotus uses language similar to John to describe Jesus’s procession from the Father without regard for the incarnation but focuses instead on asomatic redemption. Ignatius, on the other hand, follows John in linking Jesus’s origin with the Father to the incarnation. In Magn. 7.2, Ignatius is not concerned to outline how Jesus first proceeded from the Father or even that Jesus’s procession was eternal. The emphasis lies on the simple story that Jesus came from the Father and thus was one with the Father before his incarnation. Nor is Ignatius alone in using προέρχοµαι with reference to Jesus’s incarnation during the second century. Justin tells Trypho that scripture predicted that Jesus would come forth (προέρχεσθαι ἔµελλεν) “so that you may recognize him as God coming forth from above and a human being who is among his people” (ἵνα καὶ θεὸν ἄνωθεν προελθόντα καὶ ἄνθρωπον ἐν ἀνθρώποις γενόµενον γνωρίσητε; Dial. 64.7). 100

95 Hill outlines further points of contact between Magn. 7.1–8.2 and John 8.28–29 in The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church, 434–437; idem, “The Orthodox Gospel,” 281–283. See also John 5.19, 30; 14.10. In addition, see the citation of John 5.30 in Ps.Ign. Magn. 7.1. 96 This claim elicits the charge of blasphemy from Jesus’s opponents. Using John 10.30 as a starting point, Thomas Söding argues that John understands the relationship between Jesus and the Father as a radicalizing of Deut 6.4 rather than an abrogation of it (“‘Ich und der Vater sind eins’ (Joh 10,30): Die johanneische Christologie vor dem Anspruch des Hauptgebotes (Dtn 6,4f),” ZNW 93 [2002]: 177–199). 97 Schoedel, Ignatius, 117. 98 Schlier, Untersuchungen, 34–36. Schlier points out that Rudolf Bultmann had recently argued for the influence of gnostic language on John (“Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 [1925]: 105–106). 99 See also Exc. 23.1; 36.1. 100 Justin supports this statement by quoting Ps 19 [18].1–6.

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Moreover, προέρχοµαι can be used in a document written in staunch opposition to gnostic ideas about Jesus’s body.101 In 3 Cor 4.6 (Acts Paul 10.4.6), the Holy Spirit came to Mary “in order that he [Jesus] might advance into the world and set all flesh free by his own flesh.”102 Although Ignatius uses a verb that would later be given more specific christological definition,103 nothing in Magn. 6.1– 8.2 indicates that Ignatius has anything other than Jesus’s incarnation in view when he writes that Jesus proceeded from the Father. It is in the incarnation that Jesus reveals both the Father’s identity and his own union with the Father prior to the incarnation.104 Jesus’s incarnation is also the central reference point when Ignatius speaks of Jesus’s return to the Father. While the usage of χωρέω in Magn. 7.2 seems to have the sense of “return” because it is used in association with Jesus and the Father, χωρέω more often means simply “to go out” or “to go away.”105 Earlier in the letter, Ignatius notes that there are two things set side by side and “each is about to depart to his own place” (ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν ἴδιον τόπον µέλλει χωρεῖν; Magn. 5.1). By this, Ignatius means that each of the Magnesians will die and must choose between departing along the way of God or the way of the world.106 Similarly, Ignatius warns that both false teachers and those who listen to their teachings “will depart to unquenchable fire” (εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον χωρήσει; Eph. 16.2). When Ignatius says that Jesus departed in Magn. 7.2, the same meaning of death is in view. However, Ignatius stresses throughout Magn. 6–8 that Jesus is one with the Father and his use of χωρέω in Magn. 7.2 supports this claim. When Jesus died, he returned to the Father and thus continued to be one with the Father. The humanity of Jesus is mentioned in conjunction with a central Ignatian claim in Magn. 7.2. Jesus was, is, and will be one with the Father. His unity with the Father is unchanged in the incarnation. Vall suggests that εἰς ἕνα ὄντα means that “Jesus remained ‘turned toward’ the Father during his temporal life” and demonstrates the same union with the Father that he had before all

101

Schoedel, Ignatius, 117. This translation follows Benjamin L. White, Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 192. For “he might advance into the world,” the Greek text from P. Bodm. 10 is ΕΙΝΑ ΕΙΣ ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΠΡΟΕΛΘΗ. Pervo notes similarities between this phrase in 3 Cor. 4.6 (Acts Paul 10.4.6) and 1 Tim 1.15, although the verb has no prefix in the latter (The Acts of Paul, 272). 103 E.g. Marcellus of Ancyra insists that the Son was not begotten (γεννάω) but proceeded (προέρχοµαι) from the Father (Eusebius, Marc. 2.8.1; 2.8.1 frag. 31; 2.8.4 frag. 54). See further PGL, προέρχοµαι, B.1. 104 Vall, Learning Christ, 107. 105 BDAG, s.v. 1.a. 106 Grant (Ignatius, 59) and Paulsen (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 49) understand the meaning of εἰς τὸν ἴδιον τόπον with reference to Acts 1.25 and thus as a circumlocution for death. 102

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ages (πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ πατρί; Magn. 6.1).107 The language of being “turned toward” the Father is helpful, but Ignatius implies an even closer connection to the Father by placing his reference to Jesus’s incarnational unity between references to his pre-incarnational and post-incarnational unity with the Father.108 Certainly, Ignatius affirms Jesus’s obedience to the Father in his incarnation as evidenced in the particular actions that Jesus accomplished (Magn. 11). Such a claim is not absent from Magn. 7.2 but is part of a stronger claim. Jesus remained turned towards the Father because he was one with the Father even while incarnate.109 Moreover, it is in his union with the Father that Jesus reveals the Father.110 With this understanding of Jesus in view, one can now inquire about the precise connections that Jesus has with the temple and altar toward which the Magnesians are also to run. At its most basic, the one Jesus is a single goal toward which the Magnesians should run, and Jesus is thus similar to the temple and altar. Yet he is set apart from the temple and altar by the absence of ὡς. The Magnesians should run to Jesus in a different way than they run to the temple and altar. Whereas the temple and altar are metaphors for unity, Jesus is the reality in which the Magnesians should be unified by running together toward him. The descriptions of Jesus that follow the prepositional phrase indicate a special role for Jesus in Ignatius’s instruction. The Magnesians should run to Jesus because he is an example, a mediator, and God.111 Each of these is important to link with the temple and altar metaphors. First, Jesus provides the example of unity for which the Magnesians collectively are to strive. Ignatius shows that Jesus’s unity with his Father is real and continuous. The Magnesians should thus run to Jesus in such a way as to follow his example of unity. By doing this, they will answer the prayer that Ignatius offers for them at the beginning and end of the letter. The most important (κυριώτερον) of his three requests in Magn. 1.2 is that the Magnesians participate in the unity of Jesus and the Father. They are instructed to act in such a way that they may prosper in the Son, Father, and Spirit in Magn. 13.1. By running to Jesus who models the unity that the Magnesians should show among 107 Vall, Learning Christ, 106. Similarly, Ferdinando Bergamelli translates εἰς ἕνα ὄντα as “è verso l’unico” (“Dai Padre al Padre,” 423). 108 “Cum vox ὄντα post προελθόντα et ante χωρήσαντα posita sit, sensus est: Iesus apud patrem, apud quem erat ante saecula (6, 1), eo quoque tempore versabatur, quo in mundo erat” (Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.236). 109 Although he does not echo the passage verbally, Ignatius seems to be conceptually close to John’s emphasis on Jesus’s oneness with the Father in John 10.30. 110 “And here we come to what is arguably the heart of Ignatius’s theology: the Son as the revealer of the Father” (Vall, Learning Christ, 106). 111 With regard to Ignatius’s description of Jesus throughout his instruction to the Magnesians, Lotz rightly sees that Jesus is “the source and model of their harmony” (Ignatius and Concord, 167).

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themselves, the Magnesians at least partly fulfill Ignatius’s prayer and instruction. Second, the Magnesians should run to Jesus because he is able to mediate for them on account of his unity with the Father. Ignatius makes Jesus’s unity with the Father clear in the adjectival modifiers that follow Jesus’s name. The Magnesians’ union with the Father is enabled by Jesus. As the Magnesians run to Jesus, his union with the Father through all time will allow the Magnesians to experience union with the Father.112 In this way, Ignatius’s explanation of who Jesus is, namely, the one who came forth from the Father, was with the One, and returned, serves a similar function in Magn. 7.2 to the images of priest and door in Phld. 9.1 or the cross in Eph. 9.1. Jesus is able to mediate between the Magnesians and the Father because he himself is unified with the Father at all times. This includes his incarnation. A comparison of Jesus’s mediatorial role in Magn. 7.2 and the references to Jesus in Phld. 9.1, Eph. 9.1, and Eph. 15.3 will follow soon. Before that, though, it is necessary to mention the third reason that Ignatius offers the Magnesians for running to Jesus. Ignatius instructs them to run to Jesus since Jesus is God. Although Ignatius does not explicitly refer to Jesus as θεός in this letter, the unique links he makes between Jesus and the Father throughout the letter indicate that Jesus is identified in a special way with the Father. The Magnesians should participate in the unity of Jesus and the Father (Magn. 1.2) or the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit (Magn. 13.1). Jesus did not act apart from his Father and was united with him (Magn. 7.1). He was with the Father before his incarnation (Magn. 6.1; 7.2; 8.2) and was incarnate in union with the Father (Magn. 7.2). Thus Jesus revealed the Father as a Word through which the Father spoke and pleased him in all he did (Magn. 8.2). Jesus can reveal the Father because he is God and continued to be so while taking on human flesh. The Magnesians are to run not only to God’s temple and the altar but also to Jesus, whose singular unity with the Father sets him apart as God. This leads to the final issue that arises in this section. How does this depiction of Jesus as model, mediator, and God interact with Ignatius’s metaphors of God’s temple and the altar? Ignatius positions the temple, altar, and Jesus as goals of the same verb, and this sentence simultaneously concludes the imitation of Jesus and repetition of “one” that began in Magn. 7.1. It will thus be helpful to recall how Magn. 7.2 relates to what precedes it in Magn. 7.1 in attempting to understand how Ignatius places Jesus in relation to the temple and altar. 112

Andrew J. Byers rightly observes the presence of “just as…so also” formulas in both Ignatius’s letters and John’s Gospel. This formula allows for a reciprocal interchange between Jesus, ecclesial leaders, and the entire congregation (“Johannine Bishops? The Fourth Evangelist, John the Elder, and the Episcopal Ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch,” NovT 60 [2018]: 121–139). I am grateful to the author for sending me an early draft of the essay.

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Jesus’s role as an example of unity is clearest in his relationship to the Father. The use of Jesus as model in Magn. 7.2 recalls Ignatius’s more explicit instruction for the Magnesians to imitate Jesus in Magn. 7.1. This call to imitate Jesus corresponds to Ignatius’s teaching that the Magnesians should not act separately from their bishop. Jesus’s example forms the basis for Ignatius’s instruction. By running together in unison with one another in Magn. 7.2, the Magnesians should act in unison with Damas. Following from the initial exhortation to imitate Jesus in Magn. 7.1, running together to Jesus in Magn. 7.2 follows Jesus’s example in two ways. First, Jesus is positioned ahead of the Magnesians as the goal that the Magnesians should pursue by running together. He points the way forward by his example of unity with the Father. Second, by following the instruction in Magn. 7.2, the Magnesians show unity with one another. This unity is assumed to be in line with the bishop. When the Magnesians run together, they fulfill Ignatius’s instruction and follow Jesus’s example. The connection between Jesus’s mediation and his divinity is more narrowly drawn but will be aided by recalling Jesus’s role in Phld. 9.1, Eph. 9.1–2, and Eph. 15.3. Jesus is referred to as high priest in Phld. 9.1. Chapters 3 and 4 argued that the high priest is closely related to the temple in Phld. 7.2 because both are part of an argument against Judaism that runs from Phld. 5.1–9.2. As high priest, Jesus perfects the Levitical priesthood and thereby illustrates the significance of the gospel over and against the archives. Yet he does this without nullifying the archives.113 Jesus’s priestly role is previewed in Phld. 7.2 as he provides an example for the Philadelphians to imitate while they seek to become God’s temple.114 Along with the Holy Spirit, Jesus plays a mediating role in the temple of Eph. 9.1–2 as the cross lifts the Ephesians from the temple to the building. Later in the letter, Ignatius depicts Jesus as the God who indwells and is worthy of worship in the temple (Eph. 15.3). These understandings of Jesus are all evident in Magn. 7.2 but are packaged in a way that allows Ignatius to emphasize unity with the bishop and the uniqueness of Jesus. Jesus’s union with the Father marks him out not only as the Magnesians’ model but also, in this unique instance of divine-human unity, as God. Ignatius is at pains in Magn. 7.2 to illustrate that Jesus is unified with the Father at all times. In particular, that Jesus proceeded from the Father is not predicated of people elsewhere in his letters. This unity with God provides the reason for Jesus’s actions in accordance with the Father and the grounds for why the Magnesians should follow him (Magn. 7.1). Yet Jesus’s unique relation to the Father that is underlined in Magn. 6–8 likewise identifies Jesus as God. It is for this reason that Jesus can be the one who reveals the Father and has done so at the end of time in the incarnation (Magn. 6.1). Jesus serves as 113 114

See section 3.6.2. See section 4.4.3.

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the Father’s Word that comes forth from silence. Only as the one God can Jesus reveal the one God (Magn. 8.2). Ignatius’s underlying reasoning in Magn. 6–8 has two implications for his specific role in Magn. 7.2. First, Jesus’s location as the final object in a series of prepositional phrases that includes the temple in a context in which Ignatius highlights that Jesus is the Father’s revelation has similarities to what Ignatius writes about Jesus in Phld. 9.1. Just as Jesus was depicted as the high priest who makes God’s secrets known in Phld. 9.1 and as the example whom the Philadelphians should imitate in Phld. 7.2, so in Magn. 7.2 Jesus is not only the Magnesians’ paradigm of unity with the Father but also the one who discloses him. Jesus divulges the identity of the Father to the Magnesians and thereby serves in a priestly and mediatorial capacity. He is able to function in this position because of his singular unity with the Father and correlative identity as God that was true before, after, and even during the incarnation. That Jesus serves a mediatorial role is clear not only from the thorough emphasis on Jesus’s unity with the Father at different stages but also from the surrounding statements in Magn. 6–8. When this is placed in the succession of cultic passages regarding the object toward which the Magnesians run, Jesus can be seen to play the part of a high priest and intermediary between the Father and the Magnesians. Second, Jesus’s inimitable union with the Father establishes him as God. Indeed, such unity is only possible if Jesus is identified as God. In the context of the cultic language found in Magn. 7.2, this raises questions about Jesus’s function in the temple. Although the temple is referred to with reference to the Father’s worship, is it possible that Jesus is also an object of worship within the temple? If so, is there one God or two whose worship Ignatius desires in the temple? The christological reasoning at play in Magn. 6–8 along with the explicitly monotheistic claim of Magn. 8.2 makes it unlikely that two deities are worshipped in the Magnesian temple. Yet Jesus’s identity with the Father and corresponding divinity opens the possibility that Jesus may be an object of worship. Why refer to the temple with reference to the Father alone as an object of worship? The answer seems to lie in Ignatius’s ability to refer to both the Father and Jesus as θεός. Jesus can mediate between both the Father and the people, and he is able to do this precisely because he is both God and human. Ignatius can elect to depict Jesus as either the object of worship or the mediator because he views Jesus as God and human. He portrays Jesus as both when the temple metaphors are taken cumulatively. Jesus is mediator in Phld. 9.1 and Eph. 9.1. He is the one who is to be worshipped in the temple in Eph. 15.3. Yet he is God in all of Ignatius’s temple metaphors, because Jesus can only go between the people and the Father on the basis of the incarnation or be worshipped by the people if he is God. Jesus’s role as mediator is highlighted in Magn. 7.2 as

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Jesus remains one with the Father at all times and can thus serve as the Magnesians’ mediator. Yet his interposition between the Magnesians and the Father is only possible in the temple because Jesus must be identified as God. Ignatius’s description of Jesus as mediator and God in the same list as the temple and altar implies a particular role for Jesus. As the unique and divine mediator between the Father and the Magnesians, Jesus serves as the high priest of God’s temple who officiates over the altar. The temple, the altar, and Jesus are employed by Ignatius as symbols of unity toward which the Magnesians should run, but they function collectively to depict a single picture in which the Magnesians can be united with the Father. Supporting evidence for the interpretation of Jesus as high priest may be found in the long recension’s description of Jesus as “the high priest of the unbegotten God” (τὸν ἀρχιερέα τοῦ ἀγεννήτου θεοῦ; Ps.Ign. Magn. 7.2) in place of “the one who proceeded from the Father, was united with the one, and returned” (τὸν ἀφ’ ἑνὸς πατρὸς προελθόντα καὶ εἰς ἕνα ὄντα καὶ χωρήσαντα; Magn. 7.2). After Sabellius and Marcellus of Ancyra, Ignatius’s use of the word προέρχοµαι and perhaps the entire schema of Jesus’s coming, unity in incarnation, and returning to the Father seems to have been in need of further specification.115 Yet the interpolator selects an alteration that is in keeping with the cultic language and emphasis on unity found in the middle recension of Magn. 7.2. Although a desire to update Ignatius’s christological language seems to be the primary motivation for this change, the result is that the interpolator has connected Jesus’s mediatorial function in the middle recension to a priestly role in the temple. The interpolator brings out a logic that is latent already in the middle recension. Since Jesus was perfectly united with the Father as God during the incarnation, he can now serve as the Magnesians’ high priest in order to mediate between them and the Father. For this reason, the Magnesians are urged to run together directly to Jesus.

7.7. Magn. 7.2 in the Argument of the Letter 7.7. Magn. 7.2 in the Argument of the Letter

It remains to consider how this reading of Magn. 7.2 and the detailed exegesis of the temple, altar, and Jesus functions within the entire letter. The structure 115 For example, προέρχοµαι is altered by the interpolator of the long recension not only in Magn. 7.2 but also in Magn. 8.2. Another passage that indicates alterations in a postNicene context is Ps.Ign. Eph. 7.2. Perhaps the clearest way in which he does this is by removing the language of “one physician” (εἷς ἰατρός; Eph. 7.2) and replacing it with a simple, twice-repeated “physician” (ἰατρός) to refer to both the Father and the Son (Ps.Ign. Eph. 7.2). In the fourth century, it was no longer appropriate to say, as Ignatius did in the second century, that Jesus is both “begotten and unbegotten” (γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος), and even the statement “first passible and then impassible” (πρῶτον παθητὸς καὶ τότε ἀπαθής; Eph. 7.2) is suspect and must be changed.

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of Magn. 7 was considered in section 7.3, but more can be done to identify the rhetorical role that the cultic language of Magn. 7.2 plays in the letter. Ignatius employs the related metaphors of this passage at a transitional point, and two sections of this letter are thus of importance. The first section begins with the subordinate clause in Magn. 2 whose thought is variously interrupted and only completed in Magn. 6.1. Multiple considerations of the unity that should exist between the Magnesians and their ecclesiological leaders are placed in Magn. 2.1–7.2. As such, the cultic metaphors conclude this discussion of unity in the Magnesian church. Yet it likewise provides a useful link to Ignatius’s admonition not to be deceived by other opinions and the discussion of Judaism and Christianity that follows in Magn. 8.1–10.3. The cultic metaphors thus form a bridge between Ignatius’s exhortations to unity and the reflections on the relation between Christianity and Judaism that follow. The metaphors of temple, altar, and high priest support Magn. 2.1–7.2 in three ways. First, Ignatius’s description of God’s temple and Jesus’s union with the Father supports the typological depiction of ecclesial leadership in Magn. 2.1–3.2 and 6.1–2. Jesus’s union with the Father not only symbolizes the union that the Magnesians should have with their leaders but also resonates with Ignatius’s typology of ecclesial leaders and heavenly counterparts. For this reason, obedience to the bishop is representative of obedience “to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of all” (τῷ πατρὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τῷ πάντων ἐπισκόπῳ; Magn. 3.1). Obedience is not a matter of listening to someone who is visible but rather one who is invisible (Magn. 3.2). Thus the Magnesians should act in the harmony of God with the bishop presiding as a type of God, the elders as a type of the apostolic council, and the deacons as a type of Jesus (Magn. 6.1).116 Ignatius holds the deacons in special regard and clarifies that Jesus “was with the Father before the ages and appeared at the end” (ὃς πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ πατρὶ ἦν καὶ ἐν τέλει ἐφάνη).117 This typology grounds the need to obey earthly authority, while the union between Father and Son that is mentioned in Magn. 7.2 provides a further basis for union with ecclesial authorities and God. Second, the metaphors complement Ignatius’s definition of the Magnesian community around the bishop. Ignatius draws a parallel between being called and being Christians, on the one hand, and doing things in accordance with the bishop, on the other (Magn. 4). People who call someone bishop but do not 116 Taras Khomych, “Diversity of the Notion of Apostolicity in the Writings of the Apostolic Fathers,” in Heiligkeit und Apostolizität der Kirche: Forscher aus dem Osten und Western Europas an den Quellen des gemeinsamen Glaubens, ed. Franz Mali, Theresia Hainthaler, and Gregor Emmenegger, Pro Oriente 35 (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 2010), 50. 117 Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips note that the references to the deacons and Jesus’s service in Trad. ap. 8.10–12 are reminiscent of Ignatius’s typology in which Jesus is linked to the deacons (The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002], 65). The numbering of Traditio apostolica follows Bradshaw, Johnson, and Phillips. See also Didasc. 2.26.5.

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treat that person as such do not act in good conscience and do not hold valid meetings. Similarly, those who run together to the temple, altar, and Jesus in Magn. 7.2 are those who comprise the Magnesian church. Those who fail to run remain outside of the community that is depicted in terms of existence (Magn. 4) or the temple (Magn. 7.2). Third, and somewhat similarly, the cultic imagery complements the numismatic imagery of Magn. 5.2. Following Ignatius’s claim that there are “two things together, namely, death and life” (τὰ δύο ὁµοῦ, ὅ τε θάνατος καὶ ἡ ζωή; Magn. 5.1), Ignatius notes that there are two coins with two stamps. These coins relate to believers and unbelievers. “For as there are two coins – one of God but one of the world – and each has its own stamp impressed upon it – unbelievers of this world but believers the stamp of God the Father through Jesus Christ in love – through whom, unless we die voluntarily into his passion, his life is not in us” (Magn. 5.2).118 As in the coin metaphor, Ignatius’s instruction to run together to the cultic symbols of Magn. 7.2 has clear and polarizing consequences.119 Those who run will participate in the cultic metaphor, while those who refuse the instruction will remain outside of the temple or, in the words of a different image, bear the stamp of the world. The relationship of Magn. 7.2 to what precedes becomes clear as it supports Ignatius’s community definition around episcopal and ecclesial leadership. Yet the same metaphors assist Ignatius as he turns to consider the way in which Judaism and Christianity should be described. Participation in Ignatius’s cultic metaphor enables the Magnesians to remain undeceived by strange doctrines and myths (Magn. 8.1). By partaking in the temple, the Magnesians show that traditionally Jewish cultic symbols have been redefined after Jesus’s death and resurrection. “For the godliest prophets lived in accordance with Christ Jesus” (οἱ γὰρ θειότατοι προφῆται κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ἔζησαν; Magn. 8.2). Thus Ignatius’s command to run together to Jesus supports and is supported by his understanding of the Jewish prophets. The uniqueness of Jesus is assumed in Magn. 7.2 but plays a larger and more explicit role in Magn. 9.1–2. Jesus’s death and resurrection provide the ground for Ignatius’s instruction to worship on the Lord’s Day (ἡ κυριακή). Ignatius and the Magnesians should endure so that they may be found to be “disciples of Jesus Christ our only teacher” (µαθηταὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ µόνου διδασκάλου ἡµῶν; Magn. 9.1). By running

118

ὥσπερ γάρ ἐστιν νοµίσµατα δύο, ὃ µὲν θεοῦ, ὃ δὲ κόσµου, καὶ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα ἐπικείµενον ἔχει, οἱ ἄπιστοι τοῦ κόσµου τούτου, οἱ δὲ πιστοὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ χαρακτῆρα θεοῦ πατρὸς διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δι’ οὗ ἐὰν µὴ αὐθαιρέτως ἔχωµεν τὸ ἀποθανεῖν εἰς τὸ αὐτοῦ πάθος, τὸ ζῆν αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡµῖν (Magn. 5.2). 119 Allen Brent ties together cultic and ambassadorial language by referring to cultic processions and the minting of coins in order to achieve ὁµόνοια between cities (“Ignatius of Antioch in Second Century, Asia Minor,” in Intertextuality in the Second Century, ed. D. Jeffrey Bingham and Clayton N. Jefford, BibAC 11 [Leiden: Brill, 2016], 77).

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to Jesus as the prophets did, the Magnesians can join the prophets in right worship and expectation of resurrection. Finally, by learning from Jesus, the Magnesians will imitate his actions (Magn. 10.1). Among other things, this imitation will include the union with the Father that Jesus experienced and will now aid not only as the Magnesians’ model but also as their high priest. The cultic language employed by Ignatius in Magn. 7.2 can be connected to much of the rest of the letter. It fits well with the preceding section as Ignatius calls for unity around the bishop in Magn. 2.1–7.2. Jesus’s union with the Father provides a model for the Magnesians’ union with Damas, identifies the genuine community, and simultaneously marks out those who do not belong. Yet the temple and priestly language reach forward into Ignatius’s discussion of Christianity and Judaism. Ignatius’s move to show that the prophets lived in accordance with Jesus is foreshadowed in his depiction of the temple, altar, and high priest as symbols of the Christian community. The cultic metaphors of Magn. 7.2 thus provide a rhetorical bridge between the two main sections of the letter and identifies the true community as one that is founded upon Jesus and his union with the Father as well as obedience to the bishop and other ecclesiastical leaders.

7.8. Conclusion 7.8. Conclusion

The temple metaphor in Magn. 7.2 continues the series of single objects that Ignatius lists in order to emphasize unity in Magn. 7.1–2. Along with the temple, Ignatius refers to an altar and to Jesus Christ. The Magnesians are to run “as” to the temple and altar, but their running toward Jesus Christ is set apart by the absence of ὡς. The Father is again the God who is in the center of the temple, but the presence of ὡς in front of both the temple and the altar implies that they are to be viewed in the same way. Jesus is set apart as a different object toward which to run rather than connected in some way with the altar. Moreover, Ignatius offers a multi-faceted presentation of Jesus as example, mediator, and God in the statements that further describe Jesus in Magn. 7.2. The Syrian bishop again employs the temple metaphor in order to call for unity, while the portrayal of Jesus suggests that there is no tension for Ignatius between viewing Jesus as mediator and as God. Chapter 8 will consider the role of the temple and Jesus further, while also exploring Ignatius’s other cultic language in order to obtain a better view of the way in which he utilizes these metaphors.

Chapter 8

Temple Fragments and Priestly Shadows 8.1. Introduction 8.1. Introduction

Chapters 3–7 have closely examined the five locations in Ignatius’s letters where he refers to his audience as ναός or to Jesus as ἀρχιερεύς. The analysis in these chapters was intended not only to allow for better understanding of these passages within Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians but also to show that Jesus is active in the vicinity of the temple as a mediator or person of worship. This chapter collects loose threads that have arisen in the course of the previous five chapters and attempts to tie them together in order to bring further coherence to the overall argument. Three threads are taken up in particular. First, both Legarth and Kieffer utilize more Ignatian texts in their studies than I have done. More material raises questions about the comprehensive nature of this study. Thus this chapter will begin by showing that other cultic language in Ignatius’s letter functions to different ends from the high priest and temple language studied here. It may, therefore, justifiably be left to one side for the purposes of this project. Second, the significance of Jesus’s high priestly role in the temple will be indicated and differentiated from other cultic language by showing that Jesus is active only in the temple and high priestly metaphors while Ignatius leaves the high priest out of other cultic metaphors. In addition, although it is the case that Jesus’s high priestly work occurs only in Ignatian temple metaphors, the revelatory work that the metaphor of high priest represents may be found more widely in Ignatius’s letters. Among other places, Jesus’s revelatory role is highlighted in Ignatius’s discussion of Jesus as star, word, and mouth. Third, the chapter must address again Legarth’s claim that there is a “tension-filled relationship” between Christology and temple symbolism. Although the tension has already been addressed at various points in the thesis and has been found to be lacking,1 this chapter argues further that only Jesus can serve as high priest because only Jesus is God and human. He is thus able to reveal the Father. That Jesus is God and mediator creates no tension in the Ignatian

1

See especially sections 4.4.3 and 6.6.1.

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letters generally or in the temple metaphors specifically reflects that this understanding of Jesus is deeply integrated into Ignatius’s thought.

8.2. Temple Fragments and Cultic Terminology 8.2. Temple Fragments and Cultic Terminology

This thesis has devoted significant attention to Phld. 7.2–9.1, Eph. 9.1–2; 15.3, and Magn. 7.2. However, Legarth and Kieffer also analyze the language of θυσιαστήριον in Eph. 5.2; Magn. 7.2; Trall. 7.2; Rom. 2.2; Phld. 4.2 They likewise include a study of θυσία in Rom. 4.2 and of household corruption in Eph. 16.1–2. Further, Legarth adds a chapter on Ignatius’s use of such terminology as ἀντίψυχον, περίψηµα, and ἁγνίζω, since such terms may have sacrificial connotations.3 Previous studies have explored Ignatius’s temple metaphors within the context of this other Ignatian cultic terminology. From one perspective, this appears to provide a level of comprehensiveness to other studies that is missing from this one. The attention to related terminology helps to situate the temple metaphors in the context of Ignatius’s understandings of cult. This chapter maintains that Ignatius’s other cultic terminology can justifiably be left to one side in order to focus on Ignatius’s temple and priestly metaphors. The reason for leaving detailed study of related terms aside is that it functions with wider variation than the temple and priestly language. Additionally, I have argued that temple and priestly imagery works closely together not only in Phld. 7.2–9.1 but also in other temple metaphors. This section will illustrate the breadth of usage to which Ignatius puts his other cultic language. Ignatius’s other cultic terminology differs from the temple metaphors that, although not employed in precisely the same way in any two passages, serve consistently as calls to unity in the congregations to which Ignatius writes. 8.2.1. Altar The most obvious example for studying ναός and θυσιαστήριον together is found in Magn. 7.2 where the terms are juxtaposed as two of the three objects toward which the Magnesians are to run together (συντρέχετε). Since this passage was studied in detail in chapter 7, it will be sufficient here to summarize briefly the importance of the altar.4 Both Legarth and Kieffer argue for a christological significance to the altar.5 The strongest argument seems to be that both the altar and Jesus are objects of the preposition ἐπί. In addition, there seems to be a 2 References to the appropriate pages in Legarth and Kieffer’s studies may be found in the relevant sections of this chapter. 3 ἀντίψυχον: Eph. 21.1; Smyrn. 10.2; Pol. 2.3; 6.1; περίψηµα: Eph. 8.1; 18.1; ἁγνίζω: Eph. 8.1; Trall. 13.3. 4 On the altar in Magn. 7.2, see section 7.5. 5 Legarth, Guds tempel, 227; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 299.

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desire to link the altar and Jesus because the temple is associated with God. However, the more significant connection in the passage comes from the adverb ὡς. Since all three prepositions employed in Magn. 7.2 denote the goal of the Magnesians running,6 the primary basis for linking the objects of the prepositions seems to be that the three objects are set apart by the manner of their running. They should run “as (ὡς) to one temple of God, as (ὡς) to one altar, to one Jesus Christ” (Magn. 7.2). The temple and altar are thus more closely connected in Magn. 7.2 than the altar and Jesus. Moreover, the conceptual links between temple and altar are also strong, since both metaphors represent places of unity. Ignatius’s repetition of the number one concludes an extended argument for unity under the bishop (Magn. 2.1–7.2), while the cultic metaphors prepare the way for Ignatius’s discussion of Judaism (Magn. 8.1–10.3). The temple and altar provide symbolic aims towards which unity should be directed, while Jesus Christ is the goal toward which the Magnesians should run in a different way, imitating and participating in his unity with the Father in their unity with Damas. A similar passage is found in Phld. 4. Ignatius again repeats the number one in order to counter division.7 In addition, Philadelphians emphasizes unity with the bishop and warns against Judaism in a similar way to Magnesians. The number one is repeated five times,8 and the passage works to support Ignatius’s injunction to “be eager to celebrate one Eucharist” (σπουδάσατε οὖν µιᾲ εὐχαριστίᾳ χρῆσθαι; Phld. 4). In addition to the one flesh and cup that substantiate Ignatius’s imperative, there is also one altar (ἓν θυσιαστήριον). Since there is one flesh, cup, altar, and bishop, the Philadelphians should celebrate only a single Eucharist. As in Magn. 7.2, the altar in Phld. 4 draws its metaphorical force from its singularity, and the altar from the Jerusalem temple is the most likely single altar to be in view. Legarth has argued that the altar here refers to the community in Philadelphia. Thus, there is one altar, and that altar is the community that celebrates the Eucharist.9 It is certainly the case that the altar is part of the instruction to that community, but Legarth’s reading draws from his interpretation of Eph. 5.2 and Trall. 7.2. In section 8.2.2, I will argue that θυσιαστήριον has a different nuance in these two passages from Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 4. Legarth’s tendency to read all cultic language together without taking note of its position in different letters leads him to blend shades of meaning that do not go together. Rather, the altar in Phld. 4 should be understood with 6

In addition to two usages of ἐπί, εἰς is also employed with ναός as its object. Schoedel, Ignatius, 199. 8 Grant notes similarities with Eph 4.4–6 but rightly observes that Ignatius’s language is more sacramental than Paul’s (Ignatius, 101–102). Ignatius’s list is expanded in the long recension to include sixteen items and seems to tighten the links between Phld. 4 and Eph 4.4–6. 9 Legarth, Guds tempel, 261; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 57. See also Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 297. 7

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reference to an altar that is outside the Philadelphian community and whose singularity should ground their one Eucharist. In this way, the altar contributes to Ignatius’s argument for unity under the bishop. The altar is employed to different effect in Rom. 2.2.10 This is true even while θυσιαστήριον maintains the nuance of altar in Ignatius’s letters. In writing to the Romans about his desire for death in order to follow Jesus, he asks, “But give me nothing more than to be poured out to God while an altar is still prepared” (πλεὸν δέ µοι µὴ παράσχησθε τοῦ σπονδισθῆναι θεῷ ὡς ἔτι θυσιαστήριον ἕτοιµόν ἐστιν; Rom. 2.2). Ignatius pictures himself as a libation with his life being poured out over an altar.11 Paul speaks similarly of his life being poured out in Phil 2.17 and 2 Tim 4.6.12 He tells the Philippians that he rejoices with them that his life is being poured out and encourages them to do the same (Phil 2.17–18).13 Likewise, Timothy is told that Paul’s life is being poured out (2 10 This has been efficiently noted by S. M. Gibbard (“The Eucharist in the Ignatian Epistles,” in Studia Patristica VIII, ed. Frank Leslie Cross [Berlin: Akademie, 1966], 214) 11 Albert Mellink rightly interprets the passage in this way and counters arguments for a eucharistic understanding of Rom. 2.2 (“Death as Eschaton,” 85). For attempts to read Ignatius’s desire for martyrdom in terms of eucharistic practice, see Staats, “Die katholische Kirche,” 248; Candida R. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies and Traditions, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 55. 12 Fischer, Die apostolischen Väter, 185n.12; Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus, 168; Carl B. Smith, “Ministry, Martyrdom, and Other Mysteries: Pauline Influence on Ignatius of Antioch,” in Paul and the Second Century, ed. Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson, LNTS 412 (London: T&T Clark International, 2011), 55. See also Wis 3.6; Tacitus, Ann. 15.64; 16.35. Tertullian later plays with this image when he speaks of the apostles’ deaths: Ista quam felix ecclesia cui totam doctrinam apostoli cum sanguine suo profuderunt, ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus Iohannis exitu coronatur, ubi apostolus Iohannes posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur (How blessed is that church on which the apostles poured out the entire teaching with their blood, where Peter equaled the Lord’s passion, where Paul was crowned with the death of John, where the Apostle John, after he was immersed in burning oil, suffered nothing and was exiled to an island; Praescr. 36.3). See the notes on the text in Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts, 399. 13 Markus Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians, BNTC (London: A&C Black, 1997), 162. Similarly, Johann Albrecht Bengel succinctly summarized Paul’s message in Philippians as “gaudeo, gaudete” (Gnomon Novi Testamenti, ed. M. E. Bengel and J. Steudel, 3rd ed. [London: Nutt, Williams, and Norgate, 1862; orig. 1742], 718). M. Sydney Park correctly sees Paul as an imitator of Jesus’s example, particularly as it is laid out in Phil 2.6– 11 (Submission within the Godhead and the Church in the Epistle to the Philippians: An Exegetical and Theological Examination of the Concept of Submission in Philippians 2 and 3, LNTS 361 [London: T&T Clark International, 2007], 126). The call is thus for the Philippians to imitate Jesus’s example as Paul did. “I termini qui utilizzati (σπένδοµαι, θυσία, λειτουργία) vanno compresi sullo sfondo della relazione ‘trilaterale’ Paolo-Filippesi-Dio, che coinvolge nelle scelte il ‘vero culto a Dio’” (“The terms that are utilized [σπένδοµαι, θυσία, λειτουργία] are compressed in the background of the ‘triangular’ relationships of Paulthe Philippians-God, that involve in the elect, ‘the true cult of God’;” Stefano Bittasi, Gli

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Tim 4.6). Ignatius’s choral image that follows indicates that he wants to elicit not only the Romans’ cooperation but, like Paul, also their praise of God.14 For our purposes, it is significant that the altar again refers to a place of sacrifice as in Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 4.15 Rather than signifying unity, though, the altar is utilized as a symbol for the place of death.16 The altar that has been prepared for Ignatius’s death adds force to his appeal to the Romans not to interfere on his behalf.17 The metaphor’s different signification is the first hint that Ignatius’s other cultic language should not be read as if it says the same thing as the temple and priestly metaphors. 8.2.2. Sanctuary When Ignatius uses θυσιαστήριον in Magn. 7.2, Phld. 4, and Rom. 2.2, the word denotes an altar on which something is sacrificed. Yet the altar is a symbol of unity in the former two passages, while it signifies the location and circumstances that have been prepared for Ignatius’s death in the latter instance. An additional nuance for θυσιαστήριον is found in Eph. 5.2 and Trall. 7.2, namely, that of the sanctuary.18 The word in both passages carries spatial connotations that seem to be larger than the altar alone.19 Although cultic connotations may lie in the background, the word is not utilized with reference to cultic practices in particular. In both passages, Ignatius employs θυσιαστήριον to demarcate two groups of people: insiders and outsiders. Those who are inside the sanctuary (οἱ ἐντὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου ὄντες) include Ignatius’s audience who will follow his instructions, while those who are outside the sanctuary (οἱ ἐκτὸς τοῦ

esempi necessari per discernere: Il significato argomentativo della struttura della lettera di Paolo ai Filippesi, AB 153 [Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2003], 82–83). On Ignatius’s use of Philippians in his conception of ascending to God, see Alexander N. Kirk, The Departure of an Apostle: Paul’s Death Anticipated and Remembered, WUNT 2.406 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 83–85. 14 Kirk, “Ignatius’ Statements,” 85. 15 Grant argues that Rom. 2.2 is the only place where θυσιαστήριον means “altar” (Ignatius, 57). The previous two paragraphs in section 8.2.1 have argued against this while recognizing that the altar metaphor is employed for different reasons in Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 4. 16 Lightfoot’s suggestion that the altar here signifies the Flavian amphitheater where Ignatius expects to die is plausible (Apostolic Fathers, 201; see also Tarvainen, Faith and Love, 64 [Glaube und Liebe, 76]), although it is also possible that the altar refers more broadly to the circumstances which Ignatius expects to lead to his death. 17 Cavallero helpfully lays out the logic of Rom. 2.2 in three steps (“La retórica,” 288): (1) Ignatius wants to be an offering to God; (2) God has given him the grace to be an offering among those in Rome; and (3) the Romans should help him and give thanks to God. 18 BDAG, s.v. 2. 19 Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 32; Legarth, Guds tempel, 232–233, 248; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 55–56. Kieffer thinks that θυσιαστήριον refers to “un espace spécial où se trouve l’autel” (“La demeure divine,” 294).

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θυσιαστηρίου ὄντες) are Ignatius’s opponents. By extension, they should also be the opponents of Ignatius’s audience. Ignatius sets off Trall. 6.1–11.2 as a discrete unit in his letter with the repetition of botanical imagery at the beginning and end (Trall. 6.1–2; 11.1–2). Jesus’s flesh and blood plays a central role within Ignatius’s frame (Trall. 8.1; 9.1–2), and Ignatius explicitly notes that there may be some who are without God (ἄθεοι) and who claim that Jesus only appeared to suffer (λέγουσιν τὸ δοκεῖν πεπονθέναι αὐτόν; Trall. 10).20 The opponents of this section are those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh. In this context, Ignatius contrasts a person inside the sanctuary (ὁ ἐντὸς θυσιαστηρίου) with one who is outside of it (ὁ ἐκτὸς θυσιαστηρίου; Trall. 7.2).21 The one who is inside is pure (καθαρός), while the one who is outside the sanctuary is not pure (οὐ καθαρός). Purity is linked closely to acting with the bishop, presbytery, and deacons. This is intended to protect against the dangers of those who teach from outside the sanctuary that Jesus only appeared to suffer. Being within the sanctuary thus symbolizes the Trallian church gathered with Polybius and the other ecclesial authorities in opposition to false teachers.22 These will be pure in conscience (καθαρός…τῇ συνειδήσει; Trall. 7.2). Ignatius takes up a different topic in Eph. 1.3–6.1. Rather than discussing the teachings of outsiders, this portion of the letter takes up the issue of unity in the Ephesian church.23 More specifically, the Ephesians should show unity with Onesimus, the elders, and the deacons. This union with the bishop illustrates union with God and results in worship as the harmonious church forms 20

The translation suggested here for ἄθεοι roughly follows the Latin translation, quidam sine Deo existentes, in order to avoid connotations of the modern phenomenon of atheism by translating “atheists” like Ehrman (Apostolic Fathers, 1.265) and Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 221) do. On the difficulties in clarifying the term “atheism,” see Stephen Bullivant, “Defining ‘Atheism,’” in The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, ed. Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 11–21. 21 The textual history of this verse is complex. The Greek middle recension and Armenian translation are defective due to homeoteleuton. The Greek long recension indicates a contrast between one who is inside and outside the sanctuary but simultaneously interpolates the text and abbreviates the contrast. The Coptic translation abbreviates the latter contrast similarly. The Latin translation of the middle recension reads Qui intra altare est, mundus est; qui vero extra altare est, non mundus est. The Greek text here and in most critical editions is heavily reliant on the Latin translation in order to restore the text. See further Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.169; Funk Patres apostolici, 1.248; Fischer, Die apostolischen Väter, 176. Paulsen thinks that “eine Entscheidung erscheint kaum noch als möglich” but prefers homeoteleuton as an explanation (Die Briefe des Ignatius, 82). However, Schoedel argues that the Latin translation has been added for clarity (Ignatius, 148). 22 Trevett correctly notes that the acceptance of false teaching and opposition to the bishop should not be sharply separated from each other (A Study of Ignatius, 90). 23 Outsiders are discussed with a particular focus on their teaching about Jesus in Eph. 6.2–9.2; 16.1–20.2.

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a metaphorical chorus that sings to the Father through Jesus (Eph. 4.2).24 Reflecting on his own meeting with Onesimus, Ignatius considers the Ephesians to be particularly fortunate to be united with him (Eph. 5.1). Having the issue of unity with the Ephesian bishop in view, Ignatius claims that anyone who is not inside the sanctuary lacks the bread of God (ἐὰν µή τις ᾖ ἐντὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου ὑστερεῖται τοῦ ἄρτου τοῦ θεοῦ; Eph. 5.2). God’s bread indicates that the Eucharist is in view, and the community is exhorted to celebrate the Eucharist under the bishop’s authority. However, the eucharistic significance should not be overstated. It is only one way in which unity with the bishop is evidenced.25 The spatial significance of θυσιαστήριον is the most important part of Ignatius’s claim, since it divides between insiders, those who are with Onesimus, and outsiders, those who have separated from him.26 The focus on unity among the insiders is sharpened as Ignatius reasons a fortiori that if the prayer of one or two is strong, the prayer of the bishop and the church is stronger.27 The prayer in view is corporate and more general than eucharistic prayers in particular.28 Accordingly, Ignatius declares that the one who does not join the congregation is prideful and opposed by God (Eph. 5.3).29 As in Trall. 7.2, the θυσιαστήριον denotes a metaphorical sanctuary in which Ignatius desires his 24

Recognizing the role of love in Eph. 1.3; 2.1; 4.1, Frederick C. Klawiter rightly observes that “symphonic sound is a metaphor expressing the unity of agape between the Son and the members of the eucharistic assembly” (“The Eucharist and Sacramental Realism in the Thought of St. Ignatius of Antioch,” SLit 37 [2007]: 132). 25 Lothar Wehr’s conclusion seems helpful at this point. “Innerhalb des Gedankengangs der Kapitel 4–6 des Epheserbriefs will Ign keine eucharistische Unterweisung erteilen. Auf das Herrenmahl kommt er nur nebenbei und sehr knapp zu sprechen. Eigentliches Thema dieses Abschnitts ist vielmehr die Stellung des Bischofs in der Gemeinde, und so ist es hier auch das Hauptanliegen des Ignatius, die Epheser zu Gehorsam gegenüber dem Bischof zu ermahnen” (Arznei der Unsterblichkeit: Die Eucharistie bei Ignatius von Antiochien und im Johannesevangelium, NTAbh 18 [Münster: Aschendorff, 1987], 79). 26 Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 205; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 32; Legarth, Guds tempel, 232–233. 27 εἰ γὰρ ἑνὸς καὶ δευτέρου προσευχὴ τοσαύτην ἰσχὺν ἔχει πόσῳ µᾶλλον ἥ τε τοῦ ἐπισκόπου καὶ πάσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας (Eph. 5.2). Note the similar sayings in Matt 18.19–20, on which see Christine Trevett, “Approaching Matthew from the Second Century: The Under-Used Ignatian Correspondence,” JSNT 20 (1984): 63–64. 28 Schoedel, Ignatius, 55. 29 Ignatius includes a citation of Prov 3.34 in this verse, although the substitution of θεός for κύριος and the frequency with which this verse is cited in other early Christian literature leave open the possibility that Ignatius knew this verse without direct knowledge of Prov 3:34 (Jas 4.6; 1 Pet 5.5; 1 Clem. 30.2). See further Johannes Klevinghaus, Die theologische Stellung der apostolischen Väter zur alttestamentlichen Offenbarung, BFTC 44.1 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1948), 109; Robert M. Grant, “Scripture and Tradition in St. Ignatius of Antioch,” CBQ 25 (1963): 322; Mitchell, “In the Footsteps of Paul,” 30; Albrecht, “Göttliche Demut,” 32–34. Whether Ignatius knew Prov 3:34 immediately or via another tradition, he attributes authority to this saying and expects his audience to do the same.

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audience to be found by following his instructions and being united with the bishop. Two differences in the usage of θυσιαστήριον in Trall. 7.2 and Eph. 5.2 should be noted at this point. First, when compared to the texts in section 8.2.1, the adverb ἐντός adds a spatial component to the definition of θυσιαστήριον that is not found in the texts explored in the previous subsection. Ignatius describes people who can metaphorically be located in a space denoted by θυσιαστήριον. This space seems to be best captured by the English translation “sanctuary,” whereas θυσιαστήριον in Magn. 7.2, Phld. 4, and Rom. 2.2 more properly denotes an “altar.” Legarth and Kieffer are correct to relate the sanctuary and altar closely and a translation such as “alterrum” (altar room) is appropriate.30 Yet the emphasis lies on the spatial significance in Trall. 7.2 and Eph. 5.2 so that the breadth of meaning captured by θυσιαστήριον is not easily captured by the same two words in English. The apparatus on which a sacrifice occurs is related to but different from the room in which it takes place. Second, the function of the θυσιαστήριον metaphor is different from Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 4, on the one hand, and Rom. 2.2, on the other. In Trall. 7.2 and Eph. 5.2, θυσιαστήριον refers to a space inside of which Ignatius already sees his audience. Correspondingly, there are others who are outside the sanctuary. It is not impossible that the boundaries of the sanctuary might be traversed, but this is not the primary meaning of the metaphor in these letters.31 Rather, the sanctuary demarcates insiders and outsiders. Another purpose for the metaphor was found in Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 4. In these passages, the altar serves as a goal or ground for maintaining unity in the communities rather than a marker of who is or is not already a part of the fellowship. In addition, θυσιαστήριον has almost nothing to do with unity in Rom. 2.2, where the altar represents the location or circumstances for Ignatius’s upcoming death. These varying purposes for θυσιαστήριον deviate more widely from one another than the temple metaphors that are the primary subject of this study and that symbolize unity, even if this unity may be represented differently depending upon the requirements of each letter. Since the relative similarity of ναός in three different letters provides continuity across the study, θυσιαστήριον has not received the detailed attention devoted to ναός in the previous chapters. 8.2.3. Sacrificial Terminology With these nuances of Ignatius’s use of θυσιαστήριον in place, a case can be made for excluding the altar from a study of temple and high priestly metaphors 30

Legarth, Guds tempel, 232–233; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 55–56. Similarly, Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 294. 31 For definitions of high and low boundary terms, see Paul R. Trebilco, Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament: Early Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 25.

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in Ignatius’s letters. Yet Legarth and Kieffer include further cultic language in their studies that is deserving of brief comment in order to highlight why it has not received detailed attention here, namely, because the sacrificial metaphors again function differently from the temple and high priestly metaphors. To begin with, Ignatius refers to himself as a sacrifice in his request to the Romans not to interfere with his death.32 “Entreat Christ on my behalf, that I may be found a sacrifice of God through the instruments” (λιτανεύσατε τὸν Χριστὸν ὑπὲρ ἐµοῦ, ἵνα διὰ τῶν ὀργάνων τούτων θεοῦ θυσία εὑρεθῶ; Rom. 4.2).33 Ignatius begins a new section of the letter in Rom. 4.1 by telling the Romans that he is going to die willingly if the Romans do not hinder him.34 He urges them not to become an untimely kindness (εὔνοια ἄκαιρος) to him by stopping his execution. He wants to be food (βορά) for the beasts so that he can be God’s wheat (σῖτος θεοῦ) and Christ’s pure bread (καθαρὸς ἄρτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ). The Romans are urged to entice the beasts to consume him completely so that he will not burden anyone but “will truly be Christ’s disciple” (ἔσοµαι µαθητὴς ἀληθῶς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; Rom. 4.2). Although Ignatius views himself as lower

32 See Legarth, Guds tempel, 278–287; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 59–60; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 298. 33 Two difficult textual issues arise in this short phrase. First, Lightfoot, Holmes, and Stewart follow Codex Taurinensis, the Syriac fragments, short recension, Greek long recension, Armenian translation, Armenian martyrdom account, and Coptic translation in reading κύριον (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.209; Apostolic Fathers, 228; Ignatius, 68). However, the other middle recension manuscripts, the Latin translation, and the Syriac martyrdom account read Χριστόν, the text followed in this monograph as well as by Funk, Fischer, Camelot, and Ehrman (Patres apostolici, 256; Die apostolischen Väter, 186; Lettres, 112; Apostolic Fathers, 1.274). A second issue that is difficult to judge on external manuscript evidence concerns whether θεοῦ or θεῷ should be preferred. The former appears in the Latin translation and perhaps in the Armenian translation and martyrdom accounts. It is preferred by Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.209), Fischer (Die apostolischen Väter, 186), Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 228), and Stewart (Ignatius, 68) and is also the reading accepted here. The latter seems to be evident in the short recension, Syriac fragments, Syriac martyrdom accounts, and perhaps in the Coptic translation, as well as the texts of Funk (Patres apostolici, 256) and Camelot (Lettres, 112). A third textual tradition is evident in the Greek middle recension manuscripts in which θύσια appears without further modification. Lightfoot’s proposal that the similar letters in ΘΥΘΥΣΙΑ could account for the manuscript divergence is plausible (Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.209), since the initial ΘΥ may easily represent the genitive nomen sacrum and the similarity in letters could allow for the omission. While Lightfoot does not speculate further, it may be that the dative was then added to a text that read θυσία without modification. However, the similar variant in 1 Clem. 10.7 that likely reads θυσίαν τῷ θεῷ continues to raise doubts about how the variant in Rom. 4.2 arose. 34 Schoedel, Ignatius, 175; Cavallero, “La retórica,” 291–292.

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than Peter and Paul, he appeals to the tradition of their martyrdom as an example that he is following while he learns to desire nothing while in chains (καὶ νῦν µανθάνω δεδεµένος µηδὲν ἐπιθυµεῖν; Rom. 4.3).35 Although the type of sacrifice has changed from a libation to a burnt offering, the progression of thought naturally moves from θυσία back to θυσιαστήριον in Rom. 2.2.36 The altar is the place where Ignatius hopes to be a sacrifice. Legarth notes that Ignatius is a sacrifice devoted to God in Rom. 4.2 and understands θεός with reference to the Father without argument. He does this even though Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός four times in Romans.37 He continues to note that Ignatius’s death is presented in terms that draw their significance from Christ’s passion as Ignatius seeks to be Christ’s disciple. By placing the sacrifice in the context of temple symbolism and noting the interplay of Jesus and the Father, Legarth concludes that Rom. 4.2 again shows the difficulties that Ignatius had to connect Christology and temple symbolism.38 Yet it is not clear that Ignatius uses ναός and θυσία in comparable ways, despite the obvious conceptual links that could be made between a temple and a sacrifice. Whereas the temple refers to the unity of Ignatius’s audience, the sacrifice refers to Ignatius himself. Far from speaking about unity, Rom. 4.2 deals with Ignatius’s expectation of death and desire for the Romans not to interfere. Ignatius views himself as a sacrificial victim who will become a disciple of Jesus by willingly submitting to death as he imitates Jesus, Peter, and Paul in dying to conclude a life dedicated to God.39 Ignatius employs three words that could be construed in cultic terms to emphasize his lowly state. The words περίψηµα, ἁγνίζοµαι, and ἀντίψυχον are utilized to showcase his suffering as exemplary.40 Although Legarth places little

35 David L. Eastman offers the intriguing observation that Ignatius makes nothing of Paul’s death in Rome in Rom. 4.3 despite his request to the Romans not to interfere with his death (Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West, WGRWSup 4 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011], 19n.10). Although Eastman’s observation means that Ignatius’s letter cannot be taken as positive evidence for Paul’s death in Rome, the contrast that Ignatius observes in Rom. 4.3 between Peter and Paul’s respective statuses as apostles and his own as a convict serves his own rhetorical positioning as a humble martyr. This passage does not speak one way or another towards the historicity of the tradition that Paul died in Rome. 36 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 298. 37 Rom. inscr. (twice); 3.3; 6.3. See Legarth, Guds tempel, 284–285; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60. 38 Legarth, Guds tempel, 287; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60. 39 Schoedel is right to note that there is little evidence for understanding Ignatius’s sacrifice as in any sense substitutionary (Ignatius, 176n.9). Rather, sacrifice is a metaphor for dying for God. On Peter’s depiction in Rom. 4.3, see Still, “Images of Peter,” 164–165. 40 Eph. 8.1; 18.1; 21.1; Trall. 13.3; Smyrn. 10.2; Pol. 2.3; 6.1. In much of what follows, I depend heavily on Kirk, “Ignatius’ Statements,” 66–88.

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weight on these terms for understanding temple symbolism and Christology,41 others have argued that these terms are significant alongside Ignatius’s sacrificial language because they illustrate Ignatius’s belief that his death has salvific or atoning effects for the church.42 This position takes seriously Ignatius’s desire to imitate Christ and the cultic connotations of the three terms in question. However, it misses Ignatius’s use of Paul as a model.43

41

Legarth allows that ἀντίψυχον can play only a marginal role in analyzing temple symbolism and Christology. “Sammenfattende kan det konstateres, at udsagnene, der indeholder ἀντίψυχον, περίψηµα, og ἁγνίζεσθαι, ikke kaster nyt lys over undersøgelsen af relationen mellem kristologi og tempelsymbolisme hos Ignatius” (“It can be noted in conclusion that statements that include ἀντίψυχον, περίψηµα, and ἁγνίζεσθαι, do not cast new light on the investigation of the relationship between Christology and temple symbolism in Ignatius;” Guds tempel, 306). 42 This question is raised by Walter Rebell (“Das Leidensverständnis bei Paulus und Ignatius von Antiochien,” NTS 32 [1986]: 462). Preiss argues that “le martyr est devenu…une source de salut pour l’Eglise” (“La mystique,” 212). Othmar Perler compares Ignatius’s use of ἀντίψυχον to 4 Maccabees and concludes that the word expresses “den Wunsch, seine Seele, sein Leben an Stelle der Seele, des Lebens seiner Adressaten hingeben zu wollen” (“Das vierte Makkabaeerbuch, Ignatius von Antiochien, und die aeltesten Martyrerberichte” RAC 25 [1949]: 51). Reinhart Staats views Ignatius as unique in early Christian literature. “Einzigartig, offenbar ohne Parallele in der Alten Kirche, äussert sich dann Ignatius an jenen Stellen, wo er seinen eigenen Tod eine Heilsbedeutung beimißt, wo er sogar von Sühneopfer seiner selbst für die Kirche spricht” (“Die katholische Kirche,” 248). Similarly, Hans-Josef Klauck writes, “Zugleich wird der Märtyrer dadurch wie Christus zum Sühneopfer und zum Lösegeld für seine Freunde und Brüder” (“Thysiastērion in Hebr 13, 10 und bei Ignatius von Antiochien,” in Gemeinde, Amt, Sakrament: Neutestamentliche Perspektiven, ed. Hans-Josef Klauck [Würzburg: Echter, 1989], 370). Brent places the benefits to the community in socialpsychological terms: “Ignatius provides us with an example of the scapegoat (peripsēma) reducing tension and division within the community that has scapegoated him. At an intuitive level, he was himself conscious of the effect that his condemnation was having on his community at Antioch” (Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of the Episcopacy, 45–49, here at 49). Finally, Candida R. Moss claims, “In his own mind, then, Ignatius’s death was sacrificial in character and served a concrete atoning purpose not only for himself but for the members of his church in Antioch” (The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010], 83–84; see similarly Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 86). 43 Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus, 145; Kirk, “Ignatius’ Statements,” 269– 273; Smith, “Ministry, Martyrdom, and Other Mysteries,” 51–55; Atsuhiro Asano, “‘Like the Scum of the World, the Refuse of All’: A Study of the Background and Usage of περίψηµα and περικάθαρµα in 1 Corinthians 4.13b,” JSNT 39 (2016): 21; Todd D. Still, “Ignatius and Paul on Suffering and Death: A Short Comparative Study,” in The Apostolic Fathers and Paul, ed. Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, PPSD 2 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 136–142.

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I have already noted that Ignatius’s use of the libation metaphor in Rom. 2.2 resembles Paul’s language in Phil 2.17 and 2 Tim 4.6.44 With regard to the terms addressed here, the most notable example of a Pauline parallel is Ignatius’s reference to himself as περίψηµα. Paul speaks similarly in 1 Cor 4.13. As Paul and the apostles became “the scum of all” (πάντων περίψηµα; 1 Cor 4.13), so Ignatius describes himself as the Ephesians’ scum (ὑµῶν περίψηµα; Eph. 8.1) and his spirit as the scum of the cross (περίψηµα τὸ ἐµὸν πνεῦµα τοῦ σταυροῦ; Eph. 18.1).45 The term has to do with Ignatius’s place as a servant and his corresponding lowliness.46 This benefits the Ephesians not because Ignatius is a substitute or savior for the Ephesians but because he provides an example of suffering that they can follow.47 The use of ἁγνίζοµαι in Eph. 8.1 and Trall. 13.3 follows on from this. Although the word can carry cultic connotations (e.g. Barn. 5.1; 8.1), it can also refer to devotion and highlights Ignatius’s connection to the Ephesians.48 Similarly, there is no need to think that Ignatius sacrifices his spirit for the Trallians.49 Rather, he is devoted to them in the present and will remain so after he dies (ἁγνίζεται ὑµῶν τὸ ἐµὸν πνεῦµα οὐ µόνον νῦν ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅταν θεοῦ ἐπιτύχω; Trall. 13.3).50 Ignatius’s consecration of himself for the Ephesians and Trallians does not indicate that he is bringing salvation but rather that he has dedicated himself to fellow Christians as he seeks to imitate Jesus. His suffering provides them with a paradigm that they can follow. 44

See section 8.2.1. On Pauline imitation elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters, see David M. Reis, “Following in Paul’s Footsteps: Mimēsis and Power in Ignatius,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers, ed. Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 295; Ferdinando Bergamelli, “La figura dell’ Apostolo Paolo nelle Ignazio di Antiochia,” in Studia Patristica LXV, ed. Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 49–61. Hartog notes similar resonances between Mart. Pol. 14.2 and Phil 2.17 (“Polycarp’s Martyrdom ‘According to the Gospel’ and Paul’s Philippians,” in Studia Patristica XLV, ed. Jane Baun et al. [Leuven: Peeters, 2010], 394). 45 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.50–51. 46 Legarth, Guds tempel, 300. With careful attention to Photius and a tenth-century synagogue text, Asano persuasively demonstrates that περίψηµα did not take on the nuance of “expulsion victim” until the ninth century (“‘Like the Scum of the World,’” 18–26). 47 Similarly, Kirk writes, “The two uses of περίψηµα in Ignatius (Eph. 8.1; 18.1) can be effectively read in the light of this Pauline usage. Ignatius, like Paul, presents himself as scum. Both Ignatius and Paul are a ‘sacrifice’ in the sense that their suffering and lowly position benefit other Christians; neither is a sacrifice in the sense that their eventual deaths will atone for sin or substitute for the deaths of their fellow believers” (“Ignatius’ Statements,” 76). 48 In addition to Ignatius’s statements in the letter (Eph. 1.2–3.2; 5.2; 9.2; 20.1–21.2), see also Magn. 15; Rom. 10.1; Phld. 11.2. 49 See the translations of Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.558; Camelot, Lettres, 105; Ehrman, Apostolic Fathers, 1.269. Lampe’s understanding is similar in PGL, s.v. 50 Cultic connotations are similarly downplayed when the word is found in Jas 4.8; 1 Pet 1.22; 1 John 3.3.

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Finally, similarities have been noted between the usages of ἀντίψυχον in 4 Maccabees and Ignatius. In 4 Macc 6.29, Eleazar prays that his life may be a ransom (ἀντίψυχον) for God’s people. Towards the end of the book, the narrator describes Eleazar, the mother, and her seven sons as a ransom (ἀντίψυχον) for the sin of the nation (4 Macc 17.21).51 This may lead to the supposition that Ignatius employs the term with reference to his own vicarious sacrifice (Eph. 21.1; Smyrn. 10.2; Pol. 2.3; 6.1). 52 Despite the word’s etymology, Ignatius seems again to be speaking of devotion to his audience while setting himself up as a model for them in his death.53 No reference is found to atonement or Ignatius as a ransom for sin. He instead writes at these points to those who have assisted him and are devoted to the bishop. In turn, he, his spirit, and his bonds are devoted to the Ephesians, Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp as he continues faithfully to imitate Christ in his suffering.54 Ignatius takes note of the support from his audience and dedicates his entire being to them whether in life or in death. Although Ignatius uses sacrificial language, this language has not received the same level of attention as Ignatius’s high priestly and temple metaphors in this book. To do so would expand the current study unnecessarily. Chapters 3– 7 sought to show how Jesus functions in the temple. Yet Ignatius’s sacrificial language symbolizes his own death. He portrays himself as imitating Jesus, but Jesus does not play a direct role in Ignatius’s sacrificial metaphors. This stands in contrast to the temple metaphors where Jesus is active. In addition, Ignatius’s language of dedicating his life for his audience and serving as a ransom allows him to depict himself as an exemplary sufferer. His death may benefit those to whom he writes, but he does not represent his death as atoning. In light of the different function that Ignatius’s sacrificial terminology plays in his letters, a choice has been made to leave a full study of such terminology out of a thesis that explores the role of the high priest and the temple. 8.2.4. Household One more passage is considered by Legarth and Kieffer, and a rationale for why the passage has not been explored in more detail is needed here. In Eph. 16.1, Ignatius addresses the Ephesians directly. He tells them not be deceived 51 For parallels between 4 Maccabees and Ignatius’s letters, see Perler, “Das vierte Makkabaeerbuch,” 51–52; Clayton N. Jefford, “The Role of 4 Maccabees in the Vision of Ignatius of Antioch,” in Studia Patristica XL, ed. Frances Young, Mark Edwards, and Paul Parvis (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 439. 52 Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 219; Peter Meinhold, “Pneumatiker, Episkope, Märtyrer: Zur Deutung der Selbstaussagen des Ignatius von Antiochien,” Saeculum 14 (1963): 320. 53 Mellink, “Death as Eschaton,” 106. 54 Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 420–423; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.88; Mellink, “Death as Eschaton,” 107; Kirk, “Ignatius’ Statements,” 80–81.

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because “those who corrupt households will not inherit the kingdom of God” (οἱ οἰκοφθόροι βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονοµήσουσιν; Eph. 16.1).55 Since this passage immediately follows Eph. 15.3, I have already offered three arguments for why Eph. 15.3 should be viewed as a separate rhetorical section in chapter 6.56 Because οἶκος and ναός language appear together in Eph. 9.1, however, chapter 6 also argued that the temple and οἱ οἰκοφθόροι collectively serve as a bridge between two different rhetorical sections, namely, Eph. 11.1–15.3 and 16.1– 19.3.57 Here it remains to say something about why this verse can justifiably be given less attention in this study. The language of not inheriting the kingdom of God is also found in Phld. 3.3 and is likely drawn from 1 Cor 6.9, where Paul writes, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” (ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἀδίκοι θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονοµήσουσιν). Paul urges the Corinthians not to be deceived (µὴ πλανᾶσθε) and follows this with a vice list that includes examples of the types of unrighteous people who will not inherit the kingdom (1 Cor 6.9–10). Following Ignatius’s apparent source,58 it is tempting to interpret οἱ οἰκοφθόροι as adulterers, that is, those who corrupt households with sexual misconduct. This follows the focus on sex in four of the first five items listed in Paul’s vice list.59 Yet even if 1 Cor 6.9 is understood as the text behind Eph. 16.1, it is unnecessary to interpret οἱ οἰκοφθόροι exclusively in this way, particularly since 1 Cor 6.9–11 says nothing about an οἶκος. When one recalls that Eph. 16.1 immediately follows the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3 and that Ignatius employs ναός and οἶκος together in Eph. 9.1, it is reasonable to suggest that the οἶκος-prefix likewise refers to the temple.60 Accordingly, Legarth has suggested that the corruption that is envisioned by Ignatius is the same as that described in 1 Cor 3.17. The corruption is a corruption of God’s house.61 Yet the corruption of the household in Eph. 16.1–2 seems to draw increasingly further away from the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3, which illustrated unity in God and the bishop.

55

This passage is studied in Legarth, Guds tempel, 307–322; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60–61; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 293–294. 56 See section 6.2.2. 57 See section 6.8.2. 58 See Inge, “Ignatius,” 64; Schoedel, Ignatius, 79; Legarth, Guds tempel, 309; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 293; Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament,” 164–165. 59 E.g. Funk, Patres apostolici, 1.226; Paulsen, Die Briefe des Ignatius, 40–41; Schoedel, Ignatius, 79. See the similar usage of οἰκοφθόροι in Sib. Or. 2.257; Plutarch, Lib. ed. 12B; Origen, Cels. 7.63. 60 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 293. 61 Legarth, Guds tempel, 311–312; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60. See also Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.71; Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 293n.18.

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Nevertheless, identifying the οἶκος in terms of the temple seems to make the most sense of the context of the letter. Ignatius does not obviously say anything about adultery anywhere else in the letter, and οἱ οἰκοφθόροι are mentioned directly after the temple. It is important to recognize as well that, although the temple is the background for Ignatius’s comments in Eph. 16, his focus is on the opponents. Ignatius’s use of οἶκος-language with references to the temple makes sense as a rhetorical ploy. As Ignatius transitions from a section on unity around the bishop (Eph. 11.1–15.3) to a section on false teaching and Jesus’s incarnation (Eph. 16.1–20.2), temple language forms a bridge at the end of one section and start of another, thereby providing continuity. Reading Ignatius’s letter with a view to the letter’s rhetorical moves helps to clarify the significance of the household corrupters in Eph. 16.1–2. They threaten the unity of the temple. Yet the passage can be handled more succinctly in a study of the temple because the temple is not the primary focus. Legarth’s separation of the two passage hinders the ability to see the household in its epistolary context.62 The corrupters of the household refer to Ignatius’s opponents whom he thinks teach wrongly about Jesus. While the household language is related to what precedes in Eph. 15.3, Ignatius’s own lack of development of the οἶκοςmetaphor in Eph. 16.1 allows it to fit more easily into this succinct account of language related to the temple. The role of οἱ οἰκοφθόροι can be sufficiently noted for the purposes of this thesis when one notes that it forms a transition from one section to the next. The temple connotations are residual from what precedes and undeveloped in what follows.

8.3. Priestly Shadows 8.3. Priestly Shadows

After exploring Ignatius’s utilization of cultic language outside of the temple metaphors, the diversity with which Ignatius employs this imagery is such that the temple metaphors appear more closely linked, despite the variance in Ignatius’s temple metaphors within different letters. Another marker that largely sets the temple imagery apart from Ignatius’s other cultic language is the activity of Jesus in the temple. This section will take up Jesus’s priestly mediation elsewhere. First, it will explore Jesus’s role in the cultic language discussed in section 8.2. In most of these passages, Jesus functions differently from the way he functions in the temple metaphors. However, Jesus works as a mediator between the Father and the church in passages elsewhere in his letters. Although this mediation does not occur often in cultic metaphors other than the temple,

62

Legarth discusses Eph. 15.3 in Guds tempel, 207–217 and “Tempelsymbolik,” 52–53. The treatment of Eph. 16.1–2 occurs in Guds tempel, 307–322 and “Tempelsymbolik,” 60– 61. Kieffer unites the two passages in “La demeure divine,” 293–294.

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other metaphors can be used to illustrate Jesus’s mediation. This will comprise the second way in which Jesus’s mediation is investigated. 8.3.1. Priestly Activity in Cultic Metaphors It is difficult to say that Jesus is completely absent from any Ignatian text. Ignatius speaks of Christ, Jesus, Lord, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, and Lord Jesus Christ more than 140 times in his seven letters, allowing for slightly different numbers based on text-critical decisions.63 Even so, no mention is made of Jesus in the sanctuary metaphors of Eph. 5.2 and Trall. 7.2. In the former, Ignatius claims that anyone who is not in the sanctuary lacks God’s bread and thus cannot participate properly in the Eucharist. However, Jesus plays no active role in the sanctuary. In the latter, Ignatius speaks of those who are inside and outside the sanctuary as clean and unclean, respectively. Yet purity is defined in terms of acting in accordance with the proper church authorities. If Jesus is not absent from these metaphors, he is at least inactive and not present in a mediatorial or priestly role. A similar phenomenon can be found in Rom. 2.2. Jesus is active in the vicinity of where Ignatius speaks of the altar,64 but Jesus is not mentioned in conjunction with the altar. Ignatius writes here about the sacrifice of his own life. Elsewhere in the letter, Ignatius’s death imitates Jesus’s death.65 Yet when Ignatius writes about the altar, he refers only to his life as a drink offering for the altar. Similarly, Ignatius’s use of περίψηµα, ἁγνίζοµαι, and ἀντίψυχον speak of his own life without specific reference to Jesus. Whereas Jesus functions as a priestly mediator in the temple metaphors, he is largely absent from these instances of cultic language. Yet Jesus is not absent from all other elements of cultic metaphors. Indeed, he plays an important role in some of Ignatius’s other cultic language, but this role is different from the high priestly role depicted in the temple metaphors. For example, Jesus is a key figure in Phld. 4, but he is not a priestly or mediatorial figure. Rather, he provides the basis for unity that should be marked by eucharistic celebration and harmony with the bishop, presbytery, and deacons. Reflection on Jesus provides the reason for the Philadelphians’ unity, but Jesus is not a mediator in Phld. 4.66 Although Jesus is not mentioned in Eph. 16.1, the interplay between θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in Ignatius’s analysis of corruption that follows in Eph. 16.2 leads Legarth to the conclusion that there is a

63

See similarly Foster, “Christ and the Apostles,” 116n.14. See section 8.3.2 on Jesus’s role in the choral image of Rom. 2.2. 65 Rom. 3.2–3; 4.2; 6.3. See further Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to Saint John of the Cross, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1990), 11–32. 66 His mediation in Philadelphians is described in the dual images of high priest and door in Phld. 9.1. See chapter 3. 64

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tension between the two parties.67 Yet this seems to be a misreading of the text in light of the supposed tension elsewhere. While the οἶκος-language in Eph. 16.1 likely carries the temple metaphor forward slightly from Eph. 15.3, the metaphor is not developed and primarily provides rhetorical continuity. Since Ignatius demarcates the God who is to be worshipped in the temple elsewhere,68 the relationship between God and Jesus in Eph. 16.2 should not be placed in the temple.69 In addition, the supposed tension between God and Jesus can be much more easily understood if the work of the two parties is understood in coordination rather than in tension.70 Two passages involving cultic language other than ναός do seem to include Jesus in ways that cannot be easily excluded from this study. The first of these occurs in Magn. 7.2 and was already explored in chapter 7. Jesus’s role can thus be briefly recapitulated here. Although Jesus is mentioned in close association with the altar, this association is also near to the temple. Since Jesus came from the Father, is unified with him, and returned to him, he provides an example for the Magnesians. Yet he is not only an example to imitate. He is likewise a mediator between the Magnesians and God. However, the mediation that Jesus is able to provide is not especially tied to the altar. In light of the similarities between the temple language and mediation in Philadelphians and Ephesians, it seems more likely that Jesus functions as a mediator due to the temple metaphor in the same verse. Moreover, the tension between Jesus and God is difficult to see, since Jesus is only able to mediate between the Magnesians and God because of his special relationship and identity with the latter. The second cultic passage in which Jesus may function as a mediator contains no temple reference. Ignatius instructs the Romans to petition Christ on his behalf so that he may be found a sacrifice of God through these instruments (λιτανεύσατε τὸν Χριστὸν ὑπὲρ ἐµοῦ, ἵνα διὰ τῶν ὀργάνων τούτων θεοῦ θυσία εὑρεθῶ; Rom. 4.2). “These instruments” refer to the circumstances that Ignatius expects to result in his death. Yet it is the location of instructions about prayer to Christ adjacent to the language of sacrifice that is of interest at this point. In particular, the Romans are instructed to pray to Christ “on behalf of” (ὑπέρ) Ignatius so that Jesus seems to be in a position to mediate between the Romans and Ignatius. The Romans will pray, and Christ will act for Ignatius. There are notable differences between Jesus’s role when the Romans are instructed to ask Jesus to enact Ignatius’s sacrifice, but this is not to exclude completely some 67

“Det er således i brudfladen mellem det teocentriske tempelsymbol og det kristocentriske trosbegreb, at v. 2b–c skal interpreteres” (It is thus in the discrepancy between the theocentric temple symbol and the Christocentric concept of faith that v. 2b–c must be interpreted; Legarth, Guds tempel, 322). See also Legarth, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61. 68 E.g. οἰκοδοµὴ θεοῦ (Eph. 9.1); ναοὶ θεοῦ (Eph. 15.3); εἷς ναὸς θεοῦ (Magn. 7.2); ναὸς θεοῦ (Phld. 7.2). 69 Kieffer, “La demeure divine,” 294n.20. 70 See further section 8.4.

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continuity between Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus in Rom. 4.2 and the temple metaphors analyzed in previous chapters. Among the chief differences in all of these passages is the question of Christ’s location in the metaphor. Where it was clear in Phld. 7.2–9.1, Eph. 9.1, and Magn. 7.2 that Jesus mediates in the temple, Ignatius’s instruction for the Romans to pray to Christ is not closely tied to a place. In addition, Phld. 9.1, Eph. 9.1, and Magn. 7.2 portray Jesus mediating between the Father and the audience or the audience and the Father. However, Ignatius’s language in Rom. 4.2 seems to suggest a mediation between the Romans and Ignatius. While Ignatius asks the Romans to pray for him, it is their prayer that will ensure that he may be found a sacrifice. The type of mediation suggested in Rom. 4.2 is thus different from the mediation found in the temple metaphors. Section 8.3.2 will illustrate that Ignatius allows for Jesus’s mediation between the Father and the people outside of the temple metaphor and thereby suggests that Jesus’s mediation between the Father and the church is more developed in Ignatius’s letters than the temple metaphors alone suggest. In this, Rom. 4.2 is loosely similar to Jesus’s mediation in the temple metaphors but remains unique enough not to be included with the priestly mediation of Jesus in the temple metaphors. Rather, it points the way toward something larger in Ignatius’s letters. 8.3.2. Mediatorial Activity Elsewhere in Ignatius’s Letters Although Ignatius rarely links Jesus closely with cultic metaphors other than the temple, echoes of Jesus’s mediatorial activity as priest are in play in two instances. First, Jesus is depicted as a priest in Magn. 7.2 alongside the altar, but in light of the relative dearth of mediation in other cultic metaphors, it is better to see Jesus’s mediation in Magn. 7.2 connected with both the temple and altar.71 Jesus likewise intervenes between the Romans and Ignatius in the sacrificial metaphors of Rom. 4.2. As I have noted, this mediation occurs between human beings, whereas the priestly metaphors explored elsewhere in this study focuses on Jesus’s mediation between human beings and God. However, Rom. 4.2 provides a useful transition so that other places in which Jesus functions as an intermediary between God and God’s people can be noted. As Ignatius transitions from his extended request that the Romans not interfere with his death, he asks them to believe his request and cites Jesus as the one who will confirm the truth of what he has said. “Jesus Christ, the unlying mouth by which the Father spoke truly, will reveal these things to you, that I speak truly” (Ἰησοῦς δὲ Χριστὸς ὑµῖν ταῦτα φανερώσει ὅτι ἀληθῶς λέγω, τὸ ἀψευδὲς στόµα ἐν ᾧ ὁ πατὴρ ἐλάλησεν ἀληθῶς; Rom. 8.2). Ignatius portrays

71

See section 7.5.

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Jesus as the instrument through which the Father will communicate to the Romans.72 He mediates between the Father and his people and, importantly for Ignatius’s purposes at the conclusion of the letter, does so truly (ἀληθῶς). Since Jesus speaks accurately for the Father and Ignatius seeks throughout the letter to imitate Jesus, Jesus’s speech that originates from the Father will confirm that Ignatius likewise speaks truly (ἀληθῶς). Jesus’s intermediary activity operates from the Father to the Romans in this verse. Yet he reveals the Father to his people as the Father’s mouth in a way that is similar to Jesus’s role as high priest in Phld. 9.1. Jesus’s mediatorial activity is thus not limited to priestly metaphors.73 Ignatius declares the unity of Jesus with the Father in Magn. 1.2 and 13.1 in portions of prayers for the Magnesians’ unity with their own ecclesial leaders. The relationship between the Father and Son is further explored in Magn. 6–8. In particular, Ignatius explores Jesus’s identity with the Father throughout time and with special reference to his incarnation.74 Jesus was with the Father before all time (Magn. 6.1), came forth from the Father (Magn. 7.2), appeared in the incarnation at the end of time (Magn. 6.1), was one with the Father throughout the incarnation (Magn. 7.2), and returned to the Father after his death and resurrection (Magn. 7.2). While Jesus’s union with the Father implies Jesus’s identity with the Father, in this section Ignatius highlights Jesus’s actions as an exemplary model for the Magnesians to follow. Yet he turns more clearly to Jesus’s identity with the Father in Magn. 8.2. Ignatius writes that the prophets’ actions when persecuted were such that the disobedient were fully convinced “that there is one God who revealed himself through Jesus Christ, his Son, who is his word that came forth from silence, who pleased the one who sent him in every way” (ὅτι εἷς θεός ἐστιν, ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ λόγος ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθῶν, ὅς κατὰ πάντα εὐηρέστησεν τῷ πέµψαντι αὐτόν; Magn. 8.2). As Paul did in the middle of the first century (1 Cor 8.6),75 Ignatius uses the language of the Shema to articulate the single divine identity of Jesus and the Father. Ignatius is clear that there is only one God and that this God has a Son. While Jesus and God are distinguishable, there are neither two gods nor is Jesus separate from God. Rather, Jesus is the way in which God has chosen to reveal 72 The reference to Jesus as the Father’s mouth is omitted entirely from the long recension. Instead, a reference to Ps 66.3 (Ps 65.3 [LXX]) is found alongside a statement that the Father and Jesus will together reveal what Ignatius has written to the Romans. 73 Stark, “Christology in the Apostolic Fathers,” 29. 74 A discussion of these passages may further strengthen Weinandy’s discussion of the oneness of Jesus in “Apostolic Christology,” 80–83. 75 Mark D. Nanos, “Paul and the Jewish Tradition: The Ideology of the Shema,” in Celebrating Paul: Festschrift in Honor of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O.P., and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., ed. Peter Spitaler, CBQMS 48 (Washington, DC: Catholic Bible Association of America, 2011), 62–80.

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himself, because Jesus is divine. With some similarities to what Ignatius writes in Rom. 8.2, Jesus is portrayed as the word that comes forth from silence in Magn. 8.2. This word is revelatory to the Magnesians and indicates not only that God speaks to the Magnesians through Jesus but also that Jesus pleased the Father who sent him in his activity as the Word.76 Jesus serves as a revelatory mediator as he reveals God to the Magnesians while simultaneously pleasing the Father who dispatched him and whom he makes known to Ignatius’s audience.77 Jesus’s place in Ignatius’s choral imagery may be examined as a final example of revelation and mediation outside of the temple metaphors. Ignatius variously urges the Romans and the Ephesians to form a chorus in order to worship the Father. After asking the Romans not to interfere with his death while an altar is ready,78 he offers the Romans a choral image as motivation: “so that you sing to the Father in Jesus Christ by becoming a chorus in love” (ἵνα ἐν ἀγάπῃ χορὸς γενόµενοι ᾄσητε τῷ πατρὶ ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ; Rom. 2.2).79 Likewise, Ignatius enjoins the Ephesians that “each of you become a chorus in order that by being symphonic in harmony, taking God’s pitch in unity, you may sing in one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father” (καὶ οἱ κατ’ ἄνδρα δὲ χορὸς γίνεσθε, ἵνα σύµφωνοι ὄντες ἐν ὁµονοίᾳ, χρῶµα θεοῦ λαβόντες, ἐν ἑνότητι ᾄδητε ἐν φωνῇ µιᾷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῷ πατρί; Eph. 4.2). While the metaphors may be employed for different rhetorical purposes in the letters, they share in common that unity among both the Ephesians and the Romans can be compared to a chorus. Moreover, the orientation of this chorus and the means by which it sings are noteworthy. In both passages, the choruses sing to the Father (τῷ πατρί) and thereby indicate that the Father is the goal of the chorus’s song. However, the song is mediated by or through Jesus Christ (ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ; [Rom. 2.2] διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [Eph. 4.2]). Jesus facilitates the songs of the choruses and brings them to the one for whom the songs are intended. The direction of mediation is thus from the people to the Father. In the case of Rom. 2.2, this is noteworthy because the direction of mediation is reversed in Rom. 8.2. A similar reversal in direction was also evident in Phld. 9.1, where Jesus mediates

76

Lang draws attention to similarities between revelatory themes in Magn. 8.2; Wis 18.14–15; Rom 16.25–27 (Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness, 138). 77 “[A]lthough this reality has only recently been inaugurated, it is not without prior authoritative witnesses.” These are the prophets who are discussed in Magn. 8.2–9.2 (Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness, 139). 78 See section 8.2.1. 79 It is difficult to know how Tarvainen’s proposal that Ignatius more likely learned musical traditions in the Jewish synagogues than in mystery cults can be verified (Faith and Love, 32 [Glaube und Liebe, 45]). Brent provides parallels to Ignatius’s choral imagery in Second Sophistic oratory (Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, 240–242).

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from the Father to the Philadelphians as the high priest but enables the Philadelphians to enter the Father’s presence as the door. Jesus’s revelatory and mediatorial work suggests that his role as priest plays a larger role in the letters than a study of the priestly metaphor alone might allow. Yet one more choral image remains to be explored and may offer another similarity between Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus as high priest and his other discussions of Jesus’s revelations. As Ignatius nears the end of his longest letter, he discusses wisdom and the coming of Jesus in the flesh (Eph. 18.1–20.2).80 Jesus was born of Mary, from the seed of Mary and the Holy Spirit,81 was baptized, and died. Ignatius then asks how these mysteries were revealed to the aeons (πῶς οὖν ἐφανερώθη τοῖς αἰῶσιν; Eph. 19.2). The answer comes from a uniquely appearing star that is inexpressibly bright. The star is joined by the sun, moon, and other stars. These “become a chorus to the star, but its light exceeded over all” (χορὸς ἐγένετο τῷ ἀστέρι, αὐτὸς δὲ ἦν ὑπερβάλλων τὸ φῶς αὐτοῦ ὑπὲρ πάντα). The strange star is brighter than the chorus that forms around it. The star’s appearance initiates a host of cosmic consequences, including the destruction of magic, the disappearance of evil, and the corruption of the old kingdom. In addition to the comments about Jesus’s incarnation that precede and follow Eph. 19.2–3, the interpretive key to the passage follows this list of consequences. These things happened “when God appeared humanly” (θεοῦ ἀνθρωπίνως φανερουµένου; Eph. 19.3). Jesus’s appearance in the flesh brought about the beginning of the downfall of everything evil in creation, and Ignatius employs a star in order to narrate the cosmic consequences of Jesus’s incarnation.82 Along with Ignatius’s focus on Jesus in Eph. 18.2–19.1 and 20.1–2 and the statement that the events described in Eph. 19.3 occurred when God appeared humanly, two other factors suggest that the star should be identified as Jesus.83 First, the star is described as brighter than the other stars but is clearly identifiable as a star throughout. Ignatius’s treatment of Jesus as both divine and human throughout the letter indicates that there was something unique about Jesus’s birth, baptism and death. Ignatius places the star’s ordinary and odd 80 On Ignatius’s Pauline similarities, particularly with 1 Cor 1.18–25, see Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek, 690–691. 81 Simon Claude Mimouni points out that this is the oldest attestation of a formulation that juxtaposes Mary and the Holy Spirit (“La virginité de Marie: entre textes et contextes (Ier–IIer siècles),” Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities, ed. Claire Clivaz et al., WUNT 281 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 43). See also Ferdinando Bergamelli, “La ‘verginità di Maria’ nelle lettere di Ignazio di Antiochia,” in Studia Patristica XXI, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 32–41. 82 On the reception of Eph. 19.1 in later writers, see Matthew Kuhner, “Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Ephesians 19.1 and the Hidden Mysteries: A Trajectory of Interpretation from Origen to Thomas Aquinas,” JTS 68 (2017): 93–120. 83 See further Lookadoo, “The Role of the Star,” 75–76.

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qualities next to each other, just as he has juxtaposed Jesus’s humanity and divinity throughout the letter.84 Although Ignatius does not explicitly refer to the star as Jesus, he portrays the star in terms that cohere with what he has said earlier about Jesus. Second, the other stars along with the sun and moon form a chorus with the star in Eph. 19.2. As we have just noted, Ignatius employs choral imagery to describe the church singing to the Father through Jesus (Eph. 4.2). The other cosmological bodies symbolize the Ephesian church as they take their place in the chorus around Jesus.85 The star thus symbolizes Jesus in Eph. 19.2, and the chorus that forms around the star represents the Ephesian church. But can anything more specific be said about the purpose that the chorus serves? In Eph. 4.2 and Rom. 2.2, the chorus sings to the Father through Jesus. Yet here the chorus’s position is described with an unadorned dative (χορὸς ἐγένετο τῷ ἀστέρι). Does the chorus sing to the star? Or is the star a mediator, a leader perhaps, in a chorus that sings to an unnamed object that is presumably the Father? Although the text seems to suggest that the chorus forms with the star as the focal point, that is, the chorus likely sings to Jesus, the ambiguity allows that Jesus might also mediate the chorus’s praise to another who is deserving of it. This ambiguity is similar to the description of Jesus when the temple metaphors are read as a whole, since Jesus acts as a mediator in Phld. 7.2–9.1 and Eph. 9.1 while serving as the object of worship in Eph. 15.3. The close association between Jesus and the Father in Magn. 7.2 seems to depict Jesus as both God and the mediating exemplar to whom the Magnesians should run. A similar ambiguity occurs as Ignatius relates Jesus’s accomplishments in astral terms. Jesus is clearly referred to as God (Eph. 19.3), but his work is revelatory to the aeons (Eph. 19.2). Moreover, it is not quite clear to whom the chorus of other stellar entities sings, even if it is most likely that the chorus sings to Jesus. This ambiguity has implications regarding Legarth’s claim that there is a tension between Ignatius’s temple symbolism and Christology that arises because of the theocentric nature of temple symbolism. Either the tension that Legarth perceives is broader than temple symbolism and Christology alone, since it occurs in the cosmic description of Jesus’s incarnation in Eph. 19.2–3, or the tension is more effectively integrated into Ignatius’s letters than Legarth has recognized. The tension between temple symbolism and Christology that Legarth perceives is highly doubtful. Ignatius’s letters offer no recognition of the tension that Legarth proposes, and the discovery of similar portrayals of

84

See the description of Jesus as “our God” in Eph. inscr. Yet this attribution quickly focuses on Jesus’s death when Ignatius speaks of “God’s blood” (Eph. 1.1). Jesus is likewise described as the one physician who is capable of curing false teaching. He is able to take this role up because he is God incarnate (Eph. 7.2). 85 Vall, Learning Christ, 138.

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Jesus as mediator and θεός elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters suggests that the relationship between Jesus’s roles as mediator and the God who should be worshipped has been thoroughly integrated in Ignatius’s letters. It is to final comments on the relationship between Jesus and the temple that the study now turns.

8.4. The Relationship between Jesus and the Temple 8.4. The Relationship between Jesus and the Temple

At various points in the thesis, remarks have been made about the supposed tension between Ignatius’s temple symbolism and Christology. The tension was addressed in section 4.4.3 by first noting the variety of ways in which Ignatius can speak of unity in Philadelphians. With this multiplicity in view, the “unity of God” in Phld. 8.1 may carry more connotations than Legarth allows. In addition, section 4.4.3 argued that κύριος in Phld. 8.1 should be understood with reference to Jesus rather than the Father. Regarding Eph. 15.3, section 6.6.1 took up the phrase ἐν ἡµῖν θεὸς ἡµῶν and Legarth’s arguments that the tension between Christology and temple symbolism give rise to Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as θεός. Vitally important to Legarth’s claim is the question of why Ignatius refers to Jesus as θεός elsewhere in his letters even when temple symbolism is absent. Having explored the ways in which Ignatius can employ temple and priestly metaphors in chapters 3–7 and examined the greater diversity of cultic and mediatorial terminology found elsewhere in his letters, this section adds to these discussions of Jesus’s role. In particular, it will take up the relationship between Jesus’s mediatorial activity and Ignatius’s ascription of θεός to him by looking at Eph. 16.1–2. Although this passage speaks of Ignatius’s enemies as οἱ οἰκοφθόροι rather than speaking directly of the temple, Legarth’s account of the transition from θεός to Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in Eph. 16.1–2 and the corresponding tension that he perceives between temple symbolism and Christology correlates with the perceived tensions in the passages already addressed in previous chapters. After noting that οἱ οἰκοφθόροι designates opponents who corrupt the temple, Legarth observes that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Although he does not argue for it clearly, the word θεός is understood with reference to the Father.86 This claim is plausible, since a similar meaning seems to be in play in 1 Cor 6.9. Legarth then discusses the faith of God (πίστις θεοῦ) in Eph. 16.2. Defining πίστις as the content of what is believed, that is, fides quae creditur,87 86 Thus those who corrupt God’s household in Eph. 16.1 are those who corrupt God’s faith in Eph. 16.2 (Legarth, Guds tempel, 312; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 60). 87 See similarly Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 2.2.73; Schoedel, Ignatius, 79. However, not everyone takes πίστις as a reference to the content of faith. For example, Wallis and Bergamelli understand πίστις θεοῦ as a reference to the faith that is placed in God. The word πίστις may thus be defined as belief, and θεοῦ functions as an objective genitive (Wallis, The

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he claims that right doctrine is now identified as God’s temple.88 He next notes Jesus’s role in doctrinal statements and considers it unusual that the teaching of faithfulness stems from God. He then asserts that God must be in view here due to the temple metaphor implicit in οἱ οἰκοφθόροι.89 When Ignatius goes on to discuss Jesus’s death on behalf of faith, Legarth perceives another tension between Christology and temple symbolism.90 Perhaps since this chapter comes toward the end of Legarth’s monograph and argumentation for the tension between temple symbolism and Christology has occurred in earlier chapters, there is no defense of the supposed tension in Eph. 16.1–2. Perhaps relying on arguments for tensions in other passages, the tension is asserted and Legarth offers his interpretation of the passage in light of it. Considering the positions set forth in this and previous chapters, it will come as no surprise that I do not see a tension between temple symbolism and Christology. Instead of repeating these arguments, I will instead propose a reading of Eph. 16.1–2 that takes account of what Ignatius writes and where he places it in the letter in the hopes that this reading will prove more persuasive than Legarth’s proposals. The vocative ἀδελφοί µου signals the start of a new section in Eph. 16.1. This section addresses Jesus’s incarnation against the problematic teaching of Ignatius’s docetic opponents. Although Eph. 15.3 belongs thematically and rhetorically with the preceding material in Eph. 11.1–15.3, the use of the temple metaphor influences the way in which οἱ οἰκοφθόροι should be understood. As in the juxtaposition of ναός and οἶκος in Eph. 9.1, Ignatius’s designation of his opponents as οἱ οἰκοφθόροι indicates that the οἶκος-prefix in Eph. 16.1 retains temple connotations. These teachers threaten to corrupt the temple and will not inherit the kingdom of God. The identity of θεός is not immediately clear. Jesus has been referred to as θεός in the preceding verse (Eph. 15.3), but it is more likely that θεός is a designation for the Father in Eph. 16.1 based on 1 Cor 6.9 and the separate reference to Jesus Christ in Eph. 16.2.91 Yet there is no need to assume that there is Faith of Jesus Christ, 190; Bergamelli, “Fede di Gesù Cristo,” 660–661). Bergamelli goes on to suggest that this is a reference to Jesus’s faith in God based on the relative clause that follows, while Wallis likewise entertains this suggestion (ὑπὲρ ἧς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐσταυρώθη; Bergamelli, “Fede di Gesù Cristo,” 661; Wallis, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 190). 88 Legarth, Guds tempel, 319; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61. Legarth here follows Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, 368n.2. 89 “Men denne tanke er bestemt af tempelsymbolismen. Når Ignatius i Ef 16,2 kendetegner troens lære som οἶκος, må den teocentriske bestemmelse smitte af på πίστις” (But this thought is determined by temple symbolism. When Ignatius characterizes the teaching of faith as οἶκος in Eph. 16.2, the theocentric determination must spill over to πίστις; Legarth, Guds tempel, 319). 90 Legarth, Guds tempel, 321–322; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61. 91 Legarth, Guds tempel, 312; idem, ”Tempelsymbolik,” 60.

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a tension inherent in Ignatius’s temple symbolism that gives rise to the use of θεός in Eph. 16.1. The genitive modifies βασιλεία and has nothing to do with the temple. The appearance of θεός can be more easily explained as a traditional attribution in early Christianity and may be more specifically linked to Paul’s language in 1 Cor 6.9 in light of the similarities between the two passages and Ignatius’s repetition of this language in Phld. 3.3. Yet it is the reference to θεός in Eph. 16.2 and the subsequent reference to Jesus that provides Legarth with stronger evidence of a tension-filled relationship between temple symbolism and Christology.92 Two things may be said in answer to Legarth’s claim. First, it is highly unlikely that πίστις should be identified as the temple. To start with, it is not immediately clear that πίστις should be understood exclusively or even primarily with reference to the content of what is believed.93 Although Ignatius expends great energy outlining what should be believed about Jesus’s incarnation in Eph. 16.1–20.2, it is not necessary for πίστις to bear the entire load of this meaning in Eph. 16.2. The word could just as easily be understood as the act of believing God or God’s faithful actions toward others. The false teachers may corrupt the faith of God with evil doctrine if either of these meanings is accepted. Further, doctrine does not need to be strictly identified with faith, and faith need not be equated with the temple. Faith and teaching are two distinct entities in Eph. 16.2.94 Nothing in Eph. 16.1–2 suggests that the οἶκος-language is developed into a full-fledged metaphor. Instead, it is a useful rhetorical transition following on from the temple language. Additionally, although the corruption language may well draw to some degree on 1 Cor 3.17,95 there is no indication that only 1 Cor 3.17 is utilized. The verb φθείρω is employed elsewhere by Paul and other early Christian authors,96 and

92

Legarth, Guds tempel, 321–322; idem, “Tempelsymbolik,” 61. On the nuances of meaning that could be given to in early Christian writings, see Matthew W. Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 77–100. 94 This is true whether the reading κακῇ διδασκαλίᾳ is accepted with the Greek middle recension or whether κακοδιδασκαλίᾳ is accepted with John of Damascus’s Sacra Parallela. For the text of the Sacra Parallela, see Holl, Fragmente vornicänischer Kirchenväter, 19– 20. Both terms should be added to Markschies’s otherwise helpful note on heretical language in Ignatius (Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire, 327n.136 [Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen, 364n.136]). 95 Legarth, Guds tempel, 311–312. 96 E.g. 1 Cor 15.33; 2 Cor 7.2; 11.3; Eph 4.22; 2 Pet 2.12; Jude 10; Rev 19.2; Herm. Vis. 3.12.2 (20.2); Diogn. 2.4; 12.8; 2 Clem. 7.4; 14.3. See also Ignatius’s other use of the verb in Pol. 5.2. 93

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it is unnecessary to specify a specific source text in the absence of clearer evidence that 1 Cor 3.17 remains in view.97 The corruption to which Ignatius refers in Eph. 16.2 is related to the corruption of the household in Eph. 16.1. It is part of a rhetorical chain that links back to the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3. However, the chain is not tightly connected to the temple metaphor, nor does the chain significantly sharpen one’s understanding of the temple metaphor. Rather, the chain increasingly leads away from the temple and is part of an Ignatian change in topic. The rhetorical links that lead from temple to household to corruption provide continuity to Ignatius’s letter but do not advance the temple metaphor from what is said in Eph. 15.3. Second, if faith is not to be strictly identified as the household and the links between Eph. 15.3–16.2 are primarily to provide continuity rather than to develop the metaphor, the supposed tension between θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός does not occur with reference to the temple. Yet one may ask what these respective nouns contribute to Eph. 16.2, particularly since Jesus is referred to as θεός in Eph. 15.3, while the Father is most likely referred to as θεός in Eph. 16.2.98 If one does not assume a tension, they can argue that Ignatius instead integrates the roles of God and Jesus in Eph. 16.2. Jesus was crucified on behalf of the faith of God (πίστιν θεοῦ…ὑπὲρ ἧς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐσταυρώθη). The ambiguity of πίστις means that quite what Jesus died for is left unclear in this passage. He could have been crucified on behalf of God’s faithfulness as God’s faithful answer to his people, on behalf of Jesus’s own trust in God, on behalf of the faith that the Ephesians and others have in God, or on behalf of what should be believed about God. It may be best to leave all of these meanings in play.99 Yet one thing is clear. Jesus and the Father are working together in Eph. 16.2, and no perceivable tension exists despite the lack of terminological precision in Ignatius’s use of the word θεός. If faith is not to be equated with the household, if more meanings are allowed than simply doctrine alone, and if God and Jesus cooperate in their work rather than viewing the two parties in tension, what then is to be made of Eph. 16.1– 2 and how does this relate to Eph. 15.3? As Ignatius introduces the new section

97

Indeed, even Inge, who must surely be regarded as one of the most willing scholars to find Ignatian knowledge of the New Testament, does not suggest knowledge of 1 Cor 3.17 in Eph. 16.1–2 (“Ignatius,” 64–67). 98 This is likely since βασιλεία θεοῦ can best be understood with reference to the Father in Eph. 16.1. It is difficult to perceive a change in the referent of θεός between Eph. 16.1–2. 99 Teresa Morgan sketches a cascading economy of πίστις in the Pauline letters with genitive modifiers sometimes employed ambiguously in order to involve multiple parties in the relationship of faith and trust. A similarly ambiguous instance of πίστις seems to be in view in Eph. 16.2. For Paul, such πίστις “forms a ‘wigwam-shaped’ community, in which many pisteuontes are held together at the ‘top’ by their pistis towards God, and secondarily by their trust in those who minister to them” (Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 219).

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with an imperative and a vocative, he begins by addressing the Ephesians directly following the first-person plural exhortations of Eph. 15.3. The opponents who corrupt the Ephesian household with their false teaching will not inherit the kingdom of God.100 Although οἱ οἰκοφθόροι are thematically related to the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3, the metaphors are employed for different purposes. Similarly, Ignatius discussed the false teachers with reference to an agrarian metaphor in Eph. 9.1 before describing the Ephesians as a temple and building. The metaphors in both Eph. 9.1 and 16.1 are related to the temple metaphors but are kept distinct with the usage of the agrarian and household metaphors. Rather than discussing the Ephesian temple, those who corrupt the household are outside of the Ephesians’ temple fellowship. Ignatius continues with an a fortiori argument in Eph. 16.2 that employs similar language about corruption. The language of corruption continues to provide continuity in the letter, but the household is not mentioned. The metaphor is thus not advanced further. Instead, Ignatius is slowly moving from one topic to another while employing similar language to provide coherence in the letter. If people who corrupt physical households die, how much more will the false teachers die if they corrupt the faith of God? The value of faith is heightened by Ignatius’s reference to Jesus’s crucifixion that took place for God’s faith. A person who corrupts faith with evil teaching does not merely die. They depart to unquenchable fire (τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον). Moreover, the one who listens to a false teacher will follow the teacher into the fire. Ignatius thus warns the Ephesians not to listen to the false teachers. He has again written similarly in Eph. 16.2 to the way in which he did in Eph. 9.1. Yet Ignatius’s warning in Eph. 16.2 does not correspond closely with the temple metaphor but rather forms the counterpart of the agrarian metaphor that begins Eph. 9.1. Where Ignatius commends the Ephesians for not listening to the false teachers in the earlier passage, he warns them to continue to reject the false teachers in this later passage. In determining the relation of the οἶκος-language in Eph. 16.1 to the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3, it seems clear that there is a connection between the two passages. Yet it is a connection of a particular type. Rather than seeing οἱ οἰκοφθόροι as a continuation of the temple metaphor, this reference to Ignatius’s opponents provides rhetorical continuity as he transitions from a discussion of unity under the bishop to discoursing about right teaching on Jesus’s incarnation. No elaboration is given on οἶκος, and a similar comment can be made about the language of corruption. Despite the repetition of the οἶκος-root, it is not limited in its application to a household metaphor only. For these reasons, the household language should not be understood as a further development of the temple metaphor in Eph. 15.3. Nothing is said about what it means to be a 100 Ignatius’s statement could reasonably be understood as gnomic. In this case, it may be that the statement’s application is broader than the Ephesians alone.

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household or how Jesus works in the household. Household language is employed as a rhetorical transition. Accordingly, Eph. 16 cannot be utilized as an example of a tension-filled relationship between Christology and temple symbolism, since the temple is only present as an epistolary transition and is not a complete metaphor. Moreover, there seems to be no tension between the work of θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in Eph. 16.2. Rather, Jesus is crucified on behalf of the faith of God, and Ignatius thereby emphasizes the value both of Jesus’s crucifixion and πίστις θεοῦ. Despite Ignatius’s alternating usage of θεός in Ephesians, he clearly differentiates between θεός and Ἰησοῦς Χριστός in Eph. 16.2 and envisions them working together in faith and Jesus’s crucifixion. The tension is at best apparent and can be resolved by taking care to read Ignatius’s letters as individual epistolary compositions.

8.5. Conclusion 8.5. Conclusion

This chapter has taken up the remainder of Ignatius’s cultic metaphors excluding the temple. In so doing, it has shown that Ignatius utilizes other cultic metaphors in a more diverse manner than he does the temple and high priestly metaphors. This observation gives further warrant for the extended studies of the temple metaphors that were conducted in chapters 3–7 and also suggests that the combination of these metaphors by Legarth and Kieffer too easily allows for confusion about how the metaphors work. Chapter 8 has also shown that Ignatius depicts Jesus as both God and mediator elsewhere in the letters. If this is correct, Legarth’s claim for a tension-filled relationship in Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus within the temple metaphors must be false. Either the tension is much greater than Legarth acknowledged or, as I have argued throughout this study and pressed further in section 8.4, the supposed tension has resulted from a misreading of Ignatius’s letters. For Ignatius, only God can truly mediate between God and human beings. Jesus the mediating high priest must also be God.

Chapter 9

The Vistas We Have Reached 9.1. Introduction 9.1. Introduction

Having brought the study this far, it is time to draw it to a close. After looking back to review how the argument has unfolded, the final chapter will review the most important conclusions and implications before concluding by looking forward to future avenues that may prove fruitful in light of this project.

9.2. What We Have Seen 9.2. What We Have Seen

The opening two chapters examine pertinent issues in Ignatian studies. The first chapter opens by considering the themes and most significant secondary literature that focused on Ignatius’s cultic metaphors. After proposing a relatively straightforward methodology that pays attention to history and language while also being sensitive to metaphor, the opening chapter takes up the date of Ignatius’s letters. Recent scholarship on this traditionally controverted issue is laid out before placing Ignatius’s letters during the reign of Trajan, most likely around 105–110 CE. The next section indicated broad agreement with the conclusions of Sieben, Cavallero, and Isacson that Ignatius’s letters should be read as individual compositions. Chapter 2 follows along somewhat introductory lines by taking up the question of Ignatius’s opponents. The chapter focuses on the opponents that are important for this book, namely, those in Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians. In Philadelphia, Ignatius likely encountered Gentile believers who were attracted to Judaism and, much to Ignatius’s chagrin, demonstrated this in their focus on reading scripture without proper reference to God’s acts in Jesus. When writing to the Ephesians, Ignatius warns against peripatetic docetic teachers. Ignatius is again worried about Judaism in Magnesia and frames the discussion in terms of proper understanding of the prophets. Throughout the letters, he is concerned about unity with the bishop. Chapters 3–7 form the heart of the study by endeavoring to describe Ignatius’s high priestly and temple metaphors accurately and then showing how these metaphors fit into the letters in which they are placed. Chapter 3 explores

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Ignatius’s reference to Jesus as high priest and door in Phld. 9.1, in which Ignatius depicts Jesus as a mediator on behalf of the Father and the people. As the high priest, Jesus reveals God’s secrets to the people, while he grants the Philadelphians access to the Father as the door. Jesus is superior to the Israelite priests because of his mediation, and Ignatius cites Jesus’s high priesthood in his argument against Judaism (Phld. 5–9). He also refers to the Philadelphians as a temple in the same argument (Phld. 7.2). The temple metaphor is studied in chapter 4. Ignatius urges the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as God’s temple, thereby demanding purity but likewise connecting this statement to unity with the bishop. The Philadelphians’ purity is closely tied to their actions that must accord with the bishop, presbytery, and deacons. Taking into account that the temple and high priestly metaphors occur within the same argument against Judaism and that Ignatius advises imitation of Jesus’s example of imitation of the Father, chapter 4 argues that the high priestly and temple metaphors are linked in this letter. The Philadelphians are able to be God’s temple as they follow the example of Jesus the high priest, who reveals the Father to them. Chapter 5 turns to the first of the two temple metaphors that Ignatius employs when writing to Ephesus. Ignatius places the first metaphor in the context of his approbation of the Ephesians’ rejection of docetic teachers (Eph. 9.1–2). In refusing false doctrine, the Ephesians demonstrated that they are stones in the Father’s temple, and Ignatius elaborates that they are being lifted into the Father’s building by a crane consisting of Jesus’s cross and a rope, who is the Holy Spirit. The temple outlines the Ephesians’ collective unity with one another against other teaching while simultaneously highlighting Jesus’s mediatorial action. By his death on the cross, Jesus enables the Ephesians to be lifted into the Father’s presence. The imagery then shifts to a cultic procession in which the Ephesians carry sacred objects in order to make them known in the world. A further temple metaphor is located in Eph. 15.3. The Ephesians individually are God’s temples, in whom God dwells. However, this time the God who indwells the Ephesians is not the Father but Jesus. Chapter 6 engages Legarth’s assertions that there is a tension-filled relationship between Ignatius’s depictions of Jesus as God and simultaneous descriptions of Jesus’s obedience to the Father. Jesus’s obedience is in turn linked to his mediatorial and revelatory work. However, chapter 6 lays the groundwork for seeing Ignatius’s description of Jesus as God in a way that is closely linked with Ignatius’s portrayal of Jesus’s mediatorial work. Chapter 7 capitalizes on these discussions by taking up the fourth temple metaphor that Ignatius employs in Magn. 7.2. He urges the Magnesians to run together to one temple, to one altar, and to one Jesus Christ. The singularity of these three images promotes the unity to which Ignatius calls the Magnesians under Damas in Magn. 2.1–7.2. In addition, the temple and altar imagery derive their unifying force from their Jewish symbolism and thereby prepare the way for Ignatius’s discussion of Judaism in Magn. 8.1–10.3. The temple metaphor

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is located at a transition in the letter that permits Ignatius to call the Magnesians again to unity while beginning to turn his focus to the Judaism that he views as problematic in Magnesia. In the midst of this, he refers to Jesus’s unity with the Father as he came forth from the Father, during the incarnation, and in his return to the Father after his death. Jesus’s unity with the Father provides an example that should inform the Magnesians’ unity not only with Jesus and the Father but also with the bishop. Moreover, it is on the basis of this unity that Jesus reveals and mediates the Father to the Magnesians. Finally, the unity with the Father that Ignatius attributes to Jesus is unique and identifies him as God. He is both high priest and God, and it is only by being both that he can reveal the Father to the Magnesians and mediate for them within the temple. Chapter 8 addresses two matters. First, it examines a potential problem that might be apparent to those who have read this study and are familiar with the works of Legarth and Kieffer. Both authors cover more Ignatian texts than are addressed in this work, leaving open the possibility that the analysis contained in these pages is not exhaustive. However, chapter 8 demonstrates that Ignatius’s other cultic language is employed for multiple effects. Although the temple metaphors ought to be studied with reference to their particular letters and are not exactly univocal in each instance, they have in common that each usage of the metaphor is concerned with the audience’s unity. Such shared concern differentiates them from Ignatius’s other cultic language. Moreover, the role of Jesus in each temple metaphor brings about another reason for limiting the concern of this study to the high priest and temple imagery. This leads to the second matter. Chapter 8 takes up the treatment of Jesus as both God and mediator elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters to suggest that Legarth’s finding of a tension-filled relationship cannot stand either with regard to the temple metaphors or elsewhere in the letters. Ignatius employs the imagery of a mouth, word, chorus, and star to show that Jesus reveals the Father. Such imagery portrays Jesus as a bridge-figure between the Father and the people but also assumes a unique identity for Jesus that enables Ignatius elsewhere to refer to him as θεός. Jesus is therefore able to mediate between the Father and his people precisely because he is God. With an overview of the entire argument freshly in mind, final suggestions about the study’s conclusions and implications can now be considered.

9.3. Major Conclusions and Implications 9.3. Major Conclusions and Implications

The outcomes of this project with its narrow focus on one set of paired metaphors are correspondingly unostentatious. Yet the tightly circumscribed subject matter has implications for a number of areas within Ignatian research. For example, the thesis began by noting the importance of reading Ignatius’s letters

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as individual compositions since they were written as occasional letters.1 The interpretation of the temple and priestly metaphors that followed took care to set the metaphors in their respective places in each letter and to demonstrate how each metaphor connects with the rhetorical aims of the rest of the letter. Working from this posture has shown that the temple metaphors are employed to slightly different effect in each letter, that the metaphors are nonetheless alike since they are used to promote unity, and that Ignatius’s other cultic imagery functions for a variety of purposes that include but are not limited to unity alone. Although Ignatius’s letters are broadly similar to one another, taking care to read each letter as a complete document in itself allows Ignatian metaphors and motifs across the letters to come into sharper focus within individual compositions. Chapters 3–7 thus vindicate the methodological approach advocated in chapter 1. The temple metaphors contribute uniquely to each of the letters that have been examined here. After exploring the role of metaphor within the letters individually, differences can be viewed more clearly regarding the God deserving of worship, the active or passive orientation of the audience, and whether the audience is referred to collectively or individually. For example, previous chapters noted that the temple in Eph. 9.1, Magn. 7.2, and Phld. 7.2 are oriented toward the Father. This is clearest in Eph. 9.1 where the word πατήρ is mentioned explicitly, but θεός in Magn. 7.2 and Phld. 7.2 likewise should be understood with reference to the Father.2 Jesus is called θεός in Eph. 15.3 and is thus the central figure of worship in that temple metaphor. Ignatius’s temple metaphors can variously assume a passive or active disposition for his audience. The temple provides a goal for ethical instruction in Phld. 7.2 and Magn. 7.2, and the readers are accordingly urged either to run toward or keep their flesh as the temple. Similarly, that Jesus dwells in the Ephesian temple is the motivation behind Ignatius’s exhortation to act properly in Eph. 15.3. However, Ignatius’s earlier temple metaphor in that letter depicted the Ephesians as passive objects who benefit from the Father’s salvific work in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They are stones who have no agency but are merely lifted from one place to the next. The temple metaphors in Ephesians differ again in that Eph. 9.1 refers to the Ephesians corporately as a single temple, while Eph. 15.3 describes them individually as temples. The processional imagery in Eph. 9.2 likewise portrays the Ephesians as individuals who carry sacred objects but assumes a single focus around which the procession moves. In Magn. 7.2, the temple is a single entity toward which the Magnesians run as a group, while the reference to the Philadelphians’ flesh recognizes this individuality but incorporates it into a single Philadelphian temple (Phld. 7.2). Ignatius alternates the way in which he employs temple imagery with regard to who is worshipped 1 2

See section 1.4.2. See sections 4.3.3. and 7.4.

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in the temple, whether his audience is passive or active, and in view of individual or collective reference. Two further notes should be made about the unique features of specific temples. First, the scope of most temple metaphors, although often unspecified, is primarily focused on the particular communities to which Ignatius is writing when he employs them. Yet there is a glaring exception in Eph. 9.1 where the Ephesians are stones in the temple but are being lifted into God’s building. The change in position has both spatial and temporal significance.3 The Ephesians are pulled into a heavenly building that includes all of God’s people throughout space and time. Within this magnificent structure, the Ephesians are a vital but by no means exhaustive portion of the stones utilized as the building materials. Most temple metaphors may be used primarily with reference to a specific audience, but the imagery in Eph. 9.1 illustrates the multifaceted possibilities for Ignatius’s descriptions. Second, discerning Ignatius’s imagery within each letter allows the polemical contexts to surface more clearly. Within these contexts, Phld. 7.2 and Magn. 7.2 emerge in a similar light over and against Eph. 9.1 and 15.3. Whereas Eph. 9.1 describes the Ephesians’ unity in rejecting docetic teachers and Eph. 15.3 depicts the Ephesians as unified with a silent God, just as they should be united with Onesimus their silent bishop (see Eph. 6.1), Phld. 7.2 and Magn. 7.2 are placed in or immediately prior to Ignatian arguments against Jewish opponents. In both of these letters, the temple metaphor ascribes a traditionally, though not exclusively, Jewish image to Ignatius’s Christian audience. The temple fits with Ignatius’s discussion of the prophets (Magn. 8.2; 9.2; Phld. 5.2; 9.1–2), scripture (Phld. 8.2), Sabbath worship (Magn. 9.1), circumcision (Phld. 6.1), and the patriarchs (Phld. 9.1). In utilizing the temple, Ignatius claims that all these symbols are properly understood in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Nevertheless, one overarching commonality has reappeared at every turn in this exploration of Ignatius’s temple imagery, namely, the goal of unity for which the imagery is employed. All of the Philadelphians are to act in support of the bishop by keeping their flesh pure and unified like God’s temple. Similarly, the Magnesians are instructed to run together (συντρέχω) as if to one temple. By doing this, they will demonstrate and develop their unity. Ignatius’s most elaborate description of the temple depicts the Ephesians as stones of a single building and participants in a single procession, while the one God, Jesus himself, indwells each of them individually and unifies them with Onesimus. Ignatius’s metaphor can be employed in diverse ways to fit a variety of rhetorical needs, but they share in common a focus on unity. Previous chapters have likewise argued that they share a coherent view of Jesus, and the implications of these observations will be addressed shortly.

3

See section 5.3.2.2.

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Before that, it is important to take note of a significant difference between Ignatius’s temple and priestly imagery and his other cultic language. The other cultic language is employed in a variety of ways that are not focused only on unity. Having highlighted the ways in which Ignatius can utilize cultic language already,4 it remains to note two implications of this finding. First, for all of Ignatius’s emphasis on Jesus’s suffering and death, Jesus is not the sacrificial victim of any of the sacrificial metaphors. Ignatius, on the other hand, refers to himself as a drink offering (Rom. 2.2) and sacrifice (Rom. 4.2). By employing these metaphors in multiple ways, Ignatius highlights a different nuance from, for example, the author of Hebrews, who portrays Jesus as both high priest (Heb 5.1–10; 7.1–28) and sacrificial victim (Heb 9.11–14). Although Ignatius is quick to say that Jesus died, the temple and high priestly metaphors offer opportunities to speak primarily of Jesus’s mediation without highlighting Jesus’s sacrificial role in the cultic imagery. Ignatius imitates Jesus in his desire to sacrifice himself, but the difference in metaphorical framing allows Ignatius’s imitation to be distanced from Jesus’s salvific death. Second, the recognition that Ignatius can employ similar imagery for different purposes within seemingly related metaphorical fields should give interpreters pause when reading Ignatius’s metaphors. Care must be taken to read each metaphor within its epistolary setting before concluding that particular metaphors have the same meaning. The significance of this finding can be briefly illustrated with reference to a further example. In several of his letters, Ignatius utilizes botanical imagery. Such language is often used by Ignatius in conjunction with false teaching.5 The Trallians and Philadelphians should stay away from flora that has not been planted by the Father (Trall. 11.1; Phld. 3.1). Ignatius identifies heresy as a foreign plant (ἀλλοτρία βοτάνη; Trall. 6.1).6 Similarly, he praises the Ephesians for not allowing false teachers to sow seeds among them (Eph. 9.1). Yet despite these similarities, horticultural imagery is employed for additional purposes. For example, as trees are revealed by their fruit, so also those who claim to belong to Christ will be made evident by their 4

See section 8.2. Similar imagery is attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of the Egyptians, in which Clement of Alexandria reports that Jesus says, “Eat every plant, but do not eat the one that is bitter” (πᾶσαν φάγε βοτάνην, τὴν δὲ πικρίαν ἔχουσαν µὴ φάγης; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.9). 6 Schoedel rightly notes that αἵρεσις is not defined in particularly doctrinal terms in Trall. 6.1 and notes that the relative pronoun that follows underscores Ignatius’s concern about the teachers because it is nominative plural (οἵ). Yet Schoedel’s clarification, “Ignatius is concerned about the false teachers themselves rather than their false teaching” (Ignatius, 147), is overstated. By definition, false teachers teach falsely. This, along with the emphasis on Jesus’s fleshly existence, death, and resurrection (Trall. 9.1–2) signifies Ignatius’s concern about the false teaching propagated by such teachers. Although Schoedel is right that αἵρεσις is connected more narrowly with the division brought about by false teaching, this cannot be easily separated from the false teaching itself. 5

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actions (Eph. 14.2). Fruit trees provide Ignatius with the material from which to form a simile that divides between genuine and fraudulent followers of Jesus. When Ignatius begins to draw Ephesians to a close, he again employs a botanical metaphor when he refers to eucharistic bread-breaking as “the medicine of immortality” (φάρµακον ἀθανασίας; Eph. 20.2). Here the pharmaceutical notion has nothing to do with false teaching but signifies instead that eucharistic participation provides the means that conquers death.7 By paying attention to Ignatius’s variation in his cultic metaphors, this study likewise opens the possibility for further clarity regarding other Ignatian metaphors. In addition, the close attention given to the utilization of temple metaphors within individual letters suggests that future studies of Ignatius should also devote more attention to the way in which metaphors function in distinct compositions.8 I have argued that there is a consistent view of Jesus across the various temple metaphors by maintaining that high priestly language is more common in the temple metaphors than is often recognized, by demonstrating the integration of Jesus’s role as high priestly mediator and God in Ignatian thinking, and by illustrating other places in the Ignatian letters where a similar view of Jesus may be found. To begin with, Ignatius’s single use of the term ἀρχιερεύς is connected to Jesus’s mediation between the Father and his people and should be linked to the metaphor of the door by which Jesus mediates, reveals, and grants the people access to the Father (Phld. 9.1). The high priestly metaphor occurs in the same argument as Ignatius’s temple metaphor in Phld. 7.2. Although the temple pertains primarily to unity with the bishop and the high priest is more closely associated with the disagreement over the priority of Jewish scriptures that Ignatius encountered in Philadelphia, Jesus’s high priestly mediation enables the Philadelphians to keep their flesh as God’s temple. Ignatius hints at this already in Phld. 7.2 with his instruction to imitate Jesus as he imitated his Father. A similar priestly and mediatorial position is assumed by Jesus when Ignatius describes the cross as a crane that lifts the Ephesian stones from the Father’s temple into his building (Eph. 9.1). Likewise, Jesus’s relationship to his Father is highlighted in apposition to the temple metaphor of Magn. 7.2 in order to portray him as the one who can mediate between the Magnesians and the Father on the basis of his incarnation and unity with the Father. In addition, this study has maintained that, although Jesus’s roles as high priestly mediator and God are employed differently in some places, these elements of Ignatius’s reflection on Jesus are thoroughly integrated. This is illustrated most clearly in Magn. 7.2 where Jesus’s identity with the Father and 7 Presumably this is possible because the Eucharist is connected to Jesus’s actions or, as in Eph. 20.2, to life in Christ. On the comparative background of Ignatius’s statement, see Wehr, Arznei der Unsterblichkeit, 106–111. 8 For additional comments regarding metaphor studies in Ignatius, see section 9.4.

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ability to mediate between him and the people are simultaneously highlighted in the brief description of “the one who came forth from the Father and was with the One and returned” (Magn. 7.2). Likewise, Ignatius is happy to juxtapose portrayals of Jesus as high priest and God in the temple imagery of Eph. 9 and 15. The mediation of Jesus in Eph. 9.1 has just been mentioned, but Ignatius goes on to refer to Jesus in a metaphorical reference to sacred objects that the Ephesians must venerate in Eph. 9.2. They are both θεοφόροι and χριστοφόροι, and their participation in the processional metaphor that Ignatius constructs signifies their recognition that Jesus is worthy of worship. Moreover, his deservingness of worship follows Ignatius’s description of his redemptive mediation as the cross in the temple (Eph. 9.1). Jesus is able to mediate for the Ephesians and usher them into the Father’s building because he is God who suffered and died on the cross. Far from giving evidence for a tension-filled relationship, Eph. 15.3 continues this Ignatian line of thinking that is illustrated in the temple metaphors. The Ephesians’ secrets are not hidden from Jesus because he is the God who resides in each individual temple. Jesus is worthy of worship as God on the basis of his redemptive mediation that he undertook as one who is uniquely identified with the Father. Nor is this way of thinking about Jesus limited to the temple metaphors alone. Jesus mediates between the Father and his people while also revealing the Father elsewhere in Ignatius’s letters, and this suggests that the line of thought described using the priestly metaphor is not limited only to the temple metaphor. Jesus makes known something of the Father’s identity or economy to others as the Word, the mouth, the chorus, and the star. God the Father is revealed to the Magnesians through Jesus his Word (Magn. 8.2). He reveals why Ignatius’s plea should be taken as truth because he is the mouth through whom the Father has truly spoken (Rom. 8.2). He mediates between the Romans, Ephesians, and the Father in their respective choruses (Rom. 2.2; Eph. 4.2). Further, Jesus is the star who revealed the plan of God to the surprised aeons in his incarnation. This novel revelation is depicted with Jesus as a brightly shining star and resulted in such things as the dissolution of bonds and the destruction of the old kingdom when God was revealed humanly (Eph. 19.2– 3). Jesus reveals the Father and mediates such things as knowledge of the truth and of the economy to God’s people. Yet these passages clarify that Jesus is able to do so because the revealer is God himself. The close connection between the Father and Jesus, indeed the shared identity of the two, is further reflected in their common attribution as θεός. Jesus’s unique connection to God as God is also evident in the often anti-docetic statements that juxtapose Jesus’s humanity and divinity, emphasizing his humanity but taking for granted his divinity (e.g. Eph. 7.2; 18.2; 20.2; Smyrn. 1.1; Pol. 3.2). The focus of this study on the high priestly and temple imagery has demonstrated that Jesus’s identity

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as high priest and God is assumed and integrated into the imagery. The discussion of other parts of the letters suggests that this integration is maintained throughout Ignatius’s statements about Jesus. The final implication to be drawn from this study concerns Ignatius’s cultural background. The current comparisons of Ignatius with various elements of a broadly Second Sophistic rhetorical environment are often enlightening but have not been comprehensively integrated into this study.9 Although similar emphasis on harmonious relationships can be found in Greco-Roman political discourse where the temple could serve as a sign of unity, the most enlightening way in which such material was employed in this study was with regard to the processional metaphor in Eph. 9.2.10 While the interpretation of Ignatius’s letters against the backdrop of Greco-Roman rhetoric should continue, I have paid more attention to the early Christian and early Jewish literature that offers similarly enlightening comparative material for Ignatian metaphors in order to bring balance to discussions of Ignatius’s background. The image of stones in the temple can be found not only in Eph. 9.1 but also in 1 Pet 2.4–10 and Herm. Sim. 9.3.5–9.4.8 (80.5–81.8); 9.12.4–9.13.8 (89.4– 90.8). Paul employs the temple metaphor in pursuit of unity in Corinth (1 Cor 3.16–17) in a comparable manner to Ignatius’s letters to Ephesus, Magnesia, and Philadelphia. High priestly meditation is a way of describing Jesus’s work in Heb 7.1–28, 1 Clem. 36, and Pol. Phil. 12.2. Ignatius explicitly shares in this tradition in Phld. 9.1 and implicitly in the other temple imagery. Moreover, Levi is likewise portrayed as a priestly revelatory figure in the Aramaic Levi tradition. The temple is also a sign of unity for Philo and Josephus. The juxtaposition of agrarian and building metaphors in Eph. 9.1 is also found in Isa 61.3–4, Jer 1.10, Ezek 36.9–10, and 1QS (1Q28) VIII, 5–6; XI, 8.11 Two points can be made from these observations. First, Ignatius writes as one who imitates Jesus and Paul during a time when Χριστιανισµός and Ἰουδαϊµός were becoming more clearly defined.12 Yet, as Ignatius’s letters attest in Magn. 8–10 and Phld. 5–9, some crossover remained at this time. Despite Ignatius’s infrequent citations of scripture, he was aware of scriptural concepts, characters, and motifs. The temple metaphor derives its power as a symbol for unity from the singularity of the Jerusalem temple, while the high priestly depiction of Jesus in Phld. 9.1 is developed in explicit contrast 9 See especially Brent, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic, passim; idem, “Ignatius’ Pagan Background,” 207–232. See also Harland, “Christ-Bearers and Fellow Initiates,” 481–499; Lotz, Ignatius and Concord, 67–94; Maier, “The Politics and Rhetoric of Discord,” 307–324; idem, “Paul, Ignatius and Thirdspace,” 174–176. 10 See section 5.4. 11 The combination is also utilized in 1 Cor 3.5–17. 12 Ignatius was not alone during the second century in his practice of imitation. Polycarp likewise imitates Jesus and Paul in his letter to Christians at Philippi, on which see Jonathon Lookadoo, “Polycarp, Paul, and the Letters to Timothy,” NovT 59 (2017): 366–383.

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to Jewish priests. That Ignatius, as an early Christian author, writes against a background that is influenced by Second Temple Jewish literature is hardly surprising. With differing opinions and varying degrees of explicitness, this is true of almost every early Christian text from the first two centuries. Yet Ignatius’s relationship to Judaism, however loose it may have been, leads to a second point: the analysis of Ignatius’s conceptual background must continue to include Second Temple Jewish texts alongside early Christian texts and Second Sophistic rhetoric. Some elements of Ignatius’s conceptual background may be more similar to particular strands of thought in the Greco-Roman environment of the Flavians and Antonines, but it should not be isolated from potentially enlightening parallels by omitting comparisons with other segments of society that may clarify Ignatius’s thought. This thesis has focused on early Jewish and early Christian parallels in the hope of placing these alongside other, often compelling, comparisons with Second Sophistic rhetoric by Brent and others. To the degree that this heads off a potential skewing of Ignatius by focusing only on comparisons of Ignatius and the Second Sophistic, the exercise hopes to have been helpful. If, however, early Jewish and early Christian texts are understood as the only ones against which to read Ignatius, the exercise will merely skew the reading of Ignatius’s letters in another direction.

9.4. Looking Ahead, Again 9.4. Looking Ahead, Again

This chapter closes as chapter 1 closed, namely, by looking ahead. However, the view should now be a bit clearer and permit further visibility into the distance than the preview of this study in the opening chapter. Three matters may be highlighted as future avenues of study. The first avenue down which to look follows from the findings regarding Ignatius’s depiction of Jesus as both mediator and God and the corresponding unsuitability of Legarth’s description of a “tension-filled relationship” in the temple metaphors. With this in view, further study is needed not only of Ignatius’s high priestly and divine Christology but also of the relationship between Jesus’s mediation and revelation, on the one hand, and identity as God, on the other hand. Although a brief examination of Ignatian texts other than the temple metaphors was conducted in chapter 8, much remains to be done in order to clarify more fully the way in which these descriptions of Jesus function in Ignatius’s thought. One example of how this might build upon the connections between Jesus as an example to imitate and as God could bring the insights of this study to bear on Ignatius’s exclamation to the Romans, “Let me be an imitator of the passion of my God” (ἐπιτρέψατέ µοι µιµητὴν εἶναι τοῦ πάθους τοῦ θεοῦ µου; Rom. 6.3). Ignatius seeks to imitate Jesus as the God who died as he travels to his own expected death in Rome. Jesus’s suffering reveals something

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about God’s identity, while assuming that Jesus is to be identified as God in the midst of this revelation. Second, this study of metaphors hopes to have provided some ways forward for studying other metaphors in Ignatius’s letters. Future analysis could attempt to understand Ignatius’s letters with fuller appreciation for his rhetorical and epistolary constructions. Two paths suggest themselves. First, as the high priest and temple are paired metaphors that describe Jesus and the church, so another metaphor is paired in a different sense. Ignatius refers to both Jesus and himself as ἄνθρωπος and suggests a close relationship between Jesus and himself in so doing. Thus Jesus is referred to as ὁ καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (Eph. 20.1) and ὁ τέλειος ἄνθρωπος (Smyrn. 4.2). These terms attribute to Jesus a humanity that is identifiable with Ignatius and his readers but has surpassed them through Jesus’s death and resurrection. Yet Ignatius links human beings with Jesus by referring to himself as ἄνθρωπος. “Let me receive the pure light. When I arrive there, I will be a human being” (ἄφετέ µε καθαρὸν φῶς λαβεῖν. ἐκεῖ παραγενόµενος ἄνθρωπος ἔσοµαι; Rom. 6.2). Ignatius is identified with Jesus in death by following his example. Moreover, the statement also suggests that Jesus’s humanity informs Ignatius’s own understanding of humanity. A second path of metaphor study in Ignatius could pursue the role of scripture and metaphor. Olavi Tarvainen briefly suggests that Ignatius employs a number of biblical images.13 This study has refrained from suggesting that the temple and high priestly metaphors are indebted to specific, identifiable texts but has instead proposed that the imagery reflects a similar thought-world. Does Ignatius’s botanical imagery in his warnings (e.g. Trall. 6.1; Phld. 3.1) move in a similar world to Isa 5 or to the traditions reflected in Matt 15.13? Does the image of Jesus as a star in Eph. 19.2–3 reflect an awareness of messianic interpretations of Num 24.17, or does it correspond more closely to Joseph’s astronomical dream (Gen 37.9)? Or might it draw upon still other revelatory traditions, such as those reflected in Wis 18.14–15 or Dan 2.20–23? These suggestions are merely possibilities and must of course be followed by thorough analysis. Yet they are possibilities that could add a dimension to Ignatius’s use of, or at least comparability with, the scriptures, if one does not allow explicit citations alone to determine whether an author uses a text and accepts that Phld. 8.2 has more to do with hermeneutical priorities instead of hermeneutical abilities. Finally, this study has taken seriously the individuality of each of Ignatius’s letters and noted that they were originally written to specific audiences in various cities. This manner of reading is not intended to supplant more synthetic readings of the letters but to complement them by honoring the original way in which the letters were read. Yet in reading the letters individually, connections between the letters have been found in the high priestly and temple metaphors in Philadelphians, Ephesians, and Magnesians. Other connections may be 13

Tarvainen, Faith and Love, 12 (Glaube und Liebe, 25–26).

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found by devoting fresh attention to each of the letters as individual compositions. For example, one could press on to consider how Ignatius’s letter writing practices compare with other early Christian letter writers. Such studies may respect Ignatius’s composition of seven unique letters, while offering opportunities to compare them with one another or other similar letters. In these ways, this narrowly focused monograph about Ignatius’s temple and high priestly metaphors hopes to add something helpful to others who study Ignatius’s letters as well as early Christian history and literature.

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Index of References

Old Testament Genesis 1.1–2.3 1.1–31 1.26 2.7 2.24 14.17–20 37.9 49.10

211 204 169 169 125 75 301 85

Exodus 19.6 29.46 32.7 33.1 34.28 40.34–38

67 206 248 73 248 206

Leviticus 16.1–34 16.2 16.15 16.16 16.17 16.20–22 16.29–34 26.11–12

72–74 72 72 72 73 72 72 207

Numbers 3.38 14.2 24.7 24.17

70 244 85 83, 85, 301

Deuteronomy 6.4

210

12 30.14 33.10

126 193 81

Joshua 18.11–28

176

2 Samuel (2 Kingdoms) 7.8 207 7.14 207 1 Kings (3 Kingdoms) 8.6 70 8.10–11 206 8.27–31 206 2 Kings (4 Kingdoms) 6.6 170 11.13 245 2 Chronicles 4.22 23.12

70 245

Ezra 6.13–18

206

Job 5.5

96

Psalms 1.3 2 2.7 19.1–6

234 85 77 253

328

Index of References

19.1–3 33.9 50.18 66.3 68.19 104.4 110.1 110.4 118.19–20 118.20 122 132 132.13–15

200 204 244 281 161 77 75, 77 75 90–93 91, 177 85 85, 206 206

Proverbs 1.16 3.34 18.17 20.6 20.23

245 63, 147, 269 63, 234 65 65

Isaiah 5 6.1–5 8.14 11.1–5 11.1 13.10 19.20 28.16 34.4

51.7 52.11 61.3–4

200 207 151–152, 299

Jeremiah 1.10 18.9 31.33

152, 299 152 200

Ezekiel 10.1–22 20.34 20.41 36.9–10 37.27

206 207 207 152, 299 207

Daniel 2.20–23 7.13

301 85

Amos 9.11–15

301 206 177 85 81 112 85 177 112

Zechariah 2.1–5

206

Malachi 2.6–7

81

Deuterocanonical Works Tobit 12.19

32

Judith 4.12 6 6.16 8.21 8.23 8.24 9.9 9.13 10.8

70 244 244–245 249 113 249 249 249 113

13 14.3

249 249

Wisdom 3.6 6.6 18.14–15

266 113 20, 282, 301

Sirach 24.8–12 24.10 30.24

206 206 113

329

Index of References 1 Maccabees 3.43 10.42 2 Maccabees 3

70 70

206

3.30 6.11

206 244

4 Maccabees 6.29 17.21

275 275

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2 Baruch 48 48.24 78.4

247 247 247

1 Enoch 46.3–5 48.2–7 49.1–4 51.3 90.26–36 90.28–29

85 85 85 85 176 176

4 Ezra 13.2–13

85

Joseph and Aseneth 12.7 109 Jubilees 21 21.5–10 30.1–32.9 31.11–17

81 81 80 81

Odes of Solomon 38.17–22

152

Psalms of Solomon 2.3 71 2.13 71 8.12–13 71 Pseudo-Phocylides 9 113

Sentences of the Syriac Menander 389–390 113 Sibylline Oracles 1.272 1.295 2.49 2.257 3 5 5.108–110 5.155–161 5.256–259 5.256 5.257–259 5.414–433 5.414 5.422–428 5.422–425 5.422 5.423–424 5.433 8.235

113 113 113 276 84 60, 84 84 84 84 84 84 84, 86, 175 85 85 6 85, 175 175 6, 85, 175–176 161

Testament of Benjamin 9.2 176 Testament of Judah 24 243 25 243 25.3 243 Testament of Levi 5.1 9.6–9

84 81

330 16–17 16.1–17.1 17–18 17 17.1–8 17.8 18 18.2 18.3 18.10 18.16

Index of References 83–84 71 83 84 83 83 84 83 83 83–84 83

Testament of Reuben 6.11 82 Testament of Naphtali 5–6 82 5.2–3 82–83 6.6 82–83 6.8 83

Dead Sea Scrolls CD II, 5 III, 18 IV, 6 IV, 9–10 IV, 15–19 XIV, 3 XIV, 19 XX, 34

72 72 72 72 80 72 72 72

1QM VII, 4–5

127

1QS (1Q28) V, 6–7 VIII, 5–6 VIII, 6–10 VIII, 7 IX, 3–6 IX, 6 XI, 8

175 152, 175, 299 175 175 175 175 152, 299

1QSa (1Q28a) II, 3–11

127

4QDa (4Q266) 10 I, 12–13

72

11QTa (11Q19) XIII, 17–XXIX XXVI, 5–6 XXVI, 7–10 XXVI, 11–13 XLV–XLVII XLV XLV, 7–8 XLV, 11 XLV, 12–14 XLV, 13–14 XLV, 17–18 XLVII XLVII, 8–9 XLVII, 10–11 XLVII, 15

72 72 72 72 126–127 126–127 126 126 126–127 127 127 127 127 127 127

Ancient Jewish Writings Aramaic Levi Document 3.6 80–81 5.4–5 80 5.8–10.14 81 5.8 81 13 81

13.1 13.4–7

81 81

331

Index of References Josephus

De excsecrationibus 162 54

Antiquitates judaicae 1.22 54 3.91 247 3.307 244 4.200–201 247 5.113 117 7.147 113 14.420–430 162 14.423 162 Bellum judaicae 1.460 5.458 Contra Apionem 1.25 1.227 2.193 2.256 2.290

235 134

54 168 247 54 117

Philo De cherubim 91 De ebrietate 139

54

117

Legum allegoriae 3.86

96

De migratione Abrahami 150 162 De mutatione nominum 125 42, 97 De opificio mundi 10 162 De specialibus legibus 1.28 162 1.67 246 1.68 246–247 1.69 247 1.149 162 2.9 162 2.114 162 2.165 162 3.93 162 De virtutibus 34 218

162 162

Rabbinic Writings Mishnah Avot 3.5

Yoma 3.3

72

133

New Testament Matthew 6.12 7.1–2 10.8–15 10.16 10.28

151 31 133 31 195

10.38 12.41–42 13.43 15.13 17.19 22.44

165 65 109 301 239 75

332

Index of References

23.21 24.3 24.29 26.55 28.19–20

134 239 112 109 269

Mark 4.34 6.33 8.24 10.15 12.36 13.24–25

239 244 165 109 75 112

Luke 1–2 1.46–47 1.52–53 1.68 1.69 1.78 6.36–38 9.23 11.4 14.27 20.42 23.41 24.27 24.49

111 111 111 111 111 161 31 165 151 165 75 232 42, 97 161

John 1.1 1.14 2.16 2.19–21 3.8 3.16 3.23 5.19 5.30 6.66 7.28 8.12 8.28–29 8.28 8.29 8.42 9.1–41

209 6 7 169–170 103 241 193 253 237, 253 196 195 253 253 252–253 241 240, 252 92

10 10.1–18 10.1–5 10.6 10.7–10 10.7 10.9 10.11 10.14–16 10.17–18 10.30 12.28 13.3 14–16 14.10 14.12 14.28 16.10 16.13 16.17 16.28 19.12 20.28

91, 93 92 92 92 92 91–92 91–92 92 92 92 253, 255 195 240, 252 223 253 240 240 240 169 240 240 196 209

Acts 1.15 1.25 2.1 2.34 2.44 2.47 3.11 4.26 7.59–60 9.38 14.27 19.10 19.26 26.29 27.8 27.17 28.19

242 254 242 75 242 242 244 242 79 193 90 228 228 195 193 167 151

Romans 1.3–4 1.7 1.9 2.15 2.16

19, 31 121, 144 117 200 199–200

333

Index of References 3.2 9.5 9.33 10.10 12.6 13.13 16.25–27 1 Corinthians 1.2 1.3 1.10–4.21 1.11–13 1.18–25 1.22 2.6–16 2.10 3 3.5–17 3.5 3.6–17 3.6–8 3.9–17 3.9 3.12 3.16–17 3.16 3.17 3.21–22 4.13 4.20 6.9–11 6.9–10 6.9 6.10 6.12–20 6.13 6.14 6.15–16 6.15 6.16–17 6.16 6.18–20 6.18 6.19

73 209 177 203 104 109 282

177 121, 144 125 177 283 195 125 103 151, 174 176, 299 177 155, 176–177 151 151 176 177 176–177, 179, 207, 299 169–170, 176, 196 177, 196, 276, 287– 288 177 274 203 276 61, 276 90, 196, 276, 285– 287 196 125 125 125 125 125, 170 243 125 125 125 122, 124–126, 176, 196, 207

7.21 7.31 8.6 9.12 9.15 9.26 10.8 11.2 11.23 12–14 12 12.13 13.11 14.25 14.29 15.3–4 15.3 15.25 15.33 16.19

167 167 210, 281 167 167 109 193 73 73 104 210 243 109 200 105 31 73 75 287 228

2 Corinthians 1.2 1.17 1.23 2.12 3.18 4.2 6.14–7.1 6.13 6.16 6.17–18 7.1 7.2 11.3 11.9 12.8–9 12.16 13.10

121, 144 167 117 90 200 200 207–208 207 207–208 207 207 207, 287 287 133 79 133 167

Galatians 1.1 1.3 2.1–14 2.2 3.13 3.16 6.14

62 121, 144 41 239 170 109 165

334 Ephesians 1.1 1.2 1.3–14 1.4 1.5 1.20 2 2.11–22 2.14 2.15–16 2.17–18 2.19–22 2.20 2.21 2.22 3.18–19 4.1–3 4.4–6

Index of References

4.7–16 4.8 4.11 4.13 4.22 5.8

247 121, 144 145 145 145 75 248 247 248 248 248 248 248 248 248 161 243 116, 243, 247–248, 265 243 161 104 66 287 109

Philippians 1.2 1.8 1.15 2.5–11 2.6–11 2.13 2.17–18 2.17 4.12 4.15–20

121, 144 117 133 31 266–267 195 266 266, 274 195 133

Colossians 3.1 4.3

75 90

1 Thessalonians 1.1 2.1–12 2.5 2.9

144 133 117 133

2.10 5.19 5.20–21

117 104 105

2 Thessalonians 1.1 1.2 3.8

144 121 133

1 Timothy 1.2 1.4 1.8 1.15 2.6 3.16 4.7 5.16 5.23

121, 144 53 71, 167 254 117 19 53 133 167

2 Timothy 1.2 4.6

121, 144 266–267, 274

Titus 1.4 1.14 2.13

121 54 209

Philemon 3

121, 144

Hebrews 1 1.3–4 1.5–13 1.5 1.7 1.8 1.13 2.17–18 5–10 5.5–10 6.20 7 7.1–3 7.4–10 7.11–19

77–78 77 32 77 77 209 75, 77 75–76 74 75–76 75 75, 78, 299 75 75 75

335

Index of References 7.11 9 9.1–14 9.3 9.11–14 James 4.6 4.8

75 58–59, 76 77 76 76

63, 269 274

1 Peter 1.1 1.22 2 2.4–10 2.4 2.5 2.6–8 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.22 4.4 5.5

177 274 178 178, 299 177 67, 177–179 177 177–178 177 177 67, 181 75 244 63, 269

2 Peter 1.3 1.16 2.12

151 54 287

1 John 3.3 4.1–3

274 105

2 John 1 3 4

62 144 62

Jude 10

287

Revelation 1.3 1.5–6 1.6 1.10 2–3 2.1–7 2.9 3.7–8 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.1 4.11 5.2 5.9–10 5.12 6.10 9.9 15 15.1–2 15.3 19.12 21.16 22.7 22.9

128 79 67 105 29, 31 44 40 90 90 90 40 90 111 105 111 105 105 245 111 111 111 287 161 128 128

Early Christian Writings Acts of Archelaus 7–9 Acts of Paul 3–4 3.5–6 3.5 10.4.6

155, 162

123 124 122–124, 126 254

Acts of Peter 37.1

165

Acts of Peter and Paul 83 218

336

Index of References

Antiochus the Monk Pandectes 1 22 57 80

148–150, 163 193, 203–204 219–220 238

8.1 9.1–5 9.1–2 9.3 13.3 14.3

123 123 123 122–123, 126 54 287

Clement of Alexandria Athenagoras Legatio 32.1

168

Augustine De spiritu et littera 32 63–64 1 Clement 10.7 13.1–2 20 20.3 20.10–11 27.3 27.6–7 30.2 35.8 36 36.1–2 36.2 36.3 36.4 36.5 48 48.2–4 48.2 49.4 59.9 61.3 64 2 Clement 1–14 1–2 1.4–8 3–14 7.4

271 31 235 235 235 193, 200 200 63, 269 244 77–78, 299 78 77–78, 161 77 77 77 93 91 91 161 96 78 78

123 122–123 123 122–123 287

Excerpta ex Theodoto 23.1 253 35.2 253 36.1 253 Stromateis 3.9 5.113.2–114.1 6.15.128

296 243 96

Codex Baroccianus 180 3 165 Didache 1.1 9–10 9.1 10.1 10.7 11–13 11.1 11.3–6 11.7–12 11.12–13.7 12.1

231 44–45, 219 45 45 43, 45 43, 133 43 134 105 134 43

Didascalia 2.26.5

260

Epiphanius Panarion 30

30

Epistle of Barnabas 4 249 4.2 244 4.4–5 248 4.6–9 248

337

Index of References 4.10 4.11 5.1 5.6 8.1 9.4 15 16 16.1–10 16.1–5 16.1 16.2–5 16.6 16.7 16.8 16.9 16.10 18.1

248–249 126, 248–249 274 136 274 89 207 207–208 126 129 207–208 208 208 208 208 208 208, 249 231

Epistle to Diognetus 2.4 287 3–4 89 3.1–5 89 4.1 89 7.2–6 241 10.2 241 12.8 287

Gospel of Thomas 13 32 13.2 32 Hippolytus De antichristo 59

Refutatio omnium haeresium 7.33.1–2 30 7.34.1 30 9.10.10–11 17 10.21.3 30 10.22.1 30 10.27 17 Ignatius Ephesians inscr.

1.1–6.1 1.1–5.3 1.1

Eusebius Contra Marcellum 2.8.1 254 2.8.1 frag. 31 254 2.8.4 frag. 54 254 Historia ecclesiastica 3.22 12, 21 3.27 30 3.36 12, 16, 21 3.36.5–6 23 3.36.10 23

1.2–3.2 1.2 1.3–6.1 1.3–2.1 1.3 2.1 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2

Gospel of Nicodemus 10(26).1 165 5.3 Gospel of Peter 10.39–42

165

170

6–9

1, 7, 120, 144–145, 160, 166, 184, 188, 205, 209, 213, 223 225 220 1, 7, 114, 120, 146, 187, 199, 205, 209, 212, 215, 223–224, 284 274 230 268 143 115, 199, 269 173, 269 104 2, 146, 154, 225 173, 269 87, 146–147, 226, 269, 282, 284, 298 269 24, 226, 264–265, 267, 269–270, 274, 278 63, 129, 146, 157, 269 147

338 6.1

6.2–10.3 6.2–9.2 6.2 7.1–2 7.1 7.2

8.1–2 8.1 8.2 9.1–2

9.1

9.2

10 10.1–2 10.1 10.3 11.1–20.2 11.1–20.1 11–19 11.1–15.3

11–12 11.1 11.2

Index of References 61, 146, 202–204, 217, 220, 225–226, 295 224–225 158, 226, 268 146, 150, 204 188 146 1, 7, 11, 17, 19, 73, 116, 120, 135, 165– 166, 203, 209, 213, 215, 223–224, 259, 284, 298 154 146, 264, 272, 274 169 7, 24–26, 142, 144, 148, 153, 158–159, 189, 191–192, 214– 216, 221–225, 229, 257, 264, 292, 298 3, 8–11, 119, 145– 157, 160–176, 178– 181, 183, 187–189, 191, 194, 196–197, 201, 205, 209, 212– 216, 222–224, 226– 227, 245, 256, 276, 279–280, 284, 286, 289, 294–299 3, 24, 145, 148, 150–151, 158, 173, 180–183, 186–189, 274, 294, 298–299 146, 159, 222–224 146 27, 158–159 24, 28, 146, 166, 187–188 213, 219 146 157, 219 197, 216–219, 221, 225–226, 276–277, 286 218 146, 157, 205, 213, 217–221 136, 199, 217–219

12.2 13.1–2 13.1 13.2 14.1–15.3 14.1–2 14.1 14.2 15–16 15.1–3 15.1–2 15.1 15.2 15.3–16.2 15.3

16–20 16–19 16.1–2

16.1 16.2 17.1 17.2 18.1–20.2 18.1 18.2–20.1 18.2–19.3 18.2–19.1

71, 147, 217–218 200, 219 22, 147, 157, 205, 219 156 199–201 194, 202, 219 157, 195, 197–198, 200–201, 218 30, 198, 219, 296– 297 197 205, 212, 225, 298 194, 197–198, 202, 204, 217, 220 73, 147, 202–204, 211, 220 30, 202–204, 211, 220 288 1, 3, 7–10, 24–26, 73, 135, 144, 147– 148, 157, 187, 190– 205, 207–209, 211– 214, 216–226, 229, 245, 256–257, 264, 276–277, 279, 284– 286, 288–289, 292, 294–295, 298 147, 197, 219, 268, 277, 287 225–226, 276 147, 196–197, 264, 276–277, 285–286, 288, 290 196–197, 219, 226, 275–279, 285–289 196–198, 219, 254, 278–279, 285–290 135, 147 147, 195, 238 283 195, 238, 272, 274 215 11, 76, 96 1, 147, 165–166, 213, 283

Index of References 18.2

19 19.1 19.2–3 19.2 19.3

20.1–21.2 20.1–2 20.1 20.2 21.1 21.2 Magnesians inscr. 1.1–2 1.1 1.2

2.1–10.3 2.1–7.2

2.1–6.2 2.1–5.2 2.1–3.2 2 3.1–5.2 3.1–2 3.1 3.2 4 5.1–6.1 5.1–2 5.1 5.2

1, 7, 120, 166, 205, 209, 213, 223–224, 226, 298 20 12, 135, 283 24, 73, 156–157, 283–284, 298, 301 9, 147, 283–284 1, 7, 120, 136, 209, 219, 223–224, 283– 284 274 147, 221, 283 2, 24, 173, 201, 219, 226, 237, 301 164, 195, 219, 297– 298 143–144, 264, 272, 275 147

6–8

184, 229, 246 229 234 2, 30, 56, 61, 116, 136, 233–235, 255– 256, 281 236 229–231, 234–235, 251, 260, 262, 265, 292 230 230 260 2, 56, 230, 240, 242, 246, 260 231 61, 231 56, 228, 230–231, 245–246, 260 73, 199, 231, 260 231, 260–261 67 230–231 231, 254, 261 24, 87, 231, 235, 245–246, 261

8–11 8.1–10.3

6–7 6.1–2 6.1

6.2 7.1–2

7.1

7.2

8.1 8.2

9.1–2 9.1

9.2 10.1 10.3 11–15 11 12.1–13.2 12 13 13.1

13.2 14–15

339 234, 241, 252, 254, 257–258, 281 237 240, 260 2, 56, 68, 225, 230– 231, 235, 240–241, 245–246, 254–257, 260, 281 115, 230, 239 57, 61, 229, 232, 235–241, 243, 246, 251–252, 259–260, 262 56, 87, 135, 232, 236–242, 252, 256– 257 3, 7, 9, 24–27, 55, 116, 191, 229, 232, 236–246, 249–262, 264–265, 267, 270, 279–281, 284, 292, 294–295, 297–298 28–29, 56, 229 28, 89, 232, 251, 260, 265, 292, 299 53–54, 232, 261 9, 19, 53–54, 86– 87, 164, 232, 240– 241, 256–259, 261, 281–282, 295, 298 261 28, 32–33, 39, 52, 54–55, 87, 232, 261, 295 53–54, 232, 295 52, 262 38, 52, 232 229–230 1, 28, 33, 52–54, 56, 232, 240, 255 229 63, 129, 234 233 56, 61, 119, 233– 234, 246, 255–256, 281 30, 237 229

340 14 15

Trallians inscr. 1.1 1.2 2.1–3.1 2.1 3.1 4–5.1 4 5.1 5.2 6.1–11.2 6.1–2 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 9–10 9.1–2 9.1 10.1 11.1–2 11.1 11.2 12.2 12.3 13.3

Index of References 229 164, 228–229, 236, 274

184 104 114 2, 61, 67 225, 231 68, 225, 231 44 32 24, 156 156 268 268 28, 167, 296, 301 197 1, 7, 120, 205, 209 24, 264–265, 267– 270, 278 1, 116, 135, 164, 238, 268 17, 129 33 1, 28, 32, 55, 76, 96, 268, 296 116 104, 135, 268 268 24, 28, 296 164 136 133 264, 272, 274

4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 6.2 6.3 7.2 7.3 8.2 8.3 9.1 10.1 10.3 Philadelphians inscr. 1.1–2 1.1 2.1–6.2 2.1–4.1 2.1–2 2.1 3.1 3.2–3 3.2 3.3 4

5–9 Romans inscr. 1.1 2.1 2.2

3.2–3 3.3

1, 7, 86, 120, 184, 209, 272 104, 230 70, 115 8, 24, 264, 266– 267, 270, 272, 274, 278, 282, 284, 296, 298 1, 278 1, 7, 38, 120, 209, 272

5.1–6.2 5.1–6.1 5.1–2 5.1

12, 30, 271 24, 30, 264, 271– 272, 278–280, 296 18, 71, 271–272 1, 21, 218, 238 2, 301 1, 7, 114, 209, 272, 278, 300 12 116, 238 73, 280–282, 298 115 167 274 157

62, 102–103, 119, 121, 135, 184 102, 132 60–62, 88, 121, 135 133 132 88 108, 119, 133, 197 24, 28, 108, 296, 301 61, 103 27, 102, 108, 114, 121, 139–141 98, 116, 276, 287 8, 24, 43, 61, 98, 101–103, 108, 116, 119, 131, 135–136, 167, 264–265, 267, 270, 278 25, 28, 32, 45, 57– 58, 60, 66, 68–70, 79, 86, 89, 97–102, 106, 116–117, 128, 130, 132–133, 136– 140, 215, 257, 292, 299 133, 137 97 97, 133 30, 67, 97, 104, 116, 119, 132, 136, 231

Index of References 5.2

6.1

6.2 6.2–7.2 6.3–8.2 6.3–8.1 6.3–7.2 6.3 7.1–8.2 7.1–2

7.1

7.2–9.1

7.2–8.1 7.2

8.1

8.2–9.2 8.2–9.1 8.2

9.1–2

9.1

42, 53–54, 61, 64, 69, 96–97, 102, 108, 129, 132, 136– 137, 139, 295 10, 38–42, 52, 71, 97–98, 103, 132, 137 62, 132–133, 137 68 102 63, 98, 103, 132– 133, 136–137 109 102, 105, 133 58, 136 43–45, 100–101, 103, 105, 117, 120, 122, 134, 141 73, 103–105, 108, 110, 114–117, 120, 134 3, 26, 189, 191, 209, 214, 216, 229, 264, 280, 284 8, 100, 132, 136, 138–141 2, 7–10, 24–25, 59, 98–104, 106–111, 113–126, 128–132, 134, 136, 139–142, 148, 153–154, 191, 205, 209, 214–215, 226, 257, 279, 292, 294–295, 297 27, 101, 131–132, 134–136, 139–141, 215, 285 42, 63, 69, 97, 132– 133, 137 58, 67 5, 10, 28, 41, 58, 63–64, 66–69, 73, 87, 89, 95–96, 98, 136–137, 295, 301 42, 58, 71, 94, 96– 97, 102, 133, 137, 295 2, 5, 8–9, 24–25, 39, 57–60, 64–67,

9.2

11.2

Smyrnaeans inscr. 1–4 1.1–3.3 1.1 1.2 3 3.1 3.3 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 8.1–2 8.2 9.1 10.1 10.2 11.1 12.2 Polycarp inscr. 1.2 1.3 2.2 2.3 3.2 4.2

341 69–71, 73–80, 83– 84, 86–92, 94–95, 98–100, 108, 129, 137–139, 141–142, 148, 152, 166–167, 198–199, 201, 212, 215–216, 256–257, 278, 280–283, 291– 292, 295, 297, 299– 300 28, 53–54, 64, 68– 69, 71, 73, 95–96, 129, 135, 137–138 102, 116–117, 135, 144, 274

184 33 1, 28, 55, 96 1, 7, 30, 120, 135, 209, 298 116 18 116 116, 237 2, 24, 104, 135, 301 32, 54 116, 135 238 30, 157 43, 102 2 27 1, 7, 120, 205, 209 136, 157, 264, 272, 275 136 61, 139

2, 135, 184, 229 135 65 44 136, 272, 275 1, 17, 19, 157, 264, 298 22

342 4.3 5.1 5.2 6.1 8.1 8.3

Index of References 70 135 287 24, 245, 264, 272, 275 24 1, 7, 120, 135, 139, 209

Adversus Haereses 1.24.1–2 1.26 1.26.1 1.26.2 4 praef. 4 4.20.1 5.6.1 5.6.2 5.16.1 5.17.4 5.18.3 5.28.4

34 31 30, 34 30, 34 169 169 169–170 170 169 170 170 12

Epideixis 4–42 24

89 89

John Malalas

22

Martyrdom of Polycarp 10.1 38 14.2 274 Justin 1 Apologia 49.7

96

Dialogus cum Tryphone 2.4 96 7.1 168 39.5 161 63.5 243

253 170

Origen In Canticum canticorum Prologue 12 Contra Celsum 7.63

Irenaeus

Chronicle 11.276

64.7 96

276

Homiliae in Lucam 6 12 Photius Bibliotheca 126

19

Polycarp Philippians inscr. 2.2 2.3 3.2 3.3 8.1 9.1 10–14 10.2–3 12.2 13 13.1 13.2

19 31 31 19 19 23 12, 17, 19 17 17 78–79, 299 17 12 17, 19, 23

Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71 34, 55 1.46.2–3 55 1.46.4 55 1.48.3–6 34 1.48.5–6 55 Pseudo-Ignatius (long recension) Hero 5.1

63

343

Index of References Magnesians 7.1–2 7.1 7.2

237–239, 241–242 253 259

Philadelphians 7.2 9.1

107–108 65–66, 68

Ephesians 7.2 9.1 15.3

259 148–150, 223 193–194

Pseudo-Marcellus 62 218 Shepherd of Hermas Visions 3 (9–21) 3.2.4–9 (10.4–9) 3.2.8 (22.8) 3.3.3 (11.3) 3.5–7 (13–15) 3.11–13 (19–21) 3.12.2 (20.2) 5.2 (25.2)

92, 178–179 178 167 178 178 178 287 32

Mandates 5.1.7 (33.7) 32 11.7–17 (43.7–17) 105 11.11-12 (43.11-12) 133 11.12 (43.12) 134 Similitudes 7.1–3 (66.1–3)

32

7.5 (66.5) 8 (67–77) 8.1.1–2 (67.1–2) 8.6.5 (72.5) 9 (78–110) 9.1.1–3 (78.1–3) 9.1.3 (78.3) 9.2.1–2 (79.1–2) 9.3.3 (80.3) 9.3.5 (80.5)– 9.4.8 (81.8) 9.4.3 (81.3) 9.4.4–8 (81.4–8) 9.6.3–5 (83.3–5) 9.6.6–8 (83.6–8) 9.7–9 (84–86) 9.9.7 (86.7) 9.12 (89) 9.12.1–5 (89.1–5) 9.12.3 (89.3) 9.12.4 (89.4)– 9.13.8 (90.8) 9.12.5 (89.5) 9.12.7–8 (89.7–8) 9.13.5 (90.5) 9.16.4 (92.4) 9.30.4 (107.4)– 9.31.6 (108.6)

32 152 32 193 91–93, 152, 178– 179 92 32 93 179 299 179 179 179 179 179 179 93 93 93 299 93 32 179 93, 167–168 179

Tertullian De praescriptione haereticorum 36.3 266 Traditio apostolica 8.10–12 260

Greco-Roman Writings Aelius Aristides Orationes 23.24

23.62 27.39 185

61 61

344

Index of References

Antipater

Herodotus

Anthologia Graeca 9.58 185

Historiae 2.63

Aristotle

Homer

De Arte poetica 1454B 1457B

162 14

Dio Chrysostom Rhodiaca (31) 54–56

185

Ad Nicomedienses (Or. 38) 6 235 30 203, 235 42 235 In contione (Or. 48) 1 61 Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca 1.25.4 1.97.9 4.42.3 16.92.5

54 184 244 185, 244

Epictetus Diatribai 3.24.10

Ilias 2.484–760 2.484–493 2.484 24.7–8 24.9

110 110 110 109 109

Odyssea 15.74

110

Inscriptiones Ephesi 27 27.20 27.150–152 27.157–160 27.160–161 27.165 27.174–175 27.178–179

186, 222 186 186 186 186 186 186 186

Lucian Phalaris 1.1

117

Marcus Aurelius 243

Euripides Alcestis 782–785 786

184

Meditationes 7.9

243

Papyrus Oxyrhyncus 1029.25 168 110 110

Hermias In Platonis Phaedrum scholia 9.26 172

Pausanius Graeciae descriptio 4.31.8 185

345

Index of References Plato

Quintilian

Cratylus 425D

162

Hippias maior 282A

110

Ion 535A

Institutio oratoria 8.6.8 14 Sophocles Oedipus coloneus 398

42

42 Strabo

Timaeus 26E

54

Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia 35.36 35.40 36.1–126 36.170

Domitianus 4.4

184

Tacitus

22 22

Annales 15.64 16.35

266 266

Vergil

Plutarch De liberis educandis 12b 276

Aeneid 6.42–45 6.77–82 6.98–103

Moralia 352B 668F 715D

Vitruvius

185, 187 168 168

Proclus Hymni 1.32 1.33–34 1.34

228 143

Suetonius 185 185 160 160

Pliny the Younger Epistulae 10.33–34 10.96–97

Geographica 14.1 14.1.2

172 172 172

Architectura 2 2.7.1 2.7.2 2.7.5 7 pref.16 10 10.2.1 10.2.3 10.2.5 10.2.11–12

104 104 104

160 160 160 160 185 161–162 162, 164 162 162 162

346

Index of References

Xenophon Ephesaica 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.4 1.2.5 1.3.1

185 185 222 185–186 186 18

Index of Modern Authors Achtemeier, Paul J. 177 Albrecht, Felix 63, 269 Anderson, David R. 75 Anderson, Graham 3 Arnold, Brian J. 68 Asano, Atsuhiro 273–274 Atkinson, Kenneth 71 Aune, David E. 40 Baarda, Tjitze 113 Baasland, Ernst 122–123 Bakke, Odd Magne 235 Bammel, Caroline P. Hammond 20–21 Barclay, John M. G. 36, 84 Barfield, Owen 13 Barnes, Timothy D. 16, 18, 21 Barrett, C. K. 8, 34, 40, 53, 91 Barrier, Jeremy W. 123–124 Bartsch, Hans-Werner 33, 155–156 Bates, Matthew W. 287 Bauckham, Richard 5, 210 Bauer, Walter 4, 19, 29, 32, 41, 49, 58, 63, 69, 100, 146, 159, 164, 230, 232, 269, 275 Baumgarten, Joseph 72 Beale, G. K. 206 Beasley-Murray, George R. 92 Becker, Adam H. 38, 88 BeDuhn, Jason 155–156 Behr, John 2 Benedict XVI 60 Bénétreau, Samuel 74 Bengel, Johann Albrecht 266 Bennett, Julian 22 Berg, R. M. van der 172 Bergamelli, Ferdinando 5, 63, 87, 173, 255, 274, 283, 285–286 Berlin, Adele 111 Berner, Christoph 84 Best, Ernest 247 Bieder, Werner 202

Bittasi, Stefano 266–267 Black, Max 14 Bockmuehl, Markus 266 Booth, Wayne C. 13 Borger, Erich 90 Bradshaw, Paul F. 260 Brent, Allen 3–4, 16, 19–20, 61, 104, 109, 159, 183–184, 217, 220, 223, 225, 231, 235, 261, 273, 282, 299– 300 Brooke, George J. 11, 126 Brown, Charles Thomas 34, 64, 88, 136 Brown, Raymond E. 92 Brox, Norbert 29, 178–179 Bucur, Bogdan G. 32 Bullivant, Stephen 268 Bultmann, Rudolf 253 Burke, Patrick 50 Burtchaell, James Turnstead 44 Byers, Andrew J. 210, 256 Cabaniss, Allen 20 Callon, Callie 1, 21 Camelot, Pierre-Thomas 41, 63, 146, 181–183, 185, 193, 195, 203, 232, 271, 274 Campbell, Constantine 125 Capes, David B. 210 Cavallero, Pablo 23, 37, 267, 271, 291 Chadwick, Henry 51 Charles, R. H. 82 Charlesworth, James H. 80 Chester, Andrew 85 Cobb, L. Stephanie 16 Cockerill, Gareth Lee 74, 77–78 Cohen, Shaye J. D. 40, 42, 129 Collins, John J. 80, 84–85 Cook, John Granger 164 Corso, Antonio 160, 162 Corwin, Virginia 4, 33, 41, 52, 59–60, 63, 74, 103, 136, 161, 201, 252

348

Index of Modern Authors

Cranfield, C. E. B. 200 Cureton, William 16, 148 Dahl, Nils Alstrup 145 Daniel, David P. 67 Daube, David 48 Davies, Stevan L. 21 Decrept, Étienne 22 Delafosse, Henri 18 Denniston, J. D. 108–110 Derron, Pascale 113 DeSilva, David A. 249 Dibelius, Martin 243 Dignas, Beate 185 Donahue, Paul J. 28, 33–34, 39, 41, 52 Donfried, Karl P. 123 Dölger, Franz Joseph 184 Downs, David J. 6, 218 Dunn, James D. G. 4, 38, 103–104, 232, 283 Dunn, Peter W. 124 Dyer, Bryan R. 36 Eastman, David L. 218, 266, 272 Ebner, Martin 124 Edwards, Mark J. 18–19 Ehrman, Bart D. 16, 10, 122, 146, 181, 193–194, 203, 232, 268, 271, 274 Elliott, J. K. 165 Elliott, John H. 178 Eshel, Esther 80–81 Fairve, Alexandre 196 Fairve, Cécile 196 Fee, Gordon D. 177 Feldman, Louis 244, 247 Filtvedt, Ole Jakob 5–6, 76, 78, 95 Fischer, Joseph A. 46, 146, 181–182, 193, 195, 237, 266, 268, 271 Foster, Paul 1, 21, 28, 39, 61, 103, 122, 158, 165, 196, 276, 278 Frerichs, Ernest 79–80 Frey, Jörg 92 Funk, Franz Xaver 41, 46, 63, 97, 107, 138, 164, 181–182, 193, 195, 232, 237, 255, 268, 271, 276 Garcia Martinez, Florentino 75 Gärtner, Bertil 175 Gathercole, Simon 32 Gebhardt, Oscar von 104, 182

Geffcken, Johannes 84–85 Genouillac, Henri de 28 Gibbard, S. M. 266 Gilliam, Paul R. 7, 237 Goltz, Eduard von der 4, 28–29, 91, 157, 195, 205 Goulder, Michael D. 29–333, 35–36, 52, 64 Graillot, Henri 184 Granger, Frank 162 Grant, Robert M. 4, 32–33, 38, 40–41, 45, 58, 63, 69, 102–103, 105, 133, 145, 159, 164, 232, 234, 254, 265, 267, 269 Green, William Scott 79–80 Greenfield, Jonas C. 80–81 Gregory, Andrew F. 77 Gunther, John J. 35 Gupta, Nijay K. 176 Guthrie, George H. 207 Hanson, J. W. 143 Harding, James 73 Harland, Philip A. 159, 183, 185, 187– 188, 217, 223, 299 Harnack, Adolf von 104, 182 Harper, Kyle 125 Hartog, Paul 17, 21, 31, 44, 166, 274 Harrill, J. Albert 70 Harris, Murray J. 207 Harrisville, Roy A. 63–64 Hay, David M. 75 Hefele, C. J. 133 Heim, Erin 14–15 Heim Kenneth 158 Hellholm, David 179 Henderson, Jeffrey 185–186 Hengel, Martin 12, 41, 75 Henne, Philippe 77 Herbert, Edward 75 Herczeg, Pál 124 Hilgenfeld, Adolf 33, 158 Hill, Charles E. 35, 53, 61, 64, 93, 157, 205, 241, 253 Himmelfarb, Martha 81 Hoehner, Harold W. 247 Hogeterp, Albert L. A. 208 Holl, Karl 148, 237, 287 Hollander, Harm W. 82–83, 176

Index of Modern Authors Holmes, Michael W. 107, 146, 149, 181–182, 193, 195, 203, 232, 268, 271 Horbury, William 22, 80, 85, 129 Horst, Pieter W. van der 113 Hossfield, Frank-Lothar 90 Hübner, Reinhard M. 16–20 Hurtado, Larry W. 18, 38, 79, 149 Inge, W. R. 31, 76, 103, 204, 276, 288 Isacson, Mikael 22–23, 37, 42, 97, 100, 108, 132–133, 144, 153, 159, 219, 229–231, 235, 242, 252, 291 Jacobi, Christine 31 James, M. R. 165 Jaubert, Annie 78 Jeffers, James S. 86 Jefford, Clayton N. 275 Jensen, Joseph 125 Jeremias, Joachim 204 Jobes, Karen H. 177 Johnson, Mark 15 Johnson, Maxwell E. 260 Joly, Robert 16–17, 93, 96 Jones, F. Stanley 34 de Jonge, Marinus 82–83, 176 Jorgensen, David 169–170 Karrer, Martin 112–113 Karst, Josef 21–22 Käsemann, Ernst 77 Kelly, J. N. D. 1 Khomych, Taras 260 Kieffer, René 9–11, 25–26, 100–101, 118, 134, 155–157, 197, 244, 246, 249–250, 263–265, 267, 270–272, 275–277, 279, 290, 293 Kirk, Alexander N. 267, 272–275 Kirk, G. S. 110 Klauck, Hans-Josef 273 Klawiter, Frederick C. 269 Klevinghaus, Johannes 269 Klijn, A. F. J. 247 Knopf, Rudolf 105, 123, 203 Koch, Dietrich-Alex 177–178 Koester, Helmut 38, 46, 50, 143 Korn, Helmut 104 Kugel, James 83, 111 Kugler, Robert A. 80–82, 84 Kuhner, Matthew 283

349

Laale, Hans Willer 187 Lake, Kirsopp 145, 181–182, 193, 232 Lakoff, George 15 Lampe, Peter 136 Lang, T. J. 48–49, 54, 282 Lebreton, Jules 171 Lechner, Thomas 16–20, 147 Legarth, Peter V. 6–10, 25–27, 59, 95, 100, 108, 118, 128–131, 135, 138– 141, 152–153, 155–159, 164, 167– 168, 171, 191, 196–197, 201, 203– 204, 209–214, 217, 227, 239, 244– 246, 249–251, 263–265, 267, 269– 279, 284–287, 290, 292–293, 300 Lewis, C. S. 13 Lichtenberger, Hermann 90 Lieu, Judith 21, 41, 54, 89, 219 Lightfoot, J. B. 4, 12–13, 16, 19, 21, 28–29, 33–35, 41, 46, 49, 52, 58, 62–63, 65–67, 104, 107, 122–123, 132–133, 135, 145, 148–149, 154, 159, 164, 171–172, 181–182, 193, 195–197, 204–205, 228, 230, 232– 234, 237–238, 242, 250, 267–268, 271, 274–276, 285 Lindemann, Andreas 18, 91, 124, 156 Lipsett, B. Diane 178 Litwa, M. David 17 Lohmeyer, Ernst 90 Löhr, Hermut 28, 78–79 Lona, Horacio E. 91, 115–116, 118, 234, 236 Longenecker, Richard N. 41 Lookadoo, Jonathon 120, 226, 283, 299 Lotz, John-Paul 20, 114, 235, 243, 255, 299 Luchnig, C. A. E. 110 Maier, Harry O. 420, 61, 102, 105, 145, 218, 243, 299 Maier, Johann 127 Malina, Bruce J. 125 Marcar, Katie 177–178 Marcus, Joel 82 Markschies, Christoph 45, 287 Marshall, I. Howard 53 Marshall, John W. 31–33, 36–37, 52 Meinhold, Peter 4, 44, 59, 275 Mellink, Albert 157, 266, 275 Mermelstein, Ari 206

350

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Merz, Annette 62, 71, 124, 145, 266, 273 Michaels, J. Ramsey 92 Milgrom, Jacob 72 Mimouni, Simon Claude 283 Mirecki, Paul 155–156 Mitchell, Matthew W. 34, 89, 269 Moberly, R. W. L. 210 Molland, Einar 28–29, 52–54 Morgan, Teresa 173, 288 Moss, Candida R. 188, 266, 273 Muddiman, John 248 Mullins, Terrence Y. 62 Munier Charles 16, 28, 157 Murray, Michelle 40 Myllykoski, Matti 28, 33–35, 37, 54–56 Nagel, Titus 91 Nanos, Mark D. 281 Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther 208 Neusner, Jacob 79–80 Nickelsburg, George W. E. 176 Nicklas, Tobias 42 Niebuhr, Karl-Wilhelm 33, 39, 41, 52 Niederwimmer, Kurt 45 Niehoff, Maren R. 49 Nock, Arthur Darby 23 Nolland, John 40 Novenson, Matthew V. 11, 80, 117 Oegema, Gerbern S. 84–85 Olson, Daniel 176 Osborn, Eric 169–170 Osiek Carolyn 179 Paget, James Carleton 208, 248–249 Park, M. Sydney 266 Parvis, Paul 122 Parvus, Roger 18 Paulsen, Henning 4, 34, 41, 61, 63, 69, 71, 86, 91, 100, 103–105, 116, 159, 164, 200, 203–204, 229–230, 232, 234, 240, 244, 254, 267–269, 276 Pearson, Johannes 19, 29 Perler, Othmar 273, 275 Phillips, L. Edward 260 Pizzolato, Luigi Franco 202 Pollard, Terrence E. 233 Pomykala, Kenneth E. 80 Pratscher, Wilhelm 122–123 Preiss, Theodor 157, 273

Prigent, Pierre 28–29, 53, 111 Prostmeier, Ferdinand R. 17 Quacquarelli, Antonio 187–188, 273 Rackl, Michael 140 Rahlfs, Alfred 90–91 Rauveret, Agnès 160 Rebell, Walter 273 Reed, Annette Yoshiko 38, 88 Reiling, Jannes 105 Reis, David M. 230, 274 Ribbens, Benjamin J. 75–76 Richards, I. A. 13–14 Richardson, Cyril Charles 4, 33, 35, 40, 52, 60, 140 Ricoeur, Paul 14 Rius-Camps, Josep 33–34 Robert, Louis 235 Robinson, John Archibald Thomas 92 Robinson, Thomas A. 4, 24, 28–29, 32, 37, 50, 57, 143, 147, 151, 159 Rogers, Guy M. 185–187 Rohde, Joachim 27 Roisman, H. M. 110 Romano, Elisa 160, 162 Rordorf, Willy 123 Rothe, Richard 63, 67–68, 97 Rothschild, Clare K. 77–78, 105, 248 Rowland, Christopher 104 Rubinstein, Lene 228 Rzach, Aloisius 85 Saddington, D. B. 21 Samely, Alex 72, 127 Schiffman, Lawrence H. 175 Schlier, Heinrich 23, 41–42, 155–157, 161–163, 253 Schmeller, Thomas 207 Schmithals, Walter 18 Schnackenburg, Rudolf 92 Schnelle, Udo 18, 29 Schoberg, Gerry 31 Schoedel, William R. 4, 16, 19, 28, 33– 34, 39, 41–42, 46, 50–51, 53, 58–60, 63, 69, 71, 73, 88–89, 96–97, 102– 104, 108, 115–116, 132, 136, 145– 146, 150, 164–165, 172–173, 182– 183, 185, 196–197, 201, 203–204, 219, 229–232, 234, 239, 242, 253–

Index of Modern Authors 255, 265, 268–269, 271–272, 276, 285, 296 Schöllgen, Georg 18–19 Schowalter, Daniel 143–144 Schrage, Wolfgang 177 Schwartz, Daniel R. 72 Schweizer, Eduard 40 Schwiebert, Jonathan 45 Sellin, Gerhard 248 Shively, Elizabeth E. 82 Sieben, Hermann Josef 23, 42, 133, 291 Silk, Michael 109 Silva, Moisés 112 Skarsaune, Oskar 39–41 Sloan, Robert B. 88, 234 Smith, Carl B. 266, 273 Snyder, Glenn 123 Snyder, Graydon F. 165, 231 Söding, Thomas 253 Soskice, Janet Martin 14–15 Speigl, Jakob 40–41, 63, 103 Staats, Reinhart 156, 266, 273 Stander, Hennie 157 Stanford, W. B. 109 Stark, Alonzo Rosecrans 2, 58, 205, 281 Stewart (-Sykes), Alistair C. 4, 16, 21, 45, 49–50, 123, 149, 181–182, 193, 195–196, 203, 231–232, 271 Steyn, Gert J. 112–113 Still, Todd D. 18, 272–273 Stone, Michael E. 80–81, 83 Strawbridge, Jennifer R. 125 Strong, Eugénie Sellers 184 Sumney, Jerry L. 34, 36–37 Sweetser, Eve E. 13 Swete, Henry Barclay 168–169 Tafel, Gottlieb Lukas Friedrich 172 Tarvainen, Olavi 68, 96, 147, 163, 201, 267, 282, 301 Tellbe, Mikael 47 Theißen, Gerd 70, 77 Thielman, Frank 248 Thiselton, Anthony C. 168–169 Thornton, Dillon T. 53 Thrall, Margaret E. 207 Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. 75 Tilling, Chris 210 Timotin, Andrei 208 Tite, Philip L. 166

351

Trebilco, Paul 4, 22, 34, 37, 39–40, 44, 50, 53, 143, 187, 213, 270 Trevett, Christine 4, 21–22, 43–45, 49– 50, 56, 59, 90, 103–105, 133, 159, 161, 204, 268–269 Tuckett, Christopher 122–123 Uebele, Wolfram 28–29, 35, 47–48, 54– 56 Unnik, W. C. van 235–236 Urciuoli, Emiliano Rubens 235 Ussher, James 135 Vall, Gregory 1, 4, 33–34, 41–42, 47, 51, 56, 59–61, 6371, 77, 89, 100, 102, 108, 115, 119, 136, 147, 159, 201, 203, 223, 233–234, 254–255, 284 Verheyden, Joseph 111 Vielhauer, Philipp 155 Vinzent, Markus 18 Vogt, Hermann Josef 18–20 Vorm-Croughs, Mirjam van der 112 Vries, Johannes de 112 Wallis, Ian G. 173, 285–286 Wankel, Hermann 186 Way, Arthur S. 110 Wehr, Lothar 269, 297 Weigandt, Peter 29 Weinandy, Thomas G. 119–120, 281 Weinel, Heinrich 108 Weissenrieder, Annette 177 Wessbrandt, Martin 5–6, 76, 78, 95 Westlake, Henry Dickinson 228 White, Benjamin L. 254 White, L. Michael 143–144 Whitmarsh, Tim 3 Williams, H. H. Drake 114 Williams, Rowan 278 Wilson, Walter T. 113 Wong, D. W. F. 235–236 Woude, Adam van der 75 Wright, N. T. 73–74, 206, 210 Xeravits, Géza 72 Young, Stephen E. 31

352

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Zahn, Theodor 4, 16, 21, 28–29, 35, 41, 71, 91, 104, 107, 133, 150, 153, 173, 182, 242, 275, 286 Zañartu, Sergio 15, 147

Zetterholm, Magnus 39–41 Zwierlein, Otto 18

Index of Subjects altar 249–251, 264–270 Anglicans 15–16 Antonine 20, 235–236, 300 Apelles 18–19 apostles 2, 18, 39, 61, 66, 88, 93–95, 132, 136, 218, 230–231, 248, 266, 272, 274 archives 5, 10, 41–42, 45, 57, 63–70, 95, 98, 102, 132, 137–138, 215, 257 Asia 1, 3, 18, 22, 24, 28, 43–44, 50, 102, 106, 143–144, 185, 217, 225, 228–229, 235 authority, ecclesial 27, 32, 43–45, 48– 49, 52–53, 56, 62, 66, 68, 102–106, 121, 133–134, 137, 217, 220, 225, 251–253, 260, 269 beasts 1, 111, 271 bishop(s) 2, 27, 32, 37, 43–45, 48–52, 56–57, 60–62, 68, 97–98, 104–109, 113–116, 130–132, 134–135, 143, 146–147, 158, 197–199, 202–204, 215–217, 220–221, 225–226, 228, 230–232, 234, 239, 241–242, 256– 257, 260, 262, 265–266, 268–270, 275–278, 289, 292, 295, 297 building 148–163, 165–171, 173–180, 189, 205, 207–208, 212–216, 222– 226 Burrhus 117, 143 Cerinthus 30, 33, 35 chorus 48, 147, 226, 268–269, 282–284, 293, 298 circumcision 38–42, 52, 89, 98, 295 coinage metaphor 24, 231, 235, 261, 266 concordia 20 Corinth 36, 200

Crocus 143 Damas 44, 56–57, 199, 228, 230–231, 257, 262, 265, 292 date, Ignatius’s letters 15–22 deacon(s) 2, 56, 60, 62, 68, 98, 102, 105, 114, 143, 230–231, 234, 240, 246, 268, 278, 292 docetism 18, 28–29, 32, 34, 36 dogs, rabid 47 dwelling of God 205–208 Ebionites 29–31, 35 Ephesus 29, 46–52, 143–228, 292, 299 Eucharist 8, 20, 43–45, 51–52, 61, 98, 101–102, 116, 131, 158, 219, 265– 266, 269, 278, 297 Euplus 143 Flavians 20, 235–236, 267, 300 flesh 1, 56, 61, 98–99, 101, 103–104, 106, 107–108, 114–124, 126–132, 134–136, 141–142 food laws 41, 89 Fronto 143 Greece 3 Greek rhyme 109–110 guide 148–153, 155, 171–174, 180, 182–183, 189, 222 Hadrian 21, 35, 84, 144 harmony 20, 60, 103, 114, 117, 147, 230–236, 246, 251, 255, 260, 278, 282 holiness 127–132, 134, 142, 152, 177, 207

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Holy of Holies 25, 59–60, 65–66, 68, 70, 72–74, 76–77, 79, 85–87, 141, 152, 175, 201, 215 house, household 49, 146–147, 177, 196–197, 207–208, 245–246, 264, 275–277, 285–290 interpretation of scripture 29–30, 34, 36, 39–42, 53–54, 57, 59, 90–91, 97, 106, 301 Irenaeus 12, 30, 35, 169–171 Jesus – crane 146, 148–150, 152, 155, 158, 161–172, 174, 178, 180, 189, 212, 215–216, 222–224, 292 – cross 148–150, 155, 162–167, 169– 173, 180, 189 – door 86–93 – high priest 5–6, 58–101, 131–132, 137–138, 141–142, 201, 215, 227, 257–260, 262–263, 270–271, 275, 278, 281–283, 290–293, 296–302 – law 2 – mouth 46, 263, 280–281, 293, 298 – physician 47, 73, 188, 203, 213, 215, 224, 259, 284 – teacher 73, 203 – Word 56, 240, 256–258, 281–282 Judaism 10, 24–25, 28–30, 32–33, 38– 43, 52–56, 89, 97–98, 106, 132–134, 136–137, 228–229, 232–233, 242, 251, 257, 260–262, 265, 291–293, 300 κακὴ διδασκαλία 46, 48, 148–150, 197, 287 κακοδιδασκαλία 197, 287 Law (Torah) 32–34, 41, 52–54, 71, 81, 89, 98, 243, 246–247 leadership, ecclesial 50, 57, 64, 67, 142, 230–231, 234, 260–261 leopards 1, 21 Magnesia 1–2, 29, 34, 52–57, 143, 228– 262, 291, 293, 299 Marcion 18–19 Mary 47–48, 111, 147, 213, 254, 283

mediation 5–9, 31–33, 64, 87–88, 142, 151, 161, 166–171, 214–217, 223– 225, 255–259, 277–285 angelic 31–33 – Jesus 5–6, 64, 79, 87–88, 94–95, 141–142, 151, 161, 166–171, 173, 180, 209–210, 214–217, 223–225, 255–259, 277–285 metaphor 2, 5–11, 13–15 – definitions 13–15 – paired 2–3, 293–294, 301 monepiscopacy 17–18, 21, 44, 50 Noetus of Smyrna 17, 19 occasional letters 22–24, 33 ὁµόνοια 20, 60, 147, 218, 231, 235–236, 261, 282 one, repetition of 229, 232, 236, 242– 243 Onesimus 44, 143–144, 146, 150–151, 189, 199, 202–204, 216–217, 220– 221, 224–226, 268–269, 295 opponents 27–57, 63–64, 103–106, 154, 159, 169–170, 215, 224–226, 253, 267–268, 277, 285–286, 289, 291, 295 Origen 12 parallelism 111–113 patriarchs 39, 66, 88–89, 93–96, 129, 138, 295 perfected human being 2, 24, 301 Philadelphia 2, 25, 28–29, 34, 38–46, 54, 57–142, 144, 199, 215, 265, 291, 297, 299 Pius 21 plant metaphor 24, 151–152, 296 Polybius 44, 268 Polycarp 2, 5, 17, 19, 22–24, 31–32, 43–44, 70, 74, 78–79, 275, 299 presbyter(s) 2, 60, 62, 68, 98, 102, 105, 114, 230–231, 234 Presbyterians 15–16 presbytery 246, 268, 278, 292 priesthood 5–6, 59–60, 69, 71, 74–81, 83–86, 94, 98–99, 129, 137–138, 141, 215, 257, 292 – of all believers 66–67

Index of Subjects priests 65–69 processional metaphor 3, 24–25, 148, 150, 173, 180–190, 215–217, 222– 223, 261, 292, 294–295, 298–299 prophets 2, 30, 32, 34, 39, 42–45, 53– 57, 61, 64, 69–71, 88–89, 93–98, 102–103, 105–106, 109–113, 115, 117, 119, 122, 128–129, 131–132, 134, 136–139, 141, 228, 232, 240, 242, 248, 261–262, 281–282, 291, 295 Puritans 15–16 Roman Catholics 15–16 Rome 20–22, 24, 143, 160, 218, 300 rope, Holy Spirit 146, 148–150, 152, 158, 161–162, 165, 167–172, 180 Rufus 17 Sabbath 39, 52, 54, 89, 207, 232, 242, 295 sacrifice 8, 24, 72, 74–76, 80, 178, 264– 267, 270–275, 278–280, 296 – Ignatius and sacrificial terminology 270–275 Salutaris inscription 183–187, 222 sanctuary 70, 85, 267–270, 278 Saturninus 33, 35 Second Sophistic 3, 20, 183–187, 235– 236, 299–300 secrets 25, 58–60, 66, 68, 70, 73–74, 76, 79, 81, 84–85, 87–88, 94–95, 98–99, 137–138, 141, 191, 193–194, 197– 201, 203–204, 215, 225–226, 258, 292, 298 silence 50–52, 56–57, 70, 147, 194, 197–198, 202–204, 217, 220–221, 225, 240–241, 257–258, 261, 282 Smyrna 29, 102, 117, 143–144, 228 star 24, 47–48, 147, 157, 263, 283–284, 293, 298, 301 stillness 51, 194 stones 3, 8, 25, 93, 145–146, 148–161, 165, 167–171, 173–180, 182–183,

355

189, 201, 205, 212, 214, 216, 222– 224, 226 Syria 43, 218, 229 teachers 25, 44–48, 50–51, 53–54, 57, 296 – false teaching 34, 46–47, 51, 147– 148, 151–152, 158–159, 165, 169, 179, 188–189, 203, 216, 224–226, 254, 268, 277, 284, 287, 289–290, 292, 296–297 temple 2, 6–11 – in Philadelphians 100–142 – in Ephesians 143–227 – in Magnesians 228–262 Trajan 16, 21–22, 143–144, 186, 291 Tralles 28–29, 143 Troas 23–24, 102, 117, 144 typology, ecclesial 2, 60–61, 225, 231, 260 – apostles/presbyters 231, 260 – Father/bishop 225, 231, 260 – Jesus/bishop 2 – Jesus/deacon 2, 231, 260 – Jesus/presbyter 2 union 56, 60–62, 108, 119, 155–158, 160–161, 165–167, 233–235, 254– 258, 260, 262, 268, 281 unity 15, 27, 37, 43–45, 48, 56–57, 60– 65, 101–103, 108, 114, 116, 136– 138, 146–147, 189–190, 200, 215– 216, 220, 229–236, 241, 245–249, 254–259 Valentinus 19–20, 124 way 148–152, 171–173, 180, 182, 189– 190 weaponry 24 Zosimus 17