Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis 3161565037, 9783161565038
Ancient and modern scholars have written many thousands of pages on resurrection in the New Testament. Fewer have examin
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Table of Contents
Introduction: Resurrection Language
1 The Question of Apologetics for (or Subversion of) the Gospel
2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh
3 The Semantics of ἐγείϱω (egeirō) and ἀνίϭτημι (anistēmi)
3.1 Meaning and Usage
3.2 Usage for Bodily Resurrection and the Passive of ἐγἐίϱω
3.3 Not Used with ψυχή or πυεῦμα for Res. until Gnosticism
4 The Semantics of ζωοποιέω and ζάω
5 Latin Expressions for Resurrection
6 Resurrection in Zoroastrianism
7 Scribenda
Chapter one: Resurrection of Divinities
1 Some Methodological Reflections
1.1 Dying and Rising Gods
1.2 Myth and Ritual
1.3 Justin and Other Patristic Writers on Jesus and Greek Myths
2 Dumuzi (Tammuz)
3 Baal
4 Osiris
5 Adonis
5.1 The Myth of Adonis
5.2 The Adonis Gardens
5.3 Lucian and the Resurrection of Adonis
5.4 Christian Traditions about Adonis
5.5 The Levantine Background
5.5 Iconography
6 Attis
6.1 Classical Sources
6.2 Hippolytus, Firmicus Maternus, and Servius Auctus
6.3 The Hilaria and the Iconography of Attis
6.3 The Attis Cult in Late Antiquity
7 Melqart / Heracles
8 Dionysus
9 Asclepius Eshmun
10 Mithras
11 Conclusion
Chapter two: Resurrection Accounts in Greek and Latin
1 Classical Greek Texts
1.1 The Improbability of Resurrection
1.2 Heracles and Alcestis, and Epiphanius’s Response
1.3 Heracles, Theseus, and Pirithous
1.4 Glaucus
1.5 The Magi
1.6 Democritus
1.7 Alexander the Great and Resurrection
1.8 The Germans and Resurrection
1.9 Asclepius
1.10 Pelops
1.11 Aesop
1.12 Er, Antyllus, and the Man from Soli
1.13 Aelian
1.14 Aelius Aristides: Eupolis and other Examples of Resurrection
1.15 Crates
1.16 Polyaenus (II C.E.)
1.17 Artemidorus
1.18 Aeneas of Gaza
1.19 Iolaus
1.20 Tylos
1.21 Lucian
1.22 Achilles Tatius
1.23 Apollonius of Tyana
1.24 A Magic Recipe for Resurrection
1.25 Favorinus (ca 85–155 C.E.)
1.26 Cyranides
1.27 Libanius
1.28 Proclus
1.29 The Resurrection of Jesus in Paganism
2 Resurrection in Classical Latin Texts
2.1 Terence
2.2 Cicero
2.3 Livy
2.4 Ovid
2.5 Vitruvius
2.6 Valerius Maximus
2.7 Pliny the Elder
2.8 Hyginus
3 Resurrection in Early Christian Inscriptions
4 The Hypogeum on via Dino Compagni (Via Latina Catacomb)
5 Conclusion
Chapter three: Tombs and Post-Mortem Appearances
1 Empty Tombs with Subsequent Appearances
1.1 Aristeas
1.2 Romulus
1.3 Zalmoxis
1.4 Callirhoe
1.5 Xenophon, Anthia and Habrocomes
1.6 Antonius Diogenes, The Wonders Beyond Thule
1.7 Philinnion of Amphipolis
2 Occupied Tombs and Subsequent Appearances
2.1 Protesilaos
2.2 Eunostus
3 Empty Tombs with no Subsequent Appearances
3.1 Numa Pompilius
3.2 Cleomedes
3.3 Alcmene
3.4 The Apostle John
3.5 A Christian Dyer
3.6 Symeon the Fool
4 Conclusion
Chapter four: Translations and Apotheoses of Heroes
1 Immortal Bodies
2 Translations
2.1 Legendary Figures
2.2 Historical Figures
2.3 Vibia and Vincentius: Tomb in the Catacomb of Praetextatus
3 Conclusion
Chapter five: Apotheoses of Emperors
1 Consecratio and Funeral
1.1 Consecratio
1.2 Funerals
1.3 The Missing Funeral of Germanicus
1.4 Poppaea Sabina’s Funeral
1.5 Funerals for Slaves and Permitted Second Funerals
1.6 Pertinax’s Funeral
1.7 The Funeral of Septimius Severus
1.8 The Significance of the Wax Images
1.9 Eagles and Witnesses of Apotheoses
2 Apotheoses of Emperors
2.1 Julius Caesar
2.2 Augustus
2.3 Claudius
2.4 Nero
2.5 Vespasian
2.6 Titus
2.7 Trajan
2.8 Hadrian and Sabina
2.9 Antoninus Pius
3 Conclusion
Chapter six: Resurrection in Jewish Texts
1 Hebrew Bible and Septuagint
1.1 Psalm 87 LXX
1.2 Isaiah
1.3 Jeremiah
1.4 Daniel
1.5 Hosea
1.6 2 Maccabees
1.7 Job
1.8 Thisworldly Resurrections
2 Inscriptions
3 Ethiopic Enoch
3.1 The Book of Watchers
3.2 The Similitudes of Enoch
3.3 The Epistle of Enoch
3.4 108: The Final Enochic Book
4 Other Pseudepigrapha
4.1 Psalms of Solomon
4.2 Jubilees
4.3 Syrian Baruch
4.4 4 Ezra
4.5 Sibylline Oracles
4.6 Lives of the Prophets
4.7 Testament of Abraham
4.8 Life of Adam and Eve
4.9 Pseudo Philo, The Biblical Antiquities
4.10 The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides
4.11 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
5 Josephus
6 Qumran
7 The Eighteen Benedictions
8 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature
8.1 Targums
8.2 Mishnah and Tosefta Sanhedrin
8.3 Abot de Rabbi Nathan: The Origin of the Sadducees
8.4 Elijah and the Resurrection of the Dead
8.5 Tosefta Berakhot and b. Ketubbot: The Blessing of the Dead
8.6 Sife Deuteronomy
8.7 Sifra
8.8 Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin
8.9 The Self Evidence of Resurrection in b. Berakot
8.10 Genesis Rabbah on Resurrection and Healing
8.11 Talmudic Texts on Resurrection in Jerusalem
8.12 Rabbi Jacob: Rewards in the Torah and Resurrection
8.13 Resurrection for the Righteous
8.14 Hosea 6:2 and the Resurrection of the Dead
8.15 Resurrection and the Pangs of the Messiah
8.16 The Dew of Resurrection in the Seventh Heaven
8.17 The Days of the Messiah: Pesiqta Rabbati
8.18 Midrash Aleph Bet: The 7 Trumpet Blasts and the Resurrection
8.19 The Sufferings of the Messiah and Resurrection
9 Resurrection and the Frescoes of Dura Europos
10 The Toledot Yeshu
11 Conclusion
Chapter seven: Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Translation
1 Resurrection in 1 Cor 15 and the Problem of an Empty Tomb
1.1 1 Thess 4:17: Bodies not Abandoned on the Ground
1.2 1 Corinthians 15
1.3 Phil 3:21
1.4 Summary of the Argument
1.5 Possible Objections
2 Empty Tomb and Resurrection in Mark
3 The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus in Q and Luke
3.1 Q 13:34–35
3.2 Resurrection in Luke 24
3.3 Luke’s Ascension Narratives
4 Conclusion
Conclusion: Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Apotheosis
Images
Bibliography
Ancient Sources
Databases, CD Roms, Websites
Scholarship
Sources
1 Greco-Roman Texts
2 Biblical Literature
3 Second Temple Literature
4 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature
5 Magica and Other Papyri
6 Coins, Inscriptions, and Other Archaeological Resources
7 Near Eastern Texts
Images Index
Ancient Individuals
Modern Authors
Subjects and Terminology
Recommend Papers
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- John Granger Cook
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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) · James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) · J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)
410
John Granger Cook
Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis
Mohr Siebeck
John Granger Cook, born 1955; 1976 B.A. in Philosophy, Davidson College; 1979 M.Div., Union Theological Seminary (VA); 1985 Ph.D. at Emory University; Professor of Religion and Philosophy, LaGrange College, LaGrange, GA.
ISBN 978-3-16-156503-8 / eISBN 978-3-16-156584-7 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-156584-7 ISSN 0512-1604 / eISSN 2568-7476 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet 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 s ystems. The book was printed by Gulde Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buch binderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.
Patri dilectissimo WALTER GRANGER COOK
Acknowledgements The genesis of this project on resurrection in Mediterranean antiquity was a recommendation made by my father, an honorably retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church (P.C.U.S.A.), after I had published a number of articles and a 522-page tome on crucifixion. He asked me, “Why not write about something more positive – resurrection?” The idea intrigued me, and I perceived a gap in the scholarship. It is to him that I dedicate this book. Pursuing the topic has been a difficult but pleasurable experience. My readers will undoubtedly not have a similarly pleasurable experience, but I hope that the evidence I have gathered and the arguments sketched in the monograph are worthy of attention. During the course of my research I summarized some of the results of the investigation in three publications: “The Vocabulary for Resurrection in Paganism,” in: In mari via tua. Philological Studies in Honour of Antonio Piñero, Estudios de filología neotestamentaria 11, ed. I. M. Gallarte and J. Peláez, Cordoba 2016, 197–216; “Resurrection in Paganism and the Question of an Empty Tomb in 1 Cor 15,” NTS 63 (2017) 56–75; and “The use of Û and Û and the ‘Resurrection of a Soul’,” ZNW 108 (2017) 259–280. Those who have kindly answered my many queries and discussed issues of interpretation include: James P. Allen, the late Tjitze Baarda, Hans Dieter Betz, Jerker Blomqvist, Markus Bockmuel, John Bodel, Corinne Bonnet, Jan Bremmer, Michael Broyde, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Vincenzo Carlotta, Manfred Clauss, Kathleen M. Coleman, John J. Collins, Adela Yarbro Collins, Christopher Horton Cook, Dan Dana, Werner Eck, Dag Øistein Endsjø, Alexandra Eppinger, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Robert L. Fowler, Steven J. Friesen, Richard Goulet, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, Lieve van Hoof, Carl R. Holladay, Hugh A. G. Houghton, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Aaron Johnson, F. Stanley Jones, Jan Joosten, Martin Karrer, Steve Kaufman, Erkki Koskenniemi, Roy Kotansky, Homer Lanier, Matteo Martelli, Felicity HarleyMcGowan, Tryggve Mettinger, Richard C. Miller, Margaret M. Mitchell, Ian Morton, Carol A. Newsom, Andrei A. Orlov, Jaume Pòrtulas, Vernon K. Robbins, Arthur Robinson, Jörg Rüpke, Donald Schley, Mark J. Smith, Seda Stamboltsyan, Michael Stausberg, Antonio Stramaglia, Michael E. Stone, Emanuel Tov, James VanderKam, Eric R. Varner, Henk S. Versnel, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, and Norbert Zimmermann. John Bodel, Jan
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Acknowledgements
Bremmer, Tryggve Mettinger, James VanderKam, and Yuhan SohrabDinshaw Vevaina graciously read parts of the manuscript. Philologist Jerker Blomqvist was always available to assist in matters of Greek syntax and semantics. I am particularly indebted to historian of religion Jan Bremmer for reading many chapters and answering numerous queries. Of course, any errors are my own. I read two papers incorporated into the manuscript at the Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti section at the Society of Biblical Literature national meeting in Atlanta (2015) and at the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas general meeting in Montréal (2016); the comments at those meetings were quite helpful. I very much benefited from a sabbatical leave my own institution (LaGrange College) granted me in 2016, which allowed me to explore the mysteries of ancient Ethiopic and to write a substantial portion of the chapter on resurrection in Second Temple Judaism. At my institution, librarian and Latinist Arthur Robinson has been indefatigable in his assistance. I have spent many hours in the Pitts Theology Library at Emory and in the Robert W. Woodruff Library, and I thank the librarians there for their generous assistance. I thank my students Alan Gage Bailey and John Dale Giefing for helping me proofread the MS. For his guidance and acceptance of this manuscript into the Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament I series I thank Professor Jörg Frey. I also thank Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, the Director of Mohr Siebeck, and Dr. Katharina Gutekunst, Program Director for Theology and Jewish Studies, for their constant encouragement. Herr Matthias Spitzner of Mohr Siebeck generously provided his expert help with the production of the book. For permission to use images I thank the following: the British Museum; the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg; the Bibliotheca Hertziana Max-PlanckInstitut für Kunstgeschichte; the Bibliothèque nationale de France; the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University; the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l’Area archeologica di Roma; the Vorderasiatisches Museum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; the Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; the Yale University Art Gallery, the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut; wildwinds.com, ex-CNG Coins; Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG, Zürich; Bridgeman Images; Roger B. Ulrich; Egisto Sani; and Roberto Piperno. Most of all I thank my partner in life, Barbara T. Horton, , for putting up with the long hours it took to produce this monograph. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Harvard University Press: THEOCRITUS, MOSCHUS, BION, translated by Neil Hopkinson, Loeb Classical Library Volume 28, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Acknowledgements
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Press, Copyright 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Loeb Classical Library © a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the Society of Biblical Literature Press: Flavius Philostratus, Heroikos, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean and Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press 2001. Many Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Table of Contents Introduction: Resurrection Language ........................................
1
1 The Question of Apologetics for (or Subversion of) the Gospel ....... 2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh ........................................ 3 The Semantics of Û (egeirō) and Û (anistēmi)................ 3.1 Meaning and Usage................................................................ 3.2 Usage for Bodily Resurrection and the Passive of Û .......... 3.3 Not Used with or for Res. until Gnosticism ......... 4 The Semantics of Ô and Ì ................................................. 5 Latin Expressions for Resurrection ...................................................... 6 Resurrection in Zoroastrianism ............................................................ 7 Scribenda ............................................................................................
3 7 13 13 21 30 37 46 50 53
Chapter one: Resurrection of Divinities ...................................... 56 1 Some Methodological Reflections .................................................... 1.1 Dying and Rising Gods............................................................ 1.2 Myth and Ritual ...................................................................... 1.3 Justin and Other Patristic Writers on Jesus and Greek Myths ....... 2 Dumuzi (Tammuz) .............................................................................. 3 Baal .................................................................................................... 4 Osiris................................................................................................... 5 Adonis................................................................................................. 5.1 The Myth of Adonis .................................................................... 5.2 The Adonis Gardens .................................................................... 5.3 Lucian and the Resurrection of Adonis ........................................ 5.4 Christian Traditions about Adonis ............................................... 5.5 The Levantine Background ......................................................... 5.5 Iconography ................................................................................ 6 Attis .................................................................................................... 6.1 Classical Sources......................................................................... 6.2 Hippolytus, Firmicus Maternus, and Servius Auctus.................... 6.3 The Hilaria and the Iconography of Attis..................................... 6.3 The Attis Cult in Late Antiquity .................................................. 7 Melqart / Heracles ............................................................................... 8 Dionysus ............................................................................................. 9 Asclepius Eshmun ...............................................................................
56 57 62 63 69 73 74 87 88 91 96 102 107 109 110 110 112 115 122 124 132 140
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10 Mithras ................................................................................................ 142 11 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 143
Chapter two: Resurrection Accounts in Greek and Latin ......... 144 1 Classical Greek Texts ..................................................................... 1.1 The Improbability of Resurrection ............................................ 1.2 Heracles and Alcestis, and Epiphanius’s Response ..................... 1.3 Heracles, Theseus, and Pirithous .............................................. 1.4 Glaucus ................................................................................. 1.5 The Magi ..................................................................................... 1.6 Democritus .................................................................................. 1.7 Alexander the Great and Resurrection .......................................... 1.8 The Germans and Resurrection .................................................... 1.9 Asclepius ..................................................................................... 1.10 Pelops .......................................................................................... 1.11 Aesop .......................................................................................... 1.12 Er, Antyllus, and the Man from Soli............................................. 1.13 Aelian .......................................................................................... 1.14 Aelius Aristides: Eupolis and other Examples of Resurrection ..... 1.15 Crates .......................................................................................... 1.16 Polyaenus (II C.E.) ...................................................................... 1.17 Artemidorus................................................................................. 1.18 Aeneas of Gaza ............................................................................ 1.19 Iolaus ........................................................................................... 1.20 Tylos ........................................................................................... 1.21 Lucian ......................................................................................... 1.22 Achilles Tatius ............................................................................. 1.23 Apollonius of Tyana .................................................................... 1.24 A Magic Recipe for Resurrection ................................................. 1.25 Favorinus (ca 85–155 C.E.) ......................................................... 1.26 Cyranides .................................................................................... 1.27 Libanius ....................................................................................... 1.28 Proclus......................................................................................... 1.29 The Resurrection of Jesus in Paganism ........................................ 2 Resurrection in Classical Latin Texts ............................................... 2.1 Terence ................................................................................. 2.2 Cicero ................................................................................... 2.3 Livy ............................................................................................. 2.4 Ovid ............................................................................................ 2.5 Vitruvius...................................................................................... 2.6 Valerius Maximus........................................................................ 2.7 Pliny the Elder .............................................................................
144 144 152 156 157 159 160 161 162 162 170 171 172 174 174 181 182 182 183 184 185 186 190 190 192 193 194 195 197 201 208 208 209 211 211 213 213 214
Table of Contents
2.8 Hyginus....................................................................................... 3 Resurrection in Early Christian Inscriptions ...................................... 4 The Hypogeum on via Dino Compagni (Via Latina Catacomb) ........... 5 Conclusion ....................................................................................
XIII 218 224 229 246
Chapter three: Tombs and Post-Mortem Appearances ............ 247 1 Empty Tombs with Subsequent Appearances .................................... 1.1 Aristeas ................................................................................. 1.2 Romulus ................................................................................ 1.3 Zalmoxis ................................................................................ 1.4 Callirhoe ..................................................................................... 1.5 Xenophon, Anthia and Habrocomes ............................................ 1.6 Antonius Diogenes, The Wonders Beyond Thule ........................ 1.7 Philinnion of Amphipolis ............................................................ 2 Occupied Tombs and Subsequent Appearances.................................. 2.1 Protesilaos.............................................................................. 2.2 Eunostus ................................................................................ 3 Empty Tombs with no Subsequent Appearances ................................ 3.1 Numa Pompilius.......................................................................... 3.2 Cleomedes .................................................................................. 3.3 Alcmene ...................................................................................... 3.4 The Apostle John ........................................................................ 3.5 A Christian Dyer ......................................................................... 3.6 Symeon the Fool ......................................................................... 4 Conclusion ..........................................................................................
247 247 254 272 279 284 285 287 291 291 302 303 303 310 315 318 319 319 321
Chapter four: Translations and Apotheoses of Heroes .............. 322 1 Immortal Bodies............................................................................. 2 Translations ................................................................................... 2.1 Legendary Figures .................................................................. 2.2 Historical Figures ................................................................... 2.3 Vibia and Vincentius: Tomb in the Catacomb of Praetextatus ...... 3 Conclusion ....................................................................................
323 329 330 390 407 411
Chapter five: Apotheoses of Emperors ........................................ 413 1 Consecratio and Funeral ................................................................. 1.1 Consecratio ............................................................................ 1.2 Funerals ................................................................................. 1.3 The Missing Funeral of Germanicus ......................................... 1.4 Poppaea Sabina’s Funeral ........................................................ 1.5 Funerals for Slaves and Permitted Second Funerals ....................
413 413 417 419 419 420
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Table of Contents
1.6 Pertinax’s Funeral................................................................... 1.7 The Funeral of Septimius Severus ............................................ 1.8 The Significance of the Wax Images......................................... 1.9 Eagles and Witnesses of Apotheoses ........................................ 2 Apotheoses of Emperors ................................................................. 2.1 Julius Caesar .......................................................................... 2.2 Augustus ............................................................................... 2.3 Claudius ................................................................................ 2.4 Nero ...................................................................................... 2.5 Vespasian .............................................................................. 2.6 Titus ..................................................................................... 2.7 Trajan.................................................................................... 2.8 Hadrian and Sabina................................................................. 2.9 Antoninus Pius ....................................................................... 3 Conclusion ....................................................................................
421 423 424 426 428 428 433 438 445 445 447 448 450 452 454
Chapter six: Resurrection in Jewish Texts ................................. 455 1 Hebrew Bible and Septuagint .......................................................... 1.1 Psalm 87 LXX ....................................................................... 1.2 Isaiah .................................................................................... 1.3 Jeremiah ................................................................................ 1.4 Daniel ................................................................................... 1.5 Hosea .................................................................................... 1.6 2 Maccabees .......................................................................... 1.7 Job ........................................................................................ 1.8 Thisworldly Resurrections ....................................................... 2 Inscriptions .......................................................................................... 3 Ethiopic Enoch .................................................................................... 3.1 The Book of Watchers ............................................................ 3.2 The Similitudes of Enoch ........................................................ 3.3 The Epistle of Enoch............................................................... 3.4 108: The Final Enochic Book................................................... 4 Other Pseudepigrapha .......................................................................... 4.1 Psalms of Solomon ................................................................. 4.2 Jubilees ................................................................................. 4.3 Syrian Baruch ........................................................................ 4.4 4 Ezra.................................................................................... 4.5 Sibylline Oracles .................................................................... 4.6 Lives of the Prophets .............................................................. 4.7 Testament of Abraham ............................................................ 4.8 Life of Adam and Eve .............................................................
456 457 458 463 464 468 470 472 474 474 478 478 483 489 492 493 493 494 496 498 500 501 501 502
Table of Contents
4.9 Pseudo Philo, The Biblical Antiquities ...................................... 4.10 The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides......................................... 4.11 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs ......................................... 5 Josephus .............................................................................................. 6 Qumran ............................................................................................... 7 The Eighteen Benedictions .................................................................. 8 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature ....................................................... 8.1 Targums ................................................................................ 8.2 Mishnah and Tosefta Sanhedrin................................................ 8.3 Abot de Rabbi Nathan: The Origin of the Sadducees .................. 8.4 Elijah and the Resurrection of the Dead..................................... 8.5 Tosefta Berakhot and b. Ketubbot: The Blessing of the Dead ...... 8.6 Sife Deuteronomy ................................................................... 8.7 Sifra ...................................................................................... 8.8 Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin .................................... 8.9 The Self Evidence of Resurrection in b. Berakot ........................ 8.10 Genesis Rabbah on Resurrection and Healing ............................ 8.11 Talmudic Texts on Resurrection in Jerusalem ............................ 8.12 Rabbi Jacob: Rewards in the Torah and Resurrection .................. 8.13 Resurrection for the Righteous ................................................. 8.14 Hosea 6:2 and the Resurrection of the Dead ............................... 8.15 Resurrection and the Pangs of the Messiah ................................ 8.16 The Dew of Resurrection in the Seventh Heaven ........................ 8.17 The Days of the Messiah: Pesiqta Rabbati ................................. 8.18 Midrash Aleph Bet: The 7 Trumpet Blasts and the Resurrection .. 8.19 The Sufferings of the Messiah and Resurrection ......................... 9 Resurrection and the Frescoes of Dura Europos ................................... 10 The Toledot Yeshu .............................................................................. 11 Conclusion ....................................................................................
XV 505 506 509 511 513 516 518 518 523 525 527 528 529 530 531 535 536 537 539 540 541 553 553 555 556 557 559 563 568
Chapter seven: Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Translation ... 570 1 Resurrection in 1 Cor 15 and the Problem of an Empty Tomb ............. 1.1 1 Thess 4:17: Bodies not Abandoned on the Ground ................... 1.2 1 Corinthians 15 ..................................................................... 1.3 Phil 3:21 ................................................................................ 1.4 Summary of the Argument ....................................................... 1.5 Possible Objections ................................................................. 2 Empty Tomb and Resurrection in Mark ............................................... 3 The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus in Q and Luke ..................... 3.1 Q 13:34–35 ............................................................................ 3.2 Resurrection in Luke 24........................................................... 3.3 Luke’s Ascension Narratives ....................................................
570 570 572 588 591 591 593 601 602 604 612
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4 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 618
Conclusion: Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Apotheosis ......... 619 Images ............................................................................................ 625 Bibliography ..................................................................................... 647 Ancient Sources ................................................................................ 647 Databases, CD Roms, Websites.......................................................... 654 Scholarship ....................................................................................... 655 Sources ............................................................................................. 673 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Greco-Roman Texts ...................................................................... Biblical Literature ......................................................................... Second Temple Literature .............................................................. Targumic and Rabbinic Literature .................................................... Magica and Other Papyri ................................................................ Coins, Inscriptions, and Other Archaeological Resources ................... Near Eastern Texts ........................................................................
696 673 701 702 705 705 708
Images Index ..................................................................................... 710 Ancient Individuals............................................................................ 711 Modern Authors ................................................................................ 714 Subjects and Terminology .................................................................. 716
Introduction
Resurrection Language Ancient and modern scholars have written many thousands of pages on resurrection in the New Testament. Fewer have done studies which examine the theme in both pagan and Jewish texts, however, and the topic remains inherently fascinating.1 My monograph will focus on resurrection in the Mediterranean world and its relation to the NT. I began the project with two primary hypotheses: First, there is no fundamental difference between Paul’s conception of the resurrection body and that of the Gospels; and second, the resurrection and translation stories of Greco-Roman antiquity probably help explain the 1 For a selection of monographs on resurrection in Judaism see chapt. 6 n. 1. For the theme in paganism, cf.: J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Part IV.1– 2. Adonis Attis Osiris, London 31914; J. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter. Ein Beitrag zum Streite um Arthur Drews’ Christusmythe, Leipzig 1923; E. Fascher, AnastasisResurrectio-Auferstehung. Eine programmatische Studie zum Thema „Sprache und Offenbarung“, ZNW 40 (1941) 166–229; G. Bertram, Auferstehung I (des Kultgottes), RAC I (1950) 919–30; A. Oepke, Auferstehung II (des Menschen), RAC I (1950) 930–8; idem, Û , , TDNT ΙΙ (1964) 333–9; idem, Û, , TDNT I (1964) 368–72; E. J. Bickerman, Das leere Grab, in: idem, Studies in Jewish and Christian History. Part One, Leiden 1986, 70–81; A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection. Studies in Pauline Theology against its Graeco-Roman Background, WUNT 44, Tübingen 1987; A. Yarbro Collins, Apotheosis and Resurrection, in: The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, ed. P. Borgen and S. Giversen, Peabody, MA 1987, 88–100; J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine. On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity, Chicago 1990; T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection. “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East, CB.OT 50, Stockholm 2001; D. Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben für den Glauben an die Auferstehung Jesu, in: idem, Neues Testament und hellenistische Umwelt, BBB 150, Hamburg 2006, 11–27; idem, Erscheinungen Verstorbener im griechisch-römischen Bereich, in: ibid., 29–43, J. N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol, New York 2002; idem, Ghosts, Resurrections and Empty Tombs in the Gospels, the Greek Novel, and the Second Sophistic, in: The Gospel and Their Stories in Anthropological Perspectives, ed. J. Verheyden and J. S. Kloppenborg, Tübingen 2018, 231–50; D. Ø. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity, New York 2009; R. C. Miller, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, New York 2014; M. D. Litwa, Iesus Deus. The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God, Minneapolis 2014; M. T. Finney, Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife. Body and Soul in Antiquity, Judaism and Early Christianity, New York 2016, J. G. Cook, Resurrection in Paganism and the Question of an Empty Tomb in 1 Cor 15, NTS 63 (2017) 56–75, and idem, The use of Û and Û and the “Resurrection of a Soul,” ZNW 108 (2017) 259–280.
2
Introduction
willingness of Mediterranean people to gradually accept the Gospel of a crucified and risen savior. Whether the monograph succeeds in showing either or both of these hypotheses to be correct is an evaluation I must leave to the patient reader. Even if sympathetic readers judge that I have failed to demonstrate either hypothesis, I hope that the selection of texts and accompanying discussions will provide the guild of NT scholars, those interested in Second Temple Judaism, historians of religion, and others with something of lasting value. I am not seeking to write a comprehensive history of resurrection in the western world (for which see Caroline Walker Bynum’s indispensable survey) nor am I seeking to write a history of conceptions of the afterlife in the West (for which see Philip C. Almond’s compelling and beautifully illustrated narrative).2 In the discussions below, “physical resurrection” is a resurrection in which the body of a dead individual returns to life in some sense (e.g., a return to mortal life or immortal life; Wiederdasein in German).3 Usually the risen individual appears near his or her tomb. “Physical” or “bodily resurrection” is consistent with a transformation of the earthly body (e.g., into a [spiritual body]). In the monograph, I will attempt to distinguish between such resurrections and the immortality of the soul and variations thereof, including texts such as Jubilees 23:29–31 where spirits are “happy.”4 In addition, I will distinguish as clearly as possible between accounts of translation and resurrection, although they are related, since translated individuals usually possess immortal bodies.5 Greek resurrection accounts are usually characterized by verbs that describe the vertical movement of a body (Û [anistēmi], for example) or the awaking and rising of a dead individual ( Û [egeirō]). In other words: a fundamental marker for the concept “resurrection” in the New Testament and elsewhere, based on the meaning of Û and Û , is the bodily motion upward of a formerly dead individual.6 This corresponds to the etymological origin of “resurrection” in English, which is the Latin verb “resurgo” (“to rise from recumbent position, get up”) that was 2
Cf. C. W. Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, New York 1995 and P. C. Almond, Afterlife. A History of Life After Death, Ithaca, NY 2016. Three important surveys of resurrection in early Christianity are: F. Altermath, Du corps psychique au corps spirituel. Interprétation de 1 Cor. 15,35–49 par les auteurs chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles, BGBE 18, Tübingen 1977, O. Lehtipuu, Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead. Constructing Early Christian Identity, OECT, Oxford 2015, and T. G. Petrey, Resurrecting Parts. Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction, and Sexual Difference, London 2016. 3 Zeller, Erscheinungen, 39 argues that “resurrection implies an empty grave.” That characteristic distinguishes resurrections from the epiphanies of heroes who are buried nearby. 4 Cf. chapt. 6 § 4.2. 5 Cf. chapt. 1 § 1.proem, chapt. 4.proem, chapt. 4 § 2.proem, and chapt. 7 § 2 (a critique of Elias Bickerman’s criteria for “resurrection”). 6 Clearly not all occurrences of a resurrection need one of these verbs. Such markers are shared by many examples, but not all. Cf. the discussion of polythetic classification and family resemblances in chapt. 4 § 2.proem. Context is key.
1 The Question of Apologetics for (or Subversion of) the Christian Gospel
3
adopted by the early Latin translators of the NT as the basic expression for the resurrection of Christ and others.7
1 The Question of Apologetics for (or Subversion of) the Christian Gospel The monograph is not intended to be a contribution to Christian apologetics, nor is it intended to be an attack on the Christian faith. Although there is evidence for belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (e.g., 1 Cor 15:1–8), I am convinced that David Hume’s dictum is not without warrant: So that, upon the whole,8 we may conclude, that the CHRISTIAN Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere Reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is mov’d by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued Miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.9
Although Hume does not say it, Harold Noonan notes: “His interest, as all his contemporary readers knew, was solely in the Christian revelation and its supposed certification by the miracle of the resurrection.”10 J. C. A. Gaskin suggests that Hume’s conclusion “should be unpacked as ‘The Resurrection can never be proved in such a way that it can function as a good reason to accept the Christian revelation’.”11 What subverts the principles of understanding is a buried body that somehow disappears from a tomb; an event immediately followed by the affirmation of multiple ancient sources in the New Testament that Jesus appeared alive to his disciples. To believe in such events, one has to assume the existence of a God who acts in history.12 I find it intriguing that David Flusser, a renowned Jewish scholar, affirmed that the reports of Jesus’s post7 Cf. OLD s.v., § 5 below, and see: resurrection, n., OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2018, ‹www.oed.com/view/Entry/164104›. This corresponds with the original meaning of the Young Avestan verbs for resurrection (“get up, rise”) in Zoroastrian texts (cf. § 6). 8 At this point, Hume has shown that veridical prophecies are also miracles. 9 D. Hume, Of Miracles, in: idem, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. A Critical Edition, ed. T. L. Beauchamp, Oxford 2000, 83–99, esp. 99 (first ed. London 1748). 10 H. Noonan, Hume, Oxford 2007, 188. 11 J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume on Religion, in: The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ed. D. F. Norton and J. Taylor, Cambridge 22009, 480–514, esp. 500 (and cp. 501–2). 12 Thomas’s “Five Ways” (Summa Theol. Ia, quaest. 2, art. 3), assuming for the moment that they are cogent, do not demonstrate the existence of such a God. Peter Williamson notes that one unacceptable bias of some [confessional] practitioners of the historical critical method is a “presupposition” which excludes “from the outside the possibility of divine intervention in history.” Cf. idem, Catholic Principles for Interpreting Scripture. A Study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, SubBi 22, preface A. Vanhoye, Roma 2001, 50.
4
Introduction
mortem appearances (with reference to 1 Cor 15:3–8) were “reliable.”13 It is the reliability of such witnesses that Hume impugned. Hume would not be persuaded by the following remarks of Chrysostom addressed to hypothetical pagan critics, but they may reveal some of the philosophical and historical argumentation of late antiquity: How is it, therefore, that while Christ was alive, they did not endure the Jewish attack, but when he died, was buried, and did not rise, as you say, nor speak to them, nor put courage into them, did they stand side by side in battle with such a world? … He did not help himself while he was alive, but dead he will stretch out a helping hand to us? ı! “ " # ∏&' ¡ Ã ı , Ú (Ô Ú Ì, · ( , &Ó & !Ô Ã), &Ó !Ì !Ô, Ù ˜ Ì ∞Ô- ... /2 Ã 4 , Ú ) ) ¿ Ô5 ˘;14
Something happened, according to Chrysostom, to change the lives of the apostles desolated by the crucifixion. One can well imagine that Hume would respond: many people have experienced delusions with regard to matters of religion in antiquity.15 The confident assertion of Gerd Lüdemann in an article in Spiegel reflects the modernity of the debate: “The church’s unwearyingly preached new reality of salvation, indicated by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, is a Nothing, because Jesus never rose from the dead.”16 This is a transformation of David Friedrich Strauss’s polemic: 13
D. Flusser, in collaboration with R. S. Notley, Jesus, Jerusalem 1997, 154–5. Chrysostom Hom. 4.4 in epist. i ad Cor. (PG 61.36). In Hom. 5.4 in epist. i ad Cor. (PG 61.44), he continues with similar argumentation (speculating about how the apostles would have acted, had Christ not risen from the dead). No existent Greco-Roman author explicitly attacks the Christians’ belief in the resurrection of Jesus until Celsus during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Celsus’s conceptual objections are in Origen C. Cels. 5.14. For his historical objections (to the witnesses) see 2.55, 63, 70. Cf. J. G. Cook, The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco Roman Paganism, STAC 3, Tübingen 2000, 55–8, 59–61 and chapt. 2 § 1.29 below. I imagine Lucian satirized the resurrection in his Peregrinus. Cp. J. N. Bremmer, Peregrinus’ Christian Career, in idem, Maidens, Magic, and Martyrs in Early Christianity. Collected Essays I, WUNT 379, Tübingen 2017, 65–79, esp. 79 and chapt. 4 § 2.2.9. 15 Cf. Hume’s historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations for polytheism and theism in ibid., Four Dissertations. I. The Natural History of Religion. II. Of the Passions. III. Of Tragedy. IV. Of the Standard of Taste, London 1757, 1–117, and idem, A Dissertation on the Passions. The Natural History of Religion. A Critical Edition, ed. T. L. Beauchamp, Oxford 2007, 224–5 (Beauchamp’s discussion of “psychological explanation”), 225–8 (his discussion of “historical explanation”). I thank Ian Morton for his comments on the treatise. 16 G. Lüdemann, ... voll Blut und Wunden, Spiegel Special 7 (01.07.1998) 122–7, esp. 127. See his prayer to Jesus that begins his small book entitled Der grosse Betrug. Und was Jesus wirklich sagte und tat, Lüneberg 1998, 16 (“aus dem Humbug Deiner ‘Auferstehung’” [from the humbug of Your “resurrection”]). Colleague Lüdemann is an instance of John H. Hayes’s dictum: “A whole lot of biblical scholars are driving backwards from Damascus” (personal conversation; cf. Remembering John H. Hayes: Feb. 6, 1934–July 11, 2013, Marginalia. Los 14
1 The Question of Apologetics for (or Subversion of) the Christian Gospel
5
So the disciples by the production of the idea of the resurrection of their dead master saved his work; and indeed, it was their sincere conviction that they had really seen the resurrected one ... Historically speaking, that is, combining the tremendous effects of this faith with its complete groundlessness, the history of the resurrection of Jesus can only be described as a humbug of world history [ein welthistorischer Humbug].17
This is Strauss’s confession written shortly before his death. Although interested in NT theology, I will not pursue it either in this monograph. In the spring of 1983, I was in the home of Hans Conzelmann in Göttingen and posed this query to the great scholar: “Is the Communist Party’s proclamation that ‘Lenin lives’ the logical equivalent of Rudolf Bultmann’s ‘Jesus is risen into the kerygma’?”18 Conzelmann, my generous host, became furious. Of course, Bultmann actually wrote, explaining himself: It means that Jesus is truly present in the kerygma, that it is his word that meets the hearer. If that is the case, then all speculations about the modes of existence of the Resurrected one, all stories about the empty tomb, and all Easter legends, whatever elements in respect to historical facts they might contain, and however true they are in their symbolic content, are of no concern. To believe in the Christ who is present in the kerygma is the meaning of the Easter faith. ... er besagt daß Jesus im Kerygma wirklich gegenwärtig ist, daß es sein Wort ist, das den Hörer trifft. Ist das der Fall, so werden alle Spekulationen über die Seinsweise der Auferstandenen, alle Erzählungen vom leeren Grabe und alle Osterlegenden, welche Momente an historischen Fakten sie auch enthalten mögen, and so wahr sie in ihre symbolischen Gehalt sein mögen, gleichgültig. An den im Kerygma präsenten Christus glauben, ist der Sinn der Osterglaubens.19
Another mentor, Martin Hengel, responded to Bultmann’s perspective in a discussion in his home in Tübingen in March of 2006: “Bultmann was right dogmatically, but wrong historically!” In any case, the two statements about Lenin
Angeles Review of Books, August 7, 2013 ‹https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/remem bering-john-h-hayes-feb-6-1934-july-11-2013›. On the theory of Christianity as “the original fraud,” see H. D. Betz, The Birth of Christianity as a Hellenistic Religion, JR 74 (1994) 1–25, esp. 10–5. 17 D. F. Strauß, Der alte und der neue Glaube. Ein Bekenntniß, Bonn 61873, 72–3. The trans. of the last sentence is from G. Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus. History, Experience, Theology, Minneapolis 1994, 190. 18 For the Central Committee’s statement that “Lenin lives in the soul of every member of our party [etc.],” cf. N. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, Cambridge, MA 1997, 148. “Kerygma” means “[public] proclamation.” Cf. BDAG s.v. § 2: “a public declaration, something proclaimed aloud, proclamation.” See 1 Cor 1:21, 2:4, and 15:14. 19 R. Bultmann, Das Verhältnis der urchristlichen Christusbotschaft zum historischen Jesus, in: idem, Exegetica. Aufsätze zur Erforschung des Neuen Testaments, Tübingen 1967, 445–69, esp. 469 (originally in SHAW.PH Jhg. 1960,3 5–27). Jörg Frey (communication of 22 April 2018), with regard to the curious phrase “Momente an historischen Fakten,” makes the following perceptive comment: “his wording only touches from far away the possibility that there are such facts.”
6
Introduction
and Jesus are not logical equivalents, because one can be true and the other can be false and vice versa.20 One can posit a middle way (via media) between Hume’s unbelief and Christian proclamation. The delightful little book of Géza Vermès on resurrection is well worth perusing in that regard. Although Vermès, as a faithful Jew, did not believe Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead in the “historical” sense, 21 he did understand the reality of resurrection in the hearts of the disciples. And he ended his book on this note: Resurrection in the hearts of men may strike a note of empathy even among today’s skeptics and cynics. Whether or not they adhere to a formal creed, a good many men and women of the twenty-first century may be moved and inspired by the mesmerizing presence of the teaching and example of the real Jesus alive in their mind.22
The Talmudic scholar and historian of religion Daniel Boyarin ends his reflections on The Jewish Gospels with some equally compelling remarks: ... the notion that some kind of experience of the risen Christ preceded and gave rise to the idea that he would rise seems to me so unlikely as to be incredible. Perhaps his followers saw him arisen, but surely this must be because they had a narrative that led them to expect such appearances, and not that the appearances gave rise to the narrative.23
He then describes the centuries of reflection on “a new king, a son of David” who would free them from oppression: “they had come to think of that king as a second younger, divine figure on the basis of the Book of Daniel’s reflection of that very ancient tradition.” He concludes, “The exaltation and resurrection experiences of his followers are a product of the narrative not a cause of it.” With regard to the question whether his “followers saw him risen,” he notes, “I am not denying the validity of the Christian view of matters. That is surely a matter of faith, not scholarship. I am denying it as a historical, scholarly, critical explanation.”24 The New Testament’s proclamation of faith in a crucified and risen Lord is more than what Vermès and Boyarin describe here, but their words are worth reflecting on for those looking for a response to the question of Jesus’s resurrection that lies between faith and the view that it is nothing but a “world historical humbug.” 20 On the concept see, e.g., R. Lover. Elementary Logic. For Software Development, London 2008, 154, 159 (and any elementary logic textbook). 21 The cautionary quotes are mine. An examination of this category would take one far beyond the bounds of this investigation. But if the tomb was empty, that was a historical event – whatever the explanation. And if 500 people saw the risen Jesus (1 Cor 15:6), then that was a historical event – whatever the explanation. Cf. chapt. 7 § 2, in particular the references to Lane Fox’s work. X. Léon-Dufour’s reflections on the topic remain useful (Resurrection and the Message of Easter, New York 1974, 195–249). 22 G. Vermès, The Resurrection. History and Myth, New York 2008, 149–52, esp. 152. 23 D. Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels, New York 2012, 159. 24 Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels, 159–60.
2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh
7
My interest in the monograph, instead of apologetics or critique, is a historical investigation of resurrection and analogies for resurrection in the GrecoRoman world (including Second Temple Judaism) and the origins of the language for resurrection. The authors of the New Testament were able to draw on the rich linguistic resources of Greek-speaking Judaism to express the concept of resurrection.25 That vocabulary itself, however, emerged from the surrounding culture of Hellenism. Subsequent to the emergence of Christianity in Palestine, the early Christians for the most part themselves were of pagan origin. A close investigation of Judaism’s and paganism’s vocabulary for resurrection can illuminate how those converts might have understood the New Testament’s proclamation of resurrection. A detailed philological analysis of the Hellenistic vocabulary, which to my knowledge has not been carried out since the seminal article of Erich Fascher, is an essential component of New Testament philology.26 Some remarks on the Semitic background of the Septuagint’s vocabulary for resurrection are in order.
2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh A brief summary of the linguistic approach I will adopt below should be useful. The methodology comprises a straightforward semantics based on usage, in which words can have multiple meanings. Context helps determine which meaning (or “sememe” in the terminology of semanticist Kurt Baldinger) is correct in a given example. The basic (or minimal) components of a word’s given meaning are “semes.” The conceptual meaning of a word and its reference (or “class”) should be distinguished.27 Gathering together the words most commonly associated with the concept resurrection is an exercise in “semantic
25
Some of this material is indebted to my study: The Vocabulary for Resurrection in Paganism, in: In mari via tua. Philological Studies in Honour of Antonio Piñero, Estudios de filología neotestamentaria 11, ed. I. M. Gallarte and J. Peláez, Cordoba 2016, 197–216. 26 Fascher, Anastasis, passim, Oepke, Û , 333–39 and idem, Û, 368–72 devotes minimal attention to resurrection in Hellenism. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs collected much excellent data, but did few linguistic investigations. 27 K. Baldinger, Semantic Theory. Towards a Modern Semantics, New York 1980. Cf. the summary in J. G. Cook, Structure and Persuasive Power of Mark. A Lingistic Approach, Semeia Studies, Atlanta 1995, 89–99. See also K. Heger, Monem, Wort, Satz, und Text, Tübingen 2 1976, and B. Garza-Cuarón, Connotation and Meaning, Approaches to Semiotics 99, Berlin 1991. One could add many names here, but that is not my goal. The traditional example for sense and reference is: “Venus” and “the morning star” both have different conceptual meanings, but have the same referential meaning. Cf. G. Frege, Über Sinn und Bedeutung, ZPPK 100 (1892) 25–50, esp. 32, 37–8. Sextus Empiricus attributes this distinction to the Stoics (Math. 8.11 = Adv. Log. 2.11 = SVF 2.166 Chrysippus); cp. Cook, ibid., 89–90.
8
Introduction
fields” or “semantic domains,” and the lexicon of Johannes P. Loew and Eugene A. Nida is an example of such research.28 Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgarter, the authors of the standard lexicon of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (HALOT), argue that (yqṣ “to awake”) is an “alternative form” of (qyṣ), and that the Hiphil form of means “awaken from sleep.”29 Gerhard Wallis’s definition of the Hiphil of is more accurate than that of HALOT, since he is aware that the form is always “used intransitively in the sense of ‘awaken’.”30 HALOT makes the clearly erroneous claim that the Hiphil form of means “to arouse persons from sleep.”31 All the usages listed by HALOT mean “wake up,” and not “arouse persons from sleep.”32 GKC call this usage “inwardly transitive” – “entering into a certain condition and, further, the being in the same” and define the Hiphil of to mean “to become awake.”33 Ronald J. Williams simply describes such usage as the “intransitive Hiphil” (“exhibiting a state or quality or … entering into a remaining in a state or condition”).34 Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi describe this usage of the Hiphil as “intransitive causation” – “it designates an entry into a state or condition and the continuation of the state or condition.”35 Wallis presents some interesting statistics concerning the translation of the Hiphil in the verbs in the LXX: “In rendering yqṣ/qyṣ hiphil, the LXX uses egeírō or egeírōmai 3 times, a translation it also uses for ʿwr (once);36 it uses exegeírō or exegeírōmai 14 times, as well as 19 times for ʿwr, for which it is actually a better translation in its original sense of ‘rouse, stir up’.”37 I think a better explanation for the use of forms of Û and 5 Û in the LXX for the
28 L&N, vi–xi (theory). O. M. 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 2001, 65–68 summarizes the concept and its history. 29 Cf. HALOT s.v., G. Wallis, יקץyqṣ; קיץqyṣ, TDOT 6 (1990), 274–9, and J. F. A. Sawyer, Hebrew Words for the Resurrection of the Dead, VT 23 (1973) 218–34, esp. 223, 225–6. Sawyer’s claim (230) that there are twenty passages in the HB that refer to resurrection is doubtful. 30 Wallis, yqṣ, 275. 31 HALOT s.v. 32 HALOT s.v. : (from sleep) 1 Sam 26:12, Isa 29:8, Jer 31:26, Ps 3:6, 17:15, 73:20, Prov 6:22, 23:35; (from drunkenness) Joel 1:5, Prov 23:35; (from death) 2 Kgs 4:21, Isa 26:19, Jer 51:39, 57, Job 14:12, Dan 12:2; (God) Ps 35:23, 44:24, 59:6; (wood) Hab 2:19; and Ezek 7:6. All these texts are intransitive, that is, none imply that someone woke another up from sleep. 33 GKC § 53d–e (cp. 78b). 34 Cf. R. J. Williams and J. C. Beckman, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, Toronto 32007, § 150. 35 B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Cambridge 2003, § 3.1.6b, p. 51. 36 HALOT s.v. define the Qal form to mean “be awake, stir.” 37 Wallis, yqṣ, 275. I have omitted “III” after ʿwr.
2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh
9
Hebrew verbs (yqṣ/qyṣ Hiphil) is that the Greek verb can mean both “wake up” and “get up” as will be argued below.38 The image of death as sleep in Dan 12:2 probably motivated Theodotion to translate (awake) with 5 !7 (awake/rise), although the Old Greek translator used the more straightforward 7 (rise, stand up).39 In Isa 26:19 (awake)40 and (they will rise) are also translated by !7, which is in parallel with 7. !7 not only has the connotation of “rising up,” but also of “waking up.” But clearly it also does not simply mean “wake up,” since the English usage would not necessarily imply a physical motion upward.41 The LXX translates
(awoke, roused up) in 1 Sam 26:12 with ¡ 5 (woke up, roused up) in 1 Kgdms 26:12. Gehazi’s failure to raise the dead child is expressed similarly: for in 2 Kgs 4:31, the LXX in 4 Kgdms 4:31 uses † 8 ! (awoke/got up).42 The Psalmist (3:6) “rouses up” ( ; י5 Ô !) because the Lord will uphold him. Movement upward is clearly implied by the prior statement that “I lay down” ( ; !). In Jer 31:26, the prophet awakes ( ), which the LXX (38:26) renders with 5 Ô ! (I woke/roused up). A text from Habakkuk is instructive (2:19), Alas for you who say to the wood, “Wake up!” to silent stone, “Rouse yourself!” (Hab 2:19 NRSV)
Woe to the one who says to the wood, “Sober up, rouse yourself up!” and to the stone, “Exalt yourself!” (Hab 2:19 LXX) ÃÚ ¡ 8
2 5 9 û 5 8 !, Ú 2 !9 ’:!
The sense of 5 8 ! is parallel to that of Õ:!, and consequently cannot be limited to “wake up” in English. LXX practice clearly explains the NT’s frequent use of Û for resurrection. Johann Gamberoni notes that the Qal of the verb (qûm) “refers to physical ‘rising,’ ‘getting/standing up,’ ‘leaving a place’ (‘with min’ [from])” while Hiphil “says the same thing from the perspective of the external cause.”43 One of the earliest examples of a use of the verb in the context of resurrection is 2 Kgs 13:21, in which a man rises from the dead after touching the bones of Elisha:
38
Cf. § 3. Cf. the discussion in chapt. 6 § 1.4. b. San. 92a (cf. chapt. 6 § 8.8) uses Dan 12:2 in a discussion of how resurrection is derived from the Torah. 40 Or some similar grammatical form. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.2. 41 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.2. 42 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.8. 43 J. Gamberoni, Í qûm, TDOT 12 (2012) 589–612, esp. 593. 39
10
Introduction As a man was being buried, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha; as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life and stood on his feet (2 Kgs 13:21 NRSV).
And it happened, when they were burying the man, that behold, they saw the lightly armed man, and they threw the man in the grave of Elisaie, and he went and touched the bones of Elisaie, and he revived and stood up on his feet (4 Kgdms 13:21 NETS, kaige recension). Ú 8 Ã ! Ù ;& Ú ∞&ˆ ∂& Ù Ú > Ù ;& 2 ?(9 @ , Ú ! Ú • ¿8 @ Ú > Ú 8 Ú ˆ & Ã (4 Kgdms 13:21 kaige). And it happened, as they were burying a person, that the group of attackers came near, and they threw the man into the grave of Elisaie and fled. And he came and touched the bones of Elisaie, and he revived and stood on his feet (4 Kgdms 13:20, recension of Antioch). Ú Ô Ã !ı ;! A, Ú 4
Ù Ã) Ú > Ù ;& B Ì(9 C ) Ú >( . Ú D ! Ú 4 ¡ ¡ !ı ¿ C ) Ú > Ú > Ú ˆ ı& Ã (4 Kgdms 13:20 Antiochene recension).44
Although the LXX translation was probably made soon after 200 C.E., the Hebrew text was probably written (or compiled) in the sixth century B.C.E., during the exile.45 It is possible that the Antiochene recension stands closer to the Old Greek translation.46 Marvin Sweeney writes that “the resurrection motif is common to the Elijah and Elishah traditions in 1 Kgs 17:17–24 and 2 Kgs 4:8– 37.”47 The construction, “he stood on his feet” ( ), otherwise only appears in 1 Chron 28:2.48 The same verb is used in the negation of the possibility of resurrection in Ps 88:10, where (will rise) is translated by
44 N. Fernández Marcos and J. Ramón Busto Saiz, ed., El texto antioqueno de la biblia griega. II 1–2 Reyes, TECC 53, Madrid 1992, 120. 45 M. Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, JSOTS 15, Sheffield 1981, 4–25 [first ed. 1943] dates the Deuteronomic material (Deut–2 Kgs) to the middle of the sixth century. See J. Barton, How the Bible Came to Be, Louisville, KY 1997, 31 and M. A. Sweeney, I & II Kings. A Commentary, OTL, Louisville, KY 2007, 4–5. 46 W. Kraus and M. Karrer et al., ed., Septuaginta Deutsch. Das griechische Alte Testament in deutscher Übersetzung, Stuttgart 2011 (LXX.De), 301. One cannot conclude that the Antiochene text always represents the Old Greek according to N. Fernández Marcos, Translating the Historical Books, in: XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Helsinki, 2010, ed. M. K. Peters, Atlanta 2013, 219–30, esp. 227: “The Old Greek can only be reached through the examination of all the evidence at our disposal submitted to the rules of textual criticism.” 47 Sweeney, I & II Kings, 360. 48 Gamberoni, qûm, 601. He compares it to Ezek 37:10: (and they stood on their feet). Standing ( ) becomes a term used in the inscriptions for resurrection. Cf. chapt. 6 § 2.
2 The Semantics of yqṣ, qyṣ, qûm, and ḥyh
11
7 (will rise).49 The same Hebrew and Greek verbs are used for the denial of the resurrection of the enemy in Isa 26:14.50 Amos 5:2 also includes a metaphorical usage of , in which the resurrection of Israel is denied: Fallen, no more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to raise her up (Amos 5:2 NRSV). She has fallen, no more to rise, the maiden Israel; she slipped upon her land; there is no one to raise her up (Amos 5:2 LXX NETS). û Ã8 !E F !8 G H >( Ú F F ÃF, Ã > ¡ 7 Ã7.
The insistence that “she will rise no more” is parallel to “she has fallen” and indicates that the corpse of a person will not stand up again.51 The corpse imagery is also an allegory (or metaphor) for the state of Israel.52 In the LXX, in the vast majority of usages of Û, the Hebrew equivalent is . The verb is used occasionally in various later texts to refer to the resurrection of the dead.53 (ḥyh) in the Qal form, as defined by HALOT, means “be alive, stay alive,” and in the context of resurrection means “to return to life, revive.”54 Elijah’s resurrection of the dead son of the widow of Zarephath illustrates this usage:
49
Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.1. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.2. Isa 26:19 LXX is somewhat more problematic. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.2. 51 See A. J. Bjørndalen, Untersuchungen zur allegorischen Rede der Propheten Amos und Jesaja, BZAW 165, Berlin 1986, 167 and HALOT s.v. § 5 (Hiphil). J. L. Mays, Amos, OTL, Philadelphia 1969, 85 writes: “The fall of the nation is tragically hopeless; there is none to help, for her no national ‘resurrection’.” 52 Bjørndalen, Untersuchungen, 166. 53 Cf. Midrash Tannaim Deut 32:39 in chapt. 6 § 8.14.6, Tg. Ket. Job 14:12 in chapt. 6 § 1.7, Tg. Ps-J. Gen 3:19 in § 8.1, and 4Q521 frgs 7 1–8 + 5 Col. ii 7–16, line 6 in § 6. 54 HALOT s.v. with the following as examples of “to return to life, revive” in Qal § 4: 2 Kgs 13:21, Isa 26:14, 19, 39:1 (1Q Isa), Ezek 37:3, 5, 9–10, 14, 47:9; in Piel Hos 6:2. Some of these are questionable. For example, Hezekiah had not died in Isa 39:1 (1Q Isa). Ezek 47:9 mentions no specific resurrection. In addition, 1 Kgs 17:22–3, which HALOT places in Qal § 3 “revive, recover” [from illness] surely belongs in § 4, since the boy was dead and not sick or weak (which is what their examples from Qal § 3 include: Gen 20:7, 45:27, Josh 5:8, Judg 15:19, 2 Kgs 1:2, 8:8, 10, 14, 20:7, Isa 38:1, 9 [where the LXX has 8 “he rose”], 16, 21). For the use of the verb to refer to recovery from illness cf. W. W. Graf von Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun. Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Glaubens an Auferstehungsgötter und an Heilgötter, Leipzig 1911, 390–5, and with ref. to resurrection see ibid., 480–5 (where he includes 1 Kgs 17:22 and 2 Kgs 13:21). Cp. H. Ringgren, chāyāh, etc., TDOT 4 (1981) 324– 44, esp. 334: 1 Kgs 17:22, 2 Kgs 13:21 (in both “a dead man is restored to life”); 341: Isa 26:14, 19 (“national existence is meant); 337: Hos 6:2 (see chapt. 6 § 1.5 for his views on the verse). 50
12
Introduction The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived (1 Kgs 17:22 NRSV)
And it happened thus, and the lad cried out (3 Kgdms 17:22 LXX NETS) Ú 8 — , Ú I Ù &? . And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him, and he revived (3 Kgdms 17:22 Aquila) Ú 4 ˜ ( J K ˆ, Ú Ì( & Û Ù > Ã, Ú > .55
The LXX translation may have depended on a different Hebrew source. In 17:23, Elijah presents the boy to his mother “alive”: (and Elijah said, behold, your son is alive), for which the LXX translation in 3 Kgdms 17:23 is: M 8 , E ¡ " (see, your son is alive). Sweeney remarks that the narrative’s depiction of God’s restoration of “the lifeless boy plays upon” and “undermines” a “mythic pattern” – including Dumuzi’s descent into the underworld and his subsequent rescue by Inanna.56 (nephesh) and (psychē) here refer to the child’s “breath of life” and not his immortal soul.57 The verb appears in the negation of the possibility of resurrection of the enemies in Isa 26:14 (“they will not live” ) where the LXX translates with “they will never see life” (" &Ó Ú Ã N& ).58 The presumably metaphorical affirmation of resurrection in Isa 26:19 (“your dead will live” ) is translated as “the dead will rise” (7 " ) in the LXX, while the versions use (will return to life).59 Hos 6:2 uses the Piel form of the verb (“bring back to life”) in a metaphorical reference to the resurrection of Israel (“he will revive us after two days” ).60 The rabbis later understood the text as a literal reference to resurrection, and Paul probably alludes to it in 1 Cor 15:4 – there is no better alternative.61 Texts
55
The symbols indicate that Origen added these words to the LXX from the versions. Text from F. Field, Origenis hexaplorum quae supersunt … 2 vols., Oxford 1875, 1.632. The Syro Hexapla marked Ú I with an obelus, a sign indicating the LXX text was longer than the Hebrew. 56 Sweeney, I & II Kings, 214–5 (he focuses on Baal and his consort as responsible for the land’s fertility). On Dumuzi and Baal, cf. chapt. 1 § 2 and 3. 57 Cf. HALOT s.v. § 7 “breath (life) of the child.” 58 See chapt. 6 § 1.2. 59 See chapt. 6 § 1.2. 60 Cf. HALOT s.v. 61 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.5 and 8.14 and D. Häusser, Christusbekenntnis und Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus, WUNT 2/210, Tübingen 2006, 102 with ref. to W. Rudolph, Hosea, Gütersloh 1966, 137), H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians. A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
3 The Semantics of ἐγείρω (egeirō) and ἀνίστημι (anistēmi)
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from Qumran and the Cairo Geniza (the second Benediction) also use the Piel form of the verb to refer to resurrection.62 The Tosefta and other rabbinic texts likewise employ the expression.63
3 The Semantics of Û (egeirō) and Û (anistēmi) Below I will focus on the NT’s two primary verbs for resurrection, although in classical Greek Iı , IÛ , and a number of other terms could express the return of a dead person to life.64 Iı and IÛ , however, were inherently ambiguous and could be used for the return of a hero’s soul to life on earth.65 Consequently, the NT avoids those two words to refer to the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection.66 3.1 Meaning and Usage James Ware, in a recent analysis of Û , distinguishes three senses, the first two of which are closely related: 1) awaken, raise from sleep or wake up, rise from sleep; 2) rouse up, stir up; and 3) raise up, set up right or rise up, stand upright.67 In the first and third senses “the basic semantic meaning of getting up or arising to stand is present.”68 This seems correct in general, although Hermeneia, Philadelphia 1975, 256 (“it can only be Hos 6:2”), H. Wolff, Hosea. A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea, Hermeneia, Philadelphia 1974, 118 (with ref. to 1 Cor 15:4 [and cp. Lk 24:7] “hardly another passage was as appropriate as Hos 6:2”). 62 Chapt. 6 § 6 and 7. 63 t. San. 13:3 (Zuckermandel). Cf. Chapt. 6 § 8.5 etc. (who gives life to the dead) occurs fairly often in rabbinic literature including b. Ketub. 8b: (who gives life to the dead with his word). See the examples in the Bar Ilan Responsa Database (‹www.re sponsa.co.il›). 64 See Artapanus apud Eusebius, P.E. 9.27.25 and 2 Macc 7:9 in chapt. 6 § 1.6 for two examples. 65 This is the case in Philostratus’s Heroikos where Protesilaos returns to life as a heroized soul and a daimōn. Cf. chapt. 3 § 2.1. 66 They are found, however, in several Jewish sources including the LXX. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.6 and § 1.8: 2 Macc 7:9 and Artapanus apud Eusebius P.E. 9.27.25. 67 J. Ware, The Resurrection of Jesus in Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5, NTS 60 (2014) 475–98, esp. 492–5. See also my investigations: Resurrection in Paganism, 56–75; and The use of Û, 259–280. 68 Ware, Resurrection, 494. Etymologically, for , the Sanskrit origin is jāgāra (P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique, Paris 1968–80, s.v., F. Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, Leiden 2015, s.v. Û ), a 3 sg. perfect form from a root that means: “to wake,” “to watch over,” “to be roused.” See T. Benfrey, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary …, London 1866, 328 (jāgṛ). Cp. M. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit English Dictionary …, Oxford 1899, 417 s.v. jāgṛ for other meanings. Chantraine (ibid.) indicates how Û developed from the aorist > . The entry in R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden 2010, s.v. does not differ essentially from the results of Chantraine.
14
Introduction
there are usages such as Homer, Il. 2.41 where > &í 5 — (he woke from sleep) is followed by A &í ¿ ! ! in 2.42 (he sat up straight). In such a text, one cannot demonstrate that the meaning “arising to stand” is necessarily present in > . On the whole, however, Ware is accurate. One could argue that Il. 2.42 simply clarifies the action of “getting up” that is implied by > . The DGE’s entry for middle/passive uses of Û , for example, is despertarse, salir del sueño (“rouse oneself, arise from sleep”) and includes some clear examples such as “ ! ∞ ... ( ? levantarse de noche para hacer las guardias [to get oneself up in the night to perform guard duty].”69 The entry also refers to Aristotle’s ! & ∞ Ú ! & — (the masters of slaves must wake up/get up first and go to sleep last).70 The active use of the verb also (at least almost always) includes the seme71 “get up” as in a Homeric text where í Ú !2 / &í I &7 Ù > (in his [Telemachus’s] mind, anxieties for his father kept him awake/up during the immortal night).72 An ancient scholiast writes: 4! ” Ú F · ¢ Ï &7 ) & Ú &7 (This [sleep] mustered him up and led him around; or the anxieties roused him and got him up).73 In a passage in the Iliad, Nestor wakes Diomedes: Wake up, son of Tydeus, why do you sleep the whole night through? … So he spoke, and he leapt up very quickly. > P&8 "8H ? — ); Ö Á (?!í, √ &í 5 — ? 74
69 DGE s.v. A/I/1 Û , with ref., among many, to Plato Leg. 942b [quoted above]. DGE is the Diccionario Griego-Español (http://dge.cchs.csic.es/). For the active usage of the verb, the entry (B/I/1) is “despertar, sacar del sueño” (awake/rouse, take out of sleep). One of the refs. is to Od. 6.48 KS Ö > (Eos woke her [Nausicaa] /roused her up). This is followed in 6.49–50 by ;( &í !í ƒ / IF &í N &Ï &:!í … (immediately, marveling at the dream, she left going through the house). These verses indicate that the verb > comprises the seme “get up.” It is not necessary to drive a wedge between the middle and active uses of the verb (e.g., the middle/passive comprises the seme “get up,” but the active does not in a context of waking from sleep). Homer Od. 15.44–5 ( 5 &8 — > / Ï5 &Ú 7 [he got him up from sweet sleep, moving him with his foot]), for example, is followed two lines later (15.46) with > , T & (rouse yourself up, son of Nestor, Peisistratus). In both texts, Telemachus is getting Peisistratus up to get the horses and yoke them to the chariot. 70 Aristotle Oec. 1345a13. 71 Cf. Baldinger, Semantic Theory, 318 (index), s.v. “seme.” 72 Homer Od. 15.7–8. 73 Scholia in Homer Od. 15.8. 74 Homer Il. 10.159, 162.
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The verb > here (in the middle voice) includes the sense “get up” or at least implies it. The chorus (that is, the Furies) in the Eumenides of Aeschylus cry to each other to wake/get up after Orestes has escaped: Wake/get up, you get her up, and I [will get] you up. Do you still sleep? Stand up, shaking off sleep. > í, > Ú ˆ 7&í, S &Ó 8. —& ; , í —75
The command to stand clarifies the action (motion upward) implicit in the command to “wake” or “get up.” An idyll attributed76 to Theocritus about two fishermen illustrates the motion: And their customary labor roused up the fishermen, and chasing the sleep from their eyelids, provoked speech in their minds. ˆ &í U ) 4 ( , I (? &8 — ? ( 8 ( Ú 4 ! Ã&?77
Cytherea, in Bion’s Epitaph for Adonis, uses the verb to coax her dying lover, even if for one last kiss: Rouse yourself a little, Adonis, and kiss me for a final time; kiss me as much as your kiss has life, until you breathe your last into my mouth, and your spirit flows into my heart … > ! , ê& , Ù &í “ ( , ( ≈ : Ù ( , ; W Ù , ∞ Ù ß Ù X W …78
In a much later example from Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor contemplates the occasional difficulty of waking/getting up from sleep: Whenever you wake/get up from sleep with difficulty, remember that according to your condition and human nature you perform social activities, and that sleeping is something also shared with irrational animals. À 5 — & W, Y ≈ Ï 7 Ú Ú Ï ! ( Ù ?5 Ï && , Ù &Ó ! & Ù Ú
Z ·79
75
Aeschylus Eum. 140–1. J. D. Reed, Idyll 6 and the Development of Bucolic after Theocritus, in: A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, ed. J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers, Oxford et al. 2010, 238–250, esp. 250 notes that the author is anonymous. 77 Theocritus Id. 21.20–1. 78 Bion (Epitaph. Adon.) 1.45–8, trans. of Theocritus. Moschus. Bion, LCL, ed. and trans. N. Hopkinson, Cambridge, MA 2015, 511. 79 Marcus Aurelius Med. 8.12. 76
16
Introduction
The active component of the verb (i.e., getting up) is readily apparent in the emperor’s text. Ammonius, a grammarian who perhaps wrote in I or II C.E., distinguished between † 8 ! and 8: † 8 ! and 8 are different. † 8 ! ((s)he rose/woke) is, on the one hand, to be said “from sleep,” but 8 ((s)he rose) is to be said “from that on which one lies” († 8 ! Ú 8 &(8 . † 8 ! 8, 8, Ù —, 8 &Ó Ù ).80 He gives another similar distinction: F and !F differ: “F is, on the one hand, to rise for a task, but !F is to rise/wake from sleep” (F Ú !F &(8 . F Ó Ú > , !F &Ó 5 —).81 In another text, Ammonius writes: F Ú !F &(8 . F Ó Ú > , !F &Ó 5 — (“F is, on the one hand, to rise for a task, but !F is to rise from sleep”).82 In a work dedicated to “incorrect phraseology” ( Ú ), the same grammarian distinguishes the verbs so: F !F &(8 . F , !F Ù 5 — (F differs from !F. One rises [F] while awake, but one wakes/rises [ !F] from sleep).83 Presumably Ammonius would not be pleased with NT texts such as Luke 6:8 where Jesus commands the man with the withered hand: û Ú F! ∞ Ù 8H Ú Ï > (rise and stand in the middle, and rising he stood there).84 Grammatical rules are occasionally not observed as in Ps. Plato’s Axiochus: ] 7& Ú P (: Ö !8 Ã8í 8 (Agamedes and Trophonius indeed going to sleep no longer rose up).85 Ammonius seems to forget his own distinction at one point:
80 [Ammonius] De adfinium vocabulorum differentia § 216 (BiTeu 56,15–16 Nickau). Cf. K. Nickau, Ammonii qui dicitur liber de adfinium vocabulorum differentia, BiTeu, Leipzig 1966, lxvi–lxvii on the date of the text (attributed to three different authors: Ammonius, Herrenius Philo, and Ptolemaeus). Cp. E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship …, Oxford 2006, 94–6 (probably based on a lexicon of Herennius Philo in “early II C.E.”). On Ammonius and comparable issues, see M. Lacore, Du «sommeil sans réveil» à la résurrection comme réveil, Gaia: revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce Archaïque 13 (2010) 205–227. 81 [Ammonius] De adfin. voc. dif. § 50 (14,3–4 Nickau). Cp., on the other hand, Hesychius Lexicon Ε § 2919: !H I . † 8 ! ((s)he revived: (s)he came back to life, (s)he rose). Cp. ! in Homer Il. 5.697. 82 [Ammonius] De adfin. voc. dif. § 50 (14,3–4 Nickau). Cf. Nickau, Ammonius, xxii–xxiii for various interesting interpolations to this entry in the MS tradition. 83 Ammonius De impr. § 48 (153,5–6 Nickau). 84 Cp. Mark 9:27 and Acts 10:26 (neither of which are contexts in which individuals are sleeping). Eph 5:14 would be more acceptable: û , ¡ ! & , Ú ? (wake, sleeper, and rise from the dead). 85 [Plato] Axiochus 10, 367C.
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ƒ ! and ^ differ: for ƒ ! [early] is the hour before the rising of the sun in which rising from sleep we are upright, ^ [early] means before the normal time ƒ ! Ú _ &(8 . ƒ ! Ó Ï Ù F · !í ` ? 5 — ¿ !Ú !, _ &Ó Ù !7 .86
Another grammarian, called Ptolemaeus in the MS tradition, expressed the difference similarly: F Ó Ù Ú a5 ¡ FH !F &Ó Ù ([F] “rise” is, on the one hand, to rise for beginning a certain act; but [ !F] “rise” is to rise from a bed).87 Apion, in his glosses of Homer, notes two different meanings for the verb: ) ʹH F (Ο 232).88 5. Ú & ) (Ζ 105)89 (to rise, used three senses: to stimulate [as in Il. 15.232]), to wake up. And to stir up/raise [as in Il. 6.105]).90 In general, it is true that classical Greek texts do not use the verb Û to mean rise (from sleep).91 The LXX, however, did occasionally use the verb for individuals who get up after being asleep. In Sir 31:20, for example, a person with healthy digestion rises early (NETS): “A sleep of health due to a moderate bowel [or “moderation in eating”]! He rose early and his soul is with him” (— Õ Ú 8 9 9H 8 Ú Ã í Ã). The Hebrew corresponding to 8 is: .92 Judith in Jdt 12:5 slept until midnight in Olophernes’ tent (NETS): “And she slept until it was the middle of the night and arose toward the morning watch” (Ú — 8 F H Ú 8 Ù / ! ( 7). The Psalmist appeals to God to rouse up in 43:24 (NETS modified): “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise, and do not reject us totally” ( 5 8 !H μ Õ), ; ?! Ú :W ∞ 8 ).93 86
[Ammonius] De adfin. voc. dif. § 354 (92 Nickau). [Ptolemaeus] De differentia vocabulorum (H. Heylbut, Ptolemaeus Ú &( a 85 , Hermes 22 [1887] 388–410, esp. 389). On “Ptolemaeus,” see Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship, 95 (not the Ptolemy of Ascalon of I C.E.). Cp. Diod. Sic. 10.20.1 ¡ 58 Ù ! Ú · (the guest, rising in the night, rushed from his bedroom). 88 Homer Il. 15.232. 89 Homer Il. 6.105 90 Apion Fragmenta de glossis Homericis (A. Ludwich, Über die homerischen Glossen Apions, Ph. 74 [1917] 209–247, esp. 232). 91 Another exception is Diocles frag. 182 (van der Eijk): ! Ó Ú ! ˆ Ó (:& ¿8, ˆ &í ; b E 8 c (those given to flatulence should wake up/rouse up and get up late, but all others at the beginning of the day). 92 British Library Or. 5518, 4r. Cf. www.bensira.org for the MSS. 93 I thank Jan Joosten for pointing out these examples to me (personal communication of 29 May 2017). He would translate Û as “wake up” in these three texts, but “rise up” is more than adequate in my view. The translators in Kraus and Karrer, Septuaginta Deutsch all use a form of “stand up” for Û in the three texts. T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, Leuven 2009, s.v. does not include “wake up” in any of the lemmas for the verb. 87
18
Introduction
Both verbs usually imply a physical motion upwards from the state of sleep, lying down, or death – in contexts where individuals are sleeping, lying down, or dead.94 Authors did not always honor the distinction. Eupolis the comic poet uses 8 for “woke” or “raised” in this fragment found in the Lexicon of Ps. Zonaras95: To be roused from sleep: to physically get up. Eupolis: “Who is it that roused me out of sleep? You’ll really be sorry / that he got me out of bed too early!” They say both “to rouse up” ( ) ) and “to be roused up” ( !F); “the servant-girl, after rousing me up” C !F 5 —. F 2 :. @– H Õ5 96 í ∞:5 ?H / ¡797 í 8í ‹ g. 8 &Ó Ú ) Ú !F. ! ? ? .98
S. Douglas Olson writes that the “point of the note [of Zonaras] is that 5 Û means not simply to wake someone up but to cause him or her to get physically out of bed.”99 Olson, however, believes that there are examples where “despite Zonaras (or Orus), the verb is used to mean simply ‘wake’ rather than ‘get out of bed’.”100 Ware’s “rise from a position of sleep,” is, in my view, a better interpretation of the texts to which Olson refers. In Aristophanes’ Clouds, for example, a father attempts to get his sleeping son up: (Strepsiades) But first I wish to wake him/rouse him up. How then could I rouse him up in the gentlest way? How? Phidippides, my little Phidippides. (Phidippides) What, father? (Str.) Kiss me, and give me your right hand. (Στ.) í 5 ) ÃÙ I . &Fí i •&í ÃÙ ; ; j &&, j &&.
94
Cp. Hippocrates Mul. 1.149 ¡ &Ó E ¢ 5 — > ¢ W ¢ ; 7W … (whenever she should rise or wake/get up from sleep, or bend over, or make any other motion …). 5 — > undoubtedly is a reference to a motion, for Hippocrates. 95 Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship, 102 dates this to “the first half” of XIII C.E. 96 Ps. Zonaras has à 5 here. The text is from Eupolis frag. 328 Kassel/Austin = 305 Kock. 97 Ps. Zonaras has ≈ ¢ here. 98 Ps. Zonaras Lexicon Ε § 606 = Orus Vocum atticarum collectio frag. 35 (Alpers). The last phrase ( ! ?Ö) is from Lysias 1.23 (De caede Erat.). Trans. of Eupolis frr. 326– 497. Fragmenta incertarum fabularum. Fragmenta dubia, trans. and comm. S. D. Olson, Heidelberg 2014, 19 (frag. 328 Kassel/Austin). Cp. [Plato] Axiochus 10, 367C quoted above. 99 Olson, Eupolis, 19. 100 Olson, Eupolis, 20. The examples given are the texts from Aristophanes Nub. 78–9, Vesp. 101, Ran. 51, and [Euripides] Rhes. 787.
3 The Semantics of ἐγείρω (egeirō) and ἀνίστημι (anistēmi)
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(j .) , ‚ ? ; (.) Ú ) &Ù & 5?.101
Presumably, Strepsiades sits or stands up after his father takes his hand. But the verb ( 5 ) ) probably contains, even here, the sense of rising up from his supine position, since the father clearly intends to get his son into an upright position, as the reference to his “hand” makes clear. If Ammonius, Orus, and Ps. Zonaras are correct, then native speakers had a difficult time distinguishing between Û and Û. That implies that the sense “rise from a position of sleep” is present in Û .102 In the Wasps, Xanthias intimately relates the verb to getting up for supper in one of his speeches: [About] the cock, who had been crowing since the evening, he said that it roused him up [too] late, because it had been persuaded [to do so] by the magistrates due for audit and had [got] money [from them]. Ù &í, √ J&í (í /8 , >( ƒí 5 ÃÙ 8 Ï Õ ! > 7.103
5 , used to express the cock’s “rousing up” of Xanthias, probably contains the seme “upward motion,” since he does not wish to miss the audit and cannot simply be lying in bed, awake.104 In his Frogs, Aristophanes includes a character who roused himself up (or “woke up”), after Dionysus recounts his exploits to Heracles: í >
í 5 (and then I roused myself up).105 An ancient scholiast also believed the verb indicates “getting up,” since it implies that Dionysus dreamed of his alleged naval victory: And then I woke up: it is a joke about Dionysus. And then, he said, I got up from a dream; making it clear that a dream accomplished these things. 101
Aristophanes Nub. 78–81. Ware, Resurrection, 493. 103 Aristophanes Vesp. 100–2. I thank Professor Jerker Blomqvist for his comments on and translation of the text (which I have slightly modified). P. Meineck (Aristophanes 1. Clouds, Wasps, Birds, trans. with notes by P. Meineck, Indianapolis 1999, 236) writes that “Athenian citizens who held public positions were subject to an audit after a term in office.” If they were suspected of corruption “a private citizen could also bring a charge against a magistrate,” or the boule could remand the issue to the law courts. 104 Cp. the soul of Hermotimus, which would reenter his catatonic body and raise him ( &Ó !? ∞ > &Ï ∞ 8 & Ù ). See chapt. 4 § 2.1.18 (Apollonius Mirab. 3.1–4). In Lucian’s version, the soul raises up Hermotimus ( ! 7 “! Ù Ú Ù ). Cf. Lucian Musc. laud. 7 in chapt. 4 § 2.1.18. After fifty-seven years of sleep, Epimenides “rose up from his sleep” (ÃÙ &Ó !8 —) and went to look for his sheep. See Apollonius Mirab. 1.2 in chapt. 4 § 2.1.13. 105 Aristophanes Ran. 51. 102
20
Introduction í >
í 5 : : Ù . Ú S, (Ú, 8 5 ¿ . & ≈ ƒ > 5 .106
Clearly the scholiast believes that a seme of “upward motion” belongs to the verb 5 . In the Rhesus the king’s charioteer awakes from sleep when he dreams that the king’s horses are being ridden by wolves: And I roused up from sleep warding off the beasts [wolves] from the horses. For the night terror urged me. And raising my head, I hear the moaning of the dying. A warm stream of new blood from the wound of my master falls on me, as he died hard. I rise upright, my hand empty of any spear … S &í !F 5 : H > Ï 5: ( I. &í ? a !Ù H ! Ù &Ó Ù & Ï ( F I? &!7 μ 8. ¿ !Ù &í ? Ú ˆ F & 107
This is a clear example of the spatial motion upward contained in the verb 5 . There is an intriguing scene in Mark when Jesus raises Jairus’s daughter from the dead, which illustrates the use of Û to mean “awaken” in the sense of “get up”: (5:39) When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” (40) And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. (41) He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up [or “wake up”]!” (42) And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. (43) He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. (39) Ú ∞ !S 8 Ã), P ! I )! Ú ; Ù & Ã 8! Ï ! & . (40) Ú 8 Ã. ÃÙ &Ó I S ? I? Ù 8 & Ú 8 Ú ˆ í Ã, Ú ∞ ≈ D Ù &H (41) Ú 7 F Ù & 8 ÃE, P ! , ≈ ! PÙ ?, Ú 8
, > . (42) Ú Ã!ˆ 8 Ù ? Ú ? , D Ï &:& . Ú 58 Ã!ˆ ? ? W.108
The Aramaic () clearly means “get up” or “rise.” Many MSS have the Palestinian Aramaic form ( ) , which includes the morpheme ( or ι)
106
Scholia in Aristophanem Ran. 51. Cf. the analysis of the dramatis personae by K. J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy, Berkeley 1972, 7–8. 107 [Euripides] Rhesus 787–92. 108 Mark 5:39–43, trans. of NRSV slightly modified.
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for the second person feminine singular.109 Mark’s choice of > (rise) to translate (cum) indicates the motion upward that is one of the elements of the meaning of the verb. 3.2 Usage for Bodily Resurrection and the Problem of the Passive of Û The verb Û is used for bodily resurrection in pagan and Jewish texts.110 A few examples will suffice. Apollodorus of Athens (II B.C.E.) “says … that not only did he [Asclepius] heal the sick, but he also raised some of the dead” (( Ö › ˆ ∞a!, Ï ).111 Unfortunately the source, Theodoret, is too late for one to be completely certain that Apollodorus used and not some other word for resurrection. Ps. Eratosthenes (II C.E.) also describes Asclepius’s gifts: “he used the art of the physician so that he could raise those who were already dead, among whom the last was Hippolytus the son of Theseus” ( 8W ∞ E 8, › Ú ˆ 4& ! , ∑ Ú > π Ù 8 ).112 Apollodorus (II C.E.) uses the verb for Asclepius’s resurrections of the dead (7 Ú ˆ ! ).113 An inscription from the second or third century C.E. asserts that “no one will be rise from here ( ! Ã!Ú !S Û ).114 To my knowledge, there are no other reliable pagan sources prior to the NT in which Û is used to express resurrection. There are several nouns, however, related to Û that probably refer to resurrection. Josephus 109
Cf. BDAG s.v. and the apparatus to NA28. For Hebrew examples, see 4Q176 frags. 42, 12–13,6 ק]ו[מי, which is from Isa 52:2, and a non-canonical Psalm (4Q381 frag. 24a+b,6), in which God is addressed with קום. See Tg. Neb. I Kings 14:2, 12, II Kings 8:1. M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period, Baltimore et al. 2002, 479 cites TN Gen 21:18 for the form ()קומי. Cp. TAD D7.1:5 for the form ( )קומיin Imperial Aramaic (TAD D7.1:5 is B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt 4. Ostraca and Assorted Inscriptions, Jerusalem 1999, 153). G. Dalman (Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinischen Aramäisch nach den Idiomen des palästinischen Talmud, des Onkelostargum und Prophetentargum und der jerusalemischen Targume, Leipzig 2 1905, 276–7) provides many examples with the yod ending for the feminine singular imperative from Palestinian Aramaic. Cf. H. P. Rüger, Aramäisch II. Im Neuen Testament, TRE III (1978) 602–10, esp. 609. 110 See chapt. 7 § 1.2.1. 111 Theodoret Affect. 8.20 = Apollodorus Ú ! in FGrH 244 F 138. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 112 Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D (BiTeu Mythographi Graeci 3.1, 7,6–13 Olivieri). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. This may be part of the text he transmits from Eratosthenes (III B.C.E.). When Hermotimus’s soul reentered his body, it “raised his body” (& Ù ) according to Apollonius [II B.C.E.] Mirab. 3.1 (cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.18). 113 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.10.3 (= 3.121 Wagner). See chapt. 2 § 1.9. Cp. Cyranides Ú X( 3.39, which may be based on a first or second century C.E. source (chapt. 2 § 1.26). 114 IGUR III, 1406 = GVI 1367 = IG XIV, 2130, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1.
22
Introduction
uses > for the Awakening or resurrection of Heracles/Melqart.115 An inscription from Philadelphia/Amman mentions an individual who is the resuscitator ( Û) of Heracles/Melqart.116 An inscription of Rhodes uses the verb Û to refer to an individual responsible for “awakening” Dionysus and makes a reference to his two returns from Hades, one of which is his return after being torn apart by the Titans. Consequently, the verb’s use is closely related to resurrection (or rebirth) after the god’s death.117 An inscription from the Roman era (ca I C.E.), discussed below, uses to refer to a dead individual who will never “wake” or “rise.”118 Isa 26:9 expresses the image of resurrection using the verb: “the dead will rise, and those in tombs will be raised” (7 " , Ú !7 " ) ). T Job 4:9 asserts that “you [Job] will be raised in the resurrection” ( !7W E ? ). Classical writers used various forms of Û to describe resurrection. Although Homer viewed resurrection as impossible, he mentions it several times in the following texts. Achilles asserts, in an ironic usage that implies it will not happen, that the “[dead] Trojans will rise again” (P Ö / “ 7).119 After killing Hector, Achilles tells Priam that “you will never raise your son” (Ã&8 7 ).120 A fragment of Sophocles includes the negated possibility that one can raise the dead with tears (Ù ! & ?).121 In Aeschylus, Apollo says that once a person dies, “there is no resurrection (or “return to life”): – >í ?.122 In a discussion of the possibility of Heracles returning from the grave, Euripides has a character say “No [he will not come], unless one of the gods should raise him” (–, N 7 ! 7 8 ).123 Another character asserts that Asclepius raised the dead (&!8 Ï ).124 There are many similar texts.125 It is possible that Û was not used (or seldom used) in classical sources for resurrection before the NT period, because sleep was not frequent as an 115
See Josephus A.J. 8.145–6 and C. Ap. 1.118–9 in chapt. 1 § 7. IGLSyr 21,2 29. The same term is used in an inscription from Ramlah (cf. chapt. 1 § 7). 117 Cf. REG 17 (1904) 203,1b in chapt. 1 § 8. An Orphic Hymn (Orphei hymni 53) refers to Dionysus’s awakening from his sleep in Hades ( , / ) – “he rises from the realm of the dead” according to M. Nilsson. See the ref. in chapt. 1 § 8. 118 IG XII Suppl. 165a. is clearly derived from > . Cf. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary, s.v.: “*n- [privative] and *h1gr-eto-.” 119 Homer Il. 21.55–6, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. 120 Homer Il. 24.551, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. 121 Sophocles frag. 557 Radt, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. 122 Aeschylus Eum. 647–8, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. 123 Euripides Herc. fur. 718–9. 124 Euripides Alc. 127. 125 Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 116
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image of death – in contrast to Jewish and Christian texts.126 More importantly, resurrection is not often portrayed in classical texts as waking from sleep.127 Homer does use the image of sleep for death, however, as do other classical authors.128 Richmond Lattimore, in his review of grave epitaphs, remarks that the image of death as sleep “is used far more often by Christian than by pagan writers …”129 The earliest pagan epitaph Lattimore knows is from Kerkyra, dated to the third or second century B.C.E. and dedicated to a Philistion: “This harsh tomb has received you, to take your final sleep in the gloomy dust” (Ó &í — — / [] / Ù ≈& ( a ˜I >& [ ı ]).130 Marta González-González discusses an earlier epitaph for a man who lived 105 years, from IV B.C.E., which identifies death and sleep: “… who first fell asleep, Euphranor, blessed to many [or “envied by many], went down to Hades” (√ Ô& ! / @Ã( Ì ) >I Ù &).131 An inscription from the Roman era, perhaps I C.E., indicates that the dead Claudius Secundus will not wake (or rise) from his sleep: “I, Claudius Secundus, o passer-by, lie under this grave, and sleep the sleep of the dead from which there is no awakening/rising” ( ˘&, ‚ & ), Ì( ÕÙ / )& & ) Ù / (!Ô — > ).132 I will not review the Jewish material here, but already in Deut 31:16 sleep is used as an image for death.133 The verb Û in the NT, in resurrection contexts, probably at times includes the sense of “wake up,” something that is not included in the general meaning of Û. The example in Mark 5:39–41 discussed above may well 126 Cf. the still fundamental analysis by M. B. Ogle, The Sleep of Death, MAAR 11 (1933) 81–117. 127 The cults of Dionysus and Heracles Melkart are possible exceptions. Cf. chapt. 1 § 8, 7. 128 Ogle, Sleep, 81–87 mentions Homer Il. 11.241 7 ? — (he slept a bronze sleep) and a number of other texts. Most of the article is a review of Jewish and Christian images of death and sleep, with many references to the LXX. 129 R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, Urbana 1962, 164. 130 IG IX,1 874, trans. of Lattimore, Themes, 78. On this text, cf. further M. GonzálezGonzález, Hypnos y Thánatos: La Muerte como Sueño en Consolatio ad Apollonium, in: Immagini letterarie e iconografia nelle opere di Plutarco, ed. S. Amendola et al., Madrid 2017, 171–8, esp. 176 (with reference to other similar grave epitaphs). 131 SEG 43, 88 (Rhamnous), González-González, Hypnos, 175–6. Cf. the study by J. Lougovaya (Euphranor of Rhamnous, Aged 105, the Most Fortunate Athenian, GRBS 48 [2008] 27–37, esp. 29–30 [reconstruction and trans.]) who translates the phrase above as “envied by many.” Lougovaya (ibid., 33–7) reviews ancient Greek texts that compare death to sleep. 132 IG XII Suppl. 165a (Melos), trans. of J. S. Park, Conceptions of the Afterlife in Jewish Inscriptions. With Special Reference to the Pauline Literature, WUNT 2/121, Tübingen 2000, 99, slightly modified. 133 Cp. 1 Kgs 2:10, 11:21, 11:43, 2 Kgs 14:20, 31, Jer 51:39, 57, Ps 13:4, Job 14:12, Dan 12:2, and 2 Chron 26:2, etc. For a comprehensive review of the inscriptions, most from III–IV C.E., cf. Park, Conceptions, 98–121 (many are not dated in his review).
24
Introduction
indicate a double sense (wake up/get up) for > . Matt 27:52 likewise uses the image of sleep for death: Ú Ï ) Z! Ú Ï : 8 U † 8 ! (and the tombs were opened and many bodies of the sleeping saints rose). The uses of † Ô ! and related forms of the aorist passive in the LXX are for the most part not examples of the passive sense. There are examples of the passive sense in classical literature before the NT era.134 1 Esd 2:8, however, does use an aorist passive in the passive sense: and the people in the surrounding area helped them with everything, with silver and gold, horses and livestock and with the greatest number of vows from many whose mind was stirred (NETS mod.) Ú " 9 Ã I7! a, 9 Ú 9, μ Ú 7 Ú Ã) › , „ ¡ † 8 !.
This is the only usage in the LXX, to my knowledge, that should probably be translated with a passive sense.135 What is particularly interesting about this occurrence is that in the preceding verse the Lord is identified as the one who stirs up the spirit of the Israelites to donate goods for the temple’s construction: And there arose the chiefs of the paternal families of the tribe of Ioudas and Beniamin and the priests and the Leuites and all whose spirit the Lord had stirred to go up to build the house for the Lord, which is in Ierousalem Ú ? " ( F G& Ú M ( F Ú " " ) Ú " ) Ú ? „ 4 Ù IF ∞&F ∂ 2 9 Ù G (1 Esd 2:7, NETS)
Consequently, although there is no need to call † 8 ! in 1 Esd 2:8 a “divine passive,” it is apparent that the minds of the people in the surrounding area are stirred up by the Lord and that the verb does have a passive sense in this context. One of the most relevant examples is the use of 5 !7 in Theodotion’s translation of (they will awake) in Dan 12:2 mentioned above 134 Gen 41:4, 7 (Pharaoh woke/roused up), 4 Kgdms 4:31, 1 Chron 10:12, 2 Chron 21:9, 22:10, Tob 6:18 (A) and Tob 8:4 (). Although BDF § 78 note the middle and passive uses of † Ô !, none of the texts (with one possible exception) to which they appeal (from Lautensach) are examples of passive senses. Instead all have a middle sense. Cf. the examples in O. Lautensach, Die Aoriste bei den attischen Tragikern und Komikern, Göttingen 1911, 249. Philo Virt. 5 &í ≈ Õí !F &? (lacking the valour even to raise themselves; trans. of Philo, 10 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Cambridge, MA 1929–62, 8.165) is also an example of the middle. A passive sense in Philo from Sacr. 103 is: Ã?! Ú 7, Õ(í „ ! Ú X ! (“health of soul and virtue, by which we are stimulated and strengthened, trans. of Colson, Philo, 2.171). In the LXX, aorist and future passive uses of 5 Û have a middle (or intransitive) sense: Gen 28:16, 41:21, Num 34:2, 24:19, Judg (MS A) 16:14, 20, 1 Esd 8:70, etc. 135 A. B. Du Toit, Focusing on Paul. Persuasion and Theological Design in Romans and Galatians, BZNW 151, Berlin 2007, 114 makes this point.
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(§ 2). The Old Greek translation uses an intransitive: 7.136 Since Theodotion was translating a Hiphil form () that is intransitive and definitely not passive, it is highly likely that he intended the intransitive use of 5 !7 – that is, “they will awake/rise.” The same is true of the LXX translation of what probably originally read and (they will rise) in Isa 26:19 ( !7).137 Since the Hebrew verb is intransitive in the Hiphil (as with Dan 12:2), and since it is used in parallel with a verb that is clearly intransitive (7), there is no necessity for translating !7 as a passive. Classical texts offer some insight. Xenophon uses an aorist passive optative in what may be a passive meaning: ∞ ! (if war should be stirred up).138 There is a text in Aeschylus where a present middle passive bears a clearly passive sense ( 5 ) – “are you not roused up?”139 Dionysus Halicarnassus uses the same verb, which has a passive sense, in an ironic statement: ÕÙ Ú ( & 5 8 ! (“they were roused by this august and patriotic individual”).140 Another clear passive occurs in Xenophon’s gracious statement: !Ù &Ó ; ∂ ∞ Ú E ! Ú !8 ¡ ! ! (“and it is a good thing not to be ignorant if, roused by a blow, he [a horse] is likewise willing to be obedient”).141 Polybius likewise uses the verb in a passive sense: & Ã) !E I (“being afraid that a war might be stirred up against them”).142 Aeneas Tacticus, describing a sentinel who wanted to betray his city, uses the verb in a clearly passive sense: After a time, he pulled up the bolt and tied the end of the cord to his person, so that, if by any chance he fell asleep, he would be roused up by a pull of the cord. # &Ó ' , ? I? , ? Ù ÕÙ >& & A ≈ , ∞ !: , ! : ÕÙ .143
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates compares his relationship with Athens to that of a gadfly with a large horse: … · μ9 ? 9 Ó Ú 9, ÕÙ 8! &Ó ! 8 9 Ú & 89 ! ÕÙ (… 136
Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.4. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.2, for the problem of the two verbs. 138 Xenophon Vect. 4.41. One could translate, if “war arises.” 139 Aeschylus Cho. 495. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. See also Aeschylus Agam. 892 ÕÚ : 5 (I was roused by a gnat). 140 Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 6.60.3. 141 Xenophon Eq. 3.6. Cp. 10.15 ÕÙ &Ó ¡ a !F ! ([the horse] roused to start by being given the sign). 142 Polybius 2.19.1. 143 Aeneas Tacticus 18.17, trans. slightly mod. of ΑΙΝΕΙΟΥ ΠΟΛΙΟΡΚΗΤΙΚΑ. Aeneas Tacticus, On Siegecraft, ed. and trans. W. L. Hunter and S. A. Handford, Oxford 1927, 43. 137
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Introduction
as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size and needs to be aroused by stinging).144 Plato also uses the verb in passive sense in his Laws. Moreover, that the mistress of a house should be awakened by maids, instead of being herself the first to wake up all the others – this is a shameful practice … Ú & Ú &8 ∞c ÕÙ ! & ! Ú : Ã Ï ; , ∞ Ù …145
This is sufficient evidence to indicate that the middle passive and passive forms of Û in classical texts along with the one example in the LXX can have a passive sense. Whether one should translate middle passive forms of Û in NT references to resurrection as middles (“I rise”) or passives (“I am raised”) depends on the context. In general, in my view, one cannot make any apodictic rules, nor can one always escape the inherent ambiguities of the middle/passive and passive forms of the verb. Jacob Kremer, for example, translates Û in Luke 7:22 (( Ú I 8, Ú , Ú ! Ú (Ú , Ú , Ú Ã
)146 as a middle (“stand up, awaken”), because the preceding verbs are “active.” But he passes over ! , which clearly must be translated as a passive and not as a middle.147 Fascher argued that the following passive verb ( Ã
Û) indicates that a passive translation (the dead are raised) is preferable, although both are possible.148 The Luther Bibel translates 7:22 with the middle: “die Toten stehen auf” (the dead rise). The NT uses the aorist passive of the verb in place of the aorist middle († ı).149 Consequently, † Ô ! often has a intransitive or middle sense (she/he rose). The context surely indicates that Peter’s mother in law “rose up” in Matt 8:15 (cp. 9:25) and was not “raised up,” for example (cp. the intransitive use of the passive part. Ô ! [rising] in Matt 1:24, 2:13–4, 21). But in Matt 27:64 † Ô ! is translated as “he has risen” in the ESV, but NRSV and NIV150 opt
144 Plato Apol. 30e, trans. of Plato, 12 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. N. Fowler, et al., Cambridge, MA 1914–35, 1.113. 145 Plato Leg. 7.808a, trans. of Bury, Plato, 10.67. 146 NRSV: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” 147 J. Kremer, Û , EDNT 1 (1978–80) 372–6, esp. 373. 148 Fascher, Anastasis, 196. 149 BDF § 78. 150 In Matth 14:12, however, NIV opts for “he has risen” in the case of John the Baptist († Ô !).
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for “he has been raised.” In Matt 28:6–7 († Ô !), ESV and NIV use the middle (“he has risen”)151 while the NRSV and many others use the passive, “he has been raised.” Appeals to the “divine passive” in the Synoptics are unhelpful, because they beg the question.152 Whether the “divine passive” even existed in Hellenistic Greek is questionable.153 It may be important that Matthew, unlike Mark (with the exception of 14:28),154 avoids forms of Û (that have to be translated as intransitives) in the predictions of Jesus’s resurrection155 (Matt 16:21 !F, 17:9 !J, 17:23 ! , 20:19 ! , 26:32 !F). But the future passives can be translated with a middle sense as is clearly the case in Matt 24:7, 11, and 24. In addition, the context shows that the perfect middle passive in Matt 11:11 ( ) and the aorist imperative in 17:7 ( Ô ! ) both are to be translated with the middle sense. Ultimately the question may be of little significance, since it is apparent in Matthew that God raised Jesus from the dead. Mark 16:6 poses an equally difficult quandary. The resurrection predictions, with the exception of 14:28, use forms of Û that can only be translated “rise,” while Mark 16:6 uses the aorist passive († Ô !). To my knowledge no one speaks of “divine intransitives” in Mark and elsewhere. Mark, in other words, does not seem to be overly concerned with grammatical voice. Luke in 24:6 uses the aorist passive († Ô !) to describe Jesus’s resurrection, but the intransitive form in 24:7 (F). In this case NRSV, NIV, and ESV all choose to translate † Ô ! with “he has risen.” In Luke 7:16 the same verb is clearly used in the middle sense. Luke can use the aorist passive (9:22: !F) in the predictions of Jesus resurrection or the intransitive (18:33: ). Like Mark, he does not seem concerned with grammatical voice. In my view, the difference between the use of the two verbs in the Synoptics probably is not concerns about voice (middle or passive in the case of Û , intransitive in the case of Û). Instead, in resurrection narratives Û comprises a sense (or “seme”) of “waking up,” which Û does not. Paul may, on the other hand, be more concerned with voice. He frequently states that either God or the Spirit raised Jesus and occasionally that God raises
151 152
Luther Bibel also uses the middle (“er ist auferstanden”). Unlike Paul, the Synoptic authors do not explicitly say that God or the Spirit raised
Jesus. 153 See the arguments of P.-B. Smit and T. Renssen, The passivum divinum: The Rise and Future Fall of an Imaginary Linguistic Phenomenon, Filologia Neotestamentaria 27 (2014) 3– 24. 154 Mark 8:31 F, 9:9 E, 9:10 F, 9:31 , 10:34 . 155 Curiously, ESV translates all the predictions in Matthew with a passive construction, but opts for the middle in 28:6–7.
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the dead.156 That does not imply that he uses passives to avoid the divine name (the alleged passivum divinum), but simply that Jesus was not the agent of his own resurrection. A. T. Robertson, commenting on this characteristic, writes, “It is probable that † Ô ! sometimes (as in Mk. 16:6) is merely intransitive, not passive, in idea. Moulton (Prol. p. 163) says ‘often.’ In 1 Cor 15:15 f. [ Û ], etc., the true passive ‘emphasizes the action of God’.”157 James Hope Moulton argued: The question next presents itself whether we are at liberty to press the passive force of the aorist and future and perfect of Û , when applied to the Resurrection of Christ. A glance at the concordance will show how often † Ô ! etc. are merely intransitive; and we can hardly doubt that † Ô !, in Mk 166 and the like, translated (cf Delitzsch). But if the context (as in 1 Co 15) strongly emphasises the action of God, the passive becomes the right translation.
After remarking that it is more of an exegetical than grammatical problem, he concludes: “one may confess to a grave doubt whether the speaker of Greek really felt the distinction.”158 Neither Robertson nor Moulton asserts the existence of the passivum divinum, “the use of the agentless passive in order to avoid mentioning the divine name or the deity YHWH directly.”159 BDF’s decision is apparently to analyze † Ô ! as an intransitive usage and to translate as “he is risen” – which seems overly simplistic.160 Scholarship has hardly advanced from Moulton’s position, and the alleged passivum divinum that many have used in the last forty years does no more than muddy the waters.161
156 Rom 4:24, 6:4, 8:11, 10:9, 1 Cor 6:14 (¡ &Ó ! Ù Ú Ù 4 Ú a 5 )), 15:15, 2 Cor 1:9 ( ˜), Gal 1:1, and 1 Thess 1:10. Cp. Rom 4:17 ! 9 ˆ ˆ (he believed God who brings the dead to life) is equally clear. 157 A. T. Robertson, Grammar of the New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, London 1919, 817. 158 J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Vol. 1. Prolegomena, Edinburgh 3 1908, 163. 159 Smit and Renssen, The passivum divinum, 3. 160 BDF 281 s.v. Û § 101, 342(3) (passive in 1 Cor 15:4 simply to avoid the divine name), and 343(1). The revision of BDR § 342 expresses their intention clearer than BDF, however: “er ist auferstanden heisst fast immer ” (“‘he is risen’ almost always is expressed by ”). Du Toit has produced an excellent critique of the “uncritical” assumption that the passive forms describing the resurrection event “must be understood in a passive sense” (Focusing, 114). But on the next page (115) he again has recourse to an alleged passivum divinum. He would translate the following texts as intransitives: Rom 6:9, 7:4, 8:34, 2 Cor 5:15, and possibly 1 Cor 15:4, 12, 13, 14. The expressions of God as agent (Rom 4:24, 8:11, 10:9, 1 Cor 6:14, 15:15, Gal 1:1, 1 Thess 1:10, and cf. Rom 6:4) “indicate that in the Pauline corpus Û should usually be understood as a passivum divinum.” 161 Cf. Smit and Renssen, The passivum divinum, 5–6.
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Paul’s statement in Rom 6:4 is probably passive in meaning: · † 8 ! # Ù &Ï F & 5 (as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father). There is no need for scholars to allege the existence of a divinum passivum as does Michael Wolter who, because of the presumed construction, asserts that &Ì is not “instrumental” but “modal” and expresses circumstance.162 This is a rejection of the grammar of the text, in which &Ì almost certainly indicates the agent of resurrection – just as Õı does in the classical examples discussed above. Theology should not triumph over grammar. The use of &Ì in 1 Cor 6:14 (¡ &Ó ! Ù ... a 5 ) &Ï F &? Ã) is equivalent to the instrumental use in Rom 6:4. One can dispense with the alleged “divine passive.” Presuming the passivum divinum is just as unnecessary as the presumption of a “divine intransitive” in 1 Thess 4:14 (∏ 8! Ú 8 “Jesus died and rose”). Paul has already made it clear (1 Thess 1:10) that God raised Jesus (√ 4 [ ] ). Even Rom 6:4 could be translated with the intransitive, “Christ arose,” and there is still no doubt that God raised him.163 Wolfgang Schrage believes that the passive uses of Û in Paul express God’s action and that 1 Cor 15:14–5 and 20 imply that in 15:4 has a passive meaning.164 He does not assume the divine passive, however, but simply makes an exegetical argument based on Paul’s belief that God raised Jesus. From another perspective, one could assert that none or almost none of the middle passive or passive forms of Û in the Synoptics or in Paul have to be translated as passives.165 This is certainly the case with uses of † Ô ! and 162
M. Wolter, Der Brief an die Römer. Teilband 1: Röm 1–8, EKK 6/1, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2014, 374, with ref. to the German version of BDAG s.v. &Ì § 3c “of attendant or prevailing circumstance” (neither the German version nor BDAG includes 6:4 here). Cf. W. Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, ed. K. Aland and B. Aland, Berlin 61988, s.v. &Ì § 3.1.c. See Smit and Renssen, The passivum divinum, passim. P. Hoffmann, Auferstehung II/1. Neues Testament, TRE 4 (1979) 478–513, esp. 481 appeals to the alleged passivum divinum to argue for a translation of † Ô ! in the passive sense – an argument which fails once the construction is discarded. 163 Cf. BDAG s.v. &Ì § 4: “marker of pers. agency, through, by” 4I: “of divine activity.” The Wycliff Bible translates it with an intransitive: “Crist aroos fro deth bi the glorie of the fadir.” 164 W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 4 vols., EKK 7, Düsseldorf 1991–2001, 4.38. He also refers to the texts quoted above in which Paul asserts that God raised Jesus (in other contexts, Schrage does appeal to the alleged passivum divinum [158, 162, 179, etc.]). Kremer, Û , 374–5 comes to the opposite conclusion, since the synonym (Ô) of the passive forms of Û “demand that the pass. be regarded as mid.: stood up/awoke.” This conclusion does not necessarily follow. Such an apodictic assertion (“demand”) is unhelpful in exegetical and philological work. He also argues that the middle sense “forbids the extended assumption of the divine pass.” 165 W. Klaiber, Auferstehung, TBLNT 1 (1997) 92–108, esp. 92 maintains that the passive form of Û is intransitive, although (ibid., 93) he concedes that a Greek reader might understand the usage in 1 Cor 15:4 as passive.
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related forms of the aorist passive in the LXX. Translators of the NT, because of this evidence, could easily be forgiven for rendering few of the passive forms of Û with passives in English. Probably translations in the passive often indicate the theological preference of the translator, since there usually seems to be no objective reasons for using the passive construction. Should Paul, for example, have wanted to clearly show that † 8 ! means “he was raised,” instead of “he rose,” he could simply have added an indication of agent such as ÕÙ ! (by God), as do some of the classical examples above (cp. Rom 6:4). He does include an agent in 1 Cor 2:12 (Ï ÕÙ ! !8 ἡμῖν; “the gifts bestowed on us by God [NRSV]) and other texts. The reader knows God raised Jesus (1 Cor 15:14), and passive translations of † 8 ! are often unnecessary, depart from LXX usage, but are certainly allowable. The reason Paul has to use aorist middle passives, aorist passives, or perfect passives for Christ’s resurrection (i.e., “Christ rose” or “was raised”) is that Û is transitive in the active voice of these tenses. Perhaps his preference for Û over Û (only in 1 Thess 4:14, 16)166 is the component of meaning, “wake up,” that Û does not have. 3.3 Not Used with or for Resurrection until Gnosticism One can confidently assert that Û never occurs in classical or Jewish literature, in the context of resurrection, with as the object (or subject) of the verb.167 It is undeniable, however, that the verb appears in some contexts in which the soul is stimulated or roused. Diogenes the Stoic, for example, asserts that “music stimulates/rouses the quiet, motionless soul” (&! Ï Ú ? ).168 Philo describes the stimulation of the soul in the state of “God possession”: For with the God-possessed not only is the soul wont to be stirred and goaded as it were into ecstasy but the body also is flushed and fiery … ( ) Ï ) ! ( 7 Ã ! Ú · 5 a Ï Ú Ù !Ó ∂ Ú 8 …169
Onosander (I C.E.) notes the power of a speech to rouse soldiers to battle: … and a trumpet-call resounding in the ears does not so effectively awaken [better, “rouse”] the soul to the conflict of battle as a speech that urges to strenuous valour rouses the martial spirit to confront danger …
166 He does use Ì fairly often: Rom 1:4, 6:5, 1 Cor 15:12, 13, 21, 42, and Phil 3:10, but no NT author (other than the local NT hapax in Matt 27:53) uses > . Although Plutarch uses Ì! in Cic. 40.5 to refer to the cast down statues of Pompey that were “set up” at his command, this verbal form is not used by NT authors. 167 This is based on a TLG survey. Cf. Cook, The use of Û, passim. 168 Diogenes frag. 62 = SVF 3.62. 169 Philo Ebr. 147, trans. of Colson, Philo, 3.395.
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… Ú Ã — ) ? 5 Ï ∞ b ?, › ∞ F
X! Ú ∞? 8 Ù Ï & Ï &? …170
Plutarch argues that vision rouses notions of pleasure in the soul: “For vision is the keenest of the sensations which traverse the body,” according to Plato,171 and it makes very efficient use of immediate impressions to rouse images of pleasure in the mind … ìƒ Ï ) ¿5? &Ï : > î Ï Ù ? ì!? ,î Ú ( & )
ˆ ( [ ∞] Ù Ï N& F &F Ö172
There are many other similar examples in classical Greek literature, but in none of them is there a reference to resurrection in which the soul is either the subject or object of the verb Û . The same thesis applies to the use of the verb Û and the noun .173 In 1 Esd 2:1, the “Lord roused the spirit of Cyrus, king of the Persians (4 Ù I 8 ) to build a house for him in Jerusalem.174 Aretaeus (II C.E.), in a discussion of those suffering from fever, remarks on the power of wine to rouse the spirit of the ill: The only safeguard is wine, which nourishes quickly according to its nature and penetrates everywhere, even to the extremities, and which adds tone to tone, rouses the benumbed spirit, and warms what is cold. ∂, ! 8 Ó ‹8 í Ã, Ú ?W 8 ? ), 9 &Ó ! ) , Ú 8 ) , 5 F.175
Clearly this is not a resurrection. There is an important use of the verb in magic texts in papyri and lead tablets from late antiquity in which Û indicates the waking or rousing up of the spirits of the dead, who are invoked as daimones from the grave, to subdue a living lover for an illicit sex act. This is not equivalent to resurrection in which 170 Onosander Strategicus 1.18, trans. of Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, and Onosander, LCL, ed. and trans. W.A. Oldfather, A. S. Pease, and J. B. Titchener, Cambridge, MA 1928, 375. 171 Plato Phaedr. 250D. 172 Plutarch Quaest. Conv. 654D–E, trans. of Babbitt et al., Plutarch’s Moralia, 15 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. C. Babbitt et al., Cambridge, MA 1927–69, 8.253. 173 Cf. Cook, The use of Û, 259–80. N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God. vol. 3, Minneapolis 2003, 330 writes that “egeiro and anastasis were words in regular use to denote something specifically distinguished from non-bodily survival, namely, a return to bodily life. There is no evidence to suggest that these words were capable of denoting a non-bodily survival after death.” 174 See the similar usage in 1 Esd 2:5 and Jer 28:11 LXX. 175 Aretaeus Cur. acut. 1.1.28, trans. modified of F. Adams, The Extant Works of Aretaeus, Boston 1856, 387.
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dead persons return to life in this world or a heavenly world. Perhaps in ancient magical folklore both could be confused, but the concepts are essentially different.176 One text, a spell for attracting a lover, is an important example: do not fail, god of the dead [nekudaimōn], to heed my commands and names, but just arouse yourself from the repose which holds you, whoever you are, whether male or female, and go to every place, into every quarter, into every house, and attract her, NN, to me … … 7 W, &, Ú ¿? , í > Ù Ù F , ≈ Ó ∂, N ; , N !F- (370) , Ú — ∞ ? , ∞ a ;(&, ∞ a ∞ Ú > & ), Ú ? ÃF …177
The interesting term here is &Û , which the LSJ Supplement translates as “spirit of a dead person, especially one who has died before his time.”178 The roused nekudaimōn is only a roused soul, but this is not a resurrection since the nekudaimōn does not return to life and to earth – it only performs temporary services for the magician. To put it another way: the summoning of a daimōn (of whatever sort) for sexual favors cannot be identified as an example of resurrection. The text of this important papyrus is actually duplicated in a series of related texts, both on papyrus and on actual lead tablets that repeat, more or less, the same Û formulas.179 A similar formula appears in P. Mich. 757: Do not disobey my commands, nekydaimōn, whoever you are, whether male or female, but rouse [raise] yourself for me and go into every place … ˜E / , &Û , ≈ ∂ N ; N !7 ª> Ô Ù Ú — a ı …180
The nekudaimōn is commanded to bind a woman named Kopria for love. The phrase appears in a number of other love charms. R. W. Daniel and F. Maltomini edited a lead tablet that includes the formula for rousing a spirit of the dead:
176
I owe these thoughts to correspondence with Hans Dieter Betz, 8 October 2017. PGM IV, 367–73, trans. of H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Including the Demotic Spells, Chicago 1986, 45. Cp. IV, 347–50 (part of the same binding spell): Ú 8 8 , ≈ í ∂, / N ; , N !F , Ú — ∞ ? / Ú ∞ a ;(& Ú ∞ a ∞ Ú ;5 / Ú ?& (And arouse yourself [rise] for me, whoever you are, whether male or female, and go into every quarter and to every house, and attract and bind her [trans. of Betz, ibid., 44]). 178 LSJ Suppl. s.v. 179 I take this formulation from Roy Kotansky, communication of 7 Oct. 2017. 180 P.Mich. 757, § J 19–20, D. G. Martinez, ed. and comm., P. Michigan XVI. A Greek Love Charm from Egypt (P. Mich. 757), ASP 30, Atlanta 1991, 27 (text), 31 (trans.). Martinez comments on the spirits of the wretched dead in ibid., 46–7. 177
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≈«« Ó ∂, Καμῆνϲ′, & , > / 8 « Ù Ù F« «« / « « « (whoever you are, Kames, nekudaimōn rouse yourself for me from your rest). They translate nekudaimōn as “corpse-daemon.”181 William Brashear has published a love charm in which a Priskos binds the spirits of the dead to bring a woman to him for love and sex. Palaeographically the text belongs to the fourth century and may have been written with disappearing inks, since various forms of photography were necessary to decipher it.182 I conjure you, daimons who lie here and who reside here and the spirits [daimones] who died a violent death. I conjure you by the unconquerable God Iao Barbathiao Bremai Chermari. Rouse yourselves, you daimons, who lie here and seek Isis who Annus gave birth to … 5 Û Õa / ˆ & ˆ !?& 8 Ú ˆ !?& & ÛI/ Ú ˆ !Ì& &Û I!. 5 Û Õa / Ì ! I I! I . [ ] Û/ ! &Û " !Ì& Û Ú æ / ` > ] …183
The “daimons” who died violent deaths are spirits of the departed dead.184 The daimōn in a different magic text is not a “spirit of the dead” (> 8 , / ¡ 8 & , ¡ j, ¡ ! [rouse yourself for me, O great daimōn, Phnous, the chthonic one]), although Phnous is a being of the netherworld.185 In a papyrus, which is a binding spell, the formula clearly refers to the rousing of daimones who lie [presumably in a cemetery] to force them to 181
R. W. Daniel and F. Maltomini (eds.), Supplementum Magicum, 2 vols., Papyrologica Coloniensia 16.1 and 2, Opladen 1990–92, Suppl. Mag. 1, 50,12–4 (trans. on 208). Cp. ibid., Suppl. Mag. 1, 51,4–5 (written on a pot): 7 [«W«, & , ≈«« í ∂, Ú > 8 / ] « Ù Ú ; ! Ù« ®[ (do not disobey me, nekudaimōn, whoever you are, but raise/rouse yourself for me and go to Matrona …). Suppl. Mag. 35,5 refers to Christ’s resurrection ( #( «Ù)« 8 !) as does 23,4 (# «Ù« 8«). Suppl. Mag. 45,4–5 calls on the daimones who lie here to rouse themselves ( «! &8 «, " !?& / ). Suppl. Mag. 47,18 names the nekudaimōn: /«W«, & ] , í > « Ù (do not be disobedient nekudaimōn Antinoos, but rouse yourself for me). Suppl. Mag. 48J, 20 similarly calls on the nekudaimōn not to be disobedient, but to “rouse yourself” ( & Ö > 8 « ı). The same formula is repeated in Suppl. Mag. 48K, 30–31: 7 «W« , / &8 , ≈«« í ∂, í > 8 « Ù (do not disobey my commands, nekudaimōn, whoever you are, but rouse yourself for me …). A. Audollent, Tabellae defixionum …, Paris 1904, § 271,20 includes a love charm in which the adept calls on the daimones to rouse themselves (" &Û 5 ! ) 182 W. M. Brashear, Ein neues Zauberensemble in München, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 19 (1992) 79–109, esp. 84–5. 183 Text and trans. slightly mod. from Brashear, Ein neues Zauberensemble, 85–7. The trans. in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri, (§ 101) 307 is based on a slightly different Greek text. 184 Cf. DGE s.v. § 6 “spirit, specter wandering soul of the dead.” 185 PGM V, 249–50.
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perform erotic magic. It refers to the rousing of their spirits to serve the magician ( 5 Õa« Ö / «! &8 «, " !?& / [I adjure you … rouse yourselves daimones, who lie here]). Here one can speak of the temporary rousing of a daimōn from the grave, although it is not a resurrection to life.186 The magician makes the daimōn perform erotic magic. A lead tablet (III C.E.) from Hadrumetum or Carthage is a defixio (binding spell), which includes a ritual to resurrect Osiris, who in turn is to raise the spirit of the deceased (daimōn or nekudaimōn). raise up the great-glorious O[siris OU]/SERCHECHOCH who reclines upon the lion-faced bier and sleeps the everlasting sleep … 58 Ù &5 ¯[ °±]/@²#@#³# Ù Ú : ! ´¶[ Ú] / : Ù 8 —187
The magician calls on the spirit to rouse itself: … C5 8 !, ¡ / & ¡ 9, Ú ?I ) ¿(! ) υ (Rouse yourself, O four-faced daimōn [deceased soul] and look up with your eyes).188 The four faced daimōn could be the Osiris, too, but in that case Osiris is identified with the deceased individual as in the Pyramid texts.189 Osiris, who is not named, is ordered: Let the gates / of Hades open up for me! And, having roused him up, send up to me – among the spirits of the dead under your control – / that single deceased soul [daimōn], bound by fear and trembling. … ] 8 ? " / & Ú 5 [] ? [] Ù Õ ? / A & ( I9 []Ú 9 190
The roused daimōn, one of the spirits of the dead, is then forced to perform erotic magic for the practitioner. The magician rouses the daimōn “(soul/spirit) of the dead corpse, but probably not the body itself.”191 The goal of this charm is to fetch four women for a certain Gaius. Roy Kotansky notes: “in magic the life-force of a corpse is somehow brought to life and goes to fetch a woman. He may appear in some corporeal form, but he is not a resurrected body.”192 These magic texts are not examples of resurrections, but are the invocation of the dead as daimones.
186 I thank Roy Kotansky for this point. See Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1: Suppl. Mag. 45 (p. 163; 168: “rouse yourselves” is their trans.). 187 R. Kotansky, Graeco-Egyptian Invocation of the Netherworld with Erotic Spell (J. Paul Getty Museum Inv. no. 83.AI.244), lines 4–5 forthcoming (his trans.). 188 Kotansky, Graeco-Egyptian Invocation, lines 9–10 (his trans. slightly modified). 189 Kotansky, Graeco-Egyptian Invocation, forthcoming. 190 Kotansky, Graeco-Egyptian Invocation, lines 11–3 (his trans. slightly modified). 191 I take this formulation from Roy Kotansky (communication of 5 Oct. 2017). 192 Roy Kotansky (communication of 5 Oct. 2017).
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It is also the case that Û never occurs in classical or Jewish literature with as the object (or object of the verb) in a context of resurrection. The verb, like Û , is used for bodily resurrection in pagan and Jewish texts. There are metaphorical examples, but they have nothing to do with resurrection. Philo, for instance, in a discussion of the relationship of the mind to the passions (Gen 49:16–8), writes: May my soul have such a fall, and never mount the beast of passion, wild like a boundering capering horse … 8 Ú &8 Ú Ù μ Ú Ù ?! …193
A fragment of Arrian is a reflection on the nature of gold by a Brahman named Dandamis: For gold does not rouse the soul or enrich the body, but to the contrary it blinds the soul and wastes the body. Ù Ï Ã Ã&Ó , Ï Ã a Ú ) Ú 7 .194
Clement of Alexandria, in an interpretation of Plato’s story of Er195 writes: Plato says that this Zoroaster, as he lay on the pyre, returned to life on the twelfth day. Perhaps then this intimates the resurrection, or perhaps it intimates that the journey for souls to the ascension is through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and he [Plato] says that the same descent results in birth. Ù & ¸ ? ¡ ? & & ) Ú E ¹ I 8 H ? Ó “ ?, ? &Ó ) ∞ , › &Ï &:& 9& ¡&Ù ) ) ∞ ? , ÃÙ &Ó Ú ∞ 8 ( Ã ! ?!&. 196
Either option does not speak, however, of a “resurrection of the soul.” Much later in the Christian tradition, one MS of the Acts of Thomas does include as the object of the verb, but the editor judges the passage to be corrupt. The Acts presumably date to the first half of the third century.197 The context is a metaphorical interpretation of baptism that uses the image of resurrection: This [baptism] regenerates and makes a new person who acquires it. It raises the soul three times and it ((s)he?) becomes a companion of the holy spirit.
193
Philo Leg. 2.101, trans. of Colson and Whitaker, Philo, 1.289. Arrian FGrH 156 F 175b. 195 See chapt. 2 § 1.12. 196 Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.14.103.4. 197 Cf. J. N. Bremmer, The Acts of Thomas: Place, Date and Women, in: The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, ed. idem, Leeuven 2001, 74–90, esp. 74–7 (220s to 230s), updated in his Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity, Tübingen 2017, 167–69. 194
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Introduction ¹ Ú 8 ;! Ù : ? . ¹ Ú U .198
The other MS is somewhat easier to interpret and avoids as the object of Û: This baptism is the forgiveness of sins. It begets anew light that is poured out. It regenerates a new person, brings together the spirit [with the body?], renewing the soul, raising a new person three times, and it is the companion of the forgiveness of sins. PÙ I? U ;( H ¹ ( H ¹ Ù 8 ;! , ˆ ! : 7, Ù ;! , Ù U (8 .199
The scribe who created the phrase ¹, which is likely textually corrupt, was not referring to the resurrection of the dead – although the scribe does use resurrection as a metaphor for baptism. Nowhere in classical Greek or in the Greek of Jewish texts does a soul (or [spirit]) “rise” in a text that describes a resurrection. However, one can find texts in which the heresiologists assert that the so-called Gnostic groups believed in the resurrection of the soul only and not that of the body.200 198 Acts Thom. 132 col. 2 (MS Paris gr 1173 A, XI C.E.). Cf. M. Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, vol. 2.2, Leipziz, 1903, 239. 199 Acts Thom. 132 (MS U [Vallicell B 35, XI C.E.]; cf. Bonnet, Acta 2.2, 239. 200 Cf. Epiphanius Pan. 40.2.5 (GCS Epiphanius 2, 82 Holl): ∂ &Ó Ù ?, Ï F ([the Archontics] there is no resurrection of the flesh, but only of the soul); Pan. 42.3.5 (2.98 Holl): F Ù &Ó ! ) ?, !? Ú " 8 H F &Ó ? ∂ 8 Ú Ú ([Marcion] he rejects the resurrection of the flesh, like many of the heresies; and he says that there is resurrection, life, and salvation only of the soul); Pan. 67.1.5–6 (GCS Epiphanius 3, 133 Holl): M Ï Ú ” ? ! Ù ?, Ï ?. &Ó ? (? … ∂ Ï ≈ Ú ? [›] † 7 F Ù ? ([Hierakas] For this individual does not desire that the flesh rise at all, but only the soul. He affirms a spiritual resurrection … I think that with regard to the resurrection of the dead he denied the resurrection of the flesh); Ancoratus 86.1 (GCS Epiphanius 1, 106 Holl): … 2 Ï Ó " , ® , 8 Ã :, Ï F ? > ! (… in that some of the heretics, the Manichaeans, say that there will be a resurrection not of the body, but of the soul … trans. of St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, Ancoratus, FC 128, trans. Y. R. Kim, Washington 2014, 182). For the resurrection body in Nag Hammadi texts, cf. the succint reviews of K. Rudolph, Gnosis. the Nature and History of Gnosticism, San Francisco et al. 1987, 189–94, E. Pagels, “The Mystery of the Resurrection:” A Gnostic Reading of 1 Corinthians 15, JBL 93 (1974) 276–88, and Lehtipuu, Debates, 98–107, 114, 118, 140–1, 144, 188–95). Cp. Acts Thom. 80 (Bonnet, Acta 2.2, 196) & 5 E ? E Ù H &Ï Ï > Ú ? ) ) “glory to your resurrection from the dead. For through it is resurrection and rest for our souls.” Cf. Cook, The use of Û, 269–74 for more extensive material on Gnosticism including a defense of the word’s use as a heuristic category.
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Modern scholarship has found reasons, some quite good, to doubt the utility of “Gnostics” and “Gnosticism” as overarching analytical categories. Celsus, however, was able to distinguish between “Gnostics” and the “great church,” and the term “Gnostic” remains useful.201 The Gnostic groups were very creative in their interpretation and reinterpretation of the general resurrection and the resurrection of Christ.
4 The Semantics of Ô and Ì The vast majority of the usages of Ô are in Jewish or Christian texts. Before the NT period, the TLG only includes fourteen non-Jewish examples of the verb, and some of those are duplicates. The use of Ô (make alive, bring to life, give life to)202 for resurrection is very rare outside of Christian texts. I have not found any occurrences prior to the first century C.E. in which the verb refers to resurrection in a classical author. The earliest appearance of the word for something close to resurrection appears in the LXX translation of 2 Kgs 5:7, which was probably done shortly after 200 B.C.E.203 King Joram of Israel has received a request from the King of Aram asking him to cure Naaman of his leprosy: And it happened, as the king of Israel read the document, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I a god, to put to death and to make alive, that this man sends to me to recover a man from his leprosy? (4 Kgdms 5:7, NETS) Ú 8 › 8 I ˆ G Ù II , &8 5 Ï "? Ã Ú ∂ ® ! Ù S ! Ú F, ≈ ” 8 ?5 ;& Ù F 8 Ã; (4 Kgdms 5:7)
In the Antiochene recension, there is a variant: “Am I a god, to put to death and to make alive” (® ! Ù 9, ! Ú F).204 The Hebrew for “put to death and make alive” in 5:7 is (to kill and to make alive, NRSV).205 Jon Levenson compares the healing of the leprosy of 201
Origen Cels. 5.61 (º ), 5.59 (Ù ? ). On the usefulness of the term “Gnostic,” cf. J. J. Buckley, review of K. L. King, What is Gnosticism? Cambridge 2003 in JAAR 72 (2004) 547–550 and eadem, review of M. A. Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism.” An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category, Princeton 1996, in HR 40 (2000) 187–188. 202 Cf. LSJ s.v., BDAG s.v., R. Bultmann, 9Ô , TDNT 2 (1964) 874–5, and L. Schotroff, 9Ô , zǭopoieō make alive, give life to, EDNT 2 (1991) 110. On the LXX usage, cf. E. Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, Oxford 1889, 5 who notes that the verb translates both the Piel and Hiphil of . 203 I take the date from Kraus and Karrer, Septuaginta Deutsch, 300. 204 Marcos and Saiz, El texto antioqueno, 93. 205 Cp. 1 Sam 2:6 ( יהוה ממית ומחיהthe Lord puts to death and brings to life), which in the LXX is: !) Ú ) (The Lord puts to death and brings to life, NETS);
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Naaman to resurrection, since it is God who has power to “deal death and give life.”206 Neither the Greek nor the Hebrew text, however, specifically refers to the resurrection of the dead, but to the power of God to “cause death or life.”207 A scholiast to Euripides’ Alcestis refers to Asclepius’s abilities to bring the dead back to life: only, if [he were looking with his eyes on the] light208: that means, if the son of Apollo, Asclepius lived, Alcestis could leave the gates of Hades, which is equivalent to: he could bring her to life. &í i, ∞ ( : 8, ∞ > ¡ "Ù ] ¡ ] Ù, ∂ i ) & Ï ê , Ú H ∂ Ã ἂν209 F.210
Whether this late use of the verb was classical is open to question, although a fragment of Euripides perhaps implies that it is. The text probably refers to Daedalus’s ability to make lifelike statues: Who first established altars for our heavenly divinities and made lifelike sacred agalmata (statues)211 by means of the carved tupoi (images) of his craft. ¡ ) Ã ! I ˆ "& Ã F í ?
[]) 8 7[] 212
Mary C. Stieber interprets the tupoi to be a reference to the “tools of the trade.”213 Another way of translating the verb in the text above would simply be to say, “he made the statues come alive.” That would correspond with many and Deut 32:39 ( I kill and I make alive, NRSV), which in the LXX is: S Ú F 7 (I will kill and I will make alive, NETS). 206 J. D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel. The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life, New Haven 2006, 174. Cp. D. Luckensmeyer, The Eschatology of First Thessalonians, StUNT 71, Göttingen 2009, 247. 207 A. G. Auld, Life in Kings. Reshaping the Royal Story in the Hebrew Bible, Atlanta 2017, 26, 35. 208 Eur. Alc. 122–3: &í ;, ∞ ( &í D / ƒ & & ˘. 209 The MS has ; (above) here. i is Schwartz’s emendation. 210 Schol. in Eur. Alc. 122 (E. Schwartz, Scholia in Euripidem, vol. 2, Berlin 1891, 223) from Codex Vaticanus 902. 211 This can also be translated as “dedications.” Cf. LSJ s.v. 212 Euripides frag. 928a Kannicht (= frag. 153, C. Austin, ed., Nova fragmenta Euripidea in papyris reperta, Berlin 1968), trans. of M. C. Stieber, Euripides and the Language of Craft, Mn.S 327, Leiden 2011, 376. Kannicht and Stieber read []) for Austin’s »´¼) (cut), the first three letters of which are unclear. Both readings are metrically permissible. The translation of the text in question in Euripides, Fragments, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. C. Collard and M. Cropp, Cambridge, MA 2008, frag. 928a is: “The man who first established for us altars of the heavenly gods, and fashioned sacred lifelike images of them in artfully carved sculptures …” 213 Stieber, Euripides, 376.
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of the statements about Daedalus’s ability in classical antiquity that Johannes Overbeck collected. The texts from antiquity bear witness to his gifts: the ability to make statues appear to see, walk, and talk.214 Deborah Steiner writes that “he was credited with the abilities to bring his statues to life, endow them with powers of locomotion by freeing their legs from their former rigid stance, animate them by opening their eyes and give them the capacity to speak.”215 Diodorus Siculus, for example, writes that he could make his statues seem animate, endowed with souls: In the carving of his statues he so far excelled all other men that later generations invented the story about him that the statues of his making were quite like their living models; they could see, they said, and walk and, in a word, preserved so well the characteristics of the entire body that the beholder thought that the image made by him was a being endowed with life. Ï &Ó ? U? ! : &7 · ˆ 8 ! F Ú Ã & Ï ? ¡ ) Õ? · I 8
Ï ÃÏ Ú ), Ú ! ) ≈ : &?! , · & ) ∂ Ù !Ó > 2.216
Consequently, the evidence from Euripides indicates that the verb had one of the same meanings in his period as it had in ca 200 B.C.E. when the LXX translator of 2 Kgs 5:7 used it to describe God’s ability to “bring to life.” Lucian, shortly after the NT period, in his True History, which he admits is based on nothing but lies,217 uses the verb for a resurrection scene. On the moon men carry embryos “in the calves of their legs” ( ) ): When conception takes place, the calf begins to swell. In the course of time they cut it open and deliver the child dead, and then they bring it to life by putting it in the wind with its mouth open. &Ï Ï ?IW Ù >I , 7, Ú 9 — 5? ?, !8 &Ó ÃÏ Ù Ù ; 9.218
This image of resurrection appears to conform with classical usage – that is, Lucian did not adopt it from the NT. Beginning with the NT period the vast
214 J. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen, Leipzig 1868 § 119–42. 215 D. Steiner, Pindar’s “Oggetti Parlanti,” HSCP 95 (1993) 159–80, esp. 162. 216 Diod. Sic. 4.76.2 (Overbeck, Schriftquellen, § 129), trans. of Diodorus of Sicily, 12 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. C. H. Oldfather et al., Cambridge, MA 1933–67, 3.57. 217 Lucian Ver. hist. 1.4: i ½ Ï & ! 8
≈ & (and indeed in this one thing I will tell the truth: I am lying). 218 Lucian Ver. hist. 1.22, trans. of Lucian, 8 vols., LCL, trans. A. M. Harmon et al., Cambridge, MA 1913–67, 1.275.
40
Introduction
number of occurrences of the verb are in Christian authors, although in late antiquity the Neo-Platonist Proclus frequently used the word.219 In contexts that refer to resurrection, the verb includes no component of meaning that implies upward motion as is the case with Û and Û. “Make alive,” however is closely related to “raise,” as is evident in John 5:21: · Ï ¡ ˆ ˆ Ú 9 ), — Ú ¡ "Ù œ !8 9 ) (Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes [NRSV]).220 This early Christian usage was also apparently current in Greek speaking Judaism, since one of the Beth Shearim inscriptions includes a reference to “the one who promised to give life to the dead” ( Ì / F ˆ ˆ).221 Paul uses the verb similarly in Rom 4:17: ! 9 ˆ ˆ Ú Ï ƒ › ƒ (he [Abraham] believed God who gives life to the dead and calls the things that do not exist into existence [cp. NRSV].)222 The use in 1 Pet 3:18 is intriguing: For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death by/in the flesh, but made alive by223/in the spirit (NRSV mod.) ≈ Ú # Ù b5 Ú U >! , & ÕÓ & , μ Õa ? W 2 ! 2, ! ! Ú Ó Ú 9! Ú &Ó ·
Although the interpretation of the text (and its context in 3:18–22) is highly contested, it is doubtful that the text means Christ’s spirit (material or immaterial) rose from the dead – a formulation that Peter avoids.224 Paul J. Achtemeier translates the phrase in question as “having been put to death by the flesh, but 219
There are 33 instances in Proclus of the verb in the TLG (as of 7 June 2017). Bultmann, 9Ô , 875 analyzes this as “eschatological life ( ),” which is “in some sense present.” H. Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, HNT 6, 22015, 309–10 notes that the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11) is an example of the power of the son mentioned in 5:21. M.-J. Lagrange, L’Évangile selon saint Jean, Paris 1927, 145 argues that ) includes “the antecedent act of making the dead rise ( Û )” and emphasizes the physical act of resurrection (the term, for him, includes the physical [Lazarus], general, and spiritual resurrections). 221 BS II 162, cf. chapt. 6 § 2. 222 C. Cranfield, the Epistle to the Romans, ICC, Edinburgh 1975, 244 compares the verse to the second Benediction. Cf. chapt. 6 § 7 (God who revives the dead [ ]). H. Lietzmann, An die Römer, HNT 8, Tübingen 31928, 55 argues that Paul would have been aware of the Benediction. 223 KJV has “quickened by the Spirit.” 224 He adopts the common NT expressions for Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Cf. 1 Pet 1:3 &í ? ∏ # (through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead); 1:21 ! Ù Ù ÃÙ (God, who raised him from the dead); 3:21 &í ? ∏ # . 220
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made alive by the Spirit.”225 He notes the similar antithetical contrast between death and life and flesh and spirit in Rom 1:3–4 and that since the NT views resurrection as “bodily in form,” 3:18 should also be understood in that fashion.226 There are interpreters who argue that it was Christ’s disembodied human spirit that was “quickened” – a “glorification prior to the resurrection.”227 This would, as Achtemeier argues, be a novel departure from the “language” and “concepts” of NT tradition. In addition, Ì 5 and in the NT and in 1 Peter are not used to create a body/soul “dichotomy.”228 William J. Dalton, appealing to the NT usage of 9Ô , argues that Peter can mean nothing else than the bodily resurrection of Christ.229 1 Pet 1:3, 21 also indicate that Christ 225 P. J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter. A Commentary on First Peter, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 1996, 239. Cf. the useful summary of interpretive options by J. Clark-Soles, Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament, New York 2006, 194–216. J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 37B, New York 2000, 646 believes the constructions are datives of respect (e.g., “with respect to [his] spirit”) and argues that 9Ô is synonymous with Û and that it derives from “kerygmatic formulas” of “early Christian tradition.” His rejection of the possibility that Ì can mean “by the flesh” is unwarranted. 226 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 249. 227 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 249, with ref. to W. L. Banks, Who are the Spirits in Prison? (1 Pt. 3:19), Eternity Magazine 16 (1966) 26, and J. Galot, La descent du Christ aux enfers, NRTh 83 (1961) 469–91, esp. 474, 479. Origen Comm. Jo. (1:26–7) 6.35.174–5 interprets the passage to refer to Christ’s journey to “the prison with the spirit” ( ∞ ( Ï ). Cp. D. Keating, Christ’s Despoiling of Hades: According to Cyril of Alexandria, SVTJ 55 (2011) 253–69. H. Windisch, Die katholischen Briefe, HNT 15, rev. H. Preisker, Tübingen 31951, 70 argues that the phrase includes references to the journey to Hades and proclamation there, the resurrection, and ascension with the vanquishing of the angelic powers. He includes (ibid., 70–1) a compact history of the “myth” in early Christianity. K. H. Schelkle, Die Petrusbriefe. Der Judasbrief, HTK 13/2, Freiburg et al. 1980, 102–8 translates with datives of reference, and argues that the text refers to the descent into Hades. 228 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 249. 1 Pet 1:24, e.g., uses Ì 5 for mortal people. In Paul, even 1 Cor 5:3–4 does not imply a dualistic breach between the inner and outer person, nor does it imply an immortal spirit. Cf. W. J. Dalton, Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits. A Study of 1 Peter 3:18 – 4:6, AnBib 3, Rome 1965, 127–32 for convincing arguments about the use of the flesh/spirit distinction in the NT. B. J. Oropeza, Jews, Gentiles, and the Opponents of Paul. Apostasy in the New Testament, Eugene, OR 2012, 82 argues that for Paul a disembodied self may survive death in a transitory state (Phil 1:21–3, 2 Cor 5:3–4). Commenting on Phil 1:23, J. Reumann, Philippians. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB, New Haven 2008, 252 argues that Paul envisions a continuous “relationship with Christ that begins with call and baptism,” and which continues “at death … No details, certainly not golden streets …”! 229 Dalton, Christ’s Proclamation, 126 (2 Cor 1:9 with Rom 4:17, 1 Cor 15:22, 36). See also Rom 8:11. He also notes the Spirit’s role in resurrection (John 6:63, 1 Cor 15:45, 2 Cor 3:6). C. T. Pierce, Spirits and the Proclamation of Christ, WUNT 2.305, Tübingen 2011, 16–7, 225 uses these results of Dalton, but makes (227) the highly questionable assertion that the dead in 4:6 are already raised (“reflect those who have been resurrected”). Elliott, 1 Peter, 738 more persuasively argues that “the final and full realization of resurrection is in view” for the deceased.
42
Introduction
rose bodily from the dead, since that is the universal usage of the verbs and associated nouns in Second Temple Judaism and in paganism, as argued above and in this monograph. does not refer to elements of dead humans anywhere in the NT, with the exception of Heb 12:23 where the context is clear. Leonart Goppelt understands the construction to be a dative of reference (with reference to the flesh/spirit) – Christ was put to death in so far as he belonged to the flesh and was raised in so far as he belonged to the spirit of God, and he was not an “immortal soul.”230 In favor of the instrumental view of the dative in 3:18 is a comment in the Catenae to 1 Peter, where the usage is probably instrumental: Observe how he [Peter] proclaims the mystery to us. For after saying that “he was put to death in the flesh, and made alive by the Spirit,” it was as if he should say, “dying for the sake of our flesh that holds power over us by corruption; but rising as God,” for he referred to his divinity through [the word] Spirit; “for God is Spirit,” the divine oracles say. ≈ &Ó ) 7 5 Ù 7 . ∞S Ï ì! ! Ú Ó Ú, ! Ú &Ó ,î231 ≈ › Ú 8 , !S Ó ÕÓ F 8 Ù E (! ¹H ! Ú &Ó › Ù, Ï ! &Ï 232 ‹ ì 233 Ï ¡ Ù,î (Ú Ï ! ) ·234
John H. Elliott concludes that in 1 Pet 3:18 “refers to that state of Christ’s existence most demonstrably controlled and animated by God’s lifegiving Spirit.”235 Whether one interprets as an instrumental dative, dative of sphere, or a dative of reference, a resurrection of the spirit of Christ is out of the question. The NT uses Ì occasionally in the sense of “return to life” or “become alive again”236 This reflects the use in 4 Kgdms 13:21 (LXX) and 3 Kgdms 230
L. Goppelt, Der erste Petrusbrief, KEK 12/1, Göttingen 1978, 245. In MS Coislinianus 25, 216v, this word is abbreviated as a nomen sacrum. It is available online at: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b11000126s.r=&rk=751076;4 (accessed 8 June 2017). 232 This is also abbreviated as a nomen sacrum in Coislin. 25. 233 Also abbreviated as a nomen sacrum in Coislin. 25. 234 Catena Andreae in ep. Petri I, 3:17–8 (J. A. Cramer, ed., Catenae Graecorum patrum in Novum Testamentum, vol. 8, Oxford 1840, 66). This is not a scientific edition, and the text above is based on Coislin. 25. The ed. of the Catena of 1 Peter is apparently based on MS Coislinianus 25 (X C.E.) (cf. G. Karo and J. Lietzmann, Catenarum graecarum catalogus, Götttingen 1903 [reprint of A(N)GWG.PH (1902) Heft 1. 3. 5.] § 593, 594, 597) and Oxoniensis Collegii Novi 58 XIII C.E. (Karo and Lietzmann, ibid.). But the MS evidence is thoroughly unclear in Cramer’s ed. 235 Elliott, 1 Peter, 647. 236 BDAG s.v. § 1I. R. Bultmann’s review, Ì , TDNT 2 (1964) 861–875 [The Concept of Life in the NT], does not specifically address the use of Ì for resurrection. L. Schotroff, zō live , F, zōē life, EDNT 2 (1991) 105–9 includes some of the usages of the verb for resurrection in her article. She notes (ibid., 208), “The life of the resurrected one 231
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17:22 (Aquila) quoted above (§ 2). The synagogue ruler in Matt 9:18 asks Jesus to raise his dead daughter: “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will return to life” (Â ! ? ; H Ï !S ! ) ? í Ã7, Ú 7 ). In Rev 20:4 and 20:5 the verb refers to the resurrection of the dead. John describes his vision of the first resurrection: (20:4) Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (20:5) The rest of the dead did not return to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection (NRSV mod.). (20:4) Ú ∂& ! , Ú ?! í Ã, Ú & ! Ã), Ú Ï Ï 8 &Ï ∏ Ú &Ï Ù ! , Ú μ Ã Ù ! Ã&Ó ∞ Ã Ú Ã > I Ù ? Ú Ù 8 Ú Ú ) Ã H Ú > Ú I Ï # >. (20:5) " Ú Ã > ; !E Ï >. — ? :.
John makes it clear that he does not envision a first resurrection merely of souls, since he insists that they (or most of them) are part of the vast numbers of the “dead” (" Ú ) – even though the souls of the martyrs are in a special place. Wilhelm Bousset argues that some of the second group of martyrs, who had not worshipped the Beast, were still alive.237 The images of the dead in 20:12–3 manifestly include corpses (ˆ ˜) from the ocean and from Hades.238 In other words, the souls of the dead martyrs are in heaven, but the dead are also embodied. In Rev. 16:3, for example, the seer uses the image of a corpse’s blood (∑ › ). R. H. Charles argues that “the glorified martyrs” “return to earth to share the Millennial Kingdom with Christ in the Jerusalem which comes down from heaven.”239 The verb is used for Jesus’s return to life in Rom 14:9: “For this Christ died and returned to life so that means, most importantly, that he again has a physical life, like that of Tabitha or Eutychus after they were miraculously raised from the dead (Acts 9:41; 20:12).” 237 W. Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis, KEK 16, Göttingen 61906, 437. D. Aune, Revelation, 3 vols., WBC 52, Dallas, TX 1997–8, 3.1088 rejects this contention, but his argument that “it is more natural to construe” the martyrs as one group is not forceful, particularly since there is a major syntactical shift (μ ). R. H. Charles, The Revelation of St. John, 2 vols., ICC 44, Edinburgh 1920, 2.183 rejects Bousset’s thesis, but is forced to assert that μ is an addition and then to rewrite the syntax of the following participle. Contra R. H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT, Grand Rapids, MI 21997, 365, 13:15 does not imply that all of this group were martyred. Bousset (ibid., 368) notes with regard to 13:15 that persecutions depended on the attitudes of the Caesars (e.g., Plin. Ep. Tr. 10.96). 238 On the relationship between 20:5 and 20:12–3, cf. Bousset, Die Offenbarung, 438, Aune, Revelation, 3.1090. 239 Charles, Revelation, 2.185. Cp. Rev 20:9.
44
Introduction
he might reign over the dead and the living” ( ∞ Ï # Ù 8! Ú > μ Ú Ú : W). In Rev 2:8 it has the identical sense: “These are the words of the first and last who was and came to life (NRSV)” (P?& 8 ¡ Ú ¡ >, √ 8 Ù Ú > ). In some usages the verb has the sense “live,” but the context is of a person who has returned (or just returned) to life as in 3 Kgdms 17:23 (LXX). This usage may well have classical roots since shortly after the NT period Lucian uses it to describe the resurrection of Adonis: they first make offerings to Adonis as to the dead, and afterwards, on the next day, they recite the myth that he lives and send him into the air Ó 2 ]&:& ≈ 8, Ï &Ó E /8 W 8 W : 8 ! 8 Ú Ù †8 8240
The analogous usage is important, but later than Paul and the Gospels. In Acts 9:40, Peter says to the dead Dorcas, “Tabitha, rise” (PI!?, ?!). She opened her eyes, sat up, and in 9:41, “He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive (NRSV)” (&ˆ &Ó ÃE ) 8 Ã7, ( 7 &Ó ˆ U Ú Ï 7 8 Ã ).241 Luke Acts uses the verb to refer to the resurrected and living Jesus (Luke 24:5, 23, Acts 25:19). In 2 Cor 13:4 Paul describes Jesus’s resurrected state with the same term: “for he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God (NRSV)” (Ú Ï :! 5 ! , Ï E &? ! ).242 Ì could be used for resurrection or something similar. A fragment of Nicander (ca 130 B.C.E.) describes the properties of French turnips: “they are welcome in winter to those who stay idle indoors, and if soaked in hot water they revive” ( ( 8 Ú ∞ ) )H / ! ) &í ∞! ) :í Õ&? ).243 Aquila and Symmachus used the verb to express resurrection in Hos 6:2.244 It can, however, mean “recover” as from an illness.245 Iamblichus, in the fourth century, asserted that after a 216 240
Lucian Dea s. 6 (trans. of Lightfoot, mod.). See chapt. 1 § 5.3. Cp. this usage to Acts 20:12 (the resurrection of Eutychus). 242 See also Rev. 1:18. 243 Nicander frag. 70, trans. and text of Nicander, The Poems and Poetical Fragments, ed., with trans. and notes A. S. F. Gow and A. F. Scholfield, Cambridge 1953, 146–7. See also Chariton Callirhoe 3.8.9 and 8.1.14 (8 ) in chapt. 3 § 1.4. 244 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.5. 245 Pollux, Onomasticon 3.108 uses it as one of the synonyms for people recovering from illness (Ú Ú &8 , 7 7, Ú : , 8( , 7 , ? ? , 8 Ú 58, I Ú I: , Ú I ? Ã ). Several of these verbs emphasize physical rising up (&8 , 8( , 8, and 58). 241
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year interval, Pythagoras experienced a transmigration of soul. Aristoxenus and others, according to Iamblichus, asserted “that after this many years, at all events, he came to rebirth and returned to life as Pythagoras” ( Ï
> ∞
! ) ! Ú F).246 The grammarian Apion’s definition of “rise [from the dead]” includes a use of the verb: “to rise, two senses: to make live again (Il. 24.551) and, to get up [from sleep] (Il. 10.32)” F IH Ù F F (³ 551) Ú Ù F (Il. 10.32).247 A fabulist mentions a pool of water in Cilicia with miraculous properties: They say that in Cilicia there is a body of water, plunged into which drowned birds and irrational animals return to life. Ï c (Ú —& ∂ , Ä Ï 8 ¿ 8 Ú
Z I 8 F.248
Apollodorus describes the resurrection of Pelops with the verb.249 In 4 Bar 7:18 a miracle occurs while Jeremiah was in Babylon: “an eagle came down on a person who had died and returned him to life” (Ú F ! ¡ Ù Ú Ù ! , Ú 8 ).250 The father of the lost son uses the verb in Luke 15:24 (NRSV): “for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (≈ ” ¡ " Ù D Ú 8 , D S Ú Õ 8!). Like their Greek counterparts, Latin writers did not neglect the theme of resurrection
246 Iamblichus Theol. Arithm. 40 (52 de Falco), trans. mod. of The Theology of Arithmetic … Attributed to Iamblichus, trans. R. Waterfield, Grand Rapids, MI 1988, 84 = Pythagoras frag. B 8 Diehls/Kranz. 247 Apion Fragmenta de glossis Homericis (A. Ludwich, Über die homerischen Glossen Apions, Ph. 74 [1917] 209–47 and 75 [1919] 95–103, esp. 74, 220). Il. 24.551 is a denial of resurrection. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.1. In Il. 10.32 Menelaus left to go get his brother up (IF &í N 7 √ & ( ). A flower called “Ballis” has the properties of reviving the dead (Ú Ù I? Ö ∂& ;!, √ & ) ) F Ù ) according to various ancient grammarians. Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.7. 248 Paradoxographus florentinus [II C.E.?] Mirabilia de acquis frag. 6 (A. Giannini, ed., Paradoxographorum graecorum reliquiae, Milan 1965, 316). On this text, cf. I. Pajón Leyra, Entre ciencia y maravilla. El genero literario de la paradoxografia griega, Monografías de filología griega 21, Zaragoza 2011, 162–3. Sotion is not the author. Cf. J. Bollansée, K. Haegemans, and G. Schepens, Sōtiōn (200 BCE – 65 CE), in: Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists. The Greek Tradition and its Many Heirs, ed. P. Keyser and G. Irby-Massie, London 2008, 755. 249 Apollodorus Epit. 2.3, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.10. Cp. Schol. in Aristophanes Ran. 177 (chapt. 2 § 1.1). 250 4 Baruch = Paraleipomena Jeremiou.
46
Introduction
5 Latin Expressions for Resurrection Although Latin Christian authors adopted surgo, resurgo, suscito, resuscito, and resurrectio as the primary expressions for “I rise/awake” and “resurrection,” classical writers used a variety of other terms to express the concept. Pliny, for example, uses revocatum ad vitam (“restored to life”) several times in a passage in which he describes the unusual powers of a plant to restore dead animals and people to life.251 He asserts God’s inability to recall the dead (to life) using the phrase revocare defunctos.252 Hyginus referred to Asclepius’s resurrections by nisi etiam mortuos revocaret ad vitam (“unless he might recall the dead to life”).253 Servius uses the same construction to refer to Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus (revocavit eum in vitam), and Lactantius Placidus adopts a nearly identical phrase (revocare ad uitam) for the same resurrection.254 A variation occurs in Ovid where Asclepius promises to restore life to Hippolytus without a wound (vitam sine volnere reddam).255 In another text, Ovid refers to Hippolytus’s resurrection with the identical verb and noun (reddita vita [“restored life”]).256 For Ovid, animas reddere ademptas signifies Asclepius’s power to restore or raise those who have been deprived of their lives.257 Claudian, much later in the history of Latin literature, has the verb alone in his description of Diana’s use of herbs to restore Hippolytus to life (et iuuenem … non sine … Latonia reddidit herbis).258 Hyginus, like Ovid, refers to the resurrection of Hippolytus with uitam reddidisse (restored life).259 Glaucus’s restoration to life by Polyidus can be expressed with a lone participle (restitutus) in Hyginus.260 Hyginus, in another text that describes Polyidus’s miraculous resurrection of Glaucus, refers to the serpent that restored life to its dead companion with spiritum restituit (restored the spirit).261 Polyidus restored
251 Plin. Nat. 25.14. See also Nat. 29.3 (Asclepius’s resurrection of Tyndareus). Cp. Nat. 7.175 for a woman whose soul wandered from her body from seven days who was “recalled to life” (ad vitam revocatae). See chapt. 2 § 2.7. Cf. OLD s.v. revoco 11.c “to restore a dead person to life, resuscitate.” 252 Plin. Nat. 2.27. 253 Hyg. Astr. 2.14, cf. chapt. 2 § 2.8. 254 Serv. A. 7.761 and Lactantius Placidus in Stat. Theb. 6.375 (BiTeu 412 Sweeney). See also Verg. A. 7.769 where Hippolytus is “recalled by Paean’s [god of healing] herbs” (Paeoniis revocatum herbis). Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.8. 255 Ov. Fast. 6.747. See chapt. 2 § 2.4. 256 Ov. Met. 15.534. Hyginus (Fab. 49) also has this construction for Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus (vitam reddidisse, restored life). Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.8. 257 Ov. Met. 2.644. See chapt. 2 § 2.4. 258 Claudian (born ca 370 C.E.) Bellum Geticum 440–1, chapt. 2 § 2.8. 259 Hyg. Fab. 49, chapt. 2 § 2.8. 260 Hyg. Fab. 251, chapt. 2 § 2.8. 261 Hyg. Fab. 136.
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Glaucus to life using an herb (gramine restituit) according to Claudian.262 Hyginus uses still another verb to refer to Glaucus’s resurrection: Glaucum revixisse (Glaucus lived again).263 Although Firmicus Maternus writes as a Christian, he uses a somewhat unusual phraseology to refer to Attis’s resurrection: quem paulo ante sepelierant reuixisse iactarunt (they boast that the one whom they buried a little before came to life again).264 Jerome refers to the resurrection of Adonis with two expressions: “coming back to life, he is sung and praised” (reuiuiscens canitur atque laudatur); and “the death and resurrection of Adonis” (interfectionem et resurrectionem Adonidis).265 Classical Latin authors did not use resurrectio, so clearly it was a coinage of Christian writers.266 The use of revivisco is classical, since Pliny can use the verb in his description of an herb (white hellebore) that is reputed to restore the life of a dead scorpion (scorpionem mortuum si quis helleboro candido linat, revivescere aiunt).267 According to Pliny, Democritus promised that people would live again, but Pliny ridicules the idea (revivescendi promisso).268 Medea in Seneca’s tragedy expresses the impossibility of resurrection for the old man Pelias: “think on the daughters who lured by my guile, dared dismember the old man who was never to return to life” (adice … ausasque natas fraude deceptas mea / secare membra non revicturi senis).269 In Valerius Maximus, Claudia wishes that her dead brother might return to life (reuiuesceret).270 Pliny and Suetonius use the verb resurgo to apply to the return to life of trees that had fallen or been damaged in other ways.271 Tertullian and Cyprian adopted resurgo as the primary verb to refer to the resurrection of Jesus and the general resurrection of the dead.272 Surgo (rise, 262
Claudian Bellum Geticum 445. Hyg. Astr. 2.14, see chapt. 2 § 2.8. 264 Firm. Err. 3., see chapt. 1 § 6. 265 Hier. Ezech. 3.8 ad 8:14 (CChr.SL 75, 99,285–301 Glorie). Arnobius portrays Jupiter’s refusal of Acdestis’s request that Attis live again with the same verb: Iuppiter rogatus ab Acdesti ut Attis revivesceret non sinit (Nat. 5.7). Cf. chapt. 1 § 6. Servius Auctus (Serv. A. 9.115) mentions the failure to revive Attis with a different verb (frustra conati reficere). 266 For the period between 200 and 500, there are over 4,000 usages on the LLT-A database. None are listed before 200. There are 30 usages in Latin inscriptions (Christian) in the EDCC database, although some are conjectural restorations. One of the earliest Latin inscriptions that refers to resurrection is CIL 6, 39086 = JIWE 2, 103 = ILCV 4933 (see chapt. 6 § 2): sperare potest ideo quod surgat in aevm / promissum. 267 Plin. Nat. 25.122. 268 Plin. Nat. 7.189. Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.7. 269 Sen. Med. 471, 475–6, trans. of Seneca, Tragedies, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. J. Miller, Cambridge, MA 1917, 1.269. 270 V. Max. 8.1.(damn.).4, see chapt. 2 § 2.6. 271 Plin. Nat. 16.131–3, Suet. Vesp. 5.4, see chapt. 2 § 2.7. 272 There are hundreds of occurrences in the LLT-A database, although most are in Tertullian. Presumably the Old Latin trans. of the letters of Paul existed before Tertullian. Cf. Pass. 263
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get up from bed) and resurgo (rise from a recumbent position, to become active again, revive) are intransitive according to the OLD, while suscito (rouse from sleep, and other states) and resuscito (rouse, reawaken, revive) are transitive.273 Albert Blaise erroneously lists a transitive usage of surgo for Acts 10:41 (surrexit for F) in an Old Latin MS, Codex Laudianus.274 The same codex has suscitavit (he raised) for 4 in 10:40 (a transitive use).275 In Luke 9:7, the Old Latin MSS have either surrexit or resurrexit for † Ô !. The Old Latin translators used resuscitabo (I will raise, revive) for in John 6:40.276 In 1 Cor 15:15, MS VL 61 has suscitau(er)it Xrm for 4 Ù # (he raised Christ) – a clearly transitive usage. It is intriguing to me that although perfect passive participle forms of both suscito and resuscito were available to the Vetus Latina translators, they chose – to my knowledge – not to use them for the passive forms of Û (wake, rise) including especially † Ô !. Tertullian, for example, could write that the apostles proclaimed that Christ was crucified, died, and was raised (iterum crucifixum, iterum mortuum, iterum resuscitatum).277 He uses the same perfect passive form in the treatise Against Marcion, the treatise On the Flesh of Christ, and in several others.278 Later Latin writers (but not Cyprian) made liberal use of the same construction. In John 2:22, for † Ô !, the Old Latin MSS have surrexit, resurrexit, resurrexisset (all meaning “he rose”). For a clearly transitive use (he raised), † , in John 12:1 they used suscitauit or suscitabit (he roused, raised). † Ô ! in John 21:14 is rendered as surrexit, resurrexit, surgens, surrexisset, and resurrexisset (all “he rose”). For the aorist passives in 2:22 and 21:14 they
Scill. 12 (17 July 180): Saturninus proconsul dixit: Quae sunt res in capsa uestra? Speratus dixit: Libri et epistulae Pauli uiri iusti (“Saturninus the proconsul said: What are the objects in your carrying case? Speratus said: Books and letters of Paul, a righteous man,” trans. of H. Houghton, Latin New Testament, 3). 273 Cf. the OLD for all these lemmas. A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymnologique de la langue latine, Paris 2001, s.v. rego (from which subrigo = surgo is derived) note that surgo expresses the concept of verticality. Cp. the similar entry in M. de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and Other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Brill 2008 s.v. rego. 274 Cf. A. Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens, Turnhout 1954, s.v. surgo. VL 50 = Codex Laudianus (MS Laud. gr. 35, 91r). Available at ‹https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/a4d36822-1a1d-4844-91b8-4a7a85a7bc33›. 275 Codex Laudianus 90v. 276 I thank Hugh Houghton for this point and for his ref. to and collation of VL 61. I used the online Vetus Latina of John (www.iohannes.com/vetuslatina). 277 Tert. Praescr. 30. 278 Tert. Marc. 5.14.5 (resuscitatus est), Carn. Chr. 5.2 (vere resuscitatus), 5.3 (resuscitatum).
5 Latin Expressions for Resurrection
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could have simply used “resuscitatus est [he was raised],”279 but they apparently did not believe that the Greek aorist passive had a passive sense. In Luke 24:34 likewise, the translators used surrexit, surrexerit, or resurrexit (he rose) for † Ô !. The Vetus Latina translators made the same choice for Paul’s passive uses of Û in 1 Cor 15.280 The translators of 1 Cor 15:4 render the perfect passive (“has risen,” or “was raised”) as resurrexit or surrexit. The same passive form in 15:12–14 is translated as “resurrexit.” The transitive † Ô (he raised/woke) in 15:15 becomes suscitabit or suscitauerit (he roused, raised). One MS (VL 75) of 15:16 ( ∞ Ï Ú Ã , Ã&Ó # Ù 7 ), for example, has Si enim mortui non resurgunt neque Xps surrexit (if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen). The other MSS have variations on this. The same intransitive verbs (surgo, resurgo) are used in 15:17, 15:20, 15:29, 32, 35, 42–44, and 51. Presumably the Christians adopted these verbs (surgo, resurgo) to express resurrection primarily because of their close relation to Û and Û. An interesting translation case is that of Jerome who quotes Mark 16:14 and the addition in his Adversus Pelagianos dialogi, a treatise that he wrote in the winter of 415/416 in Bethlehem.281 In certain copies, and especially in certain Greek codices, is written in Mark at the end of his Gospel: “Afterward, when the eleven had reclined at table, he appeared to them and reproached their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him arisen.” In quibusdam exemplaribus et maxime graecis codicibus, iuxta Marcum in fine euangelii eius scribitur: postea, cum accubuissent undecim, apparuit eis, et exprobrauit incredulitati et duritiae cordis eorum, quia his qui eum uiderant resurgentem non crediderunt.282
Resurgentem is an interesting example of the present participle to denote action prior to the verb.283 Jerome’s usage is translation Latin (for Ô in 16:14).284 279
Or even the subjunctive pluperfect passive, resuscitatus esset, a form Augustines uses several times (Sermo 67 [PL 38.434], 136 [PL 38.753]). 280 Again, I thank Hugh Houghton for the data on 1 Cor in the Vetus Latina. 281 P. Nautin, Hieronymus, TRE 15 (1986) 304–15, esp. 308 and M. Schanz and C. Hosius, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, 4 vols., HAW 8, München 1914–35, 4.1.481–82. CPL 615. This material is from J. G. Cook, Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s Contra Iulianum: Two Witnesses to the Short Ending of Mark, TC: A Journal of Biblical Text Criticism 20 (2015) 1–21, esp. 13. 282 Jerome, Pelag. 2.15 (CChr.SL 80:73,1–5 Moreschini). 283 Cf. J. B. Hofmann and A. Szantyr, Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik mit dem allgemeinen Teil der lateinischen Grammatik, HAW 2.2.2, München 21972, 386–87. 284 Hofmann and Szantyr (Lateinische Syntax, 386–87) note the frequency of the usage in late Latin and translation Latin. It does appear in certain classical texts (e.g., Tac. Ann. 12.48.1; Gel. Noct. att. 15.6.3, which is Cicero’s trans. of Homer Il. 7.89–91, where linquens is the equivalent of ! ). Cf. G. Calboli, Latin Syntax and Greek, in: New Perspectives
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6 Resurrection in Zoroastrianism A short discussion of the origins of the most ancient belief in resurrection is appropriate. Theopompus (fourth century B.C.E.) wrote in the eighth book of his Philippica that the “Magi believe people will live again and be immortal and that all that exists will endure by their invocations (√ Ú I: ! Ï ˆ ®? (Ú ˆ ! : Ú > ! !?, Ú Ï ƒ ) Ã 7 &8 ).285 The Avestan hymns of praise to various deities, the Yashts (Yašts), support the claim of Theopompus and almost surely date before the time of the Achaemenids (VI-IV B.C.E.).286 Jan N. Bremmer dates Yasht 19 to the time of the Achaemenids and notes that it was in the Sassanian period that resurrection became a major theme.287 This dating of the Avestas may need some revision. Albert de Jong makes a good case for the Achaemenid kings’ role in the development of Zoroastrianism. He concedes that “there is no doubt that the Avesta contains texts that are much older than the Achaemenid period.”288 Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina argues that “most scholars date the Young Avestas before the Achaemenids.”289 on Historical Latin Syntax 1. Syntax of the Sentence, Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 180.1, ed. P. Baldi and P. Cuzzolin, Berlin 2009, 65–194, esp. 162 (a section entitled, “Graecisms collected by Hofmann & Szantyr, p. 387”). Cp. Augustine Serm. 8 (CChr.SL 41:84,137–138.142–143 Lambot) in ecclesia loquuntur haerentes ueritati ueritatem ... passum, crucifixum, resurgentem, ascendentem ... This should be contrasted with the classical use of the present participle to denote action simultaneous with that of the main verb, e.g. Apul. Met. 8.5.9 aper ... mox ipsum resurgentem multo dente laniauit ... (next, as he tried to get up, the boar gored him with many slashes from his tusks [see Hofmann and Szantyr, ibid., 161–162]). I thank Kathleen Coleman for her suggestions with regard to this issue (personal communication of 29 Dec. 2014). The trans. of Apuleius is Professor Coleman’s. 285 See chapt. 2 § 1.5 for the context of the text and discussion. 286 Yasht 19.11, 19, 89. Cf. H. Humbach and P. R. Ichaporia, Zamyād Yasht. Yasht 19 of the Younger Avesta, Wiesbaden 1998, 30, 33, 58: § 11 (“the dead will rise again”), § 19 (... “so that the dead will rise again”), § 89 (“... so that the dead will rise again”). The Avestan verb is ushištạn (from us [up] and √stā: get up, rise). Cf. P. O. Skjærvø, An Introduction to Young Avestan, 4th Version, 2003, glossary s.v. (https://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Avesta/avestancomplete.pdf) and C. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg 1904, 1602. 287 J. N. Bremmer, The Resurrection between Zarathustra and Jonathan Z. Smith, NedThT 50 (1996) 89–107, esp. 98–9, slightly revised in idem, The Resurrection from Zoroaster to Late Antiquity, Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 41–55, esp. 48–9 (Yt. 19.11, 89 do not “particularly thematize the rising of the dead” – nevertheless it is mentioned). 288 A. de Jong, Religion at the Achaemenid Court, in: Der Achämenidenhof …, ed. B. Jacobs and R. Rollinger, Wiesbaden 2010, 533–58, 537 (the concession). 289 Y. S.-D. Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection: Eschatology and Exegesis in Late Antique Zoroastrianism, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19 ([2005] 2010) 215–23, esp. 220 (the Yašts are oral hymns of praise and do “not elaborate on any single theme in detail”). Y. Kiel, Reinventing Mosaic Torah in Ezra–Nehemiah in the Light of the Law (dāta) of Ahura Mazda and Zarathustra, JBL 136 (2017) 323–45, esp. 331 lists many scholars who argue for a “preAchaemenid dating of the Avestas (even the later parts).” P. O. Skjærvø, The Antiquity of Old
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Clearly there is some disagreement about this issue, and its solution is not essential for my purposes. Yasht 19.11, for example, is clear: In order for (His creatures and creations) to make existence brilliant, / not aging, imperishable, / not rotting, not putrefying, / enjoying eternal life, enjoying eternal benefit, enjoying power at will, / so that the dead will rise again (usᵊhištạn), / imperishability will come over the living, / (and) existence will be made brilliant in value.290
Another text in the Zamyād Yasht lists the agent of the resurrection as the Saoshyant (Saošiiaṇt): (The Kavyan Glory) will have come over / to Saoshyant Verethrajan (= the Victorious Savior) / and (his) other companions / when he will make existence brilliant, / not aging, imperishable, / not rotting, not putrefying, / enjoying eternal life, enjoying eternal benefit, / so that the dead will rise again (ushišt‹ạn›), / (so that) imperishability will be bestowed on the living / (and) existence will be made brilliant in value.291
Still another text lists the Aməš ̣a Spəṇtas as the agents. Yasht 19.11–20 describes these seven beings and their functions, including being “protectors and guardians of these creatures (and creations) of Ahura Mazdā.”292 These very (Amṣ̌a Spentas) who / will make the world brilliant, / not aging, imperishable, / not rotting, not putrefying, / enjoying eternal life, enjoying eternal benefit, enjoying power at will, / so that the dead will rise again (ushištạn), / imperishability will come over the living, / and existence will be made brilliant in value.293
Jenny Rose writes that “in Young Avestan texts ... it is stated that the dead will be raised again and ‘shall have life with bones’.”294 The so-called Fragment Westergaard 4.1–3 is the Young Avestan original of a section of the largest extant Middle Persian text, the Dēnkard (9.46.1–5).295 The Avestan text is part
Avestan, Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān / The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies 3/2 (2003–4) 15–41, esp. 36–38 argues that the Young Avestan texts “are crystallized” around “600–500 B.C.E.?,” but were composed “ca. 1000–600 B.C.E.” Skjærvø, The Videvdad: Its Ritual Significance, in: The Age of the Parthians. The Idea of Iran, vol. 2, ed. V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart, London 2007, 105–41, esp. 138 dates the “crystalisation of Young Avestan texts” to ±500 B.C.E. and the Young Avestan “oral traditions” to 1000–500 B.C.E. Cp. H.-J. Klimkeit, Der iranische Auferstehungsglaube, in: Tod und Jenseits im Glauben der Völker, ed. idem, Wiesbaden 1978, 62–76. 290 Yasht 19.11 (trans. of Humbach and Ichaporia, Zamyād Yasht, 30). 291 Yasht 19.89 (trans. of Humbach and Ichaporia, Zamyād Yasht, 59). 19.88 affirms that the Kavyan Glory (Xᵛarənah) was created by Ahura Mazdā and is “an excellent guardian whose business is in the upper region” (trans., ibid., 59). 292 Yasht 19.18 (trans. of Humbach and Ichaporia, Zamyād Yasht, 33). 293 Yasht 19.19 (trans. of Humbach and Ichaporia, Zamyād Yasht, 33). 294 J. Rose, Zoroastrianism. A Guide for the Perplexed, London 2011, 54, with ref. to Fragment Westergaard 4.3. The Middle Persian images of “heaven” and “hell” “are with the body, and both are resurrected together” (ibid., 53). She also discusses the text of Theopompus. 295 Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 215–6.
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of a recitation which the Saoshyant296 and his helpers use to “revivify the bodies of the dead and reunite them with their souls at the end of time.”297 The Evil Spirit (Aŋra Mainiiu) will hide in the earth. The demons (daēuuas) will hide in the earth. (The Revitalizers) will raise the dead again. In return for bodies no longer alive(?),298 they shall have life with bones.299
zmargūzō bauuāt̮ aŋrō mainiiuš zmargūzō bauuåṇti daēuua us irista paiti aråṇti vī.juuāhu paiti tanušu astuuå gaiiō dāraiiåṇti
Those who are dead will rise.300 Stephen L. Cook claims that “Persians did not imagine the rising of buried corpses, but a recreation of bodies from the bare elements of nature.”301 That claim does not cohere with the Avestan texts quoted above. Although the body (tanu-) will be recreated and united with the soul (urvan [uruuan-]),302 the emphasis on the raising of the dead implies that humans “will regain their disarticulated bodies at the end of time and be resurrected.”303 Vevaina concludes, … the existence of two independent Young Avestan references to the resurrection, both of them in genuinely old texts found in different manuscript groups … strongly suggests that the notion of the resurrection was an integral part of the ancient Zoroastrian eschatological myth that was existence in the first millennium B.C.E., if not earlier.304
Although it is intriguing that references to resurrection in ancient Judaism emerge during the Achaemenid period, proving or disproving intercultural in-
296 Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 216 translates this term as “the one who shall revitalize (existence).” 297 Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 215–6. 298 The phrase vī.juuāhu [instead of living] … tanušu [bodies] creates this problem for translators, which Skjærvø, The Videvdad, 132 renders as “return for living bodies.” 299 Frag. Westergaard 4.3, text and trans. of Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 217. Skjærvø, The Videvdad, 132 translates the last sentence as “In return for living bodies they shall spread out and uphold the life with bones.” 300 us irista [the dead] paiti [again] aråṇti corresponds to “will raise the dead again” – us (up) and ar (go, come [cf. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 183]). The grammatical analysis of G. C. O. Haas is useful (An Avestan Fragment on the Resurrection [Fr. W. 4] with Translation and Notes, in: Spiegel Memorial Volume. Papers on Iranian Subjects … ed. J. J. Modi, Bombay 1908, 181–7, esp. 186). 301 S. L. Cook, Apocalyptic Prophecy, in: The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. J. J. Collins, Oxford 2014, 19–35, esp. 27 with ref. to Herodotus 1.140 (the custom of exposing the dead). 302 Klimkeit, Tod, 63. 303 Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 218 (his italics). Klimkeit, Tod, 70 also emphasizes the resurrection of the body (not its recreation from “the bare elements of nature”). 304 Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 220 (with ref. to Yasht 19 and Fragment Westergaard).
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fluences between Persia and Israel is unnecessary for the purposes of this monograph.305 In my view one should credit the Zoroastrians with the initial development of the concept of an eschatological resurrection.
7 Scribenda The course which I will adopt in the monograph is fairly straightforward. In the first chapter I shall review certain questions of methodology in the history of religion including: analogy, genealogy, myth, ritual, and their relationship. It is immediately apparent that Justin and other apologists either willingly or unwillingly considered analogies between the vicissitudes of pagan heroes, divinities, and emperors and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Although it is not of fundamental importance, the continuing usefulness of the category “dying and rising gods” will also be examined. It is clear, however, that pagan analogies to the NT’s concept of resurrection did exist. The second chapter will review temporary resurrections in Greek and Latin texts, some of the earliest Christian epitaphs that mention resurrection, and the hypogeum on the via Dino Compagni with its scenes from the life of Heracles including his rescue of Alcestis from death that some Greco-Roman authors described as a resurrection. The third chapter is a study of empty tomb narratives with subsequent appearances of individuals such as Aristeas of Proconnesus. In addition, I will include certain individuals who appeared after death, but whose bodies remained in the ground, and a few examples of empty tombs with no subsequence appearances of the individuals buried there. In the fourth chapter I will examine the problem of the differences between translation and resurrection narratives. Although there is perhaps not an absolutely clear distinguishing set of specific differences, it is useful to differentiate the two genres. The primary evidence for a translation is the disappearance of an individual while the primary evidence for a resurrection is the return to life of someone who has died, usually in close vicinity to the place of death or burial. The fifth chapter is closely related to the fourth, because it concerns the translation or rather consecratio (deification) of emperors. The nature of the 305 Klimkeit, Tod, 75 has bibliography on scholars who argue either for Jewish dependence on or independence from Iranian conceptions. Vevaina, Resurrecting the Resurrection, 219 rejects Bremmer’s (Inventing the Afterlife, 47–50) thesis that Christianity may have influenced the Zoroastrian concept of resurrection along with the view that resurrection is a “late concept in the Zoroastrian tradition” (Vevaina, ibid., 220). Bremmer’s point (Inventing, 49) that the texts of the Avestan Yashts do “not particularly thematise the resurrection of the dead” seems appropriate, but that is a general characteristic of the Yashts (as noted above by Vevaina).
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emperors’ funerals is important because of the inclusion of customs such as the occasional burning of a wax image of the imperator, the eagles that were often released from the burning pyres of the departed rulers, and the eyewitnesses who sometimes claimed to have seen the flight aloft of the emperors’ souls. The divinization of the emperors provides a certain context for the ascension of Jesus in Christian tradition. In the sixth chapter the question of resurrection in the Hebrew Scriptures, Second Temple Judaism, and to a certain extent in Rabbinic Judaism will be reviewed – along with the impressive scenes of the resurrection in the paintings in the Dura Europos synagogue. Apocalyptic texts such as 1 Enoch and Syrian Baruch will be the focus of attention, although I will follow the trajectory of resurrection of the body into the middle ages. One fundamental argument of the chapter is that rabbinic Judaism’s emphasis on the resurrection of the body had to have an origin in earlier Jewish texts. The current trend of insisting on the ambiguity of “resurrection” in Second Temple Judaism would imply that the concept of bodily resurrection sprang up ex nihilo in rabbinic Judaism. Similarly, the NT’s emphasis on the resurrection of the body did not spring up ex nihilo either. The NT could be included in this chapter, since it is an example of Greek speaking Judaism – although I will reserve that treatment for the final chapter.306 I will conclude the sixth chapter with the response of the Toledot Yeshu to the Gospels’ resurrection narratives. In the seventh chapter I will take up the question whether one can drive a wedge between Paul and the Gospels with regard to their conceptions of the resurrected body of Jesus. Analysis of a portion of 1 Corinthians 15, texts from Philippians and 1 Thessalonians, the semantics of Û (egeirō [rise, wake]) and Ì (anastasis [resurrection]), and the concept of resurrection in paganism and particularly in Second Temple Judaism are the premises for the conclusion that Paul could not have conceived of the resurrection of Jesus without assuming an empty tomb. The Greco-Roman and Jewish concept of translation is relevant for the interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 4 and also for the interpretation of the ascension in Luke. In the chapter I will also review the different portrayals of resurrection in Mark and Luke and in particular will examine whether “translation” is an adequate category for the scene in Mark 16:1–8. In the conclusion, I will again summarize the argument against the thesis that there is a fundamental difference between between Paul’s conception of the resurrection body and that of the Gospels. I will also review the second hypothesis that the gradual acceptance of the Gospel of a crucified and risen savior by Mediterranean people was not due in part to the analogies of resurrection in paganism and the clear concept of resurrection in ancient Judaism. 306
On this point, cf. B. Childton and J. Neusner. Judaism in the New Testament. Practices and Beliefs, London 1995, 4–5.
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This is certainly not a new thesis. Guy G. Stroumsa, Dieter Zeller, Jan Assmann, and Dag Øistein Endsjø in various ways have made similar arguments.307 The synthesis I hope to achieve in this monograph should transcend, however, either of these hypotheses.
307
For Zeller, cf. chapt. 1 conclusion. For Assmann, cf. chapt. 1 § 4 (Osiris). For Stroumsa, cf. chapt. 6 proem. For Endsjø, cf. chapt. 4 § 3.
Chapter One
Resurrection of Divinities The New Testament’s narrative of the resurrection of Jesus has often been compared with the vicissitudes of Osiris, Adonis, and Attis among others. The category of “dying and rising” gods remains useful in examining these vicissitudes. The belief of some ancient people that certain divinities had overcome death (such as Osiris) may have been fertile ground for their willingness to accept the Gospel of a crucified and risen Christ. Ancient Christian apologists such as Justin did not shrink from making such comparisons, and they are fundamental to any examination of the theme of resurrection in antiquity. Below I will examine the fates of Dumuzi, Baal, Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Melqart/Heracles, Dionysus, Asclepius/Eshmun, and Mithras with the goal of ascertaining whether or not some of them experienced a vicissitude analogous to bodily resurrection.
1 Some Methodological Reflections Jonathan Z. Smith’s distinction between analogy and genealogy1 in the history of religions can serve to illuminate the comparisons to be made below: they are analogies and not genealogies. My goal is not, for example, to demonstrate pagan influence (a genealogical method) on Paul and early Christianity or vice versa. The analogies in this monograph are between the NT images of resurrection and similar narratives in paganism and Judaism. The evidence, by necessity, for resurrection in paganism is from widely diverse chronological eras and appears in diverse contexts in the authors who preserve the traditions.2 Nevertheless, one can discern patterns in the pagan narratives of resurrections that are clearly analogous to resurrection in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Resurrection traditions should be distinguished from translations, in which an individual is transported to another thisworldly or otherworldy 1 Smith, Drudgery Divine, 47–51, 114, 118. Cp. the discussion of genealogy in Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 41–55. For a critique of Smith’s complete rejection of a genealogical method (i.e., Christianity’s influence on late antiquity), cf. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 53–55. 2 Cf. intro. proem for a working definition of “resurrection,” and cp. chapt. 7 § 2 for a discussion of Bickerman’s criteria.
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location either before or after his or her death.3 In a translation there is no necessity for a post-mortem epiphany. 1.1 Dying and Rising Gods The present study is not designed to defend James G. Frazer’s concept of “dying and rising gods,” although that category – redefined – is still of heuristic value.4 “Dying and rising gods,” as defined by Mark S. Smith, includes the following four markers: 1. “the divine status of the figures”; 2. “myths about their death and return to life”; 3. “the correspondence of this thematic cycle to the seasonal cycle,” and 4. “a series of rituals which provides a cultic context for the recitation of the myths.”5 These markers or characteristics are drawn from the work of Frazer, which has not fared well among historians of religion.6 I do, however, believe that there are gods who may be described as “dying and rising” (markers one and two) in an attentuated sense. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger has, in my view, clearly demonstrated that the category remains viable in examinations of the fates of gods who either return from the dead in some sense or reemerge from the Netherworld.7 Walter Burkert makes some incisive comments about Frazer’s approach: Some hard blows, however, have been dealt to the theory in recent decades. The very facts of myth and ritual do not correspond to the presuppositions. The main objective should be the invigoration of vegetable life, or, in mythical terms, “aiding the God” in his resurrection or rebirth. But the central feature of the cult is invariably death, catastrophe celebrated with bloodshed and weeping. The evidence for resurrection is late and tenuous in the case of Adonis, and practically nonexistent in the case of Attis; and not even Osiris returns to real life, but instead attains transcendent life beyond death. And it was an unexpected shock to Frazerism when in 1951 the hitherto missing conclusion of the Sumerian myth of Inanna and Dumuzi was published. Scholars had been sure that Inanna, or Ishtar, by her Babylonian name, goes down to the nether world in order to bring the “god of veg-
3 Cp. Bickerman, Das leere Grab, 75. See chapt. 4 proem and § 2.proem for a more developed description of “translations.” 4 Cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 37. Bertram, Auferstehung I (des Kultgottes), 919–30 uses the concept of the resurrection of a vegetation god that has largely been abandoned by anthropologists. Cf. J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, ER IV (2005) 2535–40. 5 Mettinger, Riddle, 37, M. S. Smith, The Death of “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Biblical World: An Update, with Special Reference to Baal in the Baal Cycle, SJOT 12 (1998) 257–313, esp. 262. Smith takes these markers from J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, New York 1951 [Abridged edition], 378, 392. Cp. idem, The Golden Bough 4.1, 6, 229 (same quotations). 6 See the review in (J. Z.) Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, idem, Drudgery Divine, 90–3, W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley 1979, 100, M. S. Smith, Death, passim. 7 Mettinger, Riddle, passim.
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities etation” back to life; now quite the contrary was seen to happen; Inanna comes back from the nether world to kill Dumuzi …8
Although in the section on Dumuzi below, these results will be altered somewhat, Burkert’s conclusions are consistent with the results of my own investigations.9 My interest below is solely in the presence of an element in the narratives of these figures that may be compared with resurrection in the New Testament. In this investigation, I will dispense with the third and fourth markers, since my focus is on the gods who experience what can be described either as “dying and rising” or “vicissitudes.”10 This more minimalistic category of “dying and rising” gods remains quite useful, and it is clear to me that the pattern of their absence (“dying”) and presence (“resurrection”) illuminates the New Testament image of resurrection.11 Roland de Vaux questioned Frazer’s interpretation of the “gardens of Adonis,” and argued that their ephemeral and sterile character is fundamental to their interpretation.12 He was skeptical of the tradition of Adonis’s resurrection and believed that reports of “such a celebration were dependent on Origen and Cyril of Alexandria.” He did not believe that Lucian’s report was grounds enough to assume a celebration of the resurrection of Adonis.13 Jonathan Z. Smith presumably rang the death knell for Frazer’s category of “dying and rising gods” in an article of 1997. He understood that to mean: … myths and rituals that allegedly narrate and annually represent their death and resurrection … there were dramatic reenactments of their [young male figures of fertility] life 8 Burkert, Structure and History, 100–1. Cp. the skepticism about the “dying and resurrection” of Attis and Adonis of G. Sfameni Gasparro, Il mitraismo nell’ambito della fenomenologia misterica (with an abstract in English), in: Mysteria Mithrae ... Roma e Ostia 28–31 Marzo 1978, EPRO 80, ed. U. Bianchi, Leiden 1979, 299–348, esp. 302–3. 9 Cf. § 2 below. 10 Smith, Drudgery Divine, 107 discusses U. Bianchi’s concept of vicissitude and quotes his definition of mystic cults: “all cults implying a god experiencing a vicissitude – cults of fecundity – are mystic according to this terminology.” “But what is properly mysterical and not simply mystic in Eleusis is the soteriological aspect concerning a blissful after-life for man after death.” These statements are from the discussion regarding B. Dieterich, Demeter’s Eleusinian Mysteries, in: La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell’Impero Romano. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale su La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell’ Impero Romano. Roma 24–28 Settembre 1979, EPRO 92, ed. U. Bianchi and M. J. Vermaseren, Leiden 1982, 445–71, esp. 469. 11 Cf. U. Bianchi, Lo studio delle religioni di mistero, in: Bianchi and Vermaseren, La soteriologia, 1–16, esp. 11–13 on presence and absence, with regard to Attis and Adonis. Bianchi’s concept (ibid., 11) is of the “dio in vicenda” (god in vicissitude). 12 Cf. § 5.2 below. R. de Vaux, Sur quelques rapports entre Adonis et Osiris, RB 42 (1933), 31–56, esp. 31–43. 13 Cf. the summary in Mettinger, Riddle 26–7, and de Vaux, Sur quelques rapports, 43–55 (Adonis) and 46 (Lucian). Cf. § 5.3 below for Lucian’s report.
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death, and putative resurrection, often accompanied by a ritual identification of either the society or given individuals with their fate.14
There is no classical evidence for a resurrection of Adonis, for example, according to Smith. Lucian’s text merely shows that the statue of Adonis was addressed as if it were alive, and “there is no evidence for the existence of any mysteries of Adonis whereby the member was identified with Adonis or his fate.”15 Aliyan Baal descends to the dead “whence it will be said of him that he is as if dead.” Later after a gap in the text “he then appears to be alive.” Smith notes, however, that “there is no evidence that any of the events narrated in these distressingly fragmentary texts were ritually enacted. Nor is there any suggestion of an annual cycle of death and rebirth.” He leaves the question “sub judice” whether he is a “dying and rising deity.”16 The five-day festival of Attis (March 22–27) included the “Day of Blood” and the “Day of Joy.” The “Day of Joy” is “a late addition to what was once a three-day ritual and the return of the statue of the goddess to the temple.” Firmicus Maternus’s reference to a god who is “saved” is probably a reference to Osiris.17 Osiris, after being dismembered, was “rejuvenated” and the formula in the Pyramid texts, “‘rise up, you have not died,’ whether applied to Osiris or a citizen of Egypt, signaled a new, permanent life in the realm of the dead.” According to Smith, “Osiris is a powerful god of the potent dead. In no sense can the dramatic myth of his death and reanimation be harmonized to the pattern of dying and rising gods.”18 Presumably Smith means that Osiris’s reanimation was not an annual event. Tammuz/Dumuzi descends to the land of the dead and remains there. There are rituals that mourn his death, but none that celebrate his “rebirth.” A new section (“announced in 1963”) of the Sumerian Descent of Inanna indicates that Dumuzi will spend half of the year in the netherworld and half of the year among the living. Smith argues that the pattern of” half a year below and half a year above” is similar to Adonis and is not the equivalent of what “is usually meant in the literature when speaking of a deity’s ‘rising’.”19 He concludes that “dying and rising” deities is a “dubious” category “based largely on Christian interest and tenuous evidence. As such, the category is of more interest to the history of scholarship than to the history of religions.”20 Günther Wagner affirms that the resuscitation of Osiris is a “vivification” that does not “produce life as a new creation.” “In the background there is al14
J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2535 and passim. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2536 (see § 5 below). 16 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2536. 17 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2536–7. Firm. Err. 22.3, cf. § 6 below. 18 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2538. 19 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2538–9. Cf. § 2 below. 20 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2539. 15
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ways the thought of latent potencies within the dead body … The ‘vivification’ of Osiris is not a resurrection.” He remains in the Nether World.21 With regard to Adonis, the cult may have developed under the influence of syncretism: “there is much to support the view that the introduction of a celebration of Adonis’s resurrection is to be attributed to the influence of the Osiris cult.”22 Lucian and later Christian writers attest to a resurrection of Adonis.23 A. J. M. Wedderburn’s monograph on Baptism and Resurrection included a clear (and for this reader) persuasive review of the revivification or resurrection of some of the ancient deities of the Mediterranean world including Osiris, Heracles, Adonis, Dionysus, and Attis.24 The evidence for the resurrection or revivification of these figures is based on well-known texts and will be reviewed below where many appeals will be made to Wedderburn’s study. The title of Mark S. Smith’s recent article comprises these telling words: “The Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World. An Update, with Special Reference to Baal in the Baal Cycle.”25 With regard to Baal, for example, Smith argues that there is no narrative of “Baal’s return to life,” and although “Baal does return from the underworld and the realm of death in the Baal Cycle … this narrative presentation of the god may not derive from a specific ritualistic understanding of Baal as ‘a dying and rising god.’”26 The ritual texts do not describe the “revivification of the god Baal.” He is, however, more open to the category of “disappearing gods,” some of whom “simply disappear; some disappear only to return in the near or distant future; some disappear and reappear with monotonous frequency.”27 Smith hypothesizes that “Baal’s death reflects the death of Ugaritic kings, but his return to life heralds the role of the living king to provide peace for the world.”28 With regard to Adonis, Smith argues that Lucian’s account is “hardly clear,” and in other sources, “descriptions of anything approaching a death and resurrection are lacking.” The classical narratives do not “describe his rising from death,” and “only accounts fashioned by Christian writers introduce the theme of
21 G. Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries. The Problem of the Pauline Doctrine of Baptism in Romans VI. 1–11, in the Light of its Religio-Historical “Parallels,” Edinburgh 1967, 119. He also denies that Plutarch mentions the resurrection of Osiris. Cf. § 4 below. 22 Wagner, Pauline Baptism, 199–200. 23 Wagner, Pauline Baptism, 198–201. 24 Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection, 196–200 (Osiris), 191 (Heracles), 201–3 (Adonis), Dionysus (193–5), 204–7 (Attis). 25 M. S. Smith, Death. 26 M. S. Smith, Death, 289. 27 M. S. Smith, Death, 291, quoting Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2535 (1997: 521–2). 28 M. S. Smith, Death, 307–8, and cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 39.
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Adonis’ resurrection.”29 In addition, Adonis and Dumuzi are “humans or perhaps deified humans, more specifically young figures (both possibly associated with a major goddess) who are not warriors.”30 The mention of > with regard to Melqart/Heracles does not necessarily imply resurrection, since it can refer to the building of a temple, and that if “awakening” is the correct interpretation, “no context is provided for this ‘awakening’.”31 The most useful study for my purposes is the monograph by Mettinger devoted to the concept of “dying and rising gods” in the ancient Near East.32 It is the most comprehensive investigation of the problem since the original study by Frazer. Mettinger’s focus is on gods of the Near East: Ugaritic Baal; Melqart-Heracles; Adon(is); and Eshmun-Asclepius. He also examines the relationship between Osiris and Dumuzi-Tammuz and several west Semitic gods: Adonis and Melqart in relation to Osiris; and Adonis and Melqart in relation to Dumuzi. My debt to Mettinger’s analysis will be readily apparent in the references below. Mettinger argues that Baal dies and returns to life, although the texts do not describe the exact moment of his return to life.33 There is also evidence that Melqart-Heracles dies and returns to life – evidence which Mettinger examines in detail.34 Although classical texts do not speak of a resurrection of Adonis, Lucian and later Christian texts do so. In the Levant he was considered to be a god.35 There is evidence for the death and resurrection of Eshmun-Asclepius, although it is difficult to separate the tradition from that of Attis in certain details.36 Osiris died, but then rose to become king of the Netherworld. There are no explicit identifications of Osiris and Adonis until the common era. There are closer similarities between Heracles-Melqart and Osiris, however and the term mqm ʾlm may be related to the “resurrection language” in the cult of Osiris.37 In the case of Dumuzi, the god experiences a bilocation in the Netherworld and the world of the living – in other words, the god “dies and returns.”38 There are clearly “connections” with the bilocation of Adonis, and the annual celebration of the return of Melqart in the month of Peritius is in “good harmony” with the “inferred date” of Dumuzi’s return.39 29 M. S. Smith, Death, 283 (dependent on J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2535–6 [1997: 522]). 30 M. S. Smith, Death, 285. 31 M. S. Smith, Death, 280–2. Cf. § 7 below. 32 Mettinger, Riddle, passim. 33 Cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 57–71 and cf. § 3 below. 34 Mettinger, Riddle, 83–111, and cf. § 7. 35 Mettinger, Riddle, 113–54, and cf. § 5. 36 Mettinger, Riddle, 155–64, and cf. § 9. 37 Mettinger, Riddle, 172–5, 183. 38 Mettinger, Riddle, 185–215, esp. 213 39 Mettinger, Riddle, 214.
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This brief survey indicates fairly clearly that the category “dying and rising gods” is still useful to describe the vicissitudes of a number of ancient divinities. One does not need to adopt Frazer’s approach using the concept of an annual dying and rising vegetation deity. Consequently, the thesis that the concept is dead cannot be sustained. 1.2 Myth and Ritual J. Z. Smith stipulates a definition of myth, which I find quite useful for discussion of accounts that are analogous to resurrection: “myth” refers to a traditional narrative, often orally transmitted, concerning superhuman beings and extraordinary events, occurring in a time remote from the time of its telling; considered to be of collective importance or value because it narrates the formation, or dissolution, of aspects of the present order.40
Robert L. Fowler’s definition is also useful: “a sacred, traditional narrative, which depicts the interrelations of mortals and gods, is especially concerned with defining what is moral behavior for a given culture, and passes on key information about the culture’s institutions.”41 Smith goes on to note that “Myths and rituals must be told or performed by the right persons, to the right persons, at the right time and right place.42 The four-fold repetition of ‘right’ is designed to signal the fundamental seriousness of both these modes of communication, even if, at times, their contents are designedly comic. Both myth and ritual are guided by an ethos and ethic of taking-care.”43 With regard to the Greek word for “myth” (!), Burkert notes that it is a narra40 J. Z. Smith, Things Said/Things Done: The Relations of Myth and Ritual, Witherspoon Lecture, University of North Carolina Charlotte, 29 March 2009, 2 and 17 n. 2 with references to a number of other scholars from whose work he draws including R. A. Oden, Myth and Mythology (1), ABD 4 (1992) 946–56 (the elements in most definitions are: story, tradition, superhuman being[s], and remote antiquity), Burkert, Structure and History, 23 “myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance.” 41 R. L. Fowler, Thoughts on Myth and Religion in Early Greek Historiography, Minerva 22 (2009) 21–39, esp. 22. Cp. P. Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination, Chicago 1988, 23: “myth is information ... it is nothing more than knowledge obtained through information, which is applied to realms that for us would pertain to argument or experiment ... information is an illocution that can be completed only if the receiver recognizes the speaker’s competence and honesty beforehand.” 42 Cf. R. Pettazzoni, The Truth of Myth, in: Sacred Narrative. Readings in the Theory of Myth, ed. A. Dundes, Berkeley 1984, 98–109, esp. 99–102: a discussion of the Pawnee who distinguish between “true stories” and “false stories” – the former comprise tales about “the beginning of the world” with supernatural actors and adventures of the national hero; “false stories” are unedifying narratives about “Coyote the prairie wolf”; the telling of true stories is governed by institutional guidelines; myth “is a true story because of its contents, which are an account of events which actually took place.” They are “far removed in time” from the present, and “the present structure of society” “still depends on them.” 43 Smith, Things Said, 3.
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tive, which is not an immediate reflection of a reality – in contrast to logos ( ı ), which is from Ô (to gather), so that “to give a logon” means to take responsibility (for an assertion). “Mythos is a narrative for which no one takes responsibility: ‘the mythos did not originate with me.’”44 The relationship between myth and ritual is vexed.45 Jan Bremmer’s stimulating examinations of the issue include the thesis that our concept of “ritual” is fairly recent and that the ancient Greeks had no precise term corresponding to ours – it is rather a category that arose in studies in the late nineteenth century.46 Terms such as heortē (/ 7), teletē ( ), drōmenon (& ˘ ), and mustērion ( ) “are all used in different contexts.”47 He considers three possibilities: 1. “myth arises from ritual”; 2. “myth is the scenario of a dramatic ritual;” and 3. “myth and ritual arise pari passu.”48 He demonstrates, in my view, that there are serious problems with all three hypotheses. None applies to all examples of myth and related rituals. Fowler also concludes that there is no “organic union” between myths and rituals.49 1.3 Justin and Other Patristic Writers on Jesus and Greek Myths The usefulness of the comparisons to be made below is confirmed by the similar practice of Justin Martyr.50 In his Dialogue with Trypho, for example, he made the following claim: (69.2) For when they say that Dionysus51 was born of Zeus’s sexual intercourse with Semele, and narrate that he was the discoverer of the vine, and that, after he was torn to 44 W. Burkert, Mythisches Denken: Versuch einer Definition an Hand des griechischen Befundes, in: idem, Kleine Schriften, 8 vols., Göttingen 2001–2011, 4.42–65, esp. 45, quoting Euripides frag. 484 Kannicht, ìthe myth is not mine, but is from my mother.” In Collard and Cropp, Euripides, Fragments, 1.583 [Melanippe] the trans. is: “The account is not my own, but comes from my mother, that Heaven and Earth were once a single form, but when they were parted from each other into two, they bore and delivered into the light all things – trees, singing things, beasts, creatures of the sea, and the face of mortals” (Ã Ù ¡ !, í F Ù ? , / › Ã )? í D ( , / Ú &í ! 7 &, / ? 8& ∞ (?, / &8& , ?, !F — !í b 8( / 8 ! ). 45 Cf. J. N. Bremmer, Mythe et rituel dans l’initiation d’Héraclès, in: Du récit au rituel par la forme esthétique. Poèmes, images et pragmatique cultuelle en Grèce ancienne, ed. C. Calame and P. Ellinger, Paris 2017, 271–304, esp. 272–3 (the relation of myth and ritual) and idem, Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece: Observations on a Difficult Relationship, in: Griechische Mythologie und Frühchristentum, ed. R. von Haehling, Darmstadt 2005, 21–43. 46 Bremmer, Myth and Ritual, 28. 47 Bremmer, Myth and Ritual, 28. 48 Bremmer, Myth and Ritual, 32–43. 49 Fowler, Thoughts, 34. 50 Cf. the important exposition of Justin Apol. 1.21, 23 by Miller, Resurrection, 1–25. 51 For the resurrection of Dionysus, cf. § 8 below.
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities pieces and died, he arose again and ascended into heaven, and when they use wine in his mysteries, is it not evidence that the Devil52 has imitated the previously quoted prophecy of the patriarch Jacob [Gen 49:10–11], as recorded by Moses? (3) And when it is asserted that Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, was strong and traversed the whole earth, and that, after death, he too, ascended into heaven,53 ought I not to conclude that the Scriptural passage about Christ, “strong as a giant to run his course” ([Ps 18:6 LXX] was similarly imitated? And when the devil presents Asclepius as raising the dead to life54 and curing all diseases, has he not, in this regard, also emulated the prophecies of Christ? ≈ Ï Ó "Ù Ù 5 ` )! ÃÙ E 8 W,
F! " , Ú Õ 8 , Ú & !8 Ú ! F, ∞ Ã !8 , Ú ƒ ) Ã (8 , ÃÚ 8 ÕÙ ® 8 ( ) ∏SI ? ( F! ÃÙ ; (3) Ï &Ó Ù Â 8 ∞ Ù Ú 7 a F, Ú ÃÙ 2 _ 5 ] 7 , Ú ! ∞ Ã Ù !8 8
, ÃÚ ∏ Ù › & ) ¡&Ù Ã, Ú # 8 ( ¡ F! ; ≈ &Ó Ù ] Ù ˆ Ú Ï ; ?! ! (8 W, ÃÚ Ï Ú # ¡ ( F! Ú Ú 9 (;55
Justin, in his debate with the Jew, devalues the Greek narratives by arguing that they are merely imitations of LXX texts. It is self-evident to Justin that the prophecies are older than the Greek narratives. Trypho, the Jewish antagonist of the narrator, had earlier challenged Justin by comparing Jesus’s birth with that of Perseus: Besides, in the so-called Greek myths there is a story of how Perseus was born of Danaë, while she was a virgin, when the one whom they call Zeus descended upon her in the form of a golden shower.56 You Christians should be ashamed of yourselves, therefore, to repeat the same kind of stories as these people, and you should, on the contrary, acknowledge this Jesus to be a man of mere human origin. If you can prove from the 52 It is clear that the reference of Ãı is to the devil from 69.1 (Å 7 ¡ &?I ) Æ !F [those things, which the one called the devil imitated, by causing them to be told among the Greeks]). 53 For the translation of Heracles, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.17. 54 For the resurrections of Asclepius, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 55 Justin Dial. 69.2–3, trans. slightly modified of St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. T. B. Falls, Washington, DC 2003, 107–8. Text modified from Iustini Martyris Apologiae pro christianis, PTS 38, ed. M. Marcovich, Berlin 1995 (without an unnecessary cj., Ãı, after F!, along with his corrections: ∏ ı and (Ô ). In 1 Apol. 54.6 Justin asserts that the demons taught that Dionysus was torn apart and ascended into heaven (& !8 ÃÙ !8 ∞ Ã Ù &&5). 56 Hecataeus FGrH 1, F21 (F a ¸ ), Pherecydes FGrH 3, F10 ( (7 ÕÙ ¡ ¸ ˆ E &Ú [revealing himself, Zeus had intercourse with the girl]), Sophocles Antig. 944–50 (¸Ù Ï [she was the depository of the gold streaming seeds of Zeus]). For various ancient images of the impregnation, cf. D. Ogden, Perseus, New York 2008, 18 (LIMC Danae § 7–9, 19, 26, 33, etc).
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Scriptures that he is the Christ, confess that he was considered worthy to be chosen as such because of his perfect observance of the Law, but do not dare to speak of miracles, lest you be accused of talking nonsense, like the Greeks. &Ó ) 8 7 ! 8 ≈ ˆ ?, !8 –, (E X í à í Ã) Ù 8, 8H Ú Õ ) Ï ÃÏ 8 , ∞& )! ¿( , Ú a ;! 5 ! : 8 Ù ∏ , , Ï & ˜ãõ Ù ( ≈ à ¡ # , &Ï Ù Ú 8 ! ÃÙ 5 ! F ∞ # , Ï ) a , ≈ 7 ¡ ) Æ 8 ! .57
In this case Trypho attacks the Christians for telling the same kinds (Ï ÃÌ) of birth stories as the Greeks. Justin’s response to his argument is simply that the Greek tale of Perseus’s birth is a diabolical imitation of Christ’s birth: And, Trypho, (I said), when I hear it asserted that Perseus was born of a virgin, I know that this is another forgery of that treacherous serpent (or “the treacherous serpent made this by imitation”). ≈ &8, ‚ P ( , >(, !8 F! Ù 8 , Ú 7! Ù ? ƒ( .58
The devil provides a useful explanation for the apologist, who consequently denies the truth of the narrative of Perseus’s virgin birth. Justin takes a different approach in his First Apology: When, indeed, we assert that the word, our teacher Jesus Christ, who is the first-begotten of God the father, was not born as the result of sexual relations, and that he was crucified, died, arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing new or different from that which you say about the so-called sons of Zeus. You know exactly the number of sons ascribed to Zeus by your respected writers: Hermes, who was the interpretative word and teacher of all; Asclepius, who, though himself a healer of diseases, was struck by a thunderbolt and ascended into heaven; Dionysus, who was torn to pieces; Hercules,59 who rushed into the flames of the funeral pyre to escape his sufferings; the Dioscuri,60 the sons of Leda; Perseus, the son of Danäe; and Bellerophon,61 who though of human origin, rose to heaven on his horse Pegasus. And what can we say of Ariadne62 and those like 57
Justin Dial. 67.2, trans. of Falls, Justin, Dialogue, 103. Justin Dial. 70.5, trans. of Falls, Justin, Dialogue, 110. Text from Marcovich without his additions: ‹Ìõ ãÏ ∏^›. Celsus also compared Jesus’s birth with the story of Perseus’ birth from Danaë (Origen Cels. 1.37, 67). 59 For Asclepius, see chapt. 4 § 2.5. Heracles and Dionysus are discussed below in § 7 and 8. 60 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.11. 61 Cf. Pindar Isthm. 7.44–7, Hor. Carm. 4.11.26–8, and Schol. in Lycophr. Alex. 17. Bellerophon was thrown from Pegasus before reaching heaven. 62 Eratosthenes Cataster. 1.5, Apollon. Arg. 1.997–1004, Aratus Phaenom. 71–3, Ovid Fast. 3.511–6, Met. 8.176–82. 58
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities her, who are said to be placed among the stars? And what about the emperors who die among you, whom you always think worthy to be deified, and for whom you induce a witness to swear that he saw the burning Caesar rise from the funeral pyre and ascend to heaven? P2 &Ó Ú Ù , ≈ 8 ! , ; 5 (? a F!, ∏ # Ù Ù &&? , Ú !8 Ú ! Ú ? !8 ∞ Ù Ã , Ã Ï ˆ í Õ) 8 "ˆ 2 _ (8 . (2) Ï "ˆ (? Ù " í Õ) :
( ), ! H F 8, Ù / Ù Ú ? &&? , ] Ù &8, Ú ! , !8 !8 ∞ à , &Ó & !8,  8 &Ó ( E /Ù Ú & , ˆ 7& &Ó , Ú Ù ? 8, Ú Ù 5 ! : &Ó (í μ ? M ( . (3) Ï 8 ] ?& Ú ˆ ¡ ÃE ! 8; Ú Ï ˆ !7 í Õ) à ? , ãœõ Ú ! ! 5 Ú ¿ Ï ? / 8 F a ∞ Ù Ã Ù Ù 8 ;63
Justin indicates his skepticism by questioning the witnesses of the apotheoses of the emperors. In the next chapter he answers the objection that Christ was crucified by noting its similarity with the sufferings of Zeus’s reputed sons ( Ù ) !8 ! ") !í Õa Ù Õ? ).64 He willingly compares the birth of Christ with that of Perseus, and the healing and resurrection miracles of Christ with those of Asclepius.65 Christ is superior to all of them in his deeds, however (¡ Ï ?5 ( ).66 This is a form of argumentation that Origen used occasionally in his responses to Celsus, who also compared Jesus to figures in the Greek pantheon.67 63 Justin 1 Apol. 21.1–3, trans. modified of St. Justin Martyr, The First Apology …, FC 6, trans. T. B. Falls, Washington, DC 1948, 56–7 (Falls has “lead forth a false witness”). Text from Justin, Apologie pour les chrétiens. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes, SC 507, ed. C. Munier, Paris 2006. Cf. chapt. 5 § 1.9, 2.2, 2.3 on the witnesses to the apotheoses of the emperors, and for Romulus, cf. chapt. 3 § 1.2. 64 Justin 1 Apol. 22.3. 65 Justin 1 Apol. 22.5–6. 66 Justin 1 Apol. 22.4. 67 In Origen Cels. 7.54, Origen responds to Celsus’s reference to the noble deaths of Heracles and Asclepius (7.53) by arguing that Heracles was not always honorable (e.g., his theft of an ox; for refs., cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. with intro. and notes H. Chadwick, Cambridge 1953, 440). Origen mentions the sexual immorality ( ) of Heracles in Cels. 3.22. Cf. Apollodorus Bibl. 2.7.4 (2.146–7 Wagner) for Heracles’ seduction of Auge. Frazer (Apollodorus, 1.252–4) gives refs. to various forms of the story, includes Heracles’ drunken rape of the virgin priestess of Athena (Auge). Cf., e.g., Alcidamas frag. 2: ∞&S &Ó ¡ Â F )& 2 2 ÕÙ 8! 8 (G. Avezzù, ed., Alcidamante. Orazioni e frammenti, Bollettino dell’Istituto di Filologia Greca Supplemento 6, Rome 1982). Origen questions why Asclepius can rationally be viewed as a god or hero when Zeus de-
1 Some Methodological Reflections
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In the next step of his argument, he affirms that only the Christian narratives are true: (23.1) To make this clear to you: That whatever statements we make, because we learned them from Christ and the prophets who preceded him, are alone true, and are older than all writers, and that we should be believed, not because we speak the same things as the writers, but because we speak the truth; (2) that Jesus Christ alone is properly the son of God, since he is his word, first-begotten and power …; (3) that, before he assumed human nature and dwelt among people, some, namely, by the agency of those previously mentioned demons, foretold through the poets as if already accomplished those things which they invented [or “mythologized”] just as they caused to be imputed to us slanderous and impious actions, of which they can produce neither witness nor proof – we shall present the following argument to prove. Ω &Ó 4& Ú ( Ù Õ) 8, ≈ ¡ 8 ! Ï # Ú ! Ã ( !F Ú I ? ã õ 8
(8 , Ú ÃÚ &Ï Ù ÃÏ 8 Ã) & !F 5 , í ≈ Ù !Ó 8 H (2) Ú ∏ # Ù ∞& "Ù 2 ! 2 8, Ã Õ? Ú Ú & Ö (3) Ú ¢ ! : ÃÙ
8! ;! (!?8 &Ï ˆ 8 ˆ & &Ï › ∂ Å !7 >(, √ Ú Ï !í &( Ú IF > 7 , „ Ã& Ú ? Ã&Ó & 5 , ñ > !.68
Justin’s argument is fundamentally historical, although with a spiritual twist: the poets, by means of demonic inspiration, mythologized accounts that should not be believed because they simply are not true – in contrast to the Christian accounts which should be believed because they are true – in spite of the fact that the Christian and pagan narratives are often identical in some respects. 69 The concept of truth Justin uses simply assumes that the narratives about Christ are historically accurate and that they were prophesied in the ancient past. He does not really believe that Christian and pagan narratives are identical, however, because he next affirms: (24.1) In the first place [we wish to say] that, although we hold teachings similar to the Greeks, we alone are hated because of the name of Christ, and, though we commit no crime, we are executed as criminals, while other people in other countries worship trees and rivers, mice, cats, crocodiles, and many other irrational animals … (2) And this is the sole charge you lodge against us, that we do not worship the same gods as you do …
stroyed him with a thunderbolt (Cels. 3.22). He argues that even if Asclepius is a daimōn with the power of healing, it does not follow that those who heal are wholly good, since immoral people have been healed and “… it is apparent that there is nothing inherently divine about the healing art of Asclepius” (3.25: … &Ó ! ) Ã ! ( Ù F ] ∞ F). Cf. Cook, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 52, 58–9. 68 Justin 1 Apol. 23.1–3, trans. modified of Falls, Justin, First Apology, 58–9. 69 In my view, Miller, Resurrection, 4 does not emphasize clearly enough this aspect of Justin’s argument. Justin believes that Jesus existed historically, unlike the Greek divinities.
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities (24.1) Ó ≈ Ï ≈ ) Æ 8 ! &í ƒ # , Ú &Ó & › U Ú !, ; Ú &8& I8 Ú ˆ Ú Ú ∞ Ú & Ú
: Ï ? .... (2) ≈ ) ) > , ≈ ˆ È Õ) 8I ! …70
Here it is clear that Justin does believe that there are some differences between Christian teachings about the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and those of the Greeks. They are only similar (Ï ≈). Justin’s analogies illustrate the importance of the material, however, for understanding the ancient cultural context in which the Christian narratives took root. Tertullian adopted the same kind of argument as Justin, so it is apparent that Christian apologists had to respond to the arguments against the birth, resurrection, and ascension of Christ based on their Hellenistic analogies. After describing the virgin birth of Christ, Tertullian writes: For the moment accept this “story” [“fiction”] (it is like your own stories) while we show how Christ is proved, and who they were who, in order to destroy the truth, set about among you rival stories of the same kind [i.e., the demons]. Recipite interim hanc “fabulam” (similis est uestris), dum ostendimus, quomodo Christus probetur et qui penes uos eiusmodi fabulas ad destructionem ueritatis istius aemulas praeministrauerint.71
Tertullian argues that the demons heard the prophecies of ancient Israel: The purposes of God, too, they [i.e., the daemones] once received from speaking prophets, and now gather from their written works when read aloud. Thus taking from this source as well certain predictions of the future, they affect to rival the divinity, while they steal his divination. Dispositiones etiam dei et tunc prophetis contionantibus exceperunt et nunc lectionibus resonantibus carpunt. Ita et hinc sumentes quasdam temporum sortes aemulantur diuinitatem, dum furantur diuinationem.72
Tertullian also compares (unfavorably) the ascension of Romulus to the ascension of Jesus.73 He may be aware of the tradition of Osiris’s resurrection, although this is far from certain.74 Origen knew about comparisons by Celsus’s Jew of the sojourn of certain heroes in Hades with the resurrection of 70
Justin 1 Apol. 24.1, 2, trans. of Falls, Justin, First Apology, 59–60. Tert. Apol. 21.14, trans. of Tertullian, Minucius Felix, LCL, ed. and trans. T. R. Glover and G. H. Rendall, Cambridge, MA 1931, 109. In Marc. 4.10.7–8, Tertullian argues against Marcion that if Christ has a divine and human father that it would imply he had a nativity such as the fictions describe for Castor or Hercules (Talem, si forte, Castori aut Herculi nativitatem tradunt fabulae). If Marcion asserts that he is son of a man and God, then Herculem de fabula facis Christum (then you make Christ the Hercules of the fiction). 72 Tert. Apol. 22.9, trans. of A. Ossa-Richardson, The Devil’s Tabernacle. The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought, Princeton 2013, 31. 73 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.2 (end of the section). 74 Cf. the discussion of Tertullian Marc. 1.13.4–5 in § 4 (end). 71
2 Dumuzi (Tammuz)
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Jesus.75 He is willing to appeal to Greek narratives to illustrate the virgin birth of Christ: There is nothing absurd in using Greek stories to answer Greeks, so that we might not appear to be the only ones who employ such a paradoxical story. °Ã&Ó &í ; Ù Æ Ú / ) " 7!, μ & E & 59 " c W F!.76
He then mentions those who have written that Plato was born from Amphictione and was begotten by Apollo. Origen does, however, explain Plato’s virgin birth as a myth due to people’s belief that the philosopher exceeded others in wisdom and ability.77 Presumably Origen was aware of the myth of Osiris’s death and resurrection, although he does not go into any details.78 The apologists’ willingness to compare the resurrection (and birth) of Christ to the vicissitudes of Mediterranean divinities indicates that they were clearly aware of the analogies inherent in such comparisons. The investigations below will show that they were well justified in their attempt to find points of contact between the proclamation of a risen Christ and the analogous resurrections or returns to life of gods from the Hellenistic world.
2 Dumuzi (Tammuz) Tammuz in the Hebrew Bible (Ezek 8:14) is called Dumuzi in Sumerian.79 In the Sumerian Descent of Innana, the goddess descends into the Netherworld, is gradually stripped of her jewelry and clothing and “turned into a corpse”
75
Origen Cels. 2.55–6. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29. Origen Cels. 1.37. 77 Origen Cels. 1.37: Ï Ó ! ! (but these really are myths). Cf. Cels. 6.8 (Aristander) where Apollo comes to Amphictione as an apparition ((Ì). For refs. to the story of Plato’s birth, cf. Chadwick, Origen, 321 n. 12. See e.g., Plutarch Quaest. conv. 8.1, 717D–718A; Diog. Laert. 3.2, Olympiodorus In Plat. Alc. comm. 2: (Ú “ ≈ (? ] Ù 8 E Ú Ã E W (it is said therefore that an Apollonian phantom had sexual intercourse with his mother Perictione); Suda Π § 1707: " &8, › > ! ƒ 7 ? > 8 , (8 ÃE ] (it is stated that the mother of Plato became pregnant from a divine vision, when Apollo appeared to her). 78 Cf. Cels. 5.34, 6.42 (Celsus’s references to Osiris), 5.37, 5.38: Pˆ &Ó Ú È Ú æ ! … Eusebius P.E. 2.1.30 (quoting Diod. Sic. 1.25.6) knew the tradition of Isis’s resurrection of Horus. Cf. § 4 below. 79 Mettinger, Riddle, 185 notes that Tamūzu is “attested already at Nuzi as the name of a month.” P. Mander, Dumuzi, ER IV, 2520–3, esp. 2520 notes that Tammuz is the Akkadian form. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter, 7–10, 27–9 discusses Tammuz. 76
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and “was hung from a hook on a wall.”80 Pietro Mander evaluates her situation as “a condition of suspended life.”81 “When, after three days and three nights, Inanna had not returned, Ninshubur [Inanna’s servant] set up a lament for her by the ruins.” She cries, “O Father Enlil, do not let your daughter be put to death in the underworld.”82 Mettinger notes that this is not three days and nights between death and resurrection, but instead refers to “the time that passes before Ninshubur incites Enki to take action.”83 By sprinkling “the food of life” and “the water of life” (given to them by Enki) on Inanna, two entities he creates (the kurgarra and the galatur) are assured by Enki that “Inanna will arise (ḫa-ba-gub)”84 Then the judges of the underworld demand a substitute for her. The Annunaki seized her (saying): “Who of those who have descended to the nether world (ever) ascend unharmed from the nether world! If Inanna would ascend from the nether world, Let her give one substitute as her substitute.”85
The galla demons attempt to prevent her and ask for Ninshubur in her place, but Inanna refuses (“he is my constant support”). They then ask for Shara, her son, in her place, and again she refuses (he prostrates himself in the dust and was dressed in filthy garments), but when she sees Dumuzi, her husband, sitting on his “magnificent” throne in his “shining me-garments,” she tells the demons to take him.86 Inanna regrets the loss of Dumuzi and seeks him as does his sister Geshtinanna. They find him at a place called Arali (which is “a stopping place on the way to the Great Below”).87 Inanna tells Dumuzi, according to the somewhat fragmentary conclusion, “You [Dumuzi will spend] one half of the year and your sister [Gesthinanna will spend] one half of the 80 D. Wolkenstein and S. N. Kramer, Inanna. Queen of Heaven and Earth. Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, New York, 1983, 57–60. M. Casey’s summary has been helpful (Jesus. Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths, London 2014, 230–2). 81 Mander, Dumuzi, 2521. 82 Wolkenstein and Kramer, Inanna, 61. 83 Mettinger, Riddle, 214–5. 84 Wolkenstein and Kramer, Inanna, 64 and S. N. Kramer, “Inanna’s Descent to the Nether World” Continued and Revised. Second part: Revised Edition of “Inanna’s Descent to the Nether World,” JCS 5 (1951) 1–17, esp. p. 10 line 245 “Surely Inanna will arise” uses the particle (ḫa) for wishes (A. Poebel, Fundamentals of Sumerian Grammar / Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik, Eugene, OR 2005, 263). The verb’s (gub) root meaning is “stand.” Cf. J. A. Black, Sumerian Grammar in Babylonian Theory, Rome 22004, 14. Another verb, E11 (“rise” or “arise”), is used in the phrase “Inanna ascends from the nether world” (Kramer, Inanna’s Descent, 11, line 278). Mettinger, Riddle, 189 notes that it is the equivalent of the Akkadian elû (with ref. to CAD E, vol. 1: 115a). 85 Kramer, “Inanna’s Descent,” 11 lines 274–7. 86 Wolkenstein and Kramer, Inanna, 69–71. They note that me means the “attributes of civilization” (ibid., 224). Kramer, “Inanna’s Descent,” 13, line 315 emphasizes the “filthy garment” worn by Shara (omitted in Wolkenstein and Kramer’s translation). 87 Wolkenstein and Kramer, 85–9, 167.
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year [in the Netherworld].”88 Mark S. Smith argues, “Even if ‘resurrection’ were the proper term to characterize Dumuzi’s half-year on earth every year, it appears to be a concept without ritual context.”89 Mander thinks Dumuzi’s time on earth “represents the god’s short sorties – in his role of netherworld officer – to bring back haunting ghosts.”90 This concept is from the Akkadian Descent of Inanna, however, and may not be a reference at all to his “resurrection, but only a momentary interruption in his sojourn in the Netherworld as Ishar’s substitute.”91 The lines are spoken by Geshtinanna: “When Dumuzi rises [ellâni], and when the lapis lazuli pipe / and the carnelian ring rise with him, / When male and female mourners rise with him, Then let the dead come up [lilûnimma] and smell the incense.”92 Manfred Weippert interprets the text as an etiological explanation of a cultic practice such as the taklimtu rites (a “funerary display”)93 at the end of the month of Tammuz.94 J. A. Scurlock translates the first line as “On the day when Dumuzi comes up to me ...” – a translation which emphasizes the ventive form of the verb.95 She has argued that the “day of uproar” took place
88 Trans. in Mettinger, Riddle, 188 taken from W. R. Sladek, Inanna’s Descent to the Nether World, Johns Hopkins U. Diss. 1974 [University Microfilms, order no. 74–27, 928. Ann Arbor], 181. The translation in Wolkenstein and Kramer, Inanna, 89 gives no indication of the fragmentary nature of the text. A. Falkenstein, rev. of C. J. Gadd and S. N. Kramer, Ur Excavations Texts VI. Literary and Religious Texts. First Part, London 1963, BiOr 22 (1965) 279–283, esp. 281 has a longer reconstruction: “You [Dumuzi] one half year, your sister [Geshtinanna] one half year / On the day, that you wish it, you will be out? / on the day, that your sister wishes it, she will be ou[t].” Cf. also M. M. Fritz, ... und weinten um Tammuz. Die Götter Dumuzi-Amaʾušumgalʾanna und Damu, AOAT 307, Münster 2003, 104. 89 M. S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, Oxford 2001, 113. He also notes (ibid., 112) that elû is used in the Akkadian word for “the title of necromancers, mušēlû eṭemmi/ṣilli, “one who makes the ghost/shade ascend.” He interprets the text only to mean that Dumuzi’s ascent is “a ritual in which the dead were invoked and temporarily manifest.” These two Akkadian terms are from an Old Babylonian word list (Lu2-azlag2 B-C, Seg. 6.4, 6 respectively, which may be found online at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/akk [accessed 9 Sept. 2014]). 90 Mander, Dumuzi, 251. This function, is present a number of magic texts (cf. W. Farber, Beschwörungsrituale an Ištar und Dumuzi, Mainz 1977). 91 Mettinger, Riddle, 193. 92 Ishtar’s Descent 136–8, quoted in Mettinger, Riddle, 193, trans. from Sladek, Inanna’s Descent, 262. He remarks that ellâni is a ventive of ēlû (motion towards the speaker) with ref. to CAD E 122. Cp. M. Weippert, Götterwort in Menschenmund. Studien zur Prophetie in Assyrien, Israel und Juda, Göttingen 2014, 176 who discusses the grammatical point and gives the original text and Black, Sumerian Grammar, 17 (the suffix anni). 93 Mettinger, Riddle, 193 (ibid., 194: Dumuzi is given a “furlough” from the Netherworld to attend the rites). 94 Weippert, Götterwort, 176. 95 J. A. Scurlock, K 164 (BA 2, P. 635): New Light on the Mourning Rites for Dumuzi?, RA 86 (1992) 53–67, esp. 58.
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on the twenty sixth of the month of Duʾuzu. On that day the taklimtu rite took place.96 Her summary is: the 26th of Duʾuzu was the day of uproar; it was a day when a (funerary) display was made in Aššur and Nineveh. The 27th of Duʾuzu was the day of releasing; it was also a day on which a (funerary) display was made in Aššur Nineveh, Kalḫu and Arbela. The 28th of Duʾuzu was the day of Dumuzi when a further (funerary) display was made in all four cities. In Arbela, yet another (funerary) display was reserved for the 29th, which seems to have been the last day of the rite.97
Scurlock also notes that the 27th of Duʾuzu is the day of Dumuzi’s “furlough from his Netherworld prison (where he was serving as Ištar’s substitute) so that he could be present in the upper world for his festival.”98 She concludes that the 29th of Duʾuzu was the “day of the captivity of Dumuzi,” the end of the rite. On that day he returned to the Netherworld.99 Clearly this is not a case of return in the sense of a “resurrection.” A possible ritual context for the return of Dumuzi appears in a letter from Mari of “one Yaminite king to another” that Mettinger includes in his investigation: As for me, look at me. Not yet [?] ... I escaped from death, and from the midst of Ahuna [I escaped] ten times during uprising[s]. Why, now, [am I not] like Dumuzi? They kill him [idakkūšu], at the [time of] counting the year [munût šattim]. [In the spring (?),] he always comes back [it-ta-na-a[r]] to the temple of Annunitum [...].100
Mettinger describes Annunitum as Dumuzi’s “consort” who is consequently similar to Ishtar. He interprets the text to refer to the journey of Dumuzi’s “cult statue”: “ ... Dumuzi’s descent could be symbolized by a journey of his statue, and his revival by the return of his statue to the temple.”101 Eckhart Frahm offers a different translation of the text that emphasizes Dumuzi’s return to life more. Instead of interpreting i-da-ak-ku-šu as the third masculine singular of dâku (to kill) which in that case should appear as idukkūšu, he derives the word from dekû (“raise” “wake up”) which has a variant form dakû. He in turn translates the relevant line as “During the ‘counting of the year’ one wakes him up to life (one raises him), [...] and he returns always again to the temple of Annunitum.”102 Frahm considers it possible that in the 96
Scurlock, New Light, 58. Cf. also Mettinger, Riddle, 193–4. Scurlock, New Light, 58–9. She adds in a note that on the 27th in Uruk during the NeoBabylonian era a “statue of Dumuzi” was “released on that day ...” 98 Scurlock, New Light, 59. 99 Scurlock, New Light, 65. 100 Mettinger, Riddle, 201. Mari letter A.1146 lines 39–44. The translation is one given him by D. Fleming. Mettinger notes that is the Gtn form (iterative) of târu. The letter was originally published by P. Marello, Vie nomade in: Florilegium marianum. Mélanges M. Fleury, Mémoires de NABU no. 1, ed. J.-M. Durand, Paris 1992, 115–25. 101 Mettinger, Riddle, 202. 102 E. Frahm, review of Mettinger, Riddle, in ZO 92 (2003) 294–300, esp. 295. 97
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first half of the second millenium there was a New Year’s festival in the west that enacted the resurrection of Dumuzi.103
3 Baal Mettinger refers to many texts that illustrate Baal’s death including one in which Baal is told by Mot (Death): “you must be counted among those who go down [b yardm] into the earth, / And the gods will know that you are dead [k mtt].”104 Consequently, Baal descends into the Netherworld. Baal’s return to life is illustrated by a text in the Aqhat narrative which Mettinger translates so:105 26 Ask for life, O hero Aqhat, 27 Ask for life, and I shall give [it] to you, Immortality— (28) I shall bestow [it] on you. I shall let you count [your] years with Baal. 29 Count [your] months with the sons of El. 30 Like Baal, as he is revived106 [k bʿl . k yḥwy], —One makes a banquet for the one that is being revived, 31 One makes a banquet and gives him to drink, One chants and sings over him, 32 [Over] Nʿm[n,107 and on]e celebrates him with songs — So I will make (33) Aqhat the [He]ro live.
Apparently the “Egyptians ignored the myth of the death and resurrection of Baal.”108 The Baal and Anat epic associates rain with Baal’s return to life: [That Puissant Baal had died] That the Prince Lord of Earth had perished. And behold, alive is Puissant Baal [k ḥy aliʾyn bʿl]! ... The heavens fat did rain, 103
Frahm, rev. of Mettinger, 295. He thinks this could lend plausibility to Mettinger’s interpretation of the Phoenician mqm ʾlm. 104 Mettinger, Riddle, 61, KTU 1.5.V 5–17 (M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn hani and Other Places, ALASP 8, Münster 1995 [KTU]). 105 Mettinger, Riddle 69, KTU I.17 VI 26–33. 106 M. S. Smith, The Origins, 108 notes that this can be translated as active or passive (brought to life or “brings to life”). Cp. M. S. Smith, ed., The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Volume I. Introduction with Text Translation and Commentary of KTU 1.1–1.2, Leiden 1994, 71 (“The form is a D-stem 3 masc. sg. impf. It remains a controverted point as to whether the form is active or passive”). 107 Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 65 translates this “a gracious one (?)” using Arabic cognates. 108 H. te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion. A Study of his Role in Egyptian Mythology and Religion, Leiden 21977, 128.
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities The waddies flow with honey. So I knew That alive was Puissant Baal! Existent the Prince, Lord of Earth.109
Mettinger concludes that “it has been found that the Baal–Mot myth comprises the mytheme of death and return. The return is a return to full and active life.” Baal’s absence is seasonal and causes “summer drought. The onset of autumn rains is the proof of his return.”110 Whether there were rituals that reflected both elements of the myth is more difficult to establish.111 Mark S. Smith is skeptical of Baal’s resurrection, however, and writes that the “attempt to take ḥy aliʾyn bʿl [alive is Puissant Baal] (KTU 1.6 I [sic] 2, 8, 20) as a reference to Baal’s resurrection has scant support.”112 Smith does remark, however, that “At the present state of knowledge it would seem that Baal’s return to life does not reflect a ritualistic concept of the Storm-god as a ‘dying and rising’ god.”113 The opposition in the texts between Baal’s death and life may not have a ritual background, but they do indicate that in the myth Baal finally overcomes death.
4 Osiris M. Heerma van Voss notes that Osiris’s “anthropomorphic body is always represented wrapped up like a mummy or a statue (except for the head).”114 In 109
ANET 140. The first line is restored using KTU 1.6 I 41–2. The second and third lines are KTU 1.6 III 1–2. The last four lines are KTU 1.6 III 6–9. Cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 58. On Aliyan Baal, see M. Dijkstra, Aliyan, DDD [2nd edition cited here and below] 18–20 and more generally, E. T. Mullen, Jr., Baal, DDD 132–40, esp. 134: “... as the god disappears in the underworld and returns in the autumn, so the vegetation dies and resuscitates with him.” 110 Mettinger, Riddle, 81. Smith, Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 65 agrees that KTU 1.4 V 6–9 and KTU 1.4 VII 25–31 “clearly refer to the rains of Baal that rejuvenate the world.” There is ambiguity (ibid., 66), however, about the time of the rain (i.e., spring or fall), and there is a seven year drought in KTU 1.6 V 7–9 (ibid., 67), which clearly contradicts a yearly cycle. 111 Mettinger, Riddle, 81. 112 Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 71. The correct reference is KTU 1.6 III 2, 8, 20. 113 Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 73. Smith, Origins, 107 concedes that in KTU 1.6 V Baal reappears after his death (discovered in 1.5 VI 8–10), “Although the myth does not preserve an account of Baal’s death or return to life, there is little doubt that these events transpire in some portion of the lost narrative ...” Mettinger, Riddle, 58 writes that in 1.6 V 1–6 “Baal returns to his throne.” Mullen, Baal, 134 thinks that “Baal’s rule guarantees the annual return of vegetation; as the god disappears in the underworld and returns in the autumn, so the vegetation dies and resuscitates with him.” J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising, 2536 argues that the image “appears to be one of a descent to the underworld and return – a pattern not necessarily equivalent to dying and rising. Baal is “as if he is dead’; he then appears to be alive.” The texts mentioned above do not include any “as ifs,” however. 114 M. H. van Voss, Osiris, DDD 649–51, esp. 649–50.
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the Ptolemaic-Roman temple at Dendara, Osiris is depicted in several pertinent scenes (see images 1 and 2): in the right side of image one he is lying dead, and Isis and Nephthys mourn him. In the left side of image one he moves his right hand towards his head as he wakes up.115 Isis’s headdress is the throne, and Nephthys’s is the house and basket. The depiction in the right of the scene in image 1 is of Sokar Osiris.116 The falcon “fluttering over the erect” phallus is a “representation” of the “divine union” of Isis and Osiris from whence she conceived Horus, “the falcon-god.”117 Anubis stands behind the falcon, and Horus behind Anubis. In image 2, Osiris is depicted “rising from his bed in a floating position.”118 The king presents Osiris with an offering. The images clearly do not envision Osiris as a statue.119 Jonathan Z. Smith notes that “Osiris was considered to be the mythical prototype for the distinctive Egyptian process of mummification. Iconographically, Osiris is always depicted in mummified form.”120 In the myth after Seth murders him and scatters his body, Isis brings him back to life and he becomes the ruler of the dead.121 Mark J. Smith summarizes the myth so: After the murder of her husband, Isis searched for and discovered his corpse, which was then reconstituted through mummification. Using her potent spells and utterances, she was able to arouse Osiris and conceive her son Horus by him. Thus a sexual relationship that began before either deity was actually born continued even after one of them had died … Osiris himself was installed as ruler of the underworld and its inhabitants.122 115
S. Cauville, Le temple de Dendera. Guide archéologique, Le Caire 1990, 79. I thank Professor James P. Allen for this information. There is a photograph of the wall of chapel number four at Denderah which is identical with image one, in Pizzarotti, Rituels, 34 and Cauville, Guide archéologique, 79 (west side of the chapel). 117 G. P. Meyboom and M. J. Versluys, The Meaning of Dwarfs in Nilotic Scenes in: Nile into Tiber. Egypt in the Roman World. Proceedings of the IIIrd international Conference of Isis Studies, Leiden, May 11–14 2005, RGRW 159, ed. L Bricalt et al., Leiden 2007, 170– 208, esp. 189 (the pendula conversa position). 118 Mettinger, Riddle, 172–3 (with images), and cp. E. A. W. Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, vol. 2, London 1911, 42–3, and E. O. James, The Tree of Life. An Archaeological Study, Leiden 1966, 39. The drawing is from A. Mariette, Dendérah, vol. 4, Paris 1873, Plate 90. See also S. Cauville, Le temple de Dendara. Les chapelles osiriennes, Dendara X, 2 vols., Le Caire 1997 (the first volume comprises the hieroglyphs, and the second comprises drawings and photographs. I have been unable to obtain it). 119 At least the ones in which Osiris is sitting. Cf. S. Cauville, Le temple de Dendara. Les chapelles osiriennes. 3 vols., Bibliothèque d’étude 117–19, Cairo 1997, 2.202. These volumes should be distinguished from the series mentioned in the note above. The first is transliteration and French trans., the second is commentary, and the third is an index. 120 J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2538. 121 van Voss, Osiris, 650. 122 M. J. Smith, 2008, Osiris and the Deceased, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, ed. J. Dieleman and W. Wendrich, (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/29r70244). See idem, 2009, Democritization of the Afterlife, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (https://escholarship .org/uc/item/70g428wj). 116
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M. J. Smith does not hesitate, consequently, to speak of the “life, death, and resurrection of Osiris.” However, he does not repeatedly die and rise: “In no sense can the dramatic myth of his death and reanimation be harmonized to the pattern of dying and rising gods.”123 Texts from the frieze of the West Room Three from the Chapel of Osiris at Dendera vividly describe his resurrection, in an address to the bird-soul of Osiris124: (428) 1. O Osiris, receive my water, I am your sister Isis. 2. Take for yourself (the flood) maâty that makes your body young. 3. Take for yourself (the flood) hebebet that makes your flesh live.125 4. Take for yourself the fresh water of Elephantine. 5. Take for yourself the primordial water that floods from the First of Nomes. 6. Take for yourself the water of renewal that emerges from the primeval flood. 7. Take for yourself … that reinvigorates (your heart). 8. Take for yourself the water of the canal, you live (from it). 9. Take for yourself the water … to reinvigorate your body. 10. Take for yourself (the flood) semanoun, you have been made young from it for eternity. 11. Take for yourself the bread, perfect according to the rule …, its water is purified from impurity. 12. Take for yourself (the flood) semanoun that reinvigorates your heart. (429) 13. Take for yourself the primordial water that makes your bones young. 14. Take for yourself the sweet water that beautifies your body.
The west side of the frieze continues similarly: (429) 1. O Osiris, receive the water of the vase. 2. [the bread] is for your stomach, the beer is for your throat, the bread, the meat and the beer for (the interior of) ‹your› abdomen. 3. the water is for you, the bread is for you, the beer is for you. 4. Receive the pure water of (my) hand, I am your sister Isis. 5. This holds fresh water (it is for you), Osiris who rules in the West. 6. Take for yourself the water of renewal, you live from it. 7. Take for yourself the humors that have come out of you. 8. Take for yourself the primordial flood, to drink from it, it is pure … 13. Take for yourself the water of the flood to reinvigorate your heart. 14. Take for yourself the primordial flood, you live from it each day. 15. Take for yourself the flood that has come out of the sweat of your body.126
Clearly Isis is the agent of resurrection and water is fundamental to the process. These traditions are probably quite ancient. The calendar at the temple at Dendera contains much evidence for the festival of the month of Khoiak, during which “the death and resurrection of Osiris were enacted.”127 Sabine Pizzarotti relates the festival in Egyptian temples
123
J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2538. Cauville, Le temple de Dendara, Bibliothèque d’étude 117 (text), 1.232–3 (Dendara X, 428.1–12, 429.13–4; frieze: east side) and eadem, Le temple de Dendera, Bibliothèque d’étude 118, 2.204 (commentary). 125 maâty, hebebet, and semanoun are designations for Nile waters that inundate the canals of various nomes. 126 Cauville, Le temple de Dendara, Bibliothèque d’étude 117, 1.233 (Dend. X, 429.1'–8', 430.13'–15'). 127 James, The Tree of Life, 39. 124
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to the “reconstitution of the god and his resurrection in the other world.”128 She entitles 12–25 Khoiak “the days of preparation.” As part of the ritual, statues are created which are known as “Osiris vegetating,” – statues that are images “of the divine body and symbols of its reconstitution by Isis and return to life due to an arsenal of rites.”129 The six chapels of Osiris in the temple serve this purpose. The three on the east are called “house of the life of the images” (where one makes the statues live) and the three on the west are called the “house of Isis Chentayt,” and there one completes the work.130 On 12 Khoiak, three statues are made, one of which is Osiris in two parts – about 52 cm long. The two others are the local relic of Osiris and Sokar. A paste of barley and sand is used for Osiris and the relic. The molds are watered until 21 Khoiak in a “garden vat of Chentayt” (an avatar of Isis) when the statues are removed from the molds.131 On 22 Khoiak there is “a nautical procession” with thirty-four small papyrus boats that transport statues of the major gods and 365 lamps. On the twenty-third the statues of Osiris and his relic and Sokar are “embalmed” by Anubis. This takes place in chapel four (the location of images 1 and 2). The three “mummies” from the year before are unswathed and reswathed. They are transported to chapel five until their interment on the thirtieth. The new statues are interred in chapel 4 symbolically. The new statues remain in chapel four. “The twenty-fifth is the deification of Osiris: after being reconstituted, being returned to life, embalmed, and symbolically interred, he passes to the world of the dead.”132 “On 26 Khoiak the entire country celebrates the festival of Sokar-Osiris … this festival announces the resurrection of the god in the beyond: he has vanquished his enemies and over128 S. Pizzarotti, Rituels et fêtes dans le temple. Les ‘Mystères d’Osiris’ au mois de Khoïak, Egypte Afrique et Orient 67 (2012) 31–40, esp. 32. The material in the paragraph below is a paraphrase of Pizzarotti’s article. Cp. S. Cauville, Les mystères d’Osiris à Dendera. Interpretation des chapelles osiriennes, BSFE 112 (1988) 23–36 (30, a photograph of the mummification of Osiris in chapel four). See the earlier work of V. Loret, Les fêtes d’Osiris au mois de Choiak, RTPE 3 (1882) 43–57 § 8 (p. 46): “Osiris living in splendid habitation in Saïs is placed, in a secret work in [lacuna] in fresh incense, envelopped in myrrh, sown in grain in all his members.” His article continues in RTPE 4 (1883) 21–33 and 5 (1884) 85–102. See also F. Dunand, Le culte d’Isis dans le basin orientale de la Mediteranée, I. Le culte d’Isis et les Ptolémées, Leiden 1973, 229–30, C. J. Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals. Enactments of Religious Renewal, Leiden 1967, 34, 50, 56, 72–5 (the question of Osiris and Sokaris), and most fundamentally, É. Chassinat, Le mystère d’Osiris au mois de Khoiak, fasc. 1–2, Le Caire 1966–68 (available from the BnF at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k 855355r). 129 Pizzarotti, Rituels, 32. 130 Cauville, Le temple de Dendera. Guide archéologique, 69. She includes a diagram that clearly indicates the numbering of the chapels. See also her two volumes on the Osirian chapels (Cauville, Le temple de Dendara ... Dendara X) (hieroglyphs and photographs; non vidi). 131 Pizzarotti, Rituels, 34–5. 132 Pizzarotti, Rituels, 37.
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come death.”133 There is a procession in which symbolic representatives of the entire country participate. Extensive offerings are made on the altars of temples, which result in “animated banquets.”134 The ritual is completed on the 27–30 Khoiak. On 30 Khoiak the statues from the year before are interred in the necropolis in the tomb of Osiris. After the interment of the images from the year before, an ancient rite may be held called “the erection of the Djed pillar” – “a wooden fetish representing the spinal column of Osiris and which “represents the god’s resurrection in the other world.”135 J. Gwyn Griffiths refers to the “corn mummy” of Osiris: “In the late era an effigy of the god was sometimes made of earth and in it seeds were placed which eventually sprouted, thus indicating the renewed life of the god ... A wooden frame with a papyrus mat over it was placed in the burial chamber; on top of the mat was stretched a cover of cloth on which a bed or mould was laid, modelled in the shape of the Osiris effigy.”136 One of the Pyramid Texts from the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties compares the revival of Osiris with that of the king: “O king [Unis], you have not departed dead, you have departed alive; sit upon the throne of Osiris, your sceptre in your hand, that you may give orders to the living; your lotus-bud sceptre in your hand, that you may give orders to those whose seats are hidden [i.e., the dead].”137 Griffiths makes the point that in the cult of Osiris the “conception of immortality” was “corporeal” — one of its specific contribution to Egyptian thinking about life after death.138 The text just quoted indicates that death “is not admitted”: “Here then is a doctrine of continued life rather than of resurrection or resuscitation after death.”139 A. J. M. Wedderburn refers to one of the Coffin texts for a similar sentiment: “Rise up to life, for you have not died. Raise yourself upon your left side, put yourself upon your right side, receive these dignities of yours which your father Geb has given you.”140 Re133
Pizzarotti, Rituels, 37. Pizzarotti, Rituels, 37–8. 135 Pizzarotti, Rituels, 39. 136 Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris, 167–70 [a history of such practices, including the tomb of Tutankhamen]. Cp. H. H. Schmitt, Osiris, PRE Supp. 9 (1962) 469–514, esp. 500, with ref. to a custom in which beds were placed in graves, esp. those of kings: the beds imply the revival of the dead and his/her return to the earth. Schmitt thinks there is a tie to the Adonis gardens, which he interprets to mean that the buried god will live again. 137 Pyramid Texts § 134 (Utterance 213), in R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Translated into English, Oxford 1969, 40 = J. P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Atlanta 22015, p. 34. 138 J. G. Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and his Cult, SHR 40, Leiden 1980, 66. 139 Griffiths, Origins, 67. Griffiths, however, does not regard the use of the term “resurrection” as “entirely misleading” since one version of the Christian belief (“the present body will rise again after death”) is similar to “Osirian belief.” 140 Coffin Texts 1,190 in R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. Spells 1– 1185 & Indexes, Oxford 1973–1978 [3 volumes in one], 1.36 and Wedderburn, Baptism, 196. 134
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suscitation is clearly expressed in one of the Pyramid Texts: “Osiris awakes, the languid god wakes up, the god stands up, the god has power in his body. The King awakes, the languid god wakes up, the god stands up, the god has power over his body. Horus stands up and clothes this King in the woven fabric which went forth from him.”141 This may be one of the earliest affirmations of the afterlife in ancient literature.142 Griffiths also quotes a Pyramid Text which insists: “[O you four gods who stand at the supports] of the sky, my father Osiris the King has not died the death, for my Osiris the King possesses a spirit ‹in› the horizon.”143 At one point the king and Osiris are identified with Orion: “Behold, he has come as Orion, behold Osiris has come as Orion.”144 Jan Assmann makes the point that “Osiris remained in the netherworld, but he was resurrected and alive.”145 Apparently the Netherworld (Dewat), where Osiris reigns, is occasionally located in the sky: “O King, you are this great star, the companion of Orion, who traverses the sky with Orion, who navigates the Netherworld with Osiris.”146 More accurately, Pyramid Text (Utterance 357) “combines Osiris as the horizon, embracing the rising sun, and personifying the final room of the Netherworld.”147 Similarly “Orion is swal141 Pyramid Texts § 2092–4 [Utterance 690], in Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 298 [Allen, 287], referred to by Griffiths, Origins, 64. Cp. § 1068 [Utterance 498] (Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 177 [Allen, 150]) “Awake, Osiris! awake, O King! Stand up and sit down, throw off the earth which is on you!” 142 Griffiths, Origins, 64. 143 Pyramid Texts § 1385 [Utterance 556], in Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 216 [Allen, 191]. Cp. Griffiths, Origins, 68 (who translates the text as “my father has become a glorious spirit.” Pyramid Texts § 167 [Utterance 219] (Faulkner, ibid., 46 [Allen, 38–9]) is similar: “O Atum, this one here is your son Osiris whom you have caused to be restored that he may live. If he lives, this King will live; if he does not die; this King will not die; if he is not destroyed, this King will not be destroyed; if he does not mourn, this King will not mourn; if he mourns, this King will mourn.” See Griffiths, Origins, 64. 144 Pyramid Texts § 819 [Utterance 442], in Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 147 [Allen, 111–2]. Cp. Griffiths, Origins, 13 (who refers also to Pyramid Texts § 882–883 and 925 for association with Orion) and Wedderburn, Baptism, 197. 145 J. Assmann, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, Ithaca, NY 2005, 116. 146 Pyramid Texts § 882 [Utterance 466], in Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 155 [Allen, 128]. Cf. J. H. Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. Lectures Delivered on the Morse Foundation at Union Theological Seminary, New York 1912, 144. 147 J. C. Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity. Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX, Göttingen 2004, 421. Pyramid Text § 585 [Utterance 357] (cited by Darnell) is: “It is within your arms in your name of ‘Interior of the Palace’ that Horus has become Ax before you in your name of ‘horizon through which Re comes forth,’ you enfolded your arms all about him that his bones be nwAwA and that his heart expand.” Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 115 [Allen, 61] translates the latter phrase as “his bones are in due order(?)” and the former as “it goes well with Horus in your company.” E. A. W. Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, vol. 1,
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lowed up by the Netherworld (Dewat or DAt), Pure and living in the horizon. Sothis [i.e., Sirius] is swallowed up by the Netherworld, Pure and living in the horizon.”148 Herman te Velde quotes a text from the Book of the Dead that describes Osisis’s rule of the dead: “How perfect is that which I have done for Osiris in contradistinction from all gods. I have given him the realm of the dead and his son Horus as heir upon his throne on the Island of Fire.”149 Another text from the Book of the Dead describes Osiris as “ruler of the gods, lord of the Netherworld, preeminent in the palace.”150 Although many scholars speak of Osiris’s resurrection or resuscitation, others emphasize his existence in the Netherworld. Henry M. Frankfort writes, “Osiris, in fact, was not a ‘dying’ god at all but a ‘dead’ god. He never returned among the living; he was not liberated from the world of the dead, as Tammuz was. On the contrary Osiris altogether belonged to the world of the dead; it was from there that he bestowed his blessings upon Egypt. He was always depicted as a mummy, a dead king, though qua king a god ...”151 The Greek conception of Osiris’s death and resurrection is important for the New Testament context. Plutarch’s account is indebted to “Greek Hellenistic sources, from which he received much of his material on the cult and myth of Isis.”152 According to Plutarch, Typhon (Seth) divided Osiris’s body into fourteen parts, and Isis looked for them. One tradition he knows of indicates that there are many tombs of Osiris in Egypt because of the dismemberment.153 Plutarch identifies Osiris with Dionysus in a text in his De Iside et Osiride, written presumably ca 120 C.E. After a description of the Egyptian ceremonies in honor of the bull god Apis, he writes: For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysus in the form of a bull; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull; and the epithet applied to Dionysus among the Argives is “Son of the Bull.” They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a London 1920, s.v. aakhu translates the term as “the spirit-soul of a god or man.” Cp. Darnell’s glossary on 569 (ibid.) “akh-spirit.” 148 Pyramid Texts § 151 [Utterance 216], in Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 44 [Allen, 36]. Cf. Breasted, Development, 144, S. A. B. Mercer, The Religion of Ancient Egypt, London 1949, 106, 295 (DwAt is “away out next to the western horizon”) and Griffiths, Origins, 13. 149 Book of the Dead § 175, 19–20, quoted by te Velde, Seth, 81. 150 Book of the Dead § 15, cited by Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld, 421. In the tomb of Ramesses IX, there is a “designation of Osiris as xnty dA.t, “foremost of the netherworld” (Darnell, ibid.). 151 H. M. Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods. A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature, Chicago 1948, 289–90. 152 C. Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia. Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns, London 1994, 151. Cp. Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, ed., trans. and comm. by J. G. Griffiths, Cardiff 1970, 28–34, 54, 320–1, etc. and J. Hani, La religion égyptienne dans la pensée de Plutarque, Paris 1976, 74–5. 153 Plutarch Is. Os. 18 358A.
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lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates154 has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. &Ù Ú ( ? Ú 7 H " &í K ) Ú Ã ë&Ú I 9 Ù ! Ù ! )í Ù Ã?. ] &Ó I H &í ÃÙ ÕÙ
5 —& I? ∞ ;I ; 2 9H Ï &Ó ?
! , › ? ) Ú ¡ N .155
Plutarch then refers to the dismemberment, resurrection, and rebirth of Osiris: The narratives of the Titans and of the Night Festivals (the Titanika and Nuktelia) correspond with the so-called dismemberments, returns to life and rebirths of Osiris. ¡ ) &Ó Ú Ï PÏ Ú T8 ) 8 Δ & &) Ú ) I: Ú
·156
Although Plutarch uses plurals, he probably does not intend the reader to understand a cyclical series of dismemberments and so forth. Griffiths believes that the rebirth may refer to Osiris’s incarnation (reincarnation) as Apis, where Apis is conceived as being the “image of the soul of Osiris.”157 Plutarch unfortunately does not include any narrative describing Osiris’s return to life.158 He can use IÛ to mean “resurrection” as in his account of one of Lucullus’s victories: In capturing Cabira and most of the other strongholds, he found great treasures, and many prisons, in which many Greeks and many kinsfolk of the king were confined. As they had long been given up for dead, it was not so much a rescue as it was a resurrection and a sort of second birth, for which they were indebted to the favour of Lucullus. PÏ &Ó ?I IS Ú ; ( Ï ), ! ? ” Ú & 7 , Ó 7 , &Ó
I 8 ! 8 , ∑ ? !? & Ã , í I Ú & 8 Ï 8 ? 8 .159
Plutarch does not want Clea to accept the Egyptian tradition at face value.
154
Socrates frag. 5 (FHG IV.498 Müller). See also FGrH 310 F 2. Plutarch Is. Os. 35 364EF. Trans. of Plutarch, Moralia, 15 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. C. Babbitt et al, Cambridge, MA 1927–69, 5.85–7 (his translation for the last phrase is: “with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification”). On the date, cf. H. D. Betz and E. W. Smith, De Iside et Osiride (Moralia 351C–384C), in: Plutarch’s Theological Writings and Early Christian Literature, Leiden 1975, 36–84, esp. 36. See also Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, 17 (one or two years before 120). 156 Plutarch Is. Os. 35 364F. 157 Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 435, 363–5 (with ref. to Is. Os. 20 359B and 43 368B– C). Griffiths (ibid., 434) compares this text with De E ap. Delph 9 389A (see below). 158 On this point, cp. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter, 11 (on Osiris see further 10–17, 29–37). 159 Plutarch Luc. 18.1, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 2.525. 155
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities Therefore, Clea [the person to whom he dedicated the treatise, a priestess at Delphi], whenever you hear the traditional tales which the Egyptians tell [mythologousin “mythologize”)] about their gods, their wanderings, dismemberments, and many experiences of this sort, you must remember what has been already said, and you must not think that any of these tales actually happened in the manner in which they are related. À “ Å ! Ê∞ Ú ! W, ? Ú & ˆ Ú Ï !7, & ) 8 Ú &Ó N ! 8 ! Ù — Ú 8·160
The Egyptians date the death of Osiris to the seventeenth of Athyr and the recovery of the coffin containing his body to the nineteenth of the same month.161 Graf Baudissin compares this sequence to Hosea 6:2, although the comparison is not very useful since Osiris is not said to have risen on 19 Athyr.162 A wall painting from the north wall of the sacrarium of the temple of Isis in Pompeii (the Iseum) depicts what is probably Isis’s finding of Osiris’s body. Isis, with a lotus on her head, in her ship pulls the ship to her which contains a yellow box on which is a painting of a swallow or falcon – symbol of the dead Osiris.163 Below two snakes approach a basket on which is painted a half moon – the contents of which are quite obscure. Lauren Hackworth Petersen believes the painting may also “refer to a rite (inventio Osiridis) held every November in which the finding and resurrection of Osiris by Isis and the consequent revival of vegetation were celebrated.”164 Another image in 160
Plutarch Is. Os. 11 355B, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, 5.29. Plutarch Is. Os. 13 356C and 39 366F ( › Õ 8 Δ & [there is a cry from the individuals who are present that Osiris is found]). Firm. Err. 2.9 has the complete formula Õ 7 (we have found, let us rejoice with you) according to Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 452. After the recovery of the chest or coffin (Is. Os. 37 357E), Typhon had divided Osiris’s body into fourteen parts (Is. Os. 18 357F–358A). On 17 Athyr in an Egyptian papyrus, cf. C. Leitz, Tagewählerei, Das Buch HAt nHH pH.wyD und verwandte Texte, Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 55, Wiesbaden 1994, 128. 162 Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, 407–8. Cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 215. For speculation on the relationship between the Egyptian and Roman calendars, cf. G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, HAW 5/4, Munich 21912, 353–4. 163 Naples Archaeological Museum 8929. Cf. V. Tran Tam Tinh, Essai sur le culte d’Isis a Pompéi, Paris 1964, 65 (he believes the bird on the box is the sacred hawk, symbol of Osiris), Pl. X.1, idem, Isis, LIMC 5.1 (1990) 761–96, esp. 768 and plate § 77, and G. P. Carratelli, ed., Pompei. Pitture e mosaici, 10 vols., Roma 1990–1999, 8 § 172, p. 814–5 (navigium Isidis, the box contains the “sacred water, a reference to Osiris as regenerator, whose body, torn to pieces, was resuscitated by Isis”; falcon depicted on the box) and § 170, p. 813 (an engraving of a drawing of the entire scene by G. Casanova that includes a faience idol in a niche). On the navigium Isidis, the festival when the Nile became navigable again and the beginning of the “spring sailing season,” cf. Apul. Met. 11.5. 164 L. H. Petersen, The Freedman in Roman Art and Art history, Cambridge 2006, 33. 161
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the Iseum in the Ekklesiasterion on the south wall depicts the open sarcophagus of Osiris, whose mummy stands upright. On his head is a “phoenix, bird of the sun, sacred to the god, the symbol of rebirth and of the floodings of the Nile.”165 Vincent Tran Tam Tinh argues that the mummy represents “the setting upright of the mummy of Osiris: from the horizontal it becomes vertical. This ceremony dating back to time immemorial refers to the return to life, the resurrection, the triumph of the god over death.”166 A drawing of an image in the sacrarium, on wall O shows Isis enthroned, and Osiris seated on a throne next to her. With two cobras on each side, he holds a scepter in his left hand and on his arm is a mammiform situla. To his left is a green tree around which a serpent is entwined, “symbol of the chthonic world, associated with the Osirian doctrine of perennial regeneration.”167 In another text Plutarch attributes the belief to the Egyptians that Osiris’s soul is immortal, but that his body suffers frequent dismemberments by Typhon/Seth: ... they have a legend that the soul of Osiris is everlasting and imperishable, but that his body Typhon oftentimes dismembers and causes to disappear, and that Isis wanders hither and yon in her search for it, and fits it together again ... ... ! Δ & & ∂ Ú ;(! , Ù &Ó ? &a Ú ( Ù P( , &í æ 8 Ú ) Ú ? .168
Griffiths points out that the passage is a reference to Dionysus’s dismemberment by the Titans.169 Both the Egyptians and the Greeks have traditions about the tombs of Osiris and Dionysus: Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has been stated, point out the tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones of-
165 Naples Archaeological Museum 8570, Carratelli, Pompei 8 § 205, p. 836, Tran Tam Tinh, Essai, Pl. X.2. Carratelli, Pompei 8 § 204, p. 835 is a somewhat inaccurate painting of the scene. 166 Tran Tam Tinh, Essai, 65. 167 Osiris only is depicted in Naples Archaeological Museum 8927, Carratelli, Pompei 8 § 182, p. 821. And for the drawing cf. ibid., § 182, p. 820 (drawing of D. Casanova, which depicts both gods). Tran Tam Tinh, Essai, 68, Pl. VIII.1 identifies the god as Serapis. However, there are depictions of loti on the heads of each god, not the modius normally seen on Serapis’s head. 168 Plutarch Is. Os. 54 373A, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.131. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2538 points out that the dying and rising of Osiris was not conceived by the Egyptians to be an annual event. Plutarch identifies Typhon and Seth (Is. Os. 41 367D). 169 J. G. Griffiths, Apuleius of Madaurus. The Isis Book (Metamorphoses, Book XI), Leiden 1975, 258. Cf. § 8 below.
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Since Osiris and Dionysus have tombs, Plutarch compares their awakenings in some sense.171 Martin Nilsson believed that the passage refers to the raising of the god from the dead.172 The verb for waking (or rather “raising”) the god from the realm of the dead is the New Testament’s favorite word for resurrection. Plutarch notes that: ... this god Osiris is the ruler and king of the dead, nor is he any other than the god that among the Greeks is called Hades and Pluto. But since it is not understood in which manner this is true, it greatly disturbs the majority of people who suspect that the holy and sacred Osiris truly dwells in the earth and beneath the earth, where are hidden away the bodies of those that are believed to have reached their end. ¡ ! Ù ” ; Ú I ! Ã A Ë 8 í Æ & Ú , ≈ !8 , & ? ˆ ˆ Õ E Ú ÕÙ F Ù " Ù Ú ≈ › ! È ∞ ), ≈ Ï : 8 > & .173
He gives the concept a Platonic interpretation, since he does not believe Osiris actually dwells beneath the earth. The statement about Osiris dwelling under the earth may “allude to him as the lord of Dat, the underworld.”174 The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, also believe that Osiris “came to Horus from the other world [i.e., Hades] and exercised and trained him for the battle” (û 2 È 9 Ù È 5 & & ) Ú ? Ú )).175 According to Diodorus Siculus, Isis raised Horus from the dead: 170
Plutarch Is. Os. 35 365A, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.87. See ibid., 358A and 359A. Plutarch attributes the tradition to Socrates, On the Holy Ones. Cf. Müller, FHG 4 Socrates 5. Cp. Pizzarotti, Rituels, 32. 171 Cp. Plutarch Is. Os. 35 364F above. See Nilsson’s comments on Dionysus below (§ 8). Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 435 accepts Nilsson’s position that “Dionysus in his ascent from the realm of the dead” is the reference of the text. 172 Cf. M. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age, New York 1975, 39–40, quoted below in § 8. 173 Plutarch Is. Os. 78 382E, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.183. 174 Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 564. 175 Plutarch Is. Os. 19 358B, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.47. Cp. Diod. Sic. 1.88.6 (Osiris comes from Hades as a wolf to help Isis and Horus fight Typhon [ 8! I!Ù 5 Î& Ù È 2 89 Ú E Ú 9
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Furthermore, she discovered also the drug which gives immortality, by means of which she not only raised from the dead her son Horus, who had been the object of plots on the part of Titans and had been found dead under the water, giving him his soul again, but also made him immortal. Õ ) &í Ã Ú Ù F ! (? , &í ” Ù "Ù Î , ÕÙ P? I !8 Ú Ù Õ !8 !í —&, F, & 7, Ï Ú F ! F I ).176
For those who give an agricultural interpretation to the accounts of Osiris, Plutarch has little patience: In this way we shall undertake to deal with the numerous and tiresome people, whether they be such as take pleasure in associating theological problems with the seasonal changes in the surrounding atmosphere, or with the growth of the crops and seed-times and ploughing; and also those who say that Osiris is being buried at the time when the grain is sown and covered in the earth and that he comes to life and reappears when plants begin to sprout. °— &Ó Ú ) ) Ú ( ) 7 , N ) !í · I ) 8 N ) 8 Ú ) Ú Ï Ú ˆ ! ˆ Ú 8 !? ! Ó Ù È , ≈ E E ¡ , “! &í I! Ú ( !, ≈ I 7 7·177
Plutarch may have had Stoics, Neoplatonists or Neopythagoreans in mind according to Griffiths.178 Plutarch himself does not take the myths literally, but gives them philosophical interpretations which he thinks are appropriate (# 8 &Ó ) ! Ã › ? “, Ï Ù ( /? [Ù] Ï ¡ I?).179 His reference to the dismemberments, returns to life and rebirths of Dionysus/Osiris (&) Ú ) I: Ú
) indicates that he believes both experienced some kind of resurrection after death. Tertullian is aware of agricultural interpretations of Osiris: So also Osiris: that he is always being buried, and sought for in (all) the living, and recovered with rejoicing, they argue is a promise of the return of the seed sown, of the lively elements, and of the reviving year …
ƒ ¡ !8]). Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 344 thinks Osiris “has been confused with the jackal-god Wepwawet, who is also a helper of Horus; or perhaps with Khentamenthes ...” 176 Diod. Sic. 1.25.6, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 1.81. Cf. the analysis of Miller, Resurrection, 57. Eusebius P.E. 2.1.30 quoted this text of Diodorus. 177 Plutarch Is. Os. 65 377B, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.143. 178 Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 529. 179 Plutarch Is. Os. 58 374E. Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.139 has: “We must not treat legend [! “myths”] as if it were history [ logoi] at all, but we should adopt that which is appropriate in each legend in accordance with its verisimilitude.” Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 514 believes that ı “seems to refer to the real or factual.”
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities Sic et, Osiris quod semper sepelitur et in uiuido quaeritur et cum gaudio inuenitur, reciprocarum frugum et uiuidorum elementorum et recidiui anni fidem argumentantur …180
There may be a tacit critique of the traditions of Osiris’s resurrection in Tertullian’s account. Jan Assmann makes this telling point about Egyptian belief and the spread of Christianity: The experience of death, together with longing for freedom from the yoke of transitoriness, were at the core of Egyptian religion in late antiquity, therefore, Christianity, which promised the same thing, must have exerted a fascinating power on the Egyptian mind. Christian rite, with its manifold sacramental explanations with regard to death and resurrection must have fallen on soil that had been especially fruitful for thousands of years.181
One can ask how much of the core of Egyptian religion survived in late antiquity, and there were certainly many Greeks in Egypt by that period. But Assmann’s thesis is nevertheless worth pondering. Partial confirmation for Assmann’s argument may be found in a sermon of Augustine on the resurrection. The text is an answer to a skeptical Christian who questions the resurrection because the bodies of the dead do not survive intact. Therefore the Egyptians alone believe in resurrection, because they diligently take care for the cadavers of the dead. Indeed they have the custom of drying bodies out, and making them like bronze: they call them “mummies.” Therefore according to those [i.e., the skeptical Christians], who are ignorant of the secret places of nature, where all things are preserved for the Creator, although they are removed from mortal senses, only the Egyptians well believe in the resurrection of their dead, but indeed the hope of other Christians is in difficulty (or “doubt)? Aegyptii ergo soli credunt resurrectionem, quia diligenter curant cadauera mortuorum. morem enim habent siccare corpora, et quasi aenea reddere: gabbaras ea uocant. ergo secundum istos, qui secretos naturae sinus ignorant, ubi omnia salua sunt Conditori, etiam cum mortalibus sensibus subtrahuntur, soli Aegyptii bene credunt resurrectionem mortuorum suorum, aliorum uero Christianorum spes in angusto est?182
180
Tertullian Marc. 1.13.5, trans. modified of Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, ed. and trans. E. Evans, Oxford 1971, 34. Evans conjectures uvido (“in wet”). I adopt the translation (“all the living”) from L. Renaut, Wurden die Eingeweihten der Mithras-Mysterien auf der Stirn gekenneichnet? Für eine neue Lesart von Tertullians De Praescr. 40, 4, Trivium 4 (2009) 1–26, esp. 6. Tert. Marc. 1.13.4 makes it clear in his introductory comments that Osiris belongs to the “fictions of old dead people” (fabulis veterum mortuorum). 181 Assmann, Death, 414. 182 Augustine Serm. 316.12 (PL 39.1605). Cf. the trans. of Augustine, Sermons III/10 (341–400) on Liturgical Seasons, Works of Saint Augustine, trans. E. Hill, Hyde Park, NY 1995, 232. Gabbaras ea uocant is in a good MS. Cf. S. Dolbeau, Le sermonnaire augustinien de Mayence (Mainz, Stadtbibliothek I 9): Analyse et histoire, RBen 106 (1996) 5–52, esp. 19. Cf. Goetz, CGlL IV, 586,7: gabbare[s] mortuorum condita corpora and ibid. 240,46 (“gabbares: preserved bodies of the dead”).
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Although Augustine is probably referring to Egyptian Christians, he implies that the ancient practice of mummification corresponds to the Christian hope in resurrection. It is clear that Egyptian belief in the resurrection of Osiris had immediate consequences for the beliefs of individual Egyptians in their own resurrection. Mark J. Smith argues that the akh (“spirit,” “a dead person within a group”) and ba of the deceased represent the social and individual nature of a person in the afterlife, respectively. The ba was the “whole person,” and so bas “ate and drank and could even engage in sexual activity” and “could assume multiple modes of appearance.”183 He also remarks that “many Egyptian afterlife texts are addressed, or make reference, to the Osiris of an individual, an aspect or form which the dead person acquired through the efficacy of the rituals performed for his benefit in the embalming place.”184 Thus, the dead person “enjoyed not only the benefits of bodily rejuvenation, but also the fruits of a relationship with a specific deity …”185
5 Adonis Adonis was later identified with Tammuz, and Burkert argues that the Adonis cult was a seventh century Greek adaptation of the Tammuz/Dumuzi cult.186 According to Apollodorus he had human parents (Cinyras and Metharme) and was killed by a boar.187 But he remarks that there are other traditions (Hesiod and Panyasis) which ascribed other human parents to him.188 Panyasis describes the contest between Aphrodite and Persephone over the youth. As the result of Zeus’s adjudication he spends one third of the year with Persephone
183 M. J. Smith, Resurrection and the Body in Graeco-Roman Egypt, in: The Human Body in Death and Resurrection, T. Nicklas, et al., ed., Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2009, Berlin 2009, 27–41, esp. 33–4. 184 Smith, Resurrection, 35. Cf. idem, M. J. Smith, Osiris NN or Isiris of NN?, in: Totenbuch-Forschungen. Gesammelte Beiträge des 2. Internationalen Totenbuch-Symposiums 2005, ed. I. Munro and S. Stöhr, Wiesbaden 2006, 325–37. The union with Osiris is not mystical but “liturgical” and includes “full integration with the community of worshippers” in the underworld (ibid., 334). 185 Smith, Resurrection, 35. 186 Burkert, Structure, 105–8: e.g. Hesiod said his father was Phoenix, and Panyasis said that he was the son of Thias, king of Assyria. See the ref. to Apollodorus below. 187 J. D. Reed, The Sexuality of Adonis, ClA 14 (1995) 317–457, esp. 335 believes the boar motif arose ca 400 BCE and was classical and not Near Eastern. I will refer to this author as Apollodorus (although he is not to be identified with Apollodorus of Athens [II B.C.E.]). For a defense of the attribution, see R. L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, 2 vols., Oxford 2000–13, 2.378–84. 188 Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.14.3–4 (§ 3.182–3 Wagner).
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and two thirds with Aphrodite. He was also killed by a boar in Panyasis’s account.189 5.1 The Myth of Adonis A scholion on Theocritus states that he spends six months with Aphrodite and six months with Persephone: It is said that after death Adonis spent six months in the arms of Aphrodite and six more in the arms of Persephone. This which is said is real, because Adonis, that is, the grain which is sown, passes six months in the ground after the sowing, and Aphrodite has him for six months, which is the mildness of the open air. And after that people harvest him. 8 &Ó Ú ]&:&, ≈ Ú !S ¡ ê& ½5 F ) ? F ]( &, · Ú ) ? F ( . &Ó Ù ! H ≈ ¡ ê& 4 ¡ ) ¡ ½5 F E E ) Ù F a Ú ½5 F > ÃÙ ]( &, 8 Ã 8 H Ú > I? ÃÙ " ;! .190
In Ovid’s version of the tale, Venus decrees that every year there will be a commemoration of the death of Adonis: “Memorials of my grief will always remain, Adonis, and a reenactment of your death repeated annually will represent my lament (luctus monimenta manebunt / semper, Adoni, mei, repetitaque mortis imago / annua plangoris peraget simulamina nostri).191 In Theocritus’s idyll on the Adonia in Alexandria (III B.C.E.),192 the song of the dirge (a character) mentions Adonis’s wedding night and the subsequent return of the demigod to the underworld on the next day: The bridegroom is eighteen or nineteen years old, and his kiss does not scratch; down is still around his lips. Farewell now to Cypris as she embraces her man. Early in the morning, with the dew still on the ground, all of us together will carry him to the plashing waves by the sea, and as we untie our hair and let fall our robes to our ankles to bare our breasts we shall begin our shrill lament. Dear Adonis you are the one and only hero, so they say, who visits both Acheron and the world here above. Neither Agamemnon nor mighty Ajax, the wrathful hero, achieves this, nor Hector, eldest of Hecuba’s twenty sons, 189
Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.14.3–4 (§ 3.184–5 Wagner). Schol. in Theocr. Id. 3.48d. On Adonis, cf. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter, 17–20. J. Reed, At Play with Adonis, in: Vertis in usum. Studies in Honor of Edward Courtney, ed. J. F. Miller, et al., München 2002, 219–229, esp. 220 notes that the “earliest version” is Panyasis frag. 27 Bernabé = Apollodorus Bibl. 3.14.4 (3.183 Wagner). 191 Ovid. Met 10.725–7, trans. of B. Pavlock, The Image of the Poet in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Madison, WI 2009, 100. Hyg. Fab. 251 includes Adonis among those who returned from the underworld by permission of the Parcae (fates): Adonis Cinyrae et Zmyrnae filius uoluntate Veneris (Adonis the son of Cinyra and Zmyrna by the will of Venus). 192 The Adonia are in honor or Arsinoe II and her upcoming marriage to her brother Ptolemy II ca 276–5 B.C.E. Cf. A. S. F. Gow, The Adoniazusae of Theocritus, JHS 58 (1938) 180–204, esp. 183. Cp. M. Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis. Spices in Greek Mythology, Princeton 1994, 138 for a succinct reconstruction of the festival. 190
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nor Patroclus, nor Pyrrhus, though he got back from Troy, nor in even earlier times the Lapiths and the sons of Deucalion, nor the descendants of Pelops, nor the Pelasgian leaders of Argos. Look on us with favor next year too, dear Adonis. Now we have received you joyfully [“now you have come to those who rejoiced”], Adonis, and you will be dear to us when you come again. [129] ¿ & ¢ & í ¡ I H à ) Ù ( íH > " Ú ?. Ó > Ù Õa 8 ;& H ! &í ; b & 9 ! >5 ∞ Ú í í , &Ó Ú Ú ( Ï ) 7! (8 a 5 !í &a. A , ‚ ( í ê& , Ú !?& † ]8 !8 , › (, :. –í ] 8 í >!í –í ÊN ¡ 8 , I ? • , –!í Æ , ?I ¡ N & , à F, à ٠P !:, –!í " > ! Ú , à ?& Ú ê ; . μ , ‚ ( í ê& , Ú 8 íH Ã! Ú D! , ê& , , ≈í (W, ( 5 ).193
The scholiast interprets the poem to refer to the casting of Adonis’s image into the sea, “we will bear: after carrying Adonis to the sea, they threw him into it” (∞ : Ú Ï !? (8 Ù ê& > í Ã7).194 Presumably they threw the silver gardens of Adonis into the sea also.195 The ritual certainly includes mourning, “but above all rejoicing centred on the couple, Aphrodite and Adonis.”196 The offerings to Adonis included fruits and nuts, and the “gardens of Adonis” (]&˘& F) were not “in ornamental flower-pots of Attic practice, but in silver baskets.”197
193
Theocritus Id. 15.129–43, trans. of Hopkinson, Theocritus, 225–7. Schol. ad Theocr. Id. 15.133. 195 Gow, The Adoniazusae, 194, Detienne, The Gardens, 139. 196 V. Pirenne-Delforge and A. Motte, Adonis 4OCD, 12. 197 Gow, The Adoniazusae, 194. Cf. Theocritus Id. 15.112–4. Gow (ibid., 181–2) also referred to P. Petrie 3 142 (ca 250 B.C.E.), a probable reference to the Adonia, which mentions expenditures for various items including figs, nuts, and wreaths for Adonis on the seventh day (3 142,10.18–20), almost no expenses on the eighth day and a & on the ninth day. M. Stol (Greek “deikterion”: the Lying-in-State of Adonis, in: Funerary Symbols and Religion. Essays dedicated to Professor M.S.H.G. Heerma van Voss, ed. J. H. Kamstra et al., Kampen, 1988, 127–128) argues that deikterion is a “semantic loan” of the Akkadian taklimtu rite which means a (funerary) “display” of the dead body of Tammuz. Cp. B. Alster, Tammuz, DDD, 828–34, esp. 833 and Mettinger, Riddle, 123. The month was apparently September (Gow, ibid., 183). 194
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In Cyril of Alexandria’s time (bishop of Alexandria from 412 to 444) the rites do not seem entirely relegated to the past.198 Cyril recounts the myth of Adonis, and in his version Aphrodite goes to Hades in search of the youth who had been killed by a boar. Aphrodite and Persephone agree to share him by dividing the year in half. He recounts the following spectacle: Then the Greeks created this festival concerning all this. For they used to pretend to wail and sing dirges with Aphrodite while she mourned because Adonis had died. And they used to pretend to rejoice and leap with joy when she returned from Hades and said that she had found the one she had sought. And up until our own time this comic performance used to be celebrated in sanctuaries in Alexandria. C ? Æ / Ú 9 . Ó
Ï 8W E ]( &W, &Ï Ù !? Ù ê& , ( ! Ú ! )H ! &Ó 5 Ñ&, Ú Ú Õ F! Ù , 7& ! Ú ¹H Ú 8 !í a ) í ] 5?& " ) ) Ù .199
Marcel Detienne uses Cyril to argue that this was the form of the Adonia in Ptolemaic Alexandria: “When Aphrodite weeps for the death of Adonis, the chorus groans and laments, when she ascends from the underworld and says she has found the one she was seeking, all rejoice with her and begin to dance.”200 Gow mentions an important difference between Theocritus and Cyril, however. Theocritus shows what he (Gow) is willing to call a “Marriage of Adonis and Aphrodite” after which there is a “lamentation over the dead Adonis.” But in Cyril (and Lucian, to be discussed below), “a lamentation is followed by a resurrection.” No ancient author has all three elements of the rite.201 Cyril’s text on Adonis will be quoted in a fuller version below as a possible illumination of Lucian’s narrative about the revived figure. The Paris Magical papyrus probably dates to IV C.E., and its origin apparently is Thebes in Upper Egypt.202 A magical prayer of coercion ( ? Zwangsgebet)203 to Aphrodite from around the time of Cyril commands her katabasis (descent) and threatens her: And if as you are a goddess you delay / you will not see Adonis coming up out of Hades.
198
See the full text in § 5.4 below. Cyril of Alex. Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 441). I take the dates from L. R. Wickham, Cyril of Alexandria, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, New York 21999, 310–312. 200 Detienne, The Gardens, 138. 201 Gow, The Adoniazusae, 182. 202 Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, xlii and G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes. A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind, Cambridge, 1986, 168–74 (probably owned by a magician and alchemist in Thebes with broader philosophical interests). 203 W. Fauth, Dardaniel (PGM LXII 12–16), ZPE 98 (1993) 57–75, esp. 75. 199
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∞ &Ó !S ! Ù “ 7W, / Ã ƒW Ù ê& ]^&.204
The magician assumes the same myth to which Cyril alludes, namely Adonis’s emergence from Hades to meet his lover Aphrodite. If Aphrodite refuses to obey, the magician threatens to bind Adonis with steel fetters (& ) / &?).205 In that case Adonis will remain in the realm of Persephone/Hecate whom he mentions with these magical words: C ? H T I/ ! (Ereshkigal Neboutosoualeth).206 Different cities may have had different festivals and myths about Adonis. 5.2 The Adonis Gardens The Adonis gardens in Greece were indications of impermanence and fragility.207 Detienne notes the remarks of Plato in his Phaedrus: And now, tell me this: if a sensible farmer had some seeds to look after and wanted them to bear fruit, would he with serious intent plant them during the summer in a garden of Adonis and enjoy watching them grow up into fine plants within eight days? If he did so at all, wouldn’t it be in a holiday spirit, just by way of pastime? For serious purposes, wouldn’t he behave like a scientific farmer, sow his seeds when it is suitable and be well content if they come to maturity within eight months? & &7 ∞8H ¡ > , „ ? 7& Ú > I 8!, &E i !8 ∞ ]&:& 7 204
PGM IV 2902–3. PGM IV 2904–5. 206 PGM IV 2913–14. Fauth, Dardaniel, 75 (to whom I owe this exposition) notes PGM IV 337 W ( W C Ì (Kore Persephone Ereshkigal) and PGM IV 2747– 52 ( ( ... C ? T I ! ... ?/ [Persephone ... Ereshkigal Neboutosoualeth ... Hecate]). See Fauth, ibid., for other examples (DT 242.39–42, 295.1–6). PGM LXX 4 ? C Ï (Hecate Ereshkigal) may be added to his list. On Ereshkigal, cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 186–94. 207 Pirenne-Delforge and Motte, Adonis, 12, Detienne, The Gardens, 103–4. Sappho frag. 140a (Page/Lobel) is apparently one of the earliest witnesses (VII–VI B.C.E.) to the celebration of the Adonia in Greece (! , !8 í, ;I ê& H ! ) ; / ! , , Ú ! ! [He is dying, Cytherea, delicate Adonis is dying. What shall we do? Beat your breasts, maidens, and rend your garments] trans. of L. Reitzhammer, Aristophanes’ Adôniazousai, ClA 27 (2008) 282–333, esp. 322). There may be a depiction of a garden of Adonis on a Hellenistic terracotta from Myrina (J. H. Oakley and L. Reitzhammer, A Hellenistic Terracotta and the Gardens of Adonis, JHS 125 [2005] 142–4 [with images]). See also Reed, The Sexuality, 319 (he views it as a Mesopotamian ritual). Besides Athens, there is evidence for Adonia in Argos (Pausanias 2.20.6) and Sicyon (Praxilla apud Zenobius Ep. 4.21). For the festival in Athens, cf. R. Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford 2005, 283–9. See also J. N. Bremmer, Greek Religion, Cambridge 1999, 80. G. J. Baudy, Adonisgärten. Studien zur antiken Samensymbolik, BKP 176, Frankfurt am Main 1986, 1–48 examines the economic and religious meaning of the gardens. The sowing of the seeds symbolizes Adonis’s death and their sprouting symbolizes his resurrection (ibid., 38). Cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 33. 205
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities ! ˆ 8 ¿S 8, ¢ Ó & &a Ú / F ? & Z ;, ≈ Ú )H (í ∑ &Ó & , E E : i 8W, ∞ Ù F, Z i ¿ & 9 Ú ≈ > 8 I ;208
For Plato the gardens are a “byword for potted plants in general.”209 Theophrastus has a similar point of view with regard to the gardens of Adonis: Wormwood rather comes from a seed than from a root or a shoot that has been torn off and planted. And it only comes with difficulty from seed: it is planted in ceramic vessels like the gardens of Adonis during the summer. ]I &Ó a Ù 8 I ? ¢ Ù X Ú ?&H &Ó Ú Ù 8 H ¿ ?, · " ]&:& F, !8 ·210
The Adonia took place during the hottest period of the summer, although spring has also been proposed as the date of the festival.211 The rites last all night according to Menander.212 Hesychius has this tradition about the celebration: The gardens of Adonis: During the Adonia festival they bring out images and gardens in ceramic vessels and all kinds of fruits; that is, they prepare the gardens for him with fennel and lettuce. It is said that he was placed in lettuce by Aphrodite. ]&:& FH ) ]& N& 5? Ú 7 í ¿ ? Ú & ¿: , ∑ ?! Ú ! &? ? Ã2 ˆ 7H Ú Ï ! & ÃÙ !F ÕÙ ]( & ( (Plato Phaedr. 276B?).213
Eustathius also insists on the impermanence of the gardens and illuminates the celebration of the festival:
208
Plato Phaedr. 276B, trans. of Detienne, The Gardens, 103. Reed, The Sexuality, 338. 210 Theophrastus Hist. Plant. 6.7.3. Cp. Caus. Plant. 1.12.2 › ? í Ã!ˆ 8 Ù I ? ! F Ú ; , !? Ú ? " ]&:& F (Like those plants which immediately rushing to grow become weak and fruitless, so are the gardens of Adonis in respect to their seeds). 211 Mettinger, Riddle, 116. Detienne, The Gardens, 100–1, 149 mentions 23 or 27 July, “depending on whether it is a matter of the true or the apparent rising of Sirius.” For spring [in Greece], cf. M. P. J. Dillon, ‘Woe for Adonis’ – But in Spring, not Summer, Hermes 131 (2003) 1–16. Cumont, Les Syriens, 330–41 argues that in Egypt and Syria during the imperial period the Adonia took place when Sirius rose (July 19). Cp. Dillon, ibid., 7. 212 Menander Sam. 45–6. 213 Hesychius Lexicon Α § 1231. Alciphron Ep. 4.14.8 also mentions the images of Adonis associated with the festival. Cf. Detienne, The Gardens, 140 for a structuralist interpretation of the lettuce that is associated with Adonis’s death. Another view on the lettuce may be found in Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 313. 209
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One should recognize that there is a great difference between a garden of Adonis and the trees of Tantalus. Therefore this [the tree] is proverbially placed in unprofitable earth, and that in places that bear no fruit and which die quickly. For the gardens of Adonis are plants which sprout quickly in a ceramic pot or a wicker basket – that is, in any kind of vessel, and immediately they are thrown into the sea and disappear similarly to the early death of Adonis, who bloomed as a youth and quickly finished blooming, being struck down by Ares according to the myth. Women looking after such gardens used to consecrate funeral dirges for Adonis. ∏8 &Ó Ú › &( Ï 7 ]&:& Ú &8& P? . &Ù Ó Ú & ! , ) &Ó Ú ? Ú ‹ . F Ï ]&:& (? ˆ !? > ¢ ÒX, Ú ≈ ( Ù, Ú Ã X Ï ! ? Ú ( !í ¡ ? Ï Ù ‹ ê& !?, √ !7 7 ˆ 7! , I ! Ú ÕÙ ê Ï Ù !. ) &Ó ˆ 7 › ( ]&:&.214
Joseph Reed thinks Eustathius’s statement that the gardens were thrown into the sea may be a “confusion of Zenobius’ testimony with the Alexandrian practice of committing an effigy of Adonis to the sea, perhaps Osirian in origin.”215 On the other hand, Eustathius could have had a separate source. The gardens’ barrenness was proverbial.216 Zenobius preserves the text: You are more fruitless than the gardens of Adonis: The proverb is uttered because they are unable to bring forth anything good. Plato is mindful of it in his Phaedrus. These gardens of Adonis are sown in ceramic vessels only until their first green shoots. They are carried out together with the dead god and are thrown into springs. ] ∂ ]&:& 7 : Ú &Ó ) ) &8 N H 8 ÃF ? j& 9. º &Ó ” " F ]&:& ∞
) ? ; H (8 &Ó b 2 ! 2 Ú X ∞ 7.217
Zenobius does not say or imply, however, that the summer heat destroyed the shoots.218 The women carried these rites out on roofs according to a scholiast on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata: The festival for Adonis:219 Women celebrated the festival for Adonis and brought certain gardens up on roofs. Some, not correctly, because of this called the drama Adôniazousai. In comparison with most people, the women do not worship the gods which are supported by public expenditure nor those which are prescribed. 214
Eustathius ad Od. 11.590 (1.438 Stallbaum). Reed, Sexuality, 320 (with ref. to Theoc. 15.133 with scholia etc.). 216 Mettinger, Riddle, 118. 217 Zenobius Epit. 1.49. 218 Contra Detienne, The Gardens, 106. 219 For the translation of this term as “dirge,” cf. Hesychius Lexicon A § 1227 (¡ Ú 2 ]&:& ! F). “Festival” is alternate translation advocated by Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 288. Her translation accords better with the scholiast’s comment. 215
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities ≈ í ]& : Ï 8 2 ]&:& " ) Ú 7 Ï ∞ Ï &: 8( . Ó &Ó Ù & a ]& ?( Ã . Ï ) &Ó ¿ ? " ) ! ˆ Ã & ) Ã&Ó 8.220
Laurialan Reitzhammer (mistakenly) notes that no temple of Adonis has been found “anywhere.”221 She proceeds to argue that the women in Lysistrata “hold an unexpected Adonia atop the Acropolis” – instead of on the rooftops of houses.222 The festival, in her view, “straddles the private and public spheres.”223 Plutarch emphasizes the images carried by the women in a text in which he describes the expedition against Sicily (mid summer 415 BCE).224 When the people voted [for the motion] and were preparing for the voyage, the signs were not propitious including those related to the festival. For the Adonia took place during those days, and images like the dead being carried out to burial were exposed in many places by women, and they imitated funerary rites, beating their breasts and singing laments. (8 &Ó &7 Ú 8 / ? Ù Ù > , Ã Ï F Ã&Ó Ï F / F. ]& Ï ∞ Ï 8 ! , N& ? ) 8 ≈ – ) 5, Ú (Ï Ú ! 7 J&.225
Plutarch replaces the gardens in his account by associating the Adonia with the fear that the fleet will “wither away.”226 220
Schol. in Aristoph. Lys. 389. Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 283. She translates the alternative title to Lystisrata as (“Women-at-the-Adonis-Festival”). The statement about the temple needs revision. In II CE there was a temple for Adonis in Dura Europos, and he was worshipped there perhaps with Atargatis. Cf. S. Ribichini, Adonis, DDD 7–10, esp. 8. Cp. L. Dirven, The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos. A Study of Religious Interaction in Roman Syria, RGRW 138, Leiden 1999, 227 and various inscriptions found there (207, 217, 243–4, 299). 222 Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 285. 223 Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 284, 321 (this is in contrast to Detienne’s view of the Adonia as a fundamentally private festival [The Gardens, 99–100]). Reed, The Sexuality, 326 (and passim) criticizes Detienne’s conclusion that the gardens mime failed agriculture. 224 According to Thuc. 6.30. 225 Plutarch Alc. 18.4–5. Cp. his comment on the expedition in Nic. 13.11 ]&: Ï ∂ " ) , Ú – ! F N& , Ú (Ú Ú ÃÏ Ú Ú D (Because the women were celebrating the Adonia then, and in many places in the city images were exposed; and there were funerary rites over them and lamentations of the women). Aristophanes Lys. 393 depicts the women’s lamentations for Adonis (∞) ê& ) on the rooftops where they also beat their breasts ( !í ê& Lys. 396) and refers to the expedition to Sicily during the festival of Adonis (Lys. 387–98). The date referred to by Aristophanes may have been the spring, however. Cf. Dillon, Woe, 6–7, 12. 226 Reitzhammer, Aristophanes, 321. 221
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In imperial Antioch, the gardens were considered an ill omen when Julian visited in the summer of 362: But hastening from there to visit Antioch, fair crown of the Orient, he reached it by the usual roads; and as he neared the city, he was received with public prayers, as if he were some deity, and he wondered at the cries of the great throng, who shouted that a lucky star had risen over the East. Now, it chanced that at that same time the annual cycle was completed and they were celebrating, in the ancient fashion, the festival of Adonis (beloved by Venus, as the poet’s tales say), who was slain by the death-dealing tusk of a boar — a festival which is symbolic of the reaping of the ripe fruits of the field. And it seemed a gloomy omen, as the emperor now for the first time entered the great city, the residence of princes, that on all sides melancholy wailing was heard and cries of grief. at hinc uidere properans Antiochiam, orientis apicem pulchrum, usus itineribus solitis uenit urbique propinquans in speciem alicuius numinis uotis excipitur publicis, miratus uoces multitudinis magnae, salutare sidus illuxisse eois partibus acclamantis. euenerat autem isdem diebus annuo cursu completo Adonea ritu uetere celebrari, amato Veneris, ut fabulae fingunt, apri dente ferali deleto, quod in adulto flore sectarum est indicium frugum. et uisum est triste, quod amplam urbem principumque domicilium introeunte imperatore tunc primum ululabiles undique planctus et lugubres sonus audibantur.227
The gardens are clearly viewed as a bad omen in Antioch. None of the traditions concerning the gardens of Adonis seem to indicate his subsequent resurrection. On the other hand, they probably do indicate “compassion rather than contempt” when “viewed from the standpoint of women’s laments in ancient and modern Greece.” “Comparison of dead youths to young plants, for example, was and remains conventional.”228 Mettinger notes that the gardens were also “real.” There was one in Laodicea in northern Syria.229 There were others in Palmyra and Bethlehem, although the one at Palmyra was not specifically dedicated to Adonis.230 Jerome writes that in his own time there was a grove of Tammuz/Adonis and a cave where the beloved of Venus was mourned in Bethlehem (lucus ... Thamuz, id est Adonidis, et in specu ... Ueneris amasius plangebatur).231 A fragment of
227 Ammianus Marcellinus 22.9.14–5, trans. of Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, vol. 2, LCL, ed. and trans. by J. C. Rolfe, Cambridge, MA 1940, 251. 228 Gow, The Sexuality, 328. 229 IGLSyr 4, 1260 (Laodicea) ταβ(ερνῶν) κ(αὶ) / () ]&˘/ / ( ) × (taverns and garden of Adonis, 70 cubits [36 m.] long). 230 Mettinger, Riddle, 146. Cf. É. Lipiński, Dieux et déesses de l’univers phénicien et punique, OLA 64, Leuven 1995, 100 (with ref. to a gnt ʾʾlym [garden of the gods] in Palmyra). The Greek expression is [ ] " 2 b (“sacred wood”, cf. Agora de Palmyre 247, Annexe 29 = IK Estremo oriente 89). There was one in the palace of Domitian in Rome (Philostratus Vita Ap. 7.32 a hall of Adonis with gardens of flowers [ à E ]&:&, &Ó Ã !8 !7 7, œ ]&:& ] ]). 231 Hier. Ep. 58.3 (CSEL 54, 532 Hilberg).
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the marble plan of Rome shows an (A)donaea.232 Wilhelmina F. Jashemski notes that “The French School of Rome is currently excavating a site on the Palatine Hill, which they have identified as the Temple of Adonis (the Adonea), known from a fragment of the Marble Plan. They have found a garden, with plantings, which had been started in pots that were still in situ.”233 There is some iconographic evidence for the gardens of Adonis.234 The review of the gardens of Adonis and their transitory nature indicates that Frazer is incorrect in his assertion that the gardens illustrate the death and resurrection of Adonis.235 5.3 Lucian and the Resurrection of Adonis Lucian in his Dialogues of the Gods depicts Aphrodite having to share Adonis with Persephone. The goddess complains about her son Eros to Selene: See what he’s done to me, his own mother. First he brought me down to Ida after Anchises the Trojan, and then to Mount Libanus [Lebanon] after that Assyrian lad; and then he made Persephone fall in love with the boy and robbed me of half my sweetheart. Ó Ã 8 ∑ &8& , ; Ó º& ?
] A ∏ 8 , ; &Ó Ù I Ú Ù ] ) ?, √ Ú E j (?W 8 7 5 ( Ù : ·236
This is an allusion to Adonis’s dividing “his time between the upper world and the lower world.”237 In Byblos, Lucian depicts a festival that apparently celebrated Adonis’s resurrection. Fergus Millar thinks Lucian is parodying Herodotus “for this portrayal of an exotic cult for a wider Greek readership.” He poses as a “naive traveler ... putting a distance between the cult described and both himself and the reader.”238 Jane L. Lightfoot, on the other hand, has argued that the He-
232
CIL VI 29844, 27a (with a photograph available on the website of the Berlin Academy [EDCS]). See L. Richardson, Adonaea, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Baltimore 1992, 1 (skeptical about the interpretation as a garden and its location). Cf. also, M. Royo, Adonaea, LTUR 1 (1993) 14–6. 233 W. F. Jashemski, The Contribution of Archaeology to the Study of Ancient Roman Gardens, The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan. Final Report on the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980–1989, vol. 1, ed. S. T. Parker and J. W. Betylon, Washington, D.C. 2006, 5–30, esp. 14. 234 B. Servais-Soyez, Adonis, LIMC 1.1 (1981) 222–9, § 45–51. 235 Frazer, Golden Bough, 4.1, 253–6, and 236–59 (his global survey of the gardens). 236 Lucian, Dial. d. 19.1, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.329. 237 Lucian. On the Syrian Goddess. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary by J. L. Lightfoot, Oxford 20, 190. 238 F. Millar, The Roman Near East. 31 B.C.–A.D. 337, Cambridge, MA 1993, 245–6. L. Dirven, The Author of the Dea Syria and his Cultural Heritage, Numen 44 (1997) 153–79 argues against Lucianic authorship and believes that that the author was a Hellenized Syrian
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rodotean language (Ps. Ionic) is normal for ethnography and so the text is not a parody.239 She also demonstrates that there are many correspondences between the treatise and the other writings of Lucian.240 (6.) I also saw in Byblos a large temple of Byblian Aphrodite, in which they perform the rituals to Adonis. I also learnt the rites. They say that the affair of Adonis and the boar took place in their country, and in memory of the sad event they beat their breasts each year and lament and perform the rites, and there is much mourning throughout the country. After they have finished beating their breasts and lamenting, they first make offerings to Adonis as to the dead, and afterwards, on the next day, they claim [or “recite the myth”] that he lives and send him into the air. And they shave their heads like the Egyptians when the Apis-bull dies. Of the women, those who do not wish to shave their heads pay the following fine. They put their beauty on sale for a single day; the market is open to strangers alone, and their fee becomes forfeit to Aphrodite. (7.) Some of the Byblians assert that it is amongst them that Egyptian Osiris is buried, and that the mourning and rites are all directed, not to Adonis, but to Osiris. I shall state their grounds for believing this. Each year a head comes sailing from Egypt to Byblos, the journey taking seven days, and the winds convey it by divine escort. It turns aside at no point; its only destination is Byblos. It is altogether marvellous. This happens annually, and took place while I was at Byblos. I saw the head. (8.) There is another marvel in Byblian territory. A river from Mount Lebanon discharges into the sea, and the river’s name is Adonis. Each year the river grows bloody and, losing its normal hue, flows into the sea and incarnadines the greater part of it, signalling the rituals of mourning to the Byblians. The story is that on these days Adonis is wounded on Lebanon, and the blood that reaches the water changes the colour of the river and gives the stream its name. (6.) @∂& &Ó Ú MI 9 8 " Ù ]( & MI , 2 Ú Ï ƒ ê& 8H &? &Ó Ú Ï ƒ . 8 Ï & ‚ Ù > Ù ê& ÕÙ Ù E : W E ( 8 W 8!, Ú 7 ?! /? > Ú ! 8 Ú Ï ƒ 8 Ú ( ? 8! Ï : μ. Ï &Ó Ú , Ó 2 ]&:& ≈ 8, Ï &Ó E /8 W 8 W : 8 ! 8 Ú Ù †8 8.241 Ú Ï ( Ï 5 ≈ Ê∞ ! ê. &Ó ¡ à !8 5 !, 7& 8H E 8 W Ú 7 F · μH &Ó 5 8, Ú ¡ !Ù ]( & ! . (7.) @∞Ú &Ó > MI ≥ 8 Ï ( !?(! Ù È Ù Ê∞ , Ú Ï 8! Ú Ï ƒ à ٠ê& í Ù È ? 7 !. 8 &Ó Ú ¡ ! Ú who gives accurate information about the cult in Hierapolis. See also Lightfoot, Lucian, 184– 208 who convincingly defends the authorship of Lucian. 239 Lightfoot, Lucian, 97–142 (on the language), 158–84 (on the treatise’s structure, the “personality of a periegete,” and “characterising the foreign”). J. N. Bremmer, Attis: A Greek God in Anatolian Pessinous and Catullan Rome, Mn. 4th Series 57 (2004) 534–73, esp. 547 (no statement of Adonis’s resurrection until the third century [which probably should be amended to “second century”]), Lightfoot 309–11. 240 Lightfoot, Lucian, 189–96. 241 Lightfoot, Lucian, 250 inserts a period here with H. Seyrig, La résurrection d’Adonis et le texte de Lucien, Syria 49 (1972) 97–100, esp. 99.
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Chapter One: Resurrection of Divinities ?& Ï &8. ( /? > 5 Ê∞ MI 8 : Ù 5ˆ /Ï 8 , " ; (8 ! W WH 8 &Ó Ã&?, í MI 8 . Ú > Ù ! . Ú /? > , Ù Ú MI 9 8 H Ú ( ! ? [MI ].242 (8.) û &Ó Ú ; ! E : W E MI W. Ù I? – b &&)H – 2 2 ê& 8. ¡ &Ó Ù /? > "? Ú ¿ 8 !? Ú ( Ù Ù ? Ú ) MI Ï 8! . !8 &Ó ≈ W E 8 W ¡ ê& Ï Ù I : , Ú Ù ∑ Ù —& ? Ù Ù Ú 2 X 9 &&).243
There is no clear indication in the text that Adonis “rises” on the third day, although it is possible. As Mettinger notes, if the “great lamentations” ( ? 8! ) take part on the day prior to the sacrifice to Adonis as “to one dead,”244 then the proclamation that “he lives” takes place on the third day.245 Lucian, unfortunately, does not say that the great lamentations took place on a day prior to the sacrifice, so one cannot be certain in this case. Lightfoot draws attention to the parallel between Ps. Nonnos’s I I 8 Ù ê& (Adonis had come to life again) and Lucian’s : 8 ! 8 (they recite the myth that he lives).246 In Ps. Nonnos, Aphrodite and Persephone agree to share Adonis on an annual basis (one year in the underworld and one year in the upper world). She thinks both authors are referring to the “same tradition: not a ‘resurrection’ as a Christian would understand it, but an announcement that Adonis had been found and was ‘alive’.”247 One difficulty in her statement is the use of the cautionary quotes. Philosopher Jamie Whyte argues that their use renders the reader “unable to tell not what the author does not mean by the word within inverted commas, but what he does mean.”248 If Lightfoot is correct, then the “sharing arrangement with six months in either world” (cf. the Dialogi deorum above) 242
Lightfoot, Lucian, 250 puts this in brackets (as do D. Russell and M. L. West in comments to Lightfoot). Cf. ibid., 315, 326–7. 243 Lucian Dea s. 6–8, trans. of Lightfoot, Lucian, 251. 244 Cp. Lucian Luct. 9 where the dead are nourished from libations and offerings to them over their tombs ( 8( &Ó ; ) í ) ) Ú ) ! 8 Ú ?( ). 245 Mettinger, Riddle, 135. Cp. H. D. Betz, Lukian von Samosata und das Neue Testament Religionsgeschichtliche and paränetische Parallelen. Ein Beitrag zum Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti, TU 76, Berlin 1961, 126–8 who approves Baudissin’s claim that the resurrection was on the third day (Adonis, 408–9). Baudissin uses Plutarch Isid. 13 356C and 39 366F (the death day of Osiris and the day of his finding) as an analogy. 246 Lightfoot, Lucian, 311. The full text of Ps. Nonnos is quoted below. 247 Lightfoot, Lucian, 311. 248 J. Whyte, Crimes against Logic. Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders, New York 2005, 79.
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is what the “local myth” “alluded to in the ceremonies in Byblos.”249 The question then, is why put “alive” in quotation marks? Adonis is fully alive for half a year in the upper world. Indeed it is not “a ‘resurrection’ as a Christian would understand it,” nevertheless it is an affirmation of the resurrection of Adonis, as people in Byblos apparently understood it. The phrase Ù †8 8 (“send him into the air”) may refer to a statue of Adonis being brought out of a temple.250 Henri Seyrig argues that the phrase, which refers to the myth of the resurrection of Adonis and the pompe (procession) in open air, “apparently while leaving a confined place such as a funerary edifice,” if not followed by the subsequent text in Lucian would confirm the testimony of Origen, Cyril, and Jerome.251 Georges Roux appeals to a definition in one of the glosses: 8: Ã Ù ) , Ï Ú Ù (to send: not only to send out but also to lead in procession).252 The difficulty is the reference (Û) to the women who shave their heads that immediately follows the verb 8. Seyrig advocates inserting a full stop (a period) before the Û.253 In that case the ritual shaving and prostitution may only occur once in the lifetime of the women of Byblos and not every year. J. Z. Smith argues that the entire account is ambiguous and that “addressing a statue ‘as if alive’ is no proof of belief in resurrection; rather it is the common presupposition of any cultic activity in the Mediterranean world that uses images. Besides, Lucian reports that after the ‘address’ women cut their hair as a sign of mourning.”254 On the other hand, Smith cannot show that there is any “explicit” reference to a statue.255 His mention of a statue is nevertheless important, although he probably does not succeed in showing there is no “proof of belief in resurrection.” Lucian’s assertion of the revival
249
Lightfoot, Lucian, 311. Mettinger, Riddle, 134. Betz, Lukian, 128, however, believes that more than the motion of a statue is meant, and mentions the possibility of Adonis’s ascension as a possible reference. P. Lambrechts, La ‹‹résurrection›› d’Adonis, in: Mélanges Isidore Lévy, AIPh 13, Brussels 1955, 207–40, esp. 233 thinks that the phrase could refer to the erection of a Djed pillar (a sign of Osiris). 251 Seyrig, La résurrection, 97–100. Cf. Hier. Ezech. 3.8 ad 8:14 (CChr.SL 75, 99,285– 301 Glorie), Origen Sel. in Ezech. 8.14 (PG 13.797–800), and Cyril of Alex., Is. 18,1–2 (PG 70, 441) – quoted below in § 5.4. 252 G. Roux, Sur deux textes relatifs à Adonis, RPh 41 (1967) 259–64, esp. 263. Lexica Segueriana, Glossa rhetoricae (e cod. Coislin. 345) (289.11–2 Bekker), Etymologicum magnum Π (682,47 Kallierges) and cp. Schol. in Aristoph. Ranas 1037 (> ) (sent: led in procession). His translation of Lucian (ibid.) was helpful in the modification I made above. 253 Seyrig, La résurrection, 99. 254 Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, 2536. 255 A comment on J. Z. Smith by M. S. Smith, Origins, 261. 250
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of Adonis does not seem inherently ambiguous.256 Ernest Will, similarly to Smith, affirms that Lucian’s statement about Adonis being alive is simply an “au revoir” to the corpse of the young hero and a solicitation to him to return in a year. Adonis is spoken to as a living individual and not as one dead, and the women then continue to lament.257 This interpretation has the merit of being consistent with the text of Theocritus, but in my view it is against the language of Lucian, who certainly does not say that the people of Byblos say “au revoir” to the corpse of Adonis. Instead, they openly claim that he is alive and do not just speak to him as if he is alive. Brigitte Soyez argues that any attempt to reduce “he is alive” to a theatrical scene, the erection of a pillar symbolizing Adonis, irony, or a mystical illusion is simply a fundamental misconstrual of the meaning of the text.258 To sum up, with Soyez: the statue of the dead Adonis is placed in a closed chapel or a symbolic tomb in a sanctuary. The next day, Adonis having returned to life, his statue is taken out of the temple in a procession (). Ù †8 (in the air) is opposed to a confined atmosphere. Consequently one can understand Lucian’s expression to mean “they escort him in procession in the open air.”259 Although Lucian’s text is brief, his statement that Adonis returns to life makes it certain that there is an “episode of ‘resurrection’ in the annual festival.” Consequently, Lucian’s statement may be correlated with the later witnesses (Origen, Cyril, Jerome, Procopius, and PGM IV), “undoubtedly under the influence of practices relative to the myth of Osiris.”260 The cutting of hair could certainly be part of a funerary ritual as in this text of Lucian or it could be an element in the worship of a sanctuary.261 Especially important for NT philology is Lucian’s use of : to describe Adonis’s return to life. The NT uses the same verb a number of times for the state of the risen Jesus.262 256 N. Robertson, The Ritual Background of the Dying God in Cyprus and Syro-Palestine, HTR 75 (1982) 313-59, esp. 333: “the talk of his reviving is a natural sequel to the vicarious sacrifice.” Cp. Millar, Roman Near East 276: “a procession to mark his resurrection.” 257 E. Will, Le rituel des Adonies, Syria 52 (1975) 93–105, esp. 103. 258 B. Soyez, Byblos et la fête des Adonies, EPRO 60, Leiden 1977, 38 with ref. to Roux, Sur deux textes, 262–4. 259 Soyez, Byblos 38–9 (in paraphrase) with ref. to Roux, Sur deux textes, 263. 260 Soyez, Byblos 37–8, 74. She also includes Macrobius 1.21.3, 6 (which is merely a restatement of the belief that Adonis spends six months with Persephone and six months with Venus). 261 W. Robertson-Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. First Series. The Fundamental Institutions, Edinburgh 1889, 306–7, M.-J. Lagrange, Études sur les religions sémitiques, Paris 21905, 323, Soyez, Byblos, 39. Cp. Lucian Dea s. 55, 60. 262 Mark 16:11 (although it is a later textual addition), Luke 24:5, 23, Acts 1:3, Rev. 1:18, 2:8. Cf. intro. § 4. Lucian may have been familiar with a Gospel such as Luke. Cf. J. N. Bremmer, Richard Reitzenstein’s Hellenistische Wundererzählungen, in: Credible, Incredible: The Miraculous in the Ancient Mediterranean, WUNT 321, ed. T. Nicklas and J. E. Spittler, Tübingen 2013, 1–19, esp. 2–5. Cf. Lucian Philops. 11 (Midas healed and carrying his
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It is possible that the belief that Adonis has risen is the result of a “contamination with the legend of Osiris.”263 Lightfoot refers to a text of Stephanus of Byzantium (VI C.E.) that clearly conflates the two: “Amathus, an ancient city of Cyprus in which Adonis Osiris was honored, who although he was Egyptian, the Cypriots and Phoenicians appropriated (]!, ?, Þ ê& È a, √ Ê∞ ƒ Ú j ∞&).264 In addition there are “osirisbeds”, “in which seeds of corn were grown in mummiform mould.”265 There is no existent Egyptian evidence for Osiris’s head floating to Byblos.266 Any relationship with the Osiris cult, however, does not change the fact that according to Lucian the worshippers in Byblos proclaimed Adonis’s life after death. The tale of the river flowing with the blood of Adonis has some similarity with Pausanias’s account of the water near Joppa that is the color of blood due to the blood of the monster which Perseus killed.267 Nicandros says
pallet [Û]) and Matt 9:1–8, Mark 2:1–12, and Luke 5:17–26. Cf. also idem, Lucian on Peregrinus and Alexander of Abonuteichos: A Sceptical View of Two Religious Entrepreneurs in: Beyond Priesthood. Religious Entrepreneurs and Innovators in the Roman Empire, Berlin 2017, 47–76, esp. 51. 263 A.-J. Festugière, La religion grecque a l’époque romaine, REG 64 (1951) 472–93, esp. 489 and M. N. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 2 vols., Munich 31967–74, 2.650. Soyez, Byblos, 40 thinks the organization of the rites in Byblos may be entirely due to those of Osiris. Cf. also Lightfoot, Lucian, 312–3. 264 Stephanus Byz. Ethnica s.v. ]! (82 Meineke = Stephani Byzantii Ethnica, vol. 1, ed. M. Billerbeck, CFHB.B 43/1, Berlin 2006, 174). Cp. Damascius Vita Isidori frag. 76E (196 Athanassiadi) = frag. 174 Zintzen, trans. of Athanassiadi, Damascius, 197: Ù ; ; Ê∞ ÕÙ ! , √ ] 5& ) , È ƒ Ú ê& ¡ Ï › ! (? ! (the ineffable statue of Aion was possessed by the god who was worshipped by the Alexandrians, being at the same time Osiris and Adonis as a result of a truly mystical act of union). Lightfoot, Lucian, 312. 265 “Corn,” presumably being wheat. Cf. Lightfoot, Lucian, 312, with refs. See § 4 above on the Khoiak ritual. 266 Lightfoot, Lucian, 313. She is skeptical of Plutarch Is. Os. 12–19 355D–358E (the tradition that Osiris’s body floated to Byblos in a coffin, etc.). T. Hare also notes that Plutarch has included details which are probably “accretions to the [Egyptian] myth,” although the “dismemberment and restitution” of Osiris’s “body parts” is certainly Egyptian (Remembering Osiris. Number, Gender, and the Word in Ancient Egyptian Representational Systems, Stanford, CA 1999, 17–8). Cf. Griffiths, Origins of Osiris, 28–9 (no trace of Osiris’s dead body in Byblos in “early myth,” although “Osiris-Adonis worship ... could have originated ... in early times”). Penglase, Greek Myths, 150 argues that the details about Isis in Byblos are from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. See, e.g., Isis’s interrupted immortalizing of the child of the queen of Byblos with fire (Plutarch Is. Os. 16 357BC) with H. Cer. 234–54 where Demeter’s immortalizing of the child Demophon by fire is interrupted by his mother Metaneira. Cf. chapter 4 § 2.1.10. 267 Pausanias 4.35.9.
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that the anemone flows from the blood of Adonis ( : T& ( ]&:& μ XF).268 5.4 Christian Traditions about Adonis Origen has a tradition that is quite similar to that of Lucian, which he uses to explain Ezek 8:14: “Mourning Tammuz.” The one who is called “Adonis” by the Greeks is said to be called “Tammuz” by the Hebrews and Syrians ... For they apparently perform certain initiation rites every year – first, because they mourn him as having died. Second because they rejoice over him as having risen from the dead. Those who are skillful in the mystical sense of the Greek myths and that is called the “mythic theology” say that Adonis is a symbol of the fruits of the earth which are mourned when they are sown, but when they rise they consequently cause the farmers to rejoice because they are growing. Ù . PÙ í Æ ê& , ( )! í I Ú ... & Ï í Ù ? ), Ó ≈ ! ÃÙ › ! H & &Ó ≈ í Ã2 › Ù ?. °" &Ó Ú
! & Ú Ú !F 8 ! , (Ú Ù ê& I ∂ F F , ! 8 Ó ≈ , 8 &Ó, Ú &Ï ˆ ˆ ≈ (.269
This account is entirely consistent with that of Lucian. That may be seen by Origen’s use of › (as): › ! (as one who had died) and › Ù ? (as one risen from the dead). Jerome’s account is similar to that of Origen, in his commentary on Ezekiel (ca 410-414).270 “And behold women sat mourning Adonis.” The one whom we have translated as “Adonis” in the Hebrew and Syriac language is called “Tammuz”; according to the pagan myth, during the month of July the beloved of Venus, a most beautiful youth, was killed and then is said to have lived again. The same month of July is called by his name and they celebrate an annual festival for him, in which he is mourned by women as one who has died, and then, reviving, he is praised in song and rejoiced over. Consequently, what the leaders and elders of the house of Israel did in the temple in darkness and in chambers is shown; the vices of the women are described who mourn, deprived of the companionship with their lovers, and they rejoice if they can possess them. And because the same paganism subtly interprets the poets’ myths of this sort, which are shameful, accompanying the death and resurrection of Adonis with mourning and rejoicing, of which the one 268 Schol. in Theocr. 5.92e (Nicander [II B.C.E.?], frag. 65 Schneider). Cp. ibid. 5.92f ;! ;&, ≈ ( &!F μ ]&:& (a flower without smell that is said to be produced from the blood of Adonis). In Bion Epitaphius Adonis 64–6 Aphrodite’s tears become the anemone, and Adonis’s blood becomes the red rose. Cp. Ovid. Met. 10.728–39 (blood of Adonis), Serv. Auct. A. 5.72 (the blood of Adonis), Nonnus Dion. 2.88 (Adonis as anemone). 269 Origen Sel. in Ezech. 8.14 (PG 13.797–800). 270 E. F. Sutcliffe, Jerome, CHB (1969) 2, 80–101, esp. 89.
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signifies the seeds which die in the earth and the other the crops in which the dead seeds are reborn ... et ecce mulieres sedebant plangentes Adonidem. quod nos ‘Adonidem’ interpretati sumus, et hebraeus et syrus sermo ‘Thamuz’ uocat; unde, quia iuxta gentilem fabulam in mense Iulio amasius Ueneris et pulcherrimus iuuenis occisus et deinceps reuixisse narratur, eundem Iulium mensem eodem appellant nomine et anniuersariam ei celebrant solemnitatem, in qua plangitur a mulieribus quasi mortuus, et postea reuiuiscens canitur atque laudatur. consequenterque postquam principes et seniores domus Israel quid fecerint in templo ac tenebris cubiculisque monstratum est, etiam mulierum uitia describuntur quae plangunt, amatorum societate priuatae, et exsultant si eos potuerint obtinere. et quia eadem gentilitas huiuscemodi fabulas poetarum, quae habent turpitudinem, interpretatur subtiliter, interfectionem et resurrectionem Adonidis planctu et gaudio prosequens, quorum alterum in seminibus quae moriuntur in terra, alterum in segetibus quibus mortua semina renascuntur ...271
Like Origen, Jerome identifies Tammuz with Adonis. Jerome’s mention of the interpretation of Adonis using the concept of vegetation is intriguing, but the interpretation is probably post-classical. Burkert writes, “it is in the allegorical writers of late antiquity that Adonis is said to represent ‘spring’ or ‘crops’ and Attis, Osiris, and Persephone are all treated in the same way.”272 Cyril of Alexandria, as noted above (§ 5.1), claims that the festival of Adonis was recently performed in Alexandria. He recounts the myth first. Then, they say, Aphrodite, a meretricious woman in their midst, fell in love with him, kept him company and was always caressing him. At this, Ares, a rival for Aphrodite’s affections, was upset; he took the form of a boar, attacked him when he was hunting, and immediately did away with him, something that proved the occasion of lament for Aphrodite, they say. She fell into such depths of distress and grief as to descend into Hades to him with the intention of bringing her lover back. But when the wife of Pluto made a strong claim to the young man and would not release someone of such wonderful aspect, they made an agreement to divide the course of the year and keep him for half of it. When Aphrodite returned and announced this to her familiars, friends or attendants, a festival and celebration was held. So the Greeks developed such a festival for this occasion, pretending to grieve and lament with Aphrodite in her mourning on account of the death of Adonis, and to rejoice with her and to leap for joy when she claimed to have found the object of her search. Until our day this farce used to be celebrated by the priests in Alexandria. @∂, (Ú, ! 8 í Ã) ]( & (/ Ù &Ó
D), † ?! Ú 8 , Ú 8 & 8 . Ú 8 ¡ ê , Õ? F ]( &, _ ? , Ú ! Ó &¹, & &Ó FH Ú ! 7 ( 8 Ó Ù F E ]( &W, (. ! &Ó &! ∞ Ú , · Ú ∞ ÃÙ (F Ù Î&, !8 Ù : . C & &Ó ) ( & , Ú 5! > · Ã †( , 8! 271 272
Hier. Ezech. 3.8 ad 8:14 (CChr.SL 75, 99,285–301 Glorie). Burkert, Structure, 100.
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Ù 7 , · ! Ù H Ú 5 > Ã . ] ! &Ó F ]( &, Ú
? ) /F ∞ , 4 ( , ¢ ), / Ù F 8 Ú 7 . C ? Æ / Ú 9 . Ó
Ï 8W E ]( &W, &Ï Ù !? Ù ê& , ( ! Ú ! )H ! &Ó 5 Ñ&, Ú Ú Õ F! Ù , 7& ! Ú ¹H Ú 8 !í a ) í ] 5?& " ) ) Ù .273
Cyril then quotes Ezekiel 8:14 and comments, “Tammuz is interpreted as Adonis” ( &Ó ¡ ˆ ¡ ê& ). He continues, Something similar was practiced by those beyond the rivers of Ethiopia [Isa 18:1], of which we have clearly spoken in what went a little before. They would take a jar, then write a letter to the women in Byblos as though Adonis had been found, put it in the jar, seal it, and would then lower it into the sea to conduct a kind of ritual to him; their claim was that of its own accord it traveled to Bylos on nominated days of the year. Once the devotees of Aphrodite received it, and read the letter, they then stopped grieving, since Adonis had been found by Aphrodite. C ? &8 Ï ƒ E E E 8 Ê∞!, Ú ß ) 8 I ˆ ( ∞ 7 . 8 I , ∂ ?( Ù Ï MI 9 ), › Õ 8 ]&:&, Ú !8 à 2 ?9, Ú ( , ! ∞ !? , ? í Ã2 ? H Ú · >(, Ã? ∞ MI Ï ( Ï > 8 . … & Ú & 5? )8 F ]( & ( , ∂ I ! ), › Õ 8 Ï F ]( & ]&:&.274
Clearly Cyril’s testimony about Alexandria is historically valuable. But as Lightfoot remarks, Cyril does not claim that the practice of sending papyrus letters to Byblos existed during his own day.275 I see no overwhelming reason for her skepticism, however, with regard to the letters. Why should Cyril invent their existence based on the Ï II of Isa 18:2? The scholiast quoted below uses Cyril’s version of Alexandrian custom to interpret Lucian, and it is excessive skepticism to argue that Cyril invented the custom to make sense of events in Byblos, of which he claims to know some details.
273 Cyril of Alex. Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 440–1), trans. of Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah. Vol. 2. Chapters 15–39, trans. R. C. Hill, Brookline, MA 2008, 34, slightly modified. 274 Trans. of Hill, Cyril, 2.35. Cyril identifies the land “beyond the rivers of Ethiopia” with Alexandria (Is. Cyril of Alex. Is. 18:1–2 [PG 70, 440]: ºF &Ó 8 ¿? , “ ] 5?& ). 275 Lightfoot, Lucian, 315.
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Although Procopius of Gaza (ca 475-538)276 does not use the language of resurrection, he does formulate the order of the ritual similarly to Lucian. His version of the Adonis narrative is a paraphrase made from that of Cyril of Alexandria. He recounts the myth of Adonis being six months with Persephone and six months with Aphrodite after his death caused by the boar. In Alexandria there was a festival celebrating the ascent of Adonis (7 D ;&) and mourning for his descent (! F ?!&). And in Alexandria this festival was celebrated until our time according to the one who gives the present interpretation [Cyril].277 The impious Jews overtook such rites. And Ezekiel says therefore, “I looked, and behold there were women sitting mourning Tammuz, who is Adonis.” Those who lived in the city just mentioned used to act similarly. They took a pottery jar and placed a letter in it for the women in Byblos saying that Adonis had been found. Then sealing it they cast it into the sea after celebrating certain rites over it, and as the people who sent it used to say, it was automatically carried off to Byblos, and caused a cessation of mourning for the women who were there. Ú & Ú í ] 5?& 7 4 8 !í a , (Ú ¡ 57 ∞:. ¿ Ú ∏&) & I 8 I. j í “ ∏ , «Ú ∂&, Ú ∞&ˆ ) ) !7 ! Ù ˆ, ≈ Ú Ù ê& .» C &8 " ∞ 8 ∞ . 8 I 8I Ù Ï II 9 ) › Õ !8 ]&:&. @∂ ( 8I E ! ?W, ? í Ã2 ? , Ú, › " 8 > , Ã? ∞ II , Ú 8 ! 7 ) ) 5Ú ? .278
Both Cyril and Procopius are aware of a former celebration of the “finding of Adonis,” although Procopius’s evidence is not independent unless he had witnessed a similar ritual in Byblos (which seems doubtful). Resurrection is not precisely equivalent to Adonis’s “having been found” ( Õ !8), but presumably they stop their mourning because they believe Adonis has revived. The women who are the “friends of Aphrodite” in Byblos cease their mourning, according to Cyril, because “Adonis had been found by Aphrodite” ( ! ), › Õ 8 Ï F ]( & ]&:&).279 The celebration by the women of Byblos indicates that they thought Adonis was alive after the half year he spent in Hades. One of Ps. Nonnos’s (VI C.E.) scholia on Gregory of Nazianzus’s Contra Iulianum280 comprises a comment on Adonis’s revival. According to Ps. Nonnos, Aphrodite succeeds in retrieving Attis from Persephone in Hades on an annual basis. They agree that she would have him on earth for a year, and 276
Procopius of Gaza, 3ODCC 1343. Procopius takes this material from Cyril of Alex. Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 441). 278 Procopius Is. 18.2 (PG 87.2, 2140). 279 Cyril of Alex. Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 441). 280 Gr. Naz. Contra Iulianum imperatorem ii (Oratio 5). 277
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Persephone would have him in Hades for a year (Ú Ó 8 > ÕÓ F, &Ó 8 2 Êμ&W). Having accomplished this, Aphrodite revealed to her worshippers that Adonis had come to life again, so that stopping their dirge and lamentations they performed festivities. There is a people beyond the Ethiopians who have great reverence for this lady Aphrodite. They, therefore, wrote letters and put them in a pitcher along with certain charms, and cast them in the sea. This pitcher of its own accord turned up at Byblos of Palestine; and the initiates of Aphrodite, receiving the pitcher, celebrated a festival, rejoicing with the pretended goddess, who had found her beloved. For these things they knew from the letters. And this is what the prophet Isaiah [18:2] spoke of, (how) they cast hostages into the sea, letters on papyrus,281 which is the pledge of their lust. For to those who were wailing they showed by means of letters that Adonis was arisen. The children of Israël too practiced this mourning and they mourned for Tammuz, for thus Adonis was called among them. P “ ]( & & &7 ) ÃF ! ) I I 8 Ù ê& , ≈ ! 7 Ú ∞ 75 , ) . û! &8 Ê∞! 8 , &E Ù ]( & I . °” “ Ï
?( Ú ?9 I? Ï E ! ?W Õ ( . ä &Ó Ã? MI 9 F Õ Ú Ù 8 Õ& " F ]( & , / D
! E &F! ! ¹, Ù : Õ c. Ú Ï [ ] H Ú [(] > √ K^ ¡ (7 (H ¡ 8 Ï II 282 ! ?W ≈ H 8 8 F ( Ã . P) Ï ( 8 &Ï ]&:& 7 I . 8 I &Ó Ú Ù & a Ú " 5 ∏ Ú 8! Ù H — Ï í Ã) 8 ¡ ê& .283
Lightfoot questions the parallels between Lucian and the Christian authors with regard to a possible equivalence of the head of Osiris and the papyrus letters.284 It is easy to see why one could hypothesize such a parallel, however. Lucian’s “Byblian”285 head ( ( ... MI ) could also be translated “papyrus head.” Compare Herodotus’s reference to bridges 281
This is the LXX translation. The HB has (in vessels of papyrus). The MS has II Û here. 283 Ps. Nonnos Scholia Mythologica Oratio 5, historia 5 (CChr.SG 27, 269–70 Nimmo Smith). On this author, cf. J. Declerk, Five Unedited Greek Scholia of Ps.-Nonnos, AnCl 45 (1976) 181–9, esp. 181 (on 184–5 he edits scholium 38; it is a marginal addition, perhaps from XIV C.E., to Vaticanus Graecus 437 [X C.E.]). There are old Syriac and Armenian translations (ibid., 182). The Syriac was translated in 624 and “is the oldest witness.” The trans. (slightly modified) is from the Syriac version. Cf. S. Brock, The Syriac Version of the Pseudo-Nonnos Mythological Scholia, Cambridge 1971, 152–3 (trans.), 302–3 (Syriac text) and Declerk, ibid. 187. Brock translates with “Adonis is alive.” The Greek I implies more, however. 284 Lightfoot, Lucian, 315. 285 This is the translation of H. W. Attridge, and R. A. Oden, The Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria) Attributed to Lucian, Missoula 1976, 15. 282
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( ( “they were making bridges”) made of papryus ( &Ó II [ Ô( ]).286 A Christian scholiast to Lucian appeals to Isaiah 18:1-2 and Cyril’s explanation. “And I saw a papyrus head”: Our divine prophet Isaiah jeers and mocks at this in his utterance against Damascus, in which he says (Isa 18:1-2a), “Woe, wings of a land of ships beyond the rivers of Ethiopia [Alexandria, for Cyril] – he who sends hostages by sea to all the nations and papyrus letters on the water;” indicating by “papyrus letters” the sending of the aforementioned head, sent for the sake of those who have been deceived, as it seems to Cyril in his holy commentaries on holy Isaiah. Ú ( ! ? II ] Ú ¡ 8 ! ) (7 K^ ) Ú !? 2 Ï X7, &í „ ( ìÃÚ
F 8 8 Ê∞!, ¡ 8 Ù ? Ï >! ≈ ! ?W Ú Ï II ? —&,î Ï II F ( F 8 ÕÓ 8 , › Ú 2 U 9 & ) ) ∞ Ù b K^ Õ7 Ã.287
Given the syncretism between Adonis and Osiris, it is quite possible that the Christian authors are correct, so one does not have to reject the illumination of Lucian that the Christian texts provide. 5.5 The Levantine Background Mettinger thinks there is a possible Levantine background of Adonis that can be illustrated in several texts, two of which are Amarna letters. In one, RibHidda, a “mayor” of Byblos in XIV B.C.E, writes to Pharaoh:288 “May my lord send men to take the possessions of my Damu [dDA.Mu-ia] to the king, my lord, lest that dog take the possessions of your god.”289 “My Adonis” is William L. Moran’s interpretation of the god Damu. The conclusion that the god is Damu is controversial, however.290 In another letter the same king writes, “If there are no archers this year, then send ships to fetch me, along with [my] living god [DINGIRmeš ba-al-ṭi] to my lord.”291 Mettinger’s thesis is that this is the same god of the earlier letter. Even if it is the case, however, that the god in question is Damu, then there is still the problem of the identification with Adonis. 286
Herodotus 7.34. Scholia in Lucian. 44.7 (BiTeu 187,6–15 Rabe). The trans. of the LXX is that of NETS modified. 288 L. M. Pryke, The Many Complaints to Pharaoh of Rib-Addi of Byblos, JAOS 131 (2011) 411–22, esp. 411. 289 EA 84.31–5, trans. of W. L. Moran modified, The Amarna Letters, Baltimore 1992, 155. Cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 138. 290 Mettinger, Riddle, 138–9 notes the objections of N. Na’aman, On Gods and Scribal Traditions in the Amarna Letters, UF 22 (1990) 247–55. 291 EA 129.49–51, trans. of Moran, Amarna Letters, 209. 287
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An inscription of Yehimilik, king Byblos, from X C.E. has “Baal Shamem and Baal of Byblos and the assembly of the holy gods of Byblos [Gebal]” (bʿl šmm . bʿl gbl . wmpḥrt . ʾl gbl qdšm).292 Bordreuil published a fragmentary inscription found near Byblos that he dated ca 925 B.C.E. It reads: ?]lʾdnw l / ?]bʿlt gbl[? (... to his Lord / ... Lady of Byblos ...).293 Perhaps the inscription does “refer to the Lady of Byblos and her spouse.”294 Another inscription found in Byblos from I C.E. is inscribed on an incense altar. Part of the dedication is: lʾdnn wlsml bʿl (to our Lord and to the image of Baal).295 Walter Burkert notes that the suffixes in both inscriptions indicate that “adon is appellative, not a name.”296 Éduard Lipiński, however, believes that ʿbdʾdny from Carthage (CIS I, 332.3) and ʿbdʾdny bn ʿbdʾlnm (Abdadoni son of Abdalonim) from Umm el-ʿAhmed are occurrences of Adonis in “Semitic proper names.”297 These names may be also compared with a Latin inscription from Carthage: ex of(f)icinia Abeddonis (from the workshop of Abed[a]donis).298 A number of Aramaic inscriptions from Hama that were
292 KAI 4.3–4, trans. of Mettinger, Riddle, 140. M. Dunand, Fouilles de Byblos, Paris 1939, I, § 1141, p. 30 does not emend bʿl gbl to bʿlt gbl (Lady of Tyre). 293 P. Bordreuil, Une inscription phénicienne champlevée des environs de Byblos, Sem 27 (1977) 23–7 and idem, Astarté, la dame de Byblos, CRAI 142 (1998) 1153–64, esp. 1154–5 (fig. 2). 294 Mettinger, Riddle, 141. 295 KAI 12 = R. Dussaud, Inscription phénicienne de Byblos d’époque romaine, Syria 6 (1925) 269–73, esp. 271 (he [ibid., 272] takes “our Lord” to refer to Augustus). 296 Burkert, Structure and History, 193. He argues that smlbʿl “image of Baal” is Baalat. Cf. Hesychius 102 I:H ]( & Ï MI (Salambo: Aphrodite among the Babylonians), Etymologicum magn. (707,47–9 Kallierges) IÏ & ... 8 ! Ù ê& (Salambas, the demon ... she goes around mourning Adonis), Orion, Etym. I? (148 Sturz), SHA Heliogabalus (Lampridius) 7.3 (Salambonam etiam omni planctu et iactatione Syriaci cultus exhibuit [“He also celebrated the rite of Salambo with all the wailing and the frenzy of the Syrian cult ...” trans. of Historia Augusta, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. D. Magie, Cambridge, MA 1921–32, 2.119–21]). Two martyrs, Justa and Rufina, refused to take part in a procession called Salambo (the goddess was carried by women on their shoulders) that apparently still took place in Hispalis (Seville) in Diocletian’s time (AA.SS. Iulii IV [19 July] 585). F. Cumont, Les Syriens en Espagne et les Adonies à Séville, Syria 8 (1927) 330–41, esp. 331–2 includes a better text. Presumably the Semitic counterpart of Salambo is ṣlmbʿl (image of Baal). 297 É. Lipiński, review of Mettinger, Riddle, BiOr 59 (2002) 481–6, esp. 484. The second inscription is discussed by A. Caquot, Le dieu Milkʿashtart et les inscriptions de ʾUmm el ʿAhmed, Sem 15 (1965) 29–33, esp. 29 and also by D. Pardee, A New Datum for the Meaning of the Divine Name Milkashtart, in Ascribe to the Lord. Biblical & Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie, ed. L. Eslinger and G. Taylor, Sheffield 1988, 55–67, esp. 56 (from whom I take the transliteration above). 298 CIL VIII, 10475,4 (p 2173) = CIL VIII, 22646,6.
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made before 720 B.C.E. include the theophoric proper name ʾAdnlrm (“the lord is verily exalted) and indicate “Phoenician influence.”299 The name of the god 2aytAw (Chatau) which appears on a seal of a ruler of Byblos from the second half of the third millennium means “the one who appears in flames,” and may consequently refer to a storm god such as BaalHadad or Resheph. Therefore, Rainer Stadelmann concludes that it can hardly refer to Tammuz or Osiris.300 In any case, Mettinger’s attempt to find here an ancestor of Adonis is somewhat strained.301 Probably Adonis had a Semitic background in Byblos and other parts of Phoenicia, but it cannot be proved that the Semitic god experienced some kind of revival after a cyclical death. It is fairly clear that in the Greek world the resurrection of Adonis did not dominate their imagination. Reed points out that “since there is no attested Greek celebration of his ascent corresponding to the ritual mourning for his death, the resurrection and division of his year need not have figured at all in the cult or the cultists’ attitudes.”302 For Byblos, on the other hand, one may assume some kind of ritual celebration of his return to life. 5.6 Iconography A Roman tomb (of the Nasonii, II C.E.) probably depicts Venus leading Adonis forth from the underworld. They clasp right hands – the dextrarum iunctio. Two sets of reeds are on either side of the figures, along with two smaller women who hold a large platter.303 Hyginus writes that Adonis is one of those
299 B. Otzen, The Aramaic Inscriptions, in: P. J. Riis and M.-L. Buhl with S. Parola and B. Otzen, Hama. Fouilles et recherches de la fondation Carlsberg. 1931–1938. II 2. Les Objets de la période dite Syro-Hittite (Âge du fer), Nationalmuseets Skrifter 12. Copenhagen 1990, 266–318, esp. 275–7 (four examples). 300 R. Stadelmann, Chaitau, LÄ 902. The name also appears in Pyramid Texts § 518 [Utterance 322] (linked to the mountain range called “Negaw,” east of Byblos), § 242 [Utterance 238], and § 423 [Utterance 282] (Faulkner, Pyramid Texts, 102, 56, 85 [Allen, 71, 20, 56] respectively; Allen translates the term as “Apparent in Heat,” which on 65 n. 13 he identifies as the Sun). On the meaning of the name, cp. E. Lipiński, Dieux et déesses, 319–20 (he notes the two other gods are perhaps Hathor [probably the Lady of Byblos] and Ra of the foreign countries [Shamash or Shaphash], three gods of Byblos described with hieroglyphs). Lipiński identifies Chaitau as Haddu [Haddad], the god of storms. 301 Mettinger, Riddle, 144–5. He notes Pyramid Text § 518 is an “ascension text” where the dead king is identified with Chaitau, which he then argues reflects a god of Byblos and asks if the god “was known to successfully pass the border between the land of the living and the world of the dead?” 302 Reed, The Sexuality, 332, cp. ibid., 337: his “yearly resurrection ... did not seem to have engaged the imagination of the Greeks anywhere near as much as his death did.” 303 B. Andreae, Studien zur römischen Grabkunst, MDAI.RE 9, Heidelberg 1963, 123, fig. 49.1. On the dextrarum iunctio, cf. chapt. 2 § 4. In Prop. 2.13b.55, handsome Adonis lies
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who returned from the inferis (netherworld), and in his case it was by the “will of Venus” (voluntate Veneris).304
6 Attis The narratives of a resurrection of Attis are late, at best. There is no shred of evidence in classical sources that he returned to life. Neither do the iconography of Attis and the later references to the Hilaria celebration indicate any kind of resurrection for the dead youth. 6.1 Classical Sources In Pausanias’s (II C.E.) Lydian version of the Attis myth, he is either killed by a boar or goes mad during a wedding and castrates himself when Agdistis, in love with Attis, interrupts the youth’s wedding:305 But Agdistis repented of what he had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay. ê & &Ó ? > ∑ ê >& , " Ï Ù — 7 7 ! êW : 7 7 !.306
Diodorus Siculus preserves a tradition in which Attis’s body ultimately disappears: But, the myth goes on to say, a pestilence fell upon human beings throughout Phrygia and the land ceased to bear fruit, and when the unfortunate people inquired of the god how they might rid themselves of their ills he commanded them, it is said, to bury the body of Attis and to honour Cybelê as a goddess. Consequently, the physicians, since the body had disappeared in the course of time, made an image of the youth, before which they sang dirges and by means of honours in keeping with his suffering propitiated the wrath of him who had been wronged; and these rites they continue to perform down to our own lifetime. Ï &Ó j ) ! : Ú F F ?
8, ? Ù ! Ù Ú F dead, among the reeds (illis formosus iacuisse paludibus). The next line is: “Venus, you will be said to have gone there with dishevelled hair” (diceris effusa tu, Venus, isse coma). 304 Hyg. Fab. 251.3. Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.8. 305 In Ov. Ib. 507–8 a pine tree kills Attis by transfixion (atque idem, simili pinus quem morte peremit, / Phryx ac venator sis Berecyntiades!). In Ov. Met. 10.105 Attis becomes a pine tree (exuit hac hominem ...). The scholiast in Nicandri alexipharmaca 8c (Geymonat) explains that Zeus killed Attis by a boar, since he was loved by the Mother ( ¡ ¸ ˆ ) 8 &Ï , ≈ ∑ E Ú ( )). In 8e the scholiast notes that the Phrygians mourn Attis in the spring (" &Ó j Ï Ù > ! Ã ). 306 Pausanias 7.17.10–12 (text from 12), trans. of Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4 vols. LCL, ed. and trans. W. H. S. Jones, Cambridge, MA, 1918–35, 3.269. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter, 21–4 is a rather uncritical survey of the problem.
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F ?5 (Ú Ã) !? Ù ê& Ú a I8 › ! . & ˆ j †(8 : &Ï Ù N& ? , Ù Ä ! ) ∞ ) ?! 5 ? ! !8 F. ≈ 8 !í a I È & ).307
It is not precisely an empty tomb tradition, but it is close, although time is apparently the explanation for the disappearance of the body. Arnobius’s version of the myth is based on that of Timotheus (“the Athenian Eumolpid”), an author who wrote ca 300 B.C.E.:308 Jupiter refuses Acdestis’ request that Attis might come back to life. But what is possible by concession of fate, this he grants without objecting: that his body should not decay, that his hair should ever grow, that the very smallest of his fingers should live and alone react by continued motion. Satisfied with these favors, Acdestis, it is said, consecrated the body in Pessinus, and honored it with annual rites and with a sacred ministry. Iuppiter rogatus ab Acdesti ut Attis revivesceret non sinit; quod tamen fieri per fatum posset, sine ulla difficultate condonat, ne corpus eius putrescat, crescant ut comae semper, digitorum ut minimissimus vivat et perpetuo solus agitetur e motu. Quibus contentum beneficiis Acdestim consecrasse corpus in Pessinunte, caerimoniis annuis et sacerdotum antistitibus honorasse.309
J. Z. Smith notes the “second to fourth century AD reinterpretation, within some of the ‘mystery’ cults, of archaic locative traditions of dead deities in new experimental modes which appear to testify to these deities returning to life. In the case of Attis, there are only scattered hints of this process.”310 However, if Arnobius is accurate in his rendition of Timotheus, then at least the desire for the resurrection of the dead Attis is ancient. John North ascribes a “virtual death” to Attis who “remains powerful” even in that state.311 Porphyry imagines Adonis and Attis together with images of premature death: Attis, too, and Adonis are related to the analogy of fruits. Attis is the symbol of the blossoms which appear early in the spring, and fall off before the complete fertilization; 307
Diod. Sic. 3.59.7, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus 2.277. On Timotheus, cf. Bremmer, Attis, 542–4 (who emphasizes Alexander Polyhistor’s use of Timotheus as a source; cf. FGrH 273 F 74). Cp. M. G. Lancellotti, Attis Between Myth and History. King, Priest, and God, RGRW 149, Leiden 2002, 2 for scholars who question the identification. In particular, cf. E. N. Lane, The Name of Cybele’s Priests the “Galloi,” in: Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M. J. Vermaseren, ed. E. N. Lane, Leiden 1996, 117–134, esp. 128–9. Cp. Tac. Hist. 4.83.2. 309 Arn. Nat. 5.7 (CSLP 256 Marchesi), trans. of Arnobius of Sicca, The Case Against the Pagans, 2 vols., ACW 8, trans. and comm. G. E. McCracken, Westminster, MD 1949, 2.417. 310 Smith, Drudgery, 133. 311 J. North, Power and its Redefinitions: The Vicissitudes of Attis, in: Panthée. Religious Transformations in the Roman Empire, RGRW 177, ed. L. Bricault and C. Bonnet, Leiden 2013, 279–92, esp. 282–3. He appears to accept this position of G. Sfameni Gasparro, Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis, Leiden 1985, 124–5. 308
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whence they further attributed castration to him, from the fruits not having attained to seminal perfection: but Adonis was the symbol of the cutting of the perfect fruits. ê &Ó Ú ê& E ∞ c 7 . í ¡ Ó ê Ï Ù > (8 !8 Ú Ú F & (>! Ú ∞& Ã2 8! , (!? ! ) ∞ ), ¡ &Ó ê& F F I .312
Pierre Boyancé313 compares Attis’s premature death with that of a young slave or freedman named Hector who himself appeals to Attis as an image of his early death: You who worship Cybele and mourn Phrygian Attis, while there is time and quiet Dindyma314 is silent during the night, weep for my ashes ... Qui colitis Cybelen et qui Phryga plangitis Attin dum vacat et tacita Dindyma nocte silent flete meos cineres ...315
There is no hope for Attis’s resurrection in this text. 6.2 Hippolytus, Firmicus Maternus, and Servius Auctus Hippolytus, in his discussion of the Naassenes, affirms a resurrection for Attis (who is called “Pappas” in the text).316 The anonymous source “he” is a Gnostic author whom Hippolytus does not name. 312 Porphyry De imagin. 358F Smith apud Eus. P.E. 3.11.12, trans. of Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicae praeparationis libri XV..., 4 vols., trans. E. H. Gifford, Oxford 1903, 3/1.120. 313 P. Boyancé, Funus acerbum, REA 54 (1952) 275–289, esp. 288. 314 Cf. OLD s.v. “A mountain in Phrygia, sacred to the goddess Cybele.” Music was used during the rites of Cybele. Cf. the drums and cymbals of Ov. Fast. 4.183–4 (inania tympana ... aera), Lucr. 2.618–9 (tympana ... cymbala), Claudian Eutr. 2.278–9 (tympana ... cymbala), Rapt. 1.209, 211 tympana ... buxa ... aera (drums … pipes/flutes ... cymbals). For a sarcophagus depicting these instruments, cf. CIL 14, 371 (Euhodus and Metilia Acte, mentioned in chapt. 2 § 4). See R. Guarino Ortega, Los comentarios al Ibis de Ovidio. El largo recorrido de una exégesis, Frankfurt am Main 1999, 337, Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, 118–9, Sfameni Gasparro, Soteriology, 4, 13, 80. Cp. the mystic formula in Clem. Alex. Protr. 2.15.3 C ? >( H I? >H ( H ÕÙ Ù Ù Õ8& (I have eaten from the drum, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have carried the sacrificial bowl, I have gone down into the room), and Firm. Err. 18.1 De tympano manducaui, de cymbalo bibi et religionis secreta perdidici, quod Graeco sermone dicitur: ? I8I , I? 8 , 8 ê (I Have eaten from the drum, I have drunk from the cymbal and I have thoroughly learned the secrets of the rite, which in the Greek language is expressed as: I have eaten from the drum, drunk from the cymbal, I have become an initiate of Attis). The formula from Clement may not refer to the Attis cult at all. Cf. North, Power, 291–2. 315 CIL VI, 10098 = CCCA III, 355. Cf. A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford 2011, 142 (with regard to CIMRM 1 and CCCA 3), “It has to be said that both text and notes offered in these two works are shockingly inaccurate.”
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But the Phrygians say that the same one is also a “corpse,” having been buried in the body as in a monument or tomb. This, he says, is the saying: “You are whited sepulchres filled within with dead men’s bones,” that is, there is not within you the living Person. And again, he says, “the dead shall leap forth from their graves,” that is, the spiritual person, not the fleshly, shall be born again from the bodies of the earthly. This, he says, is the resurrection which comes through the gate of the heavens, through which if they do not enter, all remain dead. And the same Phrygians, he says again, say that this same one is by reason of the change a god. For he becomes God when he arises from the dead and enters into heaven through the same gate. 8 &Ó " j ÃÙ Ú 8, " Ú 7 Ú ?(9 8 2 :. , (, Ú Ù ∞ 8H «?( Ó 8, 8 > ! ¿8 », ≈ Ã >, (, Õ) ;! ¡ . Ú ? , (H « 5 " »ó8 ? ' , !8 , Ã . ó—, (, Ú ? &Ï F 8 Ã , &í ß " ∞ ! , (, ? 8 . °" &Ó Ã, (, j Ù ÃÙ ? I F 8 ! H ? , (, ! , ≈ Ï &Ï F ∞ ∞ Ù Ã .317
The Gnostic Phrygians of Hippolytus, however, relate the bodily resurrection of Attis to the spiritual resurrection of the pneumatikoi ( Û) who are “born again from the bodies of the earthly” (8 ? ' , !8 , Ã ).318 Firmicus Maternus also is a late witness to a resurrection of Attis: The Phrygians who dwell in Pessinus by the banks of the Gallus River assign the primacy over the other elements to the earth, and maintain that she is the mother of all things. Then, desirous that they too should get themselves a set of annual rites, they proceeded to consecrate with annual lamentations the love affair of a rich woman, their queen, who chose to avenge in tyrannical fashion the haughty snub that she suffered from her young beloved. In order to satisfy the angry woman, or perhaps trying to find consolation for her after she repented, they advanced the claim that he whom they had buried a little while earlier had come to life again; and since the woman’s heart burned unbearably with overweening love, they erected temples to the dead youth. Thereafter what the angry woman had done to avenge the insult to her slighted beauty, this they insist that the priests whom they ordain should suffer. Thus in annual rites honoring the earth there is drawn up in array the cortege of the youth’s funeral, so that people are really venerating an unhappy death and funeral when they are convinced that they are worshiping the earth. 2. Here again, Most Holy Emperors, in order to hide such an error, they insist that this cult also is organized by a Scientific Theory. The earth, they maintain, loves the crops, Attis is the very thing that grows from the crops, and the punishment which he suffered is what a harvester with his sickle does to the ripened crops. His death they interpret as the storing 316
Diod. Sic. 3.59.4 ê, — &í !8 ? (Attis, later called Pa-
pas) 317 Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.23–24 (PTS 25, Marcovich). Trans. modified of F. Legge, Philosophumena or the refutation of All Heresies.... London 1921, 135. 318 Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.23.
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away of the collected seeds, his resurrection as the sprouting of the scattered seeds in the annual turn of the seasons. III, 1. Phryges qui Pessinunta incolunt circa Galli fluminis ripas terrae ceterorum elementorum tribuunt principatum et hanc uolunt omnium esse matrem. Deinde ut et ipsi annuum sibi sacrorum ordinem facerent mulieris diuitis ac reginae suae amorem, quae fastus amati adulescentis tyrannice uoluit ulcisci, cum luctibus annuis consecrarunt et ut satis iratae mulieri facerent, aut ut paenitenti solacium quaererent, quem paulo ante sepelierant reuixisse iactarunt, et cum mulieris animus ex impatientia nimii amoris arderet, mortuo adulescenti templa fecerunt. Tunc quod irata mulier pro iniuria spretae fecerat formae, hoc ordinatos a se pati uolunt sacerdotes. Sic annuis sacris cum honore terrae istius funeris pompa componitur, ut cum persuaderetur hominibus quod colant terram miseri funeris uenerentur exitium. 2. Hic quoque, sacratissimi imperatores, ut error iste celetur, etiam haec sacra physica uolunt esse ratione composita. Amare terram uolunt fruges, Attin uero hoc ipsum uolunt esse quod ex frugibus nascitur, poenam autem quam sustinuit hoc uolunt esse quod falce messor maturis frugibus facit. Mortem ipsius dicunt quod semina collecta conduntur, uitam rursus quod iacta semina annuis uicibus reconduntur.319
They interpret his resurrection, which they are given to boasting about (reuixisse iactarunt), with a “physical doctrine” or “principle” (physica ratio). Servius Auctus does not encourage the view that Attis was raised from the dead: Attis, a handsome boy, when he was in charge of the mysteries of the Great Mother, was lusted after by the king of his city; but when he found out that he was going to be raped by the king, he escaped secretly into the woods. So when he was found, seeing that force was going to be used on him, he cut off the genitals of the rapist, who dying cut off the same part of the boy’s body. When the priests of the Great Mother found him half-alive, lying under a pine tree, after bringing him into the temple of the goddess they tried in vain to revive him; they buried the dead boy. In order that his memory might be perpetual, the Great Mother decreed that every year he be mourned in her rites, and she assigned the pine tree, under which he had lain, to her own protection, and she made her votaries amputate their sexual organs, the individuals who are called archigalli (chief of the Galli). Attis, puer speciosus, cum matris magnae praeesset sacris, a rege civitatis suae adamatus est; sed cum intellegeret vim sibi a rege instare, clam in silvas profugit. cum ergo inventus vim sibi videret inferri, verenda stupratoris abscidit, qui moriens eandem ipsam partem corporis puero abscidit. quem semianimem sub pinu latentem cum invenissent antistites matris magnae, perlatum in templum deae frustra conati reficere, defunctum sepelierunt. cuius ut perpetua maneret memoria, mater magna instituit, ut quotannis in sacris suis plangeretur, pinumque arborem, sub qua iacuerat, tutelae suae adscripsit, et effecit ut cultores sui viriles sibi partes amputarent, qui archigalli appellantur.320
Presumably the material above comes from Jerome’s teacher Donatus.321 319 Firm. Err. 3.1–2, trans. of Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions, ACW 37, trans. and annot. by C. A. Forbes, New York 1970, 47–8. 320 Serv. A. 9.115. 321 Cf. Cameron, Last Pagans, 408 on the relationship between the two (Servius Auctus or Danielis and Donatus).
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6.3 The Hilaria and the Iconography of Attis The question of the Hilaria is important, although the evidence for this celebration is late. Attis, for Julian, is nature ((˜).322 In Julian’s version of the myth of Attis, “his handsome appearance and size made him loved by the Mother of the Gods” ( Ù (8 Ú 8 !F Ï F ® Ù ! ).323 She permitted Attis “who resembles the sun’s rays, to leap and dance” ( a Ú 2 ? 9 9 Ú ) ) )).”324 Attis, however, fell in love with a Nymph.325 Julian describes the calendar of March which commemorates the narrative of Attis: the sacred tree is cut (22 March Arbor intrat); the trumpets are blown (23 March Tubilistrium); Attis is castrated (24 March Sanguem); and then comes the Hilaria (25 March Hilaria): “And on the third day the sacred and unspeakable member of the god Gallus is severed. Next comes, they say, the Hilaria and the festivals” E W &Ó 8 Ù " Ù Ú !8 ! º? H Ú π ? , (, Ú / .326 Julian then gives a Neo-platonic interpretation of the Hilaria, using the astronomical “limitation” of the Helios/Sun by the vernal equinox: Therefore, immediately after the castration, the trumpet sounds the recall for Attis and for all of us who once flew down from heaven and fell to earth. And after this signal, when King Attis stays his limitless course by his castration the gods bid us also root out the unlimited in ourselves and imitate the gods our leaders and hasten back to the defined and uniform, and, if it be possible, to the One itself. After this, the Hilaria must by all means follow. For what could be more blessed, what more joyful than a soul which has escaped from limitlessness and generation and inward storm, and has been translated up to the very gods? And Attis himself was such a one, and the Mother of the Gods by no means allowed him to advance unregarded further than was permitted: nay, she, made him turn towards herself, and commanded him to set a limit to his limitless course. @Ã!ˆ “ ? 5 Ï && Ù Ù 2 ê& Ú ) ≈ Ó Ã ! > ∞ F Ú 8 . ® Ï & Ù I , ≈ ¡ I ˆ ê μ &Ï F F, ) " ! Ú 8 Ú Ã) ) Ã) Ú )! , Ú &Ó Ù › 8 Ú / &Ó , N ∑ 8 , ÃÙ «Ù ù» 8 H ” 8, ? A ! Ï π ? . P Ï Ã! , &Ó " : 8 i F Ó Ú 8 Ú Ù ÃE & &( , Ú &Ó ˆ ! ˆ È 322
Julian Or. 8(5).3 162A (CUFr II/1, 107 Rochefort). Julian Or. 8(5).5 165B (111 Rochefort). 324 Julian Or. 8(5).5 165C (111 Rochefort), trans. of The Works of the Emperor Julian, ed. and trans. W. C. Wright, 3 vols., LCL, Cambridge, MA 1923, 1.463. 325 Julian Or. 8(5).5 165C (111 Rochefort). In Ovid, it is a Naiad named Sagaritis (Fast. 4.229). In Arnobius (5.7) Attis is betrothed to Ia. 326 Julian Or. 8(5).9 168CD (116 Rochefort), trans. of Wright, Julian, 1.471. I take the days from CIL I2 p. 260 (Calendar of 354). Cp. M. R. Salzmann, On Roman Time. The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Antiquity, Berkeley 1990, 164–9. 323
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! ; Î A Ú Ù ê ƒ )& Ã& ! ®7 I& 8 ¢ F, Ù / &Ó 8 F ?5.327
Julian interprets the Hilaria as a return of the soul to God. There is not a shade of reference to Attis’s resurrection. Like Julian, Salustius also does not affirm that Attis rose from the dead in his version of the myth. There is a reference to the Hilaria. Then comes the cutting of the tree and the fast, as though we also were cutting off the further process of generation. After that the feeding on milk, as though we were being born again; after which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it were, a return up to the Gods. ∂ &8& Ú Ú · Ú 8 8 F 8 &H Ú ? ( · 8 H (í ∑ " Ú 8( Ú Ù ˆ ˆ ∑ ?&.328
E. R. Dodds believes that Salustius wrote his book “under Julian’s reign (AD 361-3) to support the pagan reaction against Christianity.”329 Giulia Sfameni Gasparro calls the interpetations of Julian and Salustius “mysteriosophic.”330 Macrobius, who probably wrote in the 430s and who was probably a Christian, identifies Attis as a sun god.331 He puts these words in the mouth of Vibius Praetextatus in a long speech on “solar theology” (1.17–23). The source may be Porphyry via “a Latin intermediary, the pagan theologian Cornelius Labeo.”332 They outfit the sun, under the name of Attis, with a pipe and a rod: the pipe represents a sequence of uneven breaths, because the winds, which have nothing even about them, take their substance from the sun; the rod shows the power of the sun, which regulates all things. That these rites are chiefly to be interpreted as concerned with the sun can be gathered also from the fact that what (according to their custom) his descent to the underworld has been completed and they have acted out a period of mourning, the time of rejoicing begins on the eighth day before the Kalends of April [March 25], which they call the Hilaria, the first day when the sun makes the day longer than the night. 327
Julian Or. 8(5).9 169CD (117 Rochefort), trans. of Wright, Julian, 1.473–75. Salustius De diis 4.10, trans. of G. Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion, New York 3 1951, 195. 329 E. R. Dodds, Sallustius, 4OCD, 1311. Cp. L. Brisson, Salustius [2], BNP 12 (2008) 907–8. 330 Gasparro, Soteriology, 99. 331 The Carmen contra paganos 109 claims that Roman senators (egregios) “suddenly proclaimed the castrated Attis to be the Sun” while carrying a “lopped off tree trunk” through the city: arboris excisae truncum portare per urbem, / Attin castratum subito praedicere solem. For text and trans., cf. Cameron, Last Pagans, 804, 807–8 with comment on 283 and an extensive argument against identifying the prefect of the poem as Flavian (273–319). Cameron thinks Praetextatus is the prefect. 332 Cameron, Last Pagans, 267 and cp. 265–72 for an argument that Macrobius was a Christian, and that Praetextatus’s speech does not represent the views of the “real Praetextatus” either. 328
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solem vero sub nomine Attinis ornant fistula et virga. fistula ordinem spiritus inaequalis ostendit, quia venti, in quibus nulla aequalitas est, propriam sumunt de sole substantiam; virga potestatem solis adserit qui cuncta moderatur. praecipuam autem solis in his caerimoniis verti rationem hinc etiam potest colligi, quod ritu eorum catabasi finita simulationeque luctus peracta, celebratur laetitiae exordium a. d. octavum kalendas Apriles. quem diem Hilaria appellant quo primum tempore sol diem longiorem nocte protendit.333
Macrobius also mentions nothing of resurrection. A scholion, attributed to Maximus the Confessor,334 on Dionysius the Areopagite’s Epistulae, discusses π ˘ (joyful days) in GrecoRoman society and includes the statement: Hilaria was a special festival of the Romans in honor of the mother of the gods as Demophilus says in Concerning Sacrifices and Festivals among the Ancients. Æ &Ó Ú π Û / ∞& ç Û ∞ F Ù ! Ã [a &Ó &ı ] · ( ı( 2 ì Ú ª Û ! Ú / .”335
Damascius’s (ca 525) famous narrative is somewhat illuminating: [that] In Hierapolis of Phrygia there was a temple of Apollo, and under the temple was a katabasis [way down to the nether world] that emitted deadly exhalations. This pit was not without danger for those above or for birds to pass through. He said that for those who had been initiated it was possible while descending to go through the innermost part itself. The author said that he and Doros the philosopher, being overcome by eagerness, descended and ascended unharmed by any evil thing. The author said that after going to sleep in Hierapolis at that time I seemed to become Attis in a dream, and that the festival called the Hilaria was celebrated for me at the instigation of the Mother of the gods336 [Cybele]. Wherefore it (the dream) made clear our deliverance from Hades (or “death”). ≈ ì π F j " Ù D ] , ÕÙ &Ó Ù Ù I? Õ8 ! Ï . Ù I ! Ã&í ; !8 & Ã&Ó ) ) Z & ! ), í ≈ 333 Macr. 1.21.9–10, trans. of Macrobius, Saturnalia, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. R. A. Kaster, Cambridge, MA 2011, 1.281–3. Cp. ibid., xvii (the date of composition), xxi–xxiv (Macrobius as a Christian). 334 The scholia are probably not by Maximus. Cf. B. R. Suchla, Die sogenannten Maximus-Scholien des Corpus Areopagiticum, NAWG.PH 3, Göttingen 1980 and H. Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy. The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, San Francisco 2003, 359–60. 335 Max. Schol. epp. Dion. Ar. 8.6 (PG 4.556), CPG 7708.6. I have put the explanatory phrase in brackets since it does not appear in British Museum Add MS 36821 fol. 187v (digitized at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_36821_f175r [accessed 19 Feb. 2015]). Demophilus is presumably the monk of Dion. Ar. Ep. 8. 336 The trans. of this phrase in Damascius, The Philosophical History. Text with Translation and Notes, P. Athanassiadi, Athens 1999, 221 is: “at the instigation of the Mother of the gods, I celebrated the feast of the so-called Hilaria, which signified my salvation from death.” But cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 158. The emphasis is on the salvation from death of the two friends (and is consequently not a “plural of modesty” as Athanassiadi argues). The italics signify the excerptor’s comments.
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í ÃÙ , . ) &Ó 8, (, &Ù D Ú ∞ ÃÙ Ù Ù I I &? î. 8 &í ¡
( ˆ › Ã Ú ¡ ( (, ÕÙ ! !8 , 8I? Ú ! ) 8I. 8 &í ¡
( ˆ ≈ ì E π ! &7 & ƒ ¡ ê 8!, )! Ï F Ù ! π 8 / 7H ≈ &7 5 Î& ) .337
Maria Grazia Lancellotti notes that the descent into the Plutonium, the dream, and Damascius’s interpretation of the dream should “be distinguished.”338 She argues, In the dream there is no reference to a resurrection that could in any way be connected with the feast itself. Instead, it is Damascius who establishes a connection between the dream and the experience he has just undergone ... The reference to the Hilaria is not a reference to a “resurrection” of Attis but can instead be connected with that “kindness” that the Mother of the gods bestows on Attis as soon as, having died, a relationship of “correct” love is set up between the two.339
After the Dies Sanguinis (the commemoration of the castration of Attis)340 comes the Hilaria. She concludes, “Now Attis, dead in the world but alive in the Netherworld, can truly love and be loved by the goddess, as he would never have been able to do in mortal life.”341 The day named Sanguem was on
337
Damascius Vita Isidori frag. 221 (218–20 Athanassiadi) = frag. 131 (Zintzen). Lancellotti, Attis, 159. For refs. to the Plutonium, cf. Strabo 13.4.14, Cassius Dio 68.27.3, Ammianus 23.6.18, and Plin. Nat. 2.208. 339 Lancellotti, Attis, 159–60. 340 Tert. Apol. 25.5 (the chief gallus lacerates and castrates himself) and cp. SHA Divus Claudius 4.2 (Trebellius Pollio). Valerius Flaccus 8.239–242 mentions “savage sheddings of blood” (saevos ... cruores) in conjunction with a festival of Cybele. Cf. D. Fishwick, The Cannophori and the March Festival of Magna Mater, TAPA 97 (1966) 193–202, esp. 201. CIL XIII, 510 is an inscription from 24 March 239, the dies sanguinis, that mentions the castration of a Eutyches: S(acrum) M(atri) d(eum) / Val(eria) Gemina / vires esce/pit Eutyche/tis (Sacred to the mother of the gods. Valeria Geminia accepted the manhood of Eutyches). It could, conceivably, be the name of a bull. Cf. CCCA V, 238. The language, however resembles Ovid’s depiction of the castrated Attis: Ov. Fast 4.242 signa relicta viri (deprived of the signs of manhood). In addition, the two other inscriptions that Gasparro (Soteriology, 113) mentions (CIL VI, 511 and II, 5521) include the term taurobolium and so are not relevant to the argument about the name. In Ovid’s time the long-haired Galli castrated themselves (Fast. 4.243–44 mollesque ministri / caedunt iactatis vilia membra comis). Cp. a tradition of Timotheus in Alexander Polyhistor (FGrH 273 F 74) Ù Ï (l. Ú) ˆ 8 Ï ∞&) º? (from that [Gallus and Attis’s self-castrations] those who castrate their genitals are called Galli). The scholiast in Nicandri alexipharmaca 8b explains the term “caves of [Rhea] Lobrine” (I ! ?) by noting that the Galli deposited their castrated genitals in those sacred hypogaea ( " Ú Õ E ç8c, ≈ Ï 7& ! " 2 ê Ú E ç8c ). Cf. Gasparro, ibid., 53. 341 Lancellotti, Attis, 160. 338
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March 24, followed by the Hilaria on March 25.342 The argument of Lancellotti calls into question Duncan Fishwick’s claim that the Hilaria commemorated the resurrection of Attis.343 Since this claim is still advanced in the literature, it has merited the examination here. The dancing or winged depictions of Attis in themselves cannot explicate the meaning of the Hilaria festival. According to Julian, the dancing of Attis “precedes the ascension of his soul.”344 Consequently, many of the figures that depict dancing Attises may not have anything to do with his afterlife.345 Dancing Attises that are winged, however, do indicate that he is among the gods in some sense. Vermaseren’s claim that a dancing winged Attis from IV B.C.E. indicates “that he is dancing the hilaria after his resurrection as the new-born child Attis” cannot be demonstrated.346 Various terracotta statuettes of dancing winged Attises date to II-I B.C.E.347 There are depictions of winged Attises that are standing.348 An antefix (III-II B.C.E.) from a temple in Falerii Veteres shows winged figures with a “Phrygian cap” standing with a torch in their hands, which alternate with female winged figures ( ! [Queen of beasts]) – “Artemis types.”349 The male figure wears no anaxurides (leggings), that in any case are not specifically Phrygian but were
342 Cf. the Calendar of Philocalus (CIL I2 p. 260 with notes on 313). Cp. InscrIt 13/2, 42. The Dies Sanguinis was a Dies Aegyptiacus according to the calendar, which was apparently an unlucky day, a day marked by “negative power.” Cf. T. Scharf, Die Rückkehr nach Ägypten. Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte des Ägyptenbildes im westlichen Mittelalter, in: Exotisch, weisheitlich und uralt. Europäische Konstruktionen Altägyptens, ed. T. Glück, Hamburg 2007, 153–179, esp. 164. 343 Fishwick, The Cannophori, 194. Salzman, On Roman Time, 167. 344 M. J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis. The Myth and the Cult, London 1977, 123. Demosthenes Cor. 18.260 ëÕF ê ê ÕFí (dancing, “Hyes Attes, Attes Hyes”) associates dancing in the mysteries with Attis. Cf. Bremmer, Attis, 540–1: “a bricolage of several ecstatic cults.” 345 Cf. M. J. Vermaseren, The Legend of Attis in Greek and Roman Art, Leiden 1966, Pl. XXVI, 1–2 (winged and dancing), and XXXI, 1–2 (winged and dancing). For standing winged Attises, cf. M. J. Vermaseren and M. B. de Boer, “Attis,” LIMC 3.1–2 (1986) § 145– 50, and for dancing, winged Attises see § 264–78 (only figures of “Kleinkunst”). Unwinged dancing images are (ibid.): § 240–7 (dancing, hands on head); § 248–63 (dancing). 346 Vermaseren, Legend of Attis, 47 with ref. to Pl XXVI 1 (IV B.C.E.). 347 LIMC 3.2 § 264, 268–70, 272. § 272 may be seen in Vermaseren, Legend of Attis Pl. XXVIII 3. 348 Vermaseren, Legend of Attis, 46, Pl. XXV 2 and 3. 349 M. Taylor and H. C. Bradshaw, Architectural Terra-cottas from Two Temples at Falerii Veteres, PBSR 3 (1916) 1–34, 27, Pl. II and A. Cozza, Regione VII. (Etruria) XIV. Civita Castellana (antica Faleria), AAI.N (1888) 414–33, esp. 426 (images of both figures).
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worn by Persians, Parthians, Scythians, and Thracians.350 The identification is clearly uncertain.351 M. J. Vermaseren includes a plate of a winged Attis (a relief in stucco; see image 3) carrying Ganymede to Olympus from the hypogeum he describes as “the underground Basilica near the Porta Maggiore.”352 It dates to “20 CE or the period of Claudius.”353 Lancelotti, however, notes the difficulty of interpreting the scene: “On the central fresco a winged Attis is depicted, carrying Ganymedes towards the sky, and around him there are four panels on which Attis is painted with the pedum [shepherd’s crook] in a sad pose; the ideology that underlies this portrayal is not clear.”354 Another option is that described by Gasparro, who notes that the “motif of Attis tristis,” instead of having “a specific connection with the religion of Cybele,” may express “the theme of the ; [one who died untimely], the destiny of the prematurely deceased.” That is the view of Pierre Boyancé, who calls the figure carrying Ganymede a “winged genius.”355 The identification of the central figure as Ganymede is firm, but the winged god who carries him to heaven is missing a face and may not be Attis.356 Possibly the scene indicates immortality of the 350 O. Brendel, Classical “Ariels,” in: Studies in Honor of Frederick W. Shipley, St. Louis 1942, 75–93, esp. 86 with ref. to Mau, ]5 Û& , PRE 1 (1894) 2100–1 (lists many other peoples besides those mentioned by Brendel). 351 Vermaseren seems to have omitted it from his article on Attis in LIMC 3.1–2. 352 Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, 123 and Pl. 40 (CCCA III § 344, Pls. 202–5), E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, 2 vols., New York 21968, 169–73 (the best photographs; Nash believes the “basilica was the assembly hall of a neo-Pythagorean sect”). 353 Lancelotti, Attis, 80. For an extensive bibliography, cf. P. Ovidius Naso, Der Brief der Saphho an Phaon..., Zet. 58, ed. H. Dörrie, München 1975, 264–5. 354 Lancelotti, Attis, 80, with ref. to Vermaseren, The Legend of Attis, 54–55 and idem, Cybele and Attis, 55–57 (he calls the depiction on the surrounding panels “four mourning Attis figures”). 355 Gasparro, Soteriology, 93 with ref. to Boyancé, Funus acerbum, 287. Cp. R. Turcan, Masques corniers d’orientaux: Attis, Ganymède ou Arimaspes?, in: Mélanges de philosophie de littérature et d’histoire ancienne offerts à Pierre Boyancé, CEFR 22, Roma 1974, 721–47, esp. 722–3 (the figures in the four corners are Ganymede and not Attis). 356 Cf. Wedderburn, Resurrection, 106. Cf. J. Carcopino, Études Romaines. La basilique pythagoricienne de la Porte Majeure, Paris 1943, 111 (a god or a genius carries Ganymede), 49–52, Pl. V, IX (the four meditative figures are funerary depictions of Attis). The leggings (anaxyrides) of the main figure are, as Wedderburn notes, the same as those worn by the four figures on the side. However, if the four figures are depictions of Ganymede (as Turcan believes), then the identification of the winged god is unclear. E. Strong and N. Jolliffe, The Stuccoes of the Underground Basilica near the Porta Maggiore, JHS 44 (1924) 65–111, esp. 75–6 do not identify the winged figure as Attis, although they identify the four corner figures as Attis. Clearly there are many depictions of Attis with wings. LIMC 3.2 § 438 is the socalled “winged Attis” [doubtful] carrying Ganymede, from the Porta Maggiore. The authors note that another identification of the winged figure is Eros or Aion, with ref. to H. Mielsch, Römische Stuckreliefs, MDAI.R 21, Heidelberg 1975, 118 (“Eros oder Aion raubt Ganymed”). The figure in Asian clothing in the Grand Cameo of France is Iulus Ascanias accord-
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soul, but resurrection is not depicted.357 The scene may simply envision the bodily translation of Ganymede to heaven. In general, the winged depictions of Attis do show that he had an afterlife.358 Vermaseren thinks the literary texts and iconographical representations of Attis are evidence for a hypothesis that “tends towards a resurrection conception.”359 At best that is a weak hypothesis. With regard to Attis, the conclusion of Jan Bremmer has the strongest warrant: “... Attis’ ‘resurrection’ is not mentioned before the third century and seems closely connected with the rise of Christianity, just like the ‘resurrection’ of Adonis is not mentioned before the third century.”360 The question of genealogy in the history of religions is, of course, highly controversial.361 All one needs to claim is that the belief in the resurrection of Attis developed late, if Firmicus Maternus and Hippolytus are accurate in their renditions of the myth. ing to R. M. Schneider, The Making of Oriental Rome: Shaping the Trojan Legend, in: Universal Empire. A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History, ed. P. F. Bang and D. Kolodziejczyk, Cambridge 2012, 76–129, esp. 109–11 with ref. to L. Giuliani, Ein Geschenk für den Kaiser. Das Geheimnis des grossen Kameo, München 2010, 15–6, 26–7. Consequently, the figure in the cameo is not Attis (contra Vermaseren, Legend, 54 and E. Täubler, Attis auf dem Kameo de la Sainte Chapelle, in: idem, Ausgewählte Schriften zur Alten Geschichte, Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien 3, Stuttgart 1987, 273–80). K. Jeppesen, Neues zum Rätsel des Grand Camée de France, Aarhus 1974, 29–30 thinks the “flying oriental” figure is Dardanos who carries the sidus Iulium (Julian star) with ref. to Verg. A. 7.209–11. 357 P. Mingazzini, La cosidetta Basilica sotteranea de Porta Maggiore era vera un luogo di culto?, in: Festschrift Eugen v. Mercklin, ed. E. Homann-Wedeking and B. Segall, Waldsassen/Bayern 1964, 90–105 asserts that the structure had no specially sacred meaning, but was an aestivus specus (a summer cave). A more elaborate interpretation (which tentatively concludes that Attis is the winged figure) is by J. A. North, Sappho Underground, in: Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, Oxford 2012, 37–68, esp. 50–1, 63–4. He also points out that as a lover of the goddess Attis “did not prosper” (e.g. castration), and instead of immortality “His body remained on earth, free from decay, but he was nothing but a beautiful corpse, incapable of movement, except that he could just move his little finger” with ref. to Pausanias 7.17.10–12 and Arn. 5.5–7. 358 Cp. Wedderburn, Resurrection, 205–6. 359 Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, 123. 360 Bremmer, Attis, 547. 361 Smith’s Drudgery Divine is a case in point. Bremmer discusses Smith’s rejection of the thesis that Christianity influenced the mysteries in Rise and Fall, 54 and responds: “A Christian influence on the development in the Attis cult is thus more than likely” (with regard to the stimulus that helped “materialize” the “latent” theme of resurrection in the Attis tradition). Cf. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 114 on the question of latency in the cult of Attis. With Pausanias (II C.E.) “the germs of the idea of survival after death are present, in that Attis’ body is not to see corruption ... By Arnobius’ time, the myth had developed to the point where Cybele can entreat Zeus ut Attis reuiuisceret [that Attis should live again]. This prayer was granted in so far that Attis’ hair should continue to grow and that his little finger should live and retain its normal motion.” The last step is Firmicus Maternus.
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6.4 The Attis Cult in Late Antiquity North’s contention that the Attis cult was “a powerful rival in an environment of competition for members” is intriguing, but the evidence is tenuous and thus unlikely.362 The question of the survival of paganism in late antiquity has been decisively surveyed by Alan Cameron, who with reference to the Phrygian inscriptions, for example, notes that they “suggest not so much a vigorous pagan revival as a small group of individual pagans unwilling to embrace Christianity and desperately experimenting, searching for an alternative route to what Symmachus had called ‘so great a secret’ (tam grande secretum).”363 As a final example, I will quote a section from the Carmen ad quendam senatorem, which comprises an attack on a formerly Christian aristocrat who had “abandoned his faith”364 for Cybele and Isis. His invective against the Great Mother and her Galli is in bitter hexameters: When I saw you paying homage once again to a variety of empty sacred objects and clinging to your former error, I was dumbfounded. Because you always enjoyed poetry, I have hastened to write verses so that by replying in a poem I shall reproach you for preferring darkness to light. For who may allow that you should believe that the Great Mother could 362 North, Power, 290. Firm. Err. 18 (Attis and the Eucharist), 22.1 (the obscure god in the famous phrase ) 8 > Ï ) [Have courage initiates of the saved god, for there will be salvation for us from our sufferings] along with the reference to the festival of mourning for an idol in 22.3 [itself a comment on the Greek phrase]: Idolum sepelis, idolum plangis, idolum de sepultura proferis et, miser, cum haec feceris gaudes! [you bury an idol, you mourn an idol, you bring out the idol from its tomb, and, wretch, when you have done these things you rejoice; cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 134 who notes this can refer to Adonis, Attis, or “Egyptian ritual”]), 24 (no specific mention of Attis, but a ref. to the priest who utters the mysterious phrase in 22.1), Ambrosiast. Qu. test. 84.3 (a discussion of the date of Easter, in which Ambrosiaster asserts that pagans argue that the Christian celebration of the cross imitates that of sanguinem: per sanguinem dicant expiationem fieri, sicut et nos per crucem), Aug. Tract. Eu. Io. 7.6 (hodie celebrant festiuitatem sanguinis, nescio cuius mulieris [today they observe the solemnity of blood, of I know not what woman]). Augustine continues: ergo nescio quid simile imitatus est quidam spiritus, ut sanguine simulacrum suum emi uellet, quia nouerat pretioso sanguine quandocumque redimendum esse genus humanum (“Therefore some spirit or other contrived the counterfeit that His image should be bought for blood, because he knew that the human race was at some time to be redeemed by the precious blood,” trans. of NPNF 7, 50). He clearly is unaware of Attis’s relation to the festival. He does know of Attis’s myth (Civ. 6,7, 7.25 = Porphyry De imagin. ?358aF Smith) and of the Galli. Cp. Justin 1 Apol. 62 (on the demons’ imitation of baptism). 363 Symm. Rel. 3.10 (CSEL 82.3, 27 Zelzer). Cf. Cameron, Last Pagans, 163 (and 142–63 on “oriental initiations” which includes his survey of the relevant inscriptions). On 150 Cameron notes that W. Burkert has raised “serious questions about the size and nature of the mystery cult followings.” Cf. W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge, MA 1987, 30–65 (30: the existence of mystery communities, Mysteriengemeinden, cannot be taken for granted [there is hardly any attestation]). 364 Cameron, Last Pagans, 323, 325 (the title is a “guess”).
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be said to be a goddess and think that she whose devotees are branded by scandalous infamy may be worshipped again? For indeed the priests in effeminate garb confess to their same private vice in public ritual, and think admissible that which is not. Whereupon they mince lightly through the city speaking in feminine voices and carry themselves with languishing hips and rectum stretched, and change their sex through a well-publicized crime. And when they celebrate their rites they proclaim that on these days they are chaste. Yet if only then are they, as they say, chaste, then what are they for the rest of the time? Cum te diuersis iterum uanisque uiderem inseruire sacris priscoque errore teneri, obstipui motus. quia carmina semper amasti, carmine respondens properaui scribere uersus, ut te corriperem tenebras praeponere luci. 5 quis patiatur enim te Matrem credere magnam posse deam dici rursusque putare colendam, cuius cultores infamia turpis inurit? namque sacerdotes tunicis muliebribus idem interius uitium cultu exteriore fatentur, 10 idque licere putant, quod non licet; unde per urbem leniter incedunt mollita uoce loquentes, laxatosque tenent extenso podice lumbos, et proprium mutant uulgato crimine sexum. cumque suos celebrant ritus, his esse diebus 15 se castos memorant; ut, si tantum modo tunc sunt, ut perhibent casti, reliquo iam tempore quid sunt?365
It seems highly doubtful that Attis posed much competition in late antiquity to the burgeoning Christian faith. Cameron argues that the poem was written in the East (Antioch or Constantinople) and that the apostate was Domitius Modestus who changed from Christianity to paganism under Julian and then to Arian Christianity under Valens.366 The Carmen ad Antonium also refers to some Galli in the present day: Now, too, eunuchs chant shameful mysteries367 nor are there lacking men to be corrupted by this infection. They worship some secret the more profound for being behind closed doors and call holy something which would render a modest man unholy should he approach it. Thus the priest himself, more restricted, avoids sleeping with women and accepts the embrace of men. nunc quoque semiuiri mysteria turpia plangunt nec desunt homines, quos haec contagia uertant, intus et arcanum quiddam quasi maius adorant
365 Carmen ad quendam senatorem (CSEL 23, 227,1–228,17 Peiper), trans. modified of B. Croke and J. Harries, Religious Conflict in Fourth Century Rome. A Documentary Study, Sydney 1982, 84. With Cameron, Last Pagans, 321, following “an early hand in F,” I have emended pollice (thumb) to podice (rectum) in line 13. On the poem, cf. also M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, vol. 4.1, HAW 8, München 1914, 222–3. 366 Cameron, Last Pagans, 325–7. 367 Cf. Sfameni Gasparro, Soteriology, 77 on “the practice of the Galli as ‘mysteries’.”
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idque uocant sanctum, quo si uelit ire pudicus, iste profanus erit. sic artior ipse sacerdos femineos uitat coitus patiturque uiriles.368
Cameron dates the poem to the second half of IV C.E.369
7 Melqart / Heracles Melqart, identified with Tyrian Heracles by a number of individuals in the eastern Mediterranean, was a dying god if one can rely upon Greek reports about Heracles.370 “Melqart” may mean “King of the City.”371 Eudoxus of Cnidus (IV B.C.E.) has a tale in which Heracles is killed by Typhon in Libya and brought back to life by Iolaus.372 Zenobius the Sophist (II C.E.) has the same tradition and calls the god “Tyrian Heracles” (Â 8 Ù P ).373 The Clementine Recognitions also locate Heracles’ fiery death 368 Carmen ad Antonium 88–93 (CSEL 30, 333–4 Hartel), trans. of Croke and Harries, Religious Conflict, 88. 369 Cameron, Last Pagans, 283. Cameron (ibid., 324) considers the thesis that the dedicatee is Claudius Antonius who was consul in 382. 370 There is a bilingual inscription (actually two on marble cippi) from II B.C.E., for example, in Malta that mentions Heracles and Melqart in Greek and Phoenician. Cf. M. G. G. Amadasi, Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in Occidente, Roma 1967 § 1 and 1 bis, p. 15–6 = IG XIV 600 = KAI 47, and the discussion in B. H. Isaac, Hellenistic and Herodian Palestine, in: idem, The Near East under Roman Rule. Selected Papers, Mn.S 177, Leiden 1998, 3–30, esp. 12 (the Phoenician has “to our lord Melqart, Lord of Tyre” [LʾDNN LMLQRT BʿL ṢR]), which corresponds to the Greek “to Heracles the founder” (Â ) Ô ). Mettinger, Riddle, 86–8 summarizes the references to the death of Heracles Melqart. H. Ringgren, The Religion of Ancient Syria, in: Historia Religionum Volume I. Religions of the Past, ed. C. J. Bleeker and G. Widengren, Leiden 1969, 195–222, esp. 205 is skeptical of the attempt to reconstruct Phoenician religion using the Greek material. H. Seyrig, Les grands dieux de Tyr à l’époque grecque et romaine, Syria 40 (1963) 19–28 reviews the archaeological evidence for the religion of Tyre. 371 A. I. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos. A Commentary, Leiden 1981, 209 ( ). See Philo of Byblos in Jacoby FGrH 790 F 2.27 = Eus. P.E. 1.10.28 ®8 ! , ¡ Ú Â F (Melqart, that is Heracles). The name occurs in Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften [KAI], ed. H. Donner and W. Röllig, Wiesbaden 41979, 43.15 (the temple to Melqart is mentioned in 43.3). 372 Eudoxus (frag. 284a [p. 99] Lasserre) in Athenaeus 9.392DE (§ 47 Kaibel). Herodotus 2.44 identifies the sacred temple in Tyre as that of Heracles (! Ã ! ∂ " Ù Â 8 b ). Cf. C. Bonnet, Melqart, Cultes et mythes de l’Héraclès tyrien en Méditerranée, Studia Phoenicia 8, Leuven 1988, 47–51 (Herodotus in Tyre), 346–71 (Phoenician Heracles in Thasos). 373 Zenobius Epit. 5.56. Mettinger, Riddle, 87 also refers to Silius Italicus’s (Punica 3.43– 44) description of Heracles’ death by fire on Mt. Oeta in Thrace that was portrayed on the doors of a temple at Gades (inter quae fulget sacratis ignibus Oete, ingentemque animam rapiunt ad sidera flammae [Amid these Oete gleams in sacred fires, and the flames raise the
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“by guile” in Tyre and notes that the godless divinize him ( P 9 Â F [a &Ó † ? (?)] ? &Ï ÕÙ !8 ! ? ).374 Nonnus’s Dionysus (while visiting Tyre)375 calls Heracles “star-clad” and “lord of fire” ( ≠ , ;5 ).376 It is possible that the Phoenician text found in Pyrgi (one of three gold plates) refers to the death of Melqart since it mentions Ashtart and “the day of the burial of the god” (bym qbr ʾlm).377 There are similarities between the Mediterranean Phoenician of the text and that of three inscriptions found in Larnax tēs Lapēthou.378 Mettinger notes that the texts from Pyrgi and Larnax all mention the month of krr, a votive statue, Ashtart, and the reference to mqm ʾlm in LL 3.1 corresponds to the mention of the burial of the god in the Pyrgi text.379 The Tyrian Heracles/Melqart’s
heroic soul to the stars]). Other references to the temple of Heracles in Gades include: Appian Iberica 2.8 (BiTeu, Gabba/Roos/Viereck), Arrian Anab. 2.16.4, Diodorus 5.20.2 and Justin 44.5.2. Cf. J. P. Brown, Cosmological Myth and the Guna of Gibraltar, TAPA 99 (1968) 37– 62, esp. 47. 374 Ps.-Clem. Recogn. 10.24.2. † ? may be a corruption in the textual tradition. Cp. the similar phrase in Ps. Caesarius, Quaest. et resp. 111 a &Ó Ü ? . The Latin version has: sed et filiorum eius, qui apud eos dii putantur, sepulcra singulis quibusque in locis manifestissime demonstrantur ... Herculis apud Tyrum, ubi igni crematus est ([“But the tombs of his sons, who are thought among them to be gods, are clearly shown in different places ... Hercules in Tyre where he was burned up”; Recogn. 10.24.2 [GCS 343 Rehm]). F. Stanley Jones (personal communication 11 Oct. 2014) informs me that both Hom. 5.23 and 6.21 describe tombs of the gods, so the reference to their tombs in the Recognitiones goes back to the Basic Writing. But since Heracles is not mentioned in the Homilia, apparently the reference to him was added by R (the author of the Recogn.). The addition in brackets seems to go back to Ps. Caesarius. In my view, it may refer to an etymological derivation of Heracles’ name (cp. Aelian V.H. 2.32 D Ï ! : (8 8 ;(! A5 [bringing kindness to people, you will have immortal glory], quoted in Etymologicum Magnum 435 Kallierges – but the etymology has been altered to a negative meaning of some sort). Etym. Magn. ibid. mentions a combination of (inglorious) and • (the goddess) or > (earth) with 8 (glory). See PG 38.993 n. 72 (on Ps. Caesarius). The editor of PG mentions > c (inglorious in the earth) as an interpretive option. 375 Nonnus Dion. 40.327. 376 Nonnus Dion. 40.367. 377 Pyrgi Inscription, lines 8–9. For the text, cf. P. C. Schmitz, The Phoenician Text from the Etruscan Sanctuary at Pyrgi, JAOS 115 (1995) 559–575, esp. 562 (he is non-committal about the identity of the god with Melqart). 378 Schmitz, The Phoenician Text, 571 and Mettinger, Riddle, 103–6. LL 1 = KAI 42, LL II = KAI 43 and LL III = A. M. Honeyman, Larnax tēs Lapēthou: A Third Phoenician Inscription, Le Muséon 51 (1938) 285–98. 379 Mettinger, Riddle, 104–5: krr is in Pyrgi line 8 and LL 3.5; a “votive statue is mentioned” in LL 2:2, 3:2 and Pyrgi line 9; “Ashtart is mentioned” in LL 3:6, 7 and Pyrgi lines 1, 6. Schmitz, The Phoenician Text, 568–70, however, shows that the Pyrgi text should not be taken to refer to a statue, but rather to “one who gives.” Consequently, mʾš is to be derived
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death by fire380 may consequently be the reference of the Pyrgi text, but certainty is elusive. The expression mqm ʾlm (resuscitator of the god) also appears in various forms, all of which occur as titles for a sacerdotal function.381 The title is associated with Melqart “according to a survey of the names of the dedicants of the inscriptions.”382 It is difficult to interpret. An inscription from Rhodes (KAI 44) mentions the “resuscitator of the god, husband of Ashtart (mqm ʾlm mtrḥ ʿštrny).383 Others include “resuscitator of the happy god” (mqm ʾlm bšʾrm),384 and “resuscitator of the god Mel(qar)t” (mqm / ʾlm ml(qr)t).385 Jean Ferron associates the last formulation with two Greek inscriptions. One mentions an individual named Martas from Philadelphia/Amman who is /[Û ] Â Ô/ð[] [I ] [] Ú / [ı & ], (“resuscitator of Heracles, councillor and proedros [president]”).386 The other is an inscription from Ramlah (not Ascalon as claimed in IGRR III 1210) in Palestine dating to 187/188 (Commodus) that mentions an Alexamenes son of from ʾw/yš and means something like “donor of [the] deity” or “donor of [an image of?] the deity” or “donor to the deity” (Schmitz, ibid., 569–70). 380 Mettinger, Riddle, 105. 381 J. Ferron, Un traité d’alliance entre Caere et Carthage contemporain des derniers temples de la royauté étrusque a Rome ou l’évènement commémoré par la quasi-bilingue de Pyrgi, ANRW I/1 (1972) 189–256, esp. 206 gathers the inscriptional evidence together for the expression. For the short form (mqm ʾlm) he lists Cyprus: Honeyman, Larnax, esp. 286,1, Carthage: KAI 70.3, CIS I, 227, 262, 377, 3788, 4863, 5953 (KAI 90), 6000; Leptis Magna: CIL VIII, 7; Caesarea/Cherchell: KAI 161.4. See the survey in É. Lipiński, La fête de l’ensevelissement et de la résurrection de Melqart, in: Actes de la XVIIe rencontre assyriologique internationale, Ham-sure-Heure 1970, 30–58, esp. 31–8 who compares the expression with [Û ] Â Ô[]. Cf. the ref. below (with a slightly different reading). 382 Cf. J. C. Greenfield, Larnax tēs Lapethou III, in: Studia Phoenicia V. Phoenicia and the East Mediterranean in the First Millennium B.C., ed. É. Lipiński, Leuven 1987, 391–402, 398 and Mettinger, Riddle 91 (who refers to KAI 70, 90, 93). In KAI 70, for example, mq[m] ʾl[m] is followed by bn ʿbdmlqrt (son of Abdmlqart = servant of Melqart). In KAI 90 bn bdmlqrt (son of Bod Melqart) is followed by mqm ʾlm. In KAI 93 bn ʿbdmlqrt hsft rb khnm (son of Abdmlqart, Sufetes and grand priest) precedes mqm ʾlm. 383 Ferron, Un traité, 206 lists 14 other inscriptions with the expression (Carthage: CIS I, 260–1, 3351–2, 4864–71, 5903, 5950 [KAI 93], 5979). 384 Ferron, Un traité, 206: CIS I, 4872.4. 385 Carthage: CIS 5980. J. Ferron, L’épitaphe punique C.I.S. 5980, CTun 19 (1975–76) 225–30. 386 Ferron, Un traité, 206. IGLSyr 21,2 29. Lipiński, La fête, 31, 56 translates the word as “resuscitator.” Cf. Bonnet, Melqart, 144–8 (who, rightfully in my view, criticizes the reconstruction in IGLSyr [P.-L. Gatier] who reads [Û ] Â [Û] “builder of a Heracleion” – which does not cohere well with an individual who is also listed as a gymnasiarch, councillor and proedros; all the terms surely refer to the individual’s offices). See also N. Riedl, Gottheiten und Kulte in der Dekapolis, Diss. Freie Universität Berlin 2003, 257–8 (who accepts Bonnet’s arguments). Cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 90–1.
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Apollodotus, son of Miltiades who was a “resuscitator” and proedros (president): [] ]/5(Ô) [ ] ]/( )&ãõ [ ® ]/Ì& [ Û] / Ô& [ & )].387 Usage in both inscriptions indicates that Û was a cultic term (“Erwecker des Herakles” awakener of Heracles) and not a reference to “temple construction.”388 Mettinger notes alternative translations: “establisher of the gods” (a person in charge of temple activities),389 “one who raises the gods (i.e., a manufacturer of idols),”390 and “one who wakens the god to salvific intervention.”391 The last option, for which Hans-Peter Müller has argued, is probably unnecessary since Baal is an example of a dying and rising god (in an attentuated sense).392 He also argues that the Hebrew qwm’s use for resurrection is late.393 Jonas S. Greenfield refers to the uses of the verb such as Is 26:14, 18 for rising after death. The verb also appears in Ps 88:11 in a phrase in which the Psalmist questions if the shades rise and in Job 14:12 that states a person does not rise after death.394 Greenfield concludes that Melqart’s worshippers conceive him “being at some point asleep or even dead requiring awakening or revival.”395 Melqart was the lord of Tyre. A weight reads LMLQRT BṢR. (to Melqart of Tyre).396 Of some relevance to the interpretation of Melqart’s apparent re387 C. Clermont-Ganneau, Inscriptions grecques de Palestine, RAO 7 (1906) 174–8, esp. 175, idem, L’inscription grecque d’Amman, RAO 8 (1924) 121–5, esp. 125. Cp. Bonnet, Melqart, 131–2. Lipiński, La fête, 56–7 notes that the Ramlah inscription refers to the cult of Heracles, because of the function (resuscitator). Both terms are also mentioned in another text: R. Boehm and W. Eck, A Building Inscription with the Name of Commodus from Askalon, ZPE 183 (2012) 179–84 (they trans. the key term as “builder” – an error in my view). 388 Riedl, Gottheiten, 257–8. She accepts Bonnet’s arguments (Melqart, 104–13) that each year in February and March there was a festival of Egersis, that comprised the burning of Melqart, the subsequent mourning, and his awakening or resurrection. 389 Honeyman, Larnax, 288. For these senses, cf. Mettinger, Riddle, 92 and J. Hoftijzer, K. Jongeling et al., Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. Parts One and Two, HO 21, Leiden 1995, 1002–3 (abbreviated as DNWSI below). 390 Mayer-Lambert according to DNWSI, 1002. 391 H. P. Müller, Der phönizisch-punische mqm ʾlm im Licht einer althebräischen Isoglosse, Orientalia 65 (1996) 111–26, esp. 121: “‘(Er-)Weckens’ des Gottes zum helfenden Eingreifen.” 392 Müller, Der phönizisch-punische mqm ʾlm, 112 is skeptical of an ancient and widely disseminated concept of a dying and rising vegetation god. Cp. Mettinger, Riddle, 93 who emphasizes the existence of such a concept for Baal. 393 Müller, Der phönizisch-punische mqm ʾlm, 112, Mettinger, Riddle, 93. 394 Greenfield, Larnax, 398–9. Mettinger, Riddle, 93–4 also mentions Hos 6:2 (he notes Müller, Der phönizisch-punische mqm ʾlm, 116 was forced to concede that point) as an exception to Müller’s view. Müller argues that the other examples used by Greenfield are late. Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.5. 395 Greenfield, Larnax, 398. 396 P. Bordreuil, Fouilles archéologiques, Syria 65 (1988) 438. Cp. H.-P. Müller, Malik DDD, 538– 42, esp. 541. See KAI 47 lʾdnn lmlqrt bʿl ṣr (to our lord Melqart, lord of Tyre).
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vival are several texts from Josephus. He refers to Menander’s account of Hiram of Tyre’s reign:397 Moreover, he went off and cut timber from the mountain called Libanos for the roofs of the temples, and pulled down the ancient temples and erected new ones to Heracles and Astarte; and he was the first to celebrate the awakening of Heracles in the month of Peritius. > [ ] — 5 !S > Ù ƒ 8 I? ∞ Ï " 8 H ! : Ï ) " Ï Ú Ù ò& Â 8 Ú F ]? , Â 8 > 7 2 9 ·398
There is a parallel text in the C. Apionem He demolished ancient temples and built new ones, both to Heracles and to Astarte. He initiated the “Awakening” of Heracles, in the month of Peritios ... ! : Ï ) " Ï Ú ˆ ò& Â 8 Ú F ]? , Â 8 > 7 2 9 ...399
John M. G. Barclay notes that the Latin translator and others have understood the text to mean “‘erection’ of a temple.”400 He argues that “it is not clear why Heracles’ temple should be so singled out (L wrongly adds a reference to Astarte’s as well ...) nor why it should be dated so precisely. Menander is probably referring to the institution of an annual festival of the ‘Awakening’ of the God ...” Mettinger makes a similar argument: “... it would be nonsensical to say that Hiram was the first who built the temple X in the month of Y, while it makes excellent sense to say that the king was the first to celebrate a certain
397
On Menander of Ephesus, cf. Flavius Josephus, Translation and Commentary. Volume 10. Against Apion, trans. and comm. J. M. G. Barclay, Leiden 2007, 72 (his date and identity are uncertain). Cf. Suda Ε § 2898 C !8 (“Menander” was one of Eratosthenes’ pupils). 398 Josephus A.J. 8.145–6 = FGrH 783 F1. Trans. of Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Books V–VIII, vol. 5, LCL, ed. and trans. H. St. J. Thackeray and R. Marcus, Cambridge, MA 1934, 649–51. 399 Josephus C. Ap. 1.118–9, trans. of Barclay, Josephus, 73. 400 Barclay, Josephus, 73. Cf. Cass. Ios. c. Ap. 1.18.119 (fecit erectionem mense Peritio; CSEL 37, 27.1 Boysen). H. St. J. Thackeray, in Josephus, 13 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. St. J. Thackeray et al., Cambridge, MA 1926, 1.211, also translated the text with “erected.” L (codex Laurentianus plut. 69 cod. 22, XI C.E.) adds ∂ Ù F ]Ì after and omits > . Eus. Chron. (Eusebi chronicorum libri duo, Berlin 1875, 1.118 Schöne) has > . On the text, cf. Flavii Iosephi Opera V, ed. B. Niese, Berlin 1889, 21, apparatus criticus. Niese retains L’s (an adverbial use).
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festival in a certain month.”401 “Resuscitation” or “resurrection” would likely be good translations for > in the texts in Josephus.402 Charles Clermont-Ganneau compares the awakening of Heracles with the opening of the temple of Serapis in Egyptian ceremony in which the hymnode of the temple of Serapis awakens the god, presumably every morning: ... the hymnode (or priest) taking water and exhibiting fire, when he stands on the threshold and wakes the god in the ancestral language of the Egyptians ... I Õ9& Ù —& Ú Ù (, ¡ /S Ú Ã& E 9 Ê∞ ( E Ù ! .403
This ceremony, according to J. Gwyn Griffiths, is probably a reference to an Egyptian rite which “was applied to statues and mummies, and in a temple context was applied to the cult-statues and also to the temple itself, the idea being that all reliefs and inscriptions became animated, as a result, by the presence of the gods.”404 Arnobius alludes to similar ceremonies: What is the meaning of those morning ditties which you sign, joining your voices to the music of the pipe? The gods above fall asleep, I suppose, and they are supposed to return to their posts. What about those slumber songs with which you bid them an auspicious good night? Quid sibi volunt excitationes illae quas canitis matutini conlatis ad tibiam vocibus? Obdormiscunt enim superi, remeare ut ad vigilias debeant. Quid dormitiones illae quibus bene ut valeant auspicabili salutatione mandatis?405
An inscription from Rhodes (quoted below)406 mentions an individual charged with “waking” Dionysus. These ceremonies may be similar to the annual “awakening” of Heracles, although in the case of Dionysus and Heracles the “waking” is of a dead god and not simply the waking of a sleeping god in a temple. It is possible, though not certain, that Eudoxus of Cnidus’s (IV C.E.) reference to the resurrection of Heracles is relevant: Eudoxus of Cnidus, in the first book of his descriptive geography of the earth, says that the Phoenicians sacrifice quails to Heracles, because when Heracles, the son of Asteria and Zeus, was going to Libya he was killed by Typhon. But when Iolaus brought him a quail and set it near him, he smelled it and came to life again. 401 Barclay, Josephus, 73–4 with ref. to Athenaeus, Deipn. 392d–e and 1 Kgs 18:27–28. Mettinger, Riddle, 90. See the extensive analysis by C. Clermont-Ganneau, L’Égersis d’Héraclès et le Réveil des dieux, RAO 8 (1924) 149–67. 402 Lipiński, La fête, 30 translates the word as “resurrection.” 403 Porphyry Abst 4.9 = Eus. P.E. 3.4.9. Clermont-Ganneau, L’Égersis, 161. Cp. Apul. Met. 11.20 (morning songs in the temple of Isis before her statue): inchoatae lucis salutationibus. 404 Griffiths, Apuleius, 274. 405 Arn. 7.32, trans. of McCracken, Arnobius, 2.514. 406 Cf. § 8.
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@–&5 &í ¡ & :9 F & ˆ j 8 ! 2 Â ) ƒ &Ï Ù Ù Â 8 Ù ] Ú Ù ∞ I !F Ó ÕÙ P( , ∏ ? &í Ã2 8 ƒ Ú ¿( !8 I .407
I in context clearly implies that Heracles was raised from the dead. Zenobius’s (II C.E.) tradition is quite similar to that of Eudoxus: A quail saved the mighty Heracles: this [maxim] is not found among any of the ancients. It is uttered concerning those who are saved from things that they had not hoped [to be saved from]. Eudoxus says that Heracles of Tyre was killed by Typhon. But Iolaus, doing everything to raise Heracles, burned the quail – in which Heracles took joy – alive. Heracles came to life because of the odor of the savory meat. È 5 > Â F Ù : — í Ã& Ú . 8 &Ó Ú 8 (í „ Ã 4 . jÚ &Ó @–&5 Â 8 Ù P ÕÙ P( &(! FH Ù ∏ &Ó b ? &Ï Ù F Ù Â 8, Ù ƒ , Ä > Â F, H &Ó F I Ù Â 8.408
Zenobius was a “sophist of the time of Hadrian.”409 It is at least curious that he adds a detail and thus supplies an additional verb for the resurrection of the dead Heracles (F), which he uses synonymously with I . Eustathius (XII C.E.) has a similar tradition: The ancient noted that there are different Heracles, as has been mentioned before – of whom one was the son of Zeus and Asteria, who when going to Libya was killed by Typhon, but when Iolaus brought a quail to him he smelled it and came to life again. For they say that he rejoiced while going about with this animal and that at that time only Heracles was made a god by the poet. &Ó " Ú, ≈ &?( Â ), › Ú ÒX8!, „ ∑ Ú ¡ Ù Ú ] , ≈ ( ∞ I W 8! Ó ÕÙ P( , ∏ ? &í Ã2 ƒ ¿( ! Ú I . > ? ( Ú S 2 Z9 9, Ú ≈ ! Ï 2 E ! Ù Â F 8 .410
These narratives of Eudoxus and Zenobius and the summary by Eustathius clearly show that there was an ancient belief in Tyrian Heracles’ resurrection. 407 Athenaeus 9.392DE (§ 47 Kaibel) = Eudoxus frag. 284a (p. 99) Lasserre. Although Mller, Der phönizisch-punische mqm ʾlm, 115, calls this account ìrichly apocryphal,î it does illustrate the existence of the tradition in some circles. Burkert, Structure and History, 188 is more careful: ìThere is Greek evidence for a ëresurrectioní of Melqart-Heracles, Eudoxus fr. 284 Lasserre Öî 408 Zenobius Epit. 5.56. This is transmitted also under the name of Diogenianus, Ep. (Cent.) 3.49. Both are Eudoxus frag. 284b Lasserre (p. 99). Chrysocephalus (XIV C.E.) Paroemiae 6.46 also transmits the maxim, as does [Herodianus] Excerpta e Herodiano frag. 100 (Le “Philétaeros” attribué à Hérodien, CUFr, ed. Α. Dain, Paris 1954). 409 W. M. Edwards, R. Browning, and N. Wilson, Paroemiographers, 4OCD, 1084. 410 Eustathius ad Od. 11.600 (1.400 Stallbaum).
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One can infer that Melkart consequently experienced a resurrection, but the inference is not proven. The Greek texts and the Phoenician/Punic material do seem to support the thesis that Melqart died and came alive. A stone vase, fifteen cm high, found near Sidon in the nineteenth century (Berlin Museum VA 569, now lost) has often been interpreted in light of the foregoing evidence (see images 4–7).411 If one reads the four sides of the vase right to left the following scheme emerges: (image 4) a figure standing on a podium apparently in flames; (image 5) an object under a depiction of a winged sun that may be a tomb; two figures stand on each side, one of whom holds a lituus; the other holds a staff with a circle on the top412; (image 6) a “pyre” or “thymiaterion?” with a horned individual on the right with a sceptre and one on the left who also holds a sceptre; (image 7) a figure standing on a small podium that may be an “epiphany of the god.” Two stars are above on his right and left. Two smaller figures stand to the god’s right and left and underneath is an individual who holds grain in one hand and who may hold birds in the other. Underneath is an inscription that apparently reads bʿl kr.413 The phrase has been interpreted as “lord of the pasture,” “Baal Kura,” or “lord of the furnace.”414 “Furnace” resembles the iconography of the bowl best according to Mettinger. He compares the possible depiction of birds with the quail in Eudoxus’s narrative and 411 See also the drawing of R. Pietschmann, Geschichte der Phönizier, Berlin 1889, 225 (reproduced by Mettinger, Riddle, 100). Cf. Lipiński, La fête, esp. 43–6 (translates bʿl kr as “lord of the furnace”), R. D. Barnett, Ezekiel and Tyre, ErIs ( )ארץ ישראל9 (1969) 6–13 [ Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies, vol. 9, W. F. Albright Volume], and Mettinger, Riddle, 98–103. 412 R. du Mesnil du Buisson, Nouvelles études sur les dieux et les mythes de Canaan, Leiden 1973, xxi believes that the figure with the lituus is Shaḥar (Dawn) and the other is Shalim (Evening). 413 I take the description from Mettinger, Riddle, 99–100. 414 Mettinger, Riddle, 101 with ref. to Barnett, Ezekiel, 10–11 (pasture), Lipiński, La fête, 43 (furnace). Another option is Baal Kura (Kura being a god). DNWSI p. 534, s.v. kr4 mentions other objects with the same inscription and gives “furnace” or “pasturage” as possible translations. Lipiński (Lipiński, review of Mettinger, 482–3) believes “Kura” is now the best interpretation, but does see a connection between the vase and Heracles. He is unable, however, to show that the iconography of the vase (with its apparent conflagration) applies to Kura. André Lemaire et al. interpret bʿl kr in an inscription from Çineköy as a toponym, which should not be translated. Cf. R. Tekoglu, A. Lemaire, I. Ipek, and T. Kasim, La bilingue royale louvito-phénicienne de Çineköy, CRAI, 144 (2000) 961–1007, esp. 1000. Lemaire (ibid., 1000) is also somewhat sceptical about the reading of the Sidon vase. Cp. the argument of Pierre Bordreuil with regard to another inscription with the same expression (P. Bordreuil, La ville de KR et l’expulsion de Masana’zemis dans l’inscription phénicienne de Cebelireis Dağı, Semitica et Classica 3 [2010] 227–233). He (ibid., 229) interprets KR (line 2A) as the name of a city, which was the seat of BʿL KR (line 5B). He dates the Sidon vase to IV B.C.E. and argues that it is difficult to identify Kurra, the Eblaite god, the god of the Çineköy inscription and that of an inscription from Karatepe with the god of the vase.
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the reference to fire in the vase’s inscription with Nonnus’s description of Heracles as ;5 (lord of fire), but he admits that the god could be Eshmun or a syncretistic combination of Eshmun and Melqart.415 A recently discovered inscription in Ibiza begins with a dedication to “the lord EshmunMelqart” (lʾdn . lʾšmnmlqr/t).416 If fire is the correct translation, then the comparison is apt that Françoise Briquel-Chattonet makes between the vase’s inscription and the sacrifice that must be burned by fire in the encounter between Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 18:25-38).417 She also notes that there is a very close connection between the iconography of the vase and the depiction of fire on a pillar which appears on a royal Tyrian seal. Its inscription should probably be read: lmlk ṣrm (“belonging to the king of the Tyrians”).418 Above the pillar is a set of rays that is probably fire. On the left and right are tables over which are a crescent moon (left) and a radiating star (right). A winged disk is at the top.419 Pierre Bordreuil argues that there are four iconographic similarities between both the vase and the seal: the fire above the pillar on the seal and on the vase (image 6);420 the winged disk on the seal and on the vase above the “tomb of Melqart” (image 5); on the seal and on the vase (image 4) there is a crescent moon; and a radiant star is on the seal and on the vase (image 7).421
8 Dionysus Wedderburn notes that there are many Dionysi, quoting Cicero. 415 Mettinger, Riddle, 98, 102–3. In ibid., 161 he refers to some Cypriot inscriptions that combine the names of both gods (ʾšmn mlqrt). Cf. M. G. Amadasi Guzzo and V. Karageorgis, Fouilles de Kition III. Inscriptions phéniciennes, Nicosia 1977, A 3:8; A 5 (B); A 10–15, 25 (?); D 10 (?). Ref. from M. G. Amadasi Guzzo and P. Xella, Eshmun-Melqart in una nuova iscrizione fenicia di Ibiza, Studi epigrafici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico 22 (2005) 47–57, esp. 49 (who dates the Kition inscriptions to IV B.C.E.). 416 Amadasi Guzzo and Xella, Eshmun-Melqart, 49. They date the inscription to VII B.C.E. (ibid. 48) and (ibid. 49) argue that it may indicate a veneration of the gods of both Sidon (i.e., Eshmun) and Tyre (Melqart). 417 F. Briquel-Chatonnet, Les relations entre les cités de la côte phénicienne et les royaumes d’Israël et de Juda, OLA 46, Leuven 1991, 306–7 (she thinks the vase is “undoubtedly” part of the Melqart cult). She translates it as “Seigneur du pyrée” (lord of the fire altar), which she interprets to mean “lord of fire.” 418 Briquel-Chatonnet, Les relations, 307. Cf. P. Bordreuil, Charges et fonctions en SyriePalestine d’après quelques sceaux ouest-sémitiques du second et du premier millénaire, CRAI 130 (1986) 298–305 (Louvre AO 3175). 419 Bordreuil, Charges, 298–9 (photograph on 299). 420 Bordreuil, Charges, 301 thinks it could be a figurative representation of the pyre of Melqart (lord of fire) who is himself consumed by fire according to Ezek 28:18. 421 Bordreuil, Charges, 301.
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We have a number of Dionysi. The first is the son of Jupiter and Proserpine; the second of Nile – he is the fabled slayer of Nysa. The father of the third is Cabirus; it is stated that he was king over Asia, and the Sabazia were instituted in his honour. The fourth is the son of Jupiter and Luna; the Orphic rites are believed to be celebrated in his honour. The fifth is the son of Nisa and Thyone, and it is believed to have established the Trieterid festival. Dionysos multos habemus, primum Iove et Proserpina natum, secundum Nilo, qui Nysam dicitur interemisse, tertium Cabiro patre, eumque regem Asiae praefuisse dicunt, cui Sabazia sunt instituta, quartum Iove et Luna, cui sacra Orphica putantur confici, quintum Nyso natum et Thyone, a quo trieterides constitutae putantur.422
Dionysus, in the various forms of the myth (including the Orphic) was dismembered by the Titans as an infant. In the British Museum there is a Greek red figure hydria (ca 480-450 BCE) that apparently depicts the Titans’ dismemberment and eating of the infant Zagreus: “In centre, en face, a bearded Titan ... eats a limb which with his r. he has torn from the corpse of a boy which he holds on l. arm ... On l. Dionysos ..., holding in r. thyrsos, looks on with l. hand raised, as if in surprise.”423 In the Orphic version Athena “preserves the heart.”424 422 Wedderburn, Resurrection, 193. Cic. N.D. 3.58, trans. of Cicero, De natura deorum. Academica, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA 1933, 343. On Dionysus, cf. Leipoldt, Sterbende und auferstehende Götter, 24–5. In the discussion below I will occasionally refer to the edition of O. Kern, ed. Orphicorum fragmenta, Berlin 1922, but normally use that of A. Bernabé, ed., Poetae epici graeci testimonia et fragmenta. Pars II. Orphicorum et orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta, fasc. 1–3, BiTeu, Munich 2004–7 (cited as Bernabé with ref. to Dionysus). 423 C. H. Smith, Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum. Vol. III, Vases of the Finest Period, London 1896, E 246, p. 188. Cp. H. P. Walters, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain. Fascicle 8, British Museum Fascicle 6, London 1931, III Ic Pl. 100,2. Museum number 1885 1213.20. Cf. A. Henrichs, 11. Dionysos Dismembered and Returned to Life: The Earliest Evidence (OF 59 I–II), in: Tracing Orpheus. Studies of Orphic Fragments, ed. M. Herrero de Jáuregui, Sozomena 10, Berlin 2011, 61–8. To my knowledge, this vase is not discussed in the entries on Dionysios in the LIMC (C. Gasparri and A. Veneri, Dionysios, LIMC 3.1 [1998] 414–514, § 664–817 [“life of Dionysios”] and Gasparri, Dionysos/Bacchos, ibid., 540–66), nor is it cited by R. Lindner, Zagreus, LIMC 8.1 (1997) 305–6. 424 M. L. West, The Orphic Poems, Oxford 1983, 74, 162 with ref to Orphica frag. 35, 210, 214 (Kern) among other texts. Cf. Firm. Err. 6.4, Proclus In Plat. Tim. comm. 35a (2.145 Diehl) = frag. 314 (i) Bernabé, Clem. of Alex. Protrept. 2.18.1–2 = frag. 315 (i), 312 (i), 318 (i) Bernabé (the heart still palpitates, but Apollo buries the limbs of Dionysus in Parnassus [cf. the ref. to Orpheus in 2.17.2]), Scholia in Lycophr. 355. Cp. Proclus Hymni 7.11 = frag. 327 (ii) Bernabé & ? (Athena: “saving his heart”), C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus sive theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis, Königsberg 1839, I.547–61. Kern frag. 214, which includes Firm. Err. 6.3 = frag. 313 (iii) Bernabé Cor diuisum sibi soror seruat (cui Minerua fuit nomen) [the heart which had been divided up for her, his sister saved, whose name was Minerva], Proclus Hymni 7.14, and Nonn. 24.48–49 = frag. 326 (iii) Bernabé Ï / & 8 &8 (you [Zagreus] have sprung up from the heart of the original Dionysus, who is praised) (West, Orphic Poems,74 “But from the heart a new Dionysus is given life”).
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Alberto Bernabé summarizes the myth of Dionysus from the Orphic Rhapsodies. Dionysus’s first mother was Persephone, and the Titans tore him apart and consumed the youth. Athena saved the heart, which was probably consumed in a potion by Semele (his second mother). After Semele was destroyed by Zeus’s appearance, Zeus placed the babe in his thigh, and so Dionysus was born a third time.425 Hyginus preserves elements of the complete myth: Liber, son of Jupiter and Proserpine was ripped apart by the Titans. Jupiter ground up his heart, put it in a potion, and gave it to Semele to drink. When she became pregnant from this, Juno took the form of Beroe, Semele’s nurse, and said to her, “Dear child, ask Jupiter to come to you as he comes to Juno, so that you may know how great a pleasure it is to lie with a god.” Prodded in this fashion she asked Jupiter to do so and was struck by a thunderbolt. Jupiter took Liber out of her womb and gave him to Nysus to raise. This is why he is called Dionysus and Twice-mothered. 1 Liber Iouis et Proserpinae filius a Titanis est distractus, cuius cor contritum Iouis Semele dedit in potionem. 2 ex eo praegnans cum esset facta, Iuno in Beroen nutricem Semeles se commutauit et ait, “Alumna, pete a Ioue ut sic ad te ueniat quemadmodum ad Iunonem, ut scias quae uoluptas est cum deo concumbere.” 3 illa autem instigata petit ab Ioue, et fulmine est icta; ex cuius utero Liberum exuit et Nyso dedit nutriendum, unde Dionysus est appellatus et bimater est dictus.426
Most of the Orphic myth as reconstructed by Bernabé is here. Proclus, in his hymn to Athena, writes, You, who saved the heart, which had not been cut to small pieces, of lord Bacchus in the vault of heaven, when he was once torn apart by the hands of the Titans, and brought to his father, / in order that, through the ineffable wishes of his begetter, / a new Dionysus would grow again from Semele around the cosmos. ` & ? ; ∞!8 ? 8 Ó M? P7 ÕÙ , &8 / Ú (8 , ƒ( 8 I E Õí 7 F 8 Ú I7W ·427
Rudolphus M. Berg notes that Proclus “had himself been initiated into the Orphic teachings.”428 425 A. Bernabé, Nacimientos y muertes de Dioniso en los mitos órficos, in: En los límites de Dioniso, ed. C. Sánchez Fernández and P. Cabrera Bonet, Murcia 1998, 29–39, esp. 32–6, with multiple references. 426 Hyg. 167 = frag. 327 Bernabé, trans. of R. S. Smith and S. M. Trzaskoma, Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae. Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Indianapolis 2007, 153. Cp. Lucian Salt. 39 = frag. 327 (vi) Bernabé and Proclus In Tim. 30Β (1.407 Diehl) = frag. 329 Bernabé. 427 Proclus Hymni 7.11–15, trans. of R. M. Berg, Proclus’ Hymns. Essays, Translations, Commentary, PhAnt 90, Leiden 2001, 287–88. 428 Berg, Proclus, 288.
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M. L. West comments on the difference between the Orphic version and the others: There appears to have been a significant difference between the Orphic narrative and the non-Orphic account followed by Diodorus, Philodemus, and Cornutus over the manner in which Dionysus was restored to life. In the latter, his limbs were fitted together by RheaDemeter and he was reborn (as it seems) in the same body or at least on the same skeleton. But in the Orphic version it is clear that he was remade from the living heart which Athena saved: the rest of his limbs, in so far as they were not eaten by the Titans, were interred by Apollo in the tomb at Delphi.429
Bernabé, however, argues that both versions are Orphic and that the version in which Rhea-Demeter features is one influenced by Egypt.430 Diodorus Siculus gives an account in which Dionysus experiences a new birth: And though the writers of myths have handed down the account of a third birth as well, at which, as they say, the Sons of Gaia tore to pieces the god, who was a son of Zeus and Demeter, and boiled him, but his members were brought together again by Demeter and he experienced a new birth as if for the first time, such accounts as this they trace back to certain causes found in nature. & & &Ó ! ?( Ú 8 , !í • ( Ù ! Ù Ù Ú 7 !8 &!F Ó ÕÙ Ú ! !F, ? &í ÕÙ F 7 !8 5 F 8 !F, ∞ (? ∞ ? ˆ .431
Diodorus’s mythographers interpret the myth in this fashion: the harvesting of the grapes (i.e., Dionysus “torn apart”), and the restoration of the members of the youthful god refers to the restoration of the harvested vine.432 Philodemus (ca 110–40/35 B.C.E.) has a similar version: [concerning the three births] the first, that from his mother, the second, that from the thigh, the third when torn apart by the Titans, Rhea put his members together and he re-
429 West, Orphic Poems, 161–2, cp. 151. Cf. Diod. Sic. 3.62.6 = frag. 59 (iii) Bernabé, Cornutus p. 62.10–11 Lang = frag. 59 (iv) Bernabé ! ) &í ≈ &! Ú ÕÙ P? 8! ? ÕÙ F ç8 (it is said in the myth that he was torn apart by the Titans and put together again by Rhea). 430 Bernabé, Nacimientos, 36. 431 Diodorus Sic. 3.62.6, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 2.287. Origen Cels. 4.17 = frag. 326 (iv) Bernabé has a similar version in which he compares the incarnation to the less respectable fate of Dionysus: … ( ) ÕÙ P? 8 Ú Ù Ù ! Ú 8 Õí Ã Ú Ï ? ! 8 Ú " Ú I: Ú I ∞ Ã ; ([will not these doctrines] seem more majestic than Dionysus deceived by the Titans, leaving Zeus’s throne, being torn apart by them, and after all that being put back together and apparently coming back to life and ascending into heaven?). 432 Diod. Sic. 3.62.7.
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turned to life. Euphorion433 agrees with these [details] in his Mopsopia. The Orphics discuss it in many places. [ ˘ ˜]/ F [ ı,] / /Ô &Ó [ ] Û]/ &Ó [ ≈ &]/! Ú Õ[Ù / ] PÌ ç[() Ï] / Ô ! [Ú] / IÛ []. Ú [ ] / ®[] &ª @Ã[( ]/ [¡] ) []/H ["] &ª Δ [(Ú] / Ú ?[] / & [I]434
Albert Henrichs argues that the references in the text to Euphorion and the “potentially older” Orphika indicate that this version of the myth has its origins “in the earliest Hellenistic period and beyond.”435 It is possible, according to Bernabé, that either Dionysus is not the son of Persephone in this version (and Semele or Tione is his mother) or that the theme of the gestation in the thigh has been mingled with the other version (presumably the birth from Persephone).436 Another fragment of Philodemus’s On Piety is similar: Some say that after his dismemberment by the Titans, his limbs were gathered together by Rhea, and after his wounds [were cured he returned to life] Ó &Ó Ú / Ù ı Ï / Ù ÕÙ PÌ/ &Ù / !Ô / / Ú ÕÙ F çÔ / Ì / [! !Ô I Ô ]437
This is also an affirmation of a resurrection of the god. One can debate how ancient the ritual in Delphi was to awaken Dionysus that was quoted above, and which I will repeat here.438 Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has been stated, point out the tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the [female] devotees of Dionysus wake the God of the Mystic Basket [Liknites].
433
Euphorion (b. 275 B.C.E.) frag. 53 (L. A. de Cuenca, ed., Euforion de Calcis, fragmentos y epigramas, Madrid 1976, 137). 434 Philodemus Piet. P. Herc. 247 col. iii, 4–8 (16 Gomperz) = frag. 59 (i) Bernabé. Reconstruction above from: https://dclp.github.io/dclpxsltbox/output/dclp/63/62400.html, although I have not adopted the cjs. Δ [( ˆ ? ] and & [I (] from the DCLP. Cf. Henrichs, Dionysos Dismembered, 63 (forthcoming ed. by D. Obbink). 435 Henrichs, Dionysos, 65–6. 436 Bernabé, Nacimientos, 37. 437 Philodemus Piet. P. Herc. 1088 col. xi,14–21 (47 Gomperz) = frag. 59 (ii) Bernabé. Cf. https://dclp.github.io/dclpxsltbox/output/dclp/63/62400.html, from whence I take the reconstruction. Trismegistos 6400 = LDAB 3563. Gomperz, ibid., includes the conjecture ! !Ô I in his apparatus (as the next line). Bernabé does not include the conjecture in his edition, but does include it in his article (Nacimientos, 36). 438 Cf. § 4. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries, 38–41 was apparently sceptical of the antiquity of the tradition.
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¡ &Ó Ú Ï Ú Ï (?. | Ê∞ Ï Δ & !7, · N , & , Ú (Ú Ï í Ã) Ï Ù 7 )! , Ú ! " ≈ ! 2 " 2 ] , ≈ " ?& Ù .439
The tradition comes from a Hellenistic historian whom Plutarch identifies as “Socrates.”440 Étienne Coche de la Ferté claims that Plutarch was an initiate of Dionysus and so knew what he was talking about, but his claim unfortunately cannot be verified.441 He sees in the text characteristics of a dying and rising god. Martin Nilsson argues that the passage gives one the impression “that Plutarch has in mind not the awakening of a sleeping god but the raising of him from the dead.”442 It is important that the verb for “raising” the dead Dionysus is one of those frequently used in the NT for resurrection ( ). Paolo Corrente compares the vision of a sleeping Dionysus with one of the Orphic Hymns:443 439 Plutarch Is. Os. 35 364F–365A, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.87. Cp. Schol. in Lyc. 207: " Pa Ï 8 ?5 ] & (2 ƒ Ã 8! I 8I, ¡ &Ó Ï 2 & 8! · ( (fr. 643 Pfeiffer) Ú @Ã( 8
i Ú M? & ÕÓ (? I? (The Titans, having rent asunder Dionysus’s limbs, placed them in a cauldron and gave them to Apollo his brother; he put them besides the tripod as Callimachus says and Euphorion who says that they cast Bacchus in the fire over the divine bowl). J. L. Lightfoot corrects Euphorion to read ( Ú M? &) Õ (? I? [Into the fire those arrogant beings cast divine Bacchus], her trans.). Cf. Hellenistic Collection. Philitas, Alexander of Aetolia, Hermesianax, Euphorion, Parthenius, LCL, ed. and trans. J. L. Lightfoot, Cambridge, MA 2009, 227–8, frag. 14. W. Burkert, Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrifice and Myth, Berkeley et al. 1983, 124–5 writes, with ref. to Is. Os. 365A, that “the act of killing in the shrine corresponds to caring for the newborn child in the female realm …” 440 Presumably he is Socrates of Argos (II B.C.E.), cf., Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside, 84. 441 É. Coche de la Ferté, Penthée et Dionysus: Nouvel essai d’interprétation des ‘Bacchantes’ d’Euripide, in: Recherches sur les religions de l’Antiquité classique, ed. R. Bloch, PCHRP III 10, Geneva 1980, 105–257, esp. 162. Professor Lieve van Hoof (5 Oct. 2014) kindly shared the following information with me: “1. Plutarch presents himself as being present at the Athenian Dionysia when his friend Philopappus was agonothete (probably 96/7), as described in Quaest. Conv. 628A–B; 2. In An. corp. 501E–F Plutarch (or rather the speaker of the text) refers to nocturnal celebrations in honour of Dionysus. But neither reference seems to suggest that Plutarch was at all an initiate.” The epithet Liknites for Dionysus (god in the liknon) appears also in Orphei hymni 46,1 and 52,3. Hesychius (Lexikon § 1016) defines it as an epithet of Dionysus, from the baskets in which children sleep (H ! H Ù , ∑ Ï & ). 442 Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, 39–40. Nilsson (ibid., 96, 112–5) includes an image of a mosaic from Cuicul in Algeria (III C.E.) in which a woman holds a large phallus in a “liknon which stands before her.” 443 P. Corrente, Dioniso y los Dying gods; parallelos metodológicos, Diss. Universidad Complutense de Madrid 2013, 294–5.
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I call upon Bacchos, appearing every second year, the chthonian Dionysos, aroused together with fair-haired nymphs, who, reposing in the holy house of Persephone, sleeps a holy Bacchic time of two years, but when he again aroused the trieteric revel he turns to a hymn with his fair-girdled nurses, now lulling to sleep, now arousing the times as the seasons wheel by. ]( F 8 M?, ! , b ( Ã ?, √ Ï ( " ) & ∞ F , M7 U . ÃÙ &í Ù F ? , ∞ — 8 ˆ : !7 Ã? Ú ? · .444
Nilsson’s comment is that “This god is not the god awakened every spring but the god of the orgia, which were celebrated every second year, and he rises from the realm of the dead, where he sleeps a time of two years.”445 MarieChristine Fayant translates the epithet ]( F as “annual,” although for confirmation of the Orphic origin of another text,446 she cites Firmicus Maternus “according to whom, after the Titans put Dionysus to death, the Cretans celebrate a festival every two years in which they carry the heart of the dead god which Athena saved, in a cista.”447 The date of composition of the hymns is highly contested, but on the basis of certain arguments that I will not repeat here, Apostolos N. Athanassakis believes that they may date to the “second part of the third century AD.” Fayant writes, however, that most scholars date them to the late second century or early third.448 From a philological perspective the use of the verbs and is intriguing. The first is a “later form” of Û according to 444
Orphei hymni 53, trans. of Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, 40. Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, 40. Cp. M.-C. Fayant, Hymnes orphiques, CUFr, Paris 2014, 431, 434. 446 Olympiodorus In Platon Phaed. B × (BiTeu 87 Norvin) = fr. 350 Bernabé = fr. 232 Kern. L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo, vol. 2, Amsterdam 1977, 34–5 cites this text as Damascius In Phaedonem 1.11. 447 Fayant, Hymnes orphiques, 432–4 with ref. to Firm. Err. 6.2–5 and Olympiodorus. She believes that the text of Olympiodorus refers to the legend of the Titans, but the Orphic hymn refers to “the birth of the son of Semele” and that there is contamination between the Orphic myth of the murder by the Titans and the non-Orphic myth of Dionysus’s sojourn in Hades after Semele was destroyed by Zeus’s lightning bolt. I am unsure that one can distinguish the two versions of the myth so clearly. She translates · (8W in Olympiodorus as “biannual seasons,” although Westerink, Greek Commentaries, 2.34 translates it as “yearly, in season.” Clearly, there is some ambiguity. In Orphei hymni 52.9 Dionysus is “the child of two mothers” ( &? ). The Orphic author of the hymns had no difficulty including a reference to the death of Semele. 448 A. N. Athanassakis, The Orphic Hymns, Atlanta 1977, viii and Fayant, Hymnes orphiques, xxix–xxx. F. Graf and S. I. Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife. Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets, London 2007, 79 date them to the second century also. 445
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LSJ, and clearly refers to the rousing or raising of Dionysus from Hades, although the object of the second use of the verb is the festival which Dionysus himself arouses. Plutarch also compares the transformations of Apollo to those of Dionysus: And as for his turning into winds and water, earth and stars, and into the generations of plants and animals, and his adoption of such guises, they speak in a deceptive way of what he undergoes in his transformation as a tearing apart, as it were, and a dismemberment. They give him the names of Dionysus, Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes; they construct destructions and disappearances, followed by returns to life and the generations – riddles and fabulous tales quite in keeping with the aforesaid transformations. ... F &í ∞ Ú —& Ú F Ú ; Ú ( Z 8 F Ã Ú &7 Ù Ó ?! Ú I & Ú & Ù ∞, &Ó Ú ¸ 8 Ú T8 Ú ∏& ÃÙ ¿? Ú (! ? Ú (ˆ ∂ &í I: Ú
∞ ) ) ∞ 8 I ) ∞ Ú ! ·449
The people and council of Rhodes (after 212 C.E.) honored a priest of Bacchus/Dionysus who had given 360 drachmas to the individual charged with “waking” Dionysus: having given to the hydraulic organist who wakes the god 360 drachmas, and to those who sing hymns to the god each month 40, and for the two descents/returns of the god ... &ı &Ó Ú 2 Õ& ˜ W 2 Û / [Ù] ! Ù ö5ö Ú ) Ù ! Ù Õ Ï / [F] ö, Ú ) ! &Ó !ı& &Ú )450
These ceremonies may be similar to the annual “awakening” of Heracles, although in Heracles’ (and probably Dionysus’s) case the awakening is of a god who had died and not merely a ceremony designed to animate a statue. In the case of Dionysus, Nilsson believes that the two ascents are Dionysus’s “rebirth after his being dismembered by the Titans and his ascent with Semele.”451 Û certainly resembles the NT’s favorite verb for resurrection ( Û ). Ana Isabel Jiménez compares the awakening to the trieteric revel mentioned above in the Orphic hymn and to the god’s three births.452 One of those births clearly includes his rebirth or what I prefer to call “resur-
449
Plutarch E Delph. 9, 389A, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia 5.223. REG 17 (1904) 203,1b. Cf. A. I. Jiménez San Cristóbal, El culto de Baco en una inscripción rodia del s. II–III d. C., SMSR 76 (2007) 135–64. 451 Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries, 41. Pausanias, Descr. 2.31.2 recounts Dionysus’s rescue of Semele from Hades. 452 Jiménez San Cristóbal, El culto, 143–5 (birth from Semele, from Zeus’s thigh [see Euripides Bacch. 94–8], and the birth after his dismemberment by the Titans (ibid., 141 with ref. to hymn. Bacch. 1.11–2 and cp. 150–1). 450
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rection” after being murdered by the Titans. The awakening refers to his return from Hades.453 The rhetor Himerius (ca 310-390) describes the Titans’ desire to rend Bacchus. They only succeed in wounding him. Zeus’s response is: ¡ Ï ¸ ˆ /: ?, Ú Ù , › , Pa Ï ! ! (For Zeus observing saw all these things, and after raising Dionysus, according to the story from the myths, he drove the Titans away).454 Although this is not technically a scene of resurrection, the use of the verb is important. Justin’s description of Dionysus’s fate has been reviewed above (§ 1.3).
9 Asclepius Eshmun Mettinger notes that Eshmun was the god of Sidon.455 Sergio Ribichini writes that he was the Phoenician god of health whose name perhaps derives from the stem ŠMN meaning “fatness” or “health.”456 Eshmunazar II of Sidon “(c. 465–451?) built or reconstructed sanctuaries for Ashtart, Eshmun and Baal” and “Bodashtart of Sidon (c. 451–?) for Reshef and Eshmun.”457 Philo Byblos has several traditions of an Eastern Asclepius: And these things, he says, were recorded first by Suduc’s seven sons the Cabeiri, and their eighth brother Asclepius, as the god Tauthus commanded them.
453 Jiménez San Cristóbal, El culto, 146. She notes that the Ì!& can mean “descent” or “return.” 454 Himerius Decl. 45 Colonna. His dates are from R. Browning, Himerius, 4OCD, 685. 455 Mettinger, Riddle, 155 with ref. to KAI 14.14–18. In KAI 66 (a dedication of an altar by a slave named Cleon), from S. Nicolò Gerrei in Sardinia, an inscription from II BCE in Latin, Punic, and Greek identifies Eshmun (
) with Ascelpius Merre (] Û9 ® ) and notes that Eshmun had heard his voice and healed him: [ ]
. Cf. S. Ribichini, Eshmun, DDD, 306–9, esp. 307. A Phoenician inscription from Cyprus, CIS 1 § 41.,3 has (lord of healing) but no mention of Eshmun. 456 Ribichini, Eshmun, 307. 457 F. G. Maier, Cyprus and Phoenicia, CAH2 6 (1994) 297–336, esp. 323. The evidence for Eshmunazar’s temple is KAI 14, 15–18 and for Bodastart’s temple cf. KAI 15, 16 (“on the left bank of the Nahr Bisri (M ı) 5 km. N of Sidon):
(“He built this temple to his god Eshmun” trans. and quote from J. P. Brown, Israel and Hellas, BZAW 231, Berlin 1995, 36). Brown thinks the site is Strabo’s (16.2.22) “grove of Asclepius (] Û ; ). He notes that a pilgrim saw a river called “Asclepius” in Sidon (illic currit fluuius Asclepius in an anonymous pilgrim’s account: Anton. 2a [CChr.SL 175, 158 Geyer]).
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&Ó (() ? Õ " /Ï &Ó )& ?I Ú ¡ ƒ & Ã & (Ù ] , › Ã) ! Ù P?.458
Baumgarten shows that Philo’s Sydyk () is a god “associated with Shamash [the Sun].”459 There is a story of revival, close to a resurrection, in a Phoenician tradition found in Damascius’s Life of Isidore. The Asclepius of Berytus is neither Greek nor Egyptian but a local Phoenician [god]. Sadycus had children who are identified with the Dioscuri and the Cabeiri; after them the eighth child was Eshmun who is identified with Asclepius. Being an extremely beautiful young man, ravishing to the eye, he was loved, according to the myth, by the Phoenician goddess Astronoe, the Mother of the gods. He was hunting, as was his custom, in these glens when he saw the goddess chasing after him; as she continued her pursuit and was about to catch him, he fell into a state of frenzy and cut off his own organs of procreation with an axe. Devastated by grief at this misfortune, the goddess summoned Paean and, reviving the youth with her life-giving warmth, she made him a god, called by the Phoenicians Eshmun after the warmth of life. Others however interpret the name “Eshmun” as “eighth” because he was the eighth son of Sadycus. ≈ ¡ M 2, (, ] Ù Ã > Æ Ã&Ó Ê∞ , ? : j)5. &9 Ï 8 )& , œ / Ú I . ƒ & &Ó 8 Ú ¡ û, √ ] Ù / . ” ? Ë !8 Ú ∞& ) 5? , : 8 , · ( ¡ !, ] ! j, Ù ! . ∞ !: ) )& ) ?, & ! ? ! Ù ÃÙ Ú ( &: Ú 4& 8, 8 8 ÃÙ Õ & (. &Ó 2 ?! 7, Ú a 8, Ù E 9 !8 W 7460 ! Ù , û ÕÙ j ‹8 Ú E !8 W F F. " &Ó Ù û ƒ & 5 / ≈ ƒ & D 2 &9 ).461
458
Philo Byblos FGrH 790F, 2.38 = Eusebius P.E. 1.10.38, trans. of Gifford, Eusebius 3.1, 44. Cp. FGrH 790F, 2.25 = Eusebius P.E. 1.10.25 &9 &8, 2 89 &9, P& ! ¹ Ù ] (“And one of the Titanides united to Suduc, who is named the Just, gives birth to Asclepius,” Gifford, Eusebius 3.1, 42; Jacoby has & ). Cf. Baumgarten, Phoenician History, 176–7. Pausanias 7.23.7–8 has a passage in which a Sidonian in an Asklepeion in Achaia identifies Asclepius with the air (] Ù Ó Ï 8 ), the son of Apollo the sun (] &Ó • ). 459 Baumgarten, The Phoenician History, 175–6 and see RS 24.271, discussed in M. C. Astour, Some New Divine Names from Ugarit, JAOS 86 (1966) 277–84, esp. 282–3: Ṣdq Mšr (Righteousness Justice). These are “Philo’s sixth pair of primeval brothers, Misôr and Sydyk.” They are “personified as sons of Šamaš [Sun], the god of justice.” Cf. Philo Byblos FGrH 790F, 2.13 = Eus. P.E. 1.10.13. 460 Cp. the use of this verb in 2 Tim 1:6. 461 Damascius Vita Isidori frag. 142B (314 Athanassiadi) = frag. 348 Zintzen, trans. of Athanassiadi, Damascius, 315.
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Albert Baumgarten believes Damascius might have taken the narrative from “an unrecognized fragment” of Philo Byblos.462 He notes, however, that it “is impossible to prove that Damascius must have derived his information from Philo. Moreover, Damascius’ report that Asklepios, having died, was resurrected and made into a god by Astronoe, is inconsistent with Philo’s Euhemerism.” He concludes that Damascius might have changed Philo’s account, which would have stated that “Astronoe consecrated the mortal Asclepius as a god.”463
10 Mithras Mithras is not a god who experienced the vicissitudes of dying and rising or presence and absence.464 The Mithraeum of Santa Prisca in Rome was in use as a sanctuary during the reign of Septimius Severus, and around 220 C.E. it was renovated, enlarged, and “the paintings and inscriptions of the older phase were painted over and replaced by new ones.”465 One of the inscriptions in the Mithraeum includes the highly interesting text: et nos servasti (a)eternali sanguine fuso (and you have saved us by the pouring out of the eternal blood). Presumably, Mithras is addressed, and the reference is to his slaying of the bull.466 The reading of the graffito, however, is highly problematic. Silvio Panciera, based on inspection of the state of the Mithraeum in 1978, notes that only fuso is completely certain, and sanguine is “almost certain.” Eternali is doubtful. Servasti is not a convincing reading, and no words before that are verifiable in the current state of preservation.467
462
Baumgarten, The Phoenician History, 230. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History, 230: “In sum, the supposition that Damascius was using Philo remains likely but uncertain.” 464 Sfameni Gasparro, Il mitraismo, 303–4. 465 H. D. Betz, The Mithras Inscriptions of Santa Prisca and the New Testament, NovT 10 (1968) 62–80, esp. 62 and see M. J. Vermaseren and C. C. van Essen, The Excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome, Leiden 1965, 117–8 for a horoscope dated to 202 and ibid., 126 for the renovation in 220. In general, cf. R. L. Gordon, Mithras (Mithraskult), RAC 24 (2012) 964–1009, esp. 976–7 (on the inscription at Santa Prisca). 466 Cf. Betz, Mithras Inscriptions, 77. 467 S. Panciera, Il materiale epigrafico dallo scavo del mitreo di S. Stefano Rotondo (con un addendum sul verso terminante ... sanguine fuso), in: Bianchi, Mysteria Mithrae, 87–126, esp. 103–5. Consequently, the reconstruction (Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso) by Vermaseren and van Essen (The Excavations, 217–8, Plate 68) can no longer be accepted, and apparently has been abandoned by modern scholarship. 463
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11Conclusion The review in this chapter thoroughly justifies the continued use of the category of dying and rising gods.468 The resurrection of Osiris is the closest analogy to the resurrection of Jesus, although Osiris remains in the netherworld – wherever it is located. Horus’s resurrection is a clear analogy. The rebirth or resurrection of Dionysus also provides a fairly close analogy to the resurrection of Jesus.469 The revival of Heracles and probably that of Melqart are also strong analogies. Dumuzi’s, Baal’s, and Adonis’s returns from the netherworld are less useful as comparisons, but their power to overcome death is an important analogy to the NT. Lucian was willing to use the image of resurrection for Adonis’s return from Hades. Traditions of a resurrection of Adonis and Attis are later than the Gospels, but are nevertheless in good continuity with those from earlier periods (e.g., that of Osiris). Just as the Greek of the LXX and NT has its place in the matrix of classical Greek, so the resurrection of Christ can be placed in the matrix of the bodily resurrections of cult figures from the Mediterranean world. There are similarities, and there are differences. The comments by Justin, Tertullian, Theophilus, and Origen all indicate a willingness to examine pagan analogies to the birth and resurrection of Jesus.470 Dieter Zeller notes that according to the apologists, the Hellenistic divinities were not unimportant for the acceptance of the proclamation of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.471
468 pace D. Frankfurter, rev. of Mettinger, Riddle, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.09.07 who argues that the category “dying/rising god” is merely a “Christian theological holdover, like ‘sacrament’ or ‘faith,’ from a time when all comparison was meant to legitimize or delegitimize dogma.” That premise is based on an argumentum ad hominem (i.e., those intending to “legitimize/delegitimize” dogma) and so is logically fallacious. The language is unavoidable, and even J. Z. Smith succumbs (cf. the quote in § 6.1 above from Drudgery, 133): there are “second to fourth century AD reinterpretation, within some of the ‘mystery’ cults, of archaic locative traditions of dead deities in new experimental modes which appear to testify to these deities returning to life. In the case of Attis, there are only scattered hints of this process.” 469 Cp. the conclusion of Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 27 who argues that the terminology of resurrection is appropriate for Osiris and Dionysus, because of the emphasis on bodily integrity. He argues that the “type” of the dying and rising god developed in the second century C.E. He does not think that the Egyptian, Phrygian, and Syrian gods were of importance for the acceptance of the resurrection of Jesus in the first century. Origen’s willingness to compare the incarnation to the rebirth/resurrection and ascension of Dionysus is important in this regard. See Origen Cels. 4.17 in § 8 above. 470 For Justin and Tertullian, cf. § 1.3 above. For Theophilus, who used them to defend the resurrection in general, see chapt. 2 § 1.9 (end). Cp. Zeller, Erscheinungen, 31. 471 Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 16, 27.
Chapter Two
Resurrection Accounts in Greek and Latin As noted in the introduction, the concept of resurrection adopted in this monograph is somewhat fluid.1 I will include material below which I have judged to be pertinent to the discussion of the theme in Greco-Roman texts. In particular, the evidence below will illustrate the fairly clear distinction between resurrections and translations, which will be examined later in the monograph.2 Most of the resurrections included below are temporary – that is, the resurrected individuals are presumed to die subsequently.
1 Classical Greek Texts 1.1 The Improbability of Resurrection Fascher mentions a number of ancient Greek texts, primarily from the tragedians, in which the question of resurrection arises.3 These texts refer to temporary resurrections, not to a permanent state. An image of resurrection appears in Homer when Achilles sees one of Priam’s sons after having captured him previously and sold him into slavery: Why, even the great-hearted Trojans that I have slain will rise up again from beneath the murky darkness, just as this man is thus come back and has escaped the pitiless day of doom ... D ? & P 7 — > ( / “ 7 ÕÙ ( † , / ∑ & Ú ≈&í D ! ( S — Ó D .4
1
Cf. intro. proem. Chapt. 4.proem. 3 Fascher, Anastasis, 182–6. For texts in which resurrection is rejected, cf. Oepke, Auferstehung II, 931. 4 Homer Il. 21.55–7, trans. of Homer, The Iliad, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. A. C. Murray, rev. W. F. Wyatt, Cambridge, MA 1999, 2.409. A scholiast (in Il. 21.55–9a [Erbse]) has Õ I ∂ ë? P Ú 5 & ( 5, ≈ ! 7 Ù 7 >( ’ (in hyperbole he says, “perhaps the Trojans will escape from Hades, since he escaped from an island of the Greeks who rule the sea”). A scholiast (in Il. 21.55–9b) writes: &7 ; Ú " ! , N Ú ” N & !F (Indeed those who have already died will rise up, if this man was able to be carried across [the sea]). Another scholion (in Il. 21.55–6) is 8 & Ú 2
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Achilles tells Priam, concerning his dead son, Ã&8 7 (you will never raise him [from the dead]).5 Hecabe, mother of Hector, describes Achilles’ dragging of Hector’s body around the dead Patroclus and affirms: 8 &8 Ã&í „ (he did not in that way raise him up).6 In an interesting account in Herodotus, Cambyses (son of Cyrus) has killed his brother Smerdis. A magus, however, also named Smerdis who resembled the dead Smerdis, rebelled against Cambyses and claimed the throne, pretending to be the dead Smerdis. Cambyses quizzed the man who had been sent to kill his brother: For I myself did what you ordered, and I buried him with my own hands. If now the dead have risen, expect also to see Astyages the Mede rise up against you; but if things are as usual, nothing else new will spring up from him against you. S Ï ÃÙ 7 Ï 8 >!? Ú E . @∞ 8 " ! a, &8 Ú ]? Ù ®F& 7 !· ∞ &í > · Ù , Ã 7 > : I ?W.7
The chorus in Sophocles’ Electra tells her: í – í 5 ]& / 8 í /? – , Ã ) (But never will you raise your father from the lake of Hades, which is common to all, by wailing or by prayers).8 A fragment of Sophocles’ Scyrians comprises what are probably the words of Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son, to Phoenix (who had come to bring him to Troy): Why, if it were possible to heal troubles by weeping, and to raise up the dead by tears, gold would be a less precious possession than lamentation! But as things are, aged man, it is impossible to bring up to the light him who is hidden in the tomb. Why if tears could have done it, my father would have been brought up to the light.9 í ∞ Ó D ∞a! Ï Ú Ù ! & ?, ¡ Ù ß F i D.
! N " P 5 & 7, œ ) (this is a great and marvelous event, if the Trojans whom I have killed will rise from Hades). 5 Homer Il. 24.551. The scholiast (in Il. 24.551 [Erbse]) notes: 7 &Ó ÃÙ Ã& H Ï & (you will not raise him by any means, for this is impossible). 6 Homer Il. 24.756. 7 Herodotus Hist. 3.62.3–4. 8 Sophocles El. 137–9. 9 Euripides Alc. 986–8 has a similar thought, in the words of the chorus to Admetus: Ã
Ï ?5 í > ! / ˆ (!8 ; (you will not ever bring up from below by crying those who have died). Cp. Euripides frag. 332 Nauck = frag. 332 Kannicht (from the Dictys): & ) Ù & ( / Ú )&í 7 Ù , ∞ !8 8 ; (do you think Hades thinks anything of your laments and will send your son up, if you will bewail him?).
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&í, ‚ 8, í > , Ù ?(9 (!8 Ù Ù ( ; H Ú Ï i 7 & ? Fí i ∞ ( 10
In Aeschylus’s Eumenides, Apollo says, & Ù &í &Ï ∑í ? / b5 ! , – >í ? (But when the dust sucks up the blood of a man, once he has died, there is no resurrection [or “rising up”]).11 In the same tragedian’s Agamemnon, a citizen remarks, S ∞í, Ú & / Ù ! í ? ? (And I am of this view, since Ι am at a loss how to raise up again with words one who has died).12 In his Choephoroe, Orestes asks his dead father: ÷ í 5 )&í ¿ & , ? ; (Father, are you roused up by such taunts?). Electra responds ÷ í ¿ !Ù N ( Ù Ù ? ; (Are you not raising upright that beloved head of yours?).13 Agamemnon is in the realm of the dead, and there is no possibility of a bodily resurrection. Euripides in the Madness of Heracles does apparently think the gods could raise a person from the dead, however. Lycus (the usurper in Thebes) tells Amphitryon (the father of Heracles): {.} ¡ &í à ? Ã&Ó 8. / {Ê.} –, N 7 ! 7 8 (Lycus: He is not near, nor will he ever come. Amphitryon: No, unless one of the gods should raise him).14 Heracles does eventually emerge and exclaims: “how gladly I see you as I come into the light” (› ; í )& (? :).15 Aristophanes, in the Frogs, depicts a corpse being carried away. When Dionysus asks if he will carry some vessels to Hades, the corpse responds: “I would rather come to life again” (IZ ? ).16 The implication is that such an option is not possible. A scholiast on the text 10 Sophocles frag. 557 Radt = Stobaeus Anth. 4.56.17, trans. of Sophocles, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. Lloyd-Jones, Cambridge, MA 1994–6, 3.281. E. Lelli thinks the fragment may have inspired Quintus Smyrnaeus 7.630–73 (an encounter of Phoenix and Neoptolemus during the siege of Troy). Cf. Quinti de Smirno, Il seguito dell’Iliade, ed. and trans. E. Lelli, Milan 2013, 757. 11 Aeschylus Eum. 647–8. 12 Aeschylus Ag. 1360–1. Cp. Ag. 569 [ ] &8, ) Ó ! / Ù 7í “! &í F 8 (But our labor has passed on; for the dead – because they will never rise again). I thank Jerker Blomqvist for his comments on Ag. 1360– 1. 13 Aeschylus Cho. 495–6. D. Young (Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. D. Young, Oklahoma 1974, 76) translates the first line as “Father, are you stirred up by these outrages?” 14 Euripides Herc. fur. 718–9. 15 Euripides Herc. fur. 524. 16 Aristophanes Ran. 170–77 (quote from line 177). Cp. Eccl. 1073 ¢ ) Ï ; (are you an old woman who has risen from the dead?). The scholiast (in Eccl. 1073) affirms that ( Ï : Ï ) “from the mass” means “from the dead.”
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makes an intriguing comment on life itself, which seems to affirm that resurrection in Aristophanes’ sense was not generally desired: “I would rather come to life again”: Because he was being troubled by them he says this. In practice it is the opposite for us. As for example: “I would rather die.” And for some, because living then was hard, the result was that it was better to die. Therefore, among the Athenians it was considered a curse to come to life again. IZ : Δ Õí Ã 8 . 4! &Ó )H ∑ . " &Ó, ≈ Ù D Ù F, · ; ∂ Ù !?. ∞ ? “ I? Ù F ]!.17
“Coming to life again” is similar to a resurrection even if not identical. In a mime of Herodas (III B.C.E.), a panderer tells Metriche, whose husband is away in Egypt, that after death “no one will raise us” (&Ó ∂ 7 / †]8).18 In an oration (338–336 B.C.E.), Hyperides criticizes a proposal by Philippides to “crown the Presidents [proedroi]” of the Council of 500 for their vote to honor “certain Macedonians”19: You have concluded that one person [body]20 will be immortal, yet you have sentenced to death a city as old as ours, never realising the simple fact that no tyrant has yet risen from the dead, while many cities, though utterly destroyed, have come again to power. Ú ½ Ó !? Õ ( > !, &Ó !? 8 , Ã&í ) &:, ≈ Ó ? Ã& Ú : 7 I , &Ó Ú ; & ! ) ? N.21
Philip’s tyranny will not return, since resurrection is impossible. Pausanias includes an account of a warrior of Messinia who avoided capture by Sparta when he fell into a cavern called Ceadas that was outside of Sparta: The Lacedaemonians at once received information from deserters that Aristomenes had returned in safety. Though they thought it as incredible as the news that anyone had risen from the dead, their belief was ensured by the following action on the part of Aristomenes himself. & &Ó Ó ÕÙ &
8 Ã , › ] 8 7 H 8 &Ó Ï ÃÏ ¢ N
17
Scholia in Aristophanes Ran. 177. Herodas Mime 1.43–4. Cp. Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 12. 19 M. Gagarin, I. Worthington, C. R. Cooper, and R. M. Harris, Dinarchus, Hyperides, and Lycurgus, Austin, TX 2001, 80–1. 20 This is Philip of Macedon acccording to Gagarin, et al., Dinarchus, 84. 21 Hyperides In Philippidem frag. 15b,5 (BiTeu, Jensen) = 15b,7–8 (Minor Attic Orators, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. J. O. Burtt, Cambridge, MA 1962, 2.419 [his trans.]). For details of the proposal, cf. also Hyperides, The Orations Against Athenogenes and Philippides, ed. and trans. F. G. Kenyon, London 1893, xxiv. 18
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! 8 I , í Ã & ] 8 ÕF 5 .22
An inscription (II–III C.E.) found near Rome affirms that no one rises from the tomb23: To the chthonic gods: Be careful, as long as you live, how you are to be well buried, And live as you would wish to live. For below you are able Neither to light a fire nor to dine well. I tell you this who has experienced all these things, No one who has died is raised from here. ( )) ü (!Û). ( ıí A E, / ( ,24 Ú F › / Ì Ï Ã > Ã Ì ,25 Ã&Ó &F [ ] S Ô
b Ì, ! Ã!Ú !S Û 26
An undated inscription found in Larisa, in which a woman named Parmonis mourns her death and separation from her “sweet man,” Epitunchanos, contains this sad comment on her tomb: Either it was the thread of the Fates, as they say, or the wrath of a daimōn, which was terribly angry with me, and which banished me, Parmonis, unwilling and longing (for him), from the bed of my sweet husband Epitunchanos. If, therefore, there is any memory for mortals, Ι had a blameless life, loving only my husband, whom I bid still to cease from the passion of his fearful mourning and fearful clamor. For there is nothing more here – for no one raises the dead – than only to disturb the souls of the living, for there is nothing else. ¢ Û · ( ® ¢ &Û ¿ , • Ú & ˘ Û IÛ 5 ÃF !Ô F & Ù ) Ú 5 &Û 5 CÌ Ã !Ô []. N Ô “ !), IÛ > ;[] , ;& ı Ô 5, √ ∞Ô !Ù ˘
˜! & Ô! & &. Ã&Ó Ï Ô Û ñ !ı Ï Ã&Ó Û ñ ¢ Û ˘ ı ; Ï Ã&Ô.27
22
Pausanias 4.19.1, trans. of Jones, Pausanias 2.275. IGUR III, 1406 = GVI 1367 = IG XIV, 2130. It has now been found in the Museo Nazionale Romano (inv. 40661). See L. Moretti, Inscriptiones graecae urbis Romae, vol. 3, Rome 1979 § 1406, p. 241–242. 24 E. Cougny, Epigrammatum anthologia Palatina cum Planudeis et appendice nova, vol. 3, Paris 1890, § 424 edits this as ( . 25 Cougny, Anthologia Palatina, 424 has Ì and & F here. 26 Cougny, Anthologia Palatina, 424 reads Û . 27 IG IX,2 640. W. Peek (Griechische Grabgedichte. Griechisch und Deutsch, Berlin 1960, § 389) guesses III–IV C.E. 23
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An inscription for a woman named Oinanthe, includes a depiction in relief of a woman (Oinanthe) and a girl (her slave) on the stone: Oinanthe daughter of Glaukias Ill-fated young woman Oinanthe, would that the Muses, while children were placed on your knees, had sung of your gifts and of the beautiful custom of the birth aiding Eileithyia, welcomed gifts for your mother, father and husband. But now you sleep in the cold sand, along the water of the rushing Cocytus, and the unceasing sound of the beloved voice does not raise you, with which your mother like a bird has bewailed you; and you, like a stone, hear nothing, but the dark eddying torrents of Oceanus press around you, and the souls of the chthonic dead roar fearfully. You have not understood the speech of your parents and husband, because you have drunk, alas, from the cursed water (Styx) of the Lethe. What is this savage law of the Blessed Ones, that young women who are not evil die untimely deaths, women whose parents are not worthless, but only one who is distinguished in beauty or in lineage? Thus Pytho (Delphi) has said this accurate truth to people, “an offspring that is golden goes to Hades first.” °∞Ì! º Û. ;I Ô ® Û, Ì ˜( °∞Ì!, Ú ˜ ) !Ô , ( F Û Ù ı @∞ !, Ú E Ú Ú ãõ Ô & ı . Ó ˆ Ó ) Ú Ì! ˜ Ì& Ï & ı, Ã&Ô í Û Ó Ì& Û ¿ı, ÄÔ ƒ ≈ ı , ˆ &Ó Û! Ã&Ó ˜ , Ï & ) Ú Xı ‰ ) ∞ , Ú &Ó !Û IÌ & Ô I Ô, ˆ &Ó ! ı ÃÚ , à ı ı, Ú Û , ÷, ˜ !. Û Ì ı ” Ì - †Ô ÃÚ Ú ! Û < >, ÃÚ Ã& , í N [] Ó ∂&[] > ¢ Ô- D X ı&í ! Ù & Ì !˘, ˜ ≈ Ô ! ê'& ¡& ˜ ;28
Oinanthe will not rise bodily from the dead. A late Athenian inscription on a statue base (V–VI C.E.) mentions an individual who is “raised” (to heaven, not from the dead) by Hermes in Werner Peek’s reconstruction29: 28 IosPE I2 519 (found on a small island in the estuary of Kazač’ja buchta), with the discussion in I. Peres, Griechische Grabinschriften und neutestamentliche Eschatologie, WUNT 157, Tübingen 2003, 169 and C. von Behren, Sklaven und Freigelassene auf den Grabdenkmälern des nördliche Schwarzmeerraumes, Inauguraldissertation Trier 2009, 281. I have consulted the trans. of U. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Lesefrüchte, Hermes 63 (1928) 369–90, esp. 384–8. For a description of the stone, cf. B. Latyschev, ed., Inscriptiones antiquae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae, vol. 4, St. Petersburg 1901, § 136. 29 On paganism in fourth and fifth century Athens, cf. S. Rubenson, The Cappadocians on the Areopagus, in: Gregory of Nazianzus. Images and Reflections, ed. J. Børtnes and T.
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The tomb holds the physician Kratippos, who was a faithful helper for men and women in this city. But may Hermes, extending to him a succouring hand, bring him up from those down below and raise him in turn from the earth [or “netherworld”]. [∞F Ì > Ì(], ! Ù [ ı] [& Ì †&Ó 5Ú ] ; ['] & [ ] [ Ì Û "] [ ] ) Û[ ] [ 5 Ô Ì Ú ]Ù !Ù “! Û []30
The inscription in hexameters seems to imply some form of immortality in the heavens. Peek’s reconstruction is almost certainly erroneous, however, because the inscription is on a statue base and is an honorific and not a funerary epitaph. Only a few words can actually be reconstructed. The text and translation below is based on the Erkki Sironen’s reexamination of the stone.31 … the noble … … he (?) gave as a reward to this city … stretching (?) out his helping hand … He (?) raised up, once again, from the ground [ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑ñ]þ ! Ù [⏑ñx] [ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑] ;» ['] & Ô [ (?)] [ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑] [ı][ ] ) Û[ (?)] [ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑⏑ñ⏑ ]Ù ![]Ù “! > ¶[(?)]32
The last line probably refers to a benefactor who had restored the city (“he raised it from the ground”).33 The benefactor possibly rebuilt damaged parts of Athens after the attack of the Vandals of 457–467 C.E.34 In epitaphs and literary texts Û can refer to the raising of a tomb.35 One example is from the Greek Anthology:
Hägg, Copenhagen 2006, 113–32, esp. 115. The inscription is not an epigram, but is on the base of a statue according to E. Sironen, Statue Base Epigrams in Honor of a Restorer from Early Byzantine Athens, Arctos 29 (1995) 163–73. Cp. D. Feissel, Inscriptions chrétiennes et byzantines, REG 109 (1996) 669–677, esp. 671–2 (Bulletin épigraphique comprises 548– 677). 30 SEG 45, 182,1 = W. Peek, Epigramme von der Agora, in: j°²°. Tribute to B. D. Meritt, ed. D. W. Bradeen and M. F. McGregor, Locust Valley, NY 1974, 121–31, esp. 127. 31 Sironen, Statue Base, 166. 32 SEG 45, 182,2 = IG II2 13288. 33 Cf. Sironen, Statue Base, passim for the argument. 34 Sironen, Statue Base, 167 and cf. SEG 45, 182,2. He lists various possibilities in ibid., 172–3. 35 Cp. Appian Bell. civ. 2.86.361 ?( 4 Ã F ([for Pompey] one raised a paltry tomb), Xenophon Ephesiaca 5.10.5 ?( > ]!c (raise a tomb for Anthia), 5.15.4 Ὑπεράνθῃ ?( 4 8 (he raised a great tomb for Hyperanthes), Sopater, ? (Rhetores graeci 8, 188 Walz) ∂ ?( (then let us erect a tomb), ibid. (8, 320 Walz) ?( (I am erecting a costly tomb), ibid. (8, 374 Walz) ?( (let us erect a distinguished
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Another person raised the tomb, but you destroyed it. May another raise your tomb, if it is meet and right, and may another cast it to the earth. ê I > , ˆ &í ‡ H ; Ù ?(, N !8, ; > I? .36
The two illustrative texts mentioned by Peek do not include Û used to express exaltation to the gods.37 Hermes is perhaps the agent in an earlier grave epitaph from III C.E. found in Smyrna: … [Hermes], who brought me to heaven by his hands, immediately honored me and granted me the noble glory of dwelling among the blessed in starry heaven ≈ [ ] í à ٠4 ÃÛ Û Ô ! Ù >& ∞ ) Ì »í à ٠ı 38
It is unclear what kind of immortality Hermes (if the restoration is correct) grants. Peek mentions another epigram in elegiacs from Miletus as a parallel to the Athenian inscription, dedicated to a Hermaios: You did not drink the water of Lethe, Hermaios. This tomb has not hidden you, the house of gloomy Persephone, but holding you, fair-ankled Hermes led you up to Olympus, delivering you from the hard life of humans. And eight years old, beholding the aether, you shine with the stars, ascending around the horn of the goat [the star Capella] in the elbow [of Auriga] à !, [) , Ù Û ,] / Ã&Ô í > [˜I ≈& ,] / F & [Ù (ı], / Ì í > È [ ] / –( F, [] / ı XÌ Iı / ∞!Ô &í ¿Ô &S ; / b Ì Ï Ô ‹ Û / Ê∞ Ù ı 39
This epigram seems to envision some kind of embodied immortality in Olympus, but it also includes a catasterism – that is, Hermaios is himself transformed into a star.40
tomb), Himerius Or. 8.9 &Ï
Ù ?( (I am erecting your tomb through words). 36 Anth. Pal. 8.231 (Gregory of Nazianzus). 37 Peek, Epigramme, 127. 38 ISmyrn 539 = GVI 1765. Cf. M. Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube in den griechischen Versinschriften, Berlin 2012, 42–4 (she refers to Hermes as guide of souls in the netherworld in Homer Od. 24.1–14). 39 GVI I, 1829 and cf. Peek, Epigramme, 127. 40 Cf. W. Peek, Milesische Versinschriften, ZPE 7 (1971) 193–226, esp. 219–20.
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1.2 Heracles and Alcestis, and Epiphanius’s Response In his Alcestis, Euripides mentions the resurrections accomplished by Asclepius, although otherwise there is no return to life, in these words of the Chorus: There is no shrine on earth where one might send even by ship, either Lycia or the waterless seat of Ammon, to save the life of the ill-starred queen. Death inexorable draws nigh. And I know not to what sacrificial hearth of the gods I am to go. Only Phoebus’ son, if he still looked upon the light of the sun, would cause her to leave behind the gloomy realm and the portals of Hades. For he used to raise the dead, until the two-pronged goad of the lightning-fire killed him. But now what hope can I still embrace that she will live? í Ã&Ó >!í ≈ N , ¢ Ní Ú Ï & (115) [] ?& A& ], &? ?H Ï ?! . ! &í í ? Ã8í > ! ! . (120) &í ;, ∞ ( &í D ƒ & & S jI ), í D !í i A& (125) & H &!8 Ï , Ú ÃÙ ∑ & I F Ù &Ó I í >í & &8 ; (130)41
Although Euripides does not use the language of resurrection to describe Heracles’ delivery of Alcestis from death, he clearly describes her return from death.42 Heracles is confident he can bring her up from Hades if necessary (8!í ;5 ; / ê ).43 He leads the (presumably) veiled Alcestis to her husband, who seeing her wonders if she is a phantom from the underworld (≈ &Ó 7 (? 8 &í ß). Heracles responds, “You have not made a psychagogos [one who summons ghosts] your guest-
41 Euripides Alc. 112–30, trans. of Euripides, 8 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. D. Kovacs et al., Cambridge, MA 1994–2008, 1.173. 42 Stanley Porter comments, “So far as we know, Alcestis was revivified, only to die again at some future time.” Cf. idem, Resurrection, the Greeks, and the New Testament, in: Resurrection, ed. S. E. Porter et al., JSNT.S 186, Sheffield 1999, 52–81, esp. 79. Cp. Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 12. 43 Euripides Alc. 843–60. Quotation from 853–4. Admetus (ibid., 1076) does not believe it is possible for the dead to come to the light (Ã > ˆ ! (? )).
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friend” (Ã
Ù &í 7 58).44 Admetus asks Heracles, “But do I see my wife, whom I buried?” ( í ` >! ∞ &? í 7;) and “Shall I embrace and greet her as my living wife?” (!
, › &? í 7;).45 When Admetus asks Heracles how he led her up from below to the light ( 7&í > 8 ! (? & ;), Heracles explains that he only had to stand by her tomb and struggle with the lord of the daimones (? ? & ). He also asks him where he conducted his fight with Death ( & ? ( I );). Heracles answers, “By her tomb itself, lying in wait, I took hold of him with my hands (I í Ã , ? )).46 Alcestis must be silent for three days “until she becomes purified in the sight of the nether gods” ( Ú i ! ) ) 8 / ( Ú (?).47 Euripides describes Alcestis often as dead ( ı).48 Palaephetus49 retells the story and demythologizes it. His version of the legend is: The tragic myth is told of Alcestis that when Admetus was once about to die, she chose to die for him and that Heracles delivered her from Death (Thanatos) because of her piety and restored her to Admetus. It seems to me that once someone has died they cannot live again. Ú ] 7& N ! :&, › &7, 8 ]&7 ! )!, — μ ÕÓ Ã ! ), Ú › Â F Ã &Ï Ã8I ( Ù ? [Ú S &] 8& ]&79. Ú &Ó & ) &8 ! &! I F.50
He then gives a more rational explanation for the legend. In Lucian’s version, Heracles apparently enters Hades to retrieve Alcestis.51 Agatharchides (II B.C.) includes Alcestis among those who have been raised from the dead: 44
Euripides Alc. 1127–8. Euripides Alc. 1129, 1131, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 1.277. 46 Euripides Alc. 1139–42. In 1003 the soul of Alcestis is a blessed daimōn (? & ). 47 Euripides Alc. 1145–6, trans, of Kovacs, Euripides, 1. 279. 48 In Euripides Alc. 432, 513, 635, 716, 729 Alcestis is described as ı, and in 619 her dead body is mentioned (Ù ). Ps. Plato Axiochus 371e states that Heracles and Dionysus descended into Hades after being initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries; they received courage for the journey from the mysteries (Ú ˆ Ú Â 8 Ú ∞ & !?& !F, Ú Ù !? F ) Ï F C !). 49 G. Hawes, Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity, Oxford 2014, 38 (IV B.C.E.). 50 Palaephetus De incredibilibus 40. 51 See § 1.21 below. Cp. Apollodorus 1.9.15 (1.106 Wagner) where either the “Maiden” (Persephone) sent her up, or Heracles, after fighting with Hades, brought her to Admetus (Ú 45
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And Alcestis, Protesilaos, and Glaucus who died rose again, the one being brought up by Heracles, the other because of his love for his wife, and the last because of the prophecy about the one buried with him. Ú Ó ê Ú Ú º ? F, Ó Õ(í Â 8 ! ), Ù &Ó &Ï Ù F Ù > , Ù &Ó ÕÙ ? !8·52
The excerpt is from Photius, and Stanley M. Burstein argues that although Photius was highly selective in what he included it nevertheless was “… Photius’ practice to adhere closely to the wording and organization of the books he treated in the Bibliotheca …”53 Plato’s explanation is that her soul came up from Hades, like those few others whom the gods honored for their supremely good actions: … and when she achieved this deed, it was judged so noble by gods as well as men that, although among all the many doers of noble deeds they are few and soon counted to whom the gods have granted the privilege of having their souls sent up again from Hades, hers they thus restored in admiration of her act. … Ú í 8 Ù > — Ù >&5 ?! Ã ! : Ï Ú ! ), · Ï Ú Ï 8 Ã !7 &7 >& 8 " ! , 5 & ) ? 7, Ï ) !8 2 > 9.54
Plato’s account seems to be an attempt to explain the resurrection of Alcestis. Sextus Empiricus, in a discussion of the Stoic approach to empirical knowledge, argued that the return of Alcestis to the earth was simply incredible: Now, the older Stoics say that this apprehensive appearance55 is the criterion of truth. The later Stoics, on the other hand, added “if it has no obstacle.” For there are times when an apprehensive appearance does strike us, yet is not trusted because of the external circumstances. For example, when Heracles stood by Admetus, having brought Alcestis up from below the earth, Admetus did catch an apprehensive appearance from Alcestis, yet did not trust it ... For Admetus figured that Alcestis was dead and that a dead person does not rise up, but certain spirits do sometimes wander around. Ã ? 8 , › &Ó > 8 , Â F ? &W). 52 Agatharchides De mari Erythraeo § 7. Cp. Photius Bibl. 250.7, 443b (CBy Photius VII, 140 Henry). S. M. Burstein (Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea, trans. and ed. by S. M. Burstein, London 1989, 47) attributes this text to Book I of De mari Erythraeo. 53 Burstein, Agatharchides, 37. 54 Plato Symp. 179c, trans. of Fowler, Plato, 9.105. 55 Cf. Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. (Adv. log. 1) 7.247 on “true appearances” ( &Ó ! [( ] " 8 ∞ Ú " &Ó –) of which “some are apprehensive and some are not.” Delirious individuals (( ), e.g., experience nonapprehensive appearance, while an apprehensive experience derives from a “real thing” (Ù Õ? ). Trans. from Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians, trans. R. Bett, Cambridge 2005, 50.
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253 ] Ï Ï " Ó 7 ( ∂ F ! (, " &Ó : ! Ú Ù &Ó > >. 254 >!í ≈ Ï Ó (, ; &Ó &Ï >5 ! . ∑ ≈ ]&79 ¡ Â F ê F! S 8 , ¡ ê& > Ó ( Ù F ] 7&, † &í ÃEH ... 256 ≈ Ï ê& ≈ 8! ê Ú ≈ ¡ !S Ã8 , Ï & ? ? (¹·56
In Sextus’s version, Admetus is a skeptic. Epiphanius regarded Alcestis’s emergence from Hades as an example of resurrection, along with other similar stories: It occurs to me to wonder about the mistaken thinking concerning all things of the unbelieving Hellenes and other barbarians, as in their myths they are not ashamed to indicate the resurrection in every way and to sing often concerning the resurrection, (2) as when their myths describe Alcestis, the daughter of Pelios, who died for her husband Admetos and has been raised by Heracles after three days and has been brought back up from places not to be entered. [They describe:] Pelops, the son of Tantalos, after the serving of his flesh by his own father to their falsely-named “gods”; (3) Amphiareos, ‹the› son of Oikles, who was restored to life by Asklepios; Glaukos, the son of Minos, who was made alive again with a certain herby by Polyeidos the son of Koiranos; Castor on account of his brother Polydeukes, who willingly chose to exchange his life with him [Castor] every other day; and Protesilaos, on account of Laodameia. 85.1 ? &8 > Ú F 7 Ú ; I I? †8 Ï ? &, › ) Ã ! Ã ∞ ? ?W Ú Ú ? ? Ñ& , (2) › " ! Ã ?( ê Ó 7 ÕÓ & Ù ÃF ]&7 Ú ÕÙ Â 8 Ï 7 8 Ú Ù & 8, 8 ? Ù P? Ï Ù !F ) & Ã ! ) ÕÙ ∞& H (3) ](? °∞ 8 ÕÙ ] ! , º ¡ ® ÕÙ & ? I?W Ú ! , ? &Ï & Ù & (Ù Ã, √ /S Ã2 í 8 ? μ , Ú ¡ &Ï &? .57
Those accounts of resurrections were current in the fourth century, at least among the Mediterranean elite, but Epiphanius claims that “barbarians” were even aware of them. The return of Alcestus to Admetus appears fairly often in
56 Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. (Adv. log. 1) 7.253–4.256, trans. of Bett, Sextus, 51–2. In another text (Pyrr. hyp. 1.228) Admetus first accepts the appearance of Alcestis as a “persuasive appearance” (√ ! ?I ( F ] 7&), but then upon reflecting that she had died, his understanding did not “consent” to the perception, and instead leaned toward disbelief ( Ú 8 & ≈ 8! , a à &? Ù F !8 Ú Ù > ). 57 Epiphanius Anc. 85.1–3 (GCS Epiphanius Werke I, 105 Holl), trans. slightly modified of St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, Ancoratus, FC, trans. Y. R. Kim, Washington, DC 2014, 181–2.
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Roman iconography.58 The tomb of the Nasonii, for example, includes one such depiction (see image 10). There are many similar images on Roman sarcophagi, and one in the hypogeum of the Via Dino Compagni (image 9).59 1.3 Heracles, Theseus, and Pirithous Apollodorus (II C.E.?) describes Heracles’ raising of Theseus: And being come near to the gates of Hades [at Tainarum] he found Theseus and Pirithous, him who wooed Persephone in wedlock and was therefore bound fast. And when they beheld Hercules, they stretched out their hands as if they should be raised from the dead by his might. And Theseus, indeed, he took by the hand and raised up, but when he would have brought up Pirithous, the earth quaked and he let go. &Ó & 8 ” Ú ! Ù ( ? Ú &Ï & !8. ! ? &Ó Â 8 Ï ) ‡ › &Ï F I. ¡ &Ó 8 Ó I F Ù 4 , ! &Ó F I F F 8 (F .60
Apollodorus does not actually say “raised from the dead,” although that is Frazer’s translation.61 Rather, he affirms that Heracles “raised them up by his power.” It is possible, and probably likely, that he viewed them as dead since they were trapped in Hades. Theseus and Pirithous are trapped in Hades (and therefore are not technically dead) according to Jan Bremmer.62 From the point of view of some of the ancients, however, they were dead. Homer’s Circe, for example, identifies the men who went to Hades with Odysseus as those who had “died”: 8 , ≥ : Õ7 ! & í ]^&, / &!8 , ≈ í ; b5 !Yí ;! (Poor things, who have gone down alive to the house of Hades – men who will die twice, while
58 Cf. the discussion of the hypogeum of the Via Dino Compagni below (§ 4) and see M. Schmidt, Alkestis, LIMC 1.1 (1981) 533–44 (esp. 536–8 [return of Alcestis with Heracles and Admetus], 538–9 [return of Alcestis with Heracles only]). 59 Schmidt, Alkestis, § 19–23 (sarcophagi), § 24 (Dino Compagni). Cf. § 4 below. 60 Apollodorus Bibl. 2.5.12 (= 2.124 Wagner), trans. of Apollodorus, The Library, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. J. G. Frazer, Cambridge, MA 1921, 1.235. The scholia in Apollonius Rhod. Arg. 1.101–4 (15 Wendel) notes that Theseus and Pirithous could not “rise up” from a rock against which they were held ( 8 ! !8 “! F Ã & &). Pausanias 1.15.3 describes a painting of the battle of Marathon in Athens (in the Stoa Poikile) that portrayed Theseus emerging from the ground ( ˆ
F). Cf. J. D. Mikalson, Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars, Chapel Hill, NC 2003, 33. 61 Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 13 argues that neither Theseus or Pirithous actually died – which seems to contradict the fact that they were both trapped in Hades. 62 On this point cf. J. N. Bremmer, Theseus’ and Peirithoos’ Descent into the Underworld, EtCl 83 (2015) 35–49, esp. 43 (“trapped”). Cf. ibid. for many art objects that depict the scene.
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other men die but a single time).63 Celsus’s Jew, in his attack on the resurrection of Jesus, lists a number of figures who have emerged after being in Hades: “and Heracles in Tainarum, and Theseus” (… Ú Â 8 Ú P? 9 Ú 8). He is skeptical of the traditions, however, but he seems to have regarded Theseus as reputedly dead.64 In ancient iconography a standing Heracles occasionally grasps the hand of a bearded male identified as Theseus or Pirithous.65 In another image, Heracles approaches Theseus and Pirithous who are seated on thrones.66 Pirithous and Theseus are portrayed in bonds in one image, and in another Pirithous sits on a block, while Heracles tries to help him up.67 Pirithous and Theseus sit on a rock with Heracles standing nearby in another image.68 1.4 Glaucus Palaephetus tells the story of Glaucus as an example of impossible events that need to be rationalized: And this tale is ridiculous, that when Glaucus had died in a jar of honey, Minos buried Polyidus son of Koiranos in the tomb (who was from Argos), who seeing a serpent place an herb on another dead serpent and raise it, also did this to Glaucus and raised him. This very thing is impossible: to raise a dead man or serpent or any other animal. Ú ” ¡ !
8 , › & º !9 8 ! ¡ ® 2 I9 : 5 Ù ? & (√ D ê ), √ ∞&S & ? /8 9 & ? ! !8 Ú 7 Ã , Ú ÃÙ ÃÙ 7 2 º 9, 8 Ã . ≈ Ú &, ! ;& F ¢ ƒ(, í Ã&Ó ; 2.69
Palaephetus proceeds to explain the legend by claiming it really referred to an illness of Glaucus that Polyidus healed using a remedy he learned from a physician named Dracon (Serpent).
63
Homer Od. 12.21–2, trans. of Homer, The Odyssey, trans. B. B. Powell, Oxford 2015,
233. 64 Origen Cels. 2.55, See § 1.29 below. The rescue of Alcestis from Hades was a delivery from death (cf. § 1.2 above). 65 J. Neils and S. Woodford, Theseus, LIMC 7, 922–51, § 294 = E. Manakidou, Peirithoos LIMC 7, 232–42, § 69. 66 Neils and Woodford, Theseus, § 298. In § 299 Heracles is flanked by Pirithous and Theseus. 67 Manakidou, Peirithoos, § 72 and 71 respectively. § 69–91 portray Pirithous in the Underworld. 68 Manakidou, Peirithoos, § 73. 69 Palaephetus De incredibilibus 26. Hyg. Fab. 251 has Glaucus Minois filius restitutus a Polyido Coerani filio (Glaucus the son of Minos restored by Polyidus the son of Coeranus).
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Apollodorus describes Glaucus’s resurrection by Polyidus, to which Agatharchides alluded.70 It is a variant of the version in which Asclepius raises the dead boy. As a child he was drowned in a jar of honey. Searching for him, the Kouretes tell Minos that the diviner who can explain the three colors of one of the cows “will return to him his child alive” ( Ù )& &: ).71 He finds the child by divination, but Minos is not satisfied: But Minos declaring that he must recover him alive, he was shut up with the dead body. And while he was in great perplexity, he saw a serpent going towards the corpse. He threw a stone and killed it, fearing to be killed himself if any harm befell the body. But another serpent came, and, seeing the former one dead, departed, and then returned, bringing an herb, and placed it on the whole body of the other; and no sooner was the herb so placed upon it than the dead serpent came to life [“rose”]. Surprised at this sight, Polyidus applied the same herb to the body of Glaucus and raised him from the dead. 8 &Ó ® ≈ & ) Ú I ) Ã , ! ˆ 2 2. c &Ó E ? ∂& & ? Ú Ù Ù ∞ H I S !9 8 , & i ÃÙ 7W, ∞ 9 ?!W. > &Ó A & ? , Ú ! ? Ù Ù ; , ∂ Õ 8( , Ú ! Ú a Ù /8 H ! &Ó F 8. ! ? &Ó & Ú !?, Ã S 2 º : 8 .72
Theodor Hopfner writes that it is “interesting ... that the snake, the most frequent animal associated with souls and the dead, is the means of resurrection in these accounts.”73 A late scholion (twelfth century) to Lycophron by Tzetzes (first revised by his brother Isaac, and again later by John)74 is instructive and is probably based on older scholia. And Glaucus, whom we said was pursuing a mouse, fell into a jar of honey and was drowned. He was brought back to life, as they say, by the diviner Polyidus the son of Koiranos. Searching for him, his father Minos did not find him; but an oracle was given him that an individual would tell him concerning his child, where he could find him, and indeed would raise him from the dead – namely, the person who could say what a tricolored cow of Minos in the field resembled. And Polyidus told him that the cow was similar to the fruit of a bush, and Minos pressed him to tell him where Glaucus was. And he, by divination, told him that he was drowned in a jar. When he was found dead, Polyidus was shut up with him in a certain house to bring him back to life. When he saw a serpent approach the corpse, wanting to capture it so that it could be removed, he cast [a stone] and
70
Cf. § 1.2. Apollodorus Bibl. 3.3.1 (3.18 Wagner). 72 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.3.1 (3.19–20 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus. 1.311–13. 73 T. Hopfner, Griechisch-Ägyptischer Offenbarungszauber, 2. vols., Leipzig 1921 (reprinted typographically Amsterdam 1974), 1.140 § 268 (1.65, 1921 ed.). 74 Callimachus, Lycophron, Aratus, Hymns and Epigrams, LCL, ed. and trans. A. W. Mair and G. W. Mair, Cambridge, MA 1955, 316–8. 71
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accidentally killed it. Another serpent came and put a plant on the dead one and raised it. Then he took the same plant and putting it on Glaucus raised him from the dead. ¡ &Ó º √ N &: S ∞ ! 8 , :! &Ó, · (, ÕÙ ? & " . ( Ï Ù º ¡ Ã ® Ã — , & ! &Ó 9 Ù ) ∞ ) Ú & , ÃÙ Õ 7 , > &Ó Ú 7 ÃÙ, √ NW, ≈ ® I ) ). & &Ó ∂ Ã ¡ ∂ I? 2 Ú ¡ ® 8 ÃÙ ∞ ), ¡ º , ¡ &í ÕÙ F F ∂ ÃÙ 2 !9 ∂ 8. Õ !8 &Ó Ã ! Ã2 > ∞7 T · Ã . ∞&S *&Ó* & ? Ú Ù Ù !8 Ù & ?, ≈ !E Õí Ã T I S ) Ã . A &Ó & ? !S I? ! Ú 2 ! & ? 4 Ã . “ IS I? ¡ & ! Ú 2 º 9 4 Ã .75
Tzetzes uses 4 instead of 8 .76 1.5 The Magi An important text concerning resurrection appears in Diogenes Laertius with regard to the statement that the Magi are older than the Egyptians: This is confirmed by Hermippus in his first book about the Magi, Eudoxus in his Voyage round the World, and Theopompus in the eighth book of his Philippica. The last-named author says that according to the Magi men will live in a future life and be immortal, and that the world will endure through their invocations. Æ 2 :9 Ú ?
Ú @–&5 E &9 Ú E ¿ & W j H √ Ú I: ! Ï ˆ ®? (Ú ˆ ! : Ú > ! !?, Ú Ï ƒ ) Ã 7 & ).77
Although I: ! (return to life) is not a verb used in the NT, the noun form I is used in 2 Macc 7:9. Theopompus (IV B.C.E.), from 75 Scholia in Lycophronem 811 (Lycophron, Alexandra. Vol. II. Scholia continens, ed. E. Scheer, Berlin 1908, 255,25–256,15). The “T” means “Tzetzes.” 76 In this regard, it is interesting that Apostolius (XV C.E.) Paroem. 5.48 returns to what is apparently the language of tradition (i.e., 8 ): √ ∞&S & ? !8 ! Ú 7 ÃÙ, Ú ” Ù ÃÙ 7 ∞ Ù º 8 ([Polyidus] who after seeing a serpent placing an herb on the dead one and raising it, also did the same thing to Glaucus and raised him). The proverb Apostolius is aware of is º S 8 , 8 (Glaucus after drinking honey, rose [from the dead]). 77 Diog. Laert. 1.8–9, trans. of Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. R. D. Hicks; Cambridge, MA 1925, 1.11. Cf. Eudoxus F. 341 (Die Fragmente des Eudoxos von Knidos, ed. trans. and comm. F. Lasserre, Berlin 1966, 119,5) and Theopompus in FGrHist. 115 F 64. For comments on Theopompus in relation to Iranian tradition about the resurrection, cf. Klimkeit, Tod, 71–2.
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whom Diogenes Laertius took the indirect quotation is an author who predated the LXX translation.78 Aeneas of Gaza, a much later author, confirmed the tradition: Zoroaster proclaims that there will be a time in which there will be a resurrection of all the dead. Theopompus knows what I am saying, and he himself teaches the others. ¡ &Ó ¸ ? 8 › > Ó „ ? ? >. ∂& ¡ √ 8
Ú ˆ ; ÃÙ &&? .79
Clearly the language used by Aeneas is a Christian adaptation of the tradition in Theopompus, however. The Yasht Avesta supports the claim of Theopompus and may well date before the Achaemenid period (VI–IV B.C.E.).80 What is clear is that Theopompus is aware of the concept of a general resurrection of the dead. 1.6 Democritus A doubtful letter of Julian the Apostate preserves a tradition about Democritus that alludes to the concept of resurrection. Darius was mourning the death of his wife so much that the philosopher makes him this promise: People report that Democritus of Abdera, not finding anything to say that would suffice to console Darius who was grieving the death of his beautiful wife, promised to bring the woman who had left up to the light, if he would be willing to provide everything that was necessary. jÚ Ï Ù ]I& , & 9 Ù F !? Ã ∂ ≈ i ∞S ∞ ! 8 , Õ8! " ! ∞ ( ?5 , ¢ ! 7W ∞ ÕF .81
Darius is unable to provide the necessary conditions for resurrection: Being asked, what was so great that only a king would be able to know it, Democritus said in reply, “Inscribe on the tomb of your wife the names of three individuals who have been 78
Cf. Theopompus FGrH 115 F 64a. Theopompus FGrH 115 F 64b = Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus (Enea di Gaza, Teofrasto, ed. M. E. Colonna, Napoli 1958, 64,8–10). Euxitheus is speaking in the dialogue. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 49 comments on Aeneas’s Christian language. Bremmer’s suggestion (ibid.) that FGrH 115 F 65 = Plutarch Is. Os. 47 370BC implies that the resurrection is spiritual according to Theopompus seems off the mark. Not casting a shadow is too imprecise to confirm such a conclusion (8 &í ! Ù &, Ú ˆ Ó ! : Ã& > ! 7 (F & 8 7 Ï [and finally Hades shall pass away; then shall the people be happy, and neither shall they need to have food nor shall they cast any shadow] trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 5.115). 80 See intro. § 6. 81 Julian Ep. dub. 201, 413A (CUFr 1/2, 230 Bidez) = Democritus Test. 20 Diels/Kranz, trans. adapted from Bidez. 79
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free from grief, and she will immediately come to life again, susceptible to the law of this rite.” 8 &í , i N √ I ) !F ), Õ I (F Ù , ∞ !7 ¿ ?( F Ù ? , Ã!ˆ Ã I: ! 2 F F 9 & 8.82
Lucian’s Demonax was responsible for a similar deed in the case of a man who was grieving over the death of his son: [he] told him that he was a sorcerer and could raise [“bring up”] the boy’s shade for him if only he would name three men who had never mourned for anyone. > ? ∂ Ú &! Ã2 ) &Ù Ù N& , ∞ Ã2 ) ! : ¿? &8 : ! ·83
This is not a reference to resurrection, but does imply that a shade could return to life. 1.7 Alexander the Great and Resurrection Plutarch uses Iı for a contemplated scene of resurrection: So Alexander, as it appears, on seeing a messenger hastening toward him with exceeding joy and holding out his hand, said, “What are you going to report to me, my good friend? That Homer has come to life again?” ] 85& Ó Ï › > ;
∞&S F !8 Ú & 5Ï ì 8 ,î ∂ , ì‚ a
); ¢ ≈ À I I ;î84
Alexander was hoping for someone (like Homer) to commemorate his accomplishments. A young man who is “still improving his character” (89 &í & Ú I 89 Ù D!) would like others to be able to observe his mode of life and, … in consequence he feels a pang when he recalls a father or professor now dead who never saw him in such condition, and for no blessing would he pray God [“the gods”] so earnestly as that they might come to life again, and become observers of his life and actions.
82 Julian Ep. dub. 201, 413B (CUFr 1/2, 230 Bidez) = Democritus Test. 20 Diels/Kranz, trans. adapted from Bidez. 83 Lucian Demon. 25, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 1.159. 84 Plutarch Virt. prof. 16 85C, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 1.453–5. In a somewhat similar scene (Philostratus Vit. soph. 25 [540 Olearius]), the emperor (Marcus Aurelius) awards a victory in court to the Smyrnaeans, who had used a speech of the dead rhetor Polemo. The Smyrnaeans left saying that “Polemo had come alive again for them” (Ù 8 Ã) I I 8 (? ).
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… · Ú &? ! Ù ! ¢ ! 8 Ã & ÃÙ &!8 W, Ú &Ó i — –5! Ï ! , › I: Ã2 8! I Ú ?5 ! ?.85
Clearly resurrection in this image is hypothetical. 1.8 The Germans and Resurrection Less clear is a text in Appian’s Celtica that refers to one of Caesar’s victories: He also overcame the Germans under Ariovistus, a people who excelled all others, even the largest men, in size; savage, the bravest of the brave, despising death because they believe they shall live hereafter ... > ˆ í ] I º , ≥ Ú Ï 8! ÕF Ú Ù D! ; Ú ! Ú !? ( Ú &í & I: ...86
I would amend White’s translation of !? ( Ú &í & I: to “despising death because of hope in a resurrection [or “return to life”].” Likely this is a belief in some kind of embodied afterlife, since no overt reference is made to the immortality of the soul. 1.9 Asclepius With regard to Greek traditions of resurrection of dead people to mortal life, Asclepius is the most dominant figure. Pausanias (II C.E.) describes Asclepius’s raising of Hippolytus from the dead, which was recorded on one of the stones in Epidaurus dedicated to the healings of Asclepius: Apart from the others is an old slab, which declares that Hippolytus dedicated twenty horses to the god. The Aricians tell a tale that agrees with the inscription on this slab, that when Hippolytus was killed, owing to the curses of Theseus, Asclepius raised him from the dead. On coming to life again he refused to forgive his father; rejecting his prayers, he went to the Aricians in Italy. Ú &Ó Ù ; Ú 7 H μ &Ó π ! ) 2 ! 2 ( N. F 7 2 ? ¡ 8 ] ), › ! π 8 8 ] H ¡ &Ó › “! I , Ã †5 8 2 Ú
:, Ï Õ &S Ï & 7 ∏ > Ï ˆ ] ) ....87
Pausanias’s language probably was not influenced by that of the NT. He also describes a precinct (temenos) dedicated to Hippolytus in which is a temple of
85
Plutarch Virt. prof. 16 85CD, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 1.455. Appian, Celtica 1.3.9, trans. of Appian, Roman History, 4 vols., LCL ed. and trans. H. White, Cambridge, MA 1912–13, 1.103. 87 Pausanias 2.27.4, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 1.392. 86
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Hippolytus with his image.88 The precinct is in Troezen where his tomb is located: They will not have it that he was dragged to death by his horses, and, though they know his grave, they do not show it. But they believe that what is called the Charioteer [Auriga] in the sky is the Hippolytus of the legend, such being the honor he enjoys from the gods. ! ) &Ó ÃÙ Ã !8 8 ÕÙ μ Ã&Ó Ù ?( ( ∞& H Ù &Ó Ã 2 , ∂ ) π Ï ! >.89
In another passage, Pausanias notes that Asclepius became famous for raising the dead ( ! ).90 Confirmation that the verb for resurrection is not derived from the NT may be found in a text of Xenophon. After mentioning Cephalus’s translation by a goddess, he writes, Asclepius won yet greater preferment – to raise the dead, to heal the sick; and for these things he has everlasting fame as a god among men. ... ] Ù &Ó > , ? Ó ! , &Ó ∞a!H &Ï &Ó ! Ù fl í ! : 8 > .91
Consequently, Xenophon not only knows of the miracles of Asclepius, but also knows of his subsequent deification in Greco-Roman tradition.92 Theodoret transmits an excerpt from Apollodorus of Athens, the historian of II B.C.E., concerning Asclepius: So excellently and thoroughly was he trained, says Apollodorus, that not only did he heal the sick but even dared to raise some of those who had died.
88 Pausanias 2.32.1 π 9 &Ó 2 8 8 (8 ) Ú Ù Ã2 Ú ; ? ). In 2.32.3 Pausanias notes that there was a temple of Aphrodite Spy (]( & ) in the same precinct. 89 Pausanias 2.32.1, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 1.423. R. Seaford, Hippolytus, 4OCD, 688–9 also mentions Euripides Hipp. 1423–30 who describes the hero cult of Hippolytus in Troezen. Burkert, Structure, 112 writes that “Hippolytus is a god in Troezen, to be sure, and perhaps the earliest attested resurrection story in Greek mythology is attached to his name” (with ref. to the Naupaktika mentioned below and Apollodorus 3[121]10.3). 90 Pausanias 2.26.5. Hippocrates De diaeta in morbis acutis 11 may refer to a similar tradition with regard to the views of real physicians held by others: &8 Ï Ã8 ¡ !S ∞ Ù ¢ ∞&: › Ú ! F (the physician or layman who enters may appear to them as one who is about to raise the dead). 91 Xenophon Cyn. 1.6, trans. of Xenophon, Scripta minora, vol. 7, LCL, trans. and ed. E. C. Marchant, Cambridge, MA 1925, 369. 92 For texts that mention his deification see E. J. Edelstein and L. Edelstein, Asclepius. Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 2 vols., Baltimore 1945, T 232–65 (including Cic. Nat. 2.62 and Leg. 2.19). Emma Edelstein was responsible for volume one (texts) and Ludwig Edelstein for the interpretation in volume two.
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°— &Ó ; , (, & ! Ú ? & , › ˆ ∞a!, Ï .93
Although Theodoret uses a verb of explicit quotation ((), Apollodorus’s book had long disappeared, and consequently one cannot be certain that the original source used .94 A scholiast to Lucian’s Juppiter confutatus used the same verb to describe Asclepius’s raisings of the dead (ˆ !Y 4 ; he raised those who had died).95 Lucian mentions Asclepius’s resurrection of Tyndareus and Zeus’s wrath because of it ( P&? ? Ú Ù Ú 9 í ] ¿ 7).96 A scholiast to Pindar refers to many individuals raised by Asclepius: But even wisdom has been shackled by gain and overcome by it. For the gold displayed upon the palm corrupted even the god – he means Asclepius – so that for a greater gain he resurrected from death a man who had already been overtaken by the day of destiny. Enticed by gold, Asclepius is reported to have revived Hippolytus after he had died. Some say it was Tyndareus, others Capaneus, others Glaucus; the Orphics97 say Hymenaeus, Stesichorus98 connects this legend with Capanaeus and Lycurgus99 … Pherecydes [V B.C.E.] that he made those who died at Delphi live again. Ï Ú ( 8 & &8& Ú •. 8 Ï Ú Ù ! Ù, (Ú &Ó Ù ] Ù, 2 !2 ¡ Ù ) Ú ( Ú, · ;& !? ) 4& 2 &9 (!8. 8 &Ó ¡ ] Ù 2 & ! Ú F π ! H " &Ó P&? , A 8, " &Ó º , " &Ó Δ (Ú ’8, &Ó Ú ) Ú 9H Ö j & &Ó ≈ ˆ () !7 I .100
93 Theodoret Affect. 8.20 = Apollodorus Ú ! in FGrH 244 F 138. Trans. slightly modified of Edelstein, Asclepius, 1.11. Cf. Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D ( ) and Apollodorus Bibl. 3.10.3 (7 ) who perhaps confirm Theodoret’s accuracy. 94 I thank Jan Bremmer for this point (personal communication of 28 May 2017). 95 Schol. in Lucian Jupp. conf. 20.8 (55,22–3 Rabe). A nearly identical scholion appears in Schol. in Luc. Dial. d. 79.15.1 (272,9–11 Rabe): ¡ ] , › 8 , ; Ë ∞ Ù ˆ !Y 4 , Ú Ú 9 ¡ ¸ ˆ ¿ ! Ú Ã (Asclepius as they say, being the best physician, raised the dead, and becoming furious over this, Zeus destroyed him with a thunderbolt). 96 Lucian Salt. 45. 97 Orphica frag. 40 (p. 112–3) Kern = frag. 365 Bernabé. 98 Stesichorus, The Poems, ed. with intro., trans., and comm. M. Davies and P. J. Finglass, Cambridge 2014. 99 Cf. M. Davies, ed., Poeteraum melicorum graecorum fragmenta, vol. 1, Oxford 1991, frag. 194. 100 Schol. in Pindar Pyth. 3.96, cf. Edelstein, Asclepius, T. 72 (her trans.). See Pherecydes in FGrH 3 F35b. Cp. Schol. in Pind. Ad Pythias 3.100 [ ] X &í (8 , ] Ú 8 Ù !?, ) Ã (casting a thunderbolt through both, both Asclepius and the one who had been raised from death, he killed them); 3.102b [Zeus sent a bolt through Asclepius and the one healed]
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This account and several others (quoted below) may ultimately depend on one in Apollodorus’s Ú ! (Concerning the gods) according to a persuasive investigation of Jaume Pòrtulas.101 A scholiast to Euripides’ Alcestis mentions Zeus’s killing of Asclepius because he raised the dead, with reference to Pherecydes: For healing the dead, he raised them up ... Apollodorus (II B.C.E.) says that Asclepius was struck by a thunderbolt because he raised Hippolytus, Amelesagorus says that it was Glaucus, Panyassis that it was Tyndareus, the Orphics that it was Hymenaeus, Stesichorus that it was Capanaeus and Lycurgus. Pherecydes in the eighth book of his Histories says that he raised those who had died in Delphi. Phylarchus says that it was because of the Phineïdae,102 Telesarchus that it was because of Orion, Polyarchus the Cyrenaean says that he was struck by a thunderbolt because he healed the daughters of Proteus. Ï ∞: ˆ ! ... ] & &8 ( !F Ù ] Ù Ú 2 Ù π F, ] &Ó ≈ º , ≈ P&? , " &Ó Δ (Ú ≈ ’8, &Ó Ú ) Ú 9. j & E ¿ & W " ˆ () ( !7 ÃÙ I: . j &Ó &Ï ˆ j &, P 8 &Ó &í ‰ , &Ó ¡ ) &Ï Ù Ï ! 8 ÃÙ ∞?! !F (.103
These presumably are verbatim quotations of Apollodorus and Pherecydes.104 Philodemus (I B.C.E.) in his treatise On Piety, relates a tradition of Asclepius’s resurrections: Zeus struck down Asclepius with a thunderbolt as the one who wrote the Naupactica affirms and Telestes in the Asclepius and the lyric poet Cinesias [wrote], because after being entreated by Artemis, he raised Hippolytus [from the dead]; but Stesichorus in the Eriphyle [wrote] that it was because of Capaneus and Lycurgus, but some because he raised Tyndareus. ] [Ù &Ó ¸ ]ˆ ˜ [ › ] ¡ Ï T[]Ï Ì [] ] [ P ]Ô Ú [Û] ¡ ı ≈[ Ù] πı [ ] ! Ú Õª ] [Ô]& Ô[] [ › &ª ] C (˜ [Û ], · Ú Ù ] Ù W F! Ú Ù I I (... so that Asclepius and the one he restored to life were killed). Pindar describes Asclepius as ;& í !? / 4& U (Pyth. 3.56 taking a man back from death who had already been captured). 101 J. Pòrtulas, From Panyassis to Pseudo-Apollodorus: The Resurrection of Tyndareus, in: Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads, ed. J. Pàmias, Berlin 2017, 22–37: Philodemus De piet. 247 IV b (A. Schober, Philodemi De Pietate, pars prior, Cronache Ercolanesi 18 [1988] 67–125, esp. 80), Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. 1.260–2, Schol. in Euripides Alc. 1 (2.216 Schwartz), Schol. in Pindar Pyth. 3.96 (2.75–6 Drachmann). This is also the conclusion of Davies and Finglass, Stesichorus, 77 with ref. to R. Münzel, Quaestiones mythographae, Berlin 1883, 2–8 (Apollodorus of Athens as the source). 102 Cf. Aristotle Poet. 16 1455a. 103 Schol. in Euripides Alc.1 = FGrH 244 F 139 (Apoll.). Cf. Edelstein, Asclepius, T. 71. 104 The texts from Pherecydes are FGrH 3 F 35a. Cf. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, 2.78 who thinks the quotation from Pherecydes’ Histories is a “verbatim quotation.”
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≈ [Ô Ú ] [ , › &Ô] / [ ][ Ù] / [P&Ì ] 105
Apollodorus, the scholiast to Lucian, and Ps. Eratosthenes (see below) describe the resurrections carried out by Asclepius using the verb that appears most frequently in the NT for resurrection ( Û ), and Justin has Ù ] Ù ˆ (the Asclepius who raised the dead).106 Apollodorus has this tradition: And having become a surgeon, and carried the art to a great pitch, he not only prevented some from dying, but even raised up the dead; for he had received from Athena the blood that flowed from the veins of the Gorgon, and while he used the blood that flowed from the veins on the left side for the bane of mankind, he used the blood that flowed from the right side for salvation, and by that means he raised the dead. [I found some who are reported to have been raised by him, to wit, Capaneus and Lycurgus, as Stesichorus says in the Eriphyle; Hippolytus, as the author of the Naupactica reports; Tyndareus, as Panyasis says; Hymenaeus, as the Orphics report; and Glaucus, son of Minos, as Melesagoras relates.] Ú Ù Ú 8 7 Ú ˆ Ã : 8 !7 , í 7 Ú ˆ ! H Ï Ï ]!a IS Ù ( I F º XÓ ∑, 2 Ó X8 Ù (! Ï ! : F, 2 &Ó & 5 Ù , Ú &Ï ˆ ! 7 . [ ” &8 8 F Õí Ã, 8 Ú , › ( < > C ( W, π , › ¡ Ï TÏ
? 8 , P&? , · ( , ’8, › " Δ (Ú 8 , º Ù ® , › ® 8 ].107
Ps. Eratosthenes (II C.E.), in his description of the origin of Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearing constellation, also records Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus, which angered Zeus who then killed the physician with a thunderbolt. 105 Philodemus De pietate 131 (52,5–17 Gomperz) = P.Herc. 1609 col. V. Cp. Edelstein, Asclepius, T. 73. Telestes “won a victory at Athens 402/1 BC (Marm. Par. 79)” according to C. M. Bowra, Telestes, 4OCD, 1437. Cinesias is dated to 450–390 B.C.E. by B. Zimmerman, Cinesias, 4OCD, 319. Stesichorus is dated ca 600–555 B.C.E. by P. J. Parsons, Stesichorus, 4 OCD, 1400–1401. On the date of the Naupactica, cf. further V. J. Matthews, Naupaktia and Argonautika, Phoenix 31 (1977) 189–207, esp. 190 (written roughly at the same time as Hesiod). I have used the DCLP (‹https://dclp.github.io/dclpxsltbox/output/dclp/63/62400.html›) for the reconstruction of the last three lines (col. V, 5–19). Last accessed 9 March 2018. 106 Justin Dial. 69.3. He (Apol. 1.22.6) compares the resurrections of Jesus and Asclepius: Ä &Ó 8 Ö ˆ ) , ≈ ) ÕÙ ] F! 8 Ú ÃÏ (? & 5 (In that we say that he … raised the dead, we appear to say things similar to what is claimed to have been done by Asclepius). 107 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.10.3 (= 3.121 Wagner who puts the text in brackets), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.17–19. The text in brackets may be a later gloss. Cf. Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans. R. Hard, Oxford 1997, 173–4 who argues that the text is an interpolation, since it is in first person (otherwise absent in the Library). Most importantly, since Philodemus uses the text, it was not composed by Apollodorus.
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Zeus, as a favor to Apollo, translated him to the stars (√ ¸ ˆ ] ∞ Ï ; 7 ). Asclepius’s transgressions included raising the dead by the art of the physician, and his last resurrection was that of Hippolytus son of Theseus ( 8W ∞ E 8, › Ú ˆ 4& ! , ∑ Ú > π Ù 8 ).108 A MS has a similar version: “using the art of the physician he raised those who were already dead” (E 8W ∞ E : ˆ 4& ! 4 ).109 Ps. Eratosthenes transmits a core from the third century B.C.E. text of Eratosthenes. According to Zenobius, Asclepius was able to use blood from the “right veins” to heal people (( I Ö 2 &í & 5 Ù ), therefore the legend held that he could raise some of the dead (≈! ! F ! )).110 Diodorus Siculus gives a rationalist account of the resurrections of Asclepius: This, then, is what the myths relate: Asclepius was the son of Apollo and Coronis, and since he excelled in natural ability and sagacity of mind, he devoted himself to the science of healing and made many discoveries which contribute to the health of mankind. And so far did he advance along the road of fame that, to the amazement of all, he healed many sick whose lives had been despaired of, and for this reason it was believed that he had brought back to life many who had died. ! ] Ù ] "Ù Õ? Ú &, ( &Ó Ú c& ∞ 7, Ú Ï Ù Õ ! : 5 ). Ú &Ó IF E & 5W · ˆ 8 : & 5 ! , Ú &Ï ˆ & ) ) ? .111
An alternative to Diodorus’s rationalism is skepticism about the resurrections of Asclepius. Sextus Empiricus (end of II C.E.) has a rich tradition of Asclepius’s resurrections, although he believes none of them. At all events, the special histories are countless in number and do not hold their ground because the same information is not given about the same subject by all of them. For instance (it is of course not inappropriate that we use familiar and fitting examples of these matters under discussion), making a false assumption on their own authority, the historians say that Asclepius, the founder of our science [medicine], was transfixed with a thunderbolt; not content with the false statement, they even indulge in inventing many varia108 Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D (BiTeu Mythographi Graeci 3.1, 7,6–13 Olivieri) = T. 121 Edelstein. This text is based on Olivieri’s recension of four MSS. Cf. K. Geus, Eratosthenes von Kyrene. Studien zur hellenistischen Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Munich 2002, 211–4 who argues that Ps. Eratosthenes’ astronomical mythological text is a second century C.E. summary of Eratosthenes’ ] ¢ Û (Astronomy or Placing among the Stars), which transmits a core of the original. See Suda Ε § 2898. 109 MS R (Venetus Marcianus 444 [XV CE]) in Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D (BiTeu Mythographi Graeci 3.1, 7,12–4 Olivieri). 110 Zenobius Epit. 1.18. 111 Diod. Sic. 4.71.1, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 3.43.
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tions, Stesichorus [VI C.E.] saying in his Eriphyle that Asclepius revived some of those who fell at Thebes; Polyanthus, the Cyrenaean, again relating in his book On the Origin of the Asclepiads that he healed the daughters of Proteus who had been driven mad through the wrath of Hera; Panyassis [V B.C.E.] saying it was because he resuscitated the corpse of Tyndareus; Staphylus, on the other hand, writing in his book About the Arcadians, that he healed Hippolytus when he fled from Troezen, according to the legends handed down about him in the tragedians; or of Phylarchus saying in his ninth book that it was because he restored the sight of the sons of Phineues when they were blinded, doing a favor to their mother, Cleopatra, the daughter of Erechtheus; whereas Telesarchus112 says in his History of Argolis that he undertook to restore Orion to life. When a hypothesis originates in falsehood in such a fashion and is for the most part incapable of proof and remodelled according to the whim of each historian, then no scientific theory can be formulated. " &8 Ï 8 " ; &Ï Ù F! ∞, Ú Ã / &Ï Ù Ï ÃÏ Ú Ã Ï a " )!. ∑ (Ã ; ? ), μ (8 Ú ∞ : ! ? & . Õ ! Ï /) &F I? " " Ú Ù Ù F 7 ] Ù ! 8 , Ã 2 , Ü Ä Ü Ú ÃÙ ?, Ó C ( W ∞S ≈ Ï Ú 7I ¹, ! &Ó ¡ ) 2 Ú F ] & 8 ≈ Ï ! 8 Ï ≠ ) 8 ∞?, &Ó &Ï Ù Ù P&? F ?( &Ó 2 Ú ] ?& ≈ π ! ? ( P F Ï Ï & &8 í Ã ) 9&8 (7, j &Ó E ?W &Ï Ù ˆ j8 "ˆ ( !8 F, Ã E Ú ? c E C !8 , P 8 &Ó 2 ] 2 ≈ Ù ‰ I? F. Ã F — Ù & Õ!8 8 Ú & 57 Ï F! Ú Ù /? 8
8í ; ! .113
Sextus Empiricus’s skepticism is apparently not shared by Libanius.114 In Porphyry’s treatise On Images, he discusses the meaning of the serpent wound around the staff of Asclepius: It [the serpent] appears to be skilled in the medical art. For it found the medicine for sharp-sightedness, and it is said in myth to know a certain plant which brings back life. & ) &Ó Ú ∞ : ∂H F Ï ¿5& ” Ù (? Ú ! F I: ∞&8 Ï I?.115
The serpent’s knowledge of the plant also appears frequently in the stories of Glaucus’s resurrection by Polyidus. A scholiast to Aratus’s Phaenomena notes that by using the healing art Asclepius raised those who had already
112 113
Cf. FHG 4.508. Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. (Adv. log. 1) 7.260–2, trans. of Edelstein, Asclepius,
38–9. 114 115
Cf. § 1.27 below. Porphyry Ú ? 359F Smith = Eusebius P.E. 3.11.26.
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died (… E 8E E ∞ E : ˆ 4& ! 4 ).116 Ovid describes Asclepius’s apotheosis as the result of Apollo’s intercession with Jupiter. Hyginus mentions Asclepius’s return from the underworld.117 As previously noted, Justin writes that the healer Asclepius, after being struck by a thunderbolt, ascended into heaven ( !8 ∞ Ã ).118 Theophilus the apologist refers to the resurrection of the dead Asclepius in a defense of the concept of resurrection: ∂ Ó Â 8 /Ù F Ú ] Ù !8 8 ! (You believe that Heracles who burned himself lives and that Asclepius who was struck down by a thunderbolt has risen).119 In Minucius Felix’s dialogue, the Christian, Octavus, knows a similar tradition: Erigone hanged herself, to shine as Virgo among the stars. Castor and his twin live, by alternate deaths, Aesculapius, to rise to godhead, is struck by lightning; Hercules puts off mortality by being consumed in the flames of Oeta. Erigone suspensa de laqueo est, ut Virgo inter astra signata sit; Castores alternis moriuntur ut vivant; Aesculapius ut in deum surgat fulminatur; Hercules ut hominem exuat Oetaeis ignibus concrematur.120
These Christian traditions use the language of resurrection or ascension for Asclepius’s destiny – which is missing in Ovid’s and Hyginus’s narratives. The text of Minucius Felix is far closer to an apotheosis, however, than a resurrection account. The resurrection tradition about Asclepius is clearly from “the end of antiquity.”121
116
Schol. in Aratum 75–82. Ov. Fast. 6.657–62 and Hyg. Fab. 251. See § 2.4 and 2.8 below. 118 Justin 1 Apol. 21.2. Cf. chapt. 1 § 1.3. 119 Theophilus Autol. 1.13. Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 16 argues that the Hellenistic sources do not affirm that Heracles was raised from the dead, but rather that his bones disappeared. Litwa, Jesus Deus, 156–8 has an important discussion of these traditions, but does not sufficiently distinguish them from the apotheosis narratives of the Greco Roman writers in my view. For example, in Lucian’s Dial. deor. 13.1, Heracles tells Asclepius that he has received a share in immortality because of Zeus’s pity ( &Ó í > “! ! (). This is no clear statement of resurrection, although Litwa refers to it. The same comment applies to his quotation of Ps. Eratosthenes’ statement that Asclepius was taken to the stars (in this section). 120 Min. 22.7, trans. of Minucius Felix, LCL, ed. and trans. G. H. Rendall, Cambridge, MA 1931, 379. Tertullian Apol. 23.6 mentions three temporary resurrections by Asclepius: alia die morituris Socordio et Thanatio et Asclepiodoto uitae subministrator (provider of life to Socordius, Thanatius, and Asclepiodotus who will die another day). 121 Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, 2.75. 117
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1.10 Pelops The tale of Pelops resembles a resurrection account and deserves to be included here. Tantalus had served up his son in a banquet for the gods. According to Apollodorus, Pelops, after being slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods, was fairer than ever when he came to life again, and on account of his surpassing beauty he became a minion [erōmenos loverboy] of Poseidon, who gave him a winged chariot, such that even when it ran through the sea the axles were not wet. À 8 ( Ú 2 ! ?9 Ú ! ! Ú › E : 8 , Ú ? & S & : , √ Ã2 && b Õ H Ú &Ï ! ? 8 ˆ ;5 Ã Õ .122
The use of : does indicate a form of resurrection. Most of the authors of antiquity who discussed the story did not use resurrection language. The scholiast to Pindar, for example, simply notes that after Demeter (or Themis) had unwittingly consumed the boy’s shoulder, “Zeus having discovered it, ordered Hermes to place the body parts back in the cauldron against and to restore the child to health” ( &Ó Ù E ?5 ! ) ? 8I Ï 8 Ú Õ F Ù )& &).123 Pindar formulates the account as a translation: then it was that the Lord of the Splendid Trident seized you, his mind overcome by desire, and with golden steeds conveyed you to the highest home of widely honored Zeus … But when you disappeared, and despite much searching no men returned you to your mother, one of the envious neighbors immediately said in secret that into water boiling rapidly on the fire they cut up your limbs with a knife í ] U ?, &8 ( 8 "8 9, 8 í í μ — Ã Ú & Ù IaH Ö › &í ;( > , Ã&Ó Ú Ï ( ; , > (¹ Ã (! , —& ≈ Ú 8 ∞ ? c ? Ï 8 124
122 Apollodorus Epit. 2.3, trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.137, with many references to the story from Greco Roman authors. On the relationship between the erastēs (lover) and the erōmenos, cf. W. A.Percy, Reconsiderations About Greek Homosexualities, Journal of Homosexuality 49 3/4 (2005) 13–61. 123 Schol. in Pindar Ol. 1.40. In Pindar Ol. 1.25–6 ( ! 8I/ >5 !:, / 8( (& ‚ &8) Clotho takes him out of the pure cauldron, furnished with a gleaming shoulder made of ivory. 124 Pindar Ol. 1.40–2.46–9, trans. of Pindar, 2 vols., ed. and trans. W. H. Race, Cambridge, MA 1997, 1.51.
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Here there is no question of resurrection, and the clear difference between the two genres may be seen. U ? characterizes translation in many texts. 1.11 Aesop Zenobius the sophist (II C.E.) has a tradition of the proverbial term, “Aesopian stain/blood” (Ê∞: ∑), which is based on the tale that the Delphians killed Aesop. The Delphians were told by the Pythian oracle to expiate the stain, because the daimon (Ù & ) was angry with them. Zenobius then lists a number of those who had been restored to life, including Aesop: °— Ï ! ( 8 ¡ ÊN , › ! ÃÙ I › P&? Ú Â F Ú º (For so beloved by the gods became Aesop, that the myth says that he came to life again like Tyndareus and Heracles and Glaucus).125 These references are to actual resurrections. A fragment in the Suda attributed to Aelian contains the same sentence after its definition of ]I as F (LSJ: “to return to life, to be alive again”).126 Aelian affirms that the Delphians pushed Aesop off a cliff.127 A scholiast to Aristophanes refers to a fragment of Plato the comic (V–IV B.C.E.): The comic Plato says in his Laconians that Aesop will return to life: “Now swear that you haven’t died and your soul has come up like that of Aesop once.” ¡ &Ó Ù ? Ú I ( ÃÙ ) ? — ìÚ ƒ !?, &í 7 · Ê∞: 8.”128
Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin restore the fragment so: (A) Now swear that you haven’t died.” (B) I am a corpse indeed, but my soul has come up like that of Aesop once. (A) Ú ƒ !?. (B) Ù ª ˘,129 &í 7 · Ê∞: 8.130 125
Zenobius Epit. 1.47. The same fragment is attributed to Aelian by the editors (frag. 203 Hercher = frag. 204a Domingo-Forasté) = Suda Ê § 1806. Cp. Aristotle, frag. 487 Rose for the tradition that the Delphians killed Aesop and Diogenianus, Paroemiae 1.46. According to the Suda Α § 1806, Plato (V–IV B.C.E.) the comic (cp. frag. 68 Kock = frag. 70 Kassel/Austin) wrote Ú ƒı !Ì Ù ˘: &' Ù Û · Ê∞˘ Ô (and now swear to me that my body has not died, but my soul [emerges] from victory like Aesop’s once). I have found the information (and translations) in the Suda On Line useful here (‹http://www.stoa.org/sol/›), although my translations are somewhat different. 126 Suda Α § 1806. 127 Aelian, frag. 203: " (Ú > ÃÙ Ï ? (Suda Ε § 1909). 128 Schol. in Aristophanes Av. 1251. See also Schol. in Aristophanes Vesp. 1259b and Suda Ê § 1806. 129 Suda Ê § 1806 has Ù ª ˘ here (not in the scholia to Aristophanes). 130 Plato comicus frag. 68 Kock = frag. 70 Kassel/Austin.
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The reference to the soul’s “coming up” (7 ) from Hades is a different image from the bodily return of Aesop to life that Zenobius appears to envision. In one of the lives of Aesop, there is a reference to resurrection during a feast: One of the scholars said, “When will there be the greatest confusion among people?” Aesop, standing behind his master, replied, “If the dead should rise and ask for their possessions!” ∑ &Ó ∂ ì > [8 Ï ] ? ! :;î ÊN /S ¿ & Ã 8 ì Ï " Ú ? Ï N& .”131
In this case, the image of resurrection is merely hypothetical.132 1.12 Er, Antyllus, and the Man from Soli Plato describes the revivification or resurrection of Er after he lay twelve days on his funeral pyre: He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelfth day as he lay upon the pyre, revived, and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. ≈ 89 7, !8 & 4& & (! 8 , Õ Ó W 8!, ! Ú &í N& 8 !? ! & & ) Ú E ¹ I , Iˆ &í > Å ) N&.133
Although Plato presents the story as a myth (! Resp. 621b), the language is of resurrection, since Er was dead. Origen appeals to the narrative of Er’s resurrection to defend the possibility of Christ’s: And since the unbelievers mock the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we will cite as evidence Plato who said that Er the son of Armenius rose after twelve days on the pyre and gave information about things in Hades. Ú &Ó Ù Ú F ? ∏ # ? " ;, ! ! Ó Ú ? 8 Æ Ù ] Ï &:& 8 F a 8 ! Ú
8 Ï Ú &.134
131
Vitae Aesopi, Vita G 47 (B. E. Perry, Aesopica, vol. 1, Urbana 1952). Cf. Zeller, Hellenistische Vorgaben, 15. 133 Plato Resp. 614d, trans. of Fowler, Plato, 6.491–3. On Er’s return to life, cf. Hopfner, Offenbarungszauber, 1.139–40 § 267 (1.64–5, 1921 ed.). 134 Origen, Cels. 2.16. Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.14.103.2–5 uses the story to illustrate the ascension of souls through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, although he admits Plato may be alluding to resurrection (? Ó “ ?, ? &Ó ) ∞ , › &Ï &:& 9& ¡&Ù ) ) ∞ ? ). 132
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In a fragment of Plutarch’s De anima, there is an account of the resuscitation or resurrection of Antyllus. Eusebius includes the fragment after his discussion of Er. Upon recovering from an illness, ... he [Antyllus] declared that he had died and been set free again, and was not going to die at all of that present illness ... But this Antyllus came to life again, and is alive and well, and one of our most agreeable friends ... > &Ó !? Ú ? ( )! Ú !75 ! Ù ? ÕÙ F ... ” &Ó I , Ú “ , ) 58 8.135
This account presumes that Antyllus had actually died and then returned to life. Plutarch also gives a similar account of a man from Soli who had lived a dissipated life. But the greatest blow to his good name was a response conveyed to him from the oracle of Amphilochus. He had sent (it appears) to ask the god whether the remainder of his life would be better spent. The god answered that he would do better when he died. In a sense this actually happened to him not long after. He had fallen from a height and struck his neck, and although there had been no wound, but only a concussion, he died away. On the third day, at the very time of his funeral, he revived. Soon recovering his strength and senses, he instituted a change in his way of life that could hardly be believed. ? &í ÃÙ &8I ! )? 5 ]( . 8
Ï › > † : Ù ! , ∞ I8 I: Ù IH ¡ &í ) ≈ ?5 I8 , ≈ !?W. Ú & Ï í Ã ˆ Ã2 8 . ! Ú Ï 5 — Ù ∞ ? Ã
8 Ï F 58! , Ú ) 4& Ú Ï (Ï ÃÏ 7 . ˆ &Ó X ! Ú Ú í Õ2 ; I I .136
He later tells his friend Protogenes about the souls of the dead that he saw during his three-day journey. A relative tells him that his name is now Thespesius and not Aridaeus: For you must further know you are not dead, but through a divine dispensation are present here in your intelligence, having left the rest of your soul, like an anchor, behind in your body. Ã&Ó ? 8!, Ï c Ú ! • & 2 ( , &í ; · 2 : 8 .137
His new name means “more than human” or “divine.”138 Plutarch’s comments here indicate that he did not think Thespesius had actually died, although he 135 Plutarch frag. 176 Sandbach = Eusebius, P.E. 11.36.1, trans. Gifford, Eusebius, 3.2.611. 136 Plutarch Sera 22, 563C–D, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 7.271. On this individual’s “soul travels,” cf. Hopfner, Offenbarungszauber, 1.139–40 § 267 (1.64–5, 1921 ed.). 137 Plutarch Sera 24, 564D, trans. of Babbitt, Moralia, 7.277.
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appeared to be dead. 58! , according to LSJ, can mean “to be in a deathlike swoon.” Plato distinguishes between a person in such a swoon from one who has actually died ( ! Ú Ù ƒ ! ).139 In addition, Plutarch does not use one of the usual verbs for resurrection, but 7 , which can mean “come to oneself” “recover” or “revive.”140 1.13 Aelian Aelian preserves an account of a man (or half man and half horse) named Mares141 who died and returned to life three times: Italy was originally inhabited by an indigenous people, the Ausones. The most ancient inhabitant was one Mares, whose front parts, they say, were like those of a man, and his back that of a horse – and the name itself, it is said, means “horse-man” in Greek. I think he was the first man to mount a horse and to put a bit in its mouth, and because of this he was thought to have a hybrid nature. Legend has it that he lived a hundred and twentythree years, dying three times and coming to life three times. But to me this is not plausible. P ∏ Ê– Ã ! . I &Ó 8! ®? Ï , ” Ï Ó > ! 8 ! :9 ≈, Ï ! &Ó μ9H ÃÙ &Ó – ∞ ?& (Ú " &. & ) &8 μ IF Ú I ) Ã2 , ∂ &( !F. ! &Ó ÃÙ Ú I > Ú N Ú / , Ú ≈ Ú !S I H Ú &Ó Ã Ï &.142
Presumably the narrator envisions a physical return to life, although he finds it incredible. 1.14 Aelius Aristides: Eupolis and other Examples of Resurrection Aelius Aristides mentions some hypothetical resurrections that are interesting in their own right, and he refers to a “resurrection play” of the comic dramatist Eupolis. Aristides refers to Protesilaos in a text (To Plato: In Defense of the Four) in which he hypothesizes the temporary resurrection of Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, and Simon, statesmen criticized by Plato in the Gor-
138 Cf. J. R. Morgan, The Epistolary Ghost-Story in Phlegon of Tralles, in: Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. O. Hodkinson et al., Mn.S 359, Leiden 2013, 293–322, esp. 315 and LSJ, s.v. 139 Plato Leg. 959A. On Thespesius, cf. R. Gagné, La Catabase aérienne de Thespésios: Le statut du récit, EtCl 83 (2015) 313–328. 140 Cf. LSJ s.v. 141 N. G. Wilson (Aelian, Historical Miscellany, LCL, ed. and trans. N. G. Wilson, Cambridge, MA 1997, 295) notes that “this may be the Etruscan god Maris, identified with Mars.” 142 Aelian, Varia historia 9.16, trans. of Wilson, Aelian, 295.
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gias.143 The orator defends the statesmen by arguing that people in the city were responsible for their own unjust acts and not their leaders. And in fact it has occurred to me that even to Plato’s profit I am disproving these charges and whatever openings he gives against himself from these accusations if someone would wish to imitate him. For come, by the gods, if just as they tell of Protesilaos, who after pleading with the gods of the Underworld again joined the living, or just as a certain comic poet depicted four of the Athenian leaders as coming back to life [“having risen”], in whose number are two of these, in the same way these four men of ours, who are involved in the present suit, found a means of resurrection, so as to be with Plato for only a single day for this purpose, and next spoke having chosen Pericles as their representative, or if you wish Themistocles, both of whom as far as we are concerned lead the column of the orators, – and let no one attribute the harshness of the answer to me. Ú &Fí >
í !7! › Ã2 ? Ï ∞ Ú ¡ Ï ÃÙ !í Õ && Ï IÏ ? , N ÃÙ I 7!. (8 Ï Ù ! , ∞ !? Ù ( ? ˆ ? F! Ï : , ¢ Ú · 8 , ∑ & > , — " 8 ) ”, Ú „ Ú &&, ? — , ·
8! ? 8 Ú ) , > > Ù 8 ? , ∞ &Ó I Ù 8, μ ) Ú 8 X óÚ ≈ & Ú Ú Ù ˆ F )·144
A scholiast on Aristides describes part of the content of Euripides’ play: As they tell of Protesilaos who after pleading with the gods of the Underworld, again joined the living] Protesilaos is a play written by Euripides. He [Euripides] says that he [Protesilaos] married and consorted with his wife for one single day, and then was compelled to accompany the Greeks against Troy, and having been the first to disembark at Troy he was killed. And he [Euripides] says that he [Protesilaos] petitioned the gods below, was released for one day and had sex with his wife.
143
Ps. Heraclitus Ep. 4.4 uses a similar trope: “If after five hundred years you could come alive again by regeneration, you would find Heraclitus still living, but no trace of your name” ( ∞ &! í ˆ
I , ?I i  ? > , Õ &Ó Ã&í N ¿ ). 144 Aristides Or. 3.365 (P. Aelii Aristides opera quae exstant omnia, 3 vols., ed. F. W. Lenz and C. A. Behr, Leiden 1978, 418,13–419,3) = Or. 46 (Aristides II, 300,6–12 Dindorf), trans. in Aelius Aristides, The Complete Works. Orations I–XVI, vol. 1, trans. C. A. Behr, Leiden 1986, 220–21 (vol. 2: Orations XVII–LIII, Leiden 1986). Aristides Or. 2.321 (241,11–4 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 45 (II, 104,7–10 Dindorf) again hypothesizes the resurrection of these statesmen to confront Plato: (8 & Ù Ù, N ? ¢ I N!, · ? Õ Ù 8
, Ú Ù ÃÙ N , ), ‚ ? , ; Ó Ã&Ó Ù ]! ∞ ? !· (“For come now, by Zeus, let us suppose that they were somehow resurrected or became sentient, just as Dion is made by Plato to talk to the Syracusans, and were to say to him: We did no other good for the city of Athens, Plato,” trans. of Behr, ibid., 1.127).
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!? Ù (Ú, ? ˆ ? , F! Ï : ] ¡ & a 8 @Ã &W. 8 &Ó ≈ 7 Ú 8
E Ú Õ, † ?! Ï 7 Ï F P ! ), Ú IÏ F P Ú (Ú ≈ ˆ ? & 7, Ú ( ! 8 , Ú 8 E Ú Õ.145
C. A. Behr notes that the comic poet was Eupolis in his play entitled Demes (written between 418 and 411 C.E.). The “four resurrected leaders were Miltiades, Aristides the Just, Solon and Pericles.”146 Aristides mentions another hypothetical resurrection: Indeed, Pericles even in death was superior to Cleon, if the truth must be told. There is a great proof of this. For there was no one who would not have prayed for the resurrection of the former, so that the Athenians were pleased even when they saw him as it were resurrected on the stage; but no one would not have preferred the latter dead instead of Pericles. So much superior was Pericles in death to him in life. Ú F Ú ! S ? 8 , ∞ & ) !Ó ∞ ). 8 &Ó )H Ù Ó Ï Ã& Ú D ≈ Ã i –5 F, · ) & ? › ¡ Ã( , Ù &í Ã > ≈ Ã i I í )!. 9 D ! S F .147
In his funeral address on Alexander, Aristides praises him using the concept of resurrection: Indeed, if the Smyrnaeans are proud of having given Homer to the world, and the Parians because of Archilochus, and the Boeotians because of Hesiod, and the Ceans because of Simonides, and the Himerians because of Stesichorus, and the Thebans because of Pindar, and the Mytilenaeans because of Sappho and Alcaeus, and other people because of various other authors – for I now omit Athens –, indeed, it is likely that you are very proud of the man who adorned and explicated all of these. For, I think, if some god had granted these authors resurrection while he was still alive, they would assemble all his colleagues and demand that these colleagues learn from him what should be thought and said about themselves.
145
Schol. in Aelium Aristidem Or. 46 (III, 671,28–672,3 Dindorf). The text commented on is Or. 3.365 (418,16–7 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 46 (ΙΙ, 200 Dindorf). Trans. mod. of H. Pelliccia, Unlocking Aeneid 6.460: Plautus’ Amphitryon, Euripides’ Protesilaus and the References of Callimachus’ Coma, CJ 106 (2010–2011) 149–219, esp. 178. Pelliccia reproduces Kannicht’s edition of the scholion (TGrF V.2, Euripides, Protesilaos T ii p. 683 [I do not include Kannicht’s many MS variants]). 146 Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 1.470. The dates are from I. C. Storey, Eupolis. Poet of Old Comedy, Oxford 2003, 112. Cf. Or. 3.151 (342,16–17 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 46 (II, 214 Dindorf) ∞ Ï Ï, 8
, ? ÃÙ 5: ) ® ?& (If Plato, I mean, should come back to life, will feel that he ought to accuse Miltiades …), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 1.178. 147 Aristides Or. 3.487 (459,13–17 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 46 (II, 342,19–343,3 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 1.242.
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Ú ∞ À 8! Ú ] Ú M ) Â& Ú & & Ú π Ú I & Ú ® (S Ú ] ) Ú /8 /8 Ï (8 ( , Ï Ï ]!7 Ï , D Ú Õa 8 ( ) ∞Ù Ú 2 b 7 Ú & 5. ∂ Ï N ! >& Ã) ? > ? i ∞ Ù ˆ ¡8 Ã Ï !? Å Ú Ã ( ) Ú 8 .148
The scholiast on Aristides explains the orator’s reference to Eupolis: Eupolis in a play raised from the dead Miltiades, Aristides, Solon, and Pericles, Among these then, say, are two, Pericles and Miltiades, and Eupolis says … @– ? Ù ® ?& Ú ] & Ú º8 Ú 8. “ > &, (Ú, F Ú ® ?&. 8 &Ó @– — …149
A fragment of Eupolis’s play follows that does not specifically mention resurrection, although it addresses Militades and Pericles directly. And, lords Miltiades and Perikles, do not let these young faggots hold office, who drag the generalship around their ankles. Ú 8ª ‚5 ® ?&W Ú Û , a ; ? I Ú ) ( ) A .150
The drama of Eupolis is a “resurrection play.” The rhetorician Aphthonius in his Progymnasmata discusses phantommaking ( ∞& ), a rhetorical figure: Idolopoeia or ghost-making (as a figure of style) is that which represents a famous person who is really dead and no longer able to speak; compare Eupolis in the Demes and Aristides in his work on The Great Four. ∞& &Ó Ó > : , ! Ù &Ó Ú 8 ? , › 7 @– > Ú ] & 2 ’Ó ? ·151
148 Aristides Or. 32.24–5 (Aristides II, 222,28–223,5 Keil) = Or. 12 (Aristides I, 142,18– 24 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.162. 149 The scholion (Aristides 3, 672,5–11 Dindorf) is reedited by J. M. Edmonds, The Fragments of Attic Comedy, Leiden 1957, 1.350 (trans. on 337, 351). 150 Eupolis Demes frag. 104 (Poetae comici graeci [PCG], vol. 5, ed. R. Kassel and C. Austin, Berlin 1986, 356). Trans. of Storey, Eupolis, 14 (I retain Storey’s objectionable word for those young men who are “being screwed”). 151 Aphthonius Progymnasmata 34 (Rhetores graeci 10, Rabe), trans. of Edmonds, Fragments, 1.337. Hermogenes Progym. 9 (Rhetores graeci 6, 20 Rabe) has a similar definition of ∞& , with reference to Aristides’ The Four: ∞& &8 ( ), ≈ ) ! ? , · ] & 2 Ù ? ÕÓ ? · (“they say it is image-making when we attribute words to the dead as
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A fragment of the Demes makes a reference to the individuals who have, if the restoration is correct, come from the dead. The chorus or a character says: “I think I see seated these men who they say have come from the dead” (& ˆ« ;& « 4& [«&í] ∞[& ) / !]8«, —« (« • [Ï ]).152 Here the “chorus surely encounter the four dead statesmen for the first time.”153 Another probable fragment apparently denies resurrection: “… to the gods down below … I (they?) would not have come to life again even once …” ( ].)« [8] « ! )« / ]. « à I Ã&í b5).154 Plutarch, in his Life of Pericles, refers to the play: And Eupolis in his Demes, having inquiries made about each one of the demagogues as they come up from Hades, says, when Pericles is called out last: You have brought from the dead your crowning achievement. ¡ &í @– ) 7 ! Ú /? I I 5 & &
, › ¡ F ‹?! )H ≈ (? ? ! 4 .155
Ian C. Storey argues that these individuals are “revenants,” presumably meaning embodied ghosts. The first scene may have depicted “Pyronides and his companion (Eugeiton?) with the accoutrements for a sacrifice and soul-raising …”156 Parallels are Odyssey 11, where Odysseus summons the dead, and Aeschylus’s Psychagogoi. In Aeschylus’s play “a stranger is bidden to stand by the ‘dreadful lake’ ((I a ), slaughter a sacrificial animal (& ( ), pour its blood into the reeds as a drink for the spirits of the dead, and invoke the chthonian gods to let a swarm of dead come up.”157 The nature of the “resurrection” of the four leaders remains open. Martin Revermann
does Aristides in Against Plato on Behalf of the Four, for there he has attributed words to Themistocles’ companions,” trans. G. A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata. Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Leiden 2003, 84). 152 Eupolis Demes frag. 99,64–5 (PCG 5.348 Kassel/Austin). Trans. of I. C. Storey, Eupolis. Poet of Old Comedy, Oxford 2003, 13. 153 M. Revermann, Comic Business. Theatricality, Dramatic Technique, and Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy, Oxford 2006, 317. 154 Eupolis Demes frag. 101,3–4 (PCG 5.352 Kassel/Austin), trans. of Storey, Eupolis, 14 modified. 155 Plutarch Per. 3.7, Eupolis Demes frag. 115 (PCG 5.363 Kassel/Austin). Trans. of Plutarch’s Lives, vol. 1–11, LCL, ed. and trans. B. Perrin, Cambridge, MA 1914–26, 3.9 and Storey, Eupolis, 15. Storey (ibid., 122) translates the text of Plutarch as, “Eupolis in his Demoi putting questions about each of the risen demagogues from Hades.” 156 Storey, Eupolis, 123. Eupolis Demes frag. 99,56–7 (PCG 5.347 Kassel/Austin) has ] & … / ] œ« 7 (Pyronides … whom he has brought up). Cf. Storey, ibid., 12 (his trans.), 122 (probably Pyronides has brought back or “raised” the dead). 157 Storey, Eupolis, 122 quoting Aristophanes, Birds, ed. and comm. by N. V. Dunbar, Oxford 1995, 711 and referring to Aeschylus Psychagogoi in Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta (TrGF), vol. 3, ed. S. Radt, Göttingen 1985, frag. 273a.
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notes that “Someone raised these statesmen to the upper world by a katabasis or by necromancy.”158 Resurrection appears in other contexts in Aristides. The orator has a low opinion of sophists: For I think that if Plato and Pythagoras themselves arose and found a sophist, they would place him somewhere far off … ∂ Ï >
Ú ? Ú ! È ? Ú I ( — &Ó i !8 ! …159
He expresses open skepticism about the possibility of the resurrection of Achilles: And who, by the gods, is so naïve that he is persuaded that Achilles is satisfied to stay alive and for this reason keeps himself out of combat, because once dead he cannot come to life again? Ú ‚ Ù ! — ) · !F › ] ˆ ¹ Ú &Ï >5 I , ≈ Ã ∑ ! F;160
In his Address on Asclepius, he mentions those who claim to have risen from the dead due to the god’s intervention: Some say that they have been resurrected when they were dead, and their stories are accepted, of course, and it is an old practice of the god. ∞Ú μ ( F , ¡ &7 8 Ú ? 2 ! 2 : .161
In his oration Regarding Sarapis, Aristides writes that It is he who has caused potable water to rise in the middle of the sea. It is he who has resurrected the dead … ” —& F 8W ! ?W, ” 8 8 …162
I have been unable to find examples of resurrections accomplished by Sarapis in Greco-Roman literature.163 “Sarapis” is the Hellenized Greek form of the
158
Revermann, Comic Business, 312. Aristides Or. 3.688 (552,4–7 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 46 (II, 412 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 1.278. 160 Aristides Or. 16.29 (809,16–8 Lenz/Behr) = Or. 52 (II, 601 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 1.409. 161 Aristides Or. 42.6 (II, 336,3–5 Keil) = Or. 6 (I, 66 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.248. The same expression, however, can mean raising (i.e., healing) a sick person (Philumene) from their bed as in Or. 47.78 (II, 394,13–4 Keil) = Or. 23 (I, 290 Dindorf), trans. Behr, ibid. 2.291: … 8 &8 8 8 Ó Ù ?, S ≈ Ú (Ù ( 8 7 (Once when she was in bed, he restored her by sending me from Pergamum and foretelling that I would make my nurse easier). 162 Aristides Or. 45.29 (II, 360,28–361,1 Keil) = Or. 8 (I, 95 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.267. 159
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Egyptian words for Osiris and Apis, and “his cult was performed in a temple complex rebuilt by Pharoahs Nectanebo I and II (380–343 BC).”164 Aristides makes no explicit claims about the reliable testimony for resurrections in the case of Sarapis – in contrast with his references to resurrections accomplished by Asclepius. The orator uses the concept of resurrection metaphorically to describe the rejuvenation of Smyrna Greece assembles to see a happy plot; the city, as if in a play, has changed its age and once more is rejuvenated, being both old and new, as is the tale of the phoenix which is resurrected from itself. For god did not approve of there being another phoenix instead of and after that one. Ö &í Ï Ú F Õ!8 , &í · & ? Ú & ? 5 F ( I , Ã Ï Ú 8 8, · Ù ( I: ! ÃÙ 5 ÕH Ã Ï & í ; & 5 2 ! 2 A ( í Ú í ) 8!.165
Another metaphorical use occurs in his oration Regarding Rome: You continually care for the Greeks as if they were your foster fathers, protecting them and, as it were, resurrecting them from the dead, giving freedom and self-rule to the best of them … & ) &Ó Ó 7 · (8 , ) ? Õ 8 Ú ∑ 8 ? , ˆ Ó Ú ? !8 Ú Ã ( Ã … 166
Aristides compares the myth of the Pamphylian (Er) to cities that have “been raised to new life” by the Roman empire ( 5( I ) while pros-
163 According to Tac. Hist. 4.81.1–3, Sarapis prompted two individuals to seek healing from Vespasian, one who was blind and one who had a paralyzed hand. The attempted healings were successful. 164 R. Gordon, Sarapis, OCD4, 1317–8. Cp. R. L. Vos, Apis, DDD, 68–72. 165 Aristides Or. 20.19 (II, 21,24–22,2 Keil) = Or. 21 (I, 436 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.18. Behr, ibid., 361, as an example of rejuvenation, refers to Medea (Schol. in Aristophanes Eq. 1321 [where Demos is boiled and renewed] ? 7 · ®7& 8 Ï (ˆ ( 7! [bringing about a renewal, as Medea is said to have boiled the nurses of Dionysus]) – a ref. to Aeschylus’s ˜ P (Û (for which, see the reference in the Hypothesis, Schol. 1 to Euripides’ Medea. In the Hypothesis, Medea is said to rejuvenate the nurses and their husbands (Ï (ˆ Ï & Ã 7 ). Jason’s and his father’s (Aeson’s) rejuvenations are also mentioned. Cf. F. Graf, Medea, the Enchantress from Afar: Remarks on a Well-Known Myth, in: Medea. Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art, ed. J. J. Clauss and S. I. Johnston, Princeton 1997, 21–44, esp. 34. 166 Aristides Or. 26.96 (II, 119,7–120,1 Keil) = Or. 14 (I, 363–4 Dindorf), trans. slightly modified of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.94.
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trate on their funeral pyre (∑ Ú E ¹ 4& " ). He writes, Indeed, like the tale of the Pamphylian, or if it was not his, of Plato, the cities, as it were already lying on their funeral pyre through strife and disorder against one another, have received all at once a leader and have forthwith been resurrected. í Ï Ù ( !, ∞ &Ó , ? , ∑ Ú E ¹ 4& " ÕÙ F Ù 7 > & Ú F ! &85 Ú 5( I .167
The image of resurrection is close at hand, although it is merely a metaphor. 1.15 Crates An extremely fragmentary text of Crates168 the comic poet apparently made use of the concept of resurrection in some sense. The Suda refers to Crates in this text: (S)he returned to life: [Meaning (s)he] came to life again. Also [attested is] I Ì [“I returned [someone] to life”], meaning I made [someone] come to life again. Crates [uses the word]. [One should say] I˘ and I˘ rather than I); they also say F [“to come to life”]. ] I : 8 . Ú ] I ?, Ú I . ?. ]I: Ú ]I: a ¢ I)H 8 &Ó Ú F.169
The text of Crates is one word long. At this time the context is unknown in Crates, although it is possible that his play was similar to Eupolis’s. It could be a metaphorical usage as in a fragment of Timocles where a character named Tithymallus “comes back to life after being completely dead, by softening eight obols worth of lupine” (¡ Ï P! — I / &E !:, í ¿S ÃI / !8 ?5).170 He thus did not kill himself by fasting, but persisted in drinking – presumably a reference to a Spartan diet (Ã 8 Ï / ), í 8 í, ‚ ( , / ).171
167 Aristides Or. 26.69 (II, 110,23–111,3 Keil) = Or. 16 (I, 350 Dindorf), trans. of Behr, Aristides, Complete Works, 2.87. 168 The text of Crates is frag. 52 Kassel/Austin. 169 Suda Α § 2211, trans. slightly modified of ] I , Suda On Line, tr. J. Benedict, 15 June 2000, ‹http:/www.stoa.org/sol-entries/Α/2211›. Photius Lexicon Α 1783 has ] I ?H Ú I (I brought back to life: instead of, I made return to life). ?. Cp. Lexica Segueriana (L. Bachmann, Anecdota Graeca, vol. 1, Leipzig 1828, 88) and Anonymus Lexicographus A § 1250 (I. C. Cunningham,
85 , Sammlung griechischer und lateinischer Grammatiker 10, Berlin 2003) for the same entry. 170 Timocles Caunians frag. 18 Kock = frag. 20 Kassel/Austin. 171 Timocles Caunians frag. 18 Kock = frag. 20 Kassel/Austin.
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1.16 Polyaenus (II C.E.) Polyaenus includes a tale (presumably fictional) in which Hannibal persuaded his soldiers to believe in resurrection: Hannibal persuaded his men that those who died courageously in battle would come to life again after a brief time; and once when a noble soldier died bravely, he found another who was like him, and he persuaded him to say that he was the one who had died before. À ]I > ! ˆ ∞&, › " Ï Ã !7 I: í Ã ˆ , Ú &7 9 :W ! ≈ Õ S > 8 , › ¡ 7 .172
The story presumes some kind of acquaintance with the concept of resurrection. 1.17 Artemidorus Artemidorus considers the meaning of dead people rising in dreams: If dead people return to life again, it signifies disturbances and losses. For one must hypothetically imagine the kind of confusion that would result if the dead were to come back to life again. They would naturally demand their possessions back, which would bring about losses. T Ú I Ï Ú I ?IH !í Õ ! Ï F μ > I ? . › ∞Ù &Ó Ú Ï / 7, ≈! Ú I ?I .173
Here resurrection is no more than an unlikely possibility with impractical consequences. In another passage, Artemidorus relates resurrection to the tale of an athlete who had apparently died: You must also take into consideration, in the case of those who have dreamt that they have died, whether or not any of them has ever dreamt that he has come back to life again. For, in that case, none of the things that are signified by death will come true. The Syrian wrestler Leonas, when he was about to compete in the contest in Rome, dreamt that he had died and was being buried; a certain trainer encountered him, and rebuked the carriers for burying him so swiftly and zealously, since it was possible for him to come back to life again; then the trainer anointed his chest with warm olive oil and wool and brought him back to life again. This man was successful in the contest and wrestled with distinction. &Ó Ú Ú & !7 7 I W H Ã8 Ï Ï ÕÙ !? . a ¡ 8
! Ù ç:W >&5 !? Ú (8 !, 7 &Ó Ã2 Ù ˆ (8 ≈ 8 Ú & ÃÙ (8 H &! Ï ÃÙ
172
Polyaenus Strat. 14.20. Artemidorus Onir. 2.62, trans. slightly modified of Artemidorus, The Interpretation of Dreams. Oneirocritica, trans. and comm. R. J. White, Torrance, CA 1975, 148. 173
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I . > 9 ! 2 Ú ? Ï 7! F ÃÙ I . ” Ã8 2 ( .174
The case of apparent death (Scheintod) appears frequently in Greco-Roman traditions about resurrection. 1.18 Aeneas of Gaza Aeneas of Gaza, in his Theophrastus (485–490 C.E.)175 has the Christian (Euxitheus) formulate this argument against the Neo-platonist (Theophrastus): If Polyeidos the prophet is said to have come from Argos to Crete and resurrected Glaucus the son of Minos when he suffocated in honey, having learned the herb to use from a snake, you accept the story without question. That Asclepius [resurrected] Hippolytus or Tyndareus (for that is told too), Heracles [resurrected] Alcestis and Theseus and Tymon the Lydian and Timosthenes the Athenian – all this you believe on the authority of Eudoxus,176 in his book on such matters. ’ ) ? , ∞ Ù º Ù ® 8 2 8 & ¡ ? 5 ê ∞ 7 ( F 8 Ï ? !S , I &8 ! H Ú ≈ Ù π ¡ ] Ù ¢ Ù P&? , 8 Ï Ú , Ú › ê Â F Ú Ù 8 Ú P &Ù Ú P!8 Ù ]!) @Ã& 59 Ï
?( ! ! .177
Tymon and Timosthenes are men raised by Heracles, and there is no specific reference to their resurrections being any different from the others (i.e., one cannot assume they resemble the apparent death of figures such as Plato’s Er).178 François Lasserre speculates that Eudoxus could be referring to individuals such as Heracles who journeyed to Hades. He mentions a text from Ps. Plato’s Axiochus that describes such voyages to the realm of the dead. The entire passage takes place in the context of a narrative recounted by Gobryas’s grandfather, who describes what the soul sees after leaving the body ( Ï 174
Artemidorus Onir. 4.82, trans. of White, Artemidorus, 228. For the date, cf. Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus, trans. by J. Dillon and D. Russell with Zacharias of Mytilene, Ammonius, trans. by S. Gertz, London 2012, vii. 176 Eudoxus F. 372 (126 Lasserre). It is unclear which book of Eudoxus this text is from (Lasserre, Eudoxos, 267). 177 Aeneas Theophrastus (63,13–19 Colonna), trans. of Dillon and Russell, Aeneas, 50. 178 Lasserre, Eudoxos, 267 thinks Tymon and Timotheus probably belong in the same category as Plato’s Er (Resp. 10.614A–D), the grandfather of Gobryas (Ps. Plato Axiochus 371A–372A), along with Heracleides’ Empedotimos and Cleonymus (Die Schule des Aristoteles, 10 vols., ed. F. Wehrli, Basel 1944–59, vol. 7 frag. 90–96) and Clearchus’s Cleonymus and Lysias (Clearchus [Die Schule, vol. 3, frag. 8 Wehrli]). All these figures experienced apparent deaths or “ecstatic journeys” to Hades and not genuine resurrections according to Lasserre. J. D. P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Oxford 1962, 152 argues that “Empedotimos” is a conflation of “Empedocles” and “Hermotimus.” Tymon may be the Tylos discussed below. Cp. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 39 on Empedotimus (“fictitious”). 175
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: τὴν ψυχήν). The vision includes a description of the different fates of the good and the evil in netherworld (Ï Õ N).179 Gobryas includes Dionysus and Heracles in his grandfather’s description. And there is a report concerning Heraclus and Dionysus descending to Hades after being initiated into the mysteries here, having borrowed courage for the journey there from the Eleusinian rite. Ú ˆ Ú Â 8 Ú ∞ & !?& !F, Ú Ù !? F ) Ï F C !.180
Heraclides Ponticus describes a voyage to Hades by Empedotimus. Proclus transmits the narrative: It is not impossible that a human soul attains divine truth concerning matters in Hades and announces them to people. The account, reported by Heraclides Ponticus, concerning Empedotimus makes this clear. He says that Empedotimus, hunting with others at high noon in a certain land, was left alone; and experiencing an epiphany of Plouton and Persephone he was illuminated by the light that formed an aureole around the gods, and because of it he saw in direct visions the entire truth about souls. – Ù ! ) & ! & ? Ú
) ) ! :. & ) &Ó Ú ¡ Ï Ù C & , √ Â & " ¡ , ! í ; I c ! ¹ ? ÃÙ > (!8 8
F ( Ú F ( (!F Ó ÕÙ ( Ù !8 9 ˆ ! , ∞& ) &Ó &í Ã a Ú 7! Ã ! ?.181
What is missing in this account is any claim that Empedotimus “came alive again.”182 The language is important, and Aeneas’s language indicates that he is thinking of genuine resurrections and not voyages of the soul. 1.19 Iolaus A scholiast of Pindar reports a tradition in which Iolaus was resurrected for a brief time.
179
Ps. Plato Axiochus 371A–372A. Ps. Plato Axiochus 371E. 181 Heraclides Ponticus frag. 93 Wehrli = Proclus In Platonis rem publicam 614B (113 Kroll). Cp. Proclus, Commentaire sur la République, vol. 3; trans. and notes by A. J. Festugière; Paris 1970, 63–4. 182 Serv. G. 1.34 remarks that Empedotimus saw three gates and roads (tres portas vidisse tresque vias): “one by the sign of Scorpio, which was the way Hercules was reported to have ascended to heaven” (unam ad signum Scorpionis, qua Hercules ad deos isse diceretur), trans. of Bolton, Aristeas, 151. 180
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For Iolaus, having died, when he learned that Eurystheus was demanding the sons of Heracles from the Athenians and threatening war if they did not give them up, prayed that he live again (“be resurrected”). And when he returned to life he killed Eurystheus and died again. But others draw the story in a more persuasive direction: being old he prayed that he grow young again, and completing the deed he died immediately. ¡ Ï ∏ !S & >! @Ã !8 5 í ]! ˆ Â & Ú , ∞ &:, –5 I , Ú I: 8 Ù @Ã !8 Ú ? 8! . " &Ó Ù Ù !: A " , ≈ 8 Ë –5 IF, Ú 8 Ù ÷! Ã!8 .183
This account of the resurrection of Iolaus is apparently unique in the surviving Greek tradition. There is a link in the tale between “rejuvenation” and resurrection.184 1.20 Tylos A dragon serpent is a chief member of the dramatis personae in the legend of Tylos in Nonnus’s Dionysiaca (fl. ca 450–470).185 The scene is depicted on the shield of Dionysus.186 A miraculous plant is called Ù ;! (flower of Zeus). Tylos’s sister Moria sees her brother’s death. The gigantic Damasen, a son of the Earth (F Ö "8 º),187 kills the snake (fifty plethra long)188 that fatally bit Tylos. Moria sees the serpent’s mate bring a plant to revive the venomous and motionless dead snake (∞I 9 &Ó / ! 79 2).189 She then revives her dead brother. Moria also caught up the flower of Zeus, and laid the lifegiving herb in the lifebegetting nostril. The wholesome plant with its painhealing clusters brought back the breathing soul into the dead body and made it rise again [or “grow again”]. Soul came into the body the second time; the cold frame grew warm with the help of the inward fire. The body, busy again with the beginning of life, moved the sole of the right foot, rose upon the left and stood firmly based on both feet, like a man lying in bed who shakes the sleep from his eyes in the morning. His blood boiled again; the hands of the newly breathing corpse were lifted, the body recovered its rhythm, the feet their movement, the eyes their sight, and the lips their voice.
183 Schol. in Pindar Pyth. 9, 137a. On this account, cf. Pòrtulas, From Panyassis to Pseudo-Apollodorus, 33–4. 184 Cf. R. Scodel, Hesiod Redivivus, GRBS 21 (1980) 301–28, esp. 308. 185 N. Hopkinson, Nonnus, 4OCD, 1020. The narrative is in Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.451– 552. Cf. G. M. A. Hanfmann, Lydiaka, HSCP 63 (1958) 65–88, esp. 68–72 (who sees echoes of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the story). Herter, Von Xanthos, 192 argues that the BabylonianHittite material does little to help discover the earlier phases of the Lydian saga. 186 Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.383–4. 187 Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.486. 188 A plethron is about 100 feet. 189 Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.530–1.
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Ú ® Ù ;! ( , (Ú &Ó 9 F ( 8I • . (540) Ú I? & I > &8 58 2. &í ∞ &8 D ! Ù & H &9 &Ó Ù F &8 ! 2H Ú 8 (8 IF ? (545) & 5 Ó > &Ù !8 , (Ú &Ó 2 ¿ !: Ù N ≈ 9 2, & Ù > ∂, √ 8 ∞ ƒ ! ∞ 8 — ¿ F. Ú ? > ∑H &Ó (550) ) ( H Ú U 8 (E, Ú ¡& , (? ƒ, ( 7.190
Although Nonnus is writing long after the advent of Christianity, his tradition is probably quite old. It is present in Pliny’s Natural History in a variant form, and versions of it appear on Lydian coins.191 Barclay Head remarks that “Tylos, like Damasen, and like Masnes or Mânes, was a son of Ge …”192 He doubtless is correct that in the Lydian “version, the slayer of the serpent was called Masanes or Masnes, not Damasen, and that the same hero, and not the girl Morie, was also the restorer to life of the dead or mortally wounded Tylos, by means of the magic herb.”193 As Head also notes, that does not imply that Nonnus simply invented “Damasen,” because he may have had his own source. 1.21 Lucian Lucian (ca 120) is aware of stories of resurrection and occasionally mocks them. A character in the Lover of Lies named Cleodemus describes his recovery from fever after a voyage to Hades, where Pluto tells him his time is not yet up. Antigonus responds with an even better story: “What is there surprising in that?” said Antigonus: “I know a man who came to life more than twenty days after his burial, having attended the fellow both before his death and af190 Nonnus Dionysiaca 25.539–52, trans. of Nonnos, Dionysiaca, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. W. H. D. Rouse, Cambridge, MA 1940, 2.289. 191 See § 2.7 below and image 8 (discussed there). 192 Head, BMC Lydia, cxiii. Cf. § 2.7 below. Cf. Dion. Hal. 1.27.2 (ºF ®? Ö P ). 193 Head, BMC Lydia, xiii. Hanfmann, Lydiaka, 83: “Da-masen of Nonnus is clearly Masen, Masne.” Porphyry apud Eusebius P.E. 3.11.26 mentions a “resurrection plant.” See § 1.9 above. In Apul. Met. 2.27–30 a murdered young man’s uncle hires an Egyptian magician to reanimate his corpse to reveal the cause of his death (i.e., his faithless wife), but he is only revived ad momentariae vitae … officia (2.29: “to the obligations of this momentary life”). The magician places an herb three times on his mouth and another on his chest and then prays to the rising sun (Met. 2.28).
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ter he came to life.” “How was it,” said I, “that in twenty days the body neither corrupted nor simply wasted away from inanition? Unless it was an Epimenides194 whom you attended.” “P ! ;î ∂ ¡ ] H ì S Ï ∂&? Ï ∞ 8 ß ?( ?, ! Ú Ù !? Ú Ú 8 Ù ;! .î ìÚ ,î D &í :, ì N 8 –í & Ù – ; ÕÙ & (!? ; ∞ 7 C & ! ? .”195
Cleodemus claims to have seen a Hyperborean “calling up stinking corpses” ( ˆ /: ).196 In the same dialogue a Babylonian reputedly raised a vinedresser named Midas who had been bitten by a viper and who was near death: He raised (revived) Midas with a certain spell by driving the poison from his body and also attached to his foot a fragment from the gravestone of a dead virgin. 8 Ù ®& 9&E 5 ? Ù ∞Ù : > Ú 7 2 &Ú a !8 ! Ù F 7 ?.197
Alexander of Abonuteichos, according to Lucian, desired to increase the fame of his oracle and thereby to make it even more lucrative. Consequently, By now he was even sending men abroad to create rumours in the different nations in regard to the oracle and to say that he made predictions, discovered fugitive slaves, detected thieves and robbers, caused treasures to be dug up, healed the sick, and in some cases had actually raised the dead. & &8 Ú Ú & 58 , (7 7 ) >! ÕÓ Ú & 8 › Ú & 8 Ú 8 Ú WÏ 5 8 5 Ú ! ˆ 5 ? Ú ∞?, &Ó Ú 4& ! 7 .198
Such rumors surely increased the already large income of Alexander, which he received from the payments of one drachma and two obols per oracle.199 In a discussion of immortality in Plato, Lucian mentions the resurrection of a fly:
194
Lucian Philops. 13. Cf. chapter 4 § 2.1.13. Lucian Philops. 26, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 3.361. 196 Lucian Philops. 14. LSJ s.v. note that this verb is used to “call up the dead” by Aeschylus Pers. 620–1 ( & / ) )! [call up the daimōn of Darius]), Euripides Hel. 966 (8 8 ! [a father summoned from below]). See also the discussion of Eupolis in § 1.14 above. 197 Lucian Philops. 11. 198 Lucian Alex. 24, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 4.207, discussed in Bremmer, Ghosts, 247 (who notes that Lucian compares Alexander with Apollonius in Alex. 5). In that text, Lucian notes that Alexander’s teacher of magic came from Tyana and was a follower of Apollonius. He concludes, ¡ ¹ 5 μ & IF ;! 8
(You see what sort of school the man I am describing comes from! trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 4.183). 199 Lucian Alex. 23 notes that he was making 70–80,000 drachmas per year. 195
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You may be sure I propose to mention the most important point in the nature of the fly. It is, I think, the only point that Plato overlooks in his discussion of the soul and its immortality. When ashes are sprinkled on a dead fly, she revives [“rises”] and has a second birth and a new life from the beginning. This should absolutely convince everyone that the fly’s soul is immortal like ours, since after leaving the body it comes back again, recognises and reanimates it [“raises the body”], and makes the fly take wing. … &Ó 8 E ( Ã Õ? , & I ∞ ). & ) ¡ ? ÃÙ & ) 2 Ú F Ú ! ÃF 9. ! Ï ) 8( ! Ú
ÃE Ú I ; 5 Õ F , › I )! ?, ≈ !? 7, N Ú ! 8 ? Ú
Ú Ù Ú 8 ! ) ) Ö200
Lucian compares this characteristic of the fly to Hermotimus of Clazomenae who could do something similar.201 Lucian’s rooster, a reincarnation of Pythagoras, is told by a character that “I have heard you are supposed to have come to life again after dying” ( Ú › & 5 I I 8 !S).202 Menippus the Cynic philosopher claims to have visited Hades, and a friend of his remarks: “Heracles! Did Menippus die without our knowing it, and has he now come to life all over again?” (Â ? , 7! ®8 a !:, 5 Õ F I I ;).203 In The Downward Journey a tyrant named Megapenthes begs Clotho to let him return to life: Make me even a common man, Lady of Destiny, one of the poor people, make me even a slave instead of the king that once I was. Only let me come to life again! i ∞&: , ‚ ®) , 7 A, i & Ú ? I 8 H I > .204
In Lucian’s Hermotimus, the skeptic Lycinus asks Hermotimus a question, which incorporates the possibility of resurrection: … then suppose one of the gods brought Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and the rest, back to life, and they stood round me and put questions to me, or even, by Zeus, brought me into court and sued me each and every one of them for maltreatment,
200 Lucian Musc. laud. 7, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 1.89. Thus he confirms the narrative of Hermotimus of Clazomenae (cf. Apollonius Hist. mir. 3.1 [see Spittler, Apollonios, Amazing Stories (1672) FGrH IV], Clearchus frag. 8 Wehrli). 201 Cf. chapt. four § 2.1.18. 202 Lucian Gall. 18. Cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 10.6.1–3. Diog. Laert. 1.114 = Epimenides FGrH 457 T1 uses ? I I 8 to refer to the many reincarnations of Epimenides. 203 Lucian Men. 1. 204 Lucian Cat. 13, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 2.27. A somewhat similar text in the Philosophies for Sale (Vit. auct. 2) has a passage in which individuals are asked “who wants to know the harmony of all [i.e., the planetary spheres] and to come to life again?” ( ∞&8 Ù U Ú I ? ;).
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> ! I 7 ? Ú ! Ú ] 8 Ú ˆ ; , " &Ó ? 28 ¢ Ú í &7 —I A &? …205
Castor asks Pollux to take a message to the world of the living, which is the opening statement of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. My dear Pollux, I have some instructions for you as soon as you go up top. It’s your turn for resurrection to-morrow, I believe. Í & , 8 , &Ï ? 8 !W, ñ Ù ? , ∂, I – .206
Another one of the dialogues features Protesilaos. He begs Pluto to let him live again for a little while to be with his love (Laodameia).207 I am Protesilaus, son of Iphiclus, from Phylace, one who served with the Achaean army, and first man to die at Troy. I beg to be released and restored to life for a little. @∞Ú Ó ¡ ∏( j ? : ] Ú !S í ∏ 9. &8 &Ó ( ! Ú Ù ¿ I ? .208
Pluto responds that all the dead would then want to live again, but that despite their love or desire for a new life it never happens (P Ó Ù > , ‚ , ? Ú , Ã& Ú i à ). Protesilaos responds “could I be restored to her sight even for a short while, I would gladly return here again” (I i Ù ¿ ¿(! Ú ÃE IF ? ).209 He challenges Protesilaos: What good will it do you to return to life for a single day, if shortly afterwards you must bewail the same misfortune? … All this would be wrong, and has never happened before. @∂ ¿7 8 I í ¿ Ï ÃÏ ¿& ; … °Ã !8 8! Ã&Ó 8 : .210
After arguing that he could persuade his wife to follow him to Hades, Protesilaos brings up similar events: Let me refresh your memory, Pluto. You gave up Eurydice to Orpheus for this very reason, and sent back my kinswoman, Alcestis as a favour to Heracles.
205
Lucian Hermot. 30, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 6.315. Lucian Dial. mort. 1, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.3. 207 Lucian Dial. mort. 28.1. 208 Lucian Dial. mort. 28.1, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.163. 209 Lucian Dial. mort. 28.1, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.163. Zeller, Erscheinungen, 30, 35, 43 notes the fairly frequent use of ¿(!F with the dative in appearances of the dead. 210 Lucian Dial. mort. 28.2, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.165. 206
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]7 , ‚ H Δ ( ) Ï &í Ã ∞ @Ã & 8& Ú ¡ F ê 8 Â ) .211
Clearly Lucian uses both Û and Iı for resurrection. 1.22 Achilles Tatius In Achilles Tatius’s (II C.E.) novel, Clitophon, thinking Leukippe has been murdered, is about to commit suicide, but his friend tells him “Leukippe is now about to live again for you” ( &8 I: ).212 Later, Clitophon saw Leukippe apparently beheaded by pirates, and a servant remarks that Clitophon has rejected a widow’s desire to marry him, because he believes that Leukippe will “come to life again” (I: !).213 After an unconsummated marriage to the widow, Clitophon receives a letter from Leukippe, and he asks, “has she come to life again” (? I ;)214? 1.23 Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus (III C.E.) is somewhat agnostic about an account of Apollonius of Tyana in which the sage apparently raised a newlywed bride from the dead. Apollonius performed another miracle. There was a girl who appeared to have died just at the time of her wedding. The betrothed followed the bier, with all the lamentations of an unconsummated marriage, and Rome mourned with him, since the girl belonged to a consular family. Meeting with this scene of sorrow, Apollonius said, “Put the bier down, for I will end your crying over the girl.” At the same time he asked her name, which made most people think he was going to declaim a speech of the kind delivered at funerals to raise lamentation. But Apollonius, after merely touching her and saying something secretly, woke the bride from her apparent death. The girl spoke, and went back to her father’s house like Alcestis revived by Heracles. Her kinsmen wanted to give Apollonius a hundred and fifty thousand drachmas, but he said he gave it as an extra dowry for the girl. He may have seen a spark of life in her which the doctors had not noticed, since apparently the sky was drizzling [“Zeus was raining”],215and steam was coming from her face, or he may have revived and restored her life when it was extinguished, but the explanation of this has proved unfathomable, not just to me but to the bystanders. ) ] !H · c ? !? & Ú ¡ ( † ! E W I ¡ í ) ?9, 5 ( &Ó Ú ç:, Ú Ï ∞ Õ?. S 211
Lucian Dial. mort. 28.3, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.165. Achilles Tatius Leuk. Clit. 3.17.4. 213 Achilles Tatius Leuk. Clit. 5.11.6. 214 Achilles Tatius Leuk. Clit. 5.19.2. In 7.6.2 Clitophon’s friend, with reference to Leukippe, says to him Ï Ã ? I - (Has she not come to life again often?). Cp. 7.9.10 ¡ ! ? ” I (this corpse from the sea has come to life again). 215 On this idiom, cf. A. B. Cook, Zeus, vol. 3.1, Cambridge 1940, 319. 212
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“ ¡ ] : 2 ?! ì?! ! î >( ì , S Ï Õa Ú E W & .ì Ú b 4 , ≈ ƒ ÃE N. " Ó & Ú Ã , ∑
" 7& Ú Ï ¿ ( , ¡ &Ó Ã&Ó í ¢ ? ÃF ( S ( & !?, Ú ( 7 ) (F F !8 ∞ , · ê ÕÙ Â 8 I ! ). & 8 &Ó Ã2 5
F ?& & 8 ( >( && ÃÏ E &. Ú N !F F F ” ÃE, √ 7! ˆ ! ñ 8 ? , › ? Ó ¡ ¸ , &Ó Ù : ñ Ní I) 8! 8 Ú 8 I , ; ? 8 Ã Ú 9, Ï Ú ) .216
Although the NT authors can use “sleep” as a metaphor for death (e.g., John 11:11, Acts 7:60, 1 Cor 7:39, 1 Cor 15:18, 20, 51 etc.), in none of the accounts of resurrection do they use (Û . Hopfner suggests that the account is indebted to the resurrections performed by Christ.217 The Historia Augusta refers to the event: He brought the dead back to life, and did and said many things beyond the power of man. If anyone should wish to learn these, let him read the Greek books which have been written concerning his life. ille mortuis reddidit vitam, ille multa ultra homines et fecit et dixit. quae qui velit nosse, Graecos legat libros, qui de eius vita conscripti sunt.218
During his trial before Domitian, Apollonius told his disciple Damis to meet him in Dicaearchia: And when on the following day he called Damis, he said, “My defense will be on the publicly stated day, but you walk to Dicaearchia, because it is better that you go on foot, and if you should speak to Demetrius, turn toward the sea, where the island of Calypso is, for there you will see me appear.” “Living,” said Damis, “or what?” And laughing Apollonius said, “As I myself think, living, but as you think, returned to life.” He said that he went away unwillingly, neither despairing as if he had already perished nor hopeful that he would not perish. 8 &Ó F Õ Ù ? ì Ú Óî >( ìÏ F 8 8 >, ˆ &Ó Ú I?& , 2 Ï E ∞8, i W 7 , 8( Ú !? , Þ F, (8 ? ) ƒ .î ì î >( ¡ ? ì¢ ;î
? &Ó ¡ ] : ì› Ó S ∂, ,î ∂ ì› &Ó ˆ N ,
216 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 4.45, trans. of Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. C. P. Jones, Cambridge, MA 2005, 1.419. 217 Hopfner, Offenbarungszauber, 1.140 § 268 (1.65, 1921 ed.), with ref. to Matt 9:18, 23–6. 218 SHA Aurel. 24.8 (Flavius Vopiscus), trans. of J. Bremmer, Ghosts, 246 who discusses the possiblities for the Scriptor’s source (to whom I owe the reference).
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I I .î ¡ Ó & ! ) ( ; Ú 7í : › 8 7í – › Ã ).219
Apollonius, alive, met Damis on the third day. Domitian acquitted him of the charge of sacrificing a boy, but Apollonius disappeared from court (†(! & ).220 Philostratus writes that “Apollonius left the court before noon, and about evening he appeared to Demetrius and Damis at Dicaearchia” ( Ù I Ó F ! & , Ú & &í c (? 9 Ú ?&).221 Although Apollonius does not actually die, the image of resurrection dominates the narrative, since Damis is told that he will believe that the sage has risen from the dead. The Historia Augusta includes a tradition in which Apollonius appears to Aurelian, who had besieged Tyana: For, it is said, Aurelian did indeed truly speak and truly think of destroying the city of Tyana; but Apollonius of Tyana, a sage of the greatest renown and authority, a philosopher of former days, the true friend of the gods, and himself even to be regarded as a supernatural being, as Aurelian was withdrawing to his tent, suddenly appeared to him in the form in which he is usually portrayed, and spoke to him as follows, using Latin in order that he might be understood by a man from Pannonia “Aurelian, if you wish to conquer, there is no reason why you should plan the death of my fellow-citizens.” fertur enim Aurelianum de T[h]yane civitatis eversione vere dixisse, vere cogitasse; verum Apollonium T[h]yaneum, celeberrimae famae auctoritatisque sapientem, veterem philosophum, amicum ver deorum, ipsum etiam pro numine frequentandum, recipienti se in tentorium ea forma, qua videtur, subito adstitisse atque haec Latine, ut homo Pannonius intellegeret, verba dixisse: “Aureliane, si vis vincere, nihil est quod de civium meorum nece cogites.”222
The scriptor avoids any reference to bodily resurrection, but Aurelian is able to recognize the form of the apparition. These appearances apparently did not stop. In a séance on 24 July 1854 the magician Eliphas Lévi invoked the phantom of Apollonius three times, and he appeared to him in a gray shroud.223 1.24 A Magic Recipe for Resurrection A magic text gives a formula for raising a dead body:
219
Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 7.41, my trans. Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.5.4. Apollonius (ibid. 7.9.1) said before a statue of Domitian, “For with regard to the one who is fated to be absolute ruler after you, even though you should put him to death, he will return to life” (Ä Ï Ï Ó 8 , i W, I: ). 221 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.10, trans. of Jones, Philostratus, 2.385. 222 SHA Aurel. 24.8 (Flavius Vopiscus), trans. of Magie, Historia Augusta, 3.241–3. 223 J. Z. Smith, Map is Not Territory. Studies in the History of Religions, Leiden 1978, 190–1. Cf. E. Lévi, Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, vol. 1, Paris 1861, 267–70. 220
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Resurrection of a dead body: I adjure you, spirit that roams the air, enter, fill with breath, strengthen, raise up by the power of the everlasting god this body, and may it walk in this place, because I am acting by the power of [Th]auth [Thoth], the holy god. Speak the name. > : H / ë¡ , 8 (: , N ! , / ? , &? , &8 E &? / ∞ ! & Ù , Ú Ú /& Ù , ≈ : ∞ ¡ E &? / !, U ! .í 8 Ù ƒ.224
There is little probability of determining whether this text has been influenced by Christianity or not, but the language for resurrection (in particular, > ) perhaps suggests that the text is syncretistic. 1.25 Favorinus (ca 85–155 C.E.) Jan Bremmer calls attention to Favorinus the sophist who is described by Polemo, his “embittered opponent,” as a practicing magician. Polemo does not name Favorinus but describes him as a Celt, a eunuch “born without testacles,” but who was sexually debauched.225 On top of this [his debauchery] he was a charlatan in the magic arts. He induced people to believe that he could confer life and death,226 and because of this enticed men and women to gather round him in crowds.227
The key Arabic phrase is: On top of that, he was a fraudulent sorcerer, and would boast and tell people that he could make men alive and dead.228
وكان مع ذلك ساحرا محتال وكان تمخرق ويخبر قوما أنه يحيي ويميت
224 PGM 13.277–82. Thauth is mentioned earlier in 13.271–3 as a god who can appear in holy forms and make existent what is not and non-existent what is (Ù /Ù ?5 / () U Ú ƒ ∂ 7 Ú 5 ƒ/ ∂). This is the “so-called Eighth Book of Moses” according to J. Bremmer, Magic in the Apocryphal Acts in: idem, Maidens, Magic and Martyrs in Early Christianity. Collected Essays I, WUNT 379, Tübingen 2017,197–217, esp. 215. 225 Bremmer, Magic, 214 (along with other instances of resurrections in antiquity). For the identification, see M. L. Gleason, Making Men. Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome, Princeton 1995, 7. 226 The Latin here is: hominibus praedicans se vivos facere et mortuos (proclaiming to people that he was able to make people alive and dead). 227 Polemo De physiognomina (R. Förster, ed., Scriptores physiognomonici et latini, vol. 1, Leipzig 1893, 162), trans. by Gleason, Making Men, 7 (she translates the Latin trans. of G. Hoffmann, but it has been checked with the classical Arabic by M. Malamud). 228 Polemo De physiognomina (Scriptores physiognomonici 1, 163 Hoffmann). I thank Christopher L. Horton Cook for his help with the classical Arabic.
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The usual Arabic verb for resurrection (qwm) does not appear in the text, although the verb the translator used (hyy) appears in Quran 75:40 in a text in which Allah brings the dead to life.229 1.26 Cyranides In “the late antique compilation of pseudo-medicinal works preserved under the title of Cyranides”230 there is a reference to the resurrection powers of the pelican. The work’s origins may be I or II C.E.231 In the middle of a recipe concerning how to heal “black leprous spots” (8 (˜), using a combination of the bird’s gall and natron, the author writes, This bird loves its offspring exceedingly. When, therefore, it gives birth to its young and they have grown a little, they strike them in their faces. Then when they [the brood] cannot endure it, they punish their offspring and kill them. But afterward they have pity on them and mourn the offspring they have killed. Then on the same day their mother has mercy on her own brood and plucking [the feathers from] her sides regurgitates [them]. And the blood, dropping on the dead bodies of her dead offspring makes them alive, and they rise [from the dead] by some kind of natural means. °” ( ?. ≈ “ 7W ˆ ˆ Ú ¿ Ã5! , ∞ Ù Ã . ) “ , ( Ï 8 Ú 8 Ã?. — &Ó í ÃÏ Ú ! Ï 8 b ( . E “ ÃE 8 c à 7 ) Ï N& 8 Ú Ï /F Ï . Ï &Ó μ ? Ú Ï Ï : à ! 8 ) Ã?, Ú (2 9.232
Possibly this is a fairly early text (I or II C.E.), although the use of Û for resurrection may imply that it has undergone Christian editing. The verb could, however, certainly be used by pagan authors for resurrection.233
229
Cf. E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, Beirut 1968 (1st ed. 1863), 2.680 s.v. Lane notes that in classical Arabic the verb is used in this form to describe the actions of God: “He made him alive, to live, or be a living being; quickened, endued with life, vivified, [revivified, revived or resuscitated].” 230 An astute judgment by E. S. Gruen, Diaspora. Jews among Greeks and Romans, Cambridge, MA 2002, 319. See the more extensive discussion by G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes. A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind, Oxford 1986, 87–8 and C. A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, Cambridge, MA 1999, 11 (its origins are I C.E.). K. Alpers (Untersuchungen zum griechischen Physiologus und den Kyraniden, VB 6 [1984] 13–84) dates the compilation to the late IV C.E. 231 J. Scarborough, Cyranides, 4OCD, 405. 232 Cyranides Ú X( 3.39. 233 Cf., e.g., intro § 3.
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1.27 Libanius In a declamation in which Demosthenes is (unhistorically) released by Philip and “accused then of not taking part in public life,”234 Libanius uses the image of resurrection: Let no one order me to speak, or that Olympian Pericles or Alcibiades or my namesake [Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes], as if I had come to life again; for I have not come alive again, as I appear to have done, but I am being carried around at random and I wander in longing for the earth, like souls that have just died and which hover around their accustomed bodies. 8 8 , a ¢ 8 Ù Δ ) ¢ Ù ] I?& ¢ Ù ¡: Ù , · I I , Ã&Ó
Ï I I , !? & , í ; (8 Ú !9 F, !? " Ú ! Ú ( Ú Ï 7! :.235
Although resurrection is only a metaphor here, it does indicate the continuing power of elite pagans’ belief in the immortality of the soul. In a letter to Alexander, governor of Bithynia,236 Libanius may refer to the resurrections of Asclepius: For you will not raise a person who has died, as in the myths, but ruined cities you will restore again to the form of cities. ˆ Ï ;! Ó ! Ã i 7, · !, &í i ∞8 ? ∞ F 7 .237
Libanius uses the metaphor of resurrection to describe Julian’s restoration of the world: For what they say Asclepius was to Hippolytus, this you were to the body of the inhabited world; you raised up the dead, and the name of majesty now if ever has assumed actuality. ≈ Ï ] ( π 9 8!, í ÃÙ 8 2 F ∞8 :. ! ? 8 Ú I ƒ , N 8, 8 I > .238
234
D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation, Cambridge 1983, 120. Libanius Decl. 23.1.61. Libanius Progymn. 12.7.7 has another metaphorical use of the verb in a rhetorical exercise about spring, in which he writes that people resemble those who have come alive again, who buy many things, and who go to fields and enjoy birds … ( &í I I " ;! Ï Ï Ó ? , &Ó Ú í ˆ Ú ( ¿ ! Ö). 236 E. Garrido González (Algunas provincias ponticas: La administracion de Bitinia, Paflagonia, Helenoponto, Honorias y Ponto Polemoniaco en el siglo IV D.C., Studia historica. Historia antigua 8 [1990] 1–20, esp. 19) dates his office to 361 C.E. 237 Libanius Ep. 282.1. 238 Libanius Or. 13.42, trans. of Edelstein T. 82. 235
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Libanius used the resurrection miracles of Asclepius and Heracles in an oration to Theodosius, thanking him for his clemency to Antioch after a riot (“the riot of the statues”) there: For Asclepius is said to have freed one individual from death and Heracles one woman [Alcestis], but this has been accomplished by you for a whole city, which if someone should say has come alive again, (s)he would be speaking correctly. ¡ Ó Ï ] Ù / 8 !? Ú Â F ¹
, Ú &Ó Ú ≈ 8 H ` ≈ I I 8 8 , i 8 .239
In this case I I 8 is used as a metaphor for the resurrection of an entire city. Libanius refers to Asclepius’s resurrections in another Declamation: “This god has often raised many from the dead” ( ˆ ? ¡ ! Ù [] ] ” 8 ).240 With regard to a man whom Libanius calls “an enemy of the gods” (! ) ! Ù), he uses resurrection in an image, which is a defense of his friend Olympius who had died and left Libanius an inheritance: If suddenly one of the gods, whom we hear about, raised him from the dead, hearts would die because of these insults [presumably against Olympius] … ∞ &8 ÃÙ 5( 8 ! · œ , 58 i " & ) ÕI ) ...241
A topic in his Progymnasmata against a “physician poisoner” (Ï ∞ ( 8 ) makes effective use of the concept of resurrection. The physician has killed many with his medicines (poisons): And so, the relatives of the deceased are present, as you can see, displaying what they have suffered both through their clothing and through everything else, and if it were possible for you to resurrect those who died at this man’s hands, you would offer them your complete assistance. But since this is impossible, give them the only consolation possible, not only be executing this man, but also by making it clear that you are angry at not being able to discover a punishment greater than death. " Ó “ ∞ ) ! : a, › ¡ a , & Å ! Ú &Ï F !F Ú &Ï ; U? , Õ) &Ó ∞ Ó F ˆ ÕÙ ! F, ? i Ã) I! ) I7! H Ú &Ó &? , & & ! Ã) , Ï Ú &F 7 › ) 2 &! !? Õ ).242
The orator’s argument assumes the impossibility of resurrection. 239
Libanius Or. 20.8. Libanius Decl. 34.23 = Edelstein, Asclepius T. 533. 241 Libanius Or. 63.18. 242 Libanius Progymn. 7.2, trans. of Libanius, Progymnasmata, ed. and trans. C. A. Gibson, Atlanta 2008, 167. 240
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1.28 Proclus There is another category of “resurrections” that is variously called “near death experiences” or even “ghost stories.”243 Proclus, in a defense of Plato’s story of Er, includes some accounts of revival or resurrection that are neither ghost stories nor near death experiences in my view. This is the case even though Proclus himself does not seem to have understood these stories as actual resurrections. After quoting Plato’s reference to the revival of Er (Resp. 614b), he refers to some philosophers who have dealt with the question. Many others among the ancients have gathered accounts of people who after appearing to have died later lived again, in particular Democritus the natural philosopher in his treatise On Hades.244 And indeed that amazing Colotes, the enemy of Plato, because he was an Epicurean, should certainly not have been ignorant of the doctrines of the leader of the Epicureans nor being ignorant should have asked how it was possible for one who had died to come to life again. Because the death (of Er) was as it seems not an extinction of all life in the body, but only that it (life) passed unnoticed because of a certain blow or a wound; the bonds of the soul that are rooted in the region of the marrow remained still and the heart retained the ember of life conserved in the depth. And thus, because these remained, he (Er) regained his life that had been extinguished because he was suitable for animation. Because in our time certain individuals who were thought to have been already dead and who had been buried in their tombs came to life again and appeared (were seen), some lying on their tombs and others standing up. Exactly like in the case of those who lived long ago, Aristeas the Proconnesian and Hermodorus the Clazomenian and Epimenides the Cretan are reported after their deaths to exist among the living. P Ó Ú ! ) &5? , > I " ; Ú 4! Ú ¡ (Ù ) Ú & ?. Ú Ù !Ù ) :, Ù ? ! , C ƒ ? >[&] [Ï ] ! C [ ] &[ ] F &Ó 7 ), Ù ! ? I & . Ã&Ó Ï ¡ !? D I , › > , F ? F :, í ÕÙ Ó F N Ú ), F &Ó F " Ú Ù Ù > > & Ú 8 Ú & Ù F F ∂ 2 I?! H Ú “! 7 I) 243
Cf., e.g., Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 94 who includes Naumachius’s account of Eurynous in his chapter on “Near-Death Experiences” even though he translates the relevant text as “he was seen to be much more just after his resurrection than before” (Ú I Ã ¿ Ú ¿(!F & Ï I ¢ ). Cf. Proclus In Platonis rem publicam 614B (2.115 Kroll) quoted below. Morgan (Epistolary Ghost-Story, 308), calls Naumachius’s four stories “cases of revivification,” but includes these cases in his discussions of the ghost stories in Phlegon’s De mir. 1–2. W. Hansen, Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels, Exeter, UK 1996, 68 argues that Proclus (to be discussed below) does not distinguish between revenants and near-death experiences (NDE). Consequently, Hansen overlooks the possibility of miracle. His definition of a NDE is a person “nearly dying or briefly dying and presently returning to full life.” This definition appears to pass over the question of miraculous resurrection. Cf. Oepke, Auferstehung II, 931. 244 Cf. Democritus frag. 1 Diels/Kranz.
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7& Ù . Ú Ï (í 4& Ú ! ) >&5 Ú 7 8! Ú I Ú ‡(! ≥ Ó !7 ) 7, ≥ &Ó Ú ( H !? & Ú Ú ? " Ú ] 8 ¡ 7 Ú & ¡ 8 Ú C & ¡ 7, Ï !? )
.245
Proclus does not believe the individuals such as Er and Aristeas had actually died. The source of the stories “in our time” is Naumachius of Epirus who Proclus states lived in the time of his grandparents.246 And Naumachius of Epirus, who lived in the time of my grandparents, records that Polycritus, one of the most distinguished of the Aetolians who had obtained the office of Aetoliarch, died and came to life again in the ninth month after his death; and he came to the public assembly of the Aetolians and advised them on the best course of action to take concerning affairs that they were deliberating. Among the witnesses to these events were Hieron the Ephesian and other historians who wrote about what happened to Antigonus the king and other friends of theirs who were not present during the events. " ) &Ó Ú T? ¡ K :, Ú 8 ?
:, Ê∞ Ù (8 Ê∞ Ú Ê∞ Ú ! ) Ú I Ú Ï Ù !? ?9, Ú
245 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll). Cp. Festugière, Proclus, 57–8 (Rohde reads “Hermotimus” for “Hermodorus” – which is unnecessary since Plutarch Gen. Socr. 20, 559C also used “Hermodorus”; cf. chapt. four § 2.1.18). The text beginning with “Because in our time” (Ú Ï (í ) is Clearchus frag. 8 Wehrli. Proclus (2.122–3 Kroll) also refers to a text of Clearchus (frag. 7 Wehrli) in which an individual was able to use a “soul drawing rod” (E 2 X?I&9) to remove the soul from a sleeping boy ( 5 ), to show that the body was uninjured (Ù Ú I IÓ 9 ), and then to lead the soul back into his body. Proclus uses the story to explain the return to life of Er due to the entry of his separated soul back into this body (P Ó I K Ù Ã ; ¢ N& ∞ Ù F ! F). Maximus of Tyre 10.2 (Trapp), describing Aristeas’s ability to travel outside his body, envisions the return of the soul in this way: Ú “! ∞&8 Ù Ú 7, · ¿ ?9 8, & ) b ∂&8 Ú 4 (And when it entered his body again and raised it up, as if it were using an instrument, it reported the things he had seen and heard …). 246 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.115 Kroll). E. Rohde, Kleine Schriften, vol. 2, Tübingen 1901, 180–3 dates him “after Galen” using the Suda’s (j § 295) reference to a Philagrius of Epirus who was a student of a Naumachius and who lived after Galen. Cp. Morgan, Epistolary-Ghost Story, 309 who denies Rohde’s thesis that Proclus’s Naumachius is “the teacher of the medical writer Philagrius of Epirus.” Morgan finds nothing “medical” in Naumachius’s narratives. On the other hand, Galen was interested in stories of revival (cf. his De locis affectis 6.5 [VIII, 414 Kühn] where he discusses “hysterical” women who lie in trance states similar to the “unbreathing” [;] woman in the tradition of Heraclides Ponticus]). See chapt. 4 § 2.2.5. R. Keydell, Naumachios (1), PRE (1935) 1974–5 rejects Rohde’s dating. Proclus’s should be accepted. Cp. Festugière, Proclus, 59, n. 3 (middle of IV C.E.) and A. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, incredulae. Storie di fantasmi nel mondo grecolatino, Bari 1999, 386 (Naumachius is not the individual mentioned by the Suda).
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(8! ∞ Ê∞ Ú I Ï ; Ú „ I H Ú ∂ ? π8 Ù C(8 Ú ; " ˆ ] 9 2 I ) Ú ; / ( Ï I? ?.247
William Hansen believes Antigonus is Antigonos I of Macedonia (306–301 B.C.E.).248 In Phlegon of Tralles’ version of the tale, however, he attributes to “Hieron” a version in which Polycritus is a ghost ((?, i.e., a revenant with a body) who returns after his death and subsequently devours his own hermaphrodite child. But Phlegon does not use Proclus’s verb I (live again) to describe his state. Instead Phlegon’s Polycritus affirms before the assembly of the Aetolians that he is dead in body, but that he is alive in good will and kindness towards them (2 Ó : 8!, E &Ó Ãc Ú E ? Ù Õa ).249 He then describes himself as a ghost ((?).250 The narrator in Phlegon describes him as “the present daimōn (Ù ? &).”251 Proclus quotes Naumachius for the account of another individual named Eurynous from Nicopolis. But there was not only this individual (Polycritus). In Nicopolis, among those who did not live long ago a certain person named Eurynous experienced the same thing. After being buried by his relatives outside the city he returned to life on the fifteenth day after his burial and said that he had seen and heard many amazing things under the earth but that he had been ordered to keep everything secret [unspoken]. And he lived not a short time afterward and appeared to be more just after his return to life than before. Ú Ã , Ï Ú E T Ã Ù
, @Ã ƒ, ÃÙ ! ), Ú (8 Ù F ÕÙ I Ï & ? 8 F (F Ú 8 , ≈ Ï Ó N& Ú ÕÙ F !?, !F &Ó ? ; ( ? H Ú I Ã ¿ Ú ¿(!F & Ï I ¢ .252
Naumachius continues with a description of an individual named Rufus from Philippi who lived near his own time:
247 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.115 Kroll). For the translations below I have consulted those of Festugière, Proclus. 248 Hansen, Phlegon, 85 Cf. F. Jacoby, Hieron (20), PRE VIII, 1515 (who refers to the narratives of Proclus and Phlegon as “ghost stories,” and believes Hieron may have been a “thaumasiograph”). Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 366–8 argues that he is fictitious. Stramaglia (ibid., 242), referring to Phlegon De mir. 2, argues that Polycritus is a revenant and not a person who actually returned to life. This does not cohere with Naumachius’s narrative in Proclus’s version. 249 Phlegon De mir. 2.1, 6. 250 Phlegon De mir. 2.6. 251 Phlegon De mir. 2.7. 252 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.115 Kroll).
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He adds still another account of an individual who, as he says, lived recently; a certain Rufus from Philippi in Macedonia who had been honored with the revered high priesthood of Thessalonica. For when this person died he came to life again on the third day and coming to life said that he had been sent by the chthonic gods to furnish certain spectacles for the people which he had happened to promise; and living until their completion he immediately died. ! &Ó Ú ; !8, · (, , ç( Ù j ® &c, F &Ó W 5 !8H Ï ! ) I Ú I ∞ ), ≈ ÕÙ ! (! ! , μ Ï !8 8 2 &79, Å Õ , Ú 8 F : I “! ! ).253
In Proclus’s version, Rufus is clearly dead and subsequently revives, and there seems to be no clear reason to call him a revenant (an embodied ghost). Proclus has a similar account of the bride of Amphipolis (unlike that of Phlegon in which she is a revenant whom he calls a “ghost”)254 named Philinnion.255 Proclus’s theories explaining these accounts may not have been those of his sources (such as Naumachius), some of whom may have understood the tales to be resurrections. In none of the narratives above, for example, is there a claim that the individual in question was “non-breathing,” in contrast with the “non-breathing” (;) woman whom Empedocles kept in that state for thirty days.256 One indication of this is that immediately after the explanatory text quoted above,257 Proclus includes a text of Clearchus concerning Cleonymus of Athens who after apparently dying was discovered by his mother to still be lightly breathing. But what need is there to say a lot, since Clearchus the disciple of Aristotle first passed on an amazing account of the same type? Cleonymus the Athenian, a man who was fond of hearing philosophical discussions, feeling extreme pain over a friend who had died, lost heart, fainted, and appearing to have died lay in state for three days according to the law.258 Then when his mother embraced him and said her last goodbye, removed the 253
Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.115–6 Kroll). Phlegon De mir. 1.18 (Ù (Ì). 255 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.116 Kroll). Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.7. 256 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.2.5. 257 That is, Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll), in which he mentions Democritus and Colotes. 258 Plato Leg. 12 959A writes that a person is laid out in a home to prove that (s)he is actually (and not apparently) dead until burial on the third day: Ï &Ó !8 Ó >& ! & ! Ú Ù ƒ ! , N &í i & , › ! :, 8 > Ù Ù F ( ? (And as to the laying-out of the corpse, first, it shall remain in the house only for such a time as is required to prove that the man is not merely in a faint, but really dead; and accordingly, in a normal case, the third will be the proper day for the carrying out to burial; trans. of Fowler, Plato, 10.531). 254
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garment from his face and kissed his dead body, she perceived that a slight breath remained in him. Being overjoyed, she stopped the burial. Recovering little by little, he rose up and told what he had seen and heard since he had been outside of his body. Ú & ) Ï 8 ; ≈ Ú ¡ ! ] 8 8 " Ï &8& !. : ¡ ]!), ( 7 ( (c
, / Ù Ã2 7 Ú !7 8 Ú !? & 5 8 – Ï Ù Ã8!H I? &Ó ÃÙ 7 Ú 8, : !∞? ( Ú ( Ù Ù ! I F Ã2 8. F &Ó Ã 8 ) (7H Ù &Ó : (8 Ï Ù !F Ú ∞ ), ≈ & Ú D Ú ∑ : N& Ú .259
Cleonymus flew over the earth and saw the judgment and punishment of souls, among other things. During this out of body experience he met the soul of Lysias of Syracuse and later met him when he returned to his body.260 In Clearchus’s account it is apparent that the person in question was not dead. This characteristic is clearly missing in the accounts of Naumachius and in Proclus’s narrative about Philinnion.261 1.29 The Resurrection of Jesus in Paganism A fairly short discussion of the response to Jesus’s resurrection by pagan intellectuals is in order, since Celsus’s Jew in particular compares him to the experiences of a number of figures from Greco-Roman tradition.262 [After these statements, the Jew says to his own compatriots who believe in Jesus:] Come now, let us also believe that he said this.263 But how many others use such marvelous stories for the persuasion of their naïve hearers and to exploit them by their deceit? So this, they say, was also the case with Zamolxis264 the slave of Pythagoras among the Scythi259 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.114 Kroll). Cp. Clearchus Ú — frag. 8 Wehrli. Aug. Cur. 12.15 tells a similar story about a man named Curma who lay in a trance for several days “almost dead” (ablatus a sensibus paene mortuus iacuit aliquot diebus). 260 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.114–5 Kroll). 261 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.7. 262 I quote the passage in full here, although it is used elsewhere in the monograph. 263 Cf. Origen Cels. 2.54 where the Jew asks his compatriots, P “ 7! ¢ & ) , › !S 7 ; (By what then were you brought over, unless because he predicted that after dying he would rise again?). 264 On Zalmoxis, see chapt. 3 § 1.3. The disappearances of Pythagoras and Zalmoxis are also mentioned together by Eustathius In Hom. Od 11.592 “they affirm that Zamolxis made an underground dwelling, like Pythagoras, and having disappeared from the Thracians, suddenly in the fourth year he appeared” ¸? 5 ? (Ú N S, › Ú ! , Ú (! Ú c ∞(& ? 9 > (? (§ 1701, 438,30–1 Stallbaum). Bolton, Aristeas, 144–5 argues that the two stories are related and that the account of Zalmoxis is probably earlier. Cp. J. H. Morrison, Pythagoras of Samos, ClQ 49 (1956) 135–56, esp. 139–40.
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ans, and of Pythagoras himself in Italy, and Rhampsinitus in Egypt. For this individual [Rhampsinitus] “played dice with Demeter” in Hades and came back up carrying “a golden handcloth from her.”265 And besides also Orpheus among the Odrysians, and Protesilaos266 in Thessaly, and Heracles in Tainarum, and Thesus.267 But it is necessary to examine whether anyone who truly died ever rose again in the same body. Or do you suppose that the exploits of these others both are and seem to be “myths,” but in your case the “dénoûment of the drama”– that is, his utterance while on the stake when he was breathing his last, and “the earthquake” and the darkness – has found form as honorable and credible? [Matt 27:50, 51, 45]268 While he was alive he did not help himself, but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. Who saw this? A frenzied woman as you say, and maybe some other individual of those involved in the same sorcery, who either had a dream because of a certain condition and who because of his own desire had a hallucination due to an erroneous belief – something that has already happened to tens of thousands; or, what is more probable, who wanted to amaze the rest by this marvellous story and by means of this lie to furnish a pretext to other beggars. ® Ï ? ( ¡ ∏&) Ù ˆ / 2 ∏ H j8 & Ú Õ) í ∞ F!. &í ; , ! A Ã7! I E ?W; À “ Ú ¸? 5 ! (, Ù ! & , Ú ÃÙ ! ∏ c Ú ç Ê∞ 9H Ó Ú « I » Î& «E 7 » Ú ! ) «& » « íÃF » (8 H Ú Ú Δ (8 Δ& Ú c Ú Â 8 Ú P? 9 Ú 8. ] í ) 8, N › ! !S 8 Ó Ã2 :H ¢ N ! Ï Ó ; ! ∂ Ú & ), Õ) &Ó ( & ? à ¢ ! ( F!, Ú Ã ( 7, ≈í 8 , Ú «Ù Ù» Ú Ù ; À & Ó Ã 7 /2, Ù &í 8 Ú Ï ) F ? >& 5 Ú Ï ) › D 8, ∂& ; º ? , · ( , Ú N ; F ÃF , 4 ? &?! ¿ :5 Ú Ï Ã I & 5W 8W ( ! , ≈ 4& I8I , 4, ≈ a , F5 ˆ ˆ E c W ! 7 Ú &Ï ( ; ).269
265
Rhampsinitus played dice with Demeter in Hades and returned with a golden hand towel, according to Herodotus (2.122 [trans. of Herodotus, 4 vols., LCL, ed and trans. A. D. Godley, Cambridge, MA 1921–4, 1.423]): From the descent of Rhampsinitus, when he came back, they said that the Egyptians celebrate a festival (]Ù &Ó F ç I?, › ? , ¡ & ? Ê∞ >(). 266 For Protesilaos, see chapt. 3 § 2.1. 267 Cf. § 1.3 above for Heracles and Theseus. 268 The trans. of this sentence is from M. M. Mitchell, Origen, Celsus and Lucian on the “Dénoument of the Drama” of the Gospels, in: Reading Religions in the Ancient World. Essays Presented to Robert McQueen Grant on his 90th Birthday, ed. D. E. Aune and R. D. Young, NovTSup 125, Leiden 2007, 215–36, esp. 218. 269 Origen Cels. 2.55, my trans. with ref. to that of Origène, Contre Celse. Introduction, Texte Critique, Traduction et Notes, ed. M. Borret, 5 vols., SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227, Paris
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Although Celsus is aware of (and apparently accepts) the tradition that Aristeas of Proconnesus’s body disappeared, he does not use it here.270 Celsus is highly skeptical of the accounts of the Greek heroes listed above.271 He is certainly aware of the Christian claim that Jesus rose from his tomb: We mock those who worship Zeus since his tomb is exhibited in Crete,272 – not knowing how and why they do it – and we nonetheless worship the one who left his tomb. Ù , Ú ?( Ã 7W & , Ú Ã&Ó ß 8I Ù Ù ?(, Ã ∞& , Ú !Ù F Ù .273
He also mocks the fact that the angel opened Jesus’s tomb and that Jesus could not do it himself.274 Origen notes that Celsus believed the narrative of the resurrection was a fiction, although he accepted the scriptural narrative of Jesus’s death and burial ( !8 Ó ) 8, ≈ 8! Ú ?(, ? &í ∂ ≈ Ú 8 Ù ).275 Celsus’s Jew shares a similar perspective by arguing that the narrative of the resurrection is the deceit of those who exploit “simple hearers.” What is missing is an explicit denial of the empty tomb tradition, however. He also mocks Christians who view the Greek tales as “myths,” while believing in a resurrection based on the evidence of a hysterical woman (i.e., Mary Magdalene) or others who had delusional dreams and hallucinations. The Jew’s alternative explanation, besides the psychology of religion, is that some of the ancient Christians simply lied. The Jew may accept the empty tomb, since he refers to individuals whose bodies apparently disappeared. All of the people Celsus’s Jew mentions here either descended physically into Hades or physically were hidden from sight in some fashion. Conse1967–76, 1.415–6 and Chadwick, Origen, 109; cf. Cook, Interpretation of the New Testament, 51 and idem, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, WUNT 327, Tübingen 2014, 275. Minucius Felix’s pagan, Caecilius, poses this query: “And yet though time has come and gone and innumerable ages have flowed on, what single individual has ever returned from the lower regions even with the Protesilaus privilege of a few hours furlough, so that we might have one example to trust?” (et tamen tanta aetas abiit, saecula innumera fluxerunt: quis unus ullus ab inferis vel Protesilai sorte remeavit, horarum saltem permisso commeatu, vel ut exemplo crederemus?). Cf. Min. 11.8, trans. of Rendall, Minucius Felix, 345. 270 Origen Cels. 3.26. On Aristeas see chapt. 3 § 1.1. 271 Cf. the brief discussion by H. D. Betz, Observations from the History of Religion on Philostratus’ Heroikos, in: Philostratus’s Heroikos. Religion and Cultural Identity in the Third Century C.E., ed. E. B. Aitken and J. K. Berenson, Leiden 2004, 25–48, esp. 25–6, who does not emphasize Celsus’s apparent skepticism (or rather that of Celsus’s Jew). 272 Chadwick, Origen, 157 gives the necessary references to this tradition often mentioned by the apologists. 273 Origen Cels. 3.43, trans. Cook, Interpretation of the New Testament, 54. 274 Origen Cels. 5.52, cf. Cook, Interpretation of the New Testament, 54. 275 Origen Cels. 3.43.
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quently, in a sense “their bodies disappeared” for a time. Pythagoras, for example, was not said to have died. Hieronymus reveals what Pythagoras saw in Hades: Hieronymus, however, says that, when he had descended into Hades, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound fast to a brazen pillar and gibbering, and the soul of Homer hung on a tree with serpents writhing about it, this being their punishment for what they had said about the gods; he also saw under torture those who would not remain faithful to [“have sexual intercourse with”] their wives. This, says our authority, is why he was honoured by the people of Croton. (Ú &í π : ! ÃÙ ∞ Î& Ó Â & ∞& ) Ù 2 & & 8 Ú , &í ä7 8 Ù &8& Ú ƒ( Ú Ã !í „ ∂ Ú ! , 8 &Ó Ú ˆ !8 ) ) / 5H Ú & Ú &Ï !F ÕÙ .276
Another account, more skeptical, appears in Hermippus. Hermippus gives another anecdote. Pythagoras, on coming to Italy, made a subterranean dwelling and enjoined on his mother to mark and record all that passed, and at what hour, and to send her notes down to him until he should ascend. She did so. Pythagoras some time afterwards came up withered and looking like a skeleton, then went into the assembly and declared he had been down to Hades, and even read out his experiences to them. They were so affected that they wept and wailed and looked upon him as divine, going so far as to send their wives to him in hopes that they would learn some of his doctrines; and so they were called Pythagorean women. Ú ; Ú ! (Ú ¡ Æ . 8 Ï › ∏ c Ï F ∞ 7 Ú E Ú Ï ∞ &8 ?( 8 Ú Ù , > !8 Ã2 >í i 8 !W. F 8 . Ù &Ó ! Ï ! ) ∞Ù Ú 8H ∞ ! í ∞ (? › () 5 Î&H Ú & Ú Ã) Ï I I . " &Ó ) 8 &? Ú Ú ∂ Ù ! ! ) , · Ú Ï ) Ã2 &, › Ú !8 ÃH Å Ú ! Ï !F. Ú Ó ¡ Æ .277
This account is similar to that of Zalmoxis, and Bezalel Bar-Kochva believes that both narratives may have existed “in parallel perhaps already in the preSocratic era.”278 Although Pythagoras resembled one who had died, Celsus’s Jew emphasizes the philosopher’s deceitfulness. Apparently Pythagoras wanted to resemble individuals such as Heracles who descended into Hades while
276
Diog. Laert. 8.21, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes Laertius 2.339. Diog. Laert. 8.41, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes Laertius 2.357. 278 B. Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature. The Hellenistic Period, Berkeley 2010, 176. 277
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alive and were able to return.279 The reference to Orpheus is similar. Apollodorus writes: And when his wife Eurydice died, bitten by a snake, he went down to Hades, being fain to bring her up, and he persuaded Pluto to send her up. The god promised to do so, if on the way Orpheus would not turn round until he should be come to his own house, but he disobeyed and turning round beheld his wife; so she turned back. ! &Ó @Ã & F Ù Ã, &! ÕÙ ƒ( , F ! ∞ & !8 ? Ã7, Ú > 8. ¡ &Ó Õ8 7 , i Δ ( ˆ (E Ú ∞ ∞ Õ 8! ¡ &Ó ( Ú ! ?
), &Ó ? Õ8 .280
Pausanias emphasizes that it was the soul of Eurydice following Orpheus: He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydice followed him, but turning round he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. &8 " A ! F @Ã & Ú U › ?(, Ã ÃÙ ÕÙ Õ 8!.281
Conon uses a word for Eurydice’s return that suggests resurrection: The belief prevailed of how he descended to the realm of Hades out of love for his wife Eurydike, and how having beguiled Plouton and Kore with songs received his wife as a present; but that he had no enjoyment from the favor of her return to life because he forgot the injunctions concerning her.282 8 &Ó & 5 › ∞ & ?I > F Ù @Ã &, Ú › Ù Ú ò&) , & ?I )H í Ã Ï ƒ! F ? I 8, ! Ú ÃF .
Zalmoxis and Protesilaos also disappeared, although in Protesilaos’s case his tomb was later found.283 But in his first return to life, Protesilaos was allowed to physically leave Hades and see his wife again briefly.284 Pythagoras, Rhampsinitus, Orpheus, Heracles and Theseus likewise either disappeared for a time (Pythagoras) or descended to Hades physically. Consequently, it is clear that the analogy Celsus’s Jew is making is an argument that the empty 279 See the useful discussion of L. Zhmud, Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans, Oxford 2012, 216–7 (he points out that Hermippus was hostile to Pythagoras). 280 Apollodorus 1.3.2 (1.15 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 1.17–9. See Frazer’s extensive list of parallels. 281 Pausanias 9.30.6, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 4.303. 282 Konon Narr. 45 (apud Photius Bibl. 186.45, 140a [CBy Photius III, 33–4 Henry]), trans. of M. K. Brown, The Narratives of Konon. Text, Translation and Commentary on the Diegeseis, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 163, München 2002, 302. 283 chapt. 3 § 1.3 (Zalmoxis), 2.1 (Protesilaos). 284 See chapt. 3 § 2.1. Cf. Agatharchides De mari Erythraeo 7 in § 1.2, Aelius Aristides 3.365 in § 1.14 and Lucian Dial. mort. 28.1 in § 1.21 above.
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tomb of the Gospel tradition is a deceit carried out by the Christians – not that it is a fictional account.285 The analogy is that just as individuals ( &í ; Ö () deceive simple minds about the disappearance of Greek heroes, so the Christians deceive simple minds with their explanation of the disappearance of Jesus’s body and their lies about his resurrection appearances. This motif in ancient Judaism (accepting the empty tomb, but offering alternative explanations) finds support in the reports of Jewish polemic by Matt 28:11–15, Justin, Tertullian, and in the Toledot Yeshu.286 Origen thinks the account of Orpheus, Protesilaos, and Heracles could be deceit (unlike Jesus’s resurrection), because the heroes could have hidden themselves for a time. He argues: Come, let us show that what is recorded about Jesus having risen from the dead cannot be compared to these. (8 7 ≈ Ã & Ù Ï Ù ∏ " 8 ! I? !. 287
This is the case because Jesus was publicly crucified. Celsus believes that the Christian hope to be raised in the same body is “absolutely the hope of worms” ( 7 ).288 During the persecution of Lyons and Vienne, the bodies of the dead Christians were burned and their ashes thrown into the Rhone. Eusebius quotes from the letter of the Christians in Lyons and Vienne who asserted that the pagans did this saying, ... so that they have no hope of resurrection ... now let us see if they will rise and if their god is able to help them and deliver them from our hands. &Ó & ? ... N& ∞ 7 Ú ∞ & I!F Ã) ¡ ! Ù Ã Ú 5 8! .289 285 A. I. Baumgarten, Jews, Pagans and Christians on the Empty Grave of Jesus, in Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Jerusalem, August 16–24, 1989, vol. 2, Jerusalem 1990, 37–44, esp. 42–3 errs, in my view, by ignoring the examples (Zalmoxis et al.) that Celsus’s Jew mentions. He consequently reaches the mistaken conclusion that the Jew denied the empty tomb narrative. This is precisely what the Jew does not claim. The point is that the Christians are guilty of deceit. 286 See chapt. 6 § 10. 287 Origen Cels. 2.56. The pagan in Minuc. 11.8 mentions Protesilaos’s temporary return to life in an attack on the concept of resurrection. One of his objections is that the resurrection cannot be from the same body, because it has “dissolved away” (ipso corpore? sed iam ante dilapsum est). A similar objection appears in Aug. Ep. 102.2 (CSEL 34.2 545,17–546,7 Goldbacher) attributed to followers of Porphyry. The general resurrection cannot correspond to Christ’s because he was not born of seed (nulla condicione seminis). And it cannot correspond to Lazarus’s because his body had not yet dissolved, “but our resurrection after many centuries will be extracted from a disordered mass” (nostra autem multis saeculis post ex confuso eruetur). Cf. Cook, Interpretation, of the New Testament 153–4. 288 Origen Cels. 5.14.
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Clearly these pagans had a highly materialistic version of the resurrection. The narrative is almost certainly reliable. Since the trials of the Christians were public, Timothy D. Barnes remarks: “It must be presumed, therefore, that their accounts derive either from autopsy or from the accounts of those who witnessed them.”290 Porcius Festus (Acts 25:19) and the Stoics and Epicureans (Acts 17:32) all objected to the belief in the resurrection of Christ according to Luke. These images in Luke Acts are thoroughly consistent with the skepticism about resurrection of the pagans in Gaul, even if Luke is responsible for the specific wording of the objections. Tertullian also bears witness to the pagans’ knowledge of Christian belief in the resurrection of the body: The resurrection of the dead is the confidence of Christian people ... But the multitude mocks, reckoning that nothing remains over after death. Yet they offer sacrifices to the deceased, and that with most lavish devotion in accordance with their customs and the seasonableness of eatables, so as to create the supposition that those whom they deny to have any sensation are even conscious of being in need. Fiducia Christianorum resurrectio mortuorum ... Sed vulgus inridet, existimans nihil superesse post mortem: et tamen defunctis parentat, et quidem impensissimo officio pro moribus eorum, pro temporibus esculentorum, ut quos negant sentire quidquam etiam desiderare praesumant.291
Tertullian assumes that the “multitude” (vulgus) knows enough about the resurrection to mock it. Later in his treatise, he complains that Christians who reject the resurrection use the same arguments against it that pagans do: Thus one cannot be a Christian who denies that resurrection which Christians confess, and denies it by such arguments as non-Christians use. Adeo non erit Christianus qui eam negabit quam confitentur Christiani, et his argumentis negabit quibus utuntur non Christiani.292
289
Eusebius H.E. 5.1.63. T. D. Barnes, Early Christian Hagiography and Roman History, Tria Corda 5, Tübingen 2010, 63. 291 Tert. Res. 1.2, trans. slightly mod. of E. Evans, ed. and trans., Tertullian’s Treatise on the Resurrection, London 1960, 5. On the refrigerium meals in Christianity, cf. Smith, Drudgery, 131–2, R. Macmullen, Christian Ancestor Worship in Rome, JBL 129 (2010) 597– 613, esp. 602–8, P. Brown, The Ransom of the Soul. Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity, Cambridge, MA 2015, 36–8. On pagan meals with the dead, cf. S. E. Potthoff, The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage. Near-Death Experience, Ancestor Cult and the Archaeology of Paradise, London 2017, 64–70 (including a discussion of the Vibia tomb [chapt. 4 § 2.3]) and esp. 64 (consciousness of the dead). One pagan funerary inscription (CIL 6, 19007 [Rome 101–200 C.E.]) includes this phrase: Convivae cuncti nunc mi bona pocula ferte (O all table companions, bring now to me good drinking cups). 292 Tert. Res. 3.4, trans. of Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise, 13. On these texts of Tertullian, cf. Lehtipuu, Debates, 64. 290
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Presumably there was a lively debate in the Carthage of Tertullian’s time about the resurrection. Macarius’s anonymous philosopher (perhaps based on the arguments of Porphyry) mounts an elaborate argument against the Christian concept of resurrection by including an example in which a human body is devoured successively by fish, then by fishers, then by dogs who eat the fishers. The philosopher asks to whom the body will belong in the resurrection.293 He also wondered why Jesus did not appear to Pilate, Herod, the High Priest, or the Roman senate after his death. Instead he appeared to Mary Magdalene, a common woman from a wretched village ( Ú &c Ú Ù & ? Ù ¡ 8ãWõ), another Mary who was an obscure peasant, and several other undistinguished individuals (; W ® ãcõ ( ?9 Ú Ã2 9 2, Ú ; ¿ Ã ( & 7).294 Consequently, the philosopher found the concept of the resurrection to be incoherent, and wondered why Jesus could not have appeared to distinguished individuals in Palestine and Rome.
2 Resurrection in Classical Latin Texts 2.1 Terence In Terency’s Hecyra (Mother-in-law) Pamphilus, the son of Laches, has gone on a journey to receive his inheritance from his dead cousin Phania: Laches: Tell me, what did our cousin Phania leave? Pamphilus: Well, he was very much a fellow who devoted himself to pleasure while he was alive, and people like that don’t give much joy to their heirs; but they do leave this epitaph to themselves: “he had a good life, while he had one.” Laches: So have you brought nothing back besides that one saying? Pamphilus: Whatever the amount that he left, it was sheer profit. Laches (hypocritically, reassured by the implication that Phania has left him something) No, it was loss: I wish he was alive and well! Phidippus: You can safely wish for that: he’ll never come back to life now! But I know which you prefer! LA. Cedo, quid reliquit Phania consobrinus noster?
293 Macarius Monogenes 4.24a.4 (Macarios de Magnésie, Le Monogénès [vol. 2; Textes et traditions 7; ed. R. Goulet; Paris 2003] 316). On the long history of this objection, cf. Cook, Interpretation, 243–4 (to which “Origen” [“Proclus” describing an Origenist’s position] apud Methodius Res. 1.20.4 (GCS Methodius 243 Bonwetsch) = Epiphanius Pan. 64.12.6–8 (GCS Epiphanius 2, 413 Holl) should be added. 294 Macarius Monogenes 2.25.1–3 (2.36–8 Goulet), discussed in Cook, Interpretation of the New Testament, 198–200.
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PA. Sane hercle homo uoluptati obsequens fuit, dum uixit: et qui sic sunt, haud multum heredem iuuant, sibi uero hanc relinquont laudem “uixit, dum uixit, bene.” LA. Tum tu igitur nihil attulisti huc plus una hac sententia? PA. Quidquid est id, quod reliquit, profuit. LA. Immo offuit: nam illum uiuom et saluom uellem. PH. Inpune optare istuc licet: ille reuiuiscet iam numquam, et tamen utrum malis scio.295
Phidippus is confident that resurrection is impossible. 2.2 Cicero There are several metaphorical allusions to the concept of resurrection in Cicero’s works. In De finibus, he makes the following statement to Cato, who has been defending Stoicism: What if the pupils of Plato were to come to life again, and their pupils again in succession, and were to address you in this fashion? quid, si reviviscant Platonis illi et deinceps qui eorum auditores fuerunt, et te cum ita loquantur?296
The pupils of Plato proceed to defend their teacher against the Stoics. In a letter to Atticus (10 Feb. 49 B.C.E.), he heard what he took to be good news regarding the resistance to Caesar. For my part I fear this is all fancy, but M’. Lepidus, L. Torquatus, and C. Cassius the Tribune, who are with me (i.e. in the Formiae district) have been brought [“called”] back to life by Philotimus’ letter. haec metuo equidem ne sint somnia, sed tamen M’. Lepidum, L. Torquatum, C. Cassium tribunum pl. (hi enim sunt nobis cum, id est in Formiano) Philotimi litterae ad vitam revocaverunt.297
Another similar image appears in his treatise on the Paradoxes of the Stoics in a discussion of those who take too much delight in works of art. Let Manius Curius come back to life, or one of those men in whose villa and house there was nothing splendid or distinguished besides themselves, and let him see someone who enjoys the highest benefits of the people catching bearded mullets from his pond and handling them, and boasting of his supply of lampreys: wouldn’t he judge that this man was such a slave as he would not consider worthy of any greater task in the household?
295 Ter. Hec. 458–65, trans. of Terence, The Comedies, trans. and comm. P. Brown, Oxford 2006, 77. 296 Cic. Fin. 4.61, trans. of Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA 1914, 367. 297 Cic. Att. 7.23.1 (Ep. 147), trans. of Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge, MA 1999, 2.263.
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Revivescat M'. Curius aut eorum aliquis, quorum in villa ac domo nihil splendidum, nihil ornatum fuit praeter ipsos, et videat aliquem summis populi beneficiis usum barbatulos mullos exceptantem de piscina et pertractantem et murenarum copia gloriantem, nonne hunc hominem ita servum iudicet, ut ne in familia quidem dignum maiore aliquo negotio putet?298
M. Curius Dentatus was known rhetorically for his “incorruptibility and frugality.”299 With regard to Milo’s presumed murder of Publius Clodius, Cicero asks the judges to imagine Clodius’s return to life: … suppose I could induce you to acquit Milo, but only on condition that Publius Clodius shall have come to life again. Why those terrified glances? What feelings would he inspire in you if he lived, seeing that when he lives no more, he has appalled you with a baseless fancy … You sit here then, to avenge the death of one to whom you would refuse to restore life, even did you think you had the power; and a law has been proposed for an inquiry into his slaying, though, could he by the same law have been brought back to life, that law would never have been proposed. If then my client was the slayer of such a man as this, could he, in admitting the deed, fear punishment at the hands of the very persons whom he had delivered? … fingite igitur cogitatione imaginem huius condicionis meae, si possim efficere Milonem ut absolvatis, sed ita si P. Clodius revixerit – quid voltu extimuistis? quonam modo ille vos vivus afficeret, quos mortuus inani cogitatione percussit?300 …. eius igitur mortis sedetis ultores, cuius vitam si putetis per vos restitui posse, nolitis, et de eius nece lata quaestio est qui si lege eadem reviviscere posset, lata lex numquam esset. huius ergo interfector si esset, in confitendo ab his ne poenam timeret quos liberavisset?301
Basil Dufallo comments that in “the Pro Milone, Clodius’ resurrection is made to stand for a mass resurgence of civil discord.”302 He notes that “Clodius’ henchman, Sex. Cloelius, threw Clodius’ corpse into the senate house ut eam mortuus incenderet quam vivus everterat (so that as a dead man he might set on fire what he overturned while alive).”303 The author of the Ad 298 Cic. Parad. 38, trans. of M. O. Webb, Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum: A New Translation with Philosophical Commentary, M.A. Thesis, Texas Tech, 1985, 31–2. 299 E. T. Salmon and T. Cornell, Curius (RE 9) Dentatus, Manius, 4OCD, 399. 300 A. Klotz (M. Tulli Ciceronis scripta quae mansuerunt omnia, vol. 8, BiTeu, Leipzig 1918, 53) has vivos and mortuos instead of vivus and mortuus, adopted above from Watts’s edition. Klotz’s text would result in: “what feelings would he inspire in you, the living, seeing that he has struck you dead with a baseless fancy.” The edition of A. B. Poynton (Cicero, Pro Milone, OCT, Oxford 1956, 29) adopts vivus and mortuus. MSS HET have vivos and MS H has mortuos. These may merely be spelling variations for the second declension. Cf. A. C. Clark, ed. and comm. M. Tulli Ciceronis pro T. Annio Milone ad iudices oratio, Oxford 2 1918, 70. See Probus Catholica nominum et uerborum (Grammatici latini, vol 4, BiTeu, ed. H. Keil, Leipzig 1864, 19) vos vel vus secundae sunt declinationis. 301 Cic. Mil. 38, trans. of Cicero, Orations, vol. 14, LCL, ed. and trans. N. H. Watts, Cambridge, MA 1931, 95. 302 B. Dufallo, The Ghosts of the Past. Latin Literature, the Dead, and Rome’s Transition to a Principate, Columbus, OH 2007, 32. 303 Dufallo, Ghosts, 32 with ref. to Cic. Mil. 90.
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Herennium, which was occasionally attributed to Cicero, uses resurrection for an example of rhetorical “character imitation” (ēthopoiia †!) – specifically, apparition making (eidōlopoiia ∞& ).304 But if that great Lucius Brutus should now come to life again and appear here before you, would he not use this language? “I banished kings; you bring in tyrants. I created liberty, which did not exist; what I created you do not wish to preserve. I, at the peril of my life, freed the fatherland; you, even without peril, do not care to be free.” quodsi nunc Lucius ille Brutus reuiuescat et hic ante pedes uestros adsit, is non hac utatur oratione: “ego reges eieci, uos tyrannos introducitis; ego libertatem, quae non erat, peperi, uos partam seruare non uultis; ego capitis mei periculo patriam liberaui, uos liberi sine periculo esse non curatis?”305
Lucius Junius Brutus was reputedly one of the first two consuls of Rome who had expelled Tarquinus Superbus.306 2.3 Livy Publius Scipio alluded to the possibility of resurrection in a speech to his troops during the Second Punic War: Just as now you note in me a resemblance to my father and uncle in face and countenance and recognize the lines of the figure, so I will soon take pains to reproduce for you an image of their minds, of their loyalty and courage, so that each man shall say that there has come back to life, or has been born again, his general Scipio. breui faciam ut quemadmodum nunc noscitatis in me patris patruique similitudinem oris uoltusque et lineamenta corporis, ita ingenii fidei uirtutisque exemplum effigiem uobis reddam ut reuixisse aut renatum sibi quisque Scipionem imperatorem dicat.307
Although the reference is only metaphorical, clearly Livy is willing to entertain the possibility of resurrection as an image. 2.4 Ovid Ovid mentions Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus in the Fasti: Hippolytus fell from his chariot; the reins entangled his limbs, his terribly wounded body was dragged along, and he gave up the ghost, though Diana was much aggrieved. “There is no cause for distress,” Coronis’ son said: “for I will restore his life to the devout youth, without a wound, and his sad destiny will yield to my skill.”
304 Cf. Hermogenes Prog. 9, Aphthonius Prog. 34, and Kennedy’s trans., Progymnasmata, 84–5, 115–6. Cp. § 1.14 above. 305 [Cic.] Rhet. Her. 4.66, trans. of [Cicero], Ad C. Herennium, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Caplan, Cambridge, MA 1954, 399–401. 306 A. Drummond, Iunius Brutus, Lucius, 4OCD, 765. 307 Liv. 26.41.24–5, trans. of Livy, vol. 1–14, LCL, ed. and trans. B. O. Foster et al., Cambridge, MA 1919–1959, 7.163.
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exciderat curru, lorisque morantibus artus Hippolytus lacero corpore raptus erat, reddideratque animam, multum indignante Diana. “nulla” Coronides “causa doloris” ait: “namque pio iuveni vitam sine volnere reddam, et cedent arti tristia fata meae.”308
Ovid then describes Asclepius’s method: Straightway he drew from an ivory casket simples that before had stood Glaucus’ ghost in good stead, what time the seer went down to pluck the herbs he had remarked, and the snake was succoured by a snake. Thrice he touched the youth’s breast, thrice he spoke healing words; then Hippolytus lifted his head, low laid upon the ground. He found a hiding-place in a sacred grove and in the depths of Dictynna’s own woodland; he became Virbius of the Arician Lake. gramina continuo loculis depromit eburnis: profuerant Glauci manibus illa prius, tum cum observatas augur descendit in herbas, usus et auxilio est anguis ab angue dato. pectora ter tetigit, ter verba salubria dixit: depositum terra sustulit ille caput. lucus eum nemorisque sui Dictynna recessu celat: Aricino Virbius ille lacu.309
Hippolytus describes his own resurrection by Asclepius in the Metamorphoses: … I saw the kingdom without sunlight and I bathed my wounded body in the water of Phlegethon. Nor would my life have been restored to me were it not for the powerful remedy of Apollo’s son; and after I regained life through strong herbs and Apollo’s aid, although Dis was aggrieved … vidi quoque luce carentia regna et lacerum fovi Phlegethontide corpus in unda, nec nisi Apollineae valido medicamine prolis reddita vita foret; quam postquam fortibus herbis atque ope Paeonia Dite indignante recepi310
In the Metamorphoses, a nymph’s daughter named Ocyroe prophesies to Asclepius: … she spoke, “often mortals will owe you their lives; it will be lawful for you to give back lives (already) cut off …”
308 Ov. Fast. 6.743–8, trans. of A. M. Keith, The Play of Fictions. Studies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 2, Ann Arbor, MI 1992, 69. 309 Ov. Fast. 6.749–56, trans. of Ovid, Fasti, Vol. 1, LCL, ed. and trans. J. G. Frazer, Cambridge, MA 1931, 377–9. 310 Ov. Met. 15.531–5, trans. of Keith, Play, 70.
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… dixit, tibi se mortalia saepe corpora debebunt; animas tibi reddere ademptas fas erit …311
Ovid describes Asclepius’s apotheosis as the result of Apollo’s intercession with Jupiter, who had killed Asclepius because of his revival of Hippolytus: But Clymenus and Clotho were grieved, she that her threads were checked, he that the rights of his kingdom were lessened. Jupiter, fearing his example, directed his thunderbolts at the one who had contributed the aid of too much skill. Phoebus, you complained: he is a god, be reconciled to your father: for your sake he himself did what he forbids be done by others. at Clymenus Clothoque dolent, haec fila teneri, hic fieri regni iura minora sui. Iuppiter, exemplum veritus, derexit in ipsum fulmina qui nimiae moverat artis opem. Phoebe, querebaris: deus est, placare parenti: propter te, fieri quod vetat, ipse facit.312
The implication is that Asclepius was restored to life, although not in the same way that Hippolytus was. 2.5 Vitruvius Vitruvius makes a hypothetical reference to resurrection. He describes an architecturally unrealistic scene that Apaturius of Alabanda had painted on a small theater in Tralles. A mathematician named Licinius had criticized the painting, and Vitruvius comments: Apaturius dared not reply, but took down and altered the scene, so as to make it consistent with truth, and then it was approved. O that the gods would restore Licinius to life, that he might correct the folly and fashionable inconsistency in our stucco work. itaque Apaturius contra respondere non est ausus, sed sustulit scaenam et ad rationem veritatis commutatam postea correctam adprobavit. utinam dii inmortales fecissent, uti Licymnius revivisceret et corrigeret hanc amentiam tectoriorumque errantia instituta!313
Although the allusion to resurrection is metaphorical (like those Livy and others), Vitruvius does not find the possibility of a restoration to life to be incoherent. 2.6 Valerius Maximus Valerius Maximus tells a curious story, which merely expresses the hope of resurrection: 311
Ov. Met. 2.643–5, trans. of Keith, Play, 68. Ov. Fast. 6.757–62, trans. of Keith, Play, 75–6. 313 Vitr. 7.5.7, trans. of M. Gwilt, The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, London 2 1860, 169. 312
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Claudia must be added to these cases [innocent individuals that were condemned], because a wicked wish she made ruined her, even though she was innocent of the charge made against her. As she was coming back home from the games, she was jostled by the crowd, so she made a wish that her brother, who had caused great losses to our naval forces, would come back to life, and that he would be elected consul several times so that he could get rid of the city’s excess population by his ill-fated leadership. Adiciatur his Claudia, quam insontem crimine, quo accusabatur, uotum impium subuertit, quia, cum a ludis domum rediens turba elideretur, optauerat ut frater suus, maritimarum uirium nostrarum praecipua iactura, reuiuesceret saepiusque consul factus infelici ductu nimis magnam urbis frequentiam minueret.314
At the very least, it indicates that the concept of resurrection was coherent for Valerius. 2.7 Pliny the Elder Pliny attributes the power of resurrection to a certain plant. Xanthos, a Lydian historian from Sardis, transmits a tradition about a Tylon who had been restored to life by a plant. Xanthus,315 who wrote books on history, relates in the first of them that a young snake, which had been killed, was restored to life by his father, who used a plant called by Xanthus balis, and that the same plant brought back to life one Tylo, whom the snake had killed. Juba too records that a man in Arabia was restored to life by means of a plant. Democritus said, and Theophrastus believed him, that there was a plant which, carried by the bird I have mentioned,316 forced out by its touch a wedge driven into a tree by shepherds. Although these tales are incredible, yet they fill us with wonder, and force us to admit that there is still much truth in them. Xanthus historiarum auctor in prima earum tradit, occisum draconis catulum revocatum ad vitam a parente herba, quam balim317 nominat, eademque Tylonem, quem draco oc314 V. Max. 8.1.(damn.).4, trans. of Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings. One Thousand Tales from Ancient Rome, trans. H. J. Walker, Indianapolis 2004, 271. Walker notes that “the aediles of the plebs fined Claudia for this misanthropic statement in 246 B.C.” and that her brother, “Publius Claudius Pulcher [cos, 249 B.C.] lost a fleet during the First Punic War (see 1:4,3 and 8:1,absol.4).” 315 Cf. Xanthos, FGrH 765, F. 3, H. Herter, Von Xanthos dem Lyder zu Aineias aus Gaza: Tylon und andere Auferweckte, RhMus N.F. 108 (1965) 189–212, esp. 190, G. E. Sterling, Historiography and Self Definition. Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography, NT.S 64, Leiden 1992, 32. 316 Plin. Nat. 10.40. 317 Hanfmann, Lydiaka, 70 speculates that this means “belonging to Bal” which corresponds to Nonnus’s “flower of Zeus.” Since Aramaic, according to Hanfmann, was the “official language of the Persian government at Sardis in Xanthus’s time … one wonders whether a Semitic word might not have occurred in the account of Xanthus.” This is difficult to credit. A better solution is that of Herter, Von Xanthos, 192 (who agrees that Robert’s [L. Robert, Études anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l’Asie mineure, Paris 1937, 158] ref. to the Sardian tribe Alibalis [] I Û] is also attractive; cf. Sardis 7.1, 127) who mentions the Thracian word ( Û, a plant that has the power to restore life. Cf. Etym. magn.
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ciderat, restitutum saluti. et Iuba in Arabia herba revocatum ad vitam hominem tradit. dixit Democritus, credidit Theophrastus esse herbam, cuius contactu inlatae ab alite, quam retulimus, exiliret cuneus a pastoribus arbori adactus. quae etiamsi fide carent, admirationem tamen implent coguntque confiteri multum esse quod vero supersit.318
Dominique Briquel notes that there is a Lydian coin (see image 8), which shows a hero named Masnes, “armed with a club, who fights a snake who carries a plant in its mouth.”319 Barclay V. Head describes the coin thus: Tylos healed by Masnes. Tylos standing r., in short garment, holding in r. a bent and knotted club resembling pedum in shape, and extending l. to receive plant from Masnes, who stands l., naked but for chlamys hanging from neck over l. arm; he holds in l. similar bent and knotted club, and in r. a plant which he offers to Tylos. In field between the figures,
s.v. M? (186 Kallierges): @∂& Ú ;!, √ & ) ) F ˆ ! , ¡ E :W, " Ú I “, & & ) I ; ) (a kind of flower, that appears to bring the dead back to life, like the Aruonē, as if it were some bi-allis, since it appears to produce another life). Hesychius s.v. ( Û (j 108) has ?I (hemp). The editors of Etymologicum genuinum (F. Lasserre and N. Livadaras, ed., Etymologicum magnum genuinum…, vol. 2, Athens 1992) Β 21 s.v. M? refer to FGrH 765 F 3 (the text of Xanthos above). Ps. Arcadius [4 C.E.?] De accentibus p. 32 Schmidt has καὶ Ù I? Ö ( ∂& ;!, √ & ) ) F Ù ) “and ‘Ballis’ … (“a kind of flower that appears to make the dead live again”). The definition is identical with that of Etym. magn. and Herodian De prosodia (Grammatici graeci 3.1, 89 Lentz). See also K. Tümpel, Morie, ALGRM 2, 3210–12, esp. 3211. I thank Richard Goulet for his comments on Etym. magn. 318 Plin. Nat. 25.14, trans. by Pliny, Natural History, 10 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. Rackham, W. H. S. Jones, et al., Cambridge, MA 1938–62, 7.145–7. 319 D. Briquel, L’origine lydienne des Étrusques. Histoire de la doctrine dans l’Antiquité, CEFR 139, Rome 1991, 18 with ref. to B. V. Head, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lydia, British Museum Coins, London 1901 (BMC Lydia), p. 268 § 178, Pl. 27, 12, and intro. p. cxi–cxiii (a coin of Severus Alexander: the coin’s inscription is “in the magistracy (ΑΡΧΟΝΤΟΣ) of C. Asin[nius] Nicomachus Fru[gianus]”: ΕΠΙ ΑΡΧ]Γ ΑΣ ΙΝ ΝΕΙΚΟΜΑΧΟΥΦΡΟΥ and in the exergue: ΣΑΡΔΙΑΝΩΝ Β ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ [of the Sardians, twice Neokoros]). Briquel refers to a coin of Gordian III, found in E. Babelon, Inventaire sommaire de la collection Waddington … Troisième fascicule, Paris 1898 § 5274 Pl. 14, 19 which has MASANHS in the inscription, who is depicted beating with his club a serpent, which holds in its mouth a plant, discussed by Head, ibid., cxi. Robert, Études anatoliennes, 157–8, Pl. I, 7 corrects the reading as “Masdnes” (®Ì&), after a reexamination of the coin (which Head had not inspected). Cp. J. Robert and L. Robert, Bulletin épigraphique, REG 75 (1962) 130–226, esp. 202. P. Herrmann, Inschriften von Sardeis, Chiron 23 (1993) 233–266, esp. 251, 253 (249–66 is a discussion of SEG 43, 865 [222–235 C.E.], which mentions Nicomachus), notes that the city reverted to “twice Neokoros” during Alexander Severus’s time. According to PIR online he was consul suffectus during the Severan era (‹http://pir.bbaw.de/addenda/alia/IRN2156.html›). For Manes/Masdnes/Masnes, cf. also J. Bremmer, Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East, Leiden 2008, 270.
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®ÊT? P±° (Masnes Tylos) and at the feet of Tylos a dead serpent lies coiled.320
Louis Robert accepts the reading ®Ì and P˜ .321 The coin is an intriguing image of resurrection. Nonnus appears to have been familiar with the same myth that Pliny knew.322 Pliny has this account of several resurrections, including that of Tyndareus: To its pioneers, medicine assigned a place among the gods and a home in heaven, and even today medical aid is in many ways sought from the oracle. Then medicine became more famous even through sin, for legend said that Aesculapius was struck by lightning for bringing Tyndareus back to life. But medicine did not cease to give out that by its agency other men had come to life again, being famous in Trojan times, in which its renown was more assured, but only for the treatment of wounds. 29.2 dis primum inventores suos adsignavit et caelo dicavit, 3 nec non et hodie multifariam ab oraculis medicina petitur. auxit deinde famam etiam crimine, ictum fulmine Aesculapium fabulata, quoniam Tyndareum revocavisset ad vitam – nec tamen cessavit narrare alios revixisse opera sua – , clara Troianis temporibus, a quibus fama certior, vulnerum tamen dumtaxat remediis.323
Pliny appears to accept these narratives at face value, although he was personally skeptical of resurrection. In a discussion of the powers of God, he writes: … not even for God [“a god”] are all things possible – for he cannot, even if he wishes, commit suicide, the supreme boon that he has bestowed on man among all the penalties of life, nor bestow eternity on mortals or recall the deceased … … ne deum quidem posse omnia – namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscere, si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis, nec mortales aeternitate donare aut revocare defunctos …324
In another text, he refers to Democritus’s promise of resurrection: Similar also is the vanity about preserving men’s bodies, and about Democritus’s promise of our coming to life again – who did not come to life again himself! similis et de adservandis corporibus hominum ac revivescendi promisso Democriti vanitas, qui non revixit ipse.325
Philosophically he rejected the possibility of a true resurrection, although that did not stop him from handing on – apparently uncritically – past tales of res320
Head, BMC Lydia, 268. Robert, Études anatoliennes, 156. 322 Cf. § 1.20 above. 323 Plin. Nat. 29.3, trans. of Jones, Pliny 8.183. 324 Plin. Nat. 2.27, trans. of Rackham, Pliny 1.187. 325 Plin. Nat. 7.189, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 2.635. Pliny “criticized him [Democritus, the Atomist] as a purveyor of magical beliefs (2.14, 7.189, 24.160, 26.19, 27.141).” Cf. M. Griffin, The Elder Pliny on Philosophers, in: Vita vigilia est. Essays in Honour of Barbara Levick, BICS.S 100, London 2007, 85–101, esp. 90. 321
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urrection. He is more open to accounts in which apparently dead individuals revived: The ex-consul Aviola came to life again on the funeral pyre, and as the flame was too powerful for it to be possible to come to his assistance, was burnt alive. A similar cause of death is recorded in the case of the ex-praetor Lucius Lamia, while Gaius Aelius Tubero, a former praetor, is recorded by Messala Rufus and most authorities to have been recovered from the pyre. This is the law of mortals: we are born for these and similar accidents of fortune, so that in the case of a human being no confidence must be placed even in death. Aviola consularis in rogo revixit et, quoniam subveniri non potuerat praevalente flamma, vivus crematus est. similis causa in L. Lamia praetorio viro traditur. nam C. Aelium Tuberonem praetura functum a rogo relatum Messala Rufus et plerique tradunt. haec est condicio mortalium. ad has et eius modi occasiones fortunae gignimur, uti de homine ne morti quidem debeat credi.326
He then gives the examples of Hermotimus, Aristeas, and Epimenides whose souls were able to wander away from their inert bodies.327 His conclusion is that women are susceptible to this kind of state: The female sex seems specially liable to this malady, caused by distortion of the womb; if this is set right, the breathing is restored. To this subject belongs the essay of Heraclides, well known in Greece, about the woman recalled to life after being dead for seven days. feminarum sexus huic malo videtur maxime opportunus conversione volvae, quae si corrigatur, spiritus restituitur, huc pertinet nobile illud apud Graecos volumen Heraclidis septem diebus feminae exanimis ad vitam revocatae.328
He also mentions the physician Asclepiades who “brought a man back from burial and saved his life” (relato e funere homine et conservato), presumably because he recognized that the man was not dead.329 Celsus offers a fuller explanation: … for instance, Asclepiades, when he met the funeral procession, recognized that a man who was being carried out to burial was alive; and it is not primarily a fault of the art if there is a fault on the part of its professor. … quod Asclepiades funeri obvius intellexit quendam vivere qui efferebatur; nec protinus crimen artis esse, si quod professoris sit.330
Apuleius’s account is similar: ... and after carefully observing certain signs, he ran his hands several times over the man’s body and found hidden life in it … and, having thus wrested him from the hands of
326
Plin. Nat. 7.174, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 2.621. Plin. Nat. 7.175, cf. chapt. 3 § 1.1 (Aristeas), chapt. 4 § 2.1.13 (Epimenides), 2.1.18 (Hermotimus). 328 Plin. Nat. 7.175, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 2.623. 329 Plin. Nat. 7.124, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 2.589. 330 Cels. 2.6, trans. of Celsus, De medicina, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. W. G. Spencer, Cambridge, MA 1935–8, 1.115. 327
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the undertakers, brought him home like one restored from the underworld, and immediately used certain medicines to revive the life hiding in the recesses of the body. … contemplatus [enim], diligentissime quibusdam signis animadversis, etiam atque etiam pertrectavit corpus hominis et invenit in illo vitam latentem … atque ita vispillonum manibus extortum velut ab inferis postliminio domum rettulit confestimque spiritum recreavit, confestim animam in corporis latibulis delitiscentem quibusdam medicamentis provocavit.331
Pliny, in a discussion of the ability of trees to revive after being cut down, has a fairly rare usage of the verb resurgo that implies a sort of resurrection in the natural world. It is a common occurrence for fallen trees often to be replaced and to come back to life again owing to the earth forming a sort of scab over the wound. … There are also many cases of trees having fallen even without a storm or any other cause except one of a miraculous nature and having risen up again of their own accord. This portent occurred to the citizens of the Roman nation during the Cimbrian wars332 in the case of an elm in the grove of Juno at Nocera, actually after its top had been lopped off because it was leaning forward right on to the altar; the tree was restored of its own accord so completely that it at once flowered, and from that date onward the majesty of the Roman people recovered, after having previously been ravaged by disasters in war … But most wonderful of all, a plane-tree at Antandros recovered of its own accord and was restored to life even after its sides had been rough hewn all round, a tree 22 ½ feet high and 6 feet thick. 131 Prostratas restitui plerumque et quadam terrae cicatrice vivescere volgare est … 132 est in exemplis et sine tempestate ullave causa alia quam prodigi cecidisse multas ac sua sponte resurrexisse. factum hoc populi Romani Quiritibus ostentum Cimbricis bellis Nuceriae in luco Iunonis ulmo, postquam etiam cacumen amputatum erat, quoniam in aram ipsam procumbebat, restituta sponte ita ut protinus floreret, a quo deinde tempore maiestas p. R. resurrexit, quae ante vastata cladibus fuerat. 133 … sed maxime mirum, Antandri platanus etiam circumdolatis lateribus restibilis sponte facta vitaeque reddita longitudine XV cubitorum, crassitudine quattuor ulnarum.333
Although the reference is to the “resurrection” of trees, three important expressions are used (vivescere, resurrexisse, vitae reddita), one of which (resurgo)334 came to dominate Christian language of resurrection. 2.8 Hyginus Hyginus’s “work was published before the year 207” according to Mary Grant.335 It is an (often) unappreciated piece of Roman mythography, alt331 Apul. Fl. 19.5, 8, trans. of Apuleius, Apologia Florida De deo Socratis, LCL, ed. and trans. C. P. Jones, Cambridge, MA 2017, 323–5. 332 ca 110–101 B.C.E. Cf. O. P. F. Brogan and J. F. Drinkwater, Cimbri 4OCD, 317–8. 333 Plin. Nat. 16.131–3, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 4.473–5. Suet. Vesp. 5.4 recounts a similar marvel (a cyprus tree uprooted by a storm). 334 Cf. OLD s.v. “3 (of plants) To spring up again after being cut down or sim. (so of other forms of growth).” Cf. intro. § 5 for a brief review of Christian usage.
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hough it is based on Greek sources.336 Hyginus mentions a number of individuals who have returned from the netherworld. Those, who by permission of the fates (Parcae), came back from the underworld: Ceres, seeking Proserpina her daughter. Father Liber who descended for his mother Semele, the daughter of Cadmus. Hercules, the son of Jupiter, to lead out the dog Cerberus. Asclepius the son of Apollo and Coronis. Castor and Pollux, sons of Jupiter and Leda, came back by an alternating death. Protesilaus son of Iphiclus for the sake of Laodamia daughter of Acastus. Alcestis the daughter of Pelias for the sake of Admetus her husband. Theseus the son of Aegeus for the sake of Pirithous. Hippolytus the son of Theseus by the will of Diana, who afterwards was named Virbius. Orpheus the son of Oeagrus for the sake of Eurydice his wife. Adonis the son of Cinyras and Zmyrna by the will of Venus. Glaucus the son of Minos, restored (to life) by Polyidus the son of Coeranus. Ulysses the son of Laertes for the sake of his country. Aeneas, the son of Anchises for the sake of his father. Mercurius, the son of Maia, in regular journeys. 251.1 QVI LICENTIA PARCARVM AB INFERIS REDIERVNT Ceres Proserpinam filiam suam quaerens. Liber pater ad Semelen matrem suam Cadmi filiam descendit. Hercules Iouis filius ad canem Cerberum educendum. 2. Asclepius Apollinis et Coronidis filius. Castor et Pollux Iouis et Ledae filii alterna morte redeunt. Protesilaus Iphicli filius propter Laodamiam Acasti filiam. 3. Alcestis Peliae filia propter Admetum coniugem. Theseus Aegei filius propter Pirithoum. Hippolytus Thesei filius uoluntate Dianae, qui postea Virbius est appellatus. Orpheus Oeagri filius propter Eurydicen coniugem suam. 4. Adonis Cinyrae et Zmyrnae filius uoluntate Veneris. Glaucus Minois filius restitutus a Polyido Coerani filio. Vlysses Laertae filius propter patriam. Aeneas Anchisae filius propter patrem. Mercurius Maiae filius assiduo itinere.337 335 M. Grant, ed. and trans., The Myths of Hyginus, University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies 34, Lawrence 1960, 1. The precise date is 7 Sept. 207 (Maximo et Apro consulibus tertio Id. Septembres Hygini genealogiam omnibus notam descripsi). See Smith and Trzaskoma, Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae, xlii. Cf. Ps Dositheus Hermeneumata leidensia lib. 3 (Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana Leidensia, BiTeu, ed. G. Flammini, Munich 2004, 103–4) = G. Goetz, Corpus Glossariorum Romanorum, vol. 3, Leipzig, 1882, 56.30–46. The most useful edition is Higí, Faules, 2 vols., revised text, trans., and notes, A. Soler i Nocolau, Barcelona 2011. 336 Cf. the important review of K. F. B. Fletcher, Hyginus’ Fabulae: Toward a Roman Mythography, in: Writing Myth. Mythography in the Ancient World, ed. S. Trzaskoma and R. S. Smith, Leuven 2013, 133–164 (e.g., on 134 he compares it to internet sites of “user generated content” such as Wikipedia, and to Roman adaptations of Greek texts such as Ovid Met. [ibid., 135]). Hyginus quotes liberally, however, from Latin literature (144–62). The “text is a living organism” (162), a concept which explains the interpolations. On the Greek sources, cf. ibid., 134, 139–41. 337 Hyg. Fab. 251, my trans. Hyginus mentions the three-hour return to life of Protesilaos in Fab. 103.2 quo impetrato a Mercurio reductus tres horas cum eo collocuta est ([her request] being granted, he was led back for three hours by Mercury and for three hours she conversed with him). In Ov. Ep. (Heroid.) 13.159 Laodamia, in vain, adjures “my gods” and swears by the return and the body of her husband (Per reditus corpusque tuum, mea numina, iuro). Servius auctus (A. 6.447) has a tradition in which Laodamia requests that she see the shade of Protesilaos, and when her request is conceded, he died in her embrace. Hyg. Fab. 104 and Apollodorus Epit. 3.30 both describe Laodamia’s construction and sexual embrace of
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These examples cannot all be termed “resurrections,” although they are voyages to the underworld.338 Hercules, however, in another text of Hyginus “brought back [recalled] Alcestis from the netherworld” (quam postea Hercules ab inferis reuocauit).339 A sarcophagus in the Vatican depicts Laodamia lying on her bed at the foot of which Protesilaos mournfully parts from his wife. An adjacent scene depicts Protesilaos as Hermes leads him to Charon and his boat.340 Hyginus mentions Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus: Aesculapius Apollinis filius Glauco Minois filio uitam reddidisse siue Hippolyto dicitur, quem Iuppiter ob id fulmine percussit (Asclepius the son of Apollo is said to have restored life to Glaucus the son of Minos or to Hippolytus, for which Jupiter struck him with a thunderbolt).341 Lactantius Placidus, in his commentary on Statius’s Thebaid, also describes the resurrection: a statue of Protesilaos. On Hermes as “psychopomp” (leader of souls to Hades), cf. A. Vergados, The “Homeric Hymn to Hermes”: Introduction, Text and Commentary, Berlin 2013, 578 (e.g.: Homer Od. 24.1–10, Aeschylus Cho. 622, Pers. 626, Sophocles El. 110–1, Diogenes Laertius 8.31). 338 See Diodorus Sic. 4.25.4 (Dionysus and Semele). On Heracles and Cerberus, cf. D. Ogden. Drakon. Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford 2013, 110–1. See, e.g., J. Boardman, Herakles and Kerberos (Labour XI), LIMC 5.1 (1990) 85–118: § 2553 (Herakles “raises” a “stone [?]” against Hades “who flees left”). On this kotyle, (or skyphos), cf. also Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, 2.304. For the capture of Cerberus in iconography, cf. K. Schefold with L. Giuliani, Gods and Heroes in Late Archaic Greek Art, Cambridge 1002, 129–32. In Homer Il. 5.395–402, Herakles wounds Hades with an arrow. 339 Hyg. Fab. 51.3. A curious Christian legend using this formula may be found (among many places) in Aquinas In I Sent. distinctio 43, quaestio 2, art. 2, argumentum 5: Sed, sicut legitur, ad preces beati Gregorii dominus Trajanum imperatorem idolatram et ob hoc in Inferno damnatum, ab Inferis revocavit, et vitae restituit, where it is said that according to the prayers of the blessed Gregory, the Lord recalled from hell Trajan the idolatrous emperor, damned in hell because of his idolatry, and restored him to life. Cf., on that legend, M. L. Colish, The Virtuous Pagan: Dante and the Christian Tradition, in: The Unbounded Community. Papers in Christian Ecumenism in Honor of Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. W. Carferro and D. G. Fisher, New York 1996, 43–92, esp. 66–7. 340 P. Zanker and B. Ewald, Living with Myths. The Imagery of Roman Sarcophagi, Oxford 2012, 393–6 (ca 170 CE). 341 Hyg. Fab. 49. Cp. Claudian (born ca 370 C.E.) Bellum Geticum 440–1 et iuuenem spretae laniatum fraude nouercae / non sine Circaeis Latonia reddidit herbis; (Diana with the help of Circe’s magic herbs restored to life Hippolytus whom the scorned passion of a stepmother had caused to be torn in pieces). Trans. of Claudian, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. M. Platnauer, Cambridge, MA 1922, 2.159. Serv. A. 6.398 ... quibus Aesculapius extinctus est, Apollinis filius, quia Hippolytum ab inferis herbarum potentia revocaverat (by which [thunderbolts] Asclepius was killed, the son of Apollo, because he called Hippolytus back from the infernal regions using the power of the herbs), 7.761 tunc Diana eius castitate commota revocavit eum in vitam per Aesculapium ... hunc postea Iuppiter propter revocatum Hippolytum interemit ... sed Diana Hippolytum, revocatum ab inferis ... (then Diana, moved by his
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… Asclepius was struck by a thunderbolt, because he had dared to recall to life Hippolytus. When father Apollo saw that he was bereaved he killed the Cyclopes with his arrows, because they used to manufacture the thunderbolt of Juppiter. … fulminato Aesculapio, quod reuocare ad uitam ausus fuisset Hippolytum, pater Apollo, ubi se uidit orbatum, sagittis Cyclopas occidit, qui Iouis fulmina fabricare consueuerant.342
Hyginus also recounts the tale of Glaucus who was raised by Polyidus, and it clearly depicts a resurrection: Polyidus. Glaucus the son of Minos and Pasiphae, when he was playing with a ball, fell into a large vessel full of honey. When his parents sought him, they questioned Apollo about their boy. Apollo answered them, “An unnatural thing (portent) has been born for you, and if anyone should interpret it, he will restore the boy to you.” When Minos heard the oracular response, he began to ask his people about the unnatural thing. They told him that a calf had been born that changed color three times during the day, every four hours, first white, second red, then black. Minos then gathered the augurs to interpret the portent. When they could not be found, Polyidus son of Coeranus, a Byzantine,343 demonstrated that the omen was like a mulberry tree; for first it is white, then red, and when it has become fully ripe, black. Then Minos said to him, “According to the (oracular) response of Apollo, it is required that you restore my son to me.” When Polyidus took the auspices, he saw an owl344 sitting over a wine cellar and frightening away bees. When he had grasped the augury, he brought the lifeless boy out of the vessel. Minos said to him, “Now that his body is found, restore his spirit.” When Polyidus denied that that it could be done, Minos commanded that he, with the boy, should be shut up in a tomb and a sword be placed there. When they were shut up, a serpent suddenly began to approach the corpse of the boy. But Polyidus, thinking that it wanted to eat him, instantly struck it with a sword and killed it. Another serpent, seeking its mate, saw that it had been killed and advanced bringing along an herb. And by its touch it restored the spirit to the serpent. Polyidus did the same thing. When they yelled out from within, someone passing by reported to Minos, chastity, recalled him [Hippolytus] to life through Asclepius ... After Jupiter killed him because he had recalled Hippolytus to life ... but Diana commanded that Hippolytus, recalled from the infernal regions ...). Verg. A. 7.767–9 has turbatis distractus equis, ad sidera rursus / aetheria et superas caeli venisse sub auras, / Paeoniis revocatum herbis et amore Dianae (torn asunder by frightened steeds [he] came again to the starry firmament and heaven’s upper air, recalled by the Healer’s [“Paean’s” = Asclepius’s] herbs and Diana’s love, trans. of Virgil, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. R. Fairclough, Cambridge, MA 1918, 2.57). 342 Lactantius Placidus in Stat. Theb. 6.375 (BiTeu 412 Sweeney). 343 Soler, Higí, 2.61 gives various unsatisfying explanations for this obscurity. She notes that Homer Il. 13.663–72 and Cic. Div. 1.89 associate him with Corinth. In Plutarch Soll. An. 985A, e.g, a Coeranus from Parios saves some dolphins in Corinth from a net. A. Werth, Animadversiones ad Hygini fabulas, in: Schedae Philologae Hermanno Usener a sodalibus seminarii regii Bonnensis oblata, Bonn 1891, 109–18, esp. 117 believes the word is Hyginus’s attempt to translate Ì (diviner). Byzantius is Muncker’s (ed. 1681) conjecture. The MS F has Bizantini. Cf. Soler, Higí, 2.60 app. crit. F is reading from codex Φ according to the edition of Micyllus (1535). Φ (ca 900 C.E.) comprises fragments of codex Monacensis clm 6437 and Bibl. Archiepiscopalis 800. See Soler, Higí, 1.42. 344 Soler, Higí, 2.61 notes that this corresponds with the Greek ˜5 (glaux) associated with “Glaucus.” On Glaucus, cf. § 1.2 and 1.4 above.
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who commanded that the tomb be opened and who recovered his son unharmed. He sent Polyidus back to his country with many rewards. 136.1. POLYIDVS Glaucus Minois et Pasiphaae filius, dum ludit pila, cecidit in dolium melle plenum. quem cum parentes quaererent, Apollinem sciscitati sunt de puero; quibus Apollo respondit, “Monstrum uobis natum est, quod si quis soluerit, puerum uobis restituet.” 2 Minos sorte audita coepit monstrum a suis quaerere; cui dixerunt natum esse uitulum qui ter in die colorem mutaret per quaternas horas, primum album secundo rubeum deinde nigrum. 3 Minos autem ad monstrum soluendum augures conuocauit, qui cum non inuenirentur, Polyidus Coerani filius Byzantius monstrum demonstrauit, eum arbori moro similem esse; nam primum album est, deinde rubrum, cum permaturauit nigrum. 4 tunc Minos ait ei, “Ex Apollinis responso filium mihi oportet restituas.” quod Polyidus dum auguratur uidit noctuam super cellam uinariam sedentem atque apes fugantem. augurio accepto puerum exanimem de dolio eduxit. 5 cui Minos ait, “Corpore inuento nunc spiritum restitue.” quod Polyidus cum negaret posse fieri, Minos iubet eum cum puero in monumento includi et gladium poni. 6 qui cum inclusi essent, draco repente ad corpus pueri processit; quod Polyidus aestimans eum uelle consumere, gladio repente percussit et occidit. altera serpens parem quaerens uidit eam interfectam et progressa herbam attulit, atque eius tactu serpenti spiritum restituit. 7 idemque Polyidus fecit; qui cum intus uociferarentur, quidam praeteriens Minoi nuntiauit, qui monumentum iussit aperiri et filium incolumem recuperauit, Polyidum cum multis muneribus in patriam remisit.345
Hyginus knows the Greek traditions well, and clearly has a concept of resurrection from the dead that is different from recovering someone from Hades.346 Claudian (IV C.E.) also attributes Glaucus’s resurrection to Polyidus: Crete, if the fable be true, saw Glaucus, son of Minos, issue living from the tomb; his body was discovered by the cries of birds to Polyidus, the aged seer, who restored him to life by means of simples; strange indeed was the ruling of fate which apportioned sweet honey as the cause of his death and a hideous serpent as the restorer of his life. Cretaque, si uerax narratur fabula, uidit Minoum rupto puerum prodire sepulchro, quem senior uates auium clangore repertum gramine restituit; mirae nam munere sortis dulcia mella necem, uitam dedit horridus anguis347
The detail about his body leaving the tomb is interesting in comparison with the Johannine (John 11) account of Lazarus’s resurrection. Hyginus also retains a version of the legend in which Asclepius raised Glaucus. In his description of the constellation Ophiuchus he writes, Many astronomers have imagined that he is Aesculapius, whom Jupiter, for the sake of Apollo, put among the stars. For when Aesculapius was among men, he so far excelled the rest in the art of medicine that it wasn’t enough for him to have healed men’s diseases unless he could also bring back the dead to life. He is said most recently, according to 345
Hyg. Fab. 136, my trans. See the Greek accounts of Polyidus’s resurrection (§ 1.4). 347 Claudian Bellum Geticum 442–6, trans. of Platnauer, Claudian 2.159. 346
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Eratosthenes to have restored to life Hippolytus who had been killed by the injustice of his stepmother and the ignorance of his father. Some have said that by his skill Glaucus, son of Minos, lived again.348 Because of this, as for a sin, Jove struck and burned his house with a thunderbolt, but because of his skill, and since Apollo was his father, put him among the constellations holding a snake. Certain people have said that he holds the snake for the following reason. When he was commanded to restore Glaucus, and was confined in a secret prison, while meditating what he should do, staff in hand, a snake is said to have crept on to his staff. Distracted in mind, Aesculapius killed it, striking it again and again with his staff as it tried to flee. Later, it is said, another snake came there, bringing an herb in its mouth, and placed it on its head. When it had done this, both fled from the place. Whereupon Aesculapius, using the same herb, brought Glaucus, too, back to life. Complures etiam astrologi hunc Aesculapium finxerunt, quem Iuppiter Apollinis causa inter astra collocavit. Aesculapius enim, cum esset inter homines et tantum medicina ceteris praestaret ut non satis ei videretur hominum dolores levare nisi etiam mortuos revocaret ad vitam, novissime fertur Hippolytum quod iniquitate et inscientia parentis erat interfectus sanasse, ita uti Eratosthenes dicit. Nonnulli Glaucum Minois filium eius opera revixisse dixerunt; pro quo peccato Iovem domum eius fulmine incendisse, ipsum autem propter artificium et Apollinem, eius patrem, inter sidera anguem tenentem constituisse. Vt quidam dixerunt, hac de causa anguem dicitur tenere quod, cum Glaucum cogeretur sanare, conclusus quodam loco secreto, bacillum tenens manu, cum quid ageret cogitaret, dicitur anguis ad bacillum eius arrepsisse; quem Aesculapius mente commotus interfecit bacillo fugientem feriens saepius. Postea fertur alter anguis eodem venisse ore ferens herbam et in caput eius imposuisse; quo facto utrosque loco fugisse; quare Aesculapium usum et eadem herba et Glaucum revixisse.349
Mary Grant notes that Hyginus was dependent on the treatise of Ps. Eratosthenes, whose account of the resurrection of Hippolytus has been quoted above.350 He describes the fate of Pelops using the language of resurrection: When Pelops, son of Tantalus and Dione, daughter of Atlas, had been slain and cut up by Tantalus at a feast of the gods, Ceres ate his arm, but he was given life again by the will of the gods. When his other limbs were joined together as they had been, but the shoulder was not complete, Ceres fitted an ivory one in its place. PELOPS Pelops Tantali et Diones Atlantis filiae filius cum esset in epulis deorum a Tantalo caesus, bracchium eius Ceres consumpsit, qui a deorum numine uitam recepit; cui cum cetera membra ut fuerant coissent, umero non perpetuo eburneum eius loco Ceres aptauit.351
This is a bodily resurrection and conforms to the tradition of Apollodorus quoted above.352 348
For Ps. Eratosthenes and the resurrection of Glaucus, cf. § 1.9 above. Hyg. Astr. 2.14, trans. of Grant, Hyginus, 199. Cf. the resurrections of Asclepius discussed above (§ 1.9). Other authors attributed the resurrection of Glaucus to Polyidus (§ cf. 1.4 above). 350 Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D, cf. § 1.9. 351 Hyg. Fab. 83, trans. of Grant, 77. 352 Apollodorus Epit. 2.3, cf. § 1.10. 349
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3 Resurrection in Early Christian Inscriptions Since it is rare for early Christian inscriptions to mention resurrection, a brief examination of the theme is pertinent to the monograph. An inscription in elegiac couplets on a bomos (altar) from Eumeneia in Phrygia is important because of its mention of the resurrection. The context is somewhat syncretistic. I Gaius, who am equal in numerical value to two words of awe,353 make this declaration as a holy and good man: A man – Gaius the lawyer, trained in the arts – built this tomb while he was alive for himself and his dear wife Tatia and their lamented children, that they might have this eternal home together with Roubes, servant of the great God Christ. I did not have much wealth or much property for my livelihood, but I worked hard and gained a modicum of learning. This enabled me to assist my friends, as far as I was able, freely putting the ability I had at the disposal of all. Helping anyone who was in need was a joy to me, as, in the case of other people, prosperity brings joy to the heart. Let no one deluded in his wealth harbor proud thoughts, for there is one Hades and an equal end for all. Is someone great in possessions? He receives no more, (but) the same measure of earth for a tomb. Hasten, mortals, gladden your souls at all times as (allegedly) a pleasant way of life is also the measure of existence. So, friends. After this, no more of this – for what more is there? A monument of stone speaks this, not I. Here are the doors and the road to Hades, but the path has no way out to the light. Indeed the righteous at all times point the way to resurrection. This, the God of Hosts. [3 lines] shep[herd] … r[esurre]ction [°Ãı )] / ∞ı( &Ú ˜[ / ºÌ' › b , › []/!Ù, Ô
. / Ù S ˜/I > 5 /2, / ®˜ ! Û, / ºÌ' ı, / [†]&í ı9 ( ÛW PÛW / Ô Û !), / μ X Ù Û& / >[] &ı, / ˆ çIE Ì / ![ ] (# )354 ! Ì. / []à > ˆ / ∞ IÛ, à ˆ F, / Ì &í †! /Ô Û / 5 „ ) [(]Û [ ]/ › &˜Û , / & ` [∂] a / ı . / Ï D Ù / ) N > W / › ; ƒ I Ô / ; &ÛW. / & Ú &í ˜9 ( /! Ú ( Û / a Ï ∑ & Ú Ô/ Ú N. / > Ô Ë /- Ã Ô ”, / ÃÙ Ô Û Ù / Ì( &Ô . / ˜& , / Ã( Û Ì , [Û], / › &ˆ IÛ, Ú Ô / F. / , (Û Ï Û / Ï ÔÃÔ / στήλλη ταῦτα λαλεῖ καὶ λί/!, Ã Ï ˘. / !˜ Ó >! Ú / Ù & ¡&Ú / 5ı& &í ∞Ú/ (Ì ÛI / " & &Û Ì / ∞ [Ì] / [ ]& ˜ (?) [ / ð [Ô ] Ù / (Three lines illegible) / ÖÖÖÖÖ[Ô] / ñ ñ ñ ñ ñ ñ ñ / ÖÖÖÖ. [Ì] (?).355
353 The numerical equivalent for the words ºÌ' (Gaius), b (holy), and !ı (good) is 284. See Cp. W. H. Buckler, W. M. Calder and W. W. M. Cox, Asia Minor, 1924. III.—Monuments from Central Phrygia, JRS 16 (1926) 53–94, esp. 63. 354 On the problematic christogram or staurogram, cf. the discussion below. 355 W. M. Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, vol. 1. Parts 1–2, Oxford 1895– 7, 1.2, § 232, text as modified by A. R. R. Sheppard, Jews, Christians and Heretics in Acmonia and Eumeneia, AnSt 29 (1979) 169–80, 177–8, his trans. modified. Cf. also L. Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia de Phrygie, in: Hellenica, vol. 11–12, Paris 1960, 414–37 (dates it to
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Roubes (Reuben) is a Jew, and was perhaps a convert to Christianity.356 He is mentioned in another inscription from Eumeneia, found in the same cemetery, that refers to the “angel of Roubes” (Ù ; / Ù çIF/&).357 There is a probable staurogram in the line which reads ![ ] . ! Ì. A. R. R. Sheppard argues that the staurogram is “scarcely found” before the fourth century, which is probably incorrect since it appears in early Christian MSS.358 In addition, # satisfies the meter. He dates the inscription before 211 (Caracalla’s decree of citizenship), because the lawyer does not have a nomen gentilicium.359 The mention of Hades does not necessarily imply that the inscription is pagan.360 A presumably Christian inscription that includes several depictions of crosses (☩) from Lystra reads: • [ IÌ]/ & (malicious Hades has seized you).361 Another Christian inscription with a depiction of a cross is dedicated by her husband to a woman mourned who
III C.E.). The inscription is published online as Inscriptiones Christianae Graecae, Inscr. 1031, 2015, C. Breytenbach, K. Hallof, U. Huttner, J. Krumm, S. Mitchell, J. Ogereau, E. Sironen, M. Veksina, and C. Zimmermann (reproduced above): ‹http://repository.editiontopoi.org/collection/ICG/object/1031›. See also T. Ritti, et al., Museo Archeologico di Denizli-Hierapolis. Catalogo delle iscrizioni greche e latine. Distretto di Denizli, Napoli 2008, § 157 (II C.E., translates the key phrase as “servant of the great God Christ”). 356 Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 422–3. “Highest God” is frequent in the LXX (Gen 14:18–20, Jdt 13:18, 3 Macc 6:2, etc.) and inscriptions. Cf. OGIS 96 (Athribis in Egypt, 205– 181 B.C.E.) = CIJud 2, 1443 ( / ! 2 ’Û9), CIJud 2, 1432 (Alexandria, 37 B.C.E. ! [ ]/ Ì []), CIJud 2,1433 (Alexandria, II B.C.E.?). Certainly “highest God” appears in pagan inscriptions also: Ikition 2010, IG II2, 4782, IG Bulg V, 5647, etc. 357 Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 430 (Hellenica 11/12, 429 in the PHI database), 435. 358 L. W. Hurtado, The Staurogram in Early Christian Manuscripts: The Earliest Visual Reference to the Crucified Jesus?, in: New Testament Manuscripts. Their Texts and Their World, ed. by T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, Leiden 2006, 207–26, esp. 209–210 (45, 66, and 75, all usually dated to III C.E.). Cp. Buckler, Monuments, § 183 (on the inscription discussed above). Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 425 reads it as a Christogram (Chi Rho), since he translates the line in question as “Robeus, servant of the great God, the Christ.” Ritti, Museo, 250 agrees with Robert. I regard the arguments of B. Nongbri (an attempt to redate P66 and P75) as inconclusive: B. Nongbri, The Limits of Palaeographic Dating of Literary Papyri: Some Observations on the Date and Provenance of P.Bodmer II (P66), MH 71 (June 2014) 1– 35, and idem, Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, JBL 135.2 (2016) 405–437. 359 Sheppard, Jews, 179. Cp. Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 416 on ı. 360 CIL 12, 1729, a Christian inscriptions, mentions the “anger of Styx” (Stygis ira). In a Jewish inscription (M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She’arim, vol. 2, The Greek Inscriptions, Israel 1974, § 127) a Justus asserts that he has gone to Hades ![S ]∞ &. Cp. CIJud 2, 1508 = CPJ 1508 = JIGRE 31 ( IS … ∞S Ê&[] taking me … Hades came), 3.1530a (ÃÙ ¡ &Ì • ∞ ]& [the one who tames all seized me to Hades]). See also Ramsay, Cities, 1.2, 287. 361 MAMA 8, 65. MAMA 8, 64, for example, has a cross and two birds (for a &Û). MAMA 8, 63 has a spindle, distaff, two fish, and a cross.
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went to Hades (‡ / &í ∞ ]&).362 The lines from > Ô Ë (Is someone great? ) to , [(]Û (So, friends) may not be inherently Epicurean, since they do appear in some Latin Christian inscriptions.363 One individual from Vienne enjoyed his life: Here Mercastus lies in peace, who lived a flourishing life for sixty years; he led a pleasant life during this time. Hic requiescit in / pace Mercasto qui / florentem aevum / LX eit per annos, / iucundam vi/tam haec per tem/pora duxit.364
A Christian named Valentinianus had this inscribed on his tomb in Aquileia: Here the customs of people and the praiseworthy life is examined. Valentinianus made this eternal home for himself for his sweet wife Athenadora. In addition, Valentinianus said to the reader, “If you have wealth enjoy it, if you cannot then give it, and if you cannot do this, what are you doing up above, a person who does not know how to live?” Hic mores (h)ominum et vita / laudabilis probatur. Va/lentinianus sibi et Atheno/dor(a)e dulcissim(a)e coniugi / domum (a)eterna(m) fecit. idem / Valentinianus legenti / dixit divitias (h)abes? frue/re; si non potis dona; si nec / hoc potis, quid facis at superus, / homo, qui nescis vivere?365
William Ramsay writes that “those who put such inscriptions on their graves surely intended them as a profession of their principles of life; and we should rather look for some Christian sect, some eclectic school of thought whose adherents boasted designedly of their philosophical religion on their gravestones.”366 Sheppard compares the view of life with that of Eccl. 9:2, 7–10, which is somewhat relevant since Qoheleth views Hades (Sheol) as the fate of all.367 Qoheleth, however, is the most skeptical book in the Bible. “Lord of hosts” is an expression that appears frequently in Hellenistic Jewish texts and 362 MAMA 1, 234 (Yeni Yaila in Laodicea). Presumably from IV C.E. The text is a from Homer Il. 22.213. On the text, cf. P. Thonemann, Poets of the Axylon, Chiron 44 (2014) 191– 232, esp. 198–200 and fig. one. 363 Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 426 provides Christian Greek examples. Cf. IG VII, 583–4 (Tanagra, V C.E.), an epitaph which ends with (this is it) and SEG 6, 447 (Chamurlu), which (A5 / Ù Ù b /! ı [“he will be liable to the holy God”; a threat of judgement]), ¡ IÛ/ (this is life). The same phrase (¡ IÛ ) appears in a Christian inscription from Zoora (355 C.E.), I.Pal. Tertia Ib 3 (there are two crosses). Cp. I.Pal. Tertia Ib 33, 36 364 CIL 12, 2130 = CLE 762. In Rome (ICUR 8, 20945) an Aurelius Theodolus was always “sumptuous” with his friends (Per omnia lautus inter amicos / Aurelius T(h)eodolus). 365 CIL 5, 1712 = CLE 2192 = ILCV 4725. G. Masaro and L. Mondin, La musa funerario della X Regio: Materiali per un centesimento, Ostraka. Rivista di antichità 19 (2010) 193– 212, esp. 200 date this to IV or V C.E. (I consulted their trans.). They translate the first line as: “Here are people of examined customs and praiseworthy life,” a paraphrase. 366 Ramsay, Cities, 1.2, 517. 367 Sheppard, Jews, 179. Eccl. 7:10 Î&W, ≈ ˆ W ) (… in Hades, there, where you are going).
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in early Christianity.368 Louis Robert argues that one should not be surprised by the expressions in the inscription that appeared “to flourish in paganism. They are in general usage and without any particular religious value.”369 Mention of the Muses merely indicates Gaius’s interest in poetry and letters. Ã( Û Ì (rejoice always) differs from its usage in cruder expressions.370 An inscription in Rome, for example, appears on a stone on which are depicted erotic scenes: From Germa Hiera I, Teleistratos, repose in the Isles of the Blessed; I want to use these things again! During my life this was the only gain! ºÔ 5 π F / P Û / Ì ), / > & Ô !Ô / ı Ô &.371
This sort of crudity is clearly different from the sentiment of Gaius. A more Christian sentiment appears in another inscription from Eumenia in which an individual praises old age: It is good to get old, and to not get old is three times worse; for those to whom life brings violence, it is good to die ( Ù / Ù a, Ú Ù / a Ú Û ı. / Ù Ù ! ∑ Ù / F —I (Ô ).372 A third century Christian inscription from Edessa in Boiotia also mentions the hope of resurrection. [Neophyte?] / and his wife, / Antigone, because Nikandros / has accepted the end of life, / by wretched illness / subdued, / his soul to the ethereal aeons / he set and his body to the earth, / until the glad day of resurrection comes, / pure, since through his desire / he has attained divine washing. 368
Cf., e.g., Ps. 58:6, 79:5, Is 42:13, Justin Dial. 72.1, Hermas Pastor 3:4, etc. Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 425. 370 Cp. Plutarch Alex fort. 336c >! , ) , ( & (eat, drink, have sex), Suda Β § 287 C ?· U&ˆ Ù I ) (in epigrams: it is pleasurable to have sex). Cf. the references in Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 426 including GVI 1957 Û Ã( Û !Ô / Ï ) Ô ı![ ] ]Û& (rejoice and make merry, for Hades is the end of our vain labors). Anthol. graec. 5.29 ç&ˆ Ù I ) (having sex is pleasurable), Le Bas Waddington 977 = MAMA IX, List 189, P300 (Aizanoi) , Û , ( Ó, / I Û / ˜ Ï „& / Ì [Ã]&Ó > (bathe, drink, eat, have sex, for these things are here, below you have nothing). 371 IGUR III, 1341, published originally by F. Cumont, Une pierre tombale érotique de Rome, AntCl 9 (1940) 5–11 (five rows of vulvae, a monstrously erect male, and below a triangle containing the letters ²®, another vulva). Cp. the photograph and location in IGUR IV, 1341. Trans. (and discussion) by F. dell’Oro, “Anacreon, the Connoisseur of Desires.” An Anacreontic Reading of Menecrates’ Sepulchral Epigram (IKyzikos 18, 520 = Merkelbach/Stauber SGO 08/01/47 Kyzikos), in: Imitate Anacreon!: Mimesis, Poiesis, and the Poetic Inspiration in the Carmina Anacreonta, ed. M. Baumbach and N. Dümmler, Berlin 2014, 67–93, esp. 87. SGO is R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber, ed., Steinepigramme aus dem Griechischen Osten, 5 vols., Stuttgart et al. 1998–2004. 372 Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics p. 514, § 353/4, and cf. the discussion in Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 427. 369
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T@°j²³@G[ó ó ó ó ó ó] / &Ì | vacat / ] ı, T Û& Ú / Iı [] / &Ô5, < > ⏑ ⏑ ñ / (?) &! , / ∞! Û 373 / !Ô, &Ó W, / ∞ı Ì Ã/
D< > μ , / U ı, Ú Ú Û ! / ˜5 .374
A wife in an inscription from Rome was also “subdued by a hateful illness” (˜ ÕÙ F & &Ô).375 A Christian epigram from Athens (IV/V C.E.) asserts of a Photius’s body that “the earth covers his body here, but his soul has flown off to the aether and is joined with it ( F ˜ E/&Ô í, í ∞ ∞!Ô / &Ô Ú ˜/ ).376 A priest named Bassos died in Rome: “Bassus’s remains are under the earth, but his soul has flown to the ether of Christ ( < >Û Ó MÌ Ï !ı, &Ó Ù N! / ! ) ı ∞ ∞!Ô # ).377 Another inscription from Laodiceia Combusta, probably from III C.E., mentions the trumpet at the resurrection: Paula, deacon of the all blessed Christ, constructed the tomb for her beloved brother Helladius; having built me, without my brother, with marble, as a keeper for his body until the trumpet vehemently sounds, raising mortals for the laws of the divine. &Ì Ì/ # ☩ ˜I &Û (Û / &Ûı í >» Ì / ı 'Ô / (˜ ˘ ;[] Ì /5 †Ô ☩ Ì / Û I ı !Ô/ ! ).378
Robert interprets the warning against tomb violation in a Christian grave epitaph (also III C.E.) of Eumeneia as a clear reference to resurrection (Ú 373 Cj. of RIChrM 5 (Feissel). Feissel corrects the ºof the text. Petrov read ʺ³@G on the stone, which is now lost. 374 RIChrM 5, trans. slightly modified of H. G. Sarada with D. Eliopouos, Late Paganism and Christianisation in Greece, in: The Archaeology of Late Antique ‘Paganism,’ Late Antique Archaeology 7, ed. L. Lavan and M. Mulryan, Leiden 2011, 263–310, esp. 299–300. See the comments by D. Feissel, Receuil des inscriptions chrétiennes de Macédoine du IIIe au Vie siècle, BCH Suppl. 8, Athens and Paris 1983, 25–9 (esp. 27 on the dating and for references to several inscriptions I use below). RIChrM 6–11 are Christian epitaphs that are also pre-Constantinian. He argues that the beginning of IV C.E. is also a possible date for the inscription. 375 IGUR 3, 1277. 376 IG II2, 13446 = IG III,2, 1386 (with an Alpha, cross, and presumably an Omega). On the development of this theme in antiquity, cf. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 7. 377 SEG 18, 425 = ICUR 6, 15868. Part of the two previous lines is: Ù &Ó S ÛW Ö / D ! Ã Û Ù Ú &˘ # [] (after leaving my body in the earth, I came to the heavenly path and abodes of Christ). 378 MAMA I, 226, J. Dresken-Weiland, Die Auferstehung des Fleisches in den frühchristlichen Grabinschriften, in: Nicklas, The Human Body, 371–90, esp. 381 (III C.E.). For the dating, cf. Merkelbach and Stauber, Steinepigramme, 88 (14/06/12 in his numeration; date: perhaps in III C.E.).
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˜/[] F ! [ ]/ Û [may he not achieve the promise of God]).379
4 The Hypogeum on via Dino Compagni (Via Latina Catacomb) In 1955 a hypogeum was discovered at the intersection of the Via Dino Compagni and the Via Latina in Rome, which had been damaged by the foundation piles of construction above, although the construction unearthed the hitherto unknown cemetery. It was designed for the burial of about 400 people and “decorated according to a single homogeneous plan.”380 The hypogeum is particularly relevant for this study, because it contains both pagan and Christian images of resurrection. The primary axis runs from the southeast to the northwest (as one looks toward the rear of cubiculum O) and ends at the chamber identified as “O.”381 The images in “cubicula D–O were painted by a workshop of” two “painters in the last decades of the fourth century, heavily inspired by the former workshop of cubicula A–C active during the Constantinian period.”382 379 Robert, Épitaphes d’Eumeneia, 425 with ref. to idem, Épitaphes juives d’Éphèse et de Nicomédie, vol. 11–12, Paris 1960, 381–413, esp. 408. The text was published as SEG 15, 811 (246 C.E.) and contains two repetitions of the warning. P. Thonemann, Roman Phrygia, Cambridge, 2013, 127 remarks, “a single bomos marks two graves at right angles to one another.” 380 J. Bodel, From Columbaria to Catacombs: Collective Burial in Pagan and Christian Rome, in: Commemorating the Dead. Texts and Artifacts in Context, ed. L. Brink and D. Green, Berlin 2008, 177–242, esp. 206–10 (on the current distinction between “catacomb” and “hypogeum” and its problems). He notes the usefulness of P. Pergola’s (Le catacombe romane. Storia e topografia, Rome 1977, 60–2) distinction between “closed” and “open” “underground cemeteries” – where the closed type is “for a predetermined and fixed number of burials.” 381 See. A. Ferrua, The Unknown Catacomb. A Unique Discovery of Early Christian Art, New Lanark, Scotland 1991, fig. 3 for a plan [his first publication of the catacomb was Le pitture della nuova catacomba di via Latina, Città del Vaticano 1960] and J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity, Cambridge, 1995, 272. A more accurate depiction is in I. Camiruaga, M. di la Iglesia, E. Sainz, and E. Subias, La arquitectura del hipogeo de la via Latina en Roma, Monumenti di antichità cristiane, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 2nd ser., 12, Vatican City 1994, fig. 2 (they fail to include a compass point) and F. Bisconti, Il restauro dell’ipogeo de via Dino Compagni. Nuove idee per la lettura del programma decorativo del cubicolo “A,” Scavi e restauri 4, Vatican City 2003, fig. 6 (with a compass point). 382 L. Nagy, Myth and Salvation in the Fourth Century: Representations of Hercules in Christian Contexts, in: Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity. Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century, ed. M. R. Salzman et al., Cambridge 2016, 377–98, esp. 378 [who miscites Z. by writing “three painters”] with ref. to N. Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen römischer Katakombenmalerei, JAC.E 35, Münster 2002, 256 (and cp. 123).
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There is an impressive fresco (see image 9) in cubiculum N of Alcestis being rescued from Hades by Heracles. Heracles stands by Cerberus in front of a seated Admetus, presumably in his home. 383 A halo surrounds Heracles’ head, and he wears a lion skin. Alcestis wears a chiton covered by a himation or mantle and is veiled – a sign of modesty.384 Goddesses and mortal women with veiled heads appear in depictions of the underworld.385 To the left of Alcestis is “the dark entrance to Hades, the underworld.”386 There can be little doubt that the image expresses hope in immortality and a pagan version of resurrection (see § 1.2 above), since in classical texts – both Greek and Latin – Heracles is occasionally said to have raised Alcestis from the dead. Norbert Zimmermann writes that Heracles appears as “‘soter’ [savior] who tames Cerberus and leads the dead from Hades to life.”387 Two peacocks are immeZimmermann, ibid., 99 writes that only two painters were responsible for rooms D–O (one for the figures, and one for the decorative images). The claim of Camiruaga et al., La arquitectura, 34 that cubiculum B was transformed into B–C after the completion of cubicula N–O is almost certainly wrong. Cp. G. Snyder, Pictures in Dialogue: A Viewer-Centered Approach to the Hypogeum on Via Dino Compagni, JECS 13 (2005) 349–86, esp. 356 and Bisconti, Il restauro, 19, 22. 383 This was formerly known as the Via Latina hypogeum. The basic text is Ferrua, The Unknown Catacomb. Cf. W. N. Schumacher, Reparatio vitae – Zum Programm der neuen Katakombe an der Via Latina zu Rom, RQ 66 (1971) 125–53, idem, Die Katakombe an der Via Dino Compagni, RivAC 50 (1974) 331–72, J. Fink, Bildfrömmigkeit und Bekenntnis. Das Alte Testament, Herakles und die Herrlichkeit Christi an der Via Latina in Rom, BAKG 12, Cologne 1978, W. Tronzo, The Via Latina Catacomb. Imitation and Discontinuity in Fourth-Century Roman Painting, Philadelphia 1986, A. Malherbe, Herakles, RAC 14 [1988] 559–83, esp. 581–3, Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen (the most detailed analysis of the images), F. Bisconti, L’ipogeo di via Dino Compagni, RivAC 78 (2002) 1–117, R. Rea et al., Latina Via, LTUR 3 (2005) 133–202, esp. 151–2 (B. Mazzei), H. Snyder, Pictures in Dialogue, passim, A. Eppinger, Hercules in der Spätantike. Die Rolle des Heros im Spannungsfeld von Heidentum und Christentum, Wiesbaden 2015, 90–99, and Nagy, Myth, 377–98. On the iconography of Alcestis’s return, cf. Schmidt, Alkestis, 536–9. 384 I thank Felicity Harley McGowan for remarks about Alcestis’s clothing (communication of 1 Feb. 2018). 385 At least those considered in this monograph: the Dino Compagni hypogeum, the tomb of the Nasonii (below), and the tomb of Vibia and Vincentius (chapt. 4 § 2.3). 386 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 139. On the sarcophagus of Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte, discussed below, Cerberus appears at the door of a cave underneath Admetus and Heracles who are shaking each other’s right hands (dextrarum iunctio), and Alcestis stands at Heracles’ right. Cf. Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, 201, Pl. 183. 387 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 102. See the discussion of Alcestis by S. Wood, Alcestis on Roman Sarcophagi, AJA 82 (1978) 499–510, esp. 504 where she argues that portrayals of Alcestis would be “a flattering analogy of the deceased”; “the implications of resurrection were unavoidable but were carefully deemphasized” for the wealthy patrons who “would have been exposed to a variety of conflicting religious and philosophic beliefs about a life after death, and could hardly be expected to have strong convictions of their own on the subject.” The sarcophagus of Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte (CIL 14, 371 [photos on the
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diately below the images of Heracles, Alcestis, and Admetus, and they were associated with immortality in certain Roman contexts.388 It is difficult to know the specific religious beliefs of the patrons of the Heracles chamber, but it seems most likely that they believed there would be a reunion of husband and wife in the afterlife. The reaction of the viewers probably varied widely, depending on their beliefs about the afterlife. Martin Galinier, in some remarks about the well-known Antonine sarcophagus of Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte, whom her husband calls coniunx sanctissima (very holy wife) in the epitaph,389 refers to an interesting text of Valerius Maximus, who compares Tiberius Gracchus to Admetus, and then cites Marcius Plautius who killed himself with his sword on his wife’s funeral pyre: And without doubt, when love is both very great and very honorable, it is far better to be united (or “reunited”) by death than separated by life. saneque, ubi idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, aliquanto praestat morte iungi quam distrahi uita.390
Galinier argues that the depiction of the reunion of Alcestis and Admetus on their sarcophagus indicates that Euhodus will join his wife after his own death and that “the hope of immortality is a consolatory vision.” “Death will reunite them forever, in the sarcophagus.” Euhodus probably believed, however, that he would rejoin his wife in the afterlife.391 Erna Diez, in a wide-ranging reEDCS website]), for example, with its image of Alcestis, Heracles, and Admetus, expresses the couple’s “belief in life after death.” Both her death (with an apparent dextrarum iunctio of Admetus and Alcestis) and rescue (Alcestis veiled) are depicted. Cf. also Zanker and Ewald, Living, 201–2, 309–10 (a denial that there is a real clasping of hands between husband and wife, since he only grasps her arm; due to Heracles, “she has managed the incredible: she has been able to leave the kingdom of the dead … Hades’ raised right arm might be … pointing the way to Metilia-Alcestis, whom he is releasing from the underworld”) and P. Blome, Zur Umgestaltung griechischer Mythen in der römischen Sepulkralkunst. Alkestis-, Protesilaos-, und Proserpinasarkophage (Taf. 142–147), MDAI.R 35 (1978) 435–457. 388 Cf. the discussion of the peacock in chamber O below. 389 CIL 14, 371 (161–70 C.E.). For photographs, see M. Galinier, À vendre. Les sarcophages romains dans les ateliers, suggestions méthodologiques, in: Iconographie funéraire romaine et société. Corpus antique, nouvelles approches?, ed. M. Galinier and F. Baratte, Perpignan 2003, 81–116, esp. 88, Wood, Alcestis, 500, Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, 200–1 (Pl. 182–3), 308, and the EDCS website. 390 V. Max. 4.6.1 (Tiberius Gracchus, father of the Gracchi), and 4.6.3 (text). Trans. of Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings. One Thousand Tales from Ancient Rome, trans. H. J. Walker, Indianapolis, 145. Cf. Galinier, Les sarcophages, 107. See Lattimore, Epitaphs, 247–50 for epigraphs that hope for togetherness in death. 391 Galinier, Les sarcophages, 107. He argues that nothing implies the consecratio of Metilia Acte, since the dying Alcestis is at the center of the scene. This seems incorrect, based on the iconography of the reunion and that of other Alcestis sarcophagi. Her death is at the center because the scenes on the stone follow the narrative flow. On the left Apollo leaves
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view of the many scenes of Alcestis reuniting with her husband believes that they may express hope in “reunion after death.”392 The face of Alcestis dying on her bed is replaced by that of Metilia Acte (as that of Admetus is replaced by Junius Euhodus). Peter Blome comments that “because she dies as the new Alcestis, she is promised, like her mythical prototype, victory over death.”393 The same hope of the reunion of two spouses after death appears in one of the scenes (see image 10) in the tomb of the Nasonii (II C.E., Via Flamina in Rome).394 Francesco Bartoli published drawings of the images in the tomb in 1706, and the subsequent decay of the paintings obliges scholars to have recourse to his book.395 In the drawing Heracles leads a veiled Alcestis to Admetus, and Athena stands between Hercules and the veiled wife. A strap on Heracles is attached to the bow which is visible on his back, and in his left hand he holds a quiver and his club. His right-hand rests on Alcestis’s left
the home so that he is not defiled by death (cf. Euripides Alc. 22–3). In the center Alcestis is dying, and on the right Admetus and Heracles grasp right hands as a veiled Alcestis looks on from Heracles’ right. His ref. to CIL 6, 11252 (II C.E.) in which a wife (Auguria) tells her husband: marite ne doleas mei quod praecessi / sustineo in aeterno toro adventum tuum (husband, do not grieve for me, because I went before you, I wait for your coming to our eternal marriage bed) expresses hope in a post-mortem reunion. Lattimore, Epitaphs, 63 believes this shows “an expectation of a future meeting.” On another side of the stone, Auguria’s “innocent soul,” is said to “exist among the good” (Auguria / innocua / anima / tua in / bono) – seemingly a belief in immortality. Cp. with some Christian inscriptions: CIL 8, 14328 = ILCV 3409 (Utica) Felix / in pace / spiritu / tuo in bo/n (Felix/happy in peace, with your spirit among the good); ICUR 3, 7604A (Rome, Domitilla catacomb) spiri]tus in bo[no (spirit among the good); and ICUR 3, 8452 (Rome, Domitilla cat., IV C.E.) Attice spiritus tu(u)s / in bon ora pro paren/tibus tuis (Atticus, your spirit is among the good, pray for your parents). One should concede that Galinier’s interpretation (the eternal bed is the sarcophagus) is possible. I thank John Bodel for his comments on the Auguria inscription (24 Feb. 2018): the reading would depend on the “ancient viewer’s religious outlook, inclinations, etc.” 392 E. Diez, Fragment eines mythologischen Reliefs in Linz, Jahrbuch des Oberösterreichischen Musealvereines 97 (1952) 111–119, esp. 117. Cp. Wood, Alcestis, 504 (“the joy of their reunion”). 393 Blome, Zur Umgestaltung, 441–2. 394 For the date, cf. B. Andreae, Studien zur römischen Grabkunst, MDAI.RE 9, Heidelberg 1963, 119–20. 395 F. Bartoli et al., Le pitture antiche delle grotte di Rome e del sepolcro de’ Nasonj. Disegnate, & intagliate alla similitudine degli antichi originali da Pietro Santi Bartoli, e Francesco Bartoli suo figliulo, descritte, et illustrate da Gio: Pietro Bellori, e Michelangelo Causei dela Chausse, Rome 1706, tavola 10 (from whence I take the image). The expanded version in Latin (F. Bartholi et al., Picturae Antiquae … Roma 1738, 127) notes Heracles’ bow and quiver. An important study is Andreae, Studien, 88–130. At least six of the paintings are in the British Museum. Cf. Schumacher, Katakombe, 340 and the brief discussion of V. Platt, Framing the Dead on Roman Sarcophagi, Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 61/62 (2012) 213–25, esp. 217.
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shoulder. An inscription clearly identifies the builder of the tomb as Quintus Nasonius Ambrosius.396 The fresco of Alcestis and Heracles is in the lunette of the right397 arcosolium of room N in the catacomb. The right arcosolium was built for four bodies, as was the left arcosolium. A married couple may have commissioned the two chambers (N and O).398 Grave robbers have destroyed any epigraphic evidence of the tomb’s occupants. Six scenes of Heracles’ exploits are in the cubiculum. Levente Nagy perceptively remarks that the Heracles cycle “remains the most contested piece of mythological iconography in art history.”399 In the right arcosolium, the right panel of the framing arch depicts (see image 11) Heracles and the serpent (Ladon) of the Hesperides that is perched in the apple tree and is preparing to bite Heracles’ right hand. On the left panel of the framing arch, the viewer sees Heracles clubbing the Lernean Hydra. The lunette of the left arcosolium is a scene of Alcestis standing at the foot of the bed on which Admetus is dying. Next to her are five men and one woman, all of whom are presumably mourning his approaching death. The right panel of the framing arch (as one faces the lunette) depicts (see image 12) Heracles 396 CIL 6, 22882: D(is) M(anibus) / Q(uintus) Nasonius Ambrosi/us sibi et suis fecit li/bertis libertabusque / [e]t Nasoniae Urbic(a)e / coniugi suae et col/libertis suis et / postrisque eor(um) (to the spirits of the dead, Quintus Nasonius Ambrosius built it for himself and his own, and his freedmen and freedwomen, and for Nasonia Urbica his wife, and for his [or “her” or “their”] fellow freedmen, and for their descendants). Since Urbica has the same gentilician name as Ambrosius, she too was a freedwoman. I thank Werner Eck for his comments on this inscription (1 March 2018). On the painting, cf. Andreae, Studien, 121–2. 397 “Right,” as one looks into cubiculum O, the last chamber. 398 Nagy, Myth, 378. B. Berg, Alcestis and Hercules in the Catacomb of Via Latina, VigChr 48 (1994) 219–34 believes the patron was a widow. N. Denzey, The Bone Gatherers. The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women, Boston 2008, 25–57 thinks that a wealthy pagan widow commissioned the frescoes for her dead husband and daughter who [the daughter] had become a Christian and was buried in chamber O. There is no inscriptional evidence to settle these alternatives, including the question whether the commissioners were pagans or “classically educated Christians” (Nagy, Myth, 380). B. Mazzei, Latina Via, 152 states that the only social stratum in late antiquity that remained “deeply rooted in pagan culture so that their social status could be identified” was the senatorial class with their liberti (freed persons) – a hypothesis “partially confirmed by gentilician names in the inscriptions such as the Herii, Aurelii and Aelii.” See ICUR 6, 15663–4 (Aurelius and (A)ureli[] respectively) and 15666 (a Herria). Cp. Tullii, Valerii, Vibii: ICUR 6, 15674 (a Tullius), 15675 (a Valerius), 15676 (a Vibius). Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 44 mentions a tombstone (AE 1964, 95 [200–250 C.E.]) in gallery 6 with the name Titus Aelius Pollio; it was later reused by Christians who on the reverse side inscribed ICUR 6, 15667. ICUR 6, 15673 possibly mentions an Aelius (Ae]lio Terent[io). Cf. A. Ferrua, Iscrizioni pagane nelle catacombe di Roma. Via Latina II, Epigraphica 23, 1961, 3–21, esp. 18 and Bisconti, Nuove idee, 33. The Christian inscriptions from the hypogeum are ICUR 6, 15661–15678. Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 110 suggests that the emphasis on Ceres, Proserpina, and wheat may indicate that the patron was an official of the Annona (grain supply) or mensor (one who measures out grain). 399 Nagy, Myth, 378.
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holding a club in his raised left arm, while his left arm holds the right hand of a reclining enemy.400 Heracles and Athena link right arms (dextrarum iunctio) in the left panel of the framing arch (see image 13). In this context it has no relationship to marriage.401 Shaking hands was a form of salutation in antiquity according to Aristophanes and a scholiast: / I? ) í U (a juror [&] boasts that “as I draw near someone offers me the gentle hand”).402 In some ancient iconography Athena transports Heracles to heaven.403 Athena was the protector of Heracles.404 Alexandra Eppinger pointedly remarks that the images of Heracles do not indicate a fundamental theme of marital fidelity. The two lunettes (Alcestis and Admetus) of cubiculum N do illustrate marital faithfulness, but the rest of the images do not. Rather, the scenes show Heracles as victorious over death and as “savior of mankind” – labors he undertook to reach Olympus.405 Heracles as protector 400
Nagy, Myth, 379, “presumably Alcyoneus, Cacus, Antaeus, or Death itself.” Cp. Boardman, Herakles and Kerberos, § 2553 (a skyphos in which H. threatens Hades with what appears to be a stone; Athena stands between the two). Cf. the image in P. Demargne, Athena, LIMC 2.1 (1984) 955–85, p. 958, “Athena 11.” 401 On the problem of the dextrarum iunctio and its role in Roman weddings (including sarcophagi), cf. K. H. Hersch, The Roman Wedding. Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity, Cambridge 2010, 190–211 (a review of literature and art), esp. 211 (the clasp on sarcophagi represents “the harmony of a married couple’s life”). Hersch, ibid., 203–5 gives many literary examples of clasps that have nothing to do with marriage. Heracles and Athena shake hands (& 5Û ) on numerous Attic vases. Cf. J. Boardman, Herakles and Athena, LIMC 5.1 (1990) 143–54, esp. § 3179–88 (Greek). For Roman examples, see ibid., § 3191–3200 (3192 is the Via Latina image). § 3199 (H. holds Athena “by the wrist”) = CIL 15.2, 7042 (a Roman gold glass medallion, from a cemetery): Tii (h)abeas Hercule At(h)enen tibi{o} propi/ti>(am) (Hercules, may you have Athena favorable to you). For an image, see F. Buonarroti, Osservazioni su alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro ornati di figure trovati ne’ cimiteri di Roma, Firenze 1716, tav. 27.2. 402 Aristoph. Ran. 554–5. Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 554a col. 1 (Koster) has, in part, † 8 ( F Ù 2 ? ! (those who approach gently grasp the hand with which one greets). Chariton Chaer. 1.4.5 has ¡ &Ó I S Ã2 & 5Ì (offering him the right hand). See R. Garrucci, Vetri ornati di figure in oro trovati nei cimiteri cristiani di Roma. Raccolti e spiegati, Roma 2 1864, 193. 403 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.17. 404 Cf. Homer Il. 8.362–9 (e.g., 362–3 Ã&8 8, ≈ " ? ? "Ù / : Õí @Ã !F 8! [nor does he (Zeus) remember any of the times when I often saved his son, troubled by the labors of Eurystheus]). 405 Eppinger, Hercules, 95 and her review (BMCR 2017.01.31 ‹http://www.bmcreview .org/2017/01/20170131.html›) of Nagy’s article in: Salzmann, Pagans and Christians, 377– 98. In addition, Heracles killed his first wife and children and died because of the jealousy of his second wife. Cp. chapt. 1 § 1.3 for Heracles’ rape of Auge. Berg, Alcestis, 220, 231: “the patron who chose scenes of Alcestis’ story to decorate the chamber … wished to make a statement not of piety toward Hercules or Christ, but of her own loyalty to her spouse, and her hope to be reunited with him in the hereafter.” Berg’s thesis remains speculative, and most of the scenes in the chamber have nothing to do with marriage. Heracles himself is a bad
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would be a familiar theme for viewers. An Orphic hymn, for example, pleads with Heracles: “brandishing your club in your hand banish evil doom (or “banes”), with your feathered poisonous arrows, send away grievous death (or deaths)” ( 58 &Ó Ï ; ?& Ú ? / ) í ∞I F Ï ).406 The scenes are reminiscent of epithets for Hercules occasionally used in Greek and Latin texts and inscriptions: Heracles alexikakos (who wards off evil); Hercules defensor (the defender); and Hercules victor (the victor).407 Hercules invictus (unconquered) was the most popular epithet during the empire according to Przemysław Wojciechowski.408 A peacock is a central image in the lunette in the niche of the arcosolium of cubiculum O, which itself was modelled on cubiculum C. The chamber was originally designed for the burial of one individual. On the right and left of example at best of marital fidelity. Eppinger, Hercules, 66–72 discusses textiles in Egypt (V– VIII C.E.) that were secondarily used in funereal contexts that depicted Heracles’ labors. At that time, Christianity was firmly established in Egypt (67). Boethius Cons. 4 carm. 7.34–5 has Superata tellus / sidera donat (the earth overcome grants the stars [after describing the labors of Hercules]). 406 Orphei hymni 12. 407 Hellanicus FGrH 4 F 109 (] 5? Â 8 I ı [an altar for Heracles who wards off evil]), Lucian Alex. 4 and Fug. 32, Zenobius Epit. 5.22, Alciphron Ep. 3.11.1. IScM III, 68, A (Kallatis, 50–100 C.E., banqueters) Â ) ] 5Ì9; IGUR I, 171 = CIL 6, 309 (Rome: an altar dedication, late II C.E.) Herculi / defensori / Papirii (front face); Â ) / ] 5/Ì / Û / (back face) (to Hercules the defender of Papirius [a gens]). Cp. CIL 6, 308 (Rome: an altar dedication): Herculi / Defensori / M(arcus) Silius / Messalla / consul (to Hercules the defensor, Marcus Silius Messalla, consul [in 193 C.E.]); CIL 6, 210 (Rome, 208 C.E., protector in a “military context” [cf. Wojciechowski below]) Herculem Defensorem; IGUR I, 88 (Rome, late II to III C.E., statue base) ] [5Û] / Â [] Ô; CIL 6, 333 (Rome, I C.E., altar) H(erculi) V(ictori) D(efensori) (to Hercules, Victor, Defender). Cf. P. Wojciechowski, Cult Appellations and Hercules Worship in Imperial Rome, in: The Roman Empire in the Light of Epigraphical and Normative Sources, Society and Religions 4, Toruń 2013, 97–117, esp. 101, 109, 113, 115. He (ibid., 115) believes the “most important relic of Hercules Victor cult in the imperial period is a piece of marble architrave of a temple dedicated to this god by the former consul P. Plotinus Romanus (CIL 6, 332, Rome, 185–7 C.E.): [Her]cul[i] / Victori (to Hercules, Victor). 408 AE 1946, 90c (Rome) H(ercules) I(n)v(ictus) (Hercules, the unconquered), CIL 1, 2518 (Rome, vase, baths of Diocletian, III–II B.C.E.) Ex ad[e] Hercu[lis Inv(icti)] sacrm (from the temple of Hercules, the unconquered, consecrated), CIL 6, 244 (Rome, 197 C.E.) Herculi invicto, CIL 6, 315 (Rome, 321 C.E.) Deo / Herculi Inv(icto) (to the god Hercules, the unconquered), CIL 6, 317 (Rome, 201–300 C.E.) Deo Herculi / Invicto, CIL 6 (all from Rome, forms of Hercules invictus): 318, 320–5, 326a–329; AE 1924, 15 (98–117 C.E.): Hierus et Asylus / … ser(vi) vilici aedem / Herculi Invicto Esychiano d(e) s(uis) fecerunt (Hierus and Asylus, slave managers of … constructed an aedicula for Hercules Aesychianus, the unconquered; see O. Marucchi, NSA 21 [1924] 67–9, esp. 67 who believes there is a connection with CIL 6, 322: Herculi Invicto / sacrum / M(arcus) Claudius Esychus d(onum) d(edit)), etc. Cf. Wojciechowski, Cult Appellations, 105.
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the peacock are two Erotes who carry garlands, and on each side of the niche is a winged Psyche (or Victory).409 Beneath the peacock in the arcosolium is the front of the sarcophagus of the person formerly buried there.410 Above the arched recess in the rear of the chamber, which originally held the only body in the cubiculum, is a tondo portrait of a nimbate young girl, who is presumably the person for whom the chamber was designed.411 On the panel of the right underarch, there is an image of the three youths in the fiery furnace, and on the left panel of the underarch a nimbate Jesus feeds the 5000.412 The panel on the right of the “framing arch” depicts a “female orant” and on the left is Noah in the ark.413 Zimmermann argues that the architectural “highpoint” of the room is the lunette and the portrait of the girl in the underarch of the arcosolium. The sum total of the images indicates a wish for a “private apotheosis.”414 If the patron (or the girl) was Christian, as the many Christian scenes in the cubiculum probably indicate, then instead of apotheosis, “resurrection” would be a more appropriate category. The erasure415 of the inscription on the front of her sarcophagus, however, renders certainty forever elusive. Peacocks were associated in antiquity with immortality, and appear often in Christian funerary art.416 Carolyn L. Connor writes that in Christian art, “the bird also refers to nature’s power of renewal, because it loses and regrows its feathers every spring and thus became a symbol of resurrection and immortality.”417 It was Juno’s bird, and numerous Roman coins depict her 409
Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 146 (“winged Victories”) and Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 107 (“Psyches”). 410 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 111. The grave “was totally looted” and the inscription erased (Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 58). 411 For images, cf. Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 141, 143, 146. Snyder, Pictures, 354: On the ceiling “are more female figures bearing the tokens of pagan deities: corn [wheat], clusters of grapes, and thyrsi.” His assertion that “a visitor bearing an oil lamp” could “easily” view the scenes seems hard to credit, however, since cubicula N and O were far from the light shaft in gallery G. The four iron lamp hooks that hung on the lid of a sarcophagus in the arch of the young girl’s tomb would have helped in chamber O (Snyder, ibid., 360, Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 58). Tronzo, Via Latina, 65 identifies the two female figures in the vault as Ceres and Persephone. One holds grapes and a thyrsus and the other holds sheaves of wheat and a thyrsus. 412 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 144–5. 413 Tronzo, Via Latina, 65, Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 140, 142. A clear photograph of the underarch and framing arch in front of it maybe be found in Ferrua, ibid., fig. 147. 414 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 110–1. 415 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 58. 416 Aug. Civ. 21.4 believed dead peacock flesh did not putrefy (carni pauonis mortui ne putesceret) due to God’s power. Cp. 21.7: de carne non putescente pauonis (the flesh of the peacock that does not putrefy). 417 C. L. Connor, Women of Byzantium, New Haven 2004, 109. She reviews its use in funerary sculpture including the sarcophagus of Constantina in the Vatican. See also the two
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with a peacock.418 In Rome, peacocks were responsible for transporting female members of the imperial family to heaven in images of consecratio. A bronze sestertius (see image 14), for example, on the reverse depicts Faustina minor (wife of Marcus Aurelius) holding a scepter, carrying a veil, and riding on the back of a winged peacock, surrounded by the legend “consecratio (apotheosis, divinization).” On the obverse is the legend Diva Faustina Pia (the deified Faustina, the dutiful).419 Several types of coins depict the deified Mariniana, wife of Valerian. She flies to heaven on the back of a peacock on the reverse of an aureus of 256. Consecratio is the legend around the edge.420 A grave altar in the Vatican depicts on one side an eagle clutching a thunderbolt in its talons, taking a Pomponius Eudaemon to heaven, and on another side a peacock takes his wife Pomponia Helpis to the gods.421 peacocks on a lunette in the Silistra (Durostorum) tomb (IV C.E.) discussed by G. A. Atanasov, Late Antique Tomb in Durostorum – Silistra and its Master, Revista Pontica 40 (2007) 447–470, esp. 450, fig. 5, 6, and 8. Cf. H. Lother, Der Pfau in der altchristlichen Kunst. Eine Studie über das Verhältnis von Ornament und Symbol, ASCA 18, Leipzig 1929, 1–32 (review of the literature; e.g., 28: the peacock as symbol of immortality in paganism because of the association with Juno), 29–53 (Greece and Rome), 56–83 (Christian catacombs and sarcophagi; on 64–5, e.g., he notes that the ancient Christian use of the images of decay and flowering in nature were used to defend the resurrection and were transferred to art; hence, perhaps, the use of the peacock, although it cannot be established with certainty in all cases that it referred to resurrection; but it almost certainly became associated with the image of paradise), 84–7 (other Christian art), Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 79, Nagy, Myth, 380, Fink, Bildfrömmigkeit, 99–101, and E. T. Reimbold, Der Pfau. Mythologie und Symbolik, München 1983, 21–7 (bird of Hera/Juno), 32–3 (carrier of imperial women to heaven), 37–9 (as symbol of heavenly paradise in Christianity), and 39–40 (symbol of resurrection in Christianity). Nagy (ibid.) writes that the Erotes (cupids) in cubiculum N are symbols of “eternal love.” 418 A few examples of Juno and the peacock on the reverse: RIC1 3, § 331, 332 (p. 67), two coins with Faustina I on the obverse. Cp. ibid., § 338–41 (p. 68), Faustina on the obverse. 419 RIC1 3, § 1702 (p. 349). Cp. § 1703–6. Cf. I. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, Oxford 2004, 307–10 on the peacock and apotheosis. See chapt. 5 for the apotheosis of emperors. 420 RIC1 5/1, § 2 (p. 64). Cp. § 1 (standing peacock with spread tail). Coins § 3–12 (p. 64– 5) all depict peacocks on the reverse with the legend consecratio. RIC1 4/1 § 396 (p. 275) is a silver medallion of Julia Domna (the wife of Severus Alexander); on the obverse is a veiled Diva Iulia Augusta, and a peacock with spread tail and the legend consecratio is on the reverse. Cf. ibid. § 609 (p. 313), a sestertius, on the reverse of which a flying peacock carries Julia to heaven. She holds a scepter, and a mantle is around her head. The legend around the edge is consecratio with SC (Senatus consulto “by decree of the senate”) on the exergue. 421 CIL 6, 24613 (Rome). There is a drawing on the EDCS from G. Tedeschi Grisanti and H. Solin, Dis Manibus, pili, epitaffi et altre cose antiche di Giovannantonio Dosio. Il codice N. A. 618 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, Pisa 2011, 79, 89 (non vidi). Cp. H. Solin, Analecta epigraphica CCLXV–CCLXI, Arctos 45 (2011) 143–70, esp. 166–7. A dedication to their four sons is on another side, and on another side is an image of the four brothers with an altar beneath. Cf. the references to other depictions of the peacock on altars by W. Alt-
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The thesis that the imagery in the cubiculum indicates hope in an apotheosis or resurrection for the girl is not fully demonstrable, but there is evidence for it, and only an excessive positivism will dismiss it out of hand – the kind of positivism that Jas Elsner and Hung Wu have cautioned against in another context. Elsner and Wu write that to argue in the vein of A. D. Nock that “images on sarcophagi have little to do with religion, mystical meanings, beliefs or even death itself, but rather are about ‘culture and classicism’ as the ‘prime factor’ governing their imagery” “risks reductivism to a potentially absurd extent.”422 The more functionalist approach of scholars such as Paul Zanker and Björn Ewald does not rule out religious interpretations such as the presumed hoped for apotheosis or resurrection of the girl in chamber O. With regard to the via Dino Compagni, one can grant Zanker and Ewald that people at that time – as they already did at the time of Homer – were able to see a connection between the ancient stories of gods and heroes and their own lives: that they “lived with myths.” The myths were meaningful stories, whose protagonists could be seen as paradigms (or exemplary) in good or evil, because their authority meant that they were able to explain something about the way in which the world is ordered.423
Their point of view does not forbid “religious” interpretations of scenes such as those of Heracles in cubiculum N.424 Elsner and Hu write that A totally anti-religious interpretation of the non-Christian sarcophagi – generated historiographically by modern prejudice rather than by the actualities of antiquity, one might argue – hugely reinforces the artificial divide between “Christian” and “pagan” sarcophagi,
mann, Die römische Grabaltäre der Kaiserzeit, Berlin 1905, 280. CIL 6, 28361, e.g., is a grave altar dedicated to Varia Sabbatis. On the pediment is a peacock with spread tail, which Altmann (ibid, 212 with image) regards as a symbol of consecratio. 422 J. Elsner and H. Wu, Editorial, Res: Anthopology and Aesthetics 61/62 (2012) 1–21, esp. 11, with ref. to A. D. Nock, Sarcophagi and Symbolism, AJA 50 (1946) 140–70, esp. 166 (“classicism and culture” and “prime factor”). Nock was objecting to the excessive mythical and philosophical interpretations of F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des romains, Paris 1942. Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, 20 make the interesting point with regard to Cumont’s interpretations that “there may be no such single correct way of reading at all.” 423 Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, ix. Cp. P. Zanker, Die mythologischen Sarkophagreliefs und ihre Beträchter, SBAW.PH Jg. 2000, Heft 2, München 2000. 424 For example, Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, 129 concede, with regard to a sarcophagus (fig. 117) of a dead child, that “viewers could also think of the bliss in the next world which they hoped the dead were enjoying.” Zanker argues (Die mythologischen Sarkophagreliefs, 28–30) that the depictions on a Florentine sarcophagus (and others) of Alcestis’s reunion with Admetus indicates the “love of a married couple” and “not in any way an anchored hope for an eternal life in the Christian sense”; instead it is merely the equivalent of allegorical images used in poetry and consoling funeral orations. This strikes me as overly positivist. It is clear in certain epitaphs that some Greeks and Romans believed in immortality, although it was the minority view. Cf. Lattimore, Epitaphs, 31–65.
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since it constructs one as largely religious and cult-specific, the other as culturally general and even broadly secular.425
The debate is clearly ongoing, but an interpretation of the apparently nonChristian images in the Via Latina that a priori rejects religious meanings is a reductio ad absurdum of a methodology. Images from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament constitute the vast majority of the frescoes in the catacomb.426 In cubiculum M, for example, there are four images of Jonah on the side panels of the two arcosolia,427 and one lunette depicts the soldiers’ casting lots for Jesus’s garments – with a large fritillus (dice container) in a soldier’s right hand. The other lunette (on the right side) depicts Adam, Eve, and the serpent.428 There are two panels on each side of an arch in the narrow space between cubiculum N and O. The arch is 220 cm high and 95 cm deep (37.4 inches) – in other words, only a very narrow space separates the two cubicula.429 Rooms M, N, and O were completed together, and due to the small separation, rooms N and O are a “unified space” according to H. Gregory Snyder.430 The narrow separation, however, does not necessarily imply any sort of unity of meaning, and there was a transenna (a stone lattice) with a gate between both rooms – which does not indicate a “unified space.”431 On the left panel of the arch is a woman who holds bundles of wheat in each hand. She is most likely Proserpine.432 On the 425 Elsner and Wu, Editorial, 12. Such implicit bias seems illustrated by the nearly complete rejection of any religious and philosophical interpretations of chamber N by M. Kovacs, review of Eppinger, Hercules, Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 19 (2016) 1125– 40, esp. 1132–3. 426 There are exceptions. In cubiculum E, the lunette of the arcosolium depicts a nimbate, reclining Tellus. Her left elbow rests on a basket of flowers, and a serpent that is threatening to bite her right breast is curled around her left arm. A tondo portrait of a Gorgon is in the vault (Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 79–80). The left and right panels depict winged victories (ibid., fig. 77–8). Johnson, Pagan-Christian Burial, 56 believes the figure is Isis, with ref. to M. Maas, Isis in the Via Latina Catacomb, Byzantine Studies Conference: Abstracts of Papers 3 (1977) 9–10. Maas’s paper was never published, and the arguments in the abstract seem inconclusive. In the Naples Archaeology Museum (inv. 9558 [Pompeii VIII.7.28]) there is a fresco of a seated Isis, with a cobra wound around her left arm, and she is welcoming Io. Cp. V. Tran Tam Tinh, Essai sur le culte d’Isis a Pompei, Paris, 1964, pl. 16.2. In the right arcosolium of cubiculum I (Ie in Ferrua’s plan, ibid., 17) there is an image of a philosopher or physician giving an anatomy lesson (Ferrua, ibid., fig. 111) in the lunette. 427 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 116, 118, 120, 121. 428 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 116–7, and cp. the more complete image of the two soldiers with fritillus in Bisconti, Il restauro, 15. 429 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 142. 430 Camiruaga et al., La arquitectura, 36 and Snyder, Pictures, 357. 431 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 142, fig. 27 and cp. Fink, Bildfrömmigkeit, 104 (each is an “independent grave chamber”). 432 Denzey, Bone Gatherers, 51 believes she is a “devotee of Ceres,” because the figure lacks any “indicators of divinity” – an argument with no justification. Proserpine on the
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right is an image of Ceres who holds a torch in her left hand and a bundle of wheat in her right.433 In cubiculum O, the lunette of the right arcosolium is an image of Moses crossing the Red Sea (see image 15); his rod is lowered in his right arm as he looks back (to his right) at the Egyptian soldiers on the other side. The lunette of the right arcosolium depicts Jesus calling Lazarus out of the tomb (image 16). He holds a rod in his arm, and Lazarus, wrapped in grave clothes, stands in the door of an aedicula.434 Above Jesus is an image of Moses on Sinai. Moses’ right hand is extended toward the hand of God who holds the commandments in his right hand in the form of a rotulus (papyrus roll).435 The rest of the images, with a few exceptions, in cubiculum O are likewise from the OT and NT. William Tronzo notes that the fresco of Christ and Lazarus in cubiculum O is a transformation of one on which it was based – a lunette in cubiculum C, in which a similar image is of Joshua looking at a “temple like building,” as he leads the children of Israel into the promised land (see image 17).436 Above Joshua “is a figure standing on a mountain – obviously Moses on Sinai.” God’s hand is just visible, giving Moses the commandments.437 In front is the burning pillar.438 If one starts in cubiculum C at the scene of Moses (as a Euhodus sarcophagus has no crown or scepter and is easily identifiable next to Pluto. Cf. Wood, Alcestis, 500 (image). 433 Two amphorae are to her left. Cf. Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 131–2 and p. 142. 434 There is a closely related gold glass medallion in which Christ holds a rod over the head of a prostrate Lazarus wrapped in grave clothes. Lazarus lies on the six steps of an aedicula. See C. R. Morey, The Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library. With Additional Catalogues of Other Gold Glass Collections, Vatican City 1959, pl. V., cat. no. 31 (the legend reads ZESVS CRISTVS, perhaps a play on the Greek “you will live” [¸7 ] or simply a confusion of Iota and Zeta) = A. Grabar, The Beginnings of Christian Art. 200–395, London 1967, Pl. 29. Cf. Morey, ibid., Pl. VII, cat. No. 44 for a similar gold glass medallion of Christ raising Lazarus with the legend PIE ZESES (drink, live) and the discussion of both medallions by K. L. Lutraan, Late Roman Gold-Glass: Images and Inscriptions, MA Thesis McMaster Univ. 2006, 22–3, 66, 150–1, 169, 182. Morey, ibid., Pl. XIII, cat. no. 77 is a glass bottom of a cup that depicts Christ raising Lazarus who stands in an “arched aedicula.” Cp. Morey, Pl. XVIII cat. 108, Pl. XXI cat. (aedicula with Lazarus, no depiction of Jesus), and Pl. XXVI cat. 260. Pie Zeses is found on 58 inscriptions in the EDCS (accessed 3 March 2018). Garrucci, Vetri, Pl. VII.17 depicts a medallion showing Christ with seven baskets of bread (feeding of the 4000). The inscription on the border reads CRISTV ZESVS. Cf. ibid., p. x on the use of ZESVS in the fourth century. 435 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 104. 436 See Tronzo, Via Latina, 2, 66. 437 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 92. 438 K. Schubert, Jewish Influence of Early Christian Paintings: The Via Latina Catacomb, in: H. Schreckenburg and K. Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity …, Assen 1991, 189–210, esp. 191 identifies the figure with Moses, but his references to rabbinic literature (Sinai as a ladder) are too late to be of use in explaining the aedicula. He does hypothesize the existence of illustrated Septuagints (ibid., 190). Cf.
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young man) at the burning bush and moves from left to right, one then sees Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea, then Moses brings forth water from the rock (as a much older bearded man), and finally the fresco of Joshua (or Moses) as a young man leading the Israelites toward the aedicula. Since the figure is young, it seems unlikely that the painter intended it to be Moses.439 It cannot be the resurrection of Lazarus as Antonio Ferrua originally thought, because Lazarus does not appear in the scene, and iconographically he otherwise always does in depictions of his resurrection.440 Many images of the resurrection of Lazarus from the catacombs include the grave aedicula with steps.441 Zimmermann persuasively argues that the painter’s model for the image in cubiculum C was the resurrection of Lazarus, even though the figure is Joshua or perhaps Moses.442 In the vault of cubiculum C is a damaged fresco of Jesus teaching in a chair, holding a scroll and codex.443 Jaś Elsner writes that “the scenes of the room, representing Moses and the Israelites fleeing Egypt for the Promised land and explicitly Christological prefigurations like the sacrifice of Isaac, are crowned with the image of Christ.”444 Whether one can make such a typological case is questionable.445 There are, however, Christological interpretations of scenes in the chamber such as Isaac’s sacrifice. Elsner attempts to build a case for a Christian typological interpretation of the Heracles scenes in chamber N and appeals to works such as the Tabula of Cebes.446 The tablet Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 163 for a critique of this hypothesis. Grabar, Beginnings, 233 [with ref. to BnF MS Grec 139, of X C.E.], on the other hand, is not so skeptical of “fourth century miniatures” in Greek MSS, which “must have been quite as vivid and engaging as the scenes we can now admire in the Via Latina tomb, such as the Crossing of the Red Sea and the Raising of Lazarus.” This is available digitally at: ‹http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark :/12148/cc214812›. 439 Cf. Tronzo, Via Latina, 55, Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 76. For the images, cf. Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 63, 65, 66, 67, 70, Zimmermann, ibid., fig. 30–1, and see the location diagram of the images in L. Kötzsche-Breitenbruch, Die neue Katakombe an der Via Latina in Rom. Untersuchungen zur Ikonographie der alttestamentlichen Wandmalereien, JAC.E 4, Münster 1976, Anhang 4. 440 Cf. Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 75 and Kötzsche-Breitenbruch, Die neue Katakombe, 79–80 n. 503: occasionally on sarcophagi the image of Lazarus has been broken off from the stone. Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 90, fig. 67. 441 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, (all the following images are from different chambers) Domitilla: fig. 97, 106, 117, and 124; Marcellinus and Peter: 187, 197, 199. 442 Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen, 78. He (ibid., 77 with references) calls the aedicula an “image cipher” (in other contexts used for the “Christian city”). 443 Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, 88. 444 J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer, Cambridge 1995, 274. 445 Cf. Zimmermann’s critique (Werkstattgruppen, 79, 103). 446 J. Elsner, Art and Architecture, CAH 13 (1998) 736–61, esp. 752 (cf. 750–4). A convenient ed. is J. T. Fitzgerald and L. M. White, The Tabula of Cebes, SBLTT 24, Chico, CA 1983. There were pagan allegories of Heracles’ labors. Cf., e.g., Lydus De mens. 4.67 (H. as
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(5) that Cebes describes, however, was apparently full of clues pointing to allegory.447 Elsner concedes: “the fact that we possess no texts to support … a Christian exegesis of Heracles is not important. The extent of creative typological reading in the period was an invitation to fourth-century viewers to apply its interpretative possibilities with as much originality as they wish.”448 The absence of any Christian tradition whatsoever, to my knowledge, that identifies or compares Heracles with Christ is more troubling than Elsner believes, in my view.449 Cyril of Alexandria avoids comparing Christ directly with Heracles, but he does defend the account of Jonah’s three nights in the belly of the beast by appealing to the tradition that Heracles was swallowed by the sea beast and vomited unharmed: In concocting myths about themselves the pagans claim that Hercules, son of Alcmene and Zeus, was swallowed by a sea monster, and regurgitated as a result of the heat generated, his head rendered bald, and suffering only the loss of his hair. 7 )& ˆ ? ( Ã) !8 !, Â 8 (Ú Ù ] 7 Ú Ù !F Ó ÕÙ 7, &!F &Ó ? the sun passing through the signs of the Zodiac; his reviving Alcestis and restoring her to Alcestis is like the sun restoring the life generating nature to the cosmos that has been deadened during the winter [Ú ê &Ó 2 ]&79 : && , ∑ 2 9 ( 2 ! ) ¡ • ! ]), and cp. Porphyry 359F Smith = Eusebius P.E. 3.11.25. I consulted the valuable trans. of Lydus with notes by Mischa Hooker (‹https://archive.org/details/JohnLydusOn TheMonthsTr.Hooker2ndEd.2017› last accessed 15 March 2018). Macr. 1.20.6, 10–11 identifies Hercules with the sun and affirms that his Egyptian priests have performances of sacred rites (sacrorum administrationes apud Aegyptios) in which Heracles is Ù a Ú &Ï ? • “the sun that is in all and through all” (cf. the note in Macrobius, Saturnalia. Books 1–2, LCL, ed. and trans. R. A. Kaster, Cambridge, MA 2011, 273 who compares that text to Eph 4:6 [¡ Ú ? Ú &Ï ? Ú a]). 447 Tabula 1.1–3 and passim. 448 Elsner, Art and Architecture, 754. 449 The statement about Heracles and Christ is based on F. Pfister, Herakles und Christus, ARW 34 (1937) 42–60, M. Simon, Hercule et le christianisme, PFLUS Sér. 2, fasc. 19, Paris 1955, 127–65 (Hercules as rival of Christ in paganism), 169–91 (the Christian Hercules in the middles ages, via allegory, etc.), Malherbe, Herakles, 559–83, A. J. Quiroga Puertas, La figura de Heracles en algunos autores del siglo IV D.C. (‹http://hdl.handle.net/10316.2/31368›), in: Homenajo a la profesora María Luisa Picklesimer, ed. M. N. Muñoz Martin et al., Coimbra 2012, 375–88, esp. 383–5 (Basil, Eusebius, and Gregory Nazianzus), and my own database searches. Gregory of Nazianzus’s (Vita 974–5) fulmination against Maximus the Cynic is amusing: 8 D Ú Ã / 8I # Ù !í Â 8 (it was great for me that the dog trod my hall worshipping Christ instead of Heracles). For the hall, cf. Ep. 52.2. Arn. Nat. 4.26 is sarcastic: Hercules sanctus deus gnatas quinquaginta de Thestio nocte una perdocuit et nomen virginitatis exponere … (Hercules the holy god in one night taught the fifty daughters of Thestius to give up the name of virginity …). Cp. Pausanias 9.27.6–7. H. Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mystery, New York 1971 finds much use of Homer in patristic writers, for example, but finds no typological use of Heracles for Christ.
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F ( ! , 8 Ã2 F ( F, Ú Ù ! ! .450
Cyril goes on to quote Lycophron who himself uses the epithet, “of the tripleevening” for Heracles: P 8 8, ≈ ?! / P †? ? (“of the three-evening lion, whom the jaws of Triton’s sharp-toothed dog devoured”).451 Marcel Simon believes that given Matt 12:40, it was not too much to expect that Christians would have understood the epithet of Heracles as they understood the experience of Christ (in the earth for three nights).452 The Byzantine commentator Tzetzes has views similar to those of Cyril: But I say that Lycophron calls Heracles “of the triple evening,” because since he was in the sea-monster for three days, he passed what he calls three evenings because the belly of the beast was unlit and dark. S &Ó 8 Ù Â 8 8
) Ù ( &Ï Ù 2 7 ) 8 F Å /8 ) &Ï Ù (: Ú ∂ 8 ! .453
Neither Cyril, nor Theophylact, nor Tzetzes makes the shift from Heracles to Christ in Matt 12:40. One should grant Elsner’s point, however, that pagan images do not necessarily imply patrons who were pagans, nor do Christian images imply “real” Christians.454 Éric Rebillard notes that “in hypogea, such as that of the Aurelii … figured scenes have sometimes been interpreted as the result of philosophical and religious syncretism, since pagan and Christian motifs seem to have been juxtaposed in the same spaces.” But he objects that such forms of “synthesis” are “far from being documented and thus should be abandoned.”455 450 Cyril In Ion. 2.1 (Cyrilli in xii prophetas, ed. P. E. Pusey, vol. 1, Oxford 1868, 578), trans. mod. of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, FC 116, trans. R. C. Hill, Washington, DC 2008, 160–1. This sea monster is not Cerberus. Cf., e.g., its depiction on a black figure vase in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Boston 63.420 ‹http: //www.mfa.org/collections/object/mixing-bowl-column-krater-259823›), and J. H. Oakley, Hesione, LIMC 8.1 (1997) 623–29, § 3. The monster is even larger in the black figure cup of Taranto, Mus. Naz. 52155 (J. Boardman, Ketos, LIMC 8.1 [1997] 731–6, § 25). 451 Lycophron Alex. 33–4, trans. of Hornblower, Lykophron, 129–30, and cf. his note on the sea monster. 452 Simon, Hercule, 174–5. Cyril (In Ion. 2.1 [1.578 Pusey]) notes, however, that “we do not prove divine things with their mythologoumena” (] í Ã í ! 8 Ï ! ) !). Theophylact In Ion. 2.1 (PG 126.932) defends the historicity of the tale of Jonah by appealing to the same tale of Heracles devoured by the sea monster: û Ï ª Ã) Ú Â Ô ı , › !Ô, ∂ &!Ô I Ó ª ; Ì, Ï &Ó Û ı I ı, Ú , E (9 ˘ ! ı. 453 Schol. in Lycophr. Alex. 33 (Tzetzes). 454 Elsner, Art and Architecture, 751, 754. 455 É. Rebillard, the Care of the Dead in late Antiquity, Ithaca 2009, 34.
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Hippolytus’s Justin, however, interpreted the labors of Heracles as a sort of allegory in his cosmology, and surely that would serve as an example of a “documented synthesis.”456 It is interesting to speculate whether the same family or families in cubicula N and O included both pagans and Christians, or if the Christians simply adopted pagan iconography for their own purposes. 457 Levente Nagy notes that “the Christian predilection for Hercules was not an unproblematic interpretatio Christiana, but a complex conjunction of mythical and Christian models of virtue that offered a polyvalent religious experience for late antique Romans.”458 He comments on the large number of representations of Heracles in late antiquity and refers to “two fourth-century Christian iconographical programs” which “combine the myth of Hercules with biblical scenes.” Those are the frescoes of the Via Latina and “the reliefs of a casket mount of Ulcisia in Pannonia” (Szentendre). “Common to these representations that differ so much in artistic ambition, media, and size, is the drive to ‘think with’ Hercules when visualizing the Christian history of salvation.”459 The casket mount, a scrinium (writing case), from Szentendre is particularly appropriate because it includes medallions that depict in turn: Christ holding a rod over the dead figure of Lazarus, Daniel in the lion’s den, an enthroned Jupiter, a ship scene, Christ with three baskets of bread, and Heracles with a club surrounded by the legend: Invicto Constantino Felic[i triumph]a[n]ti (“for the invincible, fortunate, victorious Constantine”).460 Another fourth century Munich casket mount is “cut in a medallion form.” It depicts on the upper register on the left Abraham with arm upraised, a ram, and a kneeling Isaac; and on the right are Adam and Eve, between whom is a serpent wrapped around a tree. On the lower register on the left Bellerophon on Pegasus strikes the Chimaera, and
456
Hippolytus Ref. 5.25.1–3, 5.26.27–9, 10.15.6. Cf. Malherbe, Herakles, 581–3 (pro and con), with a large bibliography. Nearly every scholar who writes on the hypogeum makes a choice, and there is little reason to make an enervating list. Johnson, Pagan-Christian Burial, 55 argues that tombs such as Vibia’s imply that pagans and Christians shared the same hypogea. Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.3. 458 Nagy, Myth, 377. 459 Nagy, Myth, 377–8. 460 AE 1937, 136, trans. of Nagy, Myth, 386, who writes that the inscription can also be restored as felic(i ac be)ati(ssimo) and who relates the legend to Constantine’s victory over the Sarmatians in 322. Cf. ibid., 383–91 with photographs of the casket mounts, which are in the Hungarian National Museum. Another discussion is in D. Gáspár, Christianity in Roman Pannonia. An evaluation of Early Christian Finds and Sites from Hungary, Oxford 2002, § 48.I.a: “Constantine is … presented as Iovius, INVICTUS. To him, the invincible, the men known as Herculius quasi offer themselves in service. This Constantine is the one who brings life by declaring Christianity a legal religion. This attribute of the one who brings life is supported by the biblical scenes.” Such an elaborate interpretation does not seem well-grounded. 457
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on the right Heracles strikes with a club (presumably the Lernean Hydra).461 An important analogy is the Projecta casket (toiletry ware, ca 380) from the Esquiline treasure in the British museum. The silver casket includes scenes of “Venus seated nude on a cockle shell” holding a hair pin, a “human procession to the baths,” a woman putting “a pin in her hair and holding a pyxis [vessel],” a man and a woman on the top, and other images including a Nereid riding a hippocampus. Along the front rim of the lid is the inscription: Secunde et Proiecta vivatis in Christo (Secundus and Proiecta, may you live in Christ).462 There is no need for a typological reading of Venus. The stark difference between chamber N and the casket mounts and Projecta casket is that there are no Christian images in the room devoted to the imagery of Heracles. The casket mounts combine pagan and Christian imagery and themes, and the Projecta casket combines pagan imagery and a Christian inscription. It is easy to imagine that pagans and Christians, even from the same family, could have been buried in the hypogeum of the via Dino Compagni.463 Eppinger believes that “an attitude of mutual tolerance of pagans and Christians” in the hypogeum is a reasonable thesis.464 One can assume the same atmosphere of tolerance in the case of the tomb of Vibia and Vincentius (a priest of Sabazius) who were buried near the catacomb of Praetextatus.465 Presumably the “common man and woman” were familiar with the tales of Heracles, since Tertullian witnessed a spectacle in which “We … saw a man who was burned alive who had taken on the role of Hercules. We laughed at the mockery of the gods in the lunch hour” (Vidimus … qui uiuus cremabatur, Herculem induerat; risimus et meridiani ludi de deis lusum).466 Christians in chamber N 461 Nagy, Myth, 391–2 (photograph on 392), with ref. to L. Wamser, Die Welt von Byzanz. Europas östliches Erbe. Glanz, Krisen und Fortleben einer tausendjähriges Kultur, München 2004, 262 (cat. Nr. 397) – 263. Wamser, ibid., 263 notes that the inscription under Bellerophon reads ‹BE›LLOROFOS and that “combinations of mythological and Biblical scenes in late antiquity on casket mounts occur frequently.” These examples show Johnson’s position (Pagan-Christian Burial, 58) needs revision (“In all known Christian usages of pagan figures of this period … Heracles does not appear”). 462 British Museum 1866, 1229.1 and cf. Elsner, Art, 251–5. 463 Johnson, Pagan-Christian Burial, 37–59 argues forcefully that Christians and pagans could be buried together. 464 Eppinger, Hercules, 97. She notes that Snyder’s (Pictures, 397) thesis that the viewers would have experienced an “ironic amusement” when they set the images of Jesus and Hercules side by side is unlikely to have been the intention of the patrons of the hypogeum. One might respond that the viewers could have had diverse experiences – whatever the intention of the patron was. 465 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.3 and the brief discussion by Johnson, Pagan-Christian Burial, 55. 466 Tert. Nat. 1.10.47, trans. of K. M. Coleman, Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments, JRS 80 (1990) 44–73, esp. 55. Cp. Apol. 15.4–5 (Coleman, ibid., 60). She (ibid., 60) notes that in Nero’s time a Meniscus who stole three apples (as Heracles did) like Heracles was burned alive as a great spectacle for all, according to Anthol.
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might have been willing to “think with Heracles,”467 and perhaps some pagans would have been willing to “think with Christ”468 in chamber O. Eppinger remarks, with regard to the images of Heracles in chamber N, that “many scholars often tend to read too much into images, building vast interpretative models on unstable foundations.”469 Heracles is victorious over death in cubiculum N, and the patrons probably expected that they would reunite in the afterlife.470 In chamber O, the patron or patrons likewise presumably expected that the young girl would rise from the dead.
5 Conclusion There is an enduring theme in classical texts which affirms the impossibility of resurrection – from the time of Homer to grave epitaphs in late antiquity. On the other hand, stories of the resurrections accomplished by Asclepius, Polyidus, Heracles and others were clearly popular both in Greek and in Latin authors. They indicate that the concept of resurrection was widely available to elite Greco Roman authors. It does not seem possible, however, to determine whether Mediterranean people in general had a firm concept of temporary resurrections. A few authors were aware of the belief of the Magi in a general resurrection. Another popular literary usage was the image of hypothetical resurrections. Such images appeared in both Greek and Roman authors, including the sober rhetoric of Cicero and Libanius. Eventually the theme of resurrection became an element in Christian grave epitaphs. The iconography of Alcestis’s reunion with her husband Admetus and the Christian imagery in the hypogeum of the via Dino Compagni indicate hope in the future – although the cultural contexts are quite different.
Pal. 11.184: C & Ù D ® / › Ù Ú Â 8 F . / Ú ? ; › /? , 8 8 a !8 / › Ù Ú Â 8 . 467 Nagy, Myth, 377–8. 468 My own speculation. 469 Personal communication of 20 Feb. 2018. She continues, “Therefore, I still believe that ‘pagans’ would have interpreted the Alkestis-scene in the Via Latina catacomb as a resurrection scene, triumph over death, etc., which also fits well with most of the other Hercules motifs in cubiculum N, without resorting to Christian ideas to which the viewers might or might not have been exposed.” 470 This is not to deny Lattimore’s position (Epitaphs, 342): “in general, from the evidence of epitaphs, the belief of the ancients, both Greek and Roman, in immortality, was not widespread, nor clear, nor very strong.” Epitaphs expressing “explicit” belief in immortality or the denial thereof are a small number out of a “vast quantity.”
Chapter Three
Tombs and Post-Mortem Appearances Some of the narratives in this chapter such as those about Aristeas clearly depict empty tombs, while others imply the absence of a tomb. Romulus is included here, because in the tradition either his body was translated to heaven or his dismembered corpse was secretly buried. Technically most of the following accounts are translations, but the emphasis on tomb (occupied or empty) and on subsequent appearances is particularly significant for the investigation.1 The return to life of Protesilaos is important especially because of the vivid nature of the post-mortem appearances in Philostratus’s Heroikos. I also have included several individuals below whose bodies simply disappeared from their graves (e.g., Numa) and for whom there are no accounts of epiphanies.
1 Empty Tombs with Subsequent Appearances The category “tomb” in the texts below is by nature somewhat multivalent, but it is nevertheless useful for the analysis. 1.1 Aristeas Aristeas, according to Herodotus, came from Proconnesus, an island in the sea of Marmara. A fuller’s shop served as his temporary tomb when he died. Where Aristeas who wrote this came from [Proconnesus],2 I have already said; I will tell the story that I heard about him at Proconnesus and Cyzicus.3 It is said that this Aristeas, who was as well-born as any of his townsfolk, went into a fuller’s shop at Proconnesus and there died; the owner shut his shop and went away to tell the dead man’s relatives and the report of Aristeas’ death being spread about in the city was disputed by a man of Cyzicus, who had come from the town of Artace,4 and said that he had met Aristeas going toward Cyzicus and spoken with him. While he argued vehemently, the relatives of the dead man came to the fuller’s shop with all that was necessary for burial; but when the place was opened, there was no Aristeas there, dead or alive. 1
On translations, cf. chapt. 4 proem and chapt. 4 § 2. Herodotus 4.13. 3 This city is nearby on the Asian coast. 4 Bolton, Aristeas, 2 notes that Artace is “a seaport about five miles from Cyzicus.” 2
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(4.14) Ú ≈! Ó D [¡] ] 8 ¡ 7, N H Ù &Ó Ú Ã 4 79 Ú 9, 85 . ] 8 Ï 8 , Ã& Ù 8 Õ& 8 , ! (7 79 ! ), Ú Ù (8 Ù 7 N !
8 ) 7 2 2. C &8 &Ó 4& Ï › ! S N ¡ ] 8, (I ) 8 8 ! ;& Ù • 5 ] ? , (? ) 8 " ∞ Ú Ú 8!. Ú Ó 8 (I8 , ˆ &Ó 7 2 2 Ú Ù (7 ) > Ï ( › 8H !8 &Ó ∞7 – ! – : ( ! ] 8.5
Although the fuller’s shop is not precisely a “tomb” (Ì() it does serve as a temporary resting place for Aristeas’s corpse. Authors interested in early Christianity have often referred to his empty tomb as a comparison point with the resurrection of Jesus.6 The man from Cyzicus apparently was unable to tell that Aristeas was a phantom, and this has some implications for the nature of Aristeas’s post-mortem appearances. Aristeas, after his disappearance from the fuller’s shop, appears as a phantom in Metapontum, although he reveals that earlier he had taken the shape of a raven7: Six years afterwards he reappeared, they told me, in Proconnesus, and composed the poem which the Greeks now know as the Arimaspea, after which he disappeared a second time. This is the tale current in the two cities above mentioned. What follows I know to have happened to the Metapontines in Italy two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I discovered by calculations I made at Proconnesus and Metapontum. Aristeas then, as the Metapontines affirm, appeared to them in their own country in person, and ordered them to set up an altar in honour of Apollo, and to place near it a statue to be called that of Aristeas the Proconnesian. Apollo, he told them, had honoured them alone of the Italiotes with his presence; and he himself accompanied the god at the time, not however in his present form, but in the shape of a raven. Having said so much he vanished. Then the Metapontines sent to Delphi, and inquired of the god what they were to make of this apparition [or “the spectral appearance of the man”].8 The 5
Herodotus 4.14, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 2.215. A few examples are: Yarbro Collins, Apotheosis and Resurrection, 94, G. Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Christ. A Historical Inquiry, Amherst, NY 2004, 227, and Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 162. Cp. G. Strecker, Entrückung, RAC 5 (1962) 461–76, esp. 468. 7 In a variant of this tradition, Plin. Nat. 7.174 remarks that “The soul of Aristeas too, about which many a tall tale is told, was seen flying from his mouth in Proconnesus in the form of a raven” (Aristeae etiam visam evolantem ex ore in Proconneso corvi effigie, magna quae sequitur hanc fabulositate; trans. of Bolton, Aristeas, 121). In the same text he describes the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae, which could leave his body and wander about observing distant events. The Suda A § 3900 describes Aristeas’s soul’s ability to leave his body and return (˜ (Ú , ≈ I˜ , 5Ô Ú Ô Ì ). On Aristeas’s ability to wander as a soul, cf. J. N. Bremmer, Travelling Souls? Greek Shamanism Reconsidered, in: idem, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 27–40. 8 Cf. LSJ, s.v. (Ì. 6
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priestess in reply bade them attend to what the spectre said, “for so it would go best with them.” Thus advised, they did as they had been directed; and there is now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas, close by the image of Apollo in the market-place of Metapontum, with bay trees standing round it. But enough has been said concerning Aristeas. (4.14) ® Ï &Ó /I& 9 > ' (8 ÃÙ F Ï > Ï Õí 7 ] ? 8 , 7 &Ó (!F Ù & . (4.15) P Ó " ” 8 , ?& &Ó ∂& ® ) ∏ W 7 Ï (? & 8 ] 8 > ? Ú &, › S I 79 Ú ® 9 — . ® ) < ? > ( ÃÙ ] 8 (8 ( : I Ù ] "& ! Ú ] 8 > & ? í ÃÙ FH (? ? ( Ù ] ∏ 8 & 8! : , Ú Ã " A ! ¡ S ] 8H &8, ≈ μ 2 ! 2, ∂ 5. Ú Ù Ó ∞ (!F, (8 &Ó ® ) 8 (ˆ 8 Ù ! Ù a ≈ Ù (? ! : N. P &Ó ! (8 ! ! 2 (?, !8 &Ó ; !H Ú (8 & 58 F 8. Ú A & Ï > ] 8 í Ã2 2 ? ] , 8 5 &Ó ÃÙ &?( /aH Ù &Ó ; E E μ& . ] 8 8 8 ∞ 7! .9
Aristeas’s insistence that he had taken the form of a raven while accompanying Apollo is probably enough to show that Herodotus does not depict him as a revenant or zombie. The raven was associated with Apollo, according to an investigation of Emanuele Dettori, who compares his ability to appear as a raven with that of modern “shamans.”10 The version in Apollonius’s Mirabilia (ca II B.C.E.) is probably dependent on Theopompus.11 It is reported of Aristeas the Proconnesian that at the very time of his death in a fuller’s shop in Proconnesus many saw him in Sicily teaching. This kind of thing happened to him often, and over a long period of time his appearances in Sicily became quite frequent and generally known, so that the Sicilians accorded a shrine and sacrifices to him as a hero. ] 8 &Ó " ) Ù 7 > ( 9 F 7 7 E ÃE 8 c Ú · c c ÕÙ ! !F
? &&?. ≈! , ? Ã2 I Ú ( 8 &Ï Ú E c (8, " Ú " !& Ã2 Ú >! › • '.12 9 Herodotus 4.14–15, trans. of Bolton, Aristeas, 2. On the Arimaspea, cf. K. Dowden, Aristeas (35), Brill’s New Jacoby, Test. 1–7, Frag. 1–9. 10 E. Dettori, Aristea “corvo” e “sciamano” (?) (Herodot. 4.15), Seminari Romani di cultura greca 9 (2006) 87–103, esp. 88 (Apollo), 96 (Aristeas). See, e.g., Callimachus Hymn. Apoll. 2.65–7, Plutarch Pyth. orac. 12, 400A and 22, 405D. 11 Bolton, Aristeas, 120. 12 Apollonius Hist. mir. 2.1–2, trans. of Bolton, Aristeas, 120. See the commentary by J. Spittler, Apollonios, Amazing Stories (1672), FGrH IV E Brill Online (accepts Theopompus
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Apollonius does not include any remark on the disappearance of Aristeas. Diodorus Siculus also neglects Aristeas’s disappearance. After various benefactions in Sicily, he was revered as a god by the people of the island: Consequently, among the inhabitants of Sicily, as men say, Aristaeus received especial honour as a god, in particular by those who harvested the fruit of the olive-tree. And finally, as the myths relate, he visited Dionysus in Thrace and was initiated into his secret rites, and during his stay in the company of the god he learned from him much useful knowledge. And after dwelling some time in the neighbourhood of Mount Haemus he never was seen again of men, and became the recipient of immortal honours not only among the barbarians of that region but among the Greeks as well. &Ù Ú Ï ) Ï ∞ &( (Ú !F Ù ] ) › ! , Ú ? !í ÕÙ Ù F . Ù &Ó ) ! ÃÙ ∞ I Ù ) ¿ , Ú & 2 ! 2 Ï ! ) í à H Ú &Ó Ù ƒ Ù Ê∑ ∞7? ;( 8!, Ú ) !? à ! Ï ) I I? , Ï Ú Ï ) Æ .13
His disappearance in Thrace is inconsistent with Herodotus’s claim that he disappeared in Proconnesus in a fuller’s shop. Aristeas, according to Plutarch, disappeared from a fuller’s shop when he died. Now this is like the fables which the Greeks tell about Aristeas of Proconnesus and Cleomedes of Astypaleia. For they say that Aristeas died in a fuller’s shop, and that when his friends came to fetch away his body, it had vanished out of sight; and presently certain travellers returning from abroad said they had met Aristeas journeying towards Croton. û Ó “ ) Õ(í 7 í ] 8 Ú 7& ] 8 ! 8. ] 8 Ó Ï > ( 9 F (, Ú Ù Ã ( (Ó N !H 8 &8 Ã!ˆ 5 & • ) ] 8c Ú 89.14
Plutarch’s account is in substantial agreement with that of Herodotus. He includes the reference to Aristeas in the midst of his version of Romulus’s apotheosis and the disappearance and translation of Cleomedes. Consequently, it is clear that he views Aristeas as a god or hero.15 Origen’s account is: Let us see what Celsus says next. He quotes from histories miracles which in themselves seem incredible but which are not disbelieved by him; at least, his words give no hint of as the source and notes that Apollonius does not mention the disappearance of the body from the fuller’s shop). She tentatively dates the text to II B.C.E., since “no author is cited later than the first half of the second century BC.” 13 Diod. Sic. 4.82.5–6, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 3.79. 14 Plutarch Rom. 28.4, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.179. 15 Plutarch Rom. 27.5–28.7.
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disbelief. First we may take the story about Aristeas the Proconnesian, concerning whom he says: “Then as for Aristeas the Proconnesian who both vanished so miraculously from men and again clearly appeared, and a long time afterwards visited many parts of the world and related amazing tales, so that Apollo even commanded the Metapontines to regard Aristeas as a god [or “to assign Aristeas the respect due the gods”], nobody still thinks him a god.” He seems to have taken the story from Pindar and Herodotus. º& &Ó Ú Å Ï 8 ¡ 8 , !8 Ù " ?&5 Ú !í ÕÏ Ó Õí à &Ó Ã ≈ Ú E 85 Ã. Ú Ï Ú Ù 7 ] 8, Ú ” ? (H @∂í ] 8 Ó Ù 7 (!8 — & 5 ! : Ú “! (8 Ú ) — F ∞8 &7 Ú !Ï
, Ú ] 7 ® ! c 8 Ù ] 8, Ã& Ú > ! . û &í ∞ (8 " Ù &? Ú Â & .16
Origen then quotes Herodotus 4.14-15. I suspect that Celsus used this account in a more developed critique of Jesus’s resurrection that Origen does not include. Aeneas of Gaza, in his treatise in defense of the resurrection (the Theophrastus), also refers to the tradition of Herodotus but adds the testimony of Pindar: And Pindar of Thebes and Herodotus of Halicarnassus relate that Aristeas of Proconessus went into the fuller’s shop in Proconnesus, died there, and, after his disappearance, spoke openly with the people of Cyzicus, and 240 years later was seen in Italy by the people of Metapontum, and ordered them to honour himself and Apollo with sacrifices. “I follow Apollo,” he said. “I was then a raven, but now I am Aristeas.” The Metapontines (Herodotus says) sent to Delphi and asked Apollo if they should obey Aristeas, and the Pythia responded that it would be well to do so. And now there is a statue with the name of Aristeas next to the statue of Apollo, and the sacrifice is regarded as common to both of them as gods. & &Ó ¡ I) Ú Â & ¡ ] ˆ ] 8 (Ú Ù 7 ∞ ! Ï Ù (8 79 ) Ú !? Ú (!8 ) ( & 8 ! Ú & — > Ú ? ∏ c ® ¿(!F Ú /Ù ! a Ú Ù ] H ì8 ? , >(, 2 ] 5 Õ? ¡ ] 8Hî Ú ˆ ® 8 ∞ (ˆ a Ù ] ∞ 2 ] 8c ! ! Ú ! F › !8 ; >. Ú & Ï A ] 8 í Ã2 2 ? ] Ú › ! ) (8 ! .17
Aeneas characterizes a number of pagan resurrection accounts and the story of Aristeas as the “obscure and absurd notions” that they “happily accept,” (" 16 Origen C. Cels. 3.26, trans. slightly modified of Chadwick, Origen, 144. Cp. Cels. 3.3, quoted below (§ 3.2). 17 Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus (63–4 Colonna), trans. of Dillon/Russell, Aeneas, 50.
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Ï (F Ú Ï ; ? &8 8 ) while rejecting the true facts of Christian resurrection.18 Nevertheless, Aeneas willingly includes Aristeas among the material to be compared with the Christian concept of resurrection. J. D. P. Bolton argues that Aeneas’s account “is a careless compilation from Origen, it would appear.”19 None of these texts contain much reflection on the nature of Aristeas’s post-mortem existence. With reference to Herodotus’s account, Bolton writes that “the dead body is animated and rapt away by some supernatural agency (Apollo he supposes)” and that the Arimaspae was “composed by a ghost (or rather, a zombie!).”20 This is possible, but Herodotus does not explicitly say that Aristeas’s corpse was animated. He does use “ghost” (or “spectre” (Ì) and “spectral apparition of the person” (Ù (? ! :) to describe Aristeas’s post-mortem identity. His composition of a poem after his death indicates an ability to manipulate physical objects. But this ability does not prove that he was a “zombie.” Herodotus’s use of (Ì to describe the being that had sexual intercourse with Demaratus of Sparta’s mother is instructive. She tells him: On the third night after Ariston had brought me to his house, there came to me an appearance like to Ariston, and lay with me, and then put on me the garlands which he had. È † ? ] / , Ú W Ù F : D !8 (? ∞& ] , !Ó &Ó ˆ (? ˆ ∂ Ú ! .21
Ariston determines that the garlands came from the shrine of Astrobacus and “the diviners declared that it was the same hero, Astrobacus, that had visited me” ( &Ó " ? Ù ÃÙ • ∂).22 She told her son that she conceived him on that same night.23 Consequently, it is clear that an “apparition” ((Ì) can take bodily form in Herodotus, and Astrobacus is a hero and not a revenant or zombie. Another spectre appears in the battle of Marathon, according to Herodotus, and kills a soldier next to Epizelus, who saw the figure (Ù &Ó (? / Ù Ó 5 ! ), Ù &Ó / ? )).24 Again, an apparition takes bodily form, but is not apparently a “zombie.” A spectre of a woman appears to the Greeks in a sea battle against Xerxes and encourages them to fight 18 Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus (63 Colonna), trans. of Dillon/Russell, Aeneas, 50. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.18. 19 Bolton, Aristeas, 212. 20 Bolton, Aristeas, 120. Cp. ibid., 127, 130, 170 (the “appearance of Aristeas’ ghost in Italy centuries after his disappearance”), 174. 21 Herodotus 6.69, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 2.217. 22 Herodotus 6.69, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 2.219. 23 Herodotus 6.69: ? E Ú W 8. 24 Herodotus 6.117.
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((? ( Ù (?).25 No bodily characteristics accompany her appearance, however. What is missing from all accounts other than that of Herodotus is any description of the post-mortem Aristeas as a “ghost” ((Ì, (Ì, N& , Ì, & , Ô(5, ƒ, etc.). In addition, the stories of his appearances do not resemble the large number of Greco-Roman ghost stories collected by Antonio Stramaglia.26 Philinnion, for example, reappears and then dies. In Proclus’s version she is not necessarily a revenant, although Phlegon calls her a ghost.27 A classic tale of a ghost, for example, in Cassius Dio depicts a spirit that appeared and then vanished, as all ghosts ultimately do: For shortly before this time a spirit [daimōn], claiming to be the famous Alexander of Macedon, and resembling him in looks and general appearance, set out from the regions along the Ister, after first appearing there in some manner or other, and proceeded through Moesia and Thrace, revelling in company with four hundred male attendants, who were equipped with thyrsi and fawn skins and did no harm … Then taking ship, it landed in the territory of Chalcedon, and there, after performing some sacred rites by night and burying a wooden horse, it vanished. ¿ Ï & ] 85& ¡ ® &S ) ∂ 8
Ú Ù ∂& Ã 7 b (8 , › 7! Ú Ù º , Ã ∂&í ≈ W ( , Ú &? F ] Ú F & 5F ! I í & , ! , Ú I & 8 , Ù Ã&Ó & : Ö ! Ï 5! Ú 8 Ó E # &c E, ) &Ó & Ù " ? 7 Ú μ 5 : ( 8 .28
Although Aristeas vanished, the primary difference between the accounts of his post-mortem appearances and the ghost in Cassius Dio are (with the exception of Herodotus) that Aristeas is not called a “ghost,” but a “god” or “hero,” and he is to be worshipped. In Herodotus’s narrative, however, Aristeas demands a statue next to Apollo’s altar, and the oracle of Delphi tells the Metapontines to obey his wishes – which implies some kind of divine honors. Plutarch’s account of the ghost who visits Brutus before Philippi (and then disappears [](!8 &í Ã]) includes various terms for an apparition.29 Consequently, most authors who describe Aristeas’s appearances after his death distinguish them from those of ghosts. Apparently some pagans considered Aristeas to be a competitor to Jesus, since Eusebius notes that Hiero25
Herodotus 8.84. Stramaglia, Res inauditae. 27 Phlegon De mir. 1.18 (Ù (Ì), cf. § 1.7 below and cp. chapt. 2 § 1.28. 28 Cassius Dio 79.18.1, 3, trans. of Dio’s Roman History, 9 vols., LCL, trans. E. Cary, Cambridge, MA 1914–27, 9.473–5. 29 Plutarch Brut. 36.1–37.1 & Ú ƒ (terrifying and strange apparition), Ù (? (ghost), ¡ Ù Ö & (your evil daimōn). 26
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cles passed over the Proconnesian as “too old” and instead chose to compare Jesus unfavorably with Apollonius of Tyana. After quoting a statement of Hierocles that pagans have an opinion superior to that of Christians (who boast of Jesus’s miracles) about “men who are endowed with miraculous powers” ( Ú 8 30 & > :), Eusebius writes: And in addition to these statements, he passes over Aristeas the Proconnesian and Pythagoras as too ancient … Ú Ú Ù 7 ] 8 Ú ! › i 8 !S ...31
It is not possible to know if Hierocles was interested in Aristeas’s disappearance from the fuller’s shop. 1.2 Romulus Cicero appears to be convinced of Romulus’s virtue, but perhaps less convinced of his translation into heaven, in a text written between 54 and 41 B.C.E.: When Romulus had reigned thirty-seven years and had devised these two extraordinary foundations of the republic, the taking of auspices and the senate, he had achieved so much that when he did not appear after a sudden obscuring of the sun, he was thought to have been placed among the group of the gods. No mortal could ever have attained that opinion without outstanding glory based on his virtue. And that should be admired in the case of Romulus. Others who are said to have become gods from human beings were of less accomplished human eras, so the process of fabricating was easy because the ignorant were easily urged to believe. But we notice that the age of Romulus was less than six hundred years ago, when literature and learning were already of long duration, and all of the earlier error from uncivilized human life had been eliminated. Ac Romulus cum septem et triginta regnavisset annos, et haec egregia duo firmamenta rei publicae peperisset, auspicia et senatum, tantum est consecutus, ut cum subito sole obscurato non conparuisset, deorum in numero conlocatus putaretur; quam opinionem nemo umquam mortalis adsequi potuit sine eximia virtutis gloria. atque hoc eo magis est in Romulo admirandum, quod ceteri qui dii ex hominibus facti esse dicuntur, minus eruditis 30 Eus. Hier. 2 (Eusèbe de Césarée, Contre Hiéroclès, intro. and trans. M. Forrat and ed. É. des Places, SC 333, Paris 1986, 102). Forrat notes that Strabo 17.1.17 ( Ï ! [the miracles of the oracles there]) and other texts are example of this word meaning “marvelous powers.” IGUR I, 148 = Edelstein, Asclepius T 438 recounts a healing of a blind man during the reign of one of the Antonines (212–17?): … ü Ú Ô Ú / I ] Û (… living wonders happened during the reign of our Antoninus Augustus). In an inscription from Crete (Lebena) a woman, cured from a bad sore on her finger, saw many wonders of the god [Asclepius] in her sleep: ∞&] / &Ô Û Ï[ ! !í —]/. Cf. IC I 17, 19 = Edelstein, Asclepius T 442. 31 Eus. Hier. 2 (102 Forrat/des Places). Cp. Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana ... Eusebius’s Reply to Hierocles, LCL, ed. and trans. C. P. Jones, Cambridge, MA 2006, 158–9.
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hominum saeculis fuerunt, ut fingendi proclivis esset ratio, cum imperiti facile ad credendum inpellerentur, Romuli autem aetatem minus his sescentis annis iam inveteratis litteris atque doctrinis omnique illo antiquo ex inculta hominum vita errore sublato fuisse cernimus.32
Cicero includes this tradition of the appearance to Julius, but is skeptical: But indeed there was such a force of strength of spirit and virtue, that one believed Julius Proculus, a rustic individual, about Romulus – something that already many centuries before no mortal people had believed; he, at the instigation of the fathers, so that they could thereby dispel the odium over the death/disappearance33 of Romulus, is reputed to have said in the popular assembly that Romulus was seen by him on the hill that is now called the Quirinal. He commanded him to ask the people that a temple be built to him on that hill; and that he was a god and was to be called Quirinus. sed profecto tanta fuit in eo vis ingenii atque virtutis, ut id de Romulo Proculo Iulio homini agresti crederetur, quod multis iam ante saeclis nullo alio de mortali homines credidissent; qui inpulsu patrum, quo illi a se invidiam interitus Romuli pellerent, in contione dixisse fertur, a se visum esse in eo colle Romulum qui nunc Quirinalis vocatur; eum sibi mandasse ut populum rogaret, ut sibi eo in colle delubrum fieret; se deum esse et Quirinum vocari.34
Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg insists that this tradition (i.e., “the instigation of the fathers”) is a “completely groundless suspicion, which is wholely in contradiction” to everything Cicero had earlier written.35 Clearly the status of Julius Proculus varies (from patrician in Plutarch’s account, for example, to simple rustic in Cicero’s).36 Jean Gagé remarks that Cicero’s Republic comprises the most conservative image of the Romulus tradition, although he did not ignore the other versions.37 Scipio, who is speaking in Cicero’s text, does not include any traditions of Romulus’s murder. A fragment of Cicero’s Republic, preserved by Augustine, clarifies Cicero’s concept of translation: For while asserting that Hercules and Romulus were deified human beings, he has this to say: “Their bodies were not taken up into heaven, indeed Nature would not allow what comes of the earth to dwell anywhere but on the earth.” 32 Cic. Rep. 2.17–8, trans. of Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Republic and On the Laws, trans. with intro. notes, and indexes by D. Fott, Ithaca 2014, 67–8. 33 The OLD s.v. lists “the fact or process of being destroyed, dissolution” as one of the possible meanings of this word, along with “violent death.” 34 Cic. Rep. 2.20, trans. done with respect to that of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Der Staat. Lateinisch und Deutsch, ed. and trans. K. Büchner, Munich 51993, 111–13. 35 J. von Ungern-Sternberg, Römische Studien, Geschichtsbewusstsein – Zeitalter der Gracchen Krise der Republik, Munich 2006, 42. 36 Plutarch’s account is quoted below. Cf. M. Lobe, Die subtile Kunst der Entlarvung von Ideologien. Livius und Ovid als Aufklärer in augusteischer Zeit, in: Augustus. Kunst, Kultur und Kaisertum, ed. R. Kussl, Speyer 2015, 96–114, esp. 111. Lobe also gives evidence about the origin of the name “Proculus.” 37 J. Gagé, Le témoignage de Julius Proculus (sur l’assomption de Romulus-Quirinus) et les prodiges fulguratoires dans l’ancien Ritus comitialis, AnCl 41 (1972) 49–77, esp. 62.
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nam cum Herculem et Romulum ex hominibus deos esse factos adseveraret, quorum non corpora inquit sunt in caelum elata; neque enim natura pateretur, ut id quod esset e terra nisi in terra maneret.38
Cicero, like Plutarch, objected to the concept of earthly flesh in heaven.39 In a discussion of the deification of benefactors such as Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, and Liber, Cicero also mentions Romulus and argues: And these benefactors were duly deemed divine, as being both supremely good and immortal, because their souls survived and enjoyed eternal life. quorum cum remanerent animi atque aeternitate fruerentur, rite di sunt habiti, cum et optimi essent et aeterni.40
Only the soul goes to heaven, not the body. Augustine remarks that some philosophers used Cicero’s text against the Christian belief in the resurrection of bodies.41 Cicero’s skepticism is more obvious in a passage from the beginning of De legibus, where Marcus (the fictional Cicero) asks Atticus about the tradition: Marcus: “I’ll certainly give you a reply,42 but not before you yourself, Atticus, answer me whether Romulus in fact, while walking not far from your house after his disappearance, told Proculus Julius that he was a god and was called Quirinus, and he ordered a temple to be dedicated to him in that place, and whether it is true that also not far from that venerable home of yours in Athens the North Wind carried off Orithyia;43 for thus it has been related.” Atticus: “For what purpose and why do you ask these things?” Marcus: “For no reason at all except in order that you not inquire too closely into those things which have been handed on to posterity in this way.” Atticus: “But it is asked of many things in your ‘Marius’ whether they are true or have been invented. Some demand the truth from you because it involves recent times and a man from Arpinum.”44 Marcus: “By god [by Heracles], I do not want to be considered a liar, but nevertheless, those ‘some’ of yours, Titus, act unwisely, who in that trial of yours purpose to exact the truth not as from a poet but as if from a witness in the court room. I have no doubt that these same fellows think that Numa conversed with Egeria,45 and that an eagle46 placed a cap upon Tarquin’s head.”
38 Aug. Civ. 22.4 = Cic. Rep. 3.32 (SBCO 109 Powell), trans. of Augustine, City of God, trans. H. Bettenson, Hammandsworth, UK 1972, 1026. 39 Cp. Rohde, Psyche, 2.373 (on the view that for Cicero only souls exist in eternity). See Cic. N.D. 2.62 and Plutarch Rom. 28.7–10 below. 40 Cic. N.D. 2.62, trans. of Rackham, Cicero, De natura, 183. 41 Aug. Civ. 22.4: sed uidelicet homines docti atque sapientes … acute sibi argumentari uidentur aduersus corporum resurrectionem. 42 To a query about an oak tree in his poem, “Marius.” 43 See Apollodorus Bibl. 3.15.1–2 (3.196 Wagner) and Plato Phaedr. 229B–D (with a rationalist explanation). 44 Arpinum (Cic. Leg. 1.1) featured in Cicero’s poem, “Marius,” and was the location for an oak tree mentioned in the poem. Marius was from Arpinum. 45 Liv. 1.19.5 and 1.21.3 (the tradition that Numa received his “sacral laws” from Egeria). Cf. A. R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero De legibus, Ann Arbor 2004, 67.
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Quintus: “I understand you, my brother, to say that one set of rules is to be observed in writing history, and another in poetry.” Marcus: Of course, Quintus, since in the former everything is recorded with a view to truth, whereas in the latter several things are related with a view to giving delight – although even in Herodotus, the father of history, and in Theopompus there are countless tales. 1.3 MARCUS. Respondebo tibi equidem, sed non ante quam mihi tu ipse responderis, Attice, certene non longe a tuis aedibus inambulans post excessum suum Romulus Proculo Iulio dixerit se deum esse et Quirinum vocari templumque sibi dedicari in eo loco iusserit, et verum ne sit, ut Athenis non longe item a tua illa antiqua domo Orithyiam Aquilo sustulerit; sic enim est traditum. 4 ATTICUS. Quorsum tandem aut cur ista quaeris? MARCUS. Nihil sane, nisi ne nimis diligenter inquiras in ea, quae isto modo memoriae sint prodita. ATTICUS. Atqui multa quaeruntur in Mario fictane an vera sint, et a non nullis, quod et in recenti memoria et in Arpinati homine versere, veritas a te postulatur. MARCUS. Et mehercule ego me cupio non mendacem putari; sed tamen non nulli isti, Tite noster, faciunt imperite, qui in isto periculo47 non ut a poeta, sed ut a teste veritatem exigant; nec dubito, quin iidem et cum Egeria conlocutum Numam et ab aquila Tarquinio apicem inpositum putent. 5 QUINTUS. Intellego te, frater, alias in historia leges observandas putare, alias in poemate. MARCUS. Quippe, quom in illa omnia ad veritatem, Quinte, referantur, in hoc ad delectationem pleraque; quamquam et apud Herodotum, patrem historiae, et apud Theopompum sunt innumerabiles fabulae.48
The entire discussion seems marked by Cicero’s doubt about the historical reliability of the appearance to Proculus Julius. Nevertheless, “the worship of Quirinus among deified mortals is duly stipulated in the religious laws of book 2.”49 Cicero’s phrases, est traditum (“it has been related”) and memoriae sint prodita (“handed on to posterity”), show that “Cicero is concerned here with the nature and proper treatment of tralatician50 traditions,” according to Gary Forsythe. One may compare these phrases with Paul’s 8& Ï Õ) :, √ Ú 8 I (For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received; NRSV) in 1 Cor 15:3, where he uses the active voice and expresses no skepticism about the tradition. Another contrast is Paul’s insistence that some of the 500 individuals to whom the risen Jesus 46
See Ennius Ann. 3.139–40 (The Annals of Q. Ennius, ed., intro., and comm. O. Skutsch, Oxford 1985, 83) = 3.147 (26 Vahlen) who mentions the eagle, but not the cap. Dyck, Commentary, 67 believes that Ennius probably used the term (apex). 47 Dyck, Commentary, 66 argues that “‘nonnulli’ isti (‘those nonnulli of yours’) suggests that istum periculum may mean ‘that trial of yours,’ i.e., the adjudication, as proposed by Atticus, of the truth or falsehood of the incidents narrated in the Marius, the metaphor being continued in ut a teste.” 48 Cic. Leg. 1.3–5, trans. slightly modified of G. Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome. A Study in Historical Method and Judgment, Hist. 132, Stuttgart 1999, 49–50. 49 S. Cole, Cicero and the Rise of Deification at Rome, Cambridge 2013, 104 (Cic. Leg. 2.19). 50 A term for commentary (or literary criticism) “containing large amounts of material that can be found, sometimes verbatim, in earlier commentaries on the same work”; cf. C. S. Kraus and C. Stray, Form and Content, in: Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre, ed. C. S. Kraus and C. Stray, Oxford 2016, 1–20, esp. 9.
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appeared are still living (1 Cor 15:6). These individuals, and the others in Paul’s list, resemble the “witness in a courtroom” (teste) to whom Cicero refers in his response to those who demand historical truth from a poet. Forsythe continues, “Cicero’s strict standards for historical truth and far more indulgent expectations of poetry are paralleled by the contrast made in Livy’s preface between poeticis fabulis and incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis.”51 He concludes: Romulus’ deification and epiphany to Proculus Julius, Numa’s conversing with the nymph Egeria, and the omen of the eagle placing a cap on Tarquinius Priscus’ head, all of which, Cicero suggests, should be given their proper respect, but an intelligent person cannot actually be expected to give them credence.52
It is apparent that Cicero’s locates the tradition of Julius Proculus in the realm of poetic truth. Livy composed the first five books of his history between 27 and 25 B.C.E.53 After describing Romulus’s deeds, he describes his disappearance: [1.16.1] When these deathless deeds had been done, as the king was holding a muster in the Campus Martius, near the swamp of Capra, for the purpose of reviewing the army, suddenly a storm came up, with loud claps of thunder, and enveloped him in a cloud so thick as to hide him from the sight of the assembly; and from that moment Romulus was no more on earth. [2] The Roman soldiers at length recovered from their panic, when this hour of wild confusion had been succeeded by a sunny calm; but when they saw that the royal seat was empty, although they readily believed the assertion of the senators, who had been standing next to Romulus, that he had been caught up on high in the blast, they nevertheless remained for some time sorrowful and silent, as if filled with the fear of orphanhood. [3] Then, when a few men had taken the initiative, they all with one accord hailed Romulus as a god and a god’s son, the King and Father of the Roman City, and with prayers besought his favour that he would graciously be pleased forever to protect his children. [4] There were some, I believe, even then who secretly asserted that the king had been rent in pieces by the hands of the senators, for this rumour, too, got abroad, but in very obscure terms; the other version obtained currency, owing to men’s admiration for the hero and the intensity of their panic. 16 1 His inmortalibus editis operibus cum ad exercitum recensendum contionem in campo ad Caprae paludem haberet, subito coorta tempestas cum magno fragore tonitribusque tam denso regem operuit nimbo, ut conspectum eius contioni abstulerit; nec deinde in terris Romulus fuit. 2 Romana pubes sedato tandem pavore, postquam ex tam turbido die serena et tranquilla lux rediit, ubi vacuam sedem regiam vidit, etsi satis credebat patribus, qui proxumi steterant, sublimem raptum procella,54 tamen velut orbitatis metu icta 51 Forsythe, Livy, 50, with ref. to Liv. praef. 6. He translates these phrases, respectively, as “poetic tales” and “the uncontaminated records of events” (ibid., 42). 52 Forsythe, Livy, 50. 53 J. Briscoe, Livy (RE 9) (Titus Livius), OLD4, 852–3. 54 Gagé, Le témoignage, 76, noting that the ancients often explain Proculus using the word procul, writes that one is tempted to relate procella (violent storm) to procul (far away), although it is an incorrect etymology. Cf. Paul. Fest.: Proculum inter cognomina eum dicunt, qui natus est patre peregrinante a patria procul “they affirm that Proculus is itself one of the
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maestum aliquamdiu silentium obtinuit. 3 deinde a paucis initio facto deum deo natum, regem parentemque urbis Romanae salvere universi Romulum iubent; pacem precibus exposcunt, uti volens propitius suam semper sospitet progeniem. 4 Fuisse credo tum quoque aliquos, qui discerptum regem patrum manibus taciti arguerent; manavit enim haec quoque, sed perobscura fama; illam alteram admiratio viri et pavor praesens nobilitavit.55
Gagé compares Livy’s phrase, nec deinde in terris Romulus fuit (from that moment Romulus was no longer on earth), with that of the elogium of Aeneas found in Pompeii (et subito nusquam comparuit [and suddenly he disappeared]).56 Livy apparently did not wish to decide which version was correct. Ann Vasaly writes, The modern critic presented with the alternatives between apotheosis and murder in the account of the disappearance that ends Romulus’ reign, expects Livy to state which of these alternatives he accepts and why … Instead, he again draws the reader’s attention to the division in feelings between the patres and populus, illustrated by the immediate aftermath of the event.57
One can contrast the attitude of the historian with that of the NT toward the resurrection of Jesus, although Matt 28:13–15 is an alternate explanation of the empty tomb, and there is skepticism about Jesus’s resurrection (Acts 25:19, Porcius Festus) and resurrection in general in Acts 17:32 (the Epicureans and Stoics). The historian includes Romulus’s subsequent appearance to Proculus Julius. [5] And the shrewd device of one man is also said to have gained new credit for the story. [6] This was Proculus Julius, who, when the people were distracted with the loss of their king and in no friendly mood towards the senate, being, as tradition tells, weighty in council, were the matter never so important, addressed the assembly as follows: “Quirites, the Father of this City, Romulus, descended suddenly from the sky at dawn this morning and appeared to me. Covered with confusion, I stood reverently before him, praying that it might be vouchsafed me to look upon his face without sin. [7] “Go,” said he, “and declare to the Romans the will of Heaven that my Rome shall be the capital of the world; so let them cherish the art of war, and let them know and teach their children that no human strength can resist Roman arms.” [8] So saying,” he concluded, “Romulus departed on high.” It is wonderful what credence the people placed in that man’s tale, and how the
cognomens – one who was born of a father who was sojourning far from his ancestral land” (BiTeu 251 Lindsay). 55 Liv. 1.16.1–4, trans. of Foster, Livy, 1.57–9. Cf. Colpe, et al., Jenseitsfahrt I, 421–4. 56 Gagé, Le témoignage, 51. Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.2. He also (ibid., 65) argues that pubes Romana refers to the youth. He (ibid., passim) gives a sociological explanation of the entire account (a ritus comitialis, which comprised a collective sacrifice of king, the Patres, and the youth that resulted in the integration of the youth into the body of Quirites). 57 A. Vasaly, Livy’s Political Philosophy. Power and Personality in Early Rome, New York 2015, 40.
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grief for the loss of Romulus, which the plebeians and the army felt, was quieted by the assurance of his immortality. 5 et consilio etiam unius hominis addita rei dicitur fides. namque Proculus Iulius, sollicita civitate desiderio regis et infensa patribus, gravis, ut traditur, quamvis magnae rei auctor, in contionem prodit. 6 “Romulus” inquit, “Quirites, parens urbis huius, prima hodierna luce caelo repente delapsus se mihi obvium dedit. cum perfusus horrore venerabundus adstitissem, petens precibus, ut contra intueri fas esset, 7 “abi, nuntia” inquit “Romanis caelestes ita velle, ut mea Roma caput orbis terrarum sit; proinde rem militarem colant sciantque et ita posteris tradant nullas opes humanas armis Romanis resistere posse.” 8 “haec” inquit “locutus sublimis abiit.” mirum, quantum illi viro nuntianti haec fidei fuerit quamque desiderium Romuli apud plebem exercitumque facta fide inmortalitatis lenitum sit.58
Livy’s dicitur (is said) and ut traditur (as it is related) are important qualifications of the “tale” of Proculus Julius according to Forsythe.59 Romulus’s disappearance and subsequent appearances as a god apparently captivated the imagination of Rome. Vasaly observes that Livy, in his own voice, approves the view that Romulus was divine, in a passage that precedes the ones quoted above60: Such were the principal achievements of the reign of Romulus, at home and in the field, nor is any of them incompatible with the belief in his divine origin and the divinity which was ascribed to the king after his death, whether one considers his spirit in recovering the kingdom of his ancestors, or his wisdom in founding the City and in strengthening it by warlike and peaceful measures. Haec ferme Romulo regnante domi militiaeque gesta, quorum nihil absonum fidei divinae originis divinitatisque post mortem creditae fuit, non animus in regno avito recuperando, non condendae urbis consilium, non bello ac pace firmandae.61
For Livy, the belief (fides) in Romulus’s divinity is fully credible. Because of his deeds, Livy’s conclusion is that “there is no obvious need to doubt his divine birth or later deification.”62 Nevertheless, he does not indicate that he himself placed unqualified faith (belief) in the report of the appearance to Proculus. He does, however, insist that many accepted the account of Romulus’s miraculous apotheosis. Dionysius Halicarnassus wrote the fist part of his Roman Antiquities in 7 B.C.E., twenty-two years after he had arrived in Rome (30/29 B.C.E.).63 He includes two versions of Romulus’s death. He also includes a reference to the
58
Liv. 1.16.5–8, trans. of Foster, Livy, 1.59–61. Forsythe, Livy, 50–1. 60 Vasaly, Livy’s Political Philosophy, 41. 61 Liv. 1.15.6, trans. of Foster, Livy, 1.57. 62 Hawes, Rationalizing Myth, 172. 63 Dionysius Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1.3.4, 1.7.2 and cf. D. Russell, Dionysius (7) of Halicarnassus, 4OCD, 460–1 (mentions no specific dates). 59
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rape of Romulus’s mother who was a Vestal virgin in some traditions.64 Neither version actually claims that he was buried in a tomb, although his body did disappear in each account. These are the memorable wars which Romulus waged. His failure to subdue any more of the neighbouring nations seems to have been due to his sudden death, which happened while he was still in the vigour of his age for warlike achievements. There are many different stories concerning it. Those who give a rather fabulous account of his life say that while he was haranguing his men in the camp, sudden darkness rushed down out of a clear sky and a violent storm burst, after which he was nowhere to be seen; and these writers believe that he was caught up into heaven by his father, Mars. But those who write the more plausible accounts say that he was killed by his own people; and the reason they allege for his murder is that he released without the common consent, contrary to custom, the hostages he had taken from the Veientes … For these reasons, they say, the patricians formed a conspiracy against him and resolved to slay him; and having carried out the deed in the senate-house, they divided his body into several pieces, that it might not be seen, and then came out, each one hiding his part of the body under his robes, and afterwards burying it in secret. Others say that while haranguing the people he was slain by the new citizens of Rome, and that they undertook the murder at the time when the rain and the darkness occurred, the assembly of the people being then dispersed and their chief left without his guard. And for this reason, they say, the day on which this event happened got its name from the flight of the people and is called Populifugia down to our times. Be that as it may, the incidents that occurred by the direction of Heaven in connexion with this man’s conception and death would seem to give no small authority to the view of those who make gods of mortal men and place the souls of illustrious persons in heaven. For they say that at the time when his mother was violated, whether by some man or by a god, there was a total eclipse of the sun and a general darkness as in the night covered the earth, and that at his death the same thing happened. °” 8 " ç 9 Ú 7 ;5. &Ó &Ó > ! Õ 8! ) I Ia > ? Ã2 Ï 8 ? ∞c 8! >&5 H Ú ß Ú &8& Ú &?( . " Ó “ ! &8 Ï Ú Ã ?? ( ÃÙ Ú 8& ( 7 5 ∞! Ú ? 8 (F 8! Ú ÕÙ Ù ê Ù ;& ?!H " &Ó Ï !: ?( Ù ∞& 8 ÃÙ ! ). ∞ &Ó F 8 à (8 7 ;( ¡7 , œ Ï °Ã > I , ; F : 8 Ï Ù ∞ ! , Ö &Ï & 8 Ï ∞ ? í Ã2 ˆ I Ù ( , a5 &Ó Ù > 2 I 9 Ú & Ù Ï 8 ? (F Ù Ù 5 ! ) ÕÙ ) I ) ≈ A ∂ à 8 Ú Ï E Ï Ù (8. " &í ? Ó Ã ( ÕÙ ç !F, F &í È 2 ( 9 !í √ & & Ú Ù 8 & &!8 F &7 Ú !8 F ( F . &Ï ( 8 Þ Ù ?! 8 F F 7! : ∂ Ú 8 !í a 64
Liv. 1.4.2 (raped by Mars according to her), Plutarch Rom. 3.2–3.
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ƒ ( )!. > &í Ã Ï ( 8 ) ! Ï !Ï Ú ∞ Ã Ù II? Ï Ï ( Ï I? ! Ú & Ù Ú &? . > Ï 2 I2 F Ù Ã N!í Õí ! : Ù N!í ÕÙ ! 89 Ù • ) ( ≈ Ú · Ú F ) > E E Ã ÃÙ IF 8 ?!.65
The eclipse at his death is a credible detail for Dionysius (as with the authors of the Gospels). The sources Dionysius used are not clear, although he was one of the sources for Plutarch’s account.66 Dionysius seems skeptical of the miraculous version in which Romulus’s body disappeared, because he charges those responsible for that tradition with creating fabulous or mythical accounts of him (" Ó “ ! &8 Ï Ú Ã ). M. David Litwa insists, however, that although Dionysius accepts a “rationalized” version of Romulus’s death, he nevertheless is willing to honor him as one who “became greater than human nature.”67 Numa founded a temple for Romulus, according to Dionysius: He also ordered that Romulus himself, as one who had shown a greatness beyond mortal nature, should be honoured, under the name of Quirinus, by the erection of a temple and by sacrifices throughout the year. For while the Romans were yet in doubt whether divine providence or human treachery had been the cause of his disappearance, a certain man, named Julius, descended from Ascanius, who was a husbandman and of such a blameless life that he would never have told an untruth for his private advantage, arrived in the Forum and said that, as he was coming in from the country, he saw Romulus departing from the city fully armed and that, as he drew near to him, he heard him say these words: “Julius, announce to the Romans from me, that the genius to whom I was allotted at my birth is conducting me to the gods, now that I have finished my mortal life, and that I am Quirinus.” Ã Ù ç › ¢ Ï ! ( " E Ú ! & >5 )
!. > Ï Ù (Ù Ã ç N Ï & Ní 5 I F ! 8 , !: ∞ Ï ∏ ƒ í ] Ù Ú Ù I , ∑ &Ó i ! 8 & A ∞ , >( 5 ç ∞& ) F > Ï ≈ , Ú &
ˆ 8 Ã 8 H ê
65 Dionysius Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 2.56.1–6, trans. of The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassus, 7 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. E. Cary, Cambridge, MA 1937–1950, 1.473–5. 66 J. Neel, Legendary Rivals. Collegiality and Ambition in Tales of Early Rome, Leiden 2015, 74–7 (Dionysius’s sources), 143, 72 (use by Plutarch). 67 Dionysius Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 2.63.3 (Numa’s words). Cf. Litwa, Iesus Deus, 164.
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ç ∏ Ï í , ≈ ¡ S ≈í & ∞ ! ˆ ; Ù !Ù : ∞ H ∞Ú &Ó ).68
Adela Yarbro Collins remarks that “Dionysius differs from Livy in placing the appearance of Romulus to Julius when Romulus is about to be transferred to heaven, rather than after he had been taken up.”69 Dionysius does not appear to be skeptical of this narrative, so there is a certain inconsistency in his approach to the problem of Romulus’s disappearance. Ovid wrote his Metamorphoses shortly before his exile of 8 C.E.70 He depicts Jupiter promising Mars the right to translate Romulus to immortality: Gradivus [Mars] knew this for the assured sign of the translation which had been promised him; and, leaning on his spear, dauntless he mounted his chariot drawn by steeds straining beneath the bloody yoke, and swung the loud-resounding lash. Gliding downward through the air, he halted on the summit of the wooded Palatine. There, as Ilia’s son was giving kindly judgment to his citizens, he caught him up from earth. His mortal part dissolved into thin air, as a leaden bullet hurled by a broad sling is wont to melt away in the mid-heavens. And now a fair form clothes him, worthier of the high couches of the gods, such form as has Quirinus, clad in the sacred robe. quae sibi promissae sensit data signa rapinae, innixusque hastae pressos temone cruento inpavidus conscendit equos Gradivus et ictu verberis increpuit pronusque per aera lapsus constitit in summo nemorosi colle Palati reddentemque suo non regia iura Quiriti abstulit Iliaden: corpus mortale per auras dilapsum tenues, ceu lata plumbea funda missa solet medio glans intabescere caelo; pulchra subit facies et pulvinaribus altis dignior est qualis trabeati forma Quirini.71
Ovid’s insistence that the mortal part of Romulus’s body was dissolved (corpus mortale … dilapsum) is important. It is consistent with the later approach of Plutarch who did not believe that Romulus’s physical remains were taken to heaven. Jean-Claude Richard argues that Julius Proculus was a witness to an epiphany of the deified Romulus, and not of his apotheosis, until the account was transformed after the apotheosis of Augustus in 14 C.E.72 68
Dionysius Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 2.63.3, trans. of Cary, Dionysius, 1.495. A. Yarbro Collins, Ancient Notions of Transferal and Apotheosis, in: Metamorphoses. Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, ed. T. K. Seim and J. Økland, Berlin 2009, 41–58 esp., 50, and see Livy above. 70 S. Hinds, Ovid, OLD4, 1054–7, esp. 1055. 71 Ov. Met. 14.818–28, trans. of Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. J. Miller, Cambridge, MA 1916, 2.359. Cp. Ov. Fasti 2.119–44, 481–512. 72 J.-C. Richard, Enée, Romulus, César et les funérailles impériales (Dion Cassius 56, 34, 2; Tacite, Annales, 4, 9, 3), MEFRA 78 (1966) 67–78, esp. 77–8. Cp. Cassius Dio 56.46.2 in chapt. 5 § 2.2. 69
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Plutarch is ambiguous concerning the death or immediate translation of Romulus. Suspicion fell upon the senate when he disappeared suddenly: Wherefore suspicion and calumny fell upon that body when he disappeared unaccountably a short time after. He disappeared on the Nones of July, as they now call the month, then Quintilis, leaving no certain account nor even any generally accepted tradition of his death, aside from the date of it, which I have just given. For on that day many ceremonies are still performed which bear a likeness to what then came to pass. ≈! ∞ Õ Ú &I 8
(!8 Ã í ¿ . †(! &Ó : ∏ › ¿?, › &Ó , , Ã&Ó ∞ ) I8I Ã&í ¡ !8! Ú F F :, í ¢ Ù , › . & a Ï > ≈ 2 ?! Ï Ï 8 .73
The only clear fact is the date of his disappearance (July 7).74 The ambiguity is probably due to his use of Dionysius. The absence of Romulus’s body gave rise to the variant traditions already noted by his predecessors: And yet Scipio’s dead body lay exposed for all to see, and all who beheld it formed therefrom some suspicion and conjecture of what had happened to it; whereas Romulus disappeared suddenly, and no portion of his body or fragment of his clothing remained to be seen. But some conjectured that the senators, convened in the temple of Vulcan, fell upon him and slew him, then cut his body in pieces, put each a portion into the folds of his robe, and so carried him away. Others think that it was neither in the temple of Vulcan nor when the senators alone were present that he disappeared, but that he was holding an assembly of the people outside the city near the so‑called Goat’s Marsh, when suddenly strange and unaccountable disorders with incredible changes filled the air; the light of the sun failed, and night came down upon them, not with peace and quiet, but with awful peals of thunder and furious blasts driving rain from every quarter, during which the multitude dispersed and fled, but the nobles gathered closely together; and when the storm had ceased, and the sun shone out, and the multitude, now gathered together again in the same place as before, anxiously sought for their king, the nobles would not suffer them to inquire into his disappearance nor busy themselves about it, but exhorted them all to honour and revere Romulus, since he had been caught up into heaven [“to the gods”], and was to be a benevolent god for them instead of a good king. The multitude, accordingly, believing this and rejoicing in it, went away to worship him with good hopes of his favour; but there were some, it is said, who tested the matter in a bitter and hostile spirit, and confounded the patricians with the accusation of imposing a silly tale upon the people, and of being themselves the murderers of the king. > Ù ( ∞& ) a, Ú Ù ) a ¡ : Õ Ï ?! Ú H ç &í ;( ?5 – 8 ‡(! : – !F. í " Ó N 2 " 2 Â( ˆ I Ï ? Ã2 Ú &(! , Ù Ú 8 A !8 ∞ Ù 5 )H A &í N 7í 2 " 2 Â( 7 I 8! Ù ( , Ï ) Ó 73 74
Plutarch Rom. 27.4 (ed. Ziegler), trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.175. Cp. Cic. Rep. 1.25 (the earliest witness to the date, apparently).
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>5 Ú Ù ∞ Ù [¢ Ù] A ; Ù ç , ;( &Ó !Ï Ú Ú Ù 8 ?! 8! Ú I Ï H Ó Ï Ù ( ), &Ó ) à c ) Ã&í •, Ï I ? & Ï Ú Ï 8 ? ! >H &Ó 9 Ù Ó ˆ ƒ &!8 ( ), ˆ &Ó &ˆ (F í 7 H Ú &í > 5 Ú Ù ( 58 , Ú ∞ ÃÙ ? 8 7 D I 8 Ú !, à a ˆ &ˆ 5 ? Ã&Ó ), Ï a ! a Ú 8I ! ç , › 8 ∞ ! ˆ Ú ! Ù Ã F Ã) I 8 . ˆ Ó “ ˆ !8 Ú ? !, í & ! H ∂ &8 ≥ Ù a Ú & 5 8 ? ˆ Ú &8I , › I8 Ù &F !, È &Ó I 8 à ƒ.75
Greta Hawes argues that “Ultimately, Plutarch prevaricates over which account should be accepted. The relationship between the two accounts appears at first glance to be analogous to that between a traditional account and its rationalistic variant …” However, Plutarch leaves it difficult for the reader to decide what one is “to take from this double account; certainly it cannot be assumed that ‘rationalism’ is intended to trump fabulous accounts, as in the Theseus.”76 In Plutarch’s life of Numa he suggests that the patricians were suspected of being responsible for Romulus’s disappearance, because he seemed to have been dealing with them more harshly and monarchically ( & 4& (8 ! Ú : Ã)).77 Plutarch further complicates matters by including a narrative of an appearance of Romulus to a man named Julius Proculus after he had disappeared. At this pass, then, it is said that one of the patricians, a man of noblest birth, and of the most reputable character, a trusted and intimate friend also of Romulus himself, and one of the colonists from Alba, Julius Proculus by name, went into the forum and solemnly swore by the most sacred emblems before all the people that, as he was travelling on the road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, fair and stately to the eye as never before, and arrayed in bright and shining armour. He himself, then, affrighted at the sight, had said: “O King, what possessed thee, or what purpose hadst thou, that thou hast left us patricians a prey to unjust and wicked accusations, and the whole city sorrowing without end at the loss of its father?” Whereupon Romulus had replied: “It was the pleasure of the gods, O Proculus, from whom I came, that I should be with mankind only a short time,
75
Plutarch Rom. 27.5–9, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.175–77. Hawes, Rationalizing Myth, 169. She notes the abridged version of Romulus’s disappearance in Numa 2.1–3. This is a position that is inconsistent with that of F. E. Brenk, An Imperial Heritage: The Religious Spirit of Plutarch of Chaironea, ANRW II.36/1 (1987) 248– 339, esp. 337 who writes that “The disappearance of Romulus is considered a fable.” Plutarch is not so clear. 77 Plutarch Numa 2.2. On this passage see H. Liebert, Plutarch’s Politics. Between City and Empire, Cambridge 2016, 152. 76
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and that after founding a city destined to be the greatest on earth for empire and glory, I should dwell again in heaven. So farewell, and tell the Romans that if they practise selfrestraint, and add to it valour, they will reach the utmost heights of human power. And I will be your propitious deity [daimōn], Quirinus.” These things seemed to the Romans worthy of belief, from the character of the man who related them, and from the oath which he had taken; moreover, some influence from heaven also, akin to inspiration, laid hold upon their emotions, for no man contradicted Proculus, but all put aside suspicion and calumny and prayed to Quirinus,78 and honoured him as a god. °— “ ;& 8 4! &: Ã2 ç 9 Ù Ú 7!, í ê I , ∏ , ∞ Ï ! Ú U ? > " U? ∞ ) a, › ¡&Ù Ã2 I& ç 5 S ( , Ù Ó ¿(!F Ú 8 › – ! , ≈ &Ó ) Ú ( 8 8. ÃÙ Ó “ Ú Ù ƒ ë‚ I í (?, ë & !S ¢ &! , a Ó ∞ & Ú ), a &Ó ¿ ( 9 8! 8 ;í ) &í !H ë! ) >&5 ‚ a 8! í ! : , Ú í E Ú & 5W W , “! ∞ ) Ã , )! ƒ. Ï ) Ú ( ? ç ≈ ( í & Ú ) ! (5 &? . S &í Õ) Ã > & ).í Ï Ó ∂ ) ç & &Ï Ù 8 Ú &Ï Ù ≈ H Ã Ï Ú & (?! ?! ≈ !2H &8 Ï ), Ï a Õ Ú &I (8 – ! 9 Ú ! ) ).79
In his Life of Numa, Plutarch affirms that Proculus saw Romulus’s ascension: And Proculus, a man of eminence, took oath that he had seen Romulus ascending to heaven in full armour, and had heard his voice commanding that he be called Quirinus. Ú , (7, & ç ∞& ) ∞ Ã Ù ˆ ) ≈ ( , Ú ( F ÃÙ ¿? ! ).80
Plutarch writes that the story of the foundation of Rome is due to Fabius and Diocles of Preparethus81 and admits that its “dramatic and fictitious quality is suspect to some” (— Ó Ú Ù & Ù Ú & ). Given the power of the Roman empire, however, Plutarch is apparently willing to accept the narrative. Paul W. Jacobs and Diane A. Conlin suggest that “The tale of Romulus’s resurrection dates back only to the mid-first century B.C.E., and the use of the name of the patrician Julius 78 On veneration of Romulus as Quirinus, cf. Neel, Legendary Rivals, 114–5 and Cic. Rep. 2.20, Leg. 1.3. The name was associated with Mars (cf. Romulus 29.1, Quaest. rom. 285D). 79 Plutarch Rom. 28.1–3, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.181–3. 80 Plutarch Num. 2.3, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.311. 81 Plutarch Rom. 8.9.
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Proculus suggests it may have been fabricated to promote the ties between Rome’s founder and Julius Caesar and his family.”82 Since Romulus did not die in the miraculous account, “translation” is a better term than “resurrection.” After recounting the narratives of the disappearance of the bodies of Romulus, Aristeas, Cleomedes, and Alcmene, Plutarch explains his understanding of their transformation: In short, many such fables are told by writers who improbably ascribe divinity to the mortal features in human nature, as well as to the divine. At any rate, to reject entirely the divinity of human virtue, were impious and base; but to mix heaven with earth is foolish. Let us therefore take the safe course and grant, with Pindar,83 that “Our bodies all must follow death’s supreme behest, But something living still survives, an image of life, for this alone comes from the gods.” Yes, it comes from them, and to them it returns, not with its body, but only when it is most completely separated and set free from the body, and becomes altogether pure, fleshless, and undefiled. For “a dry soul is best,” according to Heracleitus,84 and it flies from the body as lightning flashes from a cloud. But the soul which is contaminated with body, and surfeited with body, like a damp and heavy exhalation, is slow to release itself and slow to rise towards its source. We must not, therefore, violate nature by sending the bodies of good men with their souls to heaven, but implicitly believe that their virtues and their souls, in accordance with nature and divine justice, ascend from men to heroes, from heroes to demi-gods [daimones], and from demi-gods, after they have been made pure and holy, as in the final rites of initiation, and have freed themselves from mortality and sense, to gods, not by civic law, but in very truth and according to right reason, thus achieving the fairest and most blessed consummation. Ú ≈ Ï ! , Ï Ù ∞Ù ! ? Ï !Ï F ( b ) ! . Ó “ ? ! F F Ú 8, Ã 2 &Ó F I8 . (8 “, 8 F ( , Ï & , › Ó ? A !?9 ! ), 9Ù &í > ∞ N& H Ù ? ! . • Ï )! , ) &í ; , Ã Ï :, í Ï ≈ ? : E Ú & !E Ú 8 ! Ù ? Ú ; Ú U . — Ï 5 !í Â ? , · 8( &8 :. &Ó : ( 8 Ú :, ∑ ! I ! Ú ¡ :&, &85 Ú & . Ã&Ó “ & ) Ï : ! 8 Ï ( ∞ Ã , Ï Ï Ï Ú Ï Ï ? N ! Ï ( Ú & ! Ó ! : ∞ • , &í : ∞ &, &Ó & , i 8 · E 82 P. W. Jacobs II and D. A. Conlin, Campus Martius. The Field of Mars in the Life of Ancient Rome, Cambridge 2014, 35. Cp. M. Koortbojian, The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus, Cambridge 2013, 85. On Julius Proculus and the legend’s use to support the gens Iulia, cf. Gagé, Le témoignage, passim. 83 Pindar frag. 131b Snell. 84 Heraclitus frag. B 118 Diels Kranz.
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! ! Ú ¡ ! , b ( Ù !Ù Ú ! , Ã 9 , í ! c Ú Ï Ù ∞ ∞ ! ˆ (8 !, Ù ? Ú : 8 I.85
Plutarch objected to the deification of the mortal body of Romulus, although he admits that other writers did not. Endsjø characterizes this as Plutarch’s “general attack on the traditional believers who insisted on the physical translation of figures like Alcmene, Romulus, Aristeas of Proconnesus, and Cleomedes of Astypalae, maintaining instead that only the souls of these figures had reached the sphere of the divine.”86 Plutarch, however, may be appealing both to popular opinion and to writers whose accounts he knows.87 Ï ! (“they say many such mythical things”) is vague and cannot be restricted to popular opinion only.88 His subsequent quotations of Pindar and Heraclitus perhaps indicate that he is comparing the views of elite writers with the views of those he regards as purveyors of fable or myth. Rohde argues that faith in the possibility of miraculous translation resulting in the eternal co-existence of body and soul could not die out in “prosaic time.” The people had no trouble believing in such miracles.89 He does note that Cicero and Plutarch both objected to such a view.90 Friedrich Pfister, with regard to the translations of these four individuals (Alcmene, etc.), writes that “All these examples imply that by “translation” (Entrückung) naturally one conceived of a bodily journey to heaven, a bodily removal to the gods.91 The author of the liber de viris illustribus depicts both stages in the legend: When he purified the army near the marsh of the Goat [in the Campus Martius], he disappeared completely; in consequence, when a sedition arose between the Fathers and the people, Julius Proculus, a noble, came to the assembly and swore under oath that Romulus, in an extremely august form, appeared to him as he went to the gods and that he commanded him that they should cease from the seditions and cultivate virtue. Thus they would in the future be the master of all nations. Cum ad Caprae paludem exercitum lustraret, nusquam comparuit; unde inter patres et populum seditione orta Iulius Proculus, vir nobilis, in contionem processit et iureiurando firmavit Romulum a se in colle Quirinali visum augustiore forma, cum ad deos abiret;
85
Plutarch Rom. 28.7–10, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.177–9. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 115. 87 Jan Bremmer has made the point that one must be wary of expressions such as “popular belief,” because although there were sceptics “the better educated are not always less gullible” (personal communication of 14 Sept. 2016). 88 Lieve van Hoof suggests “legend has it that” is close to the original meaning, which refers to myth (personal communication of 14 Sept. 2016). Cf. LSJ s.v. 89 E. Rohde, Psyche, Seelencult und Untersterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 2 vols., Tübingen 81921, 2.373–4. 90 Cic. N.D. 2.62 quoted above and cf. N.D. 3.12 in chapt. 4 § 2.1.11. 91 F. Pfister, Der Reliquienkult im Altertum, 2 vols., RVV 5, Giessen 1909–12, 2.487. 86
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eundemque praecipere, ut seditionibus abstinerent, virtutem colerent; futurum, ut omnium gentium domini exsisterent.92
They built a sanctuary to Romulus on the Quirinal hill, and honored him as the god Quirinus (Aedes in colle Quirinali Romulo constituta, ipse pro deo cultus et Quirinus est appellatus).93 The author then refers to seditions after the consecratio of Romulus (Post consecrationem Romuli).94 The epiphany corresponds to the first stage of the legend, and the consecratio is the second stage.95 Some graffiti indicate a satirical take on Romulus’s deification. Four examples from Pompeii assert “Romulus is in heaven” (Romulus in caelo), a reference to a text of Ennius.96 One of them is more elaborate: Cupronius, by Pollux, (is like) Romulus who rides in Mars’s heaven. Cupr/on/ius / e(de)pol / Romul/us in caelo / Martis / equita(t).97
Another ascribes a prophetic function to Romulus: Romulus is in heaven, now one who makes prognostications. Romu/lu[s] in c(a)e(lo) / nunc omentor98
The relevant fragment of Ennius is: “Romulus spends his life in heaven with the gods who created him” (Romulus in caelo cum dis genitalibus aevum / degit).99 Ennius explained the process of his apotheosis: “there will be one whom you [Mars] will bear aloft to heaven’s blue realms” (Unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli / templa).100 This fragment of Ennius may also refer to Romulus, but the identification is doubtful101: “And you, Father Quirinus, I
92 [Aurelius Victor] De viris illustribus 2.13. Trans. done with ref. to that of Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet (www.forumromanum.org). 93 [Aurelius Victor] De viris illustribus 2.14. 94 [Aurelius Victor] De viris illustribus 3.1. 95 Richard, Enée, 78. 96 CIL 4, 3135, 7353, 8568, 8995b. See C. Connors, Epic Allusion in Roman Satire, in: The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, ed. K. Freudenburg, Cambridge 2005, 123–45, esp. 126. 97 CIL 4, 8568 and cf. P. Cugusi, Poesia ‘ufficiale’ e poesia ‘epigrafica’ nei graffiti dei centri vesuviani. In appendici alcuni nuovi carmi epigrafici pompeiani, Studia Philologica Valentina 11 n.s. 8 (2008) 43–102, esp. 51. 98 CIL 4, 7353. 99 Enn. Ann. 1.110–11 (79 Skutsch) = 1.115 (BiTeu, 19 Vahlen), trans. of Connors, Epic, 126. 100 Enn. Ann. 1.54–5 (74 Skutsch) = 1.65 (11 Vahlen), trans. of Connors, Epic, 125–6. 101 O. Skutsch, Studia Enniana, London 1968, 130–7 denies that Ennius made the identification.
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supplicate, and you, Hora of Quirinus”102 (‹Teque› Quirine pater veneror Horamque Quirini).103 It is possible that Ennius associated Proculus with Romulus’s apotheosis.104 Another more elaborate inscription from Pompeii mentions Romulus’s identification with Quirinus: Romulus, son of Mars, founded the city of Rome and reigned for 38 years; he was the first general to dedicate the enemy spoils to Jupiter Feretrius, having slain the enemy’s general, King Acro of the Caeninenses, and, having been received among the company of the gods, was called Quirinus. Romulus Martis / [f]ilius urbem Romam / [condi]dit et regnavit annos / duodequadraginta isque / primus dux duce hostium / Acrone rege Caeninensium / interfecto spolia opi[ma] / Iovi Feretrio consecra[vit] / receptusque in deoru[m] / numerum Quirinu[s] / appellatu[s est]105
“Received among the company of the gods” is an expression that appears several times in classical literature to describe the apotheosis of Alexander, Caesar, Romulus, and Asclepius.106 The inscription, found in a villa with a niche for an accompanying statue, is obviously by a member of the Roman elite. 102 On Hora Quirini, cf. P. Pouthier, Ops et la conception divine de l’abondance dans la religion romaine jusqu’à la mort d’Auguste, BEFAR 242, Rome 1981, 280–81. Ov. Met. 14.851 (identical with Romulus’s wife Hersilia). 103 Enn. Ann. 1.100 (78 Skutsch) = 1.117 (19 Vahlen). 104 See the discussion in Gagé, Le témoignage, 50 (noting that scholarly opinion is divided). He argues that the elaboration of the legend probably dates to the Augustan era (ibid., 50–1). Cp. Skutsch, Studia Enniana, 137 “The Proculus legend is generally considered an attempt to boost the Julian family … but the story was not necessarily, nor even probably, invented for that purpose. The adoption of an original Proculus into the gens Iulia would have served quite as well, and if Ennius used any name it was in all probability that of Proculus only.” 105 CIL 10, 809 = InscrIt 13/3, 86. Trans. of A. E. Cooley and M. G. L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum. A Sourcebook, New York 22014, 143. From the Building of Eumachius, VII.9.1 where a niche for Romulus’s statue was opposite one for Aeneas’s statue (see chapt. 4 § 2.1.2). The tradition also appears in the Chronicle of Rome, which Salzman (On Roman Time, 52 [her trans.]) believes can be placed in the Codex-Calendar of 354: “When he was swimming toward the Goat Pond he suddenly disappeared. After he was taken up among the gods, he was called the god Quirinus” (Hic cum natat ad paludem Caprae, subito nusquam conparuit. In numerum deorum relatus deus Quirinus appellatus est); cf. Chronica Minora I, MGH.AA 9, ed. T. Mommsen, Berlin 1892, 144 (Chronica urbis Romae). 106 Augustus De vita sua frag. 1 (T. J. Cornell et al., ed., The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols., Oxford 2013, 2.880 [C. J. Smith]) = Plin. Nat. 2.94 (Caesaris animam inter deorum immortalium numina receptam), Hor. Ep. 2.1.5–6 (Romulus et Liber pater et cum Castore Pollux, / post ingentia facta deorum in templa recepti [a variation: Romulus, father Liber, and Pollux with Castor after great deeds received into the temples of the gods]), Curt. 6.9.18 (in numerum deorum receptus [Alexander]), Cels. 1.proem. (in Deorum numerum receptus [Asclepius]), Probus In Verg. G. 1.10 (receptus in Deorum numerum [Faunus, king of the Aborigines]), Probus In Verg. G. 3.27 (Sic enim Proculus Iulius persuasit populo,
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A tradition that may date from Republican times refers to the black stone in the Comitium (the Niger Lapis), which was destined for Romulus, but which was “actually used for the burial of Faustulus, Romulus’s foster father, or of Hostus Hostilius, the grandfather of Tullus Hostilius.”107 Festus’s fragmentary text is: The black stone in the Comitium signifies a funereal place; according to some destined for the death (or “burial) of Romulus, although not used … Faustulus his foster father; according to others Hostus Hostilius (was buried there), the grandfather of Tullius Hostilus, the king of the Romans whose family came to Rome from Mudullia after its destruction. Niger lapis in Comitio locum funestum significat, ut ali, Romuli morti destinatum, sed non usu ob in stulum nutritilium108 avum Tutionem eius. 109
A scholiast to Horace writes that Romulus was buried either in front of the Rostra or behind it: Many say that Romulus was buried before the Rostra and that there were two lions there in memory of this king, as we see even today in sepulchers; and from that time they are there, so that the dead are praised before the Rostra. Plerique aiunt in Rostris Romulum sepultum esse et in memoriam huius rei leones duos ibi fuisse, sicut hodieque in sepulchris uidemus, atque inde esse, ut pro Rostris mortui laudarentur.110
Another scholiast (Porphyrio) comments on the same text of Horace where the poet predicts that horses will scatter the bones of Romulus: The bones of Quirinus which are hidden from the winds and sun: this is said as if Romulus was buried, not snatched up to heaven or torn to pieces. For Varro says that Romulus was buried behind the Rostra.
cum Romulus non compareret, eum vidisse se ab eoque in mandatis accepisse, uti populus Romanus Quirinum se appellaret, quia in numerum Deorum esset receptus [So then Proculus Iulius persuaded the people, when Romulus did not appear, that he had seen him and received commands from him, that the Roman people should call him Quirinus, because he had been received among the number of the gods]). 107 Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary, 267–8 (entry on Niger Lapis). It comprises a set of black marble slabs of “irregular four-sided area”, 3 m x 4 m (Richardson, ibid.). 108 Restored as by C. O. Müller, ed., Sexti Pompei Festi de verborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli epitome, BiTeu, Leipzig 1839, 177 and Lindsay. 109 W. M. Lindsay, ed., Sexti Pompei Festi de verborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli epitome, BiTeu, Leipzig 1913, 184, with the reconstruction of M. Humm, Il comizio del fore e le istituzioni della repubblica romana, in: La città come’era, come’è e come la vorremmo …, ed. E. Corti, Pavia 2014, 69–84, esp. 71 (trans. done with ref. to that of Humm). 110 Schol. in Hor. Epod. 16.13–14 (Pseudacron).
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Quaeque carent uentis et solibus ossa Quirini: Hoc sic dicitur, quasi Romulus sepultus sit, non ad caelum raptus aut discerptus. Nam Varro post Rostra fuisse sepultum Romulum dicit.111
Dionysius Halicarnassus, however, states that according to some a stone lion near the Rostra was placed over the grave of Faustulus. In another text, he asserts that Hostilius was buried in the main part of the Forum where a monument marked his grave.112 Varro and the scholiast agree that there was a grave of Romulus, which is clearly in variance with the traditions of Romulus’s apotheosis or murder. The Christian in Minucius Felix’s Octavius claims that Romulus became a god by the perjury of Proculus (perierante Proculo deus Romulus). Tertullian also questioned the truth of Proculus’s report.113 1.3 Zalmoxis Zalmoxis, a god of Thrace, is reputed to have died and then reappeared according to Herodotus – a “faked resurrection.”114 Before recounting the narrative of Zalmoxis’s disappearance, Herodotus examines the belief in immortality of the Getae: This is the way in which they make themselves immortal. They think that they do not die and that one who perishes goes to Salmoxis, a divine being [daimōn]. Some of them name the same divine being “Gebelezeïs.” Once every five years they choose one of their people by lot and send him as a messenger to Salmoxis, with instructions to report their 111
Schol. in Hor. Epod. 16.13 (Porphyrio). On these texts, cf. J. Carter, The Death of Romulus, AJA 13 (1909) 19–29. 112 Dion. Hal. 1.87.2 and 3.1.2. Cf. Richardson, New Topographical Dictionary, 267. 113 Min. 24.1. Ps. Cypr. Idol. 4 (CSEL 3/1, 21 Hartel) has a similar phrase: est Romulus perierante Proculo deus factus … Tertullian (Apol. 21.23) asserts that the contention that “Jesus was taken to heaven surrounded by a cloud is far truer than the belief among you that (your) Proculuses are accustomed to assert about (your) Romuluses (circumfusa nube in caelum est ereptus multo uerius quam apud uos asseuerare de Romulis Proculi solent). Cp. Marc. 4.7.3: Indignum denique, ut Romulus quidem ascensus sui in caelum habuerit Proculum adfirmatorem (It is shameful indeed that Romulus should have Proculus the guarantor for his ascension to heaven). Cf. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 101–2. 114 A. H. Griffiths, Zalmoxis 4OCD, 1586. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29 for Celsus’s tradition about Zalmoxis. Interest in this hero remains active. Cf. M. Eliade, Bajo el signo de Zalmoxis. Obra rescatada, estudo introductorio y notas por D. Novǎceanu, Zaragoza 2008, J. Bremmer, Zalmoxis, BNP (online), D. Dana, Zalmoxis et la quête de l’immortalité. Pour la révision de quelques théories récentes, EtCl 75 (2007) 93–110 (on 94, he notes that there are no archaeological, iconographic or epigraphic sources for Zalmoxis), idem, Zalmoxis. De la Herodot la Mircea Eliade. Istorii despre un zeu al pretextului [“the god of pretense”], Buchurest 2008, idem, Fontes ad Zalmoxin pertinentes. Accedunt fontes alii historiam religionum Thracum Getarum Dacorumque spectantes, Iaṣi 2011 (non vidi), idem, Les métamorphoses di Mircea Eliade. À partir du motif de Zalmoxis, Paris 2012, and idem, 3 Zalmoxis, Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques [DPhA], vol. 7, ed. R. Goulet, Paris 2018, 317–22 (with an extensive bibliography). In the last article mentioned, Dana argues that Zalmoxis was the original form of the name.
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needs; and this is how they send him: three lances are held by designated men; others seize the messenger to Salmoxis by his hands and feet, and swing and toss him up on to the spear-points. If he is killed by the toss, they believe that the god regards them with favor; but if he is not killed, they blame the messenger himself, considering him a bad man, and send another messenger in place of him. It is while the man still lives that they give him the message. Moreover, when there is thunder and lightning these same Thracians shoot arrows skyward as a threat to the god, believing in no other god but their own. ]! &Ó & Ù H – !Y / ˆ ∞8 Ù Ï ? 5 &H " &Ó Ã Ù ÃÙ ¿? º I 8'. Ï & &Ó Ù ? 9 ∞ Ú (8 Ã 8 ;
Ï Ù ? 5, i /? &8 . 8 &Ó „& H " Ó Ã !8 >, ; &Ó & I 8 Ï Ù ? 5 Ï ) Ú ˆ &, 7 ÃÙ 8 X8 Ï . ™ Ó & !?W , ) &Ó μ ¡ ! Ù &8 ∂H ¢ &Ó !?W, ∞ ÃÙ Ù ;
, (? ;& Ù ∂, ∞? &Ó ; 8. C8 &Ó > :. °” " ÃÚ 7 Ú Ù I 7 Ú 5 ; Ù Ù Ã Ù 8 2 ! 2, Ã&8 ; ! Ù ∂ ∞ Ù (8 .115
Herodotus may be the only ancient source that relies on specific data “about Zalmoxis’ cult” according to Dan Dana.116 He regards Zalmoxis in Herodotus’s account as a theios anēr (! ) “deified man”), and concludes that “Zalmoxis was in all epochs an example of deified man.”117 ]! is difficult, but it does not seem correct to simply translate it as “deify” in this case.118 Aristotle uses it in his defense against impiety (if genuine) with regard to Hermeias: 115 Herodotus 4.94, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 2.295–7 (the first three sentences are my own, with ref. to that of Dana, Zalmoxis et la quête de l’immortalité, 95). 116 D. Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius Diogenes’ Marvels beyond Thule, Studii Clasice 34– 36 (1998–2000) 79–120, esp. 103. 117 Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius, 98, 108. He mentions also Strabo 7.3.5 and 16.2.39, Lucian, Deor. conc. 9, and Iamblichus Vita Pyth. 30.173 (Ú & ˆ º8 Ú ? Ã) ˆ 8 ! í Ã) and after having taught the Getae these things [the soul’s immortality !? ∂ ] and having written laws for them, he is the greatest of the gods among them). 118 I. M. Linforth, °G ÊÊTÊPG¸°TP@ (Herodotus iv. 93–96), ClPh 13 (1918) 23– 33, esp. 25–7, using Lucian Scyth. 1 and Deor. conc. 9 argues that it should be translated “make immortal and divine, deify.” Deor. conc. 9 is " ! ¡ , " º8 à , Ï ) ∞ ÃÚ ! Ú ! ˆ œ i ! 7 , Ù ÃÙ ≈ Ú ¸? 5 & Ë ?( à ∂&í ≈ & !: (The result is that the Scythians – the Getae among them – seeing all this have told us to go hang, and now confer immortality on their own account and elect as gods whomsoever they will, in the selfsame way that Zamolxis, a slave, obtained fraudulent admission to the roster, getting by with it somehow or other, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 5.431). Cf. P. Alexandrescu, La nature de Zalmoxis selon
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If I had intended to sacrifice to Hermeias as an immortal, I should not have made a tomb for him as for a mortal; if I had wanted to immortalise his person, I should not have adorned him with sepulchral honours. Ã Ï ; c ! › !?9 › !2 F Ú ! ( I ( i ) Ù .’ 119
It is unclear, however, just what Herodotus intended, and Dana argues that the interpretation of Zalmoxis has been overshadowed by modern categories of immortality of the soul, resurrection, and paradise in the beyond, often influenced by Christianity. The sources are too few to make firm pronouncements about the religion of the Getae.120 Perhaps Herodotus is thinking of a form of apotheosis.121 Herodotus has a full account of Zalmoxis’s ruse: I understand from the Greeks who live beside the Hellespont and Pontus, that this Salmoxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus; then, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a poor and backward people, but this Salmoxis knew Ionian ways and a more advanced way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras; therefore he made a hall, where he entertained and fed the leaders among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants would ever die, but that they would go to a place where they would live forever and have all good things. While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was meanwhile making an underground chamber.122 When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians, and went down into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years while the Thracians wished him back and mourned him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Salmoxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him. Now I neither disbelieve nor entirely believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras; and as to whether there was a man called Salmoxis or this is some deity [daimōn] native to the Getae, let the question be dismissed. 4.95 Â &Ó S !? Ù 7 Ú ∞ 7 , Ù ? 5 ;! & ?9, & &Ó ! W 2 ®? H ! &Ó ÃÙ
Hérodote, Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 6 (1980) 113–22, 120 n. 6. Rohde, Pysche, 2.28 translates it as “make immortal.” 119 Aristotle frag. 645 Rose = Athenaeus 15.697A (§ 52 Kaibel), trans. of D. L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams …, Cambridge 1981, 94. 120 Dana, Zalmoxis et la quête de l’immortalité, 109 (he also argues that the emphasis on initiation into the mystery religions as an interpretive category is overblown). 121 This is the interpretation of Rohde, Psyche, 2.28 although he does not use the term. 122 According to Strabo 7.3.5 he had been a slave of Pythagoras who lived in a cave ( &8 ), counselled the Getae about the will of the gods (Ï Ï ! 5
8 " ), and was called a god by them ( Ï &Ó ) º8 ‹? ! ). Cp. 16.3.5 ¡ Ï ) º8 ! (who is a god among the Getae).
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! 7 7! ?, ? &Ó ! ) / . &Ó I Ú Õ( 8 , Ù ? 5 ? &? ∏?& Ú 4! I! ¢ Ï 7, ∑ Æ ¡ 7 Ú 7 Ã 2 ! ?9 (E ! W, ?! & , Ù & ˆ : Ú Ã 8 &&? › – ÃÙ – " Ã – " ∞ Ú !8, í •5 μ ∞ Ú A5 Ï ? !?. C Ä &Ó Ï !8 Ú > , 9 ? N 8 . Â &8 " 8 ∂ Ù N, Ó †(!, IÏ &Ó ? Ù ? N &a í > . °" &8 ! Ú 8! › ! . P ? 9 &Ó > ' (? ) 75, Ú — !? ( 8 Ï > ¡ ? 5. 4.96 P? ( F. C S &Ó Ú Ó [ Ú] ∞7 – 8 – ‚ , &8 &Ó ) > Ù ? 5 8! ! . @N &Ó 8 ? 5 ;! , Ní Ú & º8W ” : , 8 .123
Herodotus uses (? to describe Zalmoxis’s appearance to the Thracians after his feigned death.124 In his version, however, it is not a supernatural experience, because Zalmoxis had not actually died. Dana points out that according to Herodotus, Zalmoxis lived before Pythagoras, and argues that the whole incident is “apparently a parody of the Pythagorean doctrine.”125 However, metempsychosis in Pythagoras’s doctrine was not restricted to human beings, and Pythagoras according to Diogenes Laertius claimed to have been a number of other people in past lives.126 The crucial difference in Zalmoxis’s case is that he returns in the same body in which he left – which may imply a version of apotheosis. It is important also that Herodotus does not claim that Zalmoxis merely taught the immortality of the soul. The Suda includes this reference to the Thracians’ belief in something like a resurrection of the dead. After recounting Zalmoxis’s disappearance for four years and his reappearance, the Suda adds: Zamolxis. Enslaved to Pythagoras, as Herodotus [says] in his fourth [book]. A Scythian, who returning [to his homeland] taught that the soul is immortal. But Mnaseas [III B.C.E.] says that Kronos was worshipped by the Getai and called Zamolxis.127 And Hellanicus [V
123 Herodotus 4.95–6, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 2.297–9. Cf. Alexandrescu, La nature, 113–22. 124 Cf. Zeller, Erscheinungen, 40 (his view that the appearance is supernatural seems incorrect given Herodotus’s narrative). 125 Dana, 3 Zalmoxis, DPhA, 319. 126 Diog. Laert. 8.4–5 = Heraclides Ponticus Fr. 89 Wehrli(transmigration of the soul into humans, plants, and animals), 8.14. 127 Mnaseas FGrH 149 F23. See also Photius Lexicon s.v. ¸? 5
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B.C.E.]128 in the Barbarian Customs says that having been born a Greek he made the initiatory rites known to the Getai who were in Thrace and said that neither would he himself die nor those with him, but they would have all good things. As soon as he said this he built an underground dwelling. Then disappearing suddenly from the Thracians he lived in this, but the Getai longed for him. In the fourth year he appeared again, and the Thracians trusted him completely. But some say that Zamolxis was slave to Pythagoras the son of Mnesarkhos from Samos, and after he was freed he played these clever tricks. But Zamolxis appears to have lived much earlier than Pythagoras. The Terizoi and the Krobuzoi also consider themselves immortal and say that those who have died go away like Zamolxis, but will come back again. And they think that he was always speaking the truth about these matters. They sacrifice and feast, [believing] that the one who has died will return. ¸? 5: ! c & , › Â & &. !H √ !S && Ú !? ∂ 7. ®8 &Ó Ï º8 Ù a! Ú )! ¸? 5. ? &Ó ) M I ) (, ≈ S Ï 8& 5 º8 ) W Ú > , ≈ –í i ÃÙ !? –!í " Ï , í A5 ? !?. b &Ó 8
ò& N ? . > (! Ú ∞(& c 9 &Wa. " &Ó º8 ! Ã . ? 9 &Ó > ? ( , Ú " ¹ Ã2 ? . 8 &8 , › ¡ ¸? 5 & ! c ®? 9 Ú ! ! Ú ( . Ï ˆ & ) ¡ ¸? 5 ! 8!. ! &Ó Ú P8 Ú I Ú ˆ ! › ¸? 5 ( N !, •5 &Ó “!H Ú Ú ! . ! &Ó Ú Ã , › “! •5 ! .129
Presumably the statement about the immortality of the soul is based on Zalmoxis’s association with Pythagoras. It is apparently not present in the original sources such as Herodotus. The belief of the Getae in immortality somewhat resembles resurrection, but it is not clear how the “return” is conceived.130 Jan Bollansée argues that the “‘return’ of the dead” promised by Zalmoxis “would amount to a kind of metempsychosis.” He thinks Zalmoxis was trying to demonstrate the “immortality of the soul.”131 In my view, “apotheosis” is probably a better category since Zalmoxis returned bodily from his underground dwelling after three years, and consequently appeared in a physical form and not just as an “immortal soul.” Mnaseas’s affirmation 128 Hellanicus FrGH 4 F73, cf. A. D. Nock, The End of the Rhesus, ClRev 40 (1926) 183–6, esp. 185 and W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, MA 1972, 156. 129 Suda ¸ § 17, trans. of Zamolxis, Suda on Line, tr. C. Roth 26 March 2002 ‹http:// www.stoa.org/sol-entries/Z/17› (accessed 17 June 2015). The same tradition quoted above appears in Etymologicum Magnum s.v ¸? 5 (408 Kallierges). 130 Cp. Herodotus 4.94 above. 131 J. Bollansée, Hermippos of Smyrna, FGrH IVA: Biography. Fascicle 3, ed. G. Schepens, Leiden 1999, 264. F. Hartog (The Mirror of Herodotus. The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History, Berkeley 1988, 94) believes Zalmoxis taught “metemsomatosis.”
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that Zalmoxis was identical with Kronos indicates that he also believed he was not simply an immortal soul but an embodied god.132 Rohde argues that in Herodotus (and presumably Hellanicus) the immortality is not that of a shadowy soul in Hades but a “fully conscious and never-ending existence that is equal to that here on earth.”133 The “going away” that Hellanicus mentions is a “resettlement” (Umsiedlung) of the dead in “a blessed life in the beyond.” The return is a form of metempsychosis for Rohde.134 The bodily return of Zalmoxis may indicate some form of apotheosis of the bodies of the dead, however, and not just the return of their souls in a different body. Plato, in the Charmides, recounts this tradition in a statement of Socrates: I learnt it [a charm,]135 on campaign over there, from one of the Thracian physicians of Zalmoxis, who are said even to make one immortal. >! &í Ã S ) Ú a ? c ¸ 5& ∞ , ≥ 8 Ú ! .136
Plato’s version is an example of the tradition in which healing can occur through magical “incantations” from Zalmoxis and “his physicians.”137 Antonius Diogenes (I C.E.?),138 in his novel The Wonders beyond Thule ( ÕÓ ), includes an encounter between one of the characters named Astraeus (who has returned from Hades) and Zalmoxis: And how they sailed away together to Thrace and the Massagetae with him [Astraeus], who was going to his friend Zamolxis, and all the things that they saw during the journey, and how Astraeus encountered Zamolxis who was already held to be a god among the Getae. Ú › Ã2 Ú ¹ Ú ® 8, Ù ¸? 5 Ù /) Ã , ≈ Ï ¡& N& , Ú ≈ ] ) ¸ 5& Ï º8 4& ! 2 89·139
132 Mnaseas FGrH 149 F23. Cp. Hesychius ¸ § 43 s.v. ¸Ì 5. Porphyry Vita Pyth. 14 asserts that “as Herakles the barbarians worship him” (›  8 &í ÃÙ " I? I ). 133 Rohde, Psyche, 2.29. 134 Rohde, Psyche, 2.29–31. 135 A charm ( F 9&F) for a headache (cf. 155B). See C. A. Faraone, A Socratic Leaf Charm for Headache (Charmides 155b–157c), Orphic Gold Leaves and the Ancient Greek Tradition of Leaf Amulets, in: Myths, Martyrs and Modernity. Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer, ed. J. Dijkstra et al., Leiden 2009, 145–66. 136 Plato Charm. 156D, trans. of Lamb, Plato, 8.19. Cp. Diod. Sic. 1.94.2 Ï &Ó ) ¿8 º8 ) ! (among the Getae, who aim at immortality [or “make themselves immortal”]). 137 Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius, 104 with ref. also to Apul. Apol. 26, Clement of Alex. Protr. 6.70.1 (Thracian physicians), etc. 138 A date gaining popularity is 100–130 C.E. Cf. L. Zhmud, Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans, Oxford 2012, 74 (with bibliography).
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Glenn Bowersock argues that with regard to Zalmoxis, “there can be no question of a Scheintod for Diogenes if the resurrected Zalmoxis is still around to converse with his friend Astraeus many centuries later.”140 In the novel he is portrayed as a theios anēr, according to Dana. Among the Getae “he is worshipped as a god (the cliché of his immortal person).”141 Celsus denigrates the worship of Jesus by comparing it to the worship of Zamolxis: After this he thinks that because we worship the man who was arrested and died, we behave like the Getae who reverence Zamolxis, and the Cilicians who worship Mopsus,142 the Acarnanians Amphilochus,143 the Thebans Amphiaraus,144 and the Lebadians Trophonius.145 ® Ï 7 a N 8 , · ( 8 , U Ú ! ! ) º8 8I Ù ¸? 5 Ú 5 Ù ® Ú ] a Ù ]( Ú I Ù ](? Ú I& Ù P (:.146
Celsus apparently believed that these individuals had been deified.147 Chrysostom responds harshly to the tale of Zalmoxis: Tell me why it is that the great Zoroaster and Zamolxis are unknown to most people except for a few? Because all that was said about them was fiction. And yet both they and
139 Antonius Diogenes De incredib. apud Photius Bibl. 166, 110A (CBy Photius II, 143–4 Henry). For the context, cf. Collected Ancient Greek Novels, ed. B. P. Reardon, Berkeley 1989, 779. On this narrative, cf. W. Fauth, Astraios und Zamolxis über Spuren pythagoreischer Aretalogie im Thule-Roman des Antonius Diogenes, Hermes 106 (1978) 220–41 and Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius, 79–120. 140 G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as History. Nero to Julian, Berkeley 1994, 104. 141 Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius, 109 (along with Astraios), 111 (Zalmoxis’s immortality). 142 Celsus claims (Origen Cels. 7.35) that in the shrines of Trophonius, Amphiaraus, and Mopsus the gods are seen in human form – without fraud, but clearly (! & ) ! )! ! ˆ , › 8 8 , Ã &8 Ï Ú )). Cf. Rohde, Psyche, 1.116, 121, 186 and S. I. Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination, West Malden, MA 2008, 81–2, and N. M. Sweeney, Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia, Cambridge 2013, 105–9. See, e.g., Hesiod Melampodia apud Strabo 14.1.27 and Pherecydes FGrH 3 F142 apud Strabo 14.1.27. 143 Cf. Pausanias 1.34.3, Strabo 14.1.27 and 14.5.16–7. See Schol. in Lucian Dial. Mort. 10 (255 Rabe) in chapt. 4 § 2.2. Rohde, Psyche, 1.143, 2.374. An altar stone from the Oropos sanctuary (Epigr. tou Oropou 280) has the names of Amphiaraus and Amphilochus (]( Ì / ]( ı). 144 On Amphiaraus, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.4. 145 On Trophonius, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.31. 146 Origen Cels. 3.34, trans. of Chadwick, Origen, 151. Origen notes that they built temples and statues for these figures (°" Ó Ï S Ú ? ). 147 Dana, Zalmoxis in Antonius, 116.
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the ones who wrote about them are said to have been proficient in the theory and practice of magic,148 and the use of persuasive language to conceal falsehood.149 @∞Ó ? , &Ï Ù ¸ ? ) Ú Ù ¸? 5 Ã&Ó 5 ¿ N " Ú a &Ó –& ¿
; À ? D Ï Ú b. ) Ú " Ï !8 & Ú 8! 8 " Ó Õ ) Ú ?! " &Ó ? & E
! .
Chrysostom does not claim that the cult of Zalmoxis was active in his time. 1.4 Callirhoe The Romance writers occasionally mention the apparent resurrections of characters who were thought to have died. Chariton probably wrote his romance before 62 C.E.150 In the novel the apparently dead Callirhoe (having been kicked by her unjustly jealous husband Chaereas), lying in her tomb, “has a new birth” (; ?I
).151 Later in the narrative Chariton describes the discovery of her empty tomb: For the grave robbers shut the tomb carelessly, because they were rushing in the night. And Chaereas, waiting for the break of day, came to the place under the pretext of bringing wreaths and drink offerings, but truly having the intention of killing himself. Because he could not endure being separated from Callirhoe, and thought that only death could be the healer of his sorrow. And arriving, he found the stones moved and the entrance clear. When he saw it, he was mystified and was possessed by terrible perplexity because of what had happened. The messenger, rapid Rumor, informed the Syracusans of the incredible event. Therefore all ran together to the tomb, but no one dared to enter, before Hermocrates gave the command. The person who was sent in disclosed everything carefully. It seemed beyond belief that her dead body was not even lying there. Then, therefore, Chaereas himself resolved to go in wanting to see Callirhoe even though she was dead. And searching through the tomb he was able to find nothing. Many went in after him in disbelief. And helplessness overcame all of them, and someone that was standing there said, “the offerings to the dead have been plundered, it is the work of grave robbers; and 148
Plato Charm. 156D and Apul. Apol. 2.26 (Zoroaster and Zalmoxis) illustrate this tradi-
tion 149
Chrysostom Pan. Bab. 10, trans. of Saint John Chrysostom, Apologist, trans. M. A. Schatkin and P. W. Harkins, FC 73, Washington, D.C. 1985, 80–1. 150 The novel may date to the mid first century. Cf. S. Tilg, Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel, New York 2010 (36–79). Cp. B. P. Reardon, Introduction to Chariton, in: idem, Novels, 17–21, esp. 17. Bremmer, Ghosts, 238 argues that Persius “plausibly mentioned this novel (1,134)” in 62 C.E.: his mane edictum, post prandia Calliroen do (“To them I recommend the morning’s play-bill and after lunch Callirhoe” (trans. in Chariton, Callirhoe, LCL, ed. and trans. G. P. Goold, Cambridge, MA 1995, 3). Cp. A. Henrichs, Missing Pages: Papyrology, Genre, and the Greek Novel, in: D. Obbink and R. Rutherford, ed., Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons, Oxford, 2011, 302–22, esp. 309–12. Bremmer (ibid., 238–40) further argues that Luke knew and was influenced by Chariton’s account. 151 Chariton Callirhoe 1.4.12, 1.8.1 (the quote).
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where is the corpse?” Numerous and varied tales occupied the crowd. And Chaereas, looking up to heaven and lifting up his hands, said, “which then of the gods, being my rival in love, has carried Callirhoe off and has her – unwilling – with him, she being forced by a greater fate? Therefore she died suddenly, so that she might not fall sick.152 In this manner Dionysus took Ariadne away from Theseus and Zeus Semele. For I did not know that I had a goddess wife and one greater than me. But she should not have gone away from people so quickly or for such a cause.” (1.) °" Ó Ï I Ù ?( 8 , ∑ & & H # 8 &Ó ( ?5 ÃÙ Ù ! ß Ú Ù (? Ó (? Ú Ï (8 , Ù &Ó !Ó : > /Ù )H Ã Ï Õ8 !, &Ó Ù !? 8! ∞ Ù H &Ó ” ˆ ! 8 Ú ( Ï N&. (2.) ¡ Ó “ ∞&S 5 ? Ú ÕÙ & F ? H ;
&Ó j7 ) 7 Ù ?&5. ? “ 8 Ú Ù ?(, &Ó Ã& Ú >& ! ), Ú 8 ?. (3.) ¡ &Ó ∞ (! Ú ? I 7 . ; & Ù &Ó Ï )!. í “ †5 # 8 ÃÙ < ∞ ! )> !c ? ∞& ) i ?H &Ó Ù ?( Ã&Ó Õ ) †&. (4.) Ú í ÃÙ ∞F ! Õí H &Ó 8 I ?, ∂ /S ìÏ ?( , I Ù > H Ï &Ó ;î ^ Ú Ú &?( Ù F! ). # 8 &Ó I 8 ∞ Ù Ã Ù Ú Ï ) ì ; ! 7 7 Ú > !í Õ !8 , Ï I8 ÕÙ ; &Ï Ú ∞(& 8! , μ 7W. — Ú 8 ] ?& ( Ú 8 ¡ ¸ H Ï Ã & ≈ ! Ï ∂ ) Ú D ¢ !í a. í à >& 8 à Ã&Ó Ï (? 5 ! : ! ).î153
Jan Bremmer notes that there are certain parallels between Luke 24:1–12, John 20:1–20, and this narrative. In Chariton’s story there is “the sequence of dawn, visit to the grave, finding the stone removed, fear, inspection of the empty grave, disbelief, and again visit to the grave.”154 Klaus Berger and Carsten Colpe compare the tradition to Mark 16:1: journey to the grave; discovery of the empty grave; absence of the body; the empty tomb is a sign of translation and divinity of the loved one; and the empty tomb itself is a multivalent sign that does not carry signification in itself.155 Earlier in the narrative Callirhoe had recovered from the blow to her diaphragm: 152 Goold, Chariton, 147 has, “Is this then why she died suddenly, that she might not succumb to disease?” Reardon, Novels, 53 has “That is why she died suddenly – so that she would not realize what was happening,” but notes that the text is “doubtful.” 153 Chariton Callirhoe 3.3.1–4. The translations of the novel are my own, although I consulted those of Reardon and Goold. 154 Bremmer, Ghosts, 238–40. 155 K. Berger and C. Colpe, Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch zum neuen Testament, Göttingen 1987, 92–3.
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The story about Callirhoe is that she received another regeneration (or “return to life”),156 and due to abstinence from food, there was a remission of her failed respiration, and she began with difficulty to breathe little by little. Then she started to move her body by individual member, and opening her eyes, she recovered the sense perception of one waking/rising from sleep; and she called out to Chaereas as if he were sleeping with her. Ï &Ó Ú [& 8 ]157 ; ?I
,158 8 ) (! ) F
8, Ú í ¿ 8 H > ) 4 5 Ï 8 Ù , & &Ó ˆ ¿(! ˆ N! ?I 8 5 — Ú › ! & # 8 ? .159
What had happened becomes apparent to her: And scarcely waking up/rising, she touched the wreaths and fillets; She made a noise from the gold and silver. And there was much odor from the spices. &Ó 8 (? 7 Ú · ( Ú H &Ó D ? ¿7.160
The use of 8 is close to the NT’s use of Û for resurrection. She gradually regains consciousness: So then she remembered the kick, and her fall because of it, and she with difficulty began to understand (her being in) the tomb because of her loss of speech. She cried out in as loud a voice as she could, shouting “I am alive” and “help.” í “ 7! Ú &í ) :, Ù F ( ?(. > 5 “ ( 7, ≈ & Üã Iõ Ú I! ) Ü.161
The leader of the brigands who had robbed the tomb, Theron, is later tortured, confesses to his crime, and Chaereas discovers that his dead wife is alive: So he began his account: “Seeing the wealth that was buried [in the tomb], I gathered bandits together. We opened the tomb. We found the corpse alive. Taking everything, we
156
Goold, Chariton, 57 notes that her first regeneration was in 1.1.15. “Return to life” is his translation of
. 157 B. P. Reardon, ed., Charitonis Aphrodisiensis de Callirhoe narrationes amatoriae, BiTeu, Berlin 2004, 12 places & 8 in brackets and refers to 1.1.14–5. 158 Cp. Matt 19:28. 159 Chariton Callirhoe 1.8.1. Cp. sleep as a metaphor for death in the NT: John 11:11, Acts 7:60, 1 Cor 7:39, 1 Cor 15:18, 20, 51, etc. Philostratus (III C.E.) is somewhat agnostic about an account of Apollonius in which the sage woke a girl up from her apparent death (( & !?) by whispering something secret in her ear (Vit. Apoll. 4.45). See chapt. 2 § 1.23. 160 Chariton Callirhoe 1.8.2. 161 Chariton Callirhoe 1.8.3. Reardon, Charitonis, 13 marks Ü Ú I! ) Ü with daggers (corrupt text). I adopt Goold’s (Chariton, 58) conjecture above (Hilberg originally made the conjecture; cf. Reardon, ibid., 13). The cj. of Jackson is ã !Ì ˘Wõ Ú I! ) (you buried me alive, help one who is alive).
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put it in our boat.162 Sailing to Miletus we sold only the woman, and the rest we were carrying to Crete. But we were driven to the Ionian sea by the winds, and you have seen the things that we suffered.” While saying it all, he only did not mention the name of the purchaser. After these things were recounted, joy and sorrow came upon all. Joy because Callirhoe lived, but sorrow because she had been sold.163 (13.) 4 5 “ & )! ì ! ∞&S 7 W?. (14.) †5 Ù ?(H — ?H ? 7 !7 2 8 H ∞ ® 7 ), Ï &Ó Ï & ∞ 7H 5 !8 &Ó ∞ Ù ∏ ÕÙ 8 Å ! Ú Õ ) / ? .î ? ∞S – Ã 8. (15.) ç!8 &Ó Ï Ú ? ∞F ! H Ï Ó ≈ E , &Ó ≈ 8 .164
Subsequently Callirhoe is enslaved and purchased by Dionysius who married her.165 Chaereas meanwhile has been sold into slavery nearby.166 She dreams that Chaereas is in chains and perhaps dead, although the hope that he was still alive dissipated her mourning ( 8 &Ó Ù 8! Ú ? F )).167 Callirhoe bemoans her fate to Aphrodite, after giving birth to a son whose father is actually Chaereas: I beseech you, mistress, be reconciled to me finally. For sufficient bad luck has come upon me. I have died, I have returned to life,168 I have been taken as plunder (by bandits), I have gone into exile, I have been sold, I have been a slave. I regard my second marriage as heavier for me to bear than these. " , &8, & ? ! H " ? & &. 8!, 8, Y , 8( , 8 , & & H ! &Ó Ú Ù & ? > I .169
Her husband deceives her with the statement that Chaereas was dead, and an honorary funeral is held for him by Callirhoe ( 4& Ú & 7 (í ÕE), and a tomb is erected.170 The tomb, however, like
162
“A small boat used by pirates.” Cf. J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships 900–322 B.C., Cambridge 1968, 245. 163 Cp. the statement in Chariton Callirhoe 3.2.7 by Dionysius “already the new story is reaching Sicily that Callirhoe is alive” (4& 8 (8 Ù Ù ∞ &7 E ). 164 Chariton Callirhoe 3.4.13–5. Cp. 8.7.7 “Theron the tomb robber, breaking into the tomb at night, found Callirhoe alive with her shrouds” (7 ¡ I Ù Ù ?( &? Õ S Ï ( ). 165 Chariton Callirhoe 3.2.14–7. 166 Chariton Callirhoe 3.7.1–3. 167 Chariton Callirhoe 3.7.4–5, 3.7.7. 168 Goold, Chariton, 179 translates this verb as “been resurrected.” 169 Chariton Callirhoe 3.8.9. 170 Chariton Callirhoe 3.10.1–3, 4.1.1–6 (quote from 4.1.6). Dionysius (4.1.3) tells her it was a custom among the ancient Greeks to prepare tombs for those who had disappeared
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Callirhoe’s in Syracuse, was for someone who was still living (Ú ” &Ó › ) ).171 The introduction of book five summarizes the narrative: How Callirhoe was wed to Chaereas, the most beautiful of women to the handsomest man, as Aphrodite arranged the marriage; and how due to Chaereas’s own jealousy caused by love, he struck her and she seemed to have died; and how she was honored with a very expensive burial, and how then she recovered from her swoon in the tomb and the grave robbers during the night took her away from Sicily … Â Ó 7! # 8c, & Ú 9, 8 ]( & Ù ?, Ú › &í # 8 75 Ã >&5 !?, ( ) &Ó ∂ 7 2 ?(9 I Ù 57 …172
A wealthy man, Mithridates, after enslaving Chaereas latter befriended him, and helped him send a letter to Callirhoe.173 Dionysius took Mithridates to court and charged him with having an adulterous intent, pretending that Chaereas was alive. 174 Before the Persian king, Dionysius testified: And the proofs are inescapable. For one of the two is the case: either Chaereas is alive, or Mithridates is proved to be an adulterer. For he is unable to say this – that he was unaware that Chaereas had died. For he was present in Miletus when we raised his tomb, and he mourned together with us. But when Mithridates wishes to commit adultery, he raises the dead. I finish by reading aloud the letter, which this individual dispatched by means of his own slaves to Miletus in Caria. Taking it,175 read, “I, Chaereas, live.” " &Ó & 5 ;(H & ) Ï &) !? , ¢ # 8 F, ¢ ®! &? † 8 ! . Ú Ï Ã&Ó & 8 , ≈ !8 # 8 † H Ï ® 79 : 9 ( ” ) 7 Ú Ú ˆ ( ) ?( )). On honorary funerals, cf. chapt. 5 § 1.2. 171 Chariton Callirhoe 4.1.6. 172 Chariton Callirhoe 5.1.1. Callirhoe (5.1.4) laments concerning fortune: you enclosed me living in a tomb ( 8 ?(9 ). In addition (5.1.5), she laments that she was loved (by Dionysius), with the result that she married another while Chaereas was alive ( ( 7!, μ # 8 ; 9 ! ). In 6.7.8 she again notes that she was buried alive ( :!). 173 Cf. the summary in 5.1.2, 4.4.7 (the letter), 4.2–3 (Chaereas and Mithridates). In the letter (4.4.7) Chaereas tells his wife that “I am alive, and I am alive because of Mithridates” ( , Ú &Ï ®! &?). Part of the line is repeated in 4.5.8. In 5.2.5 Chaereas laments that Callirhoe does not know that he is alive (Ã Ï ∂& ≈ # 8 E). 174 Dionysius (5.4.3) did not suspect that Chaereas was alive (F Ï Ã&8 # 8 & ). In 4.5.10 he did not believe that Chaereas was alive (F Ó “ # 8 Ã ). In 5.7.8, Dionysius never suspected that Chaereas was alive (&8í i ≈ # 8 E). Later (6.2.6) he laments that Callirhoe would have belonged to him even though Chaereas was alive ( 5F > Ú # 8 ) if he had never left Miletus. Chaereas (8.8.5) says that Dionysius did not believe that he was alive ( Ó &Ó F Ã ). 175 Goold, Chariton, 261 notes that this “is addressed to the clerk of the court.”
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Ù ?(, Ú 8! ). í ≈ !8 W ®! &?, ˆ . , ` ” &Ï ∞& & > ∞ ® . 8 I:H ì# 8 .”176
Later in the trial, after Chaereas has appeared, Dionysius protests, “What kind of person is this Protesilaos who has returned to life177 against me?” () ” í I ;).178 During the war between Persia and Egypt, Callirhoe begs Aphrodite to let her know if Chaereas was still alive (&7 ∞ # 8 E).179 After the reunion of Callirhoe and Chaereas, the narrator uses an image of resurrection: “Callirhoe was first to begin her narrative, how she returned to life in her tomb” ( : Ó 4 5 & )!, 8 2 ?(9).180 In Chariton’s novel, consequently, a woman revives in a tomb, and a man who had been buried is said to have risen from the dead. 1.5 Xenophon, Anthia and Habrocomes Xenophon’s novel181 probably dates to the era between the Flavian and Antonine periods.182 In the romance, Anthia is separated from her husband Habrocomes due to their capture by pirates. Eventually she agrees to marry a benefactor named Perilaus, but before the wedding takes a potion that she believes is poison – but which is a sleeping draught instead. Perilaus puts her in a tomb: He prepared her, dressing her in a valuable clothing, and placed much gold around her. And not able to bear the sight any longer, when it was day, he placed Anthia on a bier – she lay unconscious – and brought her to the tombs that were near the city. Then he placed her in a chamber after slaughtering many sacrificial animals and after he burned much clothing and other adornment. When he had finished the customary (funeral) rites, he was led back to the city by the members of his household. And Anthia, left behind in her tomb, regained consciousness and perceived that the poison/drug was not deadly, groaned and wept …. (3.7.4) C &Ó Ã F183 !F & , ˆ &Ó ! Ú H Ú Ã8 (8 !8, 8 8 !8 W
176 Chariton Callirhoe 5.6.9–10. He had earlier (3.2.2) told Callirhoe that “I have come alive again because of you (I I &Ï 8). 177 Goold, Chariton, 275 translates this verb as “come back from the dead.” 178 Chariton Callirhoe 5.10.1. See Bowersock, Fiction, 112. 179 Chariton Callirhoe 7.5.5. The people of Sicily also do not expect Chaereas to be alive (8.6.6). Callirhoe’s father (8.6.8) asks her if she is alive (E, 8). 180 Chariton Callirhoe 8.1.14. 181 For the title, cf. Longus. Daphnis and Chloe. Xenophon of Ephesus. Anthia and Habrocomes, LCL, ed. and trans. J. Henderson, Cambridge, MA 2009, 200. 182 K. M. Coleman, Sailing to Nuceria: Evidence for the Date of Xenophon of Ephesus, ACl 54 (2011) 27–41 and Bremmer, Ghosts, 241. 183 Schmidt conjectures (much) here. Cf. Henderson, Anthia, 295.
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]! ( &Ó > !) D ∞ ˆ F ?(H ! 8! > ∞7, Ï Ó (?5 " ), &Ó !F Ú ; . (3.8.1) ä Ó 8 Ï ÕÙ ∞ ∞ 7 H (! ) &Ó 2 ?(9 ]! /F 8 Ú ) ≈ Ù (? !? D, ?5 Ú & …184
Pirates rob the grave and take Anthia with them: “But Perilaus, realizing that the tomb had been broken into and that the body was lost, fell into a great and uncontrollable sorrow” (¡ &Ó !S ?( & Ú : : E Ú 89 W D).185 Bremmer argues that the account is modeled on the empty tomb episode in Chariton.186 1.6 Antonius Diogenes, The Wonders Beyond Thule Antonius Diogenes, whose version of Astraeus’s encounter with Zamolxis has been quoted above,187 is not averse to accounts of presumed resurrections. In Photius’s convoluted summary, the narrator (Dinias) includes a passage that apparently refers to people coming back to life: All these things Dinias heard from Dercyllis188 on Thule, and he is presented reporting them to the Arcadian Cymbas.189 Next comes how Paapis190 followed the route of Dercyllis and her companions, overtook them on the island, and by means of magic imposed on them that affliction of being dead during the day and coming back to life at nightfall. He imposed the affliction on them by spitting openly in the faces of the pair. A person of Thule named Thruscanus, being ardently in love with Dercyllis and grieving to see his beloved stricken down as a consequence of the affliction caused by Paapis, struck him instantly with his sword and immediately killed him, thereby managing to bring to an end the countless difficulties. And Thruscanus, since Dercyllis appeared to be lying dead, killed himself over her corpse. All these things and many more like them – their burial [“tomb”] and return from the grave, Mantinias’s191 love affairs and their consequences, and other similar events on the island of Thule – Dinias is presented recounting one after the other on the authority of Dercyllis for the Arcadian Cymbas. P ? Ï & 8 & ∞?
8 2 ] ?& Ic. CÚ Ú › ? &: í N ˆ Ú & 8 Ã) E 79, Ú Ù ?! ) 8W E 8! !Y Ó 8 , I: &Ó
184
Xenophon Anthia 3.7.4–8.1, my trans. Xenophon Anthia 3.9.1. 186 Bremmer, Ghosts, 241. 187 § 1.3. 188 The mistress of Dinias who was an aristocrat from Tyre and who descended into Hades in the novel. 189 A representative of the Arcadian league, to whom Dinias gives his report. 190 An Egyptian priest. 191 The brother of Dercyllis. 185
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Ù 8. Ú Ù ?! Ã) 8! Ã Ï Ù (Ó ) :. Ú › , &? &, ∞&S 2 ?& ?! 8 Ú Õ 7, ! ?, 5( ∞(& Ù ? Ú ), 8 Õ ? . Ú › , Ú Ú > & ?, /Ù (? . P ? Ú A Ï 7, 7 ( Ã Ú )! Õ: Ú ˆ > ®, Ú ≈ &Ï 8I, Ú A ≈ Ï F, !S ! & ∞? ( 2 ] ?& Ic.192
Bremmer argues that Antonius “seems to have played with the theme of the empty tomb.”193 These are examples of Scheintod according to Bowersock.194 Photius’s summary, which mentions their tomb, and their return from it (7 ( Ã Ú )! Õ: ) on the island of Thule, is a reference to the individuals (Dercyllis and her companions) who appeared to be dead during the day, but who returned to life at night (!Y Ó 8 , I: &Ó Ù 8). The difference between the apparent deaths and resurrections of the individuals in the novel with Zalmoxis is that he is actually alive, hundreds of years after his death.195 The final book of the novel also mentioned the apparent deaths and resurrections: The twenty-fourth book presents Azoulis196 as narrator and then Dinias adding Azoulis’s stories to the tales he has already told Cymbas. We learn how Azoulis discovered the method of enchantment whereby Paapis had employed his magic to cause Dercyllis and Mantinias to come to life at night but during the day to be corpses, and how he freed them from the affliction when he found the secret of the punishment inflicted and also the antidote to it, in Paapis’s bag, which Mantinias and Dercyllis had brought with them. ä &Ó ∞Ù 8 ∞? ê & , )! ) > ! Ã2 ! ! ) Ù I Ï ] &, › 7 F Ù , !í √ ? 7 & Ú ® Ú Ó 8 c &Ó ˆ ∂, Ú › 7 5 È ?!, F Ú & Ú F ∞? & S ?&, √ (8 ® Ú .197
192 Antonius Diogenes De incredib. apud Photius Bibl. 166, 110A–B (Photius II, 144–5 Henry), trans. of Reardon, ed., Novels, 780. 193 Bremmer, Ghosts, 241. 194 Bowersock, Fiction, 99–100. 195 Antonius Diogenes De incredib. apud Photius Bibl. 166, 110A, discussed above in § 1.3. 196 A companion in Dinias’s travels. 197 Antonius Diogenes De incredib. apud Photius Bibl. 166, 110B (145 Henry), trans. of Reardon, ed., Novels, 780
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Photius’s reference to grave in the text above indicates that Mantinias and Dercyllis were probably placed in some sort of sepulcher during the day until Azoulis ended their enchantment. Their reputed resurrections were bodily. 1.7 Philinnion of Amphipolis Although Phlegon’s Philinnion is a ghost (apparently in contrast to the Philinnion of Proclus), his narrative is important in this investigation, because her tomb was empty, and she appeared “alive” to her lover Machates. When Philinnion’s nurse saw her sitting next to her lover (!8 ∂& ;! Ï 2 ®?W),198 she went to Philinnion’s parents, Charito and Demostratos: She said they should get up and come with her to their daughter, who appeared to be alive199 and by some divine will was with the guest in the guest room. Ö & ) ? Ú ! 8 È í ÃF !H (8 Ï ∂ Ï 58 &? ! I 2 5 .200
It is important that Phlegon affirms that the revenant only “appeared to be alive.” Philinnion gave Machates a gold ring ( & Ù ) and left her breast band ( !& &) in his room.201 He decides to find out if she is dead or not when she visits him the next night and sits on his bed: Machates pretended that nothing was wrong, since he wished to investigate the whole incredible matter to find out if the girl he was consorting with, who took care to come to him at the same hour, was actually dead. As she ate and drank with him, he simply could not believe what the others had told him, and he supposed that some grave-robbers had dug into the tomb202 and sold the clothes and the gold to her father. ¡ ®?, 5 ? &Ó Ù a I , Ù 8 Ã , ∞ ¹ ?, — 8 Ï Ù ÃÙ , > &Ó & í Ã Ú , ∂ ∑ )
198
Phlegon De mir. 1.1. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 231 translates this as “che era apparsa viva” (who appeared to be alive), which is justified by (8 and the subsequent identification of Philinnion as a revenant. Zeller, Erscheinungen, 35 translates the phrase as “sie sei lebendig erschienen” (she appeared alive), which suppresses the force of the verbs ( (8 Ï ∂). 200 Phlegon De mir. 1.2, trans. modified of Hansen, Phlegon, 25. 201 Phlegon De mir. 1.7. 202 In Xenophon Eph. 5.7.7 a woman (Anthia) comes to a tomb of a man who had recently died. He, springing up from the tomb, appeared to her and attempted to seize her ( F ß ?( & Ù Ú ! H ! (? ! S ?( Ú 8 a). 199
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7
, & Ï & 8 Ù ?( Ú 8 Ï "? Ú Ï 2 Ú F ! :.203
Her parents are summoned to his room and embrace their daughter, who speaks to them: Mother and father, how unfairly you have grudged my being with the guest for three days204 in my father’s house, since I have caused no one any pain. For this reason, on account of your meddling, you shall grieve all over again, and I shall return to the place appointed for me.205 For it was not without divine will that I came here. ‚ F Ú ? , › & (!78 Ï 58 Ú ) 8
8! E Zc ∞c Ã&8. Õ ) Ó !7 5 F &Ï , S &Ó ; ? ∞ Ù & 8 H Ã Ï ; ! I 7 D ! ∞ .206
She then dies: “After speaking these words she immediately was dead, her body lay stretched out, manifest, on the bed” ( ∞ F 8 ?, 5 8 Ú F (Ó Ù ).207 The next day a crowd fills the theatre: After the particulars had been explained, it was decided that we should first go to the tomb, open it and see whether the body lay on its bier or whether we would find the place empty. A half-year had not yet passed since the death of the girl. When we opened the chamber into which all deceased members of the family were placed, we saw bodies lying on biers, or bones in the case of those who had died long ago, but on the bier onto which Philinnion had been placed we found only the iron ring that belonged to the guest and the gilded wine cup, objects that she had obtained from Machates on the first day. Astonished and frightened, we proceeded immediately to Demostratos’s house to see if the corpse was truly to be seen in the guest room. After we saw the dead girl lying there on the ground, we gathered at the place of assembly, since the events were serious and incredible. X!8 &Ó ? [ ] Ï 8 >&5 ∞ ! ) Ú Ù ?( a Ú 5 ∞&F, N Ù Ú F ¢ Ù Õ 7 H Ã&Ó Ï /5? < > 2 !?9 F ! :. ! &Ó Õ(í F ? , ∞ ` ? " ∞ ) ?5 ! , Ú Ó ; (? Ï : , &Ó Ï ¿a, Ú &Ó ß j 8! Ú 8I (F — Ù & Ù & , √ D
203
Phlegon De mir. 1.10, trans. of Hansen, Phlegon, 26–7. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 245 argues that the three days refers to the time period allotted by the “divine will,” and compares it to the three days that Phlegon’s Polycritus was allowed to spend (while alive) with his wife before he died (Phlegon De mir. 2.2). He also discusses various interpretations of the number “three” in the narrative. 205 Demainete, a revenant in one of Lucian’s tales, after returning to her husband because he did not burn one of her golden sandals, “disappeared after the barking [of her dog]” ( &Ó †(! Ù Õ 7). Cf. Lucian Philops. 27 and § 2.3 below. 206 Phlegon De mir. 1.11, trans. of Hansen, Phlegon, 27. 207 Phlegon De mir. 1.12. 204
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58, Ú Ù 7 , b > I Ï ®? E :W . !? &Ó Ú 8 Ã!8 ! Ù Ù ∞ Ù 5 ¿ ?, ∞ í 7! (7 . ∞& &Ó Ú 8 ∞ †! !H Ï
Ï ? D Ú ;.208
The community decides to burn her body outside the city’s boundaries and to make “an apotropaic sacrifice to Hermes Chthonios and the Eumenides” ( ?! &Ó F #! Ú @Ã &).209 The lover commits suicide: “The guest Machates, to whom the revenant had come, because of despondency, committed suicide (¡ &Ó 58 ¡ ®?, Ù √ 8 Ù (?, Õí ! /Ù 57 F).210 Perhaps he was doomed from the beginning, since he consorted with a dead woman. According to Artemidorus, having a dream in which one has sex with a corpse is “inauspicious”: To have sexual intercourse with a corpse, both a man and also a woman, with the exception of a mother or sister or wife or lover, and to be penetrated by a corpse is extremely unfavorable. 2 &Ó F Ú & Ú Ú Ú Ù Ú & (F Ú Ù Ú 8 Ú Ù !F ÕÙ ? ;.211
Elias Bickerman emphasizes the empty tomb and the visit to the home to check whether the body of the “bride” who had returned to life was there.212 Although the nurse affirms that the woman “appeared to be alive through some divine will” ( (8 Ï ∂ Ö &? ! I ), the narrator’s insistence that she was a ghost (Ù (? or “revenant”) implies that her return to life was only apparent.213 Rosemary Guiley’s description of Philinnion as “a sexually hungry ghost” is more accurate than Endsjø’s classification of her as “the resurrected Philinnion.”214 John 208
Phlegon De mir. 1.14–6, trans. of Hansen, Phlegon, 27–8. Phlegon De mir. 1.17, trans. of Hansen, Phlegon, 28. 210 Phlegon De mir. 1.18. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 253 mentions the view that this line means Machates died of sorrow and not suicide, but texts such as Diog. Laert. 7.30 ( 5?5 /Ù I), Anth. gr. 7.95 (¡ &í ÕÙ / 5? I ), and Plutarch Comm. not. 33, 1076B ( 5? F / ), and Polbyius 38.16.5 indicate that the phrase does refer to suicide. 211 Artemidorus Onir. 1.80. See the discussion in Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 253. 212 Bickerman, Das leere Grab, 75. He ignores the problem created by the narrator’s identification of the woman as a “ghost.” 213 On Philinnion, see also Zeller, Erscheinungen, 35–6. His translation (35) of (? as Erscheinung (appearance, ghost) and his emphasis on Philinnion’s bodily presence (38) are helpful, but he does not sufficiently explore her identity as a revenant – an embodied ghost. 214 R. Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology, New York 2009, 73. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 50–1 passes over the problem of Phlegon’s use of “revenant.” Philinnion is a living corpse, a revenant, and has not been brought back to life. J. R. Morgan, Love from beyond the Grave: The Epistolary Ghost-Story in Phlegon of Tralles, in: Episto209
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C. Lawson remarks that “In this story Philinnion is a revenant and is to be treated as a revenant.”215 Hopfner described her as a “Totenspuk” (ghost of the dead) and “Totendaemon” (daimōn of the dead).216 Proclus’s version is far different, since in his narrative she is not a revenant: The crown of all this was Philinnion, in the time that Phillip reigned. She was daughter of the Amphipolitans Demostratus and Charito and died after having just married. She had married Craterus. This woman came to life again in the sixth month after her death and, because of her love for him, secretly had sexual intercourse on many successive nights with a youth named Machates who had come from his ancestral city Pella to stay with Demostratus. And being discovered she immediately died, first saying that she had done these things according to the will of the daimones under the earth, and her corpse laid out in her father’s house was seen by all. The place was opened that had first received her body and appeared empty to all her relatives who had come there because of their disbelief in what had happened. Letters written to Phillip who was in charge of Amphipolis, some by Hipparchus and others by Arrhidhaios, make these matters known. Ú Ù ( Õ? j Ï ˆ j I . ∂ &Ó Ã ! 8 ? Ú # ]( 7H ? &Ó 2. &í “ A9 Ú Ï Ù !? I 9 ®?W, Ï Ù (89 8 F &, ?! c ) &Ï Ù Ù ÃÙ > Ï ( 5F Ú ( ! ) “! ! ), Ï I Õ! & ÃE a!, Ú ¡ a! a Ï E Zc 8 ∞cH Ú Ù ÃF & 5? Ù !8 Ù ¿(!F ) ∞ , í ÃÙ ! &í H Ú & Ï Ï Ó Ï π? , Ï &Ó Ï ] & ( Ï ? F ]( 8 Ù j . Ú Ó Ï " .217
Proclus puts the emphasis on her return to life (I ).218 His avoidance in the narrative of the term for ghost/revenant ((Ì) is quite important. In addition, he includes this story among a group of narratives that he considers to be examples of individuals who only appeared to have died – even though
lary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. O. Hodkinson et al., Mn.S 359, Leiden 2013, 293–322, esp. 313 accurately classifies her as a “revenant.” Machates realizes “that his lover was a dead person.” 215 J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion. A Study in Survivals, Cambridge 1910, 416. 216 Hopfner, Offenbarungszauber, 1.136 § 263 (1.63, 1921 ed.). 217 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.116 Kroll). 218 Zeller, Erscheinungen, 35 unjustifiably collapses the account of Proclus with that of Phlegon.
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his explanation is difficult to credit in cases such as that of Polycritus who came to life again nine months after he (apparently) died.219
2 Occupied Tombs and Subsequent Appearances The category of appearances of individuals whose bones are in their tombs is extremely broad and includes appearances of what can be described as ghosts or revenants (beings resembling zombies). 2.1 Protesilaos The author of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana probably is responsible for the Heroikos, written before Philostratus’s death ca 244-249 C.E.220 It is likely that Philostratus was aware of Christian influence in the court of Severus Alexander.221 One of the most interesting figures is the hero Protesilaos (or Protesilaus) who is said in Philostratus’s Heroikos to “live again,” even though his bones are in his tomb. The hero of Troy returned twice from the dead in Philostratus’s narrative. Philostratus’s text takes place in the hero’s sanctuary at Elaious in the Chersonesus. 222 The sanctuary is little more than foundation stones, however, and the cult statue is worn down.223 A vinedresser in the he219 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.115 Kroll). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.28. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 256 emphasizes that the story of Philinnion appears in a long series of “false deaths.” 220 W. M. Edwards, R. Browning, G. Anderson, and E. Bowie, Philostrati, 4OCD, 1137, Flavius Philostratus, Heroikos, trans. with intro. and notes by J. K. Berenson Maclean and E. Bradshaw Aitken with a prologue by G. Nagy and epilogue by H. Koester, SBLWGRW 1, Atlanta, 2001, Philostratus, Heroikos, xlii–xlv. 221 S. Swain, Culture and Nature in Philostratus, in Philostratus, ed. E. Bowie and J. Elsner, Cambridge 2009, 33–48, esp. 37 (e.g., Julia Mamaea’s “overt Christian leanings” according to Eusebius H.E. 6.21.3–4 and Hippolytus’s letter to her about the resurrection: De resurrectione ad Mammaeam imperatricem [cod. Achrid. Mus. nat. 86], ed. by M. Richard, Quelques nouveaux fragments des pères anténicéens et nicéens, SO 38 [1963] 76–83, esp. 79–80). Cp. Julius Africanus Cesti fr. 5.1, 53–4 (Vieillefond) = GCS Africanus, Cesti, frag. 10.51–53, p. 30 ed. Wallraff et al.) where Africanus is mentioned as constructing a library for Alexander in the Pantheon. The Cesti were dedicated to Alexander (T3 p. 4 Wallraff). These texts may (or may not) attest to the possibility that the references to the emperor’s tolerant position towards Christianity in SHA Severus Alexander (Aelius Lampridius) 22.4, 29.2, 43.6–7, 45.7, 49.6, 51.7 are not entirely fictional. Cp. S. Swain, Defending Hellenism, in: Apologetics in the Roman Empire. Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. M. Edwards et al., Oxford 1999, 157– 96, esp. 184–5 and Swain, Culture, 87. 222 See the comments of MacLean and Aitken (Philostratus, Heroikos, lii with ref. to, among other texts, Herodotus 7.33.1, 9.116–20, Thucydides 8.102.3, and Strabo 13.1.31, 7a.1.52). On the iconography of Protesilaos, cf. F. Canciani, LIMC VII.1 (1994) 554–60, esp. § 21 and 22 (Protesilaos’s return from Hades). 223 Philostratus Heroik. 9.5–6.
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ro’s shrine who sees the risen Protesilaos shares the tale with a Phoenician traveler. One of the early exchanges mentions the hero’s two returns to life: Phoen.: [§2.7] What connection is there between you and Protesilaos, if you mean the man from Thessaly? Vinedr.: I do mean that man, the husband of Laodameia, for he delights in hearing this epithet. Phoen.: [§2.8] But what, indeed, does he do here? Vinedr.: He lives here, and we farm together. Phoen.: [§2.9] Has he come back to life, or what has happened? Vinedr.: He himself does not speak about his own experiences, stranger, except, of course, that he died at Troy because of Helen, but came to life again in Phthia because he loved Laodameia. Phoen.: [§2.10] And yet he is said to have died after he came to life again and to have persuaded his wife to follow him. Vinedr.: [§2.11] He himself also says these things. But how he returned afterwards too, he does not tell me even though I’ve wanted to find out for a long time. He is hiding, he says, some secret of the Fates. His fellow soldiers also, who were there in Troy, still appear on the plain, warlike in posture and shaking the crests of their helmets. {j.} Ú &Ó Ú 2 9 , ∞ Ù 8 ; {].} C ) 8
, Ù F & H Ú Ï . {j.} P &Ó & & ? ; {].} ¸E Ú . {j.} ]I I S ¢ ; {].} °Ã&Ó ÃÙ 8 , ‚ 58 , Ï / ?!, 7 & ≈ !? Ó &í 8 P c, IZ &Ó j!c & . {j.} Ú ! ) Ï Ù I 8 Ú ) ) 8! ∑. {].} 8 Ú ÃÙ , í ≈ Ú Ï F ! , ? I 89 ! ) Ã 8 , ® , · (, . Ú " &Ó Ã " E& E P c, > 2 &9 ( ? Ù F Ú ˆ (.224
Gregory Nagy comments on the two returns: the first of which was “because of his love for his bride Laodameia,” although “how he came back for the second time, however, is not revealed even to the initiate, who says to the initiand that Protesilaos chooses not to tell that particular ‘sacred secret,’ that particular ı (Her. 2.11).”225 It may be important in the text above that the vinedresser does not use the verb Iı (return to life) to describe the method of Protesilaos’s second return, which is an ı . At the end of the narrative, however, the Phoenician uses it to describe Protesilaos’s return, even though he will no longer ask about it.226 224
Philostratus Heroik. 2.7–11, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 9–
11. 225
Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, xxvi. H. D. Betz, Hero Worship and Christian Beliefs: Observations from the History of Religion on Philostratus’s Heroikos, in: Philostratus’s Heroikos. Religion and Cultural Identity 226
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The Phoenician does not believe the vinedresser, even though he would like to: ] , ]!a, 8, — I > .227 He, however, confesses that the vinedresser would please the heroes, if he (the Phoenician) should go away from the conversation believing: Ú Ï i ) • , ∞ 8 !.228 The Phoenician is skeptical of Protesilaos’s return and
appearances: Phoen.: [§5.2] Because this portion of the land seems to me to be most pleasant and divine. I do not know whether anyone has ever come to life again here, but if someone were to, he would live, I suppose, most pleasantly and painlessly after coming from the throng of battle. À & ) Ù 8 •& ∂ Ú ! ). Ú ∞ Ó IZ ; !, Ã ∂&H IZ &í i •&? Ú 5 !S ¡ .229
The narrative’s mysterious form of new life is fully compatible with the body of Protesilaos being in his tomb. The hero lies buried in the Chersonesus in Thessaly: Vinedr.: [§9.1] Listen to such stories now, my guest. Protesilaos does not lie buried at Troy but here on the Chersonesus. This large mound here on the left no doubt contains him. ]. Ú ; , 58 . ) Ó Ã P c ¡ í # 79 W, Ù &Ó ÃÙ 8 8 ÕÚ &7 ¡ ¹ …230
Protesilaos appears in various locations including Hades where he consorts with his wife.231 There is an “Apulian pottery sherd” on which Protesilaos is depicted in Hades.232 When he is not with the vinedresser he travels: Phoen.: [§11.7] Where does he spend the rest of the time, vinedresser? in the Third Century C.E., ed. E. B. Aitken and J. K. Berenson Maclean, Leiden 2004, 25–48, esp. 30 translates the phrase as “he was restored to life,” noting that it is a technical term in Philostratus’s vocabulary (2.9, 2.10, 5.2., 9.5, 58.2) and is only used in 2 Clement 19.4 in the literature of early Christianity. 227 Philostratus Heroik. 3.1. 228 Philostratus Heroik. 3.1. 229 Philostratus Heroik. 5.2, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 15. 230 Philostratus Heroik. 9.1, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 29–31. Cp. Herodotus’s (9.116) reference to the tomb and temenos (shrine) dedicated to Protesilaos (C Ï C F # 7 Ú ?( Ú 8 Ú Ã ). 231 Philostratus Heroik. 11.1 describes his sexual passion (eros) for Laodameia (ä &Ó & > , √ F & 4 ) and notes that they with regard to their passion toward one another they are like hot bridal pairs (&? Ù 7 · " ! Ú ( ). 232 Cf. Burkert, Homo Necans, 244.
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Vinedr.: He says that sometimes he lives in Hades, other times in Phthia, and even sometimes in Troy, where his companions are. And when he hunts wild boar and deer, he arrives here at midday, stretches out, and falls asleep. Phoen.: [§11.8] Where does he spend time with Laodameia? Vinedr.: In Hades, my guest. He says that she fares most favorably among women, since she is numbered with such women as Alcestis, the wife of Admêtos, and Euadnê, the wife of Kapaneus, and others equally chaste and worthy. j. PÙ &Ó ; , ‚ 8, &a; ]. Ó Ó &, (, Ó &Ó j!c, Ó &Ó “ P c, ” " /) , Ú Ù !7 c Ú ?( , ( ) Ï I Ú ! & ! . j. &Ó E & c 5 ; ]. C &, 58 . Ú 8 Ã Ã&: ? , !8 ∑ ê Ἀδμήτου Ú @Ã?& 8 Ú " N :( 8 Ú .233
The vinedresser does not know if the translated Protesilaos eats or drinks, but he leaves drink and fruit offerings for him every day which are eaten and drunken immediately when he leaves ( S Ó ∞S ?, Ï &Ó I8I Ú 8 !a ¢ ).234 His appears to be in his twenties and is ten cubits tall (ca fifteen feet)235 in his translated form.236 When he runs, however, he leaves no footprints – which probably implies that he has no body of any kind.237 When he walks there are prints, however, so he has some sort of “essential nature” according to Teresa Mantero.238 Finally, the disbelieving, unpersuaded Phoenician becomes convinced of the reality of the hero’s new life: Phoen.: [§58.1] Vinedresser, whoever does not consider you exceedingly beloved of the gods is himself hated by the gods. I think that the knowledge of such divine stories has thus come to you from those who have also made you an intimate and a close friend of Protesilaos. [§58.2] But after you have filled us with heroic stories, I would no longer ask how he himself returned to life, since you say that he treats that story as inviolable and secret. 233
Philostratus Heroik. 11.7–9, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 35–
7. 234
Philostratus Heroik. 11.9. Pollux Onomasticon 2.158 defines a cubit as the length from the point of the elbow to the end of the middle finger (Ù &Ó ¿ ? Ù Ù 8 &? ; Ù &? F). 236 Philostratus Heroik. 10.1–4, 13.3. The Phoenician has heard that heroes were ten cubits tall (7.9), but is skeptical, lacking faith in the myths ((Ú Ï & )! Ù Ï !:&). 237 Philostratus Heroik. 13.2 (& &Ó Ã Ã i — N). Cp. T. Mantero, Ricerche sull’Heroikos di Filostrato, Genova 1966, 84 (Protesilaos has been liberated from a human body and has no body of a “superior nature”). 238 Mantero, Ricerche, 84. Cf. Heroik. 13.3 N. 235
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j.} À, 8, ! ( F ) ( & , ÃÙ 7! ) ! )H Ù Ï Ú ! ∞&8 — , í ∂ • , ≥ Ú 2 9 ( 8 Ú 7& . í Ú a
8 , Ù Ó ≈ ÃÙ I I Ã8í i , & I I7 9 Ú 79 ( ÃÙ F! 9 2 9·239
Perhaps this ambiguity in the narrative is what convinces Jonathan Burgess that it is the “shade of Protesilaos” who “spends time with Laodameia in Hades” and who “appears to humans in Phthia and in Elaious.”240 The vinedresser’s testimony that he can embrace and kiss Protesilaos is not in itself enough to demonstrate that Protesilaos is not a spirit: Phoen.: [§11.2] Do you embrace him when he arrives, or does he escape you like smoke, as he does the poets? Vinedr.: He enjoys my embrace and allows me to kiss him and cling to his neck. j. I? &Ó • ¢ &( &, · ˆ ?; ]. # I? Ú 5 ) ( ) ÃÙ Ú F &8 ( )! .241
This is the case, because ghosts can kiss in Greco-Roman literature.242 In Lucian’s Lover of Lies, the ghost of Eucrates’ wife, Demainete, comes to him seven days after her death, while he is reading Plato’s book on the soul (presumably the Phaedo): “While I was thus engaged, Demaenete herself in person came in upon me and sat down beside me, just as Eucratides here is sitting now” ( 8 &Ó 5ˆ 8 Ã Ú ! · @Ã & Õ). He embraced her: “‘When I saw her,’ Eucrates continued, ‘I caught her in my arms with a cry of grief and began to weep’” (ìC S &8,î D &í √ ¡ @Ã ?, ì› ∂&, Ú ÃE &? Hî).243 She vanished, however, because of a dog’s barking ( &Ó †(! Ù Õ 7). In one of the Declamations (the Sepulcrum incantatum [the Enchanted Grave]) of Ps. Quintilian, a grieving mother prosecutes a husband for having hired a magician to imprison the soul of her dead son in his tomb. The mother affirms, “I was sated [or “I sated myself”] with his kisses, I was sated with his embraces” (satiabar osculis, satiabar amplexibus).244 Her son, however, is a 239
Philostratus Heroik. 58.1–2, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 179. J. S. Burgess, The Death and Afterlife of Achilles, Baltimore 2009, 110 with ref. to Heroik. 11.7–8 (quoted below) 241 Philostratus Heroik. 11.2, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 35. In 21.6, the farmer of Ilion can embrace the phantom of Palamedes. 242 Cf. Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 317 with ref. to [Quint.] Decl. 10.6 (and many other similar texts from this declamation). Cf. L. A. Sussman, the Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian. A Translation, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1987, 125–44 (the entire text). 243 Lucian Philops. 27, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 360–61. 244 [Quint.] Decl. 10.6. 240
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wandering soul who has been imprisoned in his tomb (ista carcere obseratam animam)245 by a spell: “Now throughout the nights he pounds away at the earth made heavy by this savage spell, and his ghost, which used to scatter the very demons of the underworld, is bewildered at its inability to roll away the tomb placed over him” (nunc barbaro carmine gravem terram totis noctibus pulsat, et impositum sibi sepulcrum, quod non possit evolvere, quae solebat ipsos discutere inferos, umbra miratur).246 Before his imprisonment in his tomb, he was able to approach her hands like a (living) body (ad matris manus tamquam corpus accedens).247 This may be contrasted with Achilles’ failed attempt (Homer Il. 23.99-101), alluded to by the Phoenician above, to embrace Patroclus ( &Ó Ï !Ù † Ù / ) [but the soul like smoke departed under the earth squeaking and gibbering]). The narrator’s theory of the soul’s destiny is intriguing. The husband denies that his wife’s mourning reaches the shades and ghosts of the dead (negat ad manes, negat ad umbras pertinere quod plangas)248: Then the wise men are deluded by a foolish fancy when they state that humans are composed and constructed of two fundamental ingredients, the mind and the body, that the body is perishable, weak, and made of clay … And finally, they state that the soul does not die or dissolve, nor is it affected by any mortal destiny, but whenever it breaks forth from the confines of the human breast and, unburdened of its mortal body, it irradiates itself with a light blaze, and it seeks a home amid the stars, until after a generation it transmigrates into a new body and another destiny, yet for a long time (before this) the soul remembers its previous incarnation. Because of this ghosts appear when summoned, that is why they receive a body, a face, and whatever else we see, that is why they appear as beloved images to those near and dear to them, that is why at times they become oracles and warn us at night with their instructions, that they sense what offerings we send them, and perceive the respect accorded to their tombs. vana ergo sapientes persuasione frustrati, qui constare homines et perfici corporis elementis animaeque dixerunt; corpus caducum, fragile, terrenum … nec interire [animam] nec solvi nec ullo mortalitatis adfici fato, sed, quotiens humani pectoris carcerem effregerit et exonerata membris mortalibus levi se igne lustraverit, petere sedes in astra; donec in alia fata saeculo † pugnante † transmigret, diu prioris corporis meminisse. inde evocatos prodire manes, inde corpus et vultus et quicquid videmus accipere, occurrere suis imagines caras, aliquando et oracula fieri et nocturnis admonere praeceptis, sentire, quas mittamus, inferias et honorem percipere tumulorum.249
245
[Quint.] Decl. 10.2. [Quint.] Decl. 10.2, trans. of Sussman, Major Declamations, 126. Cf. Lattimore, Themes, 65–74 for the sit tibi levis terra (may the earth [on top of you] be light) epitaphs. 247 [Quint.] Decl. 10.6. 248 [Quint.] Decl. 10.16. 249 [Quint.] Decl. 10.17, trans. of Sussman, Major Declamations, 135, slightly modified. This is a speech of the mother’s advocate against the husband who allegedly disbelieves in an immortal soul. 246
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Although set in the context of a rhetorical piece, Ps. Quintilian’s view of the soul is relevant for the nature of the mysterious new life that Protesilaos possesses. Philostratus probably consider Protesilaos to be a daimōn, but also uses clear terms for ghosts in the narrative. In Pallene, for example, there are so many corpses of giants that “Not even a shepherd ventures at midday to that place of clattering phantoms which rage there” (! ) &Ó Ã&Ó Ú I ) Ù Õ ∞&: , Å Ã2 ).250 In addition, the Phoenician asks the vinedresser to comment on the heroes who have appeared (or “been seen”) on the Ilion plain “whom you said marched in warlike fashion” (" &Ó 2 &9 2 ∏ 9, œ >( Ù ? &í à , ‡(!;).251 The vinedresser’s answer makes it clear that it is their ghosts/images that appear: Vinedr.: [§18.2] They appear, I said. They still appear great and divine to herdsmen and shepherds on the plain, and they are seen whenever there is evil upon the land. If they appear covered with dust, they portend drought for the land, but if they appear full of sweat, they portend floods and heavy rains. If blood appears on them or their weapons, they send forth diseases upon Ilion. If none of these signs is perceived about their images [ghosts], they immediately bring prosperous times, and then the herdsmen sacrifice to them a lamb, a bull, a colt, or whatever each one tends. ]. ä , >(, ¡ > I ) 2 &9 Ú ? Ú ! ), Ú ! > ≈ Ú 2 F FH ∞ Ó Ï 8 (, È E : c, ∞ &Ó "& 8, Ú ƒI , ∞ &Ó ∑ Ú Ã) ¢ ) ≈ (, 2 ∏ 9 8H ∞ &Ó &Ó Ú ) ∞&: ¡ 2, !Ï 4& ; Ï · Ú (? Ã) " ), ¡ Ó ; , ¡ &Ó , ¡ &Ó , ¡ &í ; „ 8 .252
The Phoenician asks if “anyone has seen Palamedes’ phantom in Troy” ( 7& &Ó N& > ; ∞ ) / P c;) and the vinedresser’s answer clearly identifies the ghostly nature of the appearances:
250 Philostratus Heroik. 8.16, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 29, and cf. the comments of Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 435, with ref. to Stat. Theb. 4.438–42. He excerpts (V.c.3, p. 428) a text of Damascius that describes the shades of warriors who still fight. Cf. Damascius Vita Isidori frag. 50 (142–3 Athanassiadi) = frag. 63 (Zintzen) who mentions, among other phenomena, the “shadowy phantoms of souls” ( ; &F (? Plato Phaedo 81CD), trans. Athanassiadi. 251 Philostratus Heroik. 18.1, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 49. Zeller, Erscheinungen, 38 notes the use of ¿(!F and ¿ (18.2) in appearances of the dead in the Heroikos. 252 Philostratus Heroik. 18.2, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 49–51.
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Vinedr.: [§21.1] When the phantoms appear, the identity of each is not immediately clear. Many appear sometimes one way, sometimes another, interchanging outward appearance, age, and armor. I hear, nevertheless, stories about Palamedes. ]. PÏ Ó ¡ : N& – &F ≈ AH Ï Ï Ú ; ; , & ? &Ó 7 Ú ∞&8c Ú c Ú ≈ . &Ó ≈ Ú Ú 7& ·253
Protesilaos may not be a phantom, but neither is he a resurrected body. This is not the case solely because his corpse is in the tomb, but rather because of an explicit statement of Philostratus about the nature of the hero’s new existence. There is a passage which comprises fundamentally important clues about the nature of the new life of Protesilaos. The Phoenician expresses a need to understand more about the vinedresser’s association with the hero (Ã
Ï 5, • Ù Ù Ö &8).254 He then questions how Protesilaos could know the events of the Trojan war since he was first to die of all the Hellenes. The vinedresser responds with a discourse that illuminates the nature of the hero’s new life: Vinedr.: [§7.3] This is a foolish thing for you to say, my guest. To be cleansed of the body is the beginning of life for divine and thus blessed souls. For the gods, whose attendants they are, they then know, not by worshipping statues and conjectures, but by gaining visible association with them. And free from the body and its diseases, souls observe the affairs of mortals, both when souls are filled with prophetic skill and when the oracular power sends Bacchic frenzy upon them. ]. @–! , 58 . ) Ï ! — Ú I Ù ! :H ! ? , „ ¿& ∞, : à ? ! Ú Õ, Ï 5 ( Ï Ù Ãˆ , ? ! : ¡ ! Ú :, ≈ & Ú F ( ( Ú Ù & Ã) I .255
Clearly Philostratus does not conceive of Protesilaos as a resurrected body. The vinedresser uses this concept of the “cleansed” soul to explain Protesilaos’s utterances about the Trojan war that he had not seen while alive. Protesilaos’s return to life (I I 256) alluded to by the Phoenician toward the end of the treatise is best described by the vinedresser’s concept above: “a beginning of life” ( I). The mystery of his return to life, which the Phoenician describes as something Protesilaos “treats as an inviolable and ineffable account” ( & I I7 9 Ú 79 ( ÃÙ F! 9 2 9),257 is his “beginning of life.” Antonio Stramaglia describes 253 Philostratus Heroik. 20.4 and 21.1, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 57. Cp. references to Achilles’ phantom and that of Antilokhos in 22.2 and 22.3 respectively. 254 Philostratus Heroik. 7.1. 255 Philostratus Heroik. 7.3, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 19–21. 256 Philostratus Heroik. 58.2. 257 Philostratus Heroik. 58.2.
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Protesilaos and Palamedes (21.6) as “souls that have been heroized” (anime eroizzate).258 A better word than “resurrection,” which is “potentially ambiguous,” for Protesilaos’s destiny would be “transition” to a new life – a “level of existence superior to that of human beings.”259 Aetius (or rather, Chrysippus) specifically defines heroes as individuals who are separated from their bodies: Thales, Pythagoras, Plato and the Stoics hold that daimons are spiritual substances, but heroes are souls that have departed their bodies. F ! ? " 'Ú & Õ? Ã ?H ∂ &Ó Ú • Ï 8 Ï ? .260
Protesilaos “is now a daimōn,” according to the Phoenician, who uses the concept to explain the hero’s knowledge of Homeric events: “For I do not think it amazing that Protesilaos knows these things, since he is now a daimōn …” (Ù Ó Ï & 4& ƒ Ã&Ó ∂ !Ù ∞&8 …).261 As a daimōn he is probably, in Philostratus’s conception, in a middle state between a human and a god, although his usage of the word in the treatise is quite diverse. There is a class of water spirits, daimones, whom he associates with Nereids, and the rivers and daimones flow into the sea of Maiotis and the Pontus (T & 5 Ú ¡ Ú Ú & < >8 ® Ú Ù ).262 Circe is a daimōn ( & ).263 The Platonic concept264 of a daimōn is “the class of lower divine beings ‘between gods and mortals’ who mediated between the human and divine spheres (Plato, Sym. 202e).” For Hesiod they are the “souls of those who lived in the Golden Age, who now invisibly watch over human affairs (Erga 122124).” Most in the classical period were “morally ambiguous,” and consequently “could be described as either good or evil.”265 Walter Burkert (wanting to “emancipate oneself from Plato’s manner of speech”) argues that “Daimon does not designate a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar 258
Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 317. Personal communication of 30 March 2015 from Professor Stramaglia. 260 Aetius Plac. 1.8.2 = Chrysippus SVF 2.1101. 261 Philostratus Heroik. 43.3, trans. of Maclean and Aitken, Philostratus, Heroikos, 131. Achilles and Protesilaos appeared to the Mysians to be daimones (endowed with supernatural force) when they disembarked (23.16 ) &í ; I I? Ú & &5?). 262 Philostratus Heroik. 54.8 263 Philostratus Heroik. 25.13. 264 Plato Sym. 202DE Ú Ï a Ù & 5 ! Ú !. 265 G. J. Riley, Demon, DDD, 235–40, esp. 235, Nilsson, Geschichte, 1.216–22 (daimones as bearers of power in classical religion), 2.210–18, 255–6, 407–8, etc. and 742 s.v. Dämonologie (changed conceptions in the Hellenistic and Roman eras). Op. 124–5 is interpolated. Cf. Hesiodi Theogonia. Opera et dies. Scutum, ed. F. Solmsen ... SCBO, Oxford 3 1990, 54. See Op. 121–3 in chapt. 4 § 2.1.10 for Hesiod’s concept of daimones. 259
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mode of activity” in ancient Greek religion.266 He also notes that “daimon and theos are never simply interchangeable.”267 He does not deny, however, that the view of demons as intermediate beings developed with Plato, Xenocrates, on into late antiquity.268 If one concedes that the author of the Heroikos is the same as the author the Life of Apollonius, then it is clear that the conception of the demonic that developed in later antiquity was close at hand.269 The same author could use the word in other senses (such as destiny).270 According to S. Katz, Philostratus “abolishes the frontier” between demon and hero in the Heroikos.271 This explains the identification of Protesilaos as a daimōn. Mantero cites a passage of Plutarch to illuminate Philostratus’s conception of heroes. After mentioning the four classes of rational beings in his interpretation of Hesiod’s Opera (gods, daimones, heroes, people),272 Plutarch writes, Others postulate a transmutation for bodies and souls alike; in the same manner in which water is seen to be generated from earth, air from water, and fire from air, as their substance is borne upward, even so from men into heroes and from heroes into demigods [daimones] the better souls obtain their transmutation. But from the demigods a few souls still, in the long reach of time, because of supreme excellence, come, after being purified, to share completely in divine qualities. 266
W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Cambridge, MA 1985, 179–81. Burkert, Greek Religion, 180. 268 Burkert, Greek Religion, 332 (Xenocrates, for whom daimones exist “under the moon” and are “affected by delight and suffering”; they are “downright evil beings, filled with greed for blood and sexuality”). Cf. Xenocrates frag. 15 [Õ 7 & ? “invisible daimones under the moon,” Aetius Plac. 1.7.30], 23 [Plutarch Def. Orac. 12, 416C] 24 [Plutarch Is. Os. 25, 360D, Def. orac. 17, 419a ( 8 Ö & “evil demons”] (R. Heinze, Xenocrates. Darstellung der Lehre und Sammlung der Fragmente, Leipzig 1892, 164–5, 168–9). Frag. 15, 23, 24 Heinze = respectively, frag. 213, 222, 225, Senocrate-Ermodoro, Frammenti, ed. M. I. Parente, Naples 1982. 269 Among many examples are: Philostratus Vita Apoll. 3.38 (Ù &Ó D! & N ∂ Ú a daimōn who possesses a 16-year-old boy; the demon’s character was that of a dissembler and liar), 3.56 ( & &Ó ∞ ) ÃE & & a fearful female daimōn, a Nereid who lives in on island), 6.27 (? & ( Apollonius brings a satyr daimōn to its senses, which had killed two women). In 4.44 Apollonius is asked how he gets the better of daimones and the images of phantoms (τˆ &, ∂ ‚ ] : , Ú Ï ∞&: ( 8 ;). 270 Philostratus Vita Apoll. 2.7. 271 S. Katz, Zur Mythenbehandlung in Philostratos Heroikos, in: Primitiae czernovicienses; Festgabe zur 50. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner in Graz 1909, ed. I. Hilberg and J. Jüthner, Czernowitz 1909, 117–29, esp. 119; cp. Mantero, Ricerche, 81. 272 Cp. Scholia vetera in Hesiodi opera et dies 122a (ed. A. Pertusi, Milan 1955): — ∞ 8 & ) a (H Ó : ! , &Ó & 8 & , &Ó : Ú ? ! : ([And Hesiod]) divides into four classes all rational beings; the first is the gods, the second is the daimones, the third is the heroes, and the fourth is the humans). 267
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A &Ó I ) : ¡ Ú ) ), · < Ï > F —& &í —& &í 8 : ¡ a F Ã ; ( 8, — Ó ! : ∞ • &í : ∞ & " I Ú I I?, &Ó & ¿ Ó 9 2 &í ! ! ) ? ! 8.273
According to Mantero, Philostratus adopts Plutarch’s second state of transmutation, in which heroes become daimones.274 Herodotus’s reference to Protesilaos contains no version of his return to new life. The historian tells a story of a Persian viceroy, Artayktes, who robbed the shrine of Protesilaos in Elaios and had sex with women there. When he was captured by the Greeks: It is related by the people of the Chersonese that a marvellous thing happened to one of those who guarded Artayctes. He was frying dried fish, and these as they lay over the fire began to leap and writhe as though they had just been caught. The rest gathered around, amazed at the sight, but when Artayctes saw this strange thing, he called the one who was frying the fish and said to him: “Athenian, do not be afraid of this portent, for it is not to you that it has been sent; it is to me that Protesilaus of Elaeus is trying to signify that although he is dead and dry, he has power given him by the god to take vengeance on me, the one who wronged him.” 9 ( 8 ÕÙ # 8 ¿ 8 8! & H " ? Ú 2 Ú ? Ú 4 ≈ ∞! ? . Ú " Ó !8 !:, ¡ &Ó ] , › ∂& Ù 8 , 8 Ù ¿ ˆ >(H ) ]!) , &Ó (I8 Ù 8 H Ã Ï Ú 8( , í Ú ¡ C ≈ Ú ! S Ú ? S & Ù ! > Ù &8 !.275
Here there is no risen Protesilaos, although Nagy thinks there is a reference to Protesilaos as revenant: “the power that he has from the gods to exact retribution from the wrongdoer, amounts to a F or ‘sign’ of the revenant, the spirit that returns from the dead.”276 The same word can mean “tomb.” LSJ 273
Plutarch Def. orac. 10 415B, trans. of Plutarch, Moralia, 5.379. Cf. Mantero, Ricerche,
81–2. 274 Mantero, Ricerche, 81 refers to Philostratus Heroik. 43.3 where Protesilaos is called a daimōn. 275 Herodotus 9.120, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 4.297–9. Cp. Herodotus 7.33 where he brings women to the sanctuary. For his punishment (a version of apotympanismos), cf. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 220. 276 G. Nagy, The Sign of Protesilaos, ΜΗΤΙΣ 2 (1987) 207–13, esp. 210, 213. Cp. Maclean and Bradshaw, Philostratus, lv (who go too far in asserting that the leaping dried fish are “a sign of Protesilaos’s resurrection”). In ibid., 31 they note more accurately that “it is Protesilaos’s preserved corpse (? ) who exacts retribution from Artayktes not only for these injustices, but also as vengeance for his own death as the first Hellene to die on Asian soil (Hist 9.120.2–3).” According to Philostratus Heroik. 7.2 Protesilaos was the first to die on Trojan soil.
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define ? as a “dead body preserved by embalming, mummy.” Another sense includes “dried or smoked fish.” Protesilaos is dead and preserved. He is present in some sense, but not actually a revenant, in contrast, for example, with Philinnion.277 In Philostratus’s version of the tale, the vinedresser remarks that after the sacrilege in the shrine, “they say that the dried fish returned to life” (Ù ? I ().278 To sum up the results above. Burgess is likely correct when he argues that it is the shade of Protesilaos that appears to the vinedresser.279 He is a daimōn and has no bodily existence. Philostratus has collapsed the categories of daimōn and hero in his work.280 Protesilaos is a “heroized soul” as Stramaglia argues, and the hero has not experienced a bodily resurrection.281 This explains Philostratus’s use of the Greek IÛ for Protesilaos’s return to life. The verb is fairly ambiguous and does not in this case imply a resurrection of Protesilaos’s body. Philostratus does not use the NT’s verbs for resurrection ( Û and Û) – both of which are used uniquely for bodily resurrection and not for revivified spirits in Jewish and pagan literature.282 Protesilaos’s new existence is a transition to a higher level than that possessed by human beings.283 Consequently, although scholars continue to describe Protesilaos’s returns to life as “resurrections,” it is a thoroughly ambiguous and unhelpful use of the word.284 2.2 Eunostus Plutarch recounts the tale of the hero Eunostus of Tanagra who repulsed the advances of one of his cousins. She in turn falsely accused him of rape to her
277
See § 1.7 above and specifically Phlegon De mir. 1.18 (Ù (Ì). Philostratus Heroik. 9.5. Peter makes a dried sardine (sarda) come to life in the Actus Petri cum Simone 13 (80–1 Lipsius/Bonnet). I thank Jan Bremmer for this reference. 279 Burgess, The Death and Afterlife, 110. 280 Katz, Zur Mythenbehandlung, 119. 281 Stramaglia, Res inauditae, 317. 282 The Gnostic varieties of Christianity are an exception. Cf. Cook, The use of Û, passim. 283 Personal communication of A. Stramaglia, 30 March 2015. 284 See, e.g., J. P. Hershbell, Philostratus’s Heroikos and Early Christianity: Heroes, Saints, and Martyrs, in: Aitken and Maclean, Philostratus’s Heroikos, 169–180, esp. 175, E. Eliasson, The Late Ancient Development of a Notion of Heroic Virtue, in: Shaping Heroic Virtue. Studies in the Art and Politics of Supereminence in Europe and Scandinavia, ed. S. F. Rota and A. Hellerstedt, Leiden 2015, 19–40, esp. 34. Bowersock’s claim (Fiction, 112) that Protesilaos “is resurrected bodily” cannot be sustained given Philostratus’s clear notice that he is a “heroized soul.” See the discussion of Philostratus Heroik. 7.3 above. Burkert, Homo Necans, 244 calls the tale of Protesilaos’s return to Laodameia a “vampire story” – which is a better description than a “resurrected body.” 278
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brothers who killed him. The result is that women are forbidden entry into the hero’s shrine285: But the shrine and the grove of Eunostus were so strictly guarded against entry and approach by women that, often, when earthquakes or droughts or other signs from heaven occurred, the people of Tanagra were wont to search diligently and to be greatly concerned lest any woman might have approached the place undetected; and some relate, among them Cleidamus, a man of prominence, that Eunostus met them on his way to the sea to bathe because a woman had set foot within the sacred precinct. And Diokles also, in his treatise upon the Shrines of Heroes,286 quotes a decree of the people of Tanagra concerning the matters which Cleidamus reported. &í @Ã Ù 2 Ú Ù ; — 8I ) Ú 8 5, · ? ¢ Ã ¢ & ;
8 ) Ú ) ˆ P , 8 ! 2 9 ?, Ú 8 , „ ¡ & D, (7, 8 Ã) Ù @– Ú !? I& , › Ù I I ∞ Ù 8 . (8 &Ó Ú F 2 Ú Z ? & P , Ú „ ¡ & 7
.287
Plutarch is silent about any bodily translation to the gods of Eunostus, and his term for shrine ( 2) implies that the hero was buried there. Peter G. Bolt calls Eunostus a “ghost.”288
3 Empty Tombs with no Subsequent Appearances Narratives of tombs that are found to be empty are of some, if limited, relevance for the interpretation of the Gospels. 3.1 Numa Pompilius According to several ancient writers, Numa’s body disappeared from his coffin. Cicero mentions the custom of burying bodies in the earth, which he believes is more ancient than cremation, but does not include any tradition of the subsequent disappearance of his corpse.
285 Cf., on various shrines and temples forbidden to either men or women, L. B. Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. J. Rykwert et al., Cambridge, MA 1988, 161. 286 FHG II.78–9. 287 Plutarch Aetia romana et graeca 40, 300F–301A, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 4.227–9. 288 P. G. Bolt, Jesus’ Defeat of Death. Persuading Mark’s Early Readers, MSSNTS 125, Cambridge 2003, 70. D. Felton (Haunted Greece and Rome. Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity, Austin, TX 1999, 27) refers to the “spirit of Eunostos.”
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The tradition is that our own King Numa was buried with these very rites in that tomb which is not far from the altar of Fons [stream], and we know that this method is used by the Cornelian clan even to our own day. Eodemque ritu in eo sepulchro, quod ‹haud› procul a Fontis ara est, regem nostrum Numam conditum accepimus gentemque Corneliam usque ad memoriam nostram hac sepultura scimus esse usam.289
Lawrence Richardson notes that there “were and are numerous springs on the Janiculan hill.”290 Cicero’s reference is to a sacred stream and clearly not to any worship of Numa. Terrentius Varro (116–27 B.C.E.), according to Augustine, recorded the finding of Numa’s books, but does not mention the empty coffin. He takes the excerpt from Varro’s dialogue Curio, On the Worship of the Gods (Curio, De deorum cultu).291 A man named Terentius had a farm near the Janiculum. His ploughman was driving his plough near the tomb of Numa Pompilius when he turned up the books of that author which dealt with the reasons for the established ceremonies of religion. He took them to the city and handed them to the praetor. Terentius quidam cum haberet ad ianiculum fundum et bubulcus eius iuxta sepulcrum Numae Pompilii traiciens aratrum eruisset ex terra libros eius, ubi sacrorum institutorum scriptae erant causae, in urbem pertulit ad praetorem.292
The narrative concludes with the senate’s decision to burn the books. Whether the complete account of Varro included a reference to an empty tomb is unclear. Livy describes the disappearance of Numa’s body but gives a natural explanation: The same year [181 B.C.E.], on the land of Lucius Petilus, a public clerk, at the foot of the Janiculan, while husbandmen were digging up the ground to a greater depth than usual, two stone chests were found, each about eight feet long and four broad, with the lids fastened with lead. Each chest had an inscription in Latin and Greek letters: one to the effect that Numa Pompilius, the son of Pomp, king of the Romans, was buried there, the other, that the books of Numa Pompilius were inside. When, on the advice of his friends, the owner had opened the chests, the one which carried the inscription about the buried king was found empty, with no trace of a human body or anything else, everything having been destroyed by the wasting action of so many years. In the other were two bundles, tied with
289 Cic. Leg. 2.56, trans. of Cicero, De republica. De legibus, LCL, ed. and trans. C. W. Keyes, Cambridge, MA 1928, 441. 290 Richardson, Fons (or Fontus), Ara, New Topographical Dictionary, 152–3. 291 For the title, cf. Probus in Verg. G. 6.31. On Curio, presumably a friend of Varro, cf. W. C. McDermott, AJP 93 (1972) 381–411, esp. 393, and for the dialogue, cf. Schanz and Hosius, Geschichte, 1.560–1. 292 Aug. Civ. 7.34, trans. of Bettenson, Augustine, 295. There is a short fragment in Festus (BiTeu 178 Lindsay), but it provides no further information (Numam Pompilium Ianicul ferunt, in quo arcam eius in --- nominis, a Terentio --- te agrum).
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waxed rope, containing seven books each, not merely whole, but looking absolutely fresh. The seven Latin books dealt with pontifical law, the seven Greek with a system of philosophy which might have been current at that time. Valerius Antias adds that they were Pythagorean, confirmation of the common belief, which says that Numa was a pupil of Pythagoras, being arranged by a plausible invention. Eodem anno in agro L. Petilli scribae sub Ianiculo, dum cultores agri altius moliuntur terram, duae lapideae arcae, octonos ferme pedes longae quaternos latae, inuentae sunt, operculis plumbo deuinctis. litteris Latinis Graecisque utraque arca scripta erat, in altera Numam Pompilium Pomponis filium, regem Romanorum, sepultum esse, in altera libros Numae Pompili inesse. eas arcas cum ex amicorum sententia dominus aperuisset, quae titulum sepulti regis habuerat, inanis inuenta, sine uestigio ullo corporis humani aut ullius rei, per tabem tot annorum omnibus absumptis. in altera duo fasces candela inuoluti septenos habuere libros, non integros modo sed recentissima specie. septem Latini de iure pontificio erant, septem Graeci de disciplina sapientiae, quae illius aetatis esse potuit, adicit Antias Valerius pythagoricos fuisse, uolgatae opinioni, qua creditur Pythagorae auditorem fuisse Numam, mendacio probabili accommodata fide.293
Livy concludes the narrative by noting that the senate had the books burned in the comitium. He attributes the disappearance of Numa’s body, however, to decay (tabes). Antias is a source who also appears in Plutarch’s account. Dionysius Halicarnassus mentions the disappearance of Numa, the legendary king of Rome, but includes no tradition of his apotheosis. He lived to a very advanced age without any impairment of his faculties and without suffering any blow at Fortune’s hands; and he died the easiest of all deaths, being withered by age, the genius who had been allotted to him from his birth having continued the same favour to him till he disappeared from among men. … He lies buried upon the Janiculum, on the other side of the river Tiber. Such is the account we have received concerning Numa Pompilius. &í Ú 7 4 ¡ Ã&Ó ÕÙ F ! Ú Ú !? Ù X¹ ÕÙ 7 ! , ¡ Ã2 !8 5 F & A 5 ! : †(! Ö ) &í ∏ 9 8 P I8 . Ú Ï Ó Ú T ?I .294
Hans Dieter Betz argues that Numa’s disappearance “seems to imply his postmortem apotheosis.”295 This may be true, but it is strange that Dionysius makes no comment on that, and no cult seems to have existed for him. I see no trace of a belief that “he had been elevated in body to the realm of the gods.”296 Dionysius uses the phrase ( 5 ! : †(!) for Romu-
293
Liv. 40.29.3–8, trans. of Sage, Livy, 12.89–91. Dion. Hal. 2.76.5–6, trans. of Cary, Dionysius, 1.541. 295 H. D. Betz, Plutarch’s Life of Numa, in: Redemption and Resistance. The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity, ed. M. Bockmuel and J. C. Paget, London 2007, 44–62, esp. 58. 296 Betz, Plutarch’s Life of Numa, 59. 294
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lus’s disappearance, but is quite clear that Romulus became an immortal.297 Dionysius also remarks that the woman who sold the remaining three books of the Sibylline oracles to Tarquin and who told him to guard them carefully disappeared from among people ( Ó “ Ï II & Ú ( ? ) 5 ! : †(!).298 With regard to Romulus, Plutarch uses the same expression, but he is explicit about the apotheosis in that case.299 Dionysius assumes Numa is or had been buried on the Janiculum. If Dionysius knows Livy’s explanation, then he may have simply believed that the body disappeared due to natural decay. Valerius Maximus wrote his Memorable Deed and Sayings during the reign of Tiberius.300 He mentions the discovery of the two coffins: In the consulship of Publius Cornelius and Baebius Tamphilus [181 BCE] our ancestors showed great scruples in their respect for religion. When farm-hands were digging rather deeply in a field under the Janiculum belonging to a scribe called Lucius Petillius, they found two stone chests. An inscription on one revealed that it contained the body of Numa Pompilius. In the other were found seven Latin books about the law of the pontiff, and as many Greek books about the discipline of philosophy. Magna conseruandae religionis etiam P. Cornelio Baebio Tamphilo consulibus apud maiores nostros acta cura est. si quidem in agro L. Petili scribae sub Ianiculo cultoribus terram altius uersantibus, duabus arcis lapideis repertis, quarum in altera scriptura indicabat corpus Numae Pompili fuisse, in altera libri reconditi erant Latini septem de iure pontificum totidemque Graeci de disciplina sapientiae …301
He does not mention whether Numa’s was empty or not. Pliny (23/24 B.C.E.–79 C.E.) dates the finding of the coffin to 181 B.C.E. in the context of a discussion of books made of paper (i.e., papyrus). Cassius Hemina, a historian of great antiquity, has stated in his Annals, Book IV, that the secretary Gnaeus Terentius, when digging over his land on the Janiculan, turned up a coffer that had contained the body of Numa, who was king at Rome, and that in the same coffer were found some books of his – this was in the consulship of Publius Cornelius 297
Dion. Hal. 2.16.2, trans. of Cary, Dionysius, 1.358: " &Ó (!8 Õí , ≈í 5 ! : †(!, Ú Ó /5 Ù 8 ?, " ) &í à ˆ 8 … he left behind him when he disappeared from among men forty-six thousand foot and about a thousand horse. See the discussion above in § 1.2. Isocrates Archid. (Or. 6) 18 also uses the expression for the disappearance of Castor and Pollux & ? Ú & 5 ! : †(! (after Castor and Pollux had vanished from people). See chapt. 4 § 2.1.11. Lysias Epitaphius 11 has the same language for the disappearance of Heracles (Õ8 9 &Ó 9, &  F Ó 5 ! : †(!). Josephus uses it for the disappearance of Moses and Elijah respectively (A.J. 4.proem, 9.28). 298 Dion. Hal. 4.62.4. 299 Plutarch Cam. 32.7. Likewise, Diodorus Siculus (chapt. 4 § 2.1.2) uses the expression for Aeneas’s disappearance before his apotheosis. 300 G. C. Whittick and B. Levick, Valerius (RE 239) Maximus, 4OCD, 1534. 301 Val. Max. 1.1.12, trans. of Walker, Valerius Maximus, 5–6.
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Cethegus, son of Lucius, and of Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, son of Quintus, dating 535 years after the accession of Numa … namque Cassius Hemina, vetustissimus auctor annalium, quarto eorum libro prodidit Cn. Terentium scribam agrum suum in Ianiculo repastinantem effodisse arcam, in qua Numa, qui Romae regnavit, situs fuisset. in eadem libros eius repertos P. Cornelio L. filio Cethego, M. Baebio Q. filio Tamphilo cos., ad quos a regno Numae colliguntur anni DXXXV.302
Pliny then includes the tradition that Quintus Petilius burned the books because they were volumes of Pythagorean philosophy, but also notes the debates among Roman authors, some of whom claimed they were Pontifical books, and so forth. Pliny apparently implies that the body of Numa was no longer there, although he does not comment on the absence. Numa, according to Plutarch, was more than eighty years old when he died: They did not burn his body, because, as it is said, he forbade it; but they made two stone coffins and buried them under the Janiculum. One of these held his body, and the other the sacred books which he had written out with his own hand, as the Greek lawgivers their tablets. But since, while he was still living, he had taught the priests the written contents of the books, and had inculcated in their hearts the scope and meaning of them all, he commanded that they should be buried with his body, convinced that such mysteries ought not to be entrusted to the care of lifeless documents. Ú Ó “ Ã >& Ù Ù Ã , › 8 , >& Ù Ù Ã , › 8 , & &Ó ? ! ˆ ÕÙ Ù ∏? >!, Ó /8 > Ù , &Ó /8 Ï " Ï II Å ? Ó Ã , · " 7 !8 ˆ I , &&?5 &Ó ˆ " ) > Ï 8 Ú ? A5 Ú : ? Ã), 8 (F Ï :, › Ã ? ( 8 7 .303
After a discussion of the Pythagoreans’ unwillingness to commit their teachings to writing, he describes the disappearance of Numa’s body: Therefore, we may well be indulgent with those who are eager to prove, on the basis of so many resemblances between them, that Numa was acquainted with Pythagoras. Antias, however, writes that it was twelve pontifical books, and twelve others of Greek philosophy, which were placed in the coffin. And about four hundred years afterwards, when Publius Cornelius and Marcus Baebius were consuls, heavy rains fell, and the torrent of water tore away the earth and dislodged the coffins. When their lids had fallen off, one coffin was seen to be entirely empty, without any trace whatever of the body, but in the other the writings were found. These Petilius, who was then praetor, is said to have read, and then brought to the senate, declaring that, in his opinion, it was not lawful or proper that the writings should be published abroad. The books were therefore carried to the comitium and burned. 302 Plin. Nat. 13.84–5, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 4.149–51. Cf. N. Purcell, Pliny (1) the Elder, 4OCD, 1162 for the dates of Pliny. 303 Plutarch Numa 22.2, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.379–81.
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·
: > ) ∞ Ù ÃÙ ! c Ta ( 8 ? Ú ¡ . °" &Ó Ú ] " &:& Ó ∂ II " (?, &:& &Ó ; Ï ( ( Ï ∞ Ù ! . &8 & 8 — Ó D 7 Ú ®? MIH ƒI &Ó ? Ú : 8 58 Ï ˆ Ù X H Ú !? Ó /8 ? ‡(! Ú 8 Ã&Ó Ã&Ó > :, &Ó E /8 c ? Õ !8 Ó ÃÏ 8 , Ù &Ó , & ) Ã2 ! Ù ∂ 8
&Ó ≈ > ) Ï 8 8!H &Ù Ú ! ∞ Ù Ï II F.304
Plutarch includes no account of Numa’s subsequent apotheosis or postmortem worship. It is unclear what explanation Plutarch had for the disappearance of the body of Numa, and since he mentions no supernatural occurrence it is unnecessary to assume one.305 He presumably knew Livy’s account of the disappearance of the body due to tabes (decay). Lactantius simply asserts that Numa’s body was in the coffin: For after many years, When Cornelius and Baebius were consuls, two stone coffins were found under the Janiculum by gravediggers, in one of which was the corpse of Numa, and in the other were seven books of Pontifical law and the same number written in Greek concerning instruction in wisdom. nam post annos plurimos Cornelio et Baebio consulibus in agro scribae Petili sub Ianiculo arcae duae lapideae sunt repertae a fossoribus, quarum in altera corpus Numae fuit, in altera septem Latini libri de iure pontificio, item Graeci totidem de disciplina sapientiae scripti.306
If Lactantius knew the story of the empty coffin, he rejected it. The author of De viris illustribus describes Numa’s burial on the Janiculum and the discovery of the books and their subsequent burning, but does not include any reference to an empty chest: Taken by an illness, he was buried on the Janiculum, there where years later chests were dug up by a certain Terentius; and these books because they contained trifling reasons for the sacred rites, were burned by the authority of the fathers.
304
Plutarch Numa 22.4–5, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.381–3. P. A. Stadler (Plutarch and his Roman Readers, Oxford 2014, 248) argues that Plutarch’s “conception of Numa does not derive from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, whom Plutarch used often in this life, and is not found in Livy or Cicero, our other major sources for Numa: Plutarch seems to construct this picture on his own.” 306 Lact. Inst. 1.22.5–6. 305
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309
Morbo solutus in Ianiculo sepultus est, ubi post annos arcula cum libris a Terentio quodam exarata; qui libri, quia leues quasdam sacrorum causas continebant, ex auctoritate patrum cremati sunt.307
The anonymous author apparently was not interested in the narrative of the empty chest, if one assumes that he knew it. Livy, probably Pliny, and Plutarch support the tradition that Numa’s coffin was empty. Missing from all the narratives is any reflection on the afterlife of Numa. Yarbro Collins thinks Plutarch’s silence about the “significance” of the empty chest “may be that it was clear to his audience that this ‘absence’ implied an ‘elsewhere,’ that is Numa’s deification.”308 Betz believes that “Other such tales of empty tombs would suggest that he had been elevated in body to the realm of the gods.”309 There are, however, no traditions of his translation or any post-mortem appearances of Numa. Livy conceived of the empty coffin as the result of a natural process of decay, and Plutarch simply includes no explanation for the empty box.310 The focus of the narratives is on the books discovered in the chest and not on the disappearance of Numa’s body. The empty coffin has no significance in itself. It is telling that none of the authors or the sources they refer to had any interest in affirming the translation of Numa. Consequently, it seems doubtful that the principle of analogy (other empty tomb tales such as that of Aristeas of Proconnesus) implies any firm conclusions about the ultimate fate of Numa in the afterlife. The complete absence of references to the subsequent worship of Numa also warrants skepticism about his alleged deification.311 Rather than being the object of worship, on the reverse of a Republican coin, Numa is depicted as making a sacrifice of a goat on an altar (L. Pomponius Molo, ca 97 B.C.E.).312 The
307 [Aurelius Victor] Vir. ill. 3.2. Solinus 1.21 also asserts that he was buried under the Janiculum (sepultus sub Ianiculo [C. Iulii Solini, Collectaneu rerum memorabilium, ed. T. Mommsen, Berlin 1864, 10]). Some MSS omit this phrase. 308 Yarbro Collins, Ancient Notions, 54. Cp. the analysis of motifs (comparing the translation of Romulus and Jesus) of Miller, Resurrection, 175. 309 Betz, Plutarch’s Life of Numa, 59. 310 Plutarch was not averse to miracle stories. Cf., e.g., Pyth. orac. 8, 397E (statues and the miracle traditions associated with them) and Is. Os. 17, 357D where Isis dries up a stream, in anger. 311 Plin. Nat. 33.9 (statua … Numae) says that there was a statue of Numa wearing a ring in the Capitol (all kings had statues there), but does not imply that it was worshiped. Jörg Rüpke has confirmed (communication of 26 June 2017) that there is no trace of a cult for Numa. 312 Kortbojian, Divinization, 61 (photograph on 62). RRC 334/1. K. Glaser, Numa Pompilius, PWRE 17 (1936) 1242 –52 mentions no cult of Numa. He draws no conclusion (ibid., 1252) from the disappearance of the body from the coffin.
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speech of Claudius in 48 in Lugdunum also includes no mention of Numa’s translation – merely the fact that he succeeded Romulus.313 3.2 Cleomedes Cleomedes disappeared and became a hero. Plutarch has this tradition: Cleomedes also, who was of gigantic strength and stature, of uncontrolled temper, and like a mad man, is said to have done many deeds of violence, and finally, in a school for boys, he smote with his fist the pillar which supported the roof, broke it in two, and brought down the house. The boys were killed, and Cleomedes, being pursued, took refuge in a great chest, closed the lid down, and held it so fast that many men with their united strength could not pull it up; but when they broke the chest to pieces, the man was not to be found, alive or dead. In their dismay, then, they sent messengers to consult the oracle at Delphi, and the Pythian priestess gave them this answer: – “Last of the heroes he, Cleomedes, Astypalaean.” 7& &Ó X:W Ú 8! : Õ (a , > 2 9 Ú Ù ƒ, Ï & a I, Ú 8 > && 9 & Ù Õ & ¿ ( ?5 E Ú ? 8 Ú 8 I ). 8 &Ó & & , ∞ I Ù ( ) ? Ú Ù 8 , ·í ? &! ˆ ¡ I8H &Ó I , – Ù ;! Õ ) – . 8 “ ) ! ∞ (, ∑ ! ∞ ) ìû : 7& ] .”314
Plutarch includes no details of his apotheosis. It is clear from his own philosophical analysis that he did not believe Cleomedes’ physical body was immortalized.315 Oenomaus of Gadara (ca 120 C.E.)316 is skeptical of oracles and lampoons the story of Cleomedes. One of his works, Charlatans Unmasked (º7
313 CIL 13, 1668 (Numa Romulo successerit). He does not mention Romulus’s apotheosis, either. Cp. Tac. Ann. 11.23–5. 314 Plutarch Rom 28.5–6, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.179–81. 315 See § 1.2 above and in particular Plutarch Rom. 28.7–10. 316 Jerome dates him to 119 (Plutarchus Chaeroneus et Sextus et Agathobulus et Oenomaus philosophi insignes habentur [Plutarch of Chaeronea, Sextus, Agathobulus and Oenomaus are regarded as distinguished philosophers]; Hier. Chron. [GCS Eusebius Werke VII, 198 Helm]), but the Suda (°G 123) locates him in the third century. Cf. J. Hammerstaedt, Der Kyniker Oenomaus von Gadara, ANRW II.36.4 (1990) 2834–65, esp. 2835 and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, 9 Oinomaus de Gadara, DPhA IV(2005) 751–61, esp. 753 (neither date can be proved, although she accepts Hammerstaedt’s conclusion that the second century date is more probable). Cf. J. Hammerstaedt, Die Orakelkritik des Kynikers Oenomaus, BKP 188, Frankfurt am Main 1988, 11–18 (second century is most probable). Syncellus Ecloga Chron. (BiTeu 426 Mosshammer), like Jerome, locates him in the same era as Plutarch.
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311
(: )317 is a violent attack on the unjust gods.318 He addresses the god of Delphi (Apollo), reputed to know the number of grains of sand in the sea319: I would that you were ignorant of all such things, but knew this, that the art of boxing is no better than that of kicking, that you might either have immortalized asses also, or else not Cleomedes boxer of Astypalaea, in such words as these: “Last of the heroes was he, Cleomedes of Astypalaea; / Now no longer a mortal with sacrifice honour him duly.” For why then, O ancestral instructor of the Greeks, as Plato calls you,320 did you divinize this man? Was it because at the Olympic games he struck his antagonist a single blow and laid open his side, and thrust in his hand and seized his lung?321 By Apollo! how godlike a deed! Or was it not that alone, but also because, being punished by a fine of four talents for this act, he did not submit, but in wrath and indignation turned his anger against the boys in the school, by pulling away the column which upheld the roof. Is it for these deeds then, you manufacturer of gods, that we ought to honour Cleomedes? Or will you add this also, as the other proof at once of his manliness and his friendship with the gods, that having stepped into a sacred chest, and pulled the cover over it, he could not be caught by his pursuers when they wished to drag him out? A hero then no longer mortal are you, O Cleomedes, for inventing such contrivances to attain immortality. The gods at least were immediately sensible of your good deeds, and snatched you up to heaven, just as Homer’s gods snatched Ganymede; but him they chose for his beauty, and you for your strength, and for the good use made of it! N! ‡( Ï Ó ? ), ) &Ó ∞&8, ≈ F F Ã&Ó &(8 , μí ¢ Ú ˆ ƒ !? ¢ &Ó 7& ] 8, 8
— H — : 7& ] , √ ! a!í › Ã8 !Ù . &Ï ? , ‚ ? 7 5 ?, · ) ? , !8 Ù ;& ; ¢ ≈ Δ E ¹ ?5 Ù
8958 Ï Ã Ú I S ) ?I 317
Eusebius P.E. 5.18.6, 5.21.6 (the title). M.-O. Goulet Cazé, Cynisme et christianisme dans l’Antiquité, Textes et Traditions 26, Paris 2014, 24–5. 319 Herodotus 1.47.3. 320 Cf. Plato Resp. 427B–C (” Ï &7 ¡ ! Ù Ú Ï a ! : ? 5 [For indeed this god (Apollo) is the ancestral instructor concerning all these matters (temples, cults of the gods, etc.) for all people]), Leg. 759C, E. R. Goulet notes that “Apollo was the judge of religious customs, the authority from whom one needed the sanction to render cultic honors to an individual one wished to heroize. The Republic of Plato attributes to the Delphic instructor [Resp. 427B–C] the right to decide on the form of burial for daemonic or divine individuals [Resp. 469A; cp. Leg. 947B–D].” See L’oracle d’Apollon dans la Vie de Plotin, in: idem, Etudes sur les vies de philosophes de l’antiquité tardive. Diogène Laërce, Porphyre de Tyr, Eunape de Sarde, Paris 2001, 191–229, esp. 206. 321 This blow was struck by Damoxenus and not Cleomedes. See Pausanias 8.40.4–5. Theodoret Affect. 8.26–7 also seems to confuse the two. For Theodoret, Cleomedes is one of the other miserable and unhappy people, whom the Greeks divinized and whom they honored with public feasts (Ú ; &8 ! Ú ! ! ! Ú &! ). 318
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(ê , 5!8 > !); ¢ Ã , Ï Ú ≈ ! Ú ? ? Ú 9 Ã Õ8, í Õí !& Ú I ! 7 Ù !Ù ) 2 && 9 , Ù Õ( , √ ) 8 ; ÷ í, ‚ ! 8, &Ï !í ) ¡ 7& 8 ; ¢ ) !7 , Ù A & ) F & b Ú ! ( , ≈ & IÏ ∞ " Ù I: Ú Ù ; 8 ) &:, 8 ÃÙ 5 ; ‚ & , ÷ • Ã8 ! , ∑ Ï 7 ÕÓ ! 5 H ! Ã!8 " ! Ú F ! Ú , · " ä7 Ù º7&H Ï Ù Ó Ú 2 ? , Ó &Ó Ú E ∞' Ú F ∞ E 7 E !E.322
Oenomaus is unimpressed by Cleomedes’ murder of the schoolboys. The disappearance of his body resembles that of Ganymede.323 Oenomaus depicts the event as a translation, using one of the common verbs ( ). His critique of Apollo is based on a moral premise: giving immortality to a murderer is worse than giving immortality to a wild ass. Apollo is an unwise creator of gods (‚ ! 8). He ironically characterizes Cleomedes’ act of murder as an example of “courage and friendship with the gods” (& b Ú ! ( ). His withering conclusion is that a wild ass deserves to be immortalized more than Cleomedes: I wish therefore, O prophet, as I said, that you had let alone the sand and the sea, and instead of them had learned how much boxing is worth, that you might regard the pugnacious asses as gods, and the wild asses as the very best of the gods: and there would have been some proper oracle over the death of a wild ass, rather than over your boxer: “Chief of the deathless gods is a wild ass, not Cleomedes; / Now no longer a mortal with sacrifice honour him duly.” For indeed you must not wonder, if even a wild ass should lay claim to immortality, as being fully provided with divine qualifications, and should not endure what he heard, but should threaten that with a blow he would knock even Cleomedes himself into the pit, and not permit him to go up to heaven. N!í “, › >(, ‚ ?, ? ? Ú b í Ã 58! ¡ ;5 7, μÚ ˆ ƒ ! ˆ Ú ˆ ¿? ! ˆ H Ú D ; ∞ ) í ! ¿? 9 a ¢ Ú 2 2 WH >5 !? ƒ ; , Ã 7&, √ ! a!í › Ã8 !Ù . (8) Ï & !?W ∞ Ú ƒ &? !, " Ï ! ) 8, Ú 7 , í 7 Ú ÃÙ Ù 7& ?5 ∞ Ù I? ! I ) Ú Ã 8 Ã2 ∞ Ù Ã Ù IF.324
322 Eusebius P.E. 5.34.2–6 = Oenomaus frag. 2 (74–5 Hammerstaedt), trans. slightly modified of, Gifford, Eusebius, 3.248. 323 On Ganymede, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.14. 324 Eusebius P.E. 5.34.7–8 = Oenomaus frag. 2 (75–6 Hammerstaedt), trans. slightly modified of Gifford, Eusebius, 1.248–9. On Oenomaus’s critique of Cleomedes, cf. Hammerstaedt, Der Kyniker Oenomaus, 2845. Socrates H.E. 3.23.57–8 affirms that because of the
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Although in Oenomaus’s satire he compares the honor of a wild ass and Cleomedes as gods (to the detriment of Cleomedes), there seems to be no evidence that Cleomedes was actually worshipped as a god. Oenomaus actually classifies him as a “hero” whom the gods had “snatched” ( ) up to heaven. In Oenomaus’s version, Cleomedes’ body itself is taken up to heaven, although it is clear that he believes none of the story. Pausanias dates him to 492 B.C.E. At the Festival previous to this it is said that Cleomedes of Astypalaea killed Iccus of Epidaurus during a boxing-match. On being convicted by the umpires of foul play and being deprived of the prize he became mad through grief and returned to Astypalaea. Attacking a school there of about sixty children he pulled down the pillar which held up the roof. This fell upon the children, and Cleomedes, pelted with stones by the citizens, took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary and drew down the lid. The Astypalaeans toiled in vain in their attempts to open the chest. At last, however, they broke open the boards of the chest, but found no Cleomedes, either alive or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what had happened to Cleomedes. The response given by the Pythian priestess was, they say, as follows: “Last of heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea; Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.” So from this time have the Astypalaeans paid honors to Cleomedes as to a hero. E &Ó ¿ ?& E Ù 7& (Ú ] 8 › º9 & Ú C& 9 Ù º E ?W, ! Ú &Ó ÕÙ & ;& ∞ ?! Ú (W 8 >( 8 ÕÙ F Ú 8 Ó ]? , && 9 &í Ï ! ≈ /57 !Ù & 8 Ù √ Ù ƒ ( ) . &Ó ¿ ( ) , ! ÕÙ 8( ]!a " H I? &Ó I Ù 8 2 " 2 Ú ( 8 Ù !, ? ( Ó " ] ) > I Ù : H 8 &Ó Ï 5 F I 75 , › – 7& – ! — , 8 ;& (ˆ 8 ¡) 7& Ï I? D. F ! (H ì— : 7& ] , / √ ! a 8 !Ù .î 7& Ó “ ] ) Ù Ï › • 8·325
Pausanias knows of no subsequent appearances by Cleomedes. Consequently, one can conclude that there was still a cult to Cleomedes in the second century C.E.326 Neither Plutarch nor Pausanias explicitly says that Cleomedes died.327 oracle about Cleomedes, Diogenes and Oenomaeus condemned the Pythian Apollo (Ï Ó “ Ù Ù & 8 ¡ Ú °∞ ¡ ( ( 8 ! ] ). 325 Pausanias 6.9.6–8, trans. Jones, Pausanias, 3.57. 326 B. M. W. Knox, The Heroic Temper. Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Berkeley 1964, 54 remarks that the “Cleomedes incident falls between the battles of Marathon and Salamis.” 327 A point made by D. C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus. The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters, New York et al. 2005, 309.
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Celsus used Cleomedes in an argument against Christianity: [Again, if miracles have occurred everywhere or in many places, as even Celsus thinks, quoting later the instances of] Asclepius who did good and foretold the future to whole cities which were dedicated to him such as Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos, and Pergamum, [and of] Aristeas the Proconnesian, a certain Clazomenian, and Cleomedes the Astypalean, [yet are we to suppose that among the Jews alone, who say that they are dedicated to the God of the universe, there was no sign or wonder to strengthen and confirm their faith in the Creator of the universe …] @∂ Ó ¢ &? , › Ú ÃÙ ) /5F ! ] Ù Ã Ú Ï 8 8 ≈ 8 Ã2, ∑ E P W Ú E C& 9 Ú E 2 Ú E ?9, Ú ] 8 Ù 7 Ú 8 Ú ] 8 7&H Ï &Ó ∏&, (? )! 2 ≈ ! 2, Ã&Ó D ) ¢ ?, Ù Ú I I Ã ∞ Ù Ï ≈ …328
Celsus knows the details of the story: [Celsus indicated that he knew many Greek stories, mentioning that of] Cleomedes the Astypalean who, he stated, got into a chest and holding onto it from within was not found inside. But he had vanished away due to some daimonic (or “divine”) providence when some individuals, wanting to seize him, broke into the chest. [And if this is not fiction, although it appears to be one, it cannot be compared to the narratives concerning Jesus.] û& 5 &í ¡ 8 ≈ 8 " / ?, !8 Ú Ï Ú ] 8 7&H √ " ∞ I Ù & Ú >&! ÃF ∞ 8 Õ F! >&, í >! &c Ú c &F, ÕÓ ÃÙ I ) &8? I . Ú &Ó ∞ ? , · > ∂ ?, Ã I? ) Ú ∏·329
Celsus may have compared the fate of Cleomedes to the empty tomb narratives in the Gospels, although Origen does not include the argument. Origen proceeds to argue that Jesus’s deeds aided people unlike those of the individuals cited by Celsus. At the end of his discussion Origen comments that “Celsus thinks concerning him, that an oracle prophesied that he vanished from the chest by some daimonic providence” ( Ú ” N ¡ 8 ≈ ! !8 , › ; c Ú &c &8 Ù F I ).330
328 Origen Cels. 3.3, trans. of Chadwick, Origen, 130 (Origen’s words are in brackets above). On the “Clazomenian,” cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.18. 329 Origen Cels. 3.33 (my trans.). Chadwick, Origen, 150 notes that the poetic >! and &c Ú c (apparently part of a hexameter) are “the remnant of the oracular utterance,” with ref. to A. Wifstrand, Die Wahre Lehre des Kelsos, Bulletin de la société royale des lettres de Lund 5 (1941/42) 391–431, esp. 416. 330 Origen Cels. 3.33.
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Christopher P. Jones comments that “this story interested Plutarch as a parallel to the disappearance of Romulus, and Christian authors because of its seeming similarities to the empty tomb of Jesus. It is perhaps because of the exceptional nature of Cleomedes’ disappearance that he is the only one of these fabled athletes to be unambiguously called a hero.”331 He disappeared, or in the words of A. S. Pease “vanished” and was “deified” along with many individuals in Greek tradition.332 None of the writers affirm that Cleomedes had “achieved physical immortality.”333 Although they all agree that his body disappeared, there is no explicit reflection on his immortal existence – with the exception of Plutarch who denies that his earthly body was taken to heaven. Some individuals, however, did believe Cleomedes had a physical existence with the gods, according to Plutarch.334 3.3 Alcmene Diodorus Siculus writes that Heracles’ mother also disappeared and was translated to the gods. Alcmene returned to Thebes, and when some time later she vanished from sight she received divine honours at the hands of the Thebans. ] 7 &í ∞ 7I 7, Ú Ï í ;( 8, ∞!8 > Ï ) I.335
Plutarch describes the disappearance of her body: It is said also that the body of Alcmene disappeared, as they were carrying her forth for burial, and a stone was seen lying on the bier instead. In short, many such fables are told by writers [better, “individuals”] who improbably ascribe divinity to the mortal features in human nature, as well as to the divine. 8 &Ó Ú Ù ] 7 8 Ù ;& 8!, ! &Ó (F Ú F , Ú ≈ Ï ! , Ï Ù ∞Ù ! ? Ï !Ï F ( b ) ! .336
Plutarch objects to the apparently popular concept (“writers” is not in the Greek text) that actual bodies are divinized. He has a much different tradition of her tomb in his treatise On the Daimonion of Socrates. Theocritus asks,
331 C. P. Jones, New Heroes in Antiquity. From Achilles to Antinoos, Cambridge, MA 2010, 41. 332 A. S. Pease, Some Aspects of Invisibility, HSCP 53 (1942) 1–36, esp. 13, 29–30. 333 Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 115. 334 See § 1.2 above (Plutarch Rom. 28.7–10). 335 Diod. Sic. 4.58.6, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus 2.531. Cf. Strecker, Entrückung, 468. 336 Plutarch Rom. 28.7, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch’s Lives, 1.179. Cf. § 1.2 above for Plutarch’s understanding of her disappearance.
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… what was the appearance of Alcmena’s tomb when it was opened in your country337 – if, that is, you were present yourself when Agesilaus sent and had the remains moved to Sparta. Ú ≈ ƒ ] 7 ?( í Õ) !8, ∞ & 8 Ú Ã , ≈ 8 ] ∞ ? Ï .338
In this version, her tomb (with her body) is located in Haliartus. Pausanias has his own variation, which is part of his description of Thebes: There are also ruins of the house of Lycus,339 and the tomb of Semele, but Alcmena has no tomb. It is said that on her death she was turned from human form to a stone, but the Theban account does not agree with the Megarian. The Greek legends generally have for the most part different versions. Ú ∞ F [Ï] Ú 8 F? , ] 7 &Ó Ã FH 8! &Ó Ã › 8! ! (Ú 5 ! :, Ú ® Ï Ã Ã ¡ H &?( &Ó Ú Ï Ï › Ù ˆ 7 8 Æ .340
Pausanias in this version describes the miraculous transformation of her corpse, but apparently she does not become a hero. The Megarians also claimed to have the tomb (and corpse) of Alcmene.341 Pausanias apparently did not know of any tradition of the translation of Alcmene. Antoninus Liberalis has a remarkable version in his Metamorphoses, which he attributed to Pherecydes: At that time Alcmene died of old age, and the Heraclidae performed her obsequies. They dwelled by the Electra Gate where Heracles led his public life. Zeus sent Hermes, ordering him to steal Alcmene’s body and to take her to the Isles of the Blest and give her as wife to Rhadamanthys. Obeying, Hermes stole away Alcmene leaving a stone instead of her in the coffin. When the Heraclidae were carrying the casket, they found it to be very heavy. They put it on the ground and took off the lid. They found a stone instead of Alcmene. They took this and set it up in the grove where now stands the heroon of Alcmene in Thebes. C &Ó 9 Ú ] 7 Ï F !Y Ú Ã 5 Â )&H &Ó Ï Ï K 8 , ≈! Ú Â F [ E ¹]. ¸ ˆ &Ó F 8 ] 7 8 Ú ) ∞ 337 Haliartus (Pheidolaus, to whom Theocritus is speaking, was from there). Cf. Plutarch Gen. Socr. 4 577E and also Lys. 28.5. 338 Plutarch Gen. Socr. 5.1 577E, trans. of D. A. Russell, On The Daimonion of Socrates. Human Liberation, Divine Guidance and Philosophy. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Interpretative Essays, ed. H. G. Nesselrath (with the participation of many authors including D. Russell et al.), Tübingen 2010, 25. 339 A legendary king of Thebes. Cf. Euripides Herc. fur. 26–34. 340 Pausanias 9.16.7, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 4.243. 341 Pausanias 1.41.1 (But the god in Delphi gave them [the Heracleidae] an oracle that it was better for them to bury Alcmena in Megara [¡ &Ó () ! Ù > !? ] 7 ) ® ? ; ∂ (], trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 1.219).
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®? 7 Ú & ç&?! ). F &Ó ! Ú ] 7 8 , ! &í í ÃF ! ∞ . (4) °" &í Â )&, Ú ? (8 I , ! Ú ” Ú F ] 7 !H Ú ÃÙ 5 > 2 ; , ≈!8 Ù 2 Ù F ] 7 7IW.342
Antoninus presumably lived during the era of the Antonines.343 Exactly how he conceived her presence in the isles of the Blest is unclear, but it apparently involved some form of physical existence, presumably with an immortal body of some sort. His statement that Zeus ordered the theft of “Alcmene” (] 7) and not her soul indicates that she was bodily translated. The variant traditions of her burial do not include post-mortem appearances. Robert L. Fowler compares the accounts in which Alcmene’s tombs are located in Haliartos and Megara and concludes: One could invent a story to reconcile such a grave with the Theban stone: after the substitution, her body was laid in a grave elsewhere, while her went to the Isles of the Blessed to join Rhadamanthys; but the several graves show that we are just dealing with competing local traditions. The Theban story of disappearance finds parallels in similar stories about Oidipous, Romulus, and the historical Kleomedes of Astypalaia; it is proof of her heroic stature.344
The difficult question is whether one can assume, as Fowler does, that only her soul went to the Isles of the Blessed. Since in most of the accounts there is no clear distinction between the soul existing in heaven and the body on the ground, Alcmene was probably the object of a bodily translation.345 Only Plutarch denies that her body was taken, and he admits others hold the contrary view. In Alcmene’s case there is no statement such as that in the inscription for the Athenian dead at the battle of Potidaea of 432 B.C.E.: the aether has received the souls, but the ground the bodies (∞!Ó Ó (Ï Õ &Ô, ı[ &Ó !Ù] / ͂& ).346 342 Antoninus Liberalis 33.3–4, trans. of F. Celoria, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis. A Translation with a Commentary, London 1992, 92. For Pherecydes, see FGrH 3 F84. On Rhadamanthys, cf. J. Davidson, Rhadamanthys and the Family of Herakles, AntCl 68 (1999) 247–52. Davidson, ibid., 248 notes that in “the first half of the IInd century B.C. on a temple in Kyzikos” a scene depicted Herakles giving his mother in marriage to Rhadamanthyus (Anth. Pal. 3.13) in the afterlife. The preface refers to the Elysian fields (K &) as the scene of the marriage. For the ref. to the temple, cf. Anth. Pal. 3.proem. 343 Antoninus Liberalis 4OCD, 110. 344 Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, 2.354. 345 Personal communication from Jan Bremmer (14 Sept. 2016). 346 IG I3 1179, II.6–7. Bremmer argues that celestial immortality “first becomes visible” with this inscription (Rise and Fall, 7). Euripides Suppl. 533–4 ([war dead] Ó Ù ∞!8 , / Ù &í F· the spirit to the aether, the body to the earth) and Erechtheus frag. 370 Kannicht (= frag. 65.71–4, Austin, Nova fragmenta = Erechtheus frag. 4.71 [OCT Diggle]): Ú Ó “ &í Ã I Iaí [&] ? / ∞ &í ∞!8 í Ã í S [] : (their souls have not gone down to Hades, but I [Athena]
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3.4 The Apostle John Although the tradition is Christian, enough details of the disappearance of John’s body are similar to Greco-Roman narratives that it is worthwhile to include a discussion. Many variations of John’s ultimate fate exist. In one version of his translation, John’s followers bury him outside Ephesus. Then when they came the next day, they did not find him – only his sandals and the ground bursting with vegegation. And after these events, they remembered what had been said to Peter by the lord concerning him, “What concern is it of yours if I wish him to remain until I come? !ı “ Ú – ÃÙ Ó Ã ” , Ï Ï &Ì Ã Ú I ˜ F. Ú Ï ! Ù ∞ Ô Ô 9 ÕÙ Û Ú Ã PÛ Ï Ú Ô Ï ÃÙ !Ô Ô A > ;347
In another version of the translation, John gives his followers a final greeting, Peace be unto you. And saying these as all watched, the sun came up, and he gave up the spirit. Digging, therefore, ground for him as he commanded and putting a linen cloth over his face, we went each to his/her own house, and returning after three days we dug down and did not find his body. @∞ Õ). Ú ∞S Ì ¡ ˘ , Û Û, Ô& Ù . Ì “ Ã2 F !˘ Û Ú !Ô ¿!˘ Ú Ù ı F ! A N& Ú !ı Ï Û Ô Ú ¿ ˜5 Ã ” Ù .348
The majority of MSS in another recension of John’s death do not mention his translation. But two MSS include this addition: Bringing then a linen cloth we spread it over him and went into the city; on the next day we came out and did not find his body, because he had been translated by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. “ &ı † ˘ Ì Ã Ú ∞ !ı E ı , E ˜W Ô c 5 !ı Ã ” Ù Ã Ô! Ì E &Ì Û ∏ # .349
In the Christian context, the disappearance of John’s body does not imply apotheosis. Rather, it implies that he is present in heaven with Christ.350 have settled their spirits in the aether). On this text, cf. S. D. Sullivan, Euripides’ Use of Psychological Terminology, Montreal 2000, 89 and Bremmer, ibid. 347 Acts John metastasis 115 (CChr.SA 1, 336 Junod/Kaestli). 348 Acts John 115 metastasis I (343 Junod/Kaestli). Besides the two volumes of Junod and Kaestli (CChr.SA 1 and 2), cf. J. D. Kaestli, Le rôle des textes bibliques dans la genèse et le développement des légendes apocryphes: le cas du sort final de l’apôtre Jean, Aug. 23 (1983) 319–36. 349 Acts John 115 metastasis & and B (328 Junod/Kaestli). MSS R and Z have the addition. 350 Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 308 includes John’s metastasis among “a host of obviously legendary stories about empty tombs or disappearing bodies.” Allison notes that in the Nar-
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3.5 A Christian Dyer Although a narrative found in Gregory the Great is not pagan, it indicates the continuing power of empty tomb stories in late antiquity: For another thing also which happened in this city, the company of dyers dwelling here do testify to be most true, and it is concerning one that was the chief of their profession, who departed this life, and was by his wife buried in the church of St. Januarius the martyr, near to the gate of St. Lawrence: whose spirit the night following, in the hearing of the sexton, cried out of his grave, saying: “I burn, I burn”: and when he continued a long time crying so, the sexton told it to the dyer's wife, who thereupon sent certain of his own profession to the church, to see in what case his body was in the grave, who so cried out in that pitiful manner: and when they had opened it, there they found his garments safe and sound, which are still kept in the same church, for a perpetual memory of that which happened: but his body by no means could they find, as though it had never been buried there: by which we may gather to what torments his soul was condemned, whose body was in that way thrown out of the church. What profit, then, do holy places bring to them that are buried there, when those who are wicked and unworthy are providentially thrown out from those sacred places? Nam quid quoque in hac urbe contigerit, tinctorum qui hic habitant plurimi testantur, quod quidam artis eorum primus, cum defunctus fuisset, in ecclesia beati Ianuarii martyris iuxta portam sancti Laurentii a coniuge sua sepultus est. Sequenti autem nocte ex sepultura eadem, audiente custode, eius spiritus coepit clamare: “ardeo, ardeo.” Cum uero has diu uoces emitteret, custos hoc eius nuntiauit uxori. Vxor uero illius eos, qui diligenter inspicerent, artis eiusdem uiros transmisit ad ecclesiam, uolens cognoscere qualiter eius esset corpus in sepulcro, de quo talia clamaret. Qui aperientes sepulcrum uestimenta quidem intacta reppererunt, quae nunc usque in eadem ecclesia pro eiusdem causae testimonio seruantur, corpus uero illius omnino non inuenerunt, ac si in sepulcro eodem positum non fuisset. Ex qua re collegendum est qua ultione anima eius damnata sit, cuius et caro est ab ecclesia proiecta. Quid igitur sacra loca sepultis prosunt, quando hii qui indigni sunt ab eisdem sacris locis diuinitus proiciuntur?351
The unfortunate dyer apparently went to hell. 3.6 Symeon the Fool Symeon, who was active in Emesa in Syria during VI C.E.,352 disappeared from his tomb according to hagiographical tradition. He was found dead under some twigs in his hut: ratio Iosephi Arimathiensis 4:1 (C. de Tischendorf, ed., Evangelia Apocrypha, Leipzig 21876, 467), the body of the bandit on Jesus’s right was not found, but the appearance of the body of the bandit on the left was like a serpent ( &Ó W > & 5 – Õ Ô! Ù &Ó >5 Ã ˜ · & Ì ∞&Ô — D Ù Ã). 351 Greg.-M. Dial. 4.56, trans. mod. of The Dialogues of Saint Gregory, Surnamed the Great. Pope of Rome …, trans. P. Woodward, London 1911. 352 Cf. D. Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool. Leontius’s Life and the Late Antique City, Berkeley 1996, 6–7 (with the insistence that Leontius’s text is hagiography and not history), 19–21, 23, 25–6, 28, etc. The distinction between hagiography and history cannot be drawn
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Then when those who were bearing him and going out to bury him passed the house of the glassblower of the Hebrews, whom Symeon had made a Christian, as I said before, the aforementioned man of the Hebrews heard psalm singing, music such as human lips could not sing, and a crowd such as all humanity could not gather. This man was astounded by the verse and the crowd. He glanced out and saw the saint carried out by the two men and them alone bearing his precious body. Then the one who heard the invisible music said, “Blessed are you, Fool, that while you do not have humans singing psalms for you, you have the heavenly powers honoring you with hymns.” And immediately he went down and buried him with his own hands. And then he told everyone what he had heard in the angels’ songs. John the deacon heard this and went running, with many others, to the place where he was buried, wishing to take up his precious remains in order to bury him honorably. But when they opened the grave, they did not find him. For the Lord had glorified him and translated him. Then all came to their senses as if from sleep, and told each other what miracles he had performed for each of them and that he had played the fool for God’s sake. › “ 7 &Ï N Ù Ù I Õ , ≈ ÃÙ # Ù › 8 ∞ 7 , " I? Ú 5 !? Ã , ¡ ∞ 8 Ù I 9&, ∑ 8 Ã & a ! : , Ú F!, ≈ Ã & ?5 a ! . Ú “ ) Ù Ú Ù F! Ú ! ) Ù ≈ ÕÙ & Ú I Ù Ã . ∂ ) ¡ 8 ? H ì? ∂, 8, ≈ > ! : ? ? > Ã &? — : .î Ú Ã!8 !S ∞& Ú ÃÙ >! . Ú Ï !8 Ã2 Ñ ? a 5 7. 4 “ Ú ¡ ∏ ? ¡ &? Ú D ! & Ï Ú ; ∞ Ù , ≈ ?(, I 8! Ù Ã Ú Ù ÃÙ & . › “ 45 Ù ?(, Ã ” Ã . 8! Ï ÃÙ &5? ¡ . b · 5 — 8 Ú 5 7 ≈ /Ú /?9 !? Ú ≈ &Ï Ù ! Ù ) Ù .353
The narrative is an interesting account of an empty tomb and translation, the verb for which ( 8! ) is similar those which appear occasionally in pagan translation texts.354
so clearly, however, because modern hagiography is a historical discipline. Cf. Barnes, Hagiography. 353 Leontius Vita Sancti Simonis Sali (Léontios de Néapolis, Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie de Jean de Chypre, BAH 95, ed. A.-J. Festugière and L. Rydén, Paris 1974, 102), trans. of Krueger, Symeon, 169–70 slightly modified (he translates Ù I as “formerly Jewish”). 354 Diod. Sic. 2.20.1 (Semiramis translated to the gods: ∞ ! ˆ Ö 8), 4.38.5 (Heracles translated to the gods: ∞ ! ˆ ! ?!), Dionyius Hal. 1.64.4 (Aeneas translated to the gods ∞ ! ˆ F). See also the use in Heb 11:5 (Enoch’s translation: S 8!).
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4 Conclusion The disappearance of Aristeas’s body from the fuller’s shop and his subsequence appearances on the road to Cyzicus, in Proconnesus, and in the region of Metapontum are good analogies to the Gospels, although Herodotus calls him a phantom. Romulus’s disappearance is a translation to the gods, but his appearance to Julius Proclus resembles the post resurrection appearances in the Gospels. The traditions of Romulus’s death or disappearance are interested in the fate of his body. Zalmoxis’s disappearance for three years and later reappearance most closely resembles a “faked resurrection.”355 The absence of Callirhoe’s body from her tomb has close affinities with the Gospels, and in his novel Chariton uses the language of resurrection for her recovery (Ô ). Anthia’s body disappears from her tomb in Xenophon’s novel, and Antonius Diogenes includes characters who are placed in tombs by day and who come alive by night. Phlegon’s Philinnion leaves her tomb in the form of a revenant and consorts with a lover, but “dies” when discovered by her parents. In Proclus’s narrative Philinnion returns to life – a temporary resurrection which enables her to have sex with a lover for many nights. Protesilaos’s body remains in his tomb, but returns to life (I ) as a heroized soul. Numa’s body disappeared from his coffin in some versions, but there is no evidence for a hero cult. Cleomedes’ body was not found in the chest, and he was honored as a hero. Some traditions indicate that Alcmene’s body is taken to the isles of the Blest, and others hold that her body was replaced on the bier with a rock. Later Christian texts (besides the Gospels) include empty tomb narratives for the apostle John, a dyer, and Symeon the Fool. Celsus’s Jew used some of these accounts to question the resurrection of Jesus (Zamolxis and Protesilaos), and Celsus in his own persona used Aristeas and Cleomedes against Christianity – probably in a more protracted argument against the resurrection which Origen does not include.356
355
Griffiths, Zalmoxis, 1586. For Origen Cels. 2.55, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29 and for Cels. 3.34, cf. § 1.3 above. For Aristeas, cf. Cels. 3.26 above in § 1.1, for Cleomedes, cf. Cels. 3.3 and 3.33 in § 3.2 above. 356
Chapter Four
Translations and Apotheoses of Heroes The translation of heroes to immortal life in places such as the Elysian fields or the island of Leuke ordinarily implies some kind of embodied existence. Their bodies presumably resemble those of the gods, although reflection on the nature of the heroes’ existence in their “translated state” is apparently rare. In some respects translations resemble resurrections, since the bodies of translated individuals often disappear. Mark’s empty tomb story, for example, has been compared to translation narratives.1 Translations also may resemble resurrections, because the bodies of translated individuals are sometimes described as being made immortal and (or) incorruptible. Bickerman argues that “there is principal difference between a translation and resurrection narrative: in the former the demonstration of disappearance is enough, but in the latter an indication of a return to existence (Wiederdasein) is necessary.”2 A resurrection story, for example, includes a demonstration that one has returned to life, as in Proclus’s narratives reviewed above: Ú I Ú ‡(! ≥ Ó !7 ) 7 ≥ Ó !7 ) 7, ≥ &Ó Ú ( (certain individuals who had been buried in their tombs came to life again and appeared [were seen], some lying on their tombs and others standing up).3 Narratives of translation (or apotheosis), however, do not have to include the disappearance of the corpse of the hero. 1 Thess 4:16–17 illustrates the major difference between translation and resurrection. Those who are dead will rise (), and those who are alive, along with those who are dead, will then be “snatched up” (U ı !).4 The dead experience a return to existence and a translation, but those who are alive are translated. Translations also closely resemble Luke’s ascension narratives. Consequently, the topic is important for this monograph. 1
Cf. chapt. 7 § 2. Bickerman, Leere Grab, 75. 3 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll). Cf. chapter 2 § 1.28. Bickerman, Leere Grab, 75 omits Proclus’s key phrase, which introduces the text: Ú Ï (í 4& Ú ! ) >&5 (Because in our time certain individuals who were thought to have been already dead). That is not overly problematic, however, because the authors Proclus used do not seem to have shared his perspective. 4 On this text, cf. chapt. 7 § 1.1. 2
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1 Immortal Bodies In ancient Greece, according to Jean-Pierre Vernant, there was no strict categorial delineation between the bodies of mortals and those of gods, although there were differences: “… in the archaic period Greek ‘corporeity’ still does not acknowledge a distinction between body and soul, nor does it establish a radical break between the natural and the supernatural.”5 The gods are described by Homer as having veins that flow with a substance called “ichor.” Homer’s Diomedes wounded Cypris (Aphrodite), and the ichor flowed: But when he caught up with her as he pursued her through the great throng, then the son of great-souled Tydeus thrust with his sharp spear and leapt upon her, and cut the surface of her delicate hand, and immediately through the ambrosial raiment that the Graces themselves had toiled over making for her, the spear pierced the flesh on the wrist above the palm and out flowed the immortal blood of the goddess, the ichor, such as flows in the blessed gods; for they eat not bread nor do they drink ruddy wine, and so they are bloodless, and are called immortals. í ≈ &7 Xí ˆ !í ≈ ¿? , >!í 5? ! P&8 "Ù (335) ; – ) ? ¿58' & Ú I 7H ∂! &Ó & Ù I &Ï 8 , ≈ " #? ? Ã, Ù — !8 H X8 &í ;I ∑ ! ) ∞: , ∑ 8 X8 ? ! )H (340) Ã Ï ) >&í, Ã í N! ∂, – í 8 ∞ Ú !? 8.6
Homer’s reference to ichor became popular in classical tradition. Alexander the Great, his tutor, and Anaxarchus are all reputed to have used it when the general was wounded.7 Diogenes Laertius includes this instructive account of Anaxarchus: At all events he succeeded in diverting Alexander when he had begun to think himself a god; for, seeing blood running from a wound he had sustained, he pointed to him with his finger and said, “See, there is blood and not ‘Ichor which courses in the veins of the blessed gods’.” Plutarch reports this as spoken by Alexander to his friends. Ù ] 85& ∞ ∂ ! Ù 8 H & Ï > F ∂& Ã 8 ∑, & 5 F Ú Ù Ã (H ìÚ 5 J. P. Vernant, Mortals and Immortals. The Body of the Divine, in: idem, Mortals and Immortals. Collected Essays, Princeton 1991, 27–49, esp. 29, and cp. C. Markschies, Gottes Körper. Jüdische, christliche und pagane Gottesvorstellungen in der Antike, Munich 2016, 133 (and for his survey of the problem of the gods’ bodies in paganism, including their presence in statues, cf. 113–36 ). 6 Homer Il. 5.334–42, trans. of Wyatt, Homer, Iliad, 1.231. See the discussion in Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 39. Theophilus (Autol. 1.9) mocked the text. 7 The tutor who reputedly quoted the text was Callisthenes, according to Seneca, cf. FGrH 124, T13 = Sen. Suas. 1.5.
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Ó ∑ Ú Ã ∞: , ∑ 8 X8 ? ! ).î &í ÃÙ ] 85& 85 Ù ˆ ( (.8
This chreia is a humorous usage of the Homeric text. According to Apollonius of Rhodes, Prometheus’s body dripped “blood red ichor” as he was being tortured (" í ∞ !F).9 The Jew apparently created by Celsus quoted the Homeric verse to mock Jesus’s crucifixion – and Celsus may be ridiculing Jesus by comparing his behavior to that of Alexander the Great (with the implication that Jesus used no such heroic words).10 In addition, Celsus’s views of the perishable nature ((! ı) of human bodies may be set against his understanding of the presumed immortality and incorruptibility of divine bodies: God has made nothing mortal. But all immortals are works of God, while mortals are their works. The soul is the work of God, but the nature of the body is distinct. And indeed with regard to this there will be no difference between the body of a bat, maggot, frog, or person: the matter is the same, and the principle of corruption is also similar. Ö ¡ ! Ù Ã&Ó !Ù H Ï ! Ó > ≈ !?, !Ï &í . Ú Ó ! > , : &Ó ; (. Ú W Ã&Ó & & ¢ Ã F ¢ I ? ¢ ! : H — Ï Ã7, Ú Ù (! Ù Ã ≈.11
Presumably his views were shared by many elite Greeks and Romans. Celsus claims that καὶ — > Ã&Ó !? (“no offspring of matter is immortal”).12 For the middle Platonist and critic of Christianity, the bodies of the immortal gods are immortal, incorruptible, and ichor flows through their veins. The gods are frequently described as immortal and imperishable. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes combines both concepts, for example, to describe the Olympians (!? &Ó / ;(!).13 Menander calls Nike the “incorruptible goddess” (;(! ! Ì).14 Nemesis is an “imperishable goddess” according to Mesomedes (T8 ! Ù Ö (!).15 Immortality is a fundamental description of the gods’ nature, and !Ì is used thou-
8 Diogenes Laertius 9.60, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes Laertius, 2.473. See Plutarch Alex. 28.3 and cp. Alex. fort. 9, 341B, [Plutarch] Reg. imp. apopth. 180E, Dio Chrysostom (2. Fort.) 64.21. It was uttered (about Alexander) by Dioxippus the Athenean according to Athenaeus 6.57 (Kaibel) = 6.251A (LCL). 9 Apoll. Rhod. 3.854. 10 Origen Cels. 2.36 and cp. 1.66. 11 Origen Cels. 4.52. 12 Origen Cels. 4.61. 13 Hymn. Merc. 325–6. 14 Menander Sam. 736. For another “incorruptible goddess” see Timaeus FGrH 566, F55. 15 Mesomedes Frag. 3 (E. Heitsch, ed., Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit, vol. 1, Göttingen, 21963).
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sands of times to describe them.16 The concept distinguishes gods from humans (“immortals and mortals” !? !) í).17 Aeschylus mentions Helios’s “immortal flesh” in a description of Ethiopia: “the Sun, who sees all things, gives rest to his tired steeds and refreshes his immortal body in warm outpourings of soft water” (¡ ≠ ∞ Ú / í !? ? !í μ / ! ) —& / ) ).18 Plutarch describes Calypso’s of clothing Odysseus in a garment that “breathes of her immortal flesh” ( Ù !? 8).19 A fragment of Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women links ambrosia with immortality in the story of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice: The well-greaved Achaeans sacrificed Iphimede on the altar of [golden-spindled] noisy [Artemis], on the day [when they were sailing on boats to] Troy, [to wreak] vengeance for the [beautiful-]ankled Argive woman – a phantom: [herself, the deer-shooting] Arrow-shooter had very easily saved, and lovely [ambrosia] she dripped onto her head, [so that her] flesh would be steadfast forever, and she made her immortal [and ageless all her] days. ∏(8& Ó (?5 7[]& ]Ú I [ >í ] 8& ]?[] & F, 4[ ≈ Ú 8 ] º [N [ ]( ] :[], N& [ H à &í (I ] ∞8 X ) ? í 5 ?[ , Ú I ] [ ]»¶[ ?5 Ï F[! , μ " ] S [>] [&][] ¶[N, !F &í !?[ Ú 7 ] 4[ ?.20
Iphigeneia’s flesh becomes immortal when Artemis pours ambrosia over her head.21 In the Cypria, “Artemis seized her, takes her to Tauros and makes her immortal, and placed a deer instead of the girl on the altar” (ê &Ó 16
Homer Il. 1.520 (!? ! )) and passim in Homer. Hymn. Cer. 269. 18 Aeschylus frag. 192 Radt = Strabo 1.2.27, trans. of Strabo, Geography, 8 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. H. R. Jones and J. R. S. Sterrett, Cambridge, MA 1917–32, 1.123. 19 Plutarch Vit. aere al. 8, 831D. 20 Hesiod frag. 23a,17–24 (R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, ed., Fragmenta Hesiodea, Oxford 1967, 13), trans. of Hesiod, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. G. W. Most, Cambridge, MA 2006, 2.69–71. 21 DGE s.v. I Û lists the other texts in which ambrosia is the “source of immortality”: H. Cer. 237 (Demophoon, see § 2.1.10 below), Apollonius of Rhodes 4.871–2 (Achilles: I W 8 &8, ƒ( 8 / !? [she anointed his soft body with ambrosia, so that he might become immortal]), Aristotle Metaph. 1000A12 (Ï
? 8 Ú F I !Ï 8! ( [they (the cosmologists) say that those who did not taste nectar and ambrosia became mortal]), Theocritus Id. 15.108 (Berenice, wife of Ptolemy Soter: I F! ?5
[dropping ambrosia on the breast of the woman]). 17
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à 5 ? ∞ P Ú !? ), > ( &Ó Ú F 2 I 2).22 Thetis makes Peleus immortal and grants him imperishable flesh: You also, so that you may know the grace from my bed, I will set free from mortal evils, and will make you an immortal and imperishable god. Ó &í, › i ∞&F F F ÃF ? , ?5 I !? ;(! 7 ! 23
Immortality and incorruptibility characterize Peleus’s new existence. Mortals are not “imperishable,” although Aeschylus writes that Apollo once persuaded the Fates to make “mortals imperishable,” in the case of Admetus (® > (! ! ) I ).24 The gods (immortals) had made Tantalus imperishable using the nectar and ambrosia that he stole and gave to his drinking comrades (… !? ≈ 8 / U / 8 I / & , ∑ ;(! / !8 ).25 For Pindar, the “days of mortals are deathless, but their bodies are mortal” (!? &Ó I ) / U8 , &í Ú ! ).26 The philosophers reflected frequently on the bodies of the gods. Although Xenophanes is skeptical of the Homeric gods, Vernant notes that he does not “affirm that the gods do not have bodies.” The philosopher writes, “neither is their body [or “bodily stature”] nor their thought similar to that of mortals” (– &8 !) ¡ Ã&Ó ).27 Mortals are given to incorrect concepts of the gods, according to Xenophanes: “But mortals think that the gods are born, and that they have their clothing and their voice and body” ( í " I Ú &8 a! ! , / ( 8 &í !F > ( 7 &8 ).28 He does not deny that the gods have bodies, but is skeptical of anthropomorphic concepts of their bodies: But if horses or oxen or lions had hands or could draw with their hands and accomplish such works as men, horses would draw the figures of gods as similar to horses, and the oxen as similar to oxen, and they would make the bodies of the sort which each of them had. 22 Proclus Chrestomathia 141–3 (A. Severyns, Recherches sur la Chrestomathie de Proclus, vol. 4, Paris 1963, 83 = Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta [EGF], ed. M. Davies, Göttingen, 1988, 32,61–3). Cp. Apollorodus Epit. 3.22b. 23 Euripides Andr. 1253–6. Cp. § 2.1.10 below. 24 Aeschylus Eum. 724. 25 Pindar Ol. 1.60–3. 26 Pindar frag. 94a Maehler. The editors (B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, ed., The Oxyrhynchyus Papyri, vol. 4, London 1904, 58) of P.Oxy. 659,14–5 comment: “though the individual dies, the race is perpetuated.” 27 Vernant, Mortals, 29. Xenophanes frag. 23 Diels/Kranz = Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.14.109.1. 28 Xenophanes frag. 14 Diels/Kranz = Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.14.109.2.
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í ∞ ) > I †Ó 8 ¢ ? Ú > ) b ;& , μ 8 !í μ I &8 IÚ ¡ ! ∞&8 > ( Ú :í !í ∑ ÃÚ &8 ∂ .29
He does not deny the bodily existence of the gods, but criticizes the anthropomorphism of his culture. Plato’s Socrates seems to assert that the gods have a body and soul: It is without having seen a god and when our thought does not suffice, that we imagine a living immortal with a soul and body naturally united forever in time. Ï ? – ∞& – " 7 ! , !? 2, > Ó 7, > &Ó , Ù Ú &Ó ( .30
Richard Bodeus attributes the conception to Plato that the Olympians possess bodies.31 Democritus asserted the existence of images that visit people – an occurrence which resulted in belief in imperishable gods: Consequently, the ancients receiving the manifestation of these same things [images], understand them to be god, when nothing, other than that which has an imperishable nature, is god. ≈! Ã ( I " Ú Õ ∂ ! , & Ù ; Ï ƒ ! [] ;(! ( >32
Epicurus held that god is “a living being incorruptible and happy” ( Ó Ù ! Ù 2 ;(! Ú ? ).33 In his letter to Herodotus, Epicurus repeats a similar claim in an explanation of cosmological phenomena: Nay more: we are bound to believe that in the sky revolutions, solstices, eclipses, risings and settings, and the like, take place without the ministration or command, either now or in the future, of any being who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality [“imperishability”]. 29 Xenophanes frag. 15 Diels/Kranz = Clem. Alex. Strom. 5.14.109.3, trans. of Xenophanes of Colophon, Fragments. A Text and Translation with a Commentary, J. H. Lesher, Toronto 1992, 25. Lesher (ibid., 92) compares Xenophanes’ critique to Aristotle Pol. 1252B23– 6, which includes the statement: · &Ó Ú Ï N& /) ( " ;! , — Ú ˆ I ! “For they imagine not only the forms of the gods, but their ways of life to be like their own” (his trans.). 30 Plato Phaedr. 246CD, trans. of R. Bodeus, Aristotle and the Theory of Living Immortals, Albany, NY 2000, 101. Bodeus (his trans.) also refers to Plato’s remark (Socrates is speaking) in Crat. 400D that “we do not know anything about the gods, neither about them, nor about the names they give themselves” (≈ Ú ! Ã&Ó N , – Ú Ã – Ú ¿? , b Ó /ˆ ). 31 Bodeus, Aristotle, 118. 32 Democritus frag. 166 Diels/Kranz apud Sextus Empiricus Math. 9.19. 33 Epicurus Ep. ad Menoec. 123 apud Diog. Laert. 10.123.
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Ú ) : ( Ï Ú Ú > Ú Ú & Ú Ï 7 & )
! Ú &? ¢ &?5 Ú b a > Ï (! 34
Immortality and imperishability (or indestructibility) are the main predicates of divine existence. According to Philodemus, Epicurus held that early humans were misled in their conceptions of the gods: Certain things unworthy of their perceived imperishability and perfect happiness are sought in prayer. 8[] [] / [í] ?5 F []/[]8 (!< >[] / Ã Ú / [ ]·35
Dirk Obbink’s explanation of the text is that for Epicurus, people “came to believe that gods would obligingly bother themselves to remove the threat of death from humans in response to their prayers. But such a response would be unworthy of a god’s indestructibility and complete happiness.”36 Plutarch mentions Antipater of Tarsus’s statement that “all people believe that the gods are incorruptible” (or “indestructible”): Ú (!? È ? .37 Plutarch argues that Chrysippus contradicts this view of the gods, since he believes that Zeus is indestructible, although the other gods (e.g., sun, moon, and the other gods) are destructible ((! Û). According to a difference of constituent principle some, therefore, are said to be subject to generation and to destruction and others to be unsubject to generation. An exposition of this from the beginning is rather a topic for physics, for sun and moon and the rest of the gods, since they have a similar principle of constitution, are subject to generation, but Zeus is everlasting. !í A H " Ó Ï Ú ∂ Ú (! Ú 8 , " &í 8H Ú í í F Õ& ! (: . • Ó Ï Ú 7 Ú " ; ! Ú í, Ú ¸Ù D ) > , ? H48
James B. Wells hypothesizes: “I would suggest that what moves Zeus’ ētor [heart] is as much the effective performance of the speech act of entreaty (litai ‘entreaties’, line 80) on the part of Thetis and Zeus’ accordingly positive evaluation of that performance as any emotional quality that may be implied in Thetis’ unreported words.”49 Plato also locates Achilles in the Isles: “… whereas Achilles, son of Thetis, they honored and sent to his place in the Isles of the Blest” (… Ã · ] 8 Ù F 8& ÕÙ Ú ∞ ? 7 8 ).50 Proclus’s summary of the Aithiopis includes a reference to the translation of Achilles to Leuke, directly from his funeral pyre. Then they hold funeral rites for Antilokhos and lay out Achilles’ corpse; Thetis comes with the Muses and her sisters and makes a lament for her son. After that, Thetis snatches him off the pyre and carries him over to the island Leuke. But the Achaeans heap up his burial mound and hold funeral games, and a quarrel breaks out between Odysseus and Aias over the armor of Achilles. > ] !? Ú Ù Ù ] 8 ! . Ú 8 (8 ˆ ® Ú ) & () ! ) Ù )&H Ú Ï F a 8 ? Ù )& ∞ F & . " &Ó ]Ú Ù ?( : !8, Ú Ú ] 8 ≈ Δ& ) Ú ÊN ? .51
Achilles is “transported after death into a state of immortality” by his patroness (his mother).52 There is an inherent ambiguity in the text, however. Although Achilles is “snatched” by Thetis, the Achaeans built a tomb. Erwin Rohde attempts to solve the difficulty by affirming that the grave was a cenotaph (i.e., empty). He then describes the result of the translation to be a “reanimated body” (wiederbeseelten Leibe).53 This avoids the apparent implication in the text of a burial, however. Jonathan Burgess argues instead that Thetis 48 Pindar Ol. 2.79–80, trans. of J. B. Wells, Pindar’s Verbal Art. An Epigraphic Study of Epinician Style, Cambridge, MA 2009, 43. In Nem. 4.49–50, Achilles is on the shining island of the Euxine sea ( &í @Ã5 9 ? ( Ï ] / a). 49 Wells, Pindar’s Verbal Art, 43. 50 Plato Symp. 179e, trans. of Fowler, Plato, 9.125. Cp. idem 180b &Ï Ú Ù ] 8 F ] 7& a , ∞ ? 7 8 where Plato affirms that the gods honored Achilles more than Alcestis and sent him to the Isles of the Blest. 51 Proclus Chrestomathia [Aethiopis, attributed to Arctinus] 196–203 (88 Severyns) = Davies, EGF 47,24–30, trans. of G. Nagy, The Epic Cycle (http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/art icle/display/5288). 52 G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans. Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, Baltimore 1979, 164. 53 Rohde, Psyche, 1.87.
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“presumably took the immortal part of Achilles’ body (not his psyche), leaving behind his mortal part to be disintegrated into ashes and buried; the separation of his distinct corporeal natures is apparently effected by fire.”54 He compares the text from the Aithiopis to Philostratus’s Thessalian hymn quoted below, in which both a burial and translation of Achilles are consistent. In any case, ? (snatched) does, as Burgess argues, imply something “tangible” even if his explanation is too “precise.”55 The Aithiopis seems to imply that Thetis seized Achilles’ entire body from the pyre. M. L. West simply concludes that the epic leaves “an unresolved contradiction: on the one hand the body is burned on the pyre, the remains collected in a vessel, and a tumulus built over them, on the other hand Achilles is snatched from the pyre and transported overseas.”56 Of course, the epic does not actually mention the collection of any remains. Apollodorus also has a tradition of Achilles’ translation to Leuke: They buried Achilles in Leuke (the white isle) with Patroclus and mixed their bones together. It is said that after his death Achilles lived in wedlock with Medea. À !? Ù ] 8 [ E 79] Ï , Ï /8 ¿a 5 . 8 &Ó Ï !? ] ˆ ®? 7 ®& c ).57
His burial is consistent with his immortal wedded life on Leuke. There is substantial evidence for a cult dedicated to Achilles.58 Pausanias locates Leuke at the mouth of the Ister (Danube) in the Euxine. The wounded Leonymus went there to be healed by Ajax: In time he was healed and returned from White Island, where, he used to declare, he saw Achilles, as well as Ajax the son of Oileus and Ajax the son of Telamon. With them, he
54 Burgess, Death, 101 and idem, Coronis Aflame, CP 96 (2001) 214–27, esp. 215–6. He compares the story of Thetis’s attempt to make Achilles immortal by fire (Appollonius Rhod. 4.869–79 Ó Ï I 8 ∞ Ú Ú ? >& “she was continually burning off his mortal flesh …”; Apollodorus 3.13.6 [3.171 Wagner]: F Ù >(! √ D Ã2 !Ù 2 “by night she was destroying his mortal paternal nature”) with Demeter’s attempt to do the same to Demophoon (H. Cer. 234–54). See § 2.1.10 below. 55 Burgess, Death, 101 (his own concession). The verb is commonly used for the translation of heroes. Cf. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 192–8. 56 M. L. West, The Epic Cycle. A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics, Oxford 2013, 156. 57 Apollodorus Epit. 5.5. Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.117 thinks that the reference to the white isle is an error of a copyist since Achilles was “buried in the Troad.” I have translated it since the phrase appears in the MSS. In Quintus Smyrnaeus 3.771–7 Poseidon promises Thetis that Achilles will dwell on an island in the Euxine Sea. A similar narrative is in Philostratus Heroik. 54.6. Cp. [Aristotle] Peplos 8.50.640.4 (Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, ed. V. Rose, Leipzig 1886, 397): Achilles honored on the island of Leuke ( 8 &Ó Ú W E 79). 58 R. Parker, On Greek Religion, Ithaca 2011, 244.
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said, were Patroclus and Antilochus; Helen was wedded to Achilles, and had bidden him sail to Stesichorus at Himera, and announce that the loss of his sight was caused by her wrath. 9 &Ó › Õ ? F ! F F, ∞& ) Ó >( ] 8, ∞& ) &Ó Ù Δ 8 Ú Ù P ÊN, ) &Ó Ú ? ( Ú ] H 8 &Ó ] ) Ó ), ?5 &8 " π8 Ù
8 › &(! Ï ¿(! 5 8 8 Ã2 .59
Although he does not mention Leuke, Alcaeus writes that it is Achilles who rules the Scythians (] ¿ Ï ! 8& ).60 Philostratus in his Heroikos mentions the tomb of Achilles and Patroclus without mentioning the name of the site (Achilleium, ] , which was near Sigeion).61 This hill, my guest, which you see standing in line with the headland, the Achaeans erected when they came together at the time when Achilles was mingled with Patroklos in the tomb and bequeathed to himself and that man the loveliest shroud. Ù Ó & , 58 , , √ Ú : F F ¡ ¹ , 4 " ]Ú 5 ! ≈ 2 9 5 ! Ù ?(, ? ?( /2 9 &&·62
On Leuke, Achilles’ behavior according to Philostratus was occasionally frightening. Achilles appeared to a merchant who came to the island ( 9 &Ó 8 Ö ( ! Ó ¡ ] ˆ Ã ) and demanded that he bring him a particular Trojan girl, who was descended from Hector. Achilles tore the girl apart.63 When the Amazons come to Leuke, Achilles afflicts their horses with madness, and the horses in turn consume the flesh of the Amazons.64 Although it is difficult to determine Philostratus’s precise conception of the afterlife of Achilles on Leuke, a Thessalian poem he includes illuminates the problem: 59
Pausanias, 3.19.13 (the location is in 3.19.11), trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 2.125. Alcaeus frag. 354 (Lobel and Page). Cp. the dedication on a black-glazed lekythos (SEG 30, 869, Leuke) º ı Ô! ] F E &Ô, ){ } & (Glaucos dedicated me to Achilles who rules Leuke, the son of Posideos). 61 The name is in Strabo 13.1.39 (Ù ] 8 F, the tomb/monument of Achilles), 46. Cf. MacLean and Aitken, Philostratus, 153. 62 Philostratus Heroik. 51.12, trans. of MacLean and Aitken, Philostratus, 153. 63 Philostratus Heroik. 56.6–10. On visions of Achilles (by sailors and others), cf. P.-J. Shaw, Lords of Hellas, Old Men of the Sea: The Occasion of Simonides’ Elegy on Plataea, in: The New Simonides. Contexts of Praise and Desire, ed. D. Boedeker and D. Sider, Oxford 2001, 164–181, esp. 168 (e.g. Pausanias 3.19.11–13). J. S. Burgess (The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, Baltimore 2001, 164) notes that “the ancients reported seaman tales of the ghost of Achilles being seen or heard there [Leuke].” 64 Philostratus Heroik. 57.13–17. 60
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Dark Thetis, Pelian Thetis, you who bore your great son Achilles, that one Troy obtained, as much as his mortal nature produced; but as much as the child received from your immortal lineage, the Pontus [Black Sea] holds. 8 8, 8 , Ù 8 Å 8 "Ù ] 8, !Ï Ó ≈ ( 4 , P ? H a &í ≈ !?
a ? > , > .65
Clearly the poet believed that a burial for Achilles’ mortal remains was consistent with the translation of his immortal nature. The hymn may be “ancient.”66 If the hymn is ancient, then it provides good evidence for the nature of Achilles’ post-mortem existence. Hesiod believed that the heroes who fell at Troy were transported to the Isles of the Blessed: “and these dwell with a spirit free of care on the Islands of the Blessed beside deep eddying Ocean” (Ú Ú Ó &8 !Ù > / ? 7 í ‰ Ù I!&).67 Homer, on the other hand, includes “no overt prediction of impending immortality for either Achilles or Hektor.”68 The Banquet Song of Harmodios, who had assassinated the tyrant Hipparchus in 514 B.C.E., locates Achilles in the Isles of the Blessed: Harmodios most philos [friend]! Surely you are not at all dead, but they say that you are on the Isles of the Blessed, the same place where swift-footed Achilles is, and they say that the worthy Diomedes, son of Tydeus, is there too. ( !í ç &í, – 8!, 7 &í ? 8 ( ∂, μ &: ] ˆ P& ^& 8 ( Ù ! Ù 7& 69
The scholiast to Apollonius of Rhodes quotes several authors who locate Achilles in Elysium: 65
Philostratus Heroik. 53.10, trans. of Burgess, Death, 101. Burgess, Coronis, 215 (he does admit that opinions “vary widely”). 67 Hesiod, Op. 170–1 (56 Solmsen), trans. of Most, Hesiod, 1.101, cp. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 164. 68 Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 165, with ref. to Homer Il. 22.359–60 (where Hector predicts Achilles’ death at the hands of Paris). In Homer Od. 11.467 the soul of Achilles, son of Peleus, is in Hades ( '?& ] F). Burgess, Death, 144 notes that the only other “certain depictions” of Achilles in Hades are (in literary sources): Pausanias 10.30.3 and Lucian Dial. mort. 6 and 26. Cp. A. Kossatz Deissmann, Achilleus, LIMC I (1981) 37– 200, § 900. § 901 is a very questionable depiction of Achilles being taken over the sea to Leuke. 69 Carmina convivialia frag. 11 = PMG (Poetae Melici Graeci, ed. D. Page, Oxford 1962) § 894, trans. of Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 174. On Harmodios, cf. R. Thomas, Aristogiton, 4 OCD 156–7. The text is a skolion, a drinking song. 66
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Anaxagoras says that in truth those who dwell in Laconia honored Achilles as a god. Some say that because the gods felt sympathy for Thetis, they made him immortal. And Ibycus first said that when Achilles arrived at the Elysian plain he married Medea, and after him Simonides [said it]. ]5 (, ≈ ) ! Ù ] 8 › ! Ù 7 " Ú ∞ H > &8 (, ≈ !7 " ! Ú E 8& !? Ã . ≈ &Ó ] ˆ ∞ Ù K & > ®7& , ºI N , !í √ &.70
All of these authors portray Achilles in some form of embodied state. Although they do not attempt to define the nature of Achilles’ post-mortem state, it does not seem appropriate to describe him simply as a “ghost.”71 2.1.2 Aeneas Diodorus Siculus preserves a tradition of Aeneas’s apotheosis: For three years elapsed after the taking of Troy before Aeneas received the kingship over the Latins; this kingship he held for three years, and then he disappeared from among men and received immortal honours. Ê∞ Ï Ï b F P ! 8 I I , Ú S F 5 ! : †(! Ú > !? .72
Dionysius Halicarnassus speculates that Aeneas might have been translated to the gods: A severe battle took place not far from Lavinium and many were slain on both sides, but when night came on the armies separated; and when the body of Aeneas was nowhere to be seen, some concluded that it had been translated to the gods and others that it had perished in the river beside which the battle was fought. And the Latins built a hero-shrine to him with this inscription: “To the father and god of this place,73 who presides over the waters of the river Numicius.” 70 Scholia in Apoll. Rhodium 4.814–815a (293 Wendel). Cf. Ibycus PMG § 291 Page and Simonides in PMG § 558. On the worship of Achilles in Laconia, cf. E. Stehle, A Bard of the Iron Age and his Auxiliary Muse, in: Boedeker and Sider, The New Simonides, 106–119, esp. 119. In the Argonautica (4.811, 814–5), Iris tell Thetis that when her son comes to the Elysian plain ( “í i K & Ù "Ù μ), fate decrees that he be the husband of Medea, daughter of Aeetes ( : > Ê∞7 / ®&είης). 71 “Ghostly” seems inappropriate in this context, although scholars such as J. Larson, Ancient Greek Cults. A Guide, New York 2007, 206 are willing to use this term to describe Achilles’ post-mortem state. Achilles is not a revenant (a ghost in bodily form) – unlike Philinnion, for example (chapt. 3 § 1.7). 72 Diod. Sic. 7.5.2, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 3.351–3. 73 S. J. Harrison, Aeneas, 4OCD, 22–3 argues that this title is the equivalent of Iuppiter Indiges in Liv. 1.2.6 (see below). OLD s.v. Indiges, however, asserts that the word is obscure, although it may apply to local deities (as opposed to “foreign”). Cf. Liv. 8.9.5 who distinguishes divi Novensiles (perhaps non-native gods) from the di Indigetes (perhaps native
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? &Ó 8 a à ' Ú /8 ! 8 Ï Ó Ù ! & !, Ù &Ó Ê∞ ( Ù Ã&E " Ó ∞ ! ˆ F N, " &í 2 2, í √ ? 8 , &(! F. Ú Ã2 ? " ) (E ¹& Ù ! !, √ T X &8 .74
The worship of Aeneas at the heroon implies that some Romans believed he had been translated. Ovid gives a clear picture of Aeneas’s immortalization, after Venus asks Jupiter to give him “some divinity” (parvum … numen).75 He consented, and Venus flew to the river Numicius: She bade the river-god wash away from Aeneas all his mortal part and carry it down in his silent stream into the ocean depths. The horned god obeyed Venus’ command and in his waters cleansed and washed quite away whatever was mortal in Aeneas. His best part remained to him. His mother sprinkled his body and anointed it with divine perfume, touched his lips with ambrosia and sweet nectar mixed, and so made him a god, whom the Roman populace styled Indiges and honoured with temple and with sacrifice. hunc iubet Aeneae, quaecumque obnoxia morti, abluere et tacito deferre sub aequora cursu. corniger exsequitur Veneris mandata suisque, quidquid in Aenea fuerat mortale, repurgat et respersit aquis: pars optima restitit illi. lustratum genetrix divino corpus odore unxit et ambrosia cum dulci nectare mixta contigit os fecitque deum; quem turba Quirini nuncupat Indigetem temploque arisque recepit.76
Ovid’s insistence that Aeneas’s entire flesh and blood did not enter heaven is consistent with the point of view of other Greco-Roman authors such as Plutarch in his account of Romulus’s translation.77 Livy, however, asserts that he has a tomb: He lies buried, whether it is fitting and right to term him god or man,78 on the banks of the river Numicus; men, however, call him Jupiter Indiges.
gods). Arn. 3.39 notes that some include Aeneas among the Novensiles (along with Hercules, Romulus, Liber, and Aesculapius, humans who had been made divine): Sunt praeterea nonnulli, qui ex hominibus divos factos hac praedicant appellatione signari, ut est Hercules Romulus Aesculapius Liber Aeneas. Verg. A. 12.794 calls Aeneas Indigetes. Serv. G. 1.498 gives the opposite explanation: Indigetes proprie sunt dii ex hominibus facti, quasi in diis agentes … (The Indigetes are properly those who were made gods from humans, as if they act among the gods …). On the translation of Aeneas, cf. Colpe, et al., Jenseitsfahrt I, 424. 74 Dionys. Halicarn. 1.64.4–5, trans. of Cary, Dionysius Halicarnassus, 1.213. 75 Ov. Met. 14.589. 76 Ov. Met. 14.600–8, trans. of Miller, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.343. 77 Cf. chapter 3 § 1.2. 78 “god or man” is not in the text, consequently, “whatever it is fitting and right to term him” is a better translation.
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situs est, quemcumque eum dici ius fasque est, super Numicum flumen; Iovem indigetem appellant.79
An inscription found in Pompeii mentions Aeneas’s translation to the gods. Aeneas, son of Venus and Anchises, who after Troy was taken, led to Italy the Trojans who had survived the war. He undertook a war …he founded the city Lavinium and ruled there for three years. During the Laurentian war he disappeared and was called Indigens father and raised to the number of the gods. Aenea[s Ven]eris / et Anchisa[e filius Troia]nos / qui capta Tr[oia bello s]uper/[fuer]ant in It[aliam adduxit / [bell]um su[scepit …] / …]EM[…] / / […]LBV[….] / [oppidum Lavinium] cond[idit et] / [ibi regnavit an]nos trs in / [bel]lo Lauren[ti ges]to non con/[pa]ruit appel[latus]q(ue) est Indigens / [pa]ter et in deo[rum n]umero relatus80
The inscription was found in the Building of Eumachia, and on each side of the entrance were niches for the statues of Aeneas and Romulus. 2.1.3 Althaemenes Althaemenes of Crete killed his father, Catreus, on the island of Rhodes, mistaking him for a pirate: … Althaemenes arrived and killed him with the cast of a javelin, not knowing him to be Catreus. Afterwards when he learned the truth, he prayed and disappeared in a chasm. ] !8 8 8. !S &Ó — Ù , Ã5? ÕÙ ? I.81
There is no statement that he became immortal. Diodorus Siculus, however, in a less supernatural version of the tale, writes that “he wandered about alone, until the grief put an end to his life; and at a later time he received at the hands of the Rhodians, as a certain oracle had commanded, the honours which are accorded to heroes” (— &Ó ? Ù Ï > Ï ç& ?).82 Although Diodorus says that he had founded a 79
Liv. 1.2.6, trans. of Page, Livy, 1.15. CIL 10, 808 = InscrIt 13/3, 85. Cp. Serv. Auctus A. 1.259: ipse vero ut quidam dicunt cum Mezentium, ut quidam vero Messapum fugeret, in Numicum fluvium cecidit, ut vero Ovidius refert in caelum raptus est, cuius corpus cum victis a se Rutulis et Mezentio Ascanius requisitum non invenisset, in deorum numerum credidit relatum (He [Aeneas] himself indeed, as some say, when he was fleeing Mezentius, or as others say, Messapus, fell into the river Numicus, and as indeed Ovid reports he was raised to heaven; when Ascanius did not find his body that he sought with those he had conquered, Rutilus and Mezentius, he believed that he was raised to the number of the gods). Various, but similar, traditions are in Serv. A. 4.620. Many traditions are analyzed by J. van der Vliet, Aeneas nusquam comparuit, Mnem. N.S. 22 (1894) 277–85. 81 Apollodorus 3.2.2 (3.16 Weber), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 1.309–11. Diodorus’s source may be Zeno of Rhodes. Cf. FGrH 523 F1. A. B. Cook, Zeus. A Study in Greek Religion, 2.2, Cambridge 1925, 923 thinks Diodorus is dependent on a later source that itself used Polyzalos. 82 Diod. Sic. 5.59.4, trans. by Oldfather, Diodorus, 3.259. 80
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temple of Zeus Atabyrius on a mountain in Rhodes, he does not specify that Althaimenes was honored in that particular place.83 2.1.4 Amphiaraus The disappearance of the seer Amphiaraus is a version of translation. Instead of being taken to heaven he disappeared under the earth.84 Pindar refers to the earth that seized Amphiaraus and his radiant horses ( Ú Ï )í Ã/ 8 Ú (& μ > ).85 He describes the battle before the gates of Thebes where Zeus had the earth swallow him before Periclymenus’s spear killed him: Zeus split with his all-subduing thunderbolt the deep-breasted earth for Amphiaraus and hid him with his horses. ¡ &í ]( ) 2 Ic / ¸ ˆ Ï I! ! , ˈ &í bí μ.86
Pindar again alludes to the tradition: In Thebes, the earth, thunderstruck by the bolts of Zeus, received the seer, the son of Oikles, the cloud of the battle.
) &í 7I Õ8& /! ) Ù I8 / ? °∞ &, 8 8(·87
Sophocles also refers to Amphiaraus’s subterranean existence. The chorus remarks: Why, I know that the lord Amphiaraus was brought low by the golden necklaces of women,88 and now below the earth … he is a king, with full power of mind. ∂& Ï ;í ](? /&8 A (!8 / Ú ÕÙ Ö / ? ? .89
According to Sophocles, Amphiaraus reigns in Hades. Pausanias summarizes the tradition: Legend says that when Amphiaraus was exiled from Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot.90 Only they say that the incident did not happen here, the 83
Diod. Sic. 5.59.2. For a survey of individuals swallowed by the earth, cf. Pease, Some Aspects of Invisibility, 10–11 and Rohde, Psyche, 1.113–27. 85 Pindar Ol. 6.13–4. 86 Pindar Nem. 9.25. 87 Pindar Nem. 10.8–9. 88 His wife, Eriphyle, “had been bribed by Polynices with the necklace of Harmonia.” Cf. A. Schachter, Amphiaraus, 4OCD, 72–3 (for the tale, see Apollodorus 3.6.2 [3.60 Wagner] and Frazer’s note in Apollodorus, The Library, 1.355). On Amphiaraus, cf. Rohde, Psyche, 1.113–5 and P. Sineux, Amphiaraos. Guerrier, devin et guérisseur, Paris 2007. Sineux, ibid., 60 n.4 refers to many authors who transmit Amphiaraus’s disappearance. 89 Sophocles El. 837–41, trans. of Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles, 1.241. 84
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place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes to Chalcis. The divinity of Amphiaraus was first established among the Oropians, from whom afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them, such as Eleus in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaus, and Lebadea of the Boeotians dedicated to Trophonius. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue of Amphiaraus. 8 &Ó ]( ?9 ( I &F F Ú › ÃÙ ¡ Ú Ù b Õ &85H Ã W IF (, ? I ∞ # & . ! Ù &Ó ](? : ‰ 8 , — &Ó Ú " ? Æ • . 85 &Ó Ú ; > 8 ! :, ≥ ! Æ Ï >, ) &Ó Ú ? , C # 79 ?9, I?& M P ( 9H Ú ‰ 8 ]( ? Ú ; !.91
He includes an account of consultation of the god by incubation.92 In another text Pausanias refers to people who were changed into gods ( Ú ! Ú 5 ! : ) and includes Amphiaraus the son of Oicles in the list: Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them – Aristaeus, Britomartis of Crete, Heracles the son of Alcmena, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and besides these Polydeuces and Castor. Ú ! Ú 5 ! : , ≥ 8 Ú & > > › ] ) Ú M Ú Â F ¡ ] 7 Ú ](? ¡ Δ 8, Ú &Ó Ã) & Ú ? .93
Strabo also refers to the temple of Amphiaraus in Harma, but does not mention Amphiaraus’s translation.94 Apollodorus describes his divinization by Zeus: Amphiaraus fled beside the river Ismenus, and before Periclymenus could wound him in the back, Zeus cleft the earth by throwing a thunderbolt, and Amphiaraus vanished with his chariot and his charioteer Baton, or, as some say, Elato; and Zeus made him immortal.
90
Diod. Sic. 4.65.8 has … ](? &Ó F F S ∞ Ù ? Ï b ;( 8 (… when the earth opened up, Amphiaraus fell into the chasm with his chariot and became invisible). 91 Pausanias 1.34.2, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 1.185. 92 Pausanias 1.34.5. Schachter, Amphiaraus, 73 mentions IG VII, 235 = Epigr. tou Oropou 277 (387–77 B.C.E.) for an example of incubation (“patients bedded down on a ramskin on the ground, and wre visited by Amphiaraus as they slept”). The inscription does not include the detail about ram skin (for which see Pausanias 1.34.5). Cf. the trans. in D. G. Rice and J. E. Stambaugh, Sources for the Study of Greek Religion. Corrected Edition, Atlanta 2009, 97–8. For Croesus’s consultation, cf. Herodotus 1.46, 49, 52 and cp. 8.134 (no Theban may consult the oracle). 93 Pausanias 8.2.4, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 4.353. 94 Strabo 9.2.11, trans. of Jones, Strabo, 4.295.
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]( ?9 &Ó ( Ï Ù ∏ , Ú ÕÙ 8 Ï !E, ¸ ˆ Ù I S F &8 . ¡ &Ó ˆ 2 b Ú 2 9 M? , › &Ó > C ? , (!, Ú ¸ ˆ !? ÃÙ .95
Philostratus writes of Amphiaraus that “returning from Thebes, the earth absorbed him alive ” (√ I ? F ).96 Those who consult the oracle do not eat for a day or drink wine for three days.97 Clearly the seer was divinized and viewed as immortal. Several ancient Greek images from V B.C.E. depict Amphiaraus disappearing into the ground with his chariot.98 2.1.5 Asclepius Asclepius, the son of Coronis and Zeus, has no tomb in ancient tradition.99 Ludwig Edelstein distinguishes between the ancient hero Asclepius and the god of the same name: “According to the original myth Asclepius in dying as
95
Apollodorus Bibl. 3.6.8 (3.77 Weber), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus 1.371. Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 2.37, my trans. Other references to Zeus causing the earth to conceal Amphiaraus include Euripides Suppl. 925–6 (! Ú í ? ˆ !ı [the gods carried him away to the depths of the earth]), Sophocles frag. 958 Radt = Strabo 9.1.22 &85 X ) I (the Theban dust, broken asunder, received him), Apollodorus 3.6.8 (3.77 Wagner) who notes that “Zeus made him immortal” (¸ ˆ !? ÃÙ [Frazer, Apollodorus, 1.371]), Diod. Sic. 4.65.8 ](? &Ó F F S ∞ Ù ? Ï b ;( 8 (Amphiaraus, when the earth gaped open, fell into the chasm with his chariot and disappeared), Agatharchides De mari Eryth. 7 &Ó ]( ? Ù &85! Ï μ Ú &( F (the earth took the living Amphiaraus with his horses and chariot) Stat. Theb. 7.816–23, 8.1–21 (he descends to Tartarus, in Tartara), Mythographi Vatican. 1.149 (CChr.SL 91C, 62 Kulcsár) ad inferos uiuus cum curru suo deuectus est (he was transported alive with his chariot to the infernal regions). According to Cic. Div. 1.88 his oracle was where he was buried (solo, in quo est humatus) but he was held to be a god (deus ut haberetur). Cp. Aeschylus Sept. 588 ? !S ÕÙ ! (a seer concealed beneath the hostile earth). In Athenaeus 6.232 (6.22 Kaibel), Eriphyle is responsible for the burial of Amphiaraus and his horses ( 7 / ](? > í ÕÙ F Ã) ˆ μ). 97 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 2.37. Apollonius consults the shrine in 4.24 98 Cf. Sineux, Amphairaos, 63–4, Fig. 5 (a lekythos; black figured representation), 6 (a krater), 7 (a frieze in the heroon of Trysa). Cf. I. Krauskopf, Amphiaraos, LIMC 1 (1981) § 37–9 respectively. 99 Edelstein, Asclepius, 2.50 (Cynosura may be in Arcadia). Cicero (Nat. deor. 3.57 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 379), however, does mention tombs for two other Asclepii: the brother of the “second Mercury” is buried in Cynosura, and the son of Arsippus and Arsinoë is buried in Arcadia. In Ps.-Clem. Hom. 6.21 and Rec. 10.24 he is buried in Epidaurus. Clem. Alex. Protr. 2.30.1 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 101 writes that after being struck with a thunderbolt he lies in the region of Cynosura (°” Ó “ ) ! Ú ) & ¡ ). 96
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he did had fulfilled his destiny, ‘he was dead and done with’.”100 The old hero “did not ascend to heaven or live on in the firmament.”101 A late version of the myth of the god may be found in Pausanias.102 There are scholars who do not accept this thesis (i.e., that “Asclepius was a culture hero who was deified relatively late”).103 What is clear is that accounts of the deification or translation of Asclepius are late and so do not appear in ancient authors such as Homer, Pindar, etc.104 Fritz Graf assumes a more neutral position: “Unlike ordinary heroes, Asclepius must have been very early emancipated from the attachment to a local grave; this allowed him to develop a god-like stature, though in most places he stayed attached to his father Apollo.”105 Hyginus asserts that Asclepius returned to life by permission of the fates.106 Ovid mentions Asclepius’s death and apotheosis: … and having dared this once against the will of the gods, you will be denied the power to grant this again by your grandsire’s flame and from a god you will become a bloodless corpse; and as a god, though you were but recently mortal, you will twice renew your destiny. … idque semel dis indignantibus ausus posse dare hoc iterum flamma prohibebere avita eque deo corpus fies exsangue deusque, qui modo corpus eras, et bis tua fata novabis.107
100
Edelstein, Asclepius, 2.51–2 (with ref. to U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Der Glaube der Hellenen, 2 vols., Berlin 1931–2, 2.227). 101 Edelstein, Asclepius, 2.50. 102 Pausanias 2.26.3–5 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 7 and cf. the discussion in Edelstein, Asclepius, 2,67–8. One of the earliest is the Homeric Hymn to Asclepius (Hymn. in Aesculap. 1–5). Cf. L. Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, rev. A. Johnston, Oxford 21990, 180 § 12 = IG IV2, 141 for evidence of Asclepius the god already in Epidaurus ca 500 B.C.E. However, the inscription does not mention Asclepius and “if it comes from the shrine of Apollo, should be dedicated to that deity or possibly to Asklepios, or both.” Edelstein’s point (ibid., 2.66) is that Asclepius was not generally recognized as a god in Greece until “a rather late date” (V B.C.E.). 103 Cf. several references in G. B. Ferngren, Introduction, 1998 in: Edelstein, Asclepius, 1.xx. F. Graf, Asclepius, 4OCD, 180–1 reviews the early evidence for the hero and then argues that “expansions of Asclepius must have begun in late Archaic times” (the sanctuaries at Epidaurus and Cos in V B.C.E.). 104 One exception is Xenophon Cyn. 1.6 who asserts that Asclepius was a god because of his healings and resurrections, although he wrote long after the archaic period. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 105 Graf, Asclepius, 180. 106 Hyg. Fab. 251.2 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 237. Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.8. Hyginus Fab. 224.5 also lists a number of mortals who were made immortals (Qui facti sunt ex mortalibus immortales). Asclepius the son of Apollo and Coronis is one of them (Asclepius Apollinis et Coronidis filius). 107 Ov. Met. 2.645–48, trans. of Keith, Play, 74.
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In the Fasti, Ovid recounts Asclepius’s resurrection of Hippolytus and Jupiter’s subsequent decision to destroy him.108 Apollo demands Asclepius’s apotheosis: But Clymenus and Clotho were grieved, she that her threads were checked, he that the rights of his kingdom were lessened. Jupiter, fearing his example, directed his thunderbolts at the one who had contributed the aid of too much skill. Phoebus, you complained: he is a god, be reconciled to your father: for your sake, he himself did what he forbids be done by others. at Clymenus Clothoque dolent, haec fila teneri, hic fieri regni iura minora sui. Iuppiter, exemplum veritus, derexit in ipsum fulmina qui nimiae moverat artis opem. Phoebe, querebaris: deus est, placare parenti: propter te, fieri quod vetat, ipse facit.109
The evidence of the patristic writers indicates that the god “suffered the death of a mortal” and “he had to come to life again, he had to become immortal, for he was ever-present in his temples.”110 Tatian, for example, asserts that “your Asclepius has died” (8! Õ ¡ ] ) and Minucius Felix writes that he “is struck by lightning in order to be raised into a god” (Aesculapius ut in deum surgat fulminatur).111 Theophilus says that after being struck by a thunderbolt he was “raised.”112 Justin describes Asclepius’s ascension after his death.113 Minucius Felix uses the language of apotheosis. The Christian, Octavus, includes Asclepius among several translated individuals: Erigone hanged herself, to shine as Virgo among the stars. Castor and his twin live, by alternate deaths, Aesculapius, to rise to godhead, is struck by lightning; Hercules puts off mortality by being consumed in the flames of Oeta. Erigone suspensa de laqueo est, ut Virgo inter astra signata sit; Castores alternis moriuntur ut vivant; Aesculapius ut in deum surgat fulminatur; Hercules ut hominem exuat Oetaeis ignibus concrematur.114
A variation on the theme of translation into heaven is that of Asclepius’s later epiphanies. Celsus refers to the contemporary appearances of Asclepius several times:
108
See chapt. 2 § 2.4. Ov. Fast. 6.757–62, trans. of Keith, Play, 75–6. 110 Edelstein, Asclepius, 2.75. 111 Tatian Or. 21.1 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 235 and Min. 23.7 = Edelstein, Asclepius, T 236 (her trans.). 112 Theophilus Autol. 1.13. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9 (end). 113 Justin 1 Apol. 21.2. Cf. chapt. 1 § 1.3 and chapt. 2 § 1.9 (Dial. 69.3). 114 Min. 22.7, trans. of Rendall, Minucius Felix, 379. 109
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A great multitude of people, both of Greeks and barbarians, confess that they have often seen and still do see not just a phantom, but Asclepius himself healing people and doing good and predicting the future. ˆ ! : F! 7 Ú I I? ¡ ) ? ∞& ) Ú > ¡ a, Ã (? ÃÙ Ï ! Ú Ã Ú Ï 8 8 115
There are numerous testimonies to the epiphanies of Asclepius to people in dreams or while awake.116 2.1.6 Astarte Lucian describes the disappearance of Astarte and her temple in Phoenicia: There is another large temple in Phoenicia,117 one belonging to the Sidonians. As they themselves say it is Astarte’s – I myself think that Astarte is Selene – but as one of the priests told me, it belongs to Europa the sister of Cadmus. She was the daughter of King Agenor; and when she disappeared, the Phoenicians honoured her with the temple and told a sacred tale about her, how Zeus had desired her for her beauty and, changing his form into a bull, seized her and carried her away to Crete. I heard this from the other Phoenicians as well, and the coinage the Sidonians use shows Europa astride Zeus in the form of a bull. Nonetheless, they do not allow that the temple is Europa’s. û &Ó Ú ; " Ù jW 8 , Ù & >. › Ó ÃÚ 8 , ]? H ]? &í S &8 > . › &8 " 8 8 , @Ã : Ú F ?& & ( F· &Ó ] 7 I 8 ! 8 , &7 ( , " j 2 2 7 Ú " Ù í ÃE > 5 ≈ ¸ ˆ ! Ú Ù ∂& ∞ ? • 7 (8 . ?& Ó Ú ; j 4, Ú Ù 2 & 8 @Ã : ( 8 > 2 9 2 H Ù &Ó Ù Ã ¡ 8 @Ã : > .118
Although it is apparent that she was taken to Crete, Lucian includes no account of her translation to the gods. The temple and sacred tale, however, imply an apotheosis. M. L. West considers the suggestion that the name of Europa’s husband, Asterios (Asteron, Asterion) was a “lightly disguised” version of the “West Semitic ʿAṯtar/ʿAštar, the male counterpart of ʿAṯtart/ʿAštart (Astarte).”119 This would provide some credence for Lucian’s suggestion. 115 Origen C. Cels. 3.24, trans. of Chadwick, Origen, 142 slightly modified. Cp. Cels. 3.22 (§ 2.1.17). Cf. 8.45 for clear appearances ( F Ö (?) at various oracles. 116 Cf. Edelstein, Asclepius, T 382–91, 443–54. In an inscription from Lebena on Crete (I B.C.E.) an individual testifies that Asclepius appeared to him in his sleep: [(]! Ú Ó !í —. Cf. IC I 17, 21 = Edelstein, Asclepius T 791. 117 On the temple and identification of the cult deity, cf. Lightfoot, Lucian, 297–301. 118 Lucian Dea s. 4, trans. of Lightfoot, Lucian, 249. 119 M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon. West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford 1997, 451.
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2.1.7 Basileia daughter of Uranus The mother of Helius and Selene, according to Diodorus Siculus, disappeared in a storm, while mourning the death of her children. People were holding on to her: … when there came a mighty storm and continuous crashes of thunder and lightning; and in the midst of this Basileia passed from sight, whereupon the crowds of people, amazed at this reversal of fortune, transferred the names and the honours of Helius and Selene to the stars of the sky, and as for their mother, they considered her to be a goddess and erected altars to her, and imitating the incidents of her life by the pounding of the kettledrums and the clash of the cymbals they rendered unto her in this way sacrifices and all other honours. … 8! F! ƒI Ú ) : H ! &Ó Ó M (F 8!, ˆ &í ƒ !? 8 Ù Ó ≠ Ú 7 E c Ú ) ) ) Ú Ï í Ã Ù ; , &Ó 8 ! Ú I ˆ "& !, Ú ) &Ï ? Ú I? Ú ) ; b 8 Ï Ú Ã I? ! Ú Ï ; Ï ).120
Her disappearance is intimately associated with the subsequent cult developed in her honor. Diodorus notes that she was called “Great Mother” ( ? 8 ).121 Jane Ellen Harrison refers to an inscription in Thera (I B.C.E.) in honor of Basileia: “To the goddess Basileia, Epilonchos and Kritarista as a thank offering” (! ¹ I Ûc / CÛ[ ] Ú / [] [] Û )).122 The inscription was placed over a niche for a small statue or bust in the heroon according to Ludwig Ross.123 A photograph of the niche in the “temple” of the goddess Basileia illustrates the vitality of her cult, although there is a question whether it was originally a heroon as Ross believed.124 2.1.8 Branchus The seer Branchus disappeared and received divine honors. His mother was married to Smicrus. 120
Diod. Sic. 3.57.8, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 2.267. Diod. Sic. 3.57.3. 122 IG XII,3 416, trans. mod. of M. de G. Verrall, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. Being a Portion of the Attica of Pausanias. Introductory Essay and Commentary by J. E. Harrison, London 1890, 51–2 (Harrison). Harrison, ibid., 52 mentions Aristophanes Av. 1537–41 for a satirical view of the goddess. The building is now the chapel of Hagios Nikolaos Marmarenios. 123 L. Ross, Tombeaux et autres monuments architectoniques de l’ile de Théra, Annali dell’istitute di correspondenza archeologica 13 (1842) 13–24, esp. 21. 124 Cf. W. Dörfeld, H. von Gaertringen, et al., Theraeische Graeber, ed. H. Dragendorff, Thera. Untersuchungen, Vermessungen und Ausgrabungen in den Jahren 1895–1902, vol. 2, Berlin 1903, 255–6. 121
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After she became pregnant by him, she saw in a dream that the Sun entered through her mouth125 and came out through her belly. Thus when the infant was born, he was called Branchus, since his mother had seen the Sun enter her uterus. When Branchus kissed Apollo in the forest, the god embraced him. After he received a crown and a staff, Branchus began to prophesy, and suddenly he entirely disappeared. A temple was built for him called Branchiadon, and temples were also consecrated to Apollo. These are known as Philesia, from the kiss of Branchus. Illa ab eo inpregnata uidit in somnis per fauces suas introisse Solem et exisse per uentrem. Ideo infans natus Brancus est uocatus quia mater eius sibi uterum a Sole uiderat penetratum. Hic cum in siluis Apollinem fuisset osculatus, ab eo est comprehensus et accepta corona uirgaque uaticinare cepit et subito nusquam comparuit. Templum sibi factum Branchiadon est nominatum et Apollini templa consecrantur que ab osculo Branchi Philesia nuncupantur.126
The tradition is from Varro’s De rerum divinarum, which Lactantius Placidus transmits.127 According to Conon, Branchus “founded the oracle at Didyma.”128 Either two temples or a double temple were consecrated to Apollo and Branchus at Didyma. Branchus is mentioned in one inscription from Didyma.129 2.1.9 Caeneus Caeneus was originally a Lapith woman (Caenis), and Poseidon made her into an “invulnerable man” (;& ; ), a warrior.130 Acusilaus (V B.C.E.) writes that he put his spear in the marketplace and ordered people to reckon it as a god (> 7 [ a ! Ù 8 ! )]). At Zeus’s behest the Centaurs kill him: “they beat him upright into the earth, placed a stone tomb above, and he died” ( ) ÃÙ 125
The Greek for throat is I ı o or I Ì (Branchos). Mythogr. Vatican. 2.107 (180–1 Kulcsár), trans. of R. E. Pepin, The Vatican Mythographers, New York 2007, 143. MS Vat. Reg. Lat. 1401, 50v has que ab osculo (and not quae). Available at: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Reg.lat.1401 (an example of medieval diphthong reduction: ae › e). The story also appears in Mythogr. Vatican. 1.80 (35 Kulcsár). 127 Lactantius Placidus in Stat. Theb. 8.198 (512–4 Sweeney). Cf. J. Fontenrose, Apollo Philesius, TAPA 64 (1933) 98–108, esp. 98. 128 Fontenrose, Apollo Philesius, 99 and Conon Narrationes 33 (U. Hoefer, Konon. Text und Quellenuntersuchung, Greifswald 1890, 17–8) = Photius Bibl. 186.33, 136b (Photius III, 24 Henry): ¡ &Ó M ? 5 ] F S & 2 9 > (Branchus, being inspired with the prophetic art by Apollo, used the place). 129 IDid 219 = Didyma 551 (McCabe numeration on the PHI): ê ‚5, Ô (Ô< > M Ì (lord Apollo, looking after the temple of Branchus). 130 Acusilaus FGrH 2 F22, Agatharchides De mari Erythr. 7, Phlegon De mirab. 5.1–3 (Hesiod, Dicaearchus, Clearchus, Callimachus) = Hesiod frag. 87 (52–3 Merkelbach/West), Plutarch Stoic. abs. 1, 1057D (Plutarch is skeptical of the tradition of inviolability) = Pindar frag. 128 Maehler. Plutarch Virt. prof. 1, 75E appears skeptical of the sex change. For references, cf. Frazer, Apollodorus 2.150–1 (note to Epit. 1.22), Rohde, Psyche, 1.115–6, and Palaephetus, On Unbelievable Tales, trans. and annot. J. Stern, Wauconda, IL 1996, 42. 126
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ƒ ! Ï F Ú ; ! 8 ! ) F, Ú !7 ).131 Apollonius of Rhodes describes the disappearance of Caeneus from Gyrton in Thessaly. For bards relate that Caeneus though still living perished at the hands of the Centaurs, when apart from other chiefs he routed them; and they, rallying against him, could neither bend nor slay him; but unconquered and unflinching he passed beneath the earth, overwhelmed by the downrush of massy pines.132 8 Ï Ü > &Ü ¿ 8!, ≈ (8 ∂ í ; 60 4 í , " &í > ¡ !8 – ) 8 !8 – &^5, í ; ; & ! , ! I E ^ & ?W.
In the Orphic Argonautica, Caeneus goes down to the dead under the earth while still alive (9 í (!8 ) ÕÙ ! ).133 In Latin tradition, several authors state that Caeneus was transformed back into a woman after his death – a reincarnation.134 Rohde remarks that there is no trace of a cult of Caeneus.135
131
Acusilaus FGrH 2 F22. Eusthathius Comm. in Hom. Il. 1.265 (1.158 van der Valk) has a full account of the tale. 132 Apollonius Rhod. 1.59–64, trans. of Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica, LCL, ed. and trans. R. C. Seaton, Cambridge, MA 1912, 7. The editor, H. F. Fraenkel (SCBO Apollonius Rhodii Argonautica, 3), discusses the textual corruption in line 59 in his apparatus. 133 Orphica Argonautica 171–4. Agatharchides De mari Erythr. 7 has a similar tradition in which he descends to the earth alive, beaten by the Centaurs ( ∞ F ÕÙ &) as does Ov. Met. 12.522–3 in which his body is thrust down to Tartarus (corpus / Tartara detrusum), but in 12:524–5 (trans. of Miller, Ovid, 2.217) some claim to have seen “a bird with golden wings fly up into the limpid air” (fulvis / vidit avem pennis liquidas exire sub auras). In Palaephetus De incred. 10 the Centaurs bury him alive, and he dies (the rationalistic explanation). 134 Serv. A. 6.448 … post mortem tamen in sexum rediit. hoc autem dicto ostendit Platonicum illud vel Aristotelicum, animas per sexum plerumque mutare (… yet after his death, he changed sex. And for this phrase, one can point out the Platonic or Aristotelean principle, that through metempsychosis souls generally change sex). A nearly identical statement appears (“Cenis”) in Mythograph. Vat. 1.151 (62 Kulcsár). Cp. Mythograph. Vat. 2.130 (195 Kulcsár) and Mythograph. Vat. 3.6.25 (Scriptores rerum mythicarum, vol. 1, ed. G. H. Bode, Cellis 1834, 189). Hyg. Fab. 14.4 denies the possibility of invulnerability or a change in sex (nec fieri potest ut quisquam mortalis non posset ferro necari aut ex muliere in uirum conuerti). 135 Rohde, Psyche, 1.116.
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2.1.10 Immortality by Fire: Demophoon and Malcander and Saosis’s Son Putting children in the fire to immortalize them is a frequent theme in ancient literature.136 Fire was used by Demeter in her attempt to give immortality to Demophoon, the child of king Celeus and Metaneira: So she proceeded to rear in the mansion wise Keleos’ resplendent son Demophon, whom fair-girt Metaneira had borne, and he grew like a divine being [daimōn],137 though he ate no food and sucked no ‹mother’s milk. For by day fair-garlanded› Demeter would anoint him with ambrosia, as if he were the son of a god, breathing her sweet breath over him as she held him in ber bosom, while each night she would hide him away in the burning fire, like a brand, without his dear parents’ knowledge. To them it was a great wonder how precociously he flourished; he was like the gods to behold. Indeed she would have made him ageless and deathless, if in her folly fair-girt Metaneira had not waited for the nighttime and spied from her fragrant chamber: she shrieked and clapped her two thighs in alarm for her son, for she was greatly misled, and she addressed him with winged words of lament: “Demophon my child, the visitor is hiding you away in the blazing fire, causing me groaning and grief.” So she lamented; and the goddess heard her. Angry with her, fair-garlanded Demeter took her son, whom she had borne beyond expectation in the mansion, in her immortal arms and laid him down away from her on the ground, removing him out of the fire in her heart’s great wrath, and at the same time she spoke to fair-girt Metaneira: “Ignorant humans and witless to recognize a dispensation of coming good or ill! You are another one irremediably misled by your folly. For may the implacable Water of Shuddering [the Styx] on which the gods swear their oaths be my witness, I would have made your dear son deathless and ageless for ever, and granted him unfading privilege; but now there is no way he can avoid death and mortality.” fl Ó ) &^( Ù "Ù ( !í, √ > ® ? , > ( ? H ¡ &í 85 & ∂ (235) –í “ ) >& , Ã !? < ? Ù †Û Ó Ï Ô(> 7 í I W › ∞ ! , &ˆ Ú >H &Ó Ù 8 † & Ù ?! ( 8 H ) &Ó 8 !í 8 (240) › ! 8! , ! ) &Ó ; Z . 8 7 í !? ∞ ; í ( &W ® ? í 7 !:& ! ? 8H : &Ó Ú ;( 75 S (245) & í Ä Ú &Ú Ú ?! 8 !2,
136
Cf. Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.311–13. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 182 notes that this word designates “heroes on the level of cult,” with ref. to Hesiod Op. 122 and Theog. 991. Cf. Op. 121–3 (54 Solmsen) ÃÏ Ú & 8 Ï ) ? , / Ú Ó & ∞ Ù ? &Ï I ?, / ! , ! , ( ! ! : (But after the earth buried this generation, they are daimones by Zeus’s great will, good, earth dwellers, protectors of mortal people). 137
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Xí ¿ ( 8 > &H P8 ( 5 Ú > 2 , Ú &Ó Ú 7& Ï !. Á (?í ¿& 8H F &í ;' &) ! ? . (250) E &Ó 8 8( 7 )& ( , Ù ; Ú ? > , í !?W Ù A !F 8& &Ó 5 Ù !2 8 ? í ∞ , Xí ;& 8 ® ? H (255) T7'& ;! Ú ( ?& –í !) ∂ 8 : – )H Ú ˆ Ï ( &W E 7 ?!. N Ï ! ≈ , Ù —& !? 8 Ú 7 4 ? (260) )& ( Ú ;(! ‡ 7H &í Ã >!í · !? Ú F 5.138
Fire “can purge away mortality in myth (the dying Herakles becomes immortal on a pyre on Mt. Oeta) or purify, and it was also used to cremate the body, thus preparing for a transition to the world below.”139 The use of fire burns away his mortality. Despite the failure of her attempt to give immortality to Demophoon, the goddess promises him “imperishable” (or “unwilting”) honor ( &í ;(!).140 This “honor” implies that he becomes a cultic hero.141 In Apollodorus, Demeter, wanting to make Demophoon immortal, takes away his mortal flesh at night by throwing him in the fire (I 8 &Ó ÃÙ !? F, Ï ∞ ! Ù I 8( Ú Y Ï !Ï ? Ã).142 The child dies in the fire in his version. According to Apollodorus, when Thetis had a child by Peleus, … she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia. … !? !8 F , ( 8 ∞ Ù I F Ù >(! √ D Ã2 !Ù 2, !í 8 &Ó > I c.143
138 Hymn. in Cer. 233–62, trans. of Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer, LCL, ed. and trans. M. L. West, Cambridge, MA 2003, 51–3. 139 H. P. Foley, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays, Princeton 1994, 49. She refers to Thetis’s failed attempt to make Achilles immortal using a “similar process” (Apollodorus 3.13.6 [3.171 Wagner] and Apoll. Rhod. 4.869– 79). 140 Hymn. in Cer. 263. 141 Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 184 and Foley, Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 49. 142 Apollodorus Bibl. 1.5.1 (1.31 Wagner) 143 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.13.6 (3.171 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.69.
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Ambrosia and fire are both used for conferring immortality.144 Apollonius of Rhodes gives a similar explanation for her use of fire: For she ever encompassed the child’s mortal flesh in the night with the flame of fire; and day by day she anointed with ambrosia his tender frame, so that he might become immortal and that she might keep off from his body loathsome old age. Ó Ï I 8 ∞ Ú Ú ? >& &Ï 8 ( 2 , 4 &í “ I W 8 &8, ƒ( 8 !? " Ù _ F ? ·145
Fire was intimately associated with immortality in other Greek texts. An inscription of the second century C.E. describes an individual named Dialogos who apparently trusted in the principle: From here Dialogos, refining his limbs by pure fire, a practitioner of wisdom, went to the immortals. Here the bones of wise Dialogos hide … But a little dust spread over them hides them [the bones], while the wide heaven has his soul from his bodily members. !Ì& Ì ! 2 Ú ) ! (Û í !Ì. !Ì& ı ı( ¿Ô ˜![ ], Ö Ï Ï Ó ˜! Ï ı (! ), &í Ô Ã Ù Ã ˆ > .146
The parents of a young woman named Parmenis set up an image of her in Rhodes in IV–III B.C.E. Part of the inscription on the marble reads: The precinct of heavenly Zeus holds me, whom Apollo took from the plundering fire and made immortal. [Ã Û] &Ô í > Ô ı, ãbõ í ]ı [ ]» ; / S Ù !Ì.147
Christopher G. Brown argues that the precinct of Zeus is the sky, since Parmenis was not a hero and would not have been buried in a temple dedicated to Zeus.148
144
See § 1 (ambrosia), 2.1.1 (fire), 2.1.10 (fire). Apollon. Rhod. 4.869–72, trans. of Seaton, Apollonius Rhodius, 353. 146 IG II2 11140 (Attica). Cf. the comments on the “immortalizing role of fire” by B. Currie, Pindar and the Cult of Heroes, Oxford 2005, 379. 147 IG XII,1, 142 = SEG 14,508 [1,2]. Trans. done with ref. to that of C. G. Brown, The Precinct of Zeus and Parmenis’ Immortality (CEG 2.693), ZPE 170 (2009), 21–27, esp. 21 (I adopted his emendation [ãbõ ] = b X). 148 Brown, Precinct, 22–3 with ref. to Aeschylus Pers. 365 8 ∞!8 (precinct of the aether) and Anth. Graec. 7.370 ∞ &Ó ®8& / &, &7 Ù ¢ ? (if you seek Menander you will find him in Zeus [the sky] or among the blessed) among other texts. 145
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Plutarch describes Isis’s attempt to give immortality to the child of Malcander and Saosis, the king and queen of Byblos: They relate that Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of her breast, and in the night she would burn away the mortal portions of its body. She herself would turn into a swallow and flit about the pillar with a wailing lament, until the queen who had been watching, when she saw her babe on fire, gave forth a loud cry and thus deprived it of immortality. æ Ú Ù &? ∞ Ù & &&, &Ó Ï !Ï :H Ã &Ó 8 & E 8 ! Ú ! ), ; ” I ( ?5 Ú , › ∂& Ù I 8(, ( 8! ! Ã.149
Fire is the agent for making mortal bodies immortal in many of these accounts. 2.1.11 The Dioscuri (Youths of Zeus) For Homer the twins (sons of Tyndareus and Leda) alternate between life and death: Castor the tamer of horses, and the boxer Polydeuces. These two the earth, the giver of life, covers, alive though they be, and even in the world below they have honor from Zeus. One day they live in turn, and one day they are dead; and they have won honor like that of the gods. ? ? !í " & Ú ˆ5 !Ù & , (300) ˆ ;( ˆ 8 ( ∂H ≥ Ú 8 ! F Ù ¸Ù > ; Ó :í / 7 , ; &í “ !aH &Ó ∂ ! ).150
Their lives with Zeus are consistent with their bodies lying in the “life producing” earth. The scholia explain the exchange: When Castor was killed by Meleager or Polynices, Polydeuces, being immortal [“incorruptible”], beseeched his father (Zeus) that he might permit him to allot immortality [“incorruptibility”] to his brother so that both might spend every second day in Olympus and in Hades. !8 ? ÕÙ ® ? ¢ , & ;(! Ë &Ï Ù Ù 8, ? Ù 8 ≈ 8W Ã2 ! Ù Ù & (Ù (! , · í 8 (8 ¡Ó Ó Δ 9 & I , ¡Ó &Ó ]'& 8 .151
149
Plutarch Is. Os. 16, 357BC, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 5.41. Homer Od. 11.300–4, trans. of Homer, Odyssey, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. A. T. Murray and G. F. Dimock, Cambridge, MA 1995, 1.423. 151 Schol. in Homer Od. 11.302. 150
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“Incorruptibility” ((! ) is one of Paul’s key predicates for the resurrection body (1 Cor 15:52, 54). Pindar depicts the translation of the twins as a sort of resurrection: Changing in succession, they spend one day with their dear father Zeus, the other deep under the earth in the hollows of Therapna,152 as they fulfill an equal fate, because Polydeukes chose that life rather than being wholly divine and living in heaven, when Kastor was killed in war. I &í Ï5 (55) U8 Ï Ó Ï ˈ Ú ( 9 Ú 8, Ï &í ÕÙ ! ? ?, ˈ ˈ ? ¡)H , ¢ ? ! Ù > ∞ ) í Ã 2, μ í ∞ (!8 & ? 89.153
The brothers alternate living in Olympus and the caves of Therapne, underground. In Pindar’s version, Tyndareus is the father of Castor and Zeus the father of Polydeuces. Zeus offers Polydeuces everlasting life in Olympus: ∞ Ó !? ( S Ö / ÃÙ °– !8 (if, escaping death … you wish to dwell yourself in Olympus with me …).154 He chooses instead to alternate with his brother who was nearly dead155: “But if you strive on behalf of your brother, and intend to share everything equally with him, then you may live half the time beneath the earth and half in the golden homes of heaven.” When he had spoken thus, he156 set no twofold plan in his judgement, but freed the eye and then the voice of bronze-armored Kastor. … ∞ &Ó γˈ7 8 (85) ? , ? &Ó ) &?! N, • 8 8 Õ8 ! :, • &í Ã & .í fl ; í Ã&? Ã :c & !8 I ?,
152 Alcman frag. 7 (PMG Page) has “deep sleep of the gods (siôn); he means deep sleep of the gods (theôn)” ( / [ ] ] ! &í N /[]) and, apparently with reference to Menelaus (in the previous line), has &.[..... ]ÃÙ a/[! ) ?] Ï Ù /[ ] F [7 (he is honored in Therapne with the Dioscuri in the Peloponnese). Burkert, Greek Religion, 213 concludes that the Dioscuri are in a “magical sleep” in “the sanctuary at Therapne,” according to Alcman. 153 Pindar Nem. 10.55–9, trans. of Race, Pindar, 2.117. Cp. Pyth. 11.61–4 … Ú ? I, / 8 , ;5 & , "Ú ! , / Ù Ó í ÷ A&ˈ ?, / Ù &í ∞8 >& Δ (… the strength of Castor and you, lord Polydeuces, sons of the gods, the one dwelling for a day in Therapne for an abode and the other in Olympus). 154 Pindar Nem. 10.83–4. 155 Pindar Nem. 10.74. 156 Polydeukes, according to Race, Pindar, 2.121.
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Ï &í > Ó ¿(! , > &Ó ( Ï (90) ˈ ? .157
Polydeukes’ decision “loosed” (> ) Castor’s eye and voice – an event that closely resembles resurrection, although Pindar does not say that his mortal flesh itself was regenerated in some fashion. Their existence appears to be embodied, in the underworld and in Olympus, because both brothers can “breathe.”158 Pindar’s conception, however, is probably consistent with their dead bodies lying in the earth. Plutarch, for example, writes that the Argives think that Castor is their tribal hero (in association with his brother) and is buried among them, but they worship Polydeuces as one of the Olympians (ì5 8î Ù ? Ú í Ã) !?(! Ù &Ó & › A Δ 8I).159 In the Cypria Castor is killed for cattle theft: In the meantime, Kastor and Polydeukes are caught stealing the cattle of Idas and Lynkeus. Kastor is killed by Idas, but Idas and Lynkeus are killed by Polydeukes. And Zeus gives them both immortality on alternate days. 9 &Ó ? Ï & Ï º& Ú 8 I Õ( ( ?!. Ú ? Ó ÕÙ º& ), ˆ &Ó Ú º& ÕÙ & . Ú ¸ ˆ Ã) / 7 8 !.160
The author gives little clue about the form of their immortal existence. Cicero is very concerned with the popular view of the immortal existence of the twins. Cotta, the Academic philosopher in the dialogue, argues: But you [Balbus the Stoic] say that the gods appear to us in bodily presence – for instance, they did to Postumius at Lake Regillus161 and to Vatinius on the Via Salaria; and also some story or other about the battle of the Locrians on the Sagra. Then do you really think that the beings whom you call the sons of Tyndareus, that is mortal men of mortal parentage, and whom Homer, who lived not long after their period, states to have been buried at Sparta, came riding on white hacks with no retainers, and met Vatinius, and selected a rough countryman like him to whom to bring the news of a great national victory, instead of Marcus Cato, who was the chief senator at the time? Well then, do you also believe that the mark in the rock resembling a hoof-print, to be seen at the present day on the shore of Lake Regillus, was made by Castor’s horse? Would you not prefer to believe the perfectly 157
Pindar Nem. 10.85–90, trans. of Race, Pindar, 2.121. Euripides Helen 33–4, however, includes a reference to the breathing phantom ( N& >) of Helen that Hera made for Paris. 159 Plutarch Quaest. rom. [Quaest graec. 23] 296F. 160 Proclus Chrestomathia 106–9 (80 Severyns) = Davies, EGF 31,28–31. 161 Cp. Dion. Hal. 6.13.1–3 (Postumius, victory over the Latins), Val. Max.1.8.1 (Postumius and Vatinius [the defeat of the Macedonian king, Perses]), Plin. Nat. 7.86 (victory over Perses), Front. Strat. 1.118.8 (Postumius), Plutarch Cor. 3.3 (victory over the Latins), Minuc. 7.3 (Perses), [Aurelius Victor] Vir. ill. 16.3 (Postumius). See the commentary on Valerius (Valerio Máximo, Facta et dicta memorabilia. Hechos y dichos memorables. Libro primero, ed., trans., and comm. A. Schniebs et al., Buenos Aires 2014, 359–61). 158
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credible doctrine that the souls of famous men, like the sons of Tyndareus you speak of, are divine and live for ever, rather than that men who had been once for all burnt on a funeral pyre were able to ride on horseback and fight in a battle? Or if you maintain that this was possible, then you have got to explain how it was possible, and not merely bring forward old wives’ tales. “At enim praesentis videmus deos, ut apud Regillum Postumius, in Salaria Vatinius” – nescio quid etiam de Locrorum apud Sagram proelio. quos igitur tu Tyndaridas appellabas id est homines homine natos, et quos Homerus, qui recens ab illorum aetate fuit, sepultos esse dicit Lacedaemone, eos tu cum cantheriis albis nullis calonibus obviam Vatinio venisse existimas et victoriam populi Romani Vatinio potius homini rustico quam M. Catoni qui tum erat princeps nuntiavisse? ergo et illud in silice quod hodie apparet apud Regillum tamquam vestigium ungulae Castoris equi credis esse? nonne mavis illud credere, quod probari potest, animos praeclarorum hominum, quales isti Tyndaridae fuerunt, divinos esse et aeternos, quam eos qui semel cremati essent equitare et in acie pugnare potuisse; aut si hoc fieri potuisse dicis, doceas oportet quo modo, nec fabellas aniles proferas.162
Cotta’s withering critique of beliefs about the post-mortem state of the Dioscuri probably indicates that they were popular. The Stoic has a material concept of the immortal bodies of the twins. Hyginus depicts Castor’s death and burial and notes that “he had received a star from Jupiter” (cum autem ipse stellam ab Ioue accepisset). This presumably implies that he was transformed into a star – a catasterism.163 The second Vatican Mythographer identifies them stars: Jupiter brought them to heaven and made their stars beneficial to sailors (Iuppiter in celum transtulit et Salutaria signa nautis esse dedit).164 Apollodorus describes the wounding of Pollux by Idas: And Zeus smote Idas with a thunderbolt, but Pollux he carried up to heaven. Nevertheless, as Pollux refused to accept immortality while his brother Castor was dead, Zeus permitted them both to be every other day among the gods and among mortals. Ú ¸ ˆ º& ), & &Ó ∞ Ã Ù ? . & 8 &Ó & ! ƒ ? , ¸ ˆ (8 í 8 Ú ! ) ∂ Ú !) >& .165
The translation of Polydeukes in Apollodorus appears to be bodily. The Dioscuri made frequent appearances, including epiphanies in battles and to sailors.166 Maximus of Tyre claims to have seen the Dioscuri and Asclepius: 162
Cic. N.D. 3.11–2, trans. of Rackham, Cicero, De natura, 297–99. Hyg. Fab. 80.4. In Minuc. 22.7 (BiTeu, 20 Kytzler), the Christian asserts that Castor and Pollux die alternatively so that they might live (Castores alternis moriuntur ut vivant). 164 Mythograph. Vatican. 2.155 (217 Kulcsár), trans. of Pepin, Vatican Mythographers, 162. Cp. Mythograph. Vatican. 3.3.7 (163 Bode), which has a very similar account. 165 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.11.2 (3.137 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus 2.33. 166 Cf. F. Pfister, Epiphanie, PRE Supp. 4 (1924) 277–323, esp. 293–4, 298, Burkert, Greek Religion, 213, R. C. T. Parker, Dioscuri 4OCD, 466. 163
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I myself have never seen either Hector or Achilles, but I have seen the Dioscuri, in the form of bright stars, righting a ship in a storm. I have seen Asclepius, and that not in a dream. I have seen Heracles, in waking reality. S &Ó Ù Ó ] 8 Ã ∂&, Ã&Ó Ù Æ ∂&H ∂& &Ó Ú Ú :, 8 , ∞! 8H ∂& Ú Ù ] , í ÃÚ ƒ H ∂& Ú Ù Â 8, í — .167
Verity J. Platt notes that the passage uses “epiphanic convention, alluding to the astral manifestation of the Dioscuri in the form of St. Elmo’s Fire and the appearance of Asclepius in rites of incubation …”168 2.1.12 Echetlaeus Pausanias describes the disappearance of the hero Echetlaeus, worshiped by the Marathonians, after the famous battle there in 490 B.C.E. He was depicted in the painting of the battle of Marathon that Pausanias had described earlier in his narrative.169 They say too that there chanced to be present in the battle a man of rustic appearance and dress. Having slaughtered many of the foreigners with a plough he was seen no more after the engagement. When the Athenians made enquiries at the oracle the god merely ordered them to honor Echetlaeus (He of the Plough-tail) as a hero. A trophy too of white marble has been erected. 8I &Ó › 8 ;& E ?W ) Ù ∂& Ú ; H ” I I? ˆ ( 9 Ï Ù > D (7H 8 &Ó ]! ; Ó ¡ ! Ù ÃÙ > Ã&8, a &Ó C ) 8 • .170
Platt calls the event a “battle epiphany.”171 Echetlaeus was one of many “gods and heroes who were concerned with the sacred rites at plowing.”172 2.1.13 Epimenides the Cretan (VII B.C.E.) According to Diogenes Laertius (who got the tradition from Theopompus173) Epimenides, sent by his father to search for lost sheep, slept in a cave for fif-
167 Maximus of Tyre Diss. 9.7 (BiTeu 76, Trapp), trans. of V. Platt, Facing the Gods. Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, Cambridge 2011, 237. 168 Platt, Facing the Gods, 237 169 Pausanias 1.15.3. 170 Pausanias 1.32.5, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 1.175. Cf. Pease, Invisibility, 14 (who conflates Echetlaeus with the hero Marathon). 171 Platt, Facing the Gods, 218. Cf. M. H. Jameson, The Hero Echetlaeus, TAPA 82 (1951) 49–61. 172 Jameson, Echetlaeus, 61 (points out that his name derives from the handle of the plow: Ô ).
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ty-seven years ( Õí ; 9 Ú 7! /Ï Ú 7 >). He became well known in Greece and was considered to be “most dear to the gods” ( ! Ú &Ó Ï ) Æ ! ( 8 ∂ Õ 7(!).174 Diogenes refers to Phlegon175 who claimed he lived 157 years,176 although the Cretans claim he lived 299 years, while Xenophanes of Colophon177 believes he lived 154 years.178 Some authors say that “the Cretans sacrifice to him as to a god” ( 8 &8 ≈ F Ã2 ! › ! 2).179 He made the claim that he “came to life many times” ( !F ? I I 8) – that is, his soul experienced many reincarnations.180 Apollonius, also relying on Theopompus,181 uses a verb for Epimenides’ awakening that appears frequently in the NT for resurrection: “he rose from his sleep and sought the sheep he had been sent after” (ÃÙ &Ó !8 — ) (í √ ? I); and “he thought he had risen on the same day in which he thought he had gone to sleep” (Õ ?I &Ó 8 ! E ÃE 8 c, Þ >&5 F!).182 Proclus’s statement that Aristeas, Hermodorus, and “Epimenides the Cretan are reported after their deaths to exist among the living” ( Ï !? )
), indicates that his revival appeared to be a resurrection, even though some life was preserved in the body that appeared to be dead.183 The Suda refers to his soul’s ability to go out of his body as long as he wished and then to again reenter his body (” , › 5 ¡ 4!
173
Theopompus FGrH 115 F 67a. On Epimenides, cf. A. H. Griffiths, Epimenides, 4OCD 526, H. D. Betz, Gottmensch II, RAC 12 (1982) 234–312, esp. 244, Rohde, Pysche 2.96–101. 174 Diog. Laert. 1.109–10. He helped Athens avert a plague (1.110) and prophesied a Spartan defeat (1.114). Clem. Alex. Strom 1.21.133.2 also refers to his abilities in “prognostication” ( : ). Plutarch Sol. 12.7 & &8 ∂ ! ( Ú (Ù Ú Ï ! ) ! Ú ( (He was reputed to be a man beloved of the gods, and endowed with a mystical and heaven-sent wisdom in religious matters, trans. of Perrin, Plutarch, Lives, 1.433). Plutarch adds that he was the child of a nymph named Blaste and was called a “new Cures” (one of the Curetes, priests of Zeus): )& ( ƒ M ? Ú 8. Cf. Lucian Philops. 26 who mocks the tale (chapt. 2 § 1.21). 175 Phlegon FGrH 257 F 38. 176 Plin. Nat. 7.175 also writes that he lived 157 years after having slept 57 years in a cave and awoke as if on the next day (in specu septem et quinquaginta dormisse annis … velut postero die experrectum). 177 Xenophanes of Colophon 21 B 20 Diels/Kranz. 178 Diog. Laert. 1.111. 179 Diog. Laert. 1.114. 180 Diog. Laert. 1.114. Cf. Epimenides FGrH 457 T1. 181 Theopompus FGrH 115 F67b. 182 Apollonius Mirab. 1.2 (he slept 57 years and lived 157 years, according to 1.3). 183 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll), cf. chapt. 2 § 1.28.
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, Ú ? ∞Y 2 :).184 He lived in the thirtieth Olympiad and wrote “mystery books and purification rites” (7 ? Ú ! ˆ).185 Maximus of Tyre explains his long years of deep sleep in the cave as an ecstasy due to Dictaean Zeus ( Ù 2 ; 9 —9 I! ) > ?).186 During his sleep he encountered the gods themselves, the words of the gods, and truth and justice (ƒ >( ) Ã) ! ) Ú ! Ú ! c Ú &W).187 2.1.14 Ganymede Homer depicts Ganymede’s translation: … godlike Ganymedes, who was born the fairest of mortal men; and the gods caught him up on high to be cupbearer to Zeus because of his beauty, so that he might dwell with the immortals. … ! º7&, √ & ? 8 ! ! : H Ù Ú ! Ú Ú ∞ ? μ ∑ μí !? .188
A whirlwind transports Ganymede in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Flaxen-haired Ganymede was seized by resourceful Zeus because of his beauty, so that he should be among the immortals and serve drink to the gods in Zeus’ house, a wonder to see, esteemed by all the immortals as he draws the red nectar from the golden bowl. As for Tros, nagging grief possessed his heart; he did not know which way the miraculous whirlwind had snatched up his dear son … D Ó 5!Ù º7& ¸ ˆ • √ &Ï ? μí !? Ù Ï & ! ) , ! ∞& ), ? 8 !?, (205) 8 F ( 8 ! P &Ó 8! ; > ( 8, Ã&8 & ≈W " ( "Ù 7 !8 ; ·189
184
Suda Ε § 2471. Suda Ε § 2471. He purified Athens from the “Cylonian pollution/curse” ( ?!
Ï ]!7 ; ). On that curse, cf. A. W. Gomme and S. Hornblower, Cylon, 4OCD 402 and Plutarch Sol. 12. Maximus of Tyre 38.3 (Trapp) asserts that it was a “teaching dream” (ƒ &&? ) that helped him save the city. According to the Suda he lived 150 years and his long sleep was 90 years. 186 Maximus of Tyre 10.1 (Trapp) and cf. Rohde, Psyche, 2.97. 187 Maximus of Tyre 10.1. 188 Homer Il. 20.232–5, trans. of Wyatt, Homer, Iliad, 2.383. Philo Prov. 2.6 = Eus. P.E. 8.14.7 quotes 20.234–5. 189 Hymn. in Ven. (5) 202–8, trans. of West, Homeric Hymns, 175. Cf. Hönn, Studien, 24. 185
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Theognis includes the narrative of Ganymede’s translation in a homoerotic poem: The love of boys has given delight ever since Ganymedewas loved by Kronos’ son himself, king of the immortals,who seized and brought him up to Olympos and made him divine (a daimōn), possessing as he did the lovely bloom of boyhood. &( ) &8 , Ú º7& 4 Ú &, !? I , U ?5 &í È 7 >! &, & ;! >í .190
Both the Homeric Hymn and Theognis use a verb for translation that Paul also adopted in 1 Thess 4:17 (U Ì ). Lucian’s Zeus asks Ganymede for a kiss: Kiss me now, so that you know I no longer have a crooked beak or sharp talons or wings, as I appeared to you when I seemed to be an eagle. ( 4&, ≈ ∞&E Ã8 X?( > Ã&í ƒ ¿5 ) Ã&Ó ?, ∑ ( Ù ∂ & .191
Martial reflects the same tradition: As the eagle bore the boy through the airs of heaven, the timid talons did not harm their clinging freight. Aetherias aquila puerum portante per auras illaesum timidis unguibus haesit onus192
Martial clearly envisions a bodily abduction of Ganymede. According to Apollodorus, “This Ganymede, for the sake of his beauty, Zeus caught up on an eagle and appointed him cupbearer of the gods in heaven” ( Ó “ &Ï ? ? ¸ ˆ &í ! ∞ Ã 2 8 ).193 190 Theognis El. 2.1344–7, trans. of A. M. Miller, Greek Lyric. An Anthology in Translation, Indianapolis 1996, 93. Catmite or Catmithe (the Latin catamitus [catamite]) is the Etruscan version of “Ganymedes.” Cf. L. B. van der Meer. Interpretatio Etrusca. Greek Myths on Etruscan Mirrors, Leiden 1995, 239. 191 Lucian Dial. deor. 10(4).1. 192 Mart. Ep. 1.6, trans. of Martial, Epigrams, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton-Bailey, Cambridge, MA 1993, 1.47. In Verg. A. 5.254–5 a “bird with hooked talons” also translates Ganymede (quem praepes ab Ida / sublimem pedibus rapuit Iovis armiger uncis). In Ov. Met 10.157–8 Jupiter changes himself into a bird (the eagle) that can carry his lightning bolts (nulla tamen alite verti / dignatur, nisi quae posset sua fulmina ferre). The Vatican Mythographers also depict the eagle as the agent of translation. Cf. Vat. Myth. 1.181 (71 Kulcsár): aquila que quondam sibi fulmina deferebat, Vat. Myth. 2.226 (263 Kulcsár) ab aquila in celum raptus est, Vat. Myth. 3.3.5 (162 Bode) unde se in aquilam ad eum [Iuppiter] rapiendam, Vat. Myth. 3.15.11 (256 Bode) raptus est ab eo [Iuppiter] in Ida silva per aquilam. 193 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.12.2 (3.141 Weber), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus, 2.37.
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Mnaseas (III B.C.E.) and Dosiadas (III B.C.E.) mention several explanations for Ganymede’s disappearance: Mnaseas194 says that he [Ganymedes] was abducted by Tantalus and, after falling in a hunt, was buried on the Mysian Olympos near the temple of Zeus Olympios. Dosiadas, on the other hand, says that he was abducted by Minos; and the harbor from which he was kidnapped is called Harpagiai. Some say that since Minos wished to have sex with him, he hanged himself and Minos buried him, but made up a story for his father to the effect that a storm and a cloud snatched him away to the sky. ®8 8 ( ÕÙ P? ?! Ú 9 (F 2 ®9 Δ 9 Ï Ù " Ù Δ , ?& &Ó ?! ÕÙ ® H Ú ¡ 7, ≈! ?!, ç )H " &Ó ® 5 F / , Ù &Ó !? Ú ?! 2 Ú › ! Ú 8( • ÃÙ ∞ Ã ·195
Anonymous commentators are responsible for the tradition about the storm and cloud. Oenomaus of Gadara mocks the translation of Cleomedes and Ganymede: The gods at least were immediately sensible of your good deeds, and snatched you up to heaven, just as Homer's gods snatched Ganymede; but him they chose for his beauty, and you for your strength, and for the good use made of it! ! Ã!8 " ! Ú F ! Ú , · " ä7 Ù º7&·196
Herodian also mentions his bodily translation: It was there [Phrygia], so the story goes, that Ganymede was spirited away and disappeared from mortals’ view when his brother and lover tore him limb from limb. After the youth’s body vanished, his sufferings made him immortal when Zeus spirited him away to heaven. >! Ú Ù º7& U !8 (F 8! , ! ÃÙ & ( Ú , ( &Ó 8 : ! !F Ù ?! ! Ú Ù U 7.197
The depiction (image 3) of Ganymede’s translation in the underground basilica at Porta Maggiore illustrates these accounts.198
194
Mnaseas F.H.G. III p. 154, frag. 30. Schol. in Hom. Il. 20.234d (Erbse) = L. Bertelli, Dosiades, Brill’s New Jacoby 458 Frag. 5 (his trans.). 196 Eus. P.E. 5.34.7, trans. of Gifford, Eusebius, 3.1.248. 197 Herodian 1.11.2, trans. of E. E. Echols, Herodian of Antioch’s History of the Roman Empire, Berkeley 1961, 29. 198 Cf. chapt. 1 § 6.3. 195
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2.1.15 Helen Helen, the sister of the Dioscuri,199 was transformed into a goddess after her death. In Euripides’ Helen, the twins tell their sister, as she escapes from Egypt (only her phantom was in Troy)200: When you come to the last lap of your life and die, you will be called a goddess [and in company with the Dioscuri you will receive libations] and like us you will receive gifts from mortals. ≈ &Ó ? Ú 7 I, ! Ù 7 [Ú 8 & !85 ] 58? í ! : ? A5 !í H201
In the Orestes, Helen becomes a star with the Dioscuri. Apollo, with Helen in the air, tells Menelaus: [here she is, she whom you see in heaven’s recesses, not killed by you but safe and sound:] I saved her from under your very sword and spirited her away. Those were the orders of Zeus my father. For she is Zeus’s daughter and must live an imperishable life, and with Castor and Polydeuces in heaven’s recesses she will be enthroned as a savior to seafarers. [•&í Ú ` ¡ aí ∞!8 ), 8 Ã ! Ù 8! .] : 58 ÃÙ ( ? ! Ú • í Ù . ¸Ù Ï “ F ;(! :, ? & í ∞!8 ) ! >, 7 .202
In this text, a catasterism, Helen becomes a star, but her body has been removed from earth. Isocrates refers to Helen’s translation: For not only did she attain immortality but, having won power equalling that of a god, she first raised to divine station her brothers, who were already in the grip of Fate, and wishing to make their transformation believed by men, she gave to them honors so manifest that they have power to save when they are seen by sailors in peril on the sea, if they but piously invoke them.
199
Leda was their mother, according to Euripides Helen 1663–4. Euripides Helen 33–4: ¡:í Ú / N& > Ã ([Hera] made a breathing phantom like me out of sky). Helen, in ibid. 582, tells Menelaus: Ã D !
F P ?&í, í N& D (I did not go to the land of Troy, for it was a phantom). Cp. Helen 683. 201 Euripides Helen 1666–9, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 5.197. F. W. Schmidt deletes the material in brackets. 202 Euripides Orest. 1631–7, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 5.599. On the authenticity of lines 1631–2, cf. J. R. Porter, Studies in Euripides’ Orestes, Mn.S 128, Leiden 1994, 252. 200
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°Ã Ï ! > , Ï Ú & ∞ ! I Ó ˆ & (ˆ 4& 8 ÕÙ F 8 ∞ ! ˆ 7 , I 8 &Ó F I — Ã) Ï Ï ) >& ·!í ¡ 8 ÕÙ E ! ?W & Z , μ i È à I 8 .203
Isocrates’ explanation for her apotheosis is: “we shall find that more mortals have been made immortal because of their beauty than for all other excellences” ( Ï i — &Ï Ù ? !? 8 ¢ &Ï Ï ; Ï U?).204 Ps. Lucian describes the immortalization of the Dioscuri and Helen in a text devoted to beauty: Among heroes who became gods are Heracles, the son of Zeus, the Dioscuri and Helen. One of these is said to have gained this honour for his bravery, Helen to have changed into a goddess herself on account of her beauty and to have won godhead for the Dioscuri, who had been numbered with those in the underworld before she ascended to heaven. ! 5 : 8 Â F 8 ¡ Ù Ú Ú 8, „ ¡ Ó & A 8 ) F F, 8 &Ó ? ? Ã7 I ) ∞ ! Ù Ú ) ∞
8! Ú Ã ∞ Ã Ù ! ) ) ÕÙ F 58.205
In this version both Castor and Pollux were originally mortal before their transformation into gods. 2.1.16 Hector Lycophron locates Hector in the Isles of the Blest after his death: As a great hero, you will dwell on the islands of the Blest, a helper against the arrows of plague, when the Sown People of Ogygos, obedient to the oracles of the Doctor-god, the Lepsian, the Terminthian, lift him out of his grave at Ophryneion206 and bring him to the tower of Kalydnos and the Aonian land to be a Savior, when they are hard pressed by a hoplite army ravaging the land and the temples of Teneros. The Ektenian chiefs will celebrate your great fame with libations, making it equal to the immortal gods. 7 &Ó ? 7 8 • , Ù 5 ? (1205) ≈ ! Ú ‰ Ù S ) ∏ P !8 5 Δ( † ;5 & ] F F í, ≈ ? ¡ W 2 (1210) 8 ! : P8 í ? . 8 &Ó Ù 8 C7 203 Isocrates Hel. enc. (Or. 10) 61, trans. of Isocrates, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. G. Norlin, Cambridge, MA 1945, 3.93. 204 Isocrates Hel. enc. (Or. 10) 60, trans. of Norlin, Isocrates, 3.93. 205 Ps. Lucian Charidemus 6, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 8.477. 206 S. Hornblower (Lykophron, Alexandra. Greek Text, Translation, Commentary, and Introduction, Oxford 2015, 55) notes that this was in the Troad.
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I) & (! N.207
Hector’s dead bones lying in a cairn (and their subsequent removal to Thebes) are consistent with his immortal existence in the Isles of the Blest. Hesychius has a tradition, relevant for Lycophron, in which the Isles of the Blest are located on the acropolis of Thebes in Boeotia (®? FH M c I ).208 The scholia also refer to their location in Thebes, according to Lycophron: In the Isles of the Blest: the following […] Lycophron does not place, like the others, the Isles of the Blest in the ocean, but in Thebes. The Greeks brought the bones of Hector from Troy according to an oracle and placed them next to a spring called Spring of Oedipus. With regard to the birth of Zeus, some place it in Crete, others in Arcadia, and this [poet = Lycophron] says in Thebes, a place where these words are inscribed: “Here are the Isles of the Blessed, there the powerful / Zeus, king of the gods, Rhea brought into the world in this place.” 7 &Ó ®? H Ù /5F ... Ã › ; Ï ®? 7 2 ‰ 2 8 ¡ ( ∂, í 7I. Ï Æ ¿a Ï Ù " Æ P >! ∞ °∞&& 7 8. Ù 8 209 " Ó 7W, " &Ó ] &c, ” &Ó 7I 8 , >! Ú 8 μ&í ∞Ú ®? F, ! Ù ; ¸F ! I F ç8 8 2&í Ú : 9.210
Relying on an etymology of Burkert, André Hurst claims that K ˜ (Elysian) derives from ˜ (struck by thunderbolt or lightning) and that a place struck by lightning becomes sacred. For Burkert “a person struck by a thunderbolt” is “in Elysium.”211 Thebes was struck by lightning (Euripides, Bacch. 6–9), and had a sanctuary there. Consequently, the Isles of the Blest possibly appeared in the wake of a place struck by lightning ( ˜
207
Lycophron Alexandra 1204–13, trans. of Hornblower, Lykophron, 431–3. Hesychius ® § 110 s.v. ®? F. 209 Tzetzes adds here: " ∞& ¡ ¸ ˆ (those who do not know who Zeus is). He denies the tradition and accuses the author of the epigram of flattery (Scholia in Lycophron Alex. 1200) and see A. Hurst, Hector chez les Bienheureux, Gaia 15 (2012) 59– 77, esp. 65. 210 Scholia in Lycophron Alex. 1204, trans. done with ref. to Hurst, Hector, 64–5. Pausanias (9.18.5), describing Hector’s tomb (?() at Thebes, includes an oracle instructing the Thebans to bring Hector’s bones from Troy to Thebes. It ends: “Bring to your homes the bones of Hector, Priam’s son, / From Asia, and reverence him as a hero, according to the bidding of Zeus” (Æ ¿8 & N / 5 ] Ù Wí • 8I !), trans. of Jones, Pausanias 4.251. 211 Hurst, Hector 65–6 with ref. to W. Burkert, Elysion, Glotta 39 (1961) 208–13, esp. 211. 208
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&Û).212 This etymology, however, has been strongly criticized by Robert Beekes. 213 2.1.17 Heracles Homer’s reference to the deified Heracles is curious. Odysseus sees only his phantom in Hades: And after him [Sisyphus] I marked the mighty Heracles—his phantom [eidolon]; for he himself among the immortal gods takes his joy in the feast, and has to wife Hebe, of the fair ankles, daughter of great Zeus and of Hera, of the golden sandals. Ù &Ó 8í ∞ I Â N& H ÃÙ &Ó í !? ! ) 8 ! W Ú > ( ≠I )& Ù ? Ú ≠ & .214
Burkert notes that in Homer the psyche leaves the body at death and means “breath”: … only when there is a question of life and death is there any question of psyche. Psyche is not the soul as a bearer of sensations and thoughts, it is not the person, nor is it a kind of Doppelgänger. Yet from the moment it leaves the man it is also termed an eidōlon, a phantom image, like the image reflected in a mirror which can be seen, though not always clearly, but cannot be grasped …215
The eidōlon is normally “ a wraith or counterfeit image which represents the bodily appearance of the dead man” according to Michael Clarke.216 In the text above, however, it is a “false image used to explain how Heracles can be in Hades and on Olympus at the same time.”217 He refers to Apollo’s removal of Aeneas to a place of safety while leaving his eidōlon in place on the battlefield.218 212
Hurst, Hector 65–6. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary, 517 s.v. He regards it is a derivative “from a geographical name *Alut– or *Elut–.” 214 Homer Od. 11.601–4, trans. of Murray, Homer, Odyssey, 1.429. The lines may be an interpolation (M. Clarke, Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer. A Study of Words and Myths, Oxford 1999, 223), although there are other references to mortals made immortal (or who were desired to be made immortal): Ganymede in Il. 5.265–6, 20.232–5, Clitus in Od. 15.250–1 and Tithonus in Od. 5.1. For Calypso and Odysseus, cf. Od. 5.136, 7.257 and 23.336. 215 Burkert, Greek Religion, 195 with ref. to Il. 23.72 F 8 N Ú N& (“Afar do the spirits [psychai] keep me aloof, the phantoms [eidōla] of men that have done with toils,” trans. of Murray, Iliad, 2.497) and Od. 11.83 (examples of eidōlon). Cf. the analysis of the concept in Clarke, Flesh, 54, 195–205. 216 Clarke, Flesh, 54. On the soul of the dead in Homer, cf. in particular J. Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept of Soul, Princeton 1983, 70–90. 217 Clarke, Flesh, 223. 218 Clarke, Flesh, 196–7, 223 and Homer Il. 5.449–52. 213
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The translation or apotheosis of Heracles appears in a text of Hesiod from the Catalogue of Women. The lines immediately preceding describe Deianeira’s actions against her husband “when she smeared poison on his chiton” (¡ (? [ ] ) And he died and went to the mournful house of Hades. But now he is already a god, and he has emerged from all the evils, and he lives where the others who have their abodes on Olympus live also; he is immortal and unaging having as wife Hebe with the beautiful ankles. Ú] !? Xí ]^&[ μ ] & . (25) &í 4& ! , &í 57 ! ? , : &í >!? ; Δ &:í > !? Ú ; , > []( ≠I.219
Here the descent of Heracles to Hades “presupposes his subsequent accession to Olympus and immortality.”220 Just what part of Heracles went to Olympus is somewhat ambiguous. Theocritus makes his view clear: This son of yours, when he is a broad-chested man, is destined to ascend to the starry sky, and he will be mightier than all beasts and all other men. It is fated that when he has accomplished twelve labors he will live in the house of Zeus, while a pyre on Mt. Trachis will hold his mortal remains; he will be called son-in-law of the gods, who roused these monsters from their lairs to destroy your baby. ) ≈& 8 Ã Ù ; (8 I Ù " , Ù 8 ˆ • , 80 ” Ú ! ? Ú 8 • ; . &:& ? " 8 8 Ù ∞ ) !, !Ï &Ó ? Ï P A5 H
I Ù &í !? 7 , ≥ ?&í :& ( I 8( && 7!.221
The “mortal part” implies that Heracles’ body has been consumed by the flames. Iolaus, a friend of Heracles, in Euripides’ Heraclidae asserts that Heracles “dwells in heaven” ( &í, Ú í Ã Ù / ).222 Alcmene, his mother, has the same vision: “although I did not think it before, I now clearly know that my child is in the company of the gods (Ú )& Ù Ù
219 Hesiod frag. 25 (16 Merkelbach/West), trans. of Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 166. Most (Hesiod, 2.76) notes that these lines “are marked by an obelus in P.Oxy. 2075.” Most attributes the text to the Catalogue of Women. 220 Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 166. On the translation of Heracles, cf. Hönn, Studien, 24–5, Kezbere, Umstrittener Monotheismus, 114–7, J. B. Wallace, Benefactor and Paradigm. Viewing Jesus’s Ascension in Luke-Acts through Greco-Roman Ascension Traditions, in: Bryan and Pao, Ascent, 83–107, esp. 89–91. 221 Theocritus Id. 24.79–85, trans. of Hopkinson, Theocritus, 331–3. 222 Euripides Heraclid. 9–10.
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! Ã &í S / ! ) ¡ ) ( ). The chorus tells her: Your child has gone to heaven, old woman. I shun the tale that he has gone down to the house of Hades, his body burned up by the terrible flame of fire. > Ã I IS ¡ Ù , ‚ ?H (
› Ù & & 8I, Ù & a ( Ú &! .223
Euripides, like Homer, is seemingly aware of two traditions of Heracles’ fate: Hades or heaven. Euripides, however, does not assert that any part of Heracles’ mortal nature was taken to Olympus. Diodorus Siculus also apparently indicates that Heracles’ physical body was not translated. Philoctetes lights the pyre: And immediately lightning also fell from the heavens and the pyre was wholly consumed. After this, when the companions of Iolaüs came to gather up the bones of Heracles and found not a single bone anywhere, they assumed that, in accordance with the words of the oracle, he had passed from among men into the company of the gods. Ã!ˆ &Ó Ú 8 , Ï a ( 8!. Ï &Ó " Ó Ú Ù ∏ ! Ú ¿ , Ú &Ó ≈ ¿ Õ , Õ8 I Ù Â 8 ) ) ! 5 ! : ∞ ! ˆ ! ?!·224
The disappearance of his body, presumably consumed by the heavenly lightning, is a sign of his apotheosis. In Lucian it is only Heracles’ immortal nature that is translated: Think of the story of Heracles when he was burned and deified on Mount Oeta: he threw off the mortal part of him that came from his mother and flew up to heaven, taking the pure and unpolluted divine part with him, the part that the fire had separated off. Ö · (Ú Ù Â 8 E °NW !8 ! Ù 8!H Ú Ï ) I S ¡ ! : ∂ Ï F Ù Ú !
223 Euripides Heraclid. 872, 910–14. On Heracles’ translation, cf. M. Mühl, Des Herakles Himmelfahrt, RMP 101 (1958) 106–34, esp. 111–20 (iconographical survey), 120–34 (literary sources). 224 Diod. Sic. 4.38.4–5, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 2.467. In Serv. A 3.402, Philoctetes, Heracles’ friend, promises Heracles not to reveal the location of the remnants of his corpse, after he had placed him on Mt. Oeta (Philoctetes … Herculis comes, quem Hercules, cum hominem in Oeta monte deponeret, petiit, ne alicui sui corporis reliquias indicaret). Later, according to Servius, Philoctetes revealed the location of the body. Pausanias 3.18.11 describes an engraving on the throne of Amyclae, in which “Athena leads Heracles to dwell from now on with the gods” (]!a &Ó ; Â 8 7 Ù ! )). According to Lysias Epitaph. 11, Heracles vanished from among people (Â F Ó 5 ! : †(!).
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Ú 7 (8 Ù ! ) 8 ˆ ! ˆ & !Ó ÕÙ .225
Apollodorus describes Heracles’ ascension from the pyre: While the pyre was burning, it is said that a cloud passed under Hercules and with a peal of thunder wafted him up to heaven. Thereafter he obtained immortality, and being reconciled to Hera, he married her daughter Hebe, by whom he had sons, Alexiares and Anicetus. 8 &Ó F a 8 8( ÕÏ Ï I F ÃÙ ∞ Ã Ù 8 )! &Ó S ! Ú & Ú ≠ c ! 8 ≠I > , 5 ß Ã2 )& ] 5? Ú ] 8.226
Galen, according to a tradition in Al-Biruni, did not believe that Heracles’ mortal flesh was translated: It is generally known that Asclepius was raised to the angels in a column of fire [ʿmud min nar], the like of which is also related with regard to Dionysos, Heracles, and others, who laboured for the benefit of mankind. People say that God did thus with them in order to destroy the mortal and earthly part [al-juzʾa al-mayt al-ardi] of them by the fire, and afterwards to attract to himself the immortal part of them [juzʾahum alladhi la yaqbal almawt (“their part that does not receive death”)], and to raise their souls [wa yarfaʾ anfushum] to heaven.227
This conception is consistent with those of Plutarch, Pliny, and Ovid.228 Justin denigrated the account of Heracles’ ascension by arguing that it was an imitation of Ps 18:6 LXX.229 He says little, however, about the precise form of Heracles’ translation. Celsus includes Heracles among a group of deified humans, and his concept of apotheosis is Platonist: [The coarse Celsus, omitting no form of ridicule or derision about us in the treatise against us, mentions] the Dioscuri, Heracles, Asclepius, and Dionysus, [who are believed by the Greeks to have been people who became gods, and he says] that we will not abide acknowledging these to be gods, because they were humans first, although they exhibited 225
Lucian Hermot. 7, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 6.273. Cp. Dial. deor. 15(13).1 where Asclepius tells Heracles that he had healed his burned body: “have you nothing to say of how I healed your burns, when you came up half-scorched the other day? Between the tunic and the fire after it, your body was in a fine mess.” (°Ã 8 , ≈ Ï ∞?, ≈ Z F ! ( Õí () & (! S Ù , Ú Ú Ï ). Trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 7.315. 226 Apollodorus 2.7.7 (2.160 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus,1.271. 227 Alberuni’s India …, 2 vols., trans. E. C. Sachau, London 1888, chapter 73, 2.168 (from his “commentary to the apothegms of Hippocrates”). The Arabic text may be found in Alberuni’s India. An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Chronology Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A. D. 1030, ed. in Arabic by E. Sachau, London 1887, 283 (283). 228 For Pliny and Ovid, cf. the texts below and cf. Plutarch Rom. 28.7 (chapter 3 § 1.2) and Alcmene (chapter 3 § 3.3). 229 Cf. Justin Dial. 69.3, quoted in chapt. 1 § 1.3.
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many noble acts on behalf of humankind. But we say that Jesus, afer his death, appears to his association [or “religious guild”]. [He adds to the accusation:] We say he appeared, yes, his shadow. °Ã&Ó &Ó ∂& Ú & Ú 8 S ¡ I 8 2 !í 9 Ú Â 8 Ú ] Ù Ú ¿? , ˆ 5 ! : 8 í Æ 8 ! , ( Ã 8 ! Ó a ! , ≈ ;! D Ú , Ï & 58 Ú
) ÕÓ ! : H Ù &í ∏ ! ÕÙ ∞& ! ‚(! ( · ) &í Ú › ÃÙ ‚(!, Ú ?. 230
Celsus rejects any form of bodily resurrection in his concept of apotheosis: But after he [Jesus] put off this [flesh], then he would be a god; why therefore not rather Asclepius and Dionysus and Heracles? !8 ; > ! H “ ÃÚ a ¡ ] Ù Ú Ú Â F;231
Celsus had, in the beginning of Origen’s discussion compared the corruptibility of Jesus’s flesh to gold, silver, and stone and had classified flesh as “polluted” ( : ).232 In the iconography, occasionally Heracles is depicted leaving his pyre by chariot for Olympus, while his corselet remains on the pyre.233 John Boardman argues that “the muscle-corselet modelled like a bare torso” is “a highly effective image as a mortal husk.”234 Pliny described a Greek painting (by Artemon, taken to Rome to “Octavia’s buildings”): “his Heracles ascending to heaven with the consent of the gods after his mortal remains [or “mortality”] were burnt on Mount Oeta in Doris” (Herculem ab Oeta monte Doridos exusta mortalitate consensu deorum in caelum euntem).235 Several images depict either Nike or Athena driving Heracles to Olympus.236 Athena and Heracles appear together often in various positions as he mounts the chariot for the
230
Origen Cels. 3.22. Origen Cels. 3.42. (this) is ∏ Ö ? (Jesus’s flesh). 232 Origen Cels. 3.42: Ï ! ∏ ? 2 Ú 9 Ú !9, ≈ ” (! . 233 J. Boardman et al., Herakles, LIMC 5.1 (1990) 1–192, § 2916–18 (Attic vases). 234 J. Boardman, Hercules in extremis, in: Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei, Konrad Schauenburg zum 65. Geburtstag am 16. April 1986, ed. E. Böhr and W. Martini, Mainz 1986, 129. 235 Plin. Nat. 35.139, trans. of Rackham, Pliny 9.363. Cp. Boardman, Herakles, LIMC 5.2 § 2921. 236 J. Boardman, VIII. Herakles’ Death and Apotheosis, LIMC 5.1 (1990) 121–32: § 2922–26 and 2927–30 respectively. 231
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gods.237 Jonathan Burgess concludes, “From what we can gather from the vague, incomplete, or inconsistent sources, Herakles’ immortality resulted from the destruction of his mortal form by his funeral pyre … The pyre of Herakles likely functioned as it did in the story of Achilles to separate the mortal part from the immortal part.”238 In Ovid, for example, the flame can only destroy Heracles’ mortal nature: … nor shall he feel Vulcan’s power save in the part his mother gave him. Immortal is the part which he took from me, and that is safe and beyond the power of death, which no flame can destroy. nec nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem sentiet: aeternum est, a me quod traxit, et expers atque inmune necis nullaque domabile flamma239
In any case, the empty corselet does seem to indicate that the mortal part of Heracles’ body had been consumed by the flames. It is possible that some Christians honored (worshiped?) Heracles as a hero. Jerome thunders: Never let a Christian mouth utter “Almighty Jupiter” and “By Hercules” and “By Castor,” or swear by the rest of those monstrosities rather than gods. absit, ut de ore christiano sonet “Iuppiter omnipotens” et “mehercule” et “mecastor” et cetera magis portenta quam numina.240
Some Christians still apparently swore by Heracles in Jerome’s time. 237
Boardman, Herakles, § 2881–4 (both are on the chariot); § 2885–94 (A. mounts the chariot; § 2895–2901 (H. stands on chariot, A. mounts it holding the reins); § 2903–2906 (H. mounts or stands on thr chariot, A. is beside it.) 238 Burgess, Death and Afterlife, 103. He refers to Sen. Herc. Oet. 1966–77 and Ov. Met 9.251–2, along with the text from Pliny quoted above. Seneca’s Hercules (Herc. O. 1966–8) tells Alcmene, “Whate’er in me was mortal and of thee, the vanquished flame has borne away my father’s part to heaven, thy part to the flames has been consigned” (quicquid in nobis tui / mortale fuerat, ignis evictus tulit: / paterna caelo, pars data est flammis tua), trans. of Miller, Seneca, Tragedies, 2.339. 239 Ov. Met. 9.251–3, trans. of Miller, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.21. 240 Jerome Ep. 21.13.8 (CSEL 54, 123 Hilberg), trans. of C. C. Mierow, The Letters of St. Jerome. Volume I. Letters 1–22, ACW, New York 1963, 118. A. Malherbe reviews positive evaluations of Heracles among Christians authors (Herakles, RAC 14 [1988] 559–83, esp. 574–5) as well as polemic against him (576–8 [polemic]; 578–9 [comparisons between Heracles and Christ in patristic writers]). Cf. chapt. 2 § 4. Jerome continues (21.13.9) by criticizing certain priests: at nunc etiam sacerdotes dei omissis euangeliis et prophetis uidemus comoedias legere, amatoria bucolicorum uersuum uerba cantare, tenere Uergilium et id, quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere uoluntatis (But as it is, we see even priests of God disregarding the Gospels and the prophets, reading comedies, reciting love passages from bucolic verse, cherishing Vergil and voluntarily making themselves guilty of that which in the case of children is done under compulsion, trans. of Mierow, ibid., 118–9 slightly mod.).
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2.1.18 Hermotimus the Clazomenian Apollonius (ca II B.C.E.) the paradoxographer describes Hermotimus’s ability to leave his body and wander the earth: Many such things are fabulously reported about Hermotimus the Clazomenian. For they say that his soul, wandering from the body, would go abroad for many years and while being in various places would predict things that were going to happen, such as great storms and droughts, also earthquakes and plagues and similar things, while his body lay in repose; and his soul as if entering into a shell after a lengthy time, raised (or “woke”) his body. Having done this many times, and his wife being instructed by him, when he was about to leave, that no one should touch his body, neither any fellow citizen or any other person – some individuals came into his home and entreating his weak wife they saw Hermotimus lying naked on the ground motionless. And taking fire they burned him, thinking that when his soul returned and not having any place to enter it would be completely deprived of life, which is what happened. Consequently, the Clazomenians honor Hermotimus until the present time, and a temple has been dedicated to him into which no woman enters because of the aforementioned reason. Ú &Ó ? ! ). (Ú Ï Ã Ù : 8 & ) Ú Ï > Ú Ï 8 8 Ï 8 I7 !, ∑ ƒI ? Ú I > &Ó Ú ˆ Ú 7, 8, &Ó !? ∞ > &Ï ∞ 8 & Ù . &Ó Ã ? Ú F
Ù Ï Õí Ã , ≈ 8 !, &8 ! ) &8 &í ; ! : , ∞ ! Ó ∞ ∞ Ú 7 Ù ! : Ú
Ù Ù . " &Ó I 8 Ã , ∞ F F 8 Ú 8 ≈ ∞& 7 ! F, ≈ Ú 8 . Ù Ó “ 8 8 Ú " Ù Ã !& , ∞ √ Ã ∞8 &Ï 8 ∞.241
Apollonius’s statement that the soul “raised” (& ) Hermotimus’s body is important, at least for the paradoxographer’s conception of a sort of bodily resurrection. Pliny, after mentioning a number of cases of individuals who revived after being thought dead, refers to Hermotimus: Among other instances we find that the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae used to leave his body and roam abroad, and in its wanderings report to him from a distance many things that only one present at them could know of – his body in the meantime being only half-conscious; till finally some enemies of his named the Cantharidae burned his body and so deprived his soul on its return of what may be called its sheath.
241 Apollonius Mirab. 3.1–4. See the commentary of Spittler, Apollonios. Cp. Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept, 27. Chadwick, Origen, 157 refers to E. Rohde’s (Die Quellen des Jamblichus in seiner Biographie des Pythagoras, RMP 26 [1871] 554–76, esp. 558) position that Apollonius’s account probably derives from Theopompus. Rohde thinks Pliny was dependent on the same source as Apollonius.
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reperimus inter exempla Hermotimi Clazomenii animam relicto corpore errare solitam vagamque e longinquo multa adnuntiare, quae nisi a prasente nosci non possent, corpore interim semianimi, donec cremato eo inimici, qui Cantharidae vocabantur, remeanti animae veluti vaginam ademerint …242
Lucian243 describes the ability of a fly to revive after its own death and compares it to Hermotimus: It also confirms the story that the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae would often leave him and go away by itself, and then, returning, would occupy his body again and restore him to life. Ú ! Ù Ú !, ≈ ? ( ) ÃÙ &7 !í /7, ∂ ! 7 “! Ù Ú Ù .244
Plutarch includes “Hermodorus” in a discussion of prophetic and inspired people (Ù Ú ! 8).245 Timarchus, who had descended into the cave of Trophonius the oracle, has this to say: Among such souls you have doubtless heard of that of Hermodorus of Clazomenae – how night and day it used to leave his body entirely and travel far and wide, returning after it had met with and witnessed many things said and done in remote places, until his wife betrayed him and his enemies found his body at home untenanted by his soul and burnt it. The story as thus told is indeed not true: his soul did not leave his body, but gave its daemon free play by always yielding to it and slackening the tie, permitting it to move about and roam at will, so that the daemon could see and hear much that passed in the world outside and return with the report. The men who destroyed his body as he slept are still atoning for the deed in Tartarus. „ &: 7 &7! , › ? Ù Ú !í 8 a ˆ , ∂í “! Y ) Ï 8 Ú 8 Ú 8, 8 ” Ù F Ù & I " ! Ú F > N 8 . Ó “ à !8 H Ã Ï 58I :, Õ &í Ú Ú 2 & Ù & && & Ú (, · Ï Ú Ù ∞
8 . " &í ( Ù 8 8 & 2 ? 9 .246
Celsus, in his version of the story, does not think the Clazomenian was a god ( Ú ¡ 8 ∂ ! Ú Ú F í ÃÙ " ):
242
Plin. Nat. 7.174, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 2.623. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.21. 244 Lucian Musc. laud. 7, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 1.89. 245 Plutarch Gen. Socr. 20, 559C. His name for the Clazomenian is the same as that of Proclus (chapt. 2 § 1.28). 246 Plutarch Gen. Socr. 20, 559C, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Moralia, 7.475. 243
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Do not they say this, that his soul, often leaving his body, wandered about bodiless? And individuals did not believe that this person is a god. ® Ã (, › ; Ã ? Ù :; Ú Ã&Ó ! Ù " ;! 247
Tertullian summarizes the tradition: With regard to the case of Hermotimus, they say that he used to be deprived of his soul in his sleep, as if it wandered away from his body like a person on a holiday trip. His wife betrayed the strange peculiarity. His enemies, finding him asleep, burnt his body, as if it were a corpse: when his soul returned too late, it appropriated (I suppose) to itself the guilt of the murder. However, the good citizens of Clazomenae consoled poor Hermotimus with a temple, into which no woman ever enters, because of the infamy of this wife. Ceterum de Hermotimo. Anima, ut aiunt, in somno carebat, quasi per occasionem uacaturi hominis proficiscente de corpore. Vxor hoc prodidit. Inimici dormientem nacti pro defuncto cremauerunt. Regressa anima tardius, credo, homicidium sibi imputauit. Ciues Clazomenii Hermotimum templo consolantur. Mulier non adit ob notam uxoris.248
Proclus’s statement that Hermodorus was “reported” after his death “to exist among the living” is a reference to the ability to his soul to leave his body.249 According to Heraclides Ponticus, the soul of Hermotimus was Aethalides in an earlier incarnation, and after his death became a fisherman named Pyrrus, and then Pythagoras. In an even later incarnation the same soul became Heraclides himself.250 He is undoubtedly a legendary figure, even though Aristotle and Iamblichus refer to him for various philosophical opinions about the mind.251 2.1.19 Hersilia Romulus’s wife was translated by the goddess Iris at Juno’s command, according to Ovid. Hersilia tells Iris:
247
Origen Cels. 3.32. In 3.3 Origen mentions that Celsus thinks miracles were done by the Clazomenian, Aristeas, and Cleomedes. 248 Tert. An. 44.1–3, trans. of ANF 3.223. 249 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll), cf. chapt. 2 § 1.28. 250 Diog. Laert. 8.4–5 = Heraclides Ponticus frag. 88 Wehrli. Cp. Tert. An. 28.3 and Porphyry Vita Pyth. 45 (who gives this order: Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, Pyrrus, Pythagoras) and Suda Ε § 88 (Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, Pythios, Pythagoras). See B. Blackburn, Theios anēr and the Markan Miracle Traditions. A Critique of the theios anēr Concept as an Interpretive Background of the Miracle Traditions Used by Mark, WUNT 2.40, Tübingen 1991, 35 and F. Graf, Nordionische Kulte. Religionsgeschichtliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Kulten von Chios, Erythrai, Klazomenai und Phokaia, Rome 1985, 390–5. 251 Aristotle Metaph. 984B, Protrepticus frag. 110 (Aristotle, Protrepticus, ed. I. Düring, Stockholm 1961) = Iamblichus Protrepticus (H. Pistelli, ed., Iamblichi protrepticus ad fidem codicis Florentini, BiTeu, Leipzig 1888, 48). Cp. Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. 9.7.
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“If only the fates grant me but once to see him, then shall I say I have gained heaven indeed.” Straightway she fared along with Thaumas’ daughter to the hill of Romulus. There a star from high heaven came gliding down to earth, and Hersilia, her hair bursting into flame from its light, goes up together with the star into thin air. Her with dear, familiar hands Rome’s founder receives, and changes her mortal body and her old-time name. He calls her Hora, and now as goddess is she joined once more to her Quirinus. … “quem si modo posse videre fata semel dederint, caelum accepisse fatebor.” nec mora, Romuleos cum virgine Thaumantea ingreditur colles: ibi sidus ab aethere lapsum decidit in terras, a cuius lumine flagrans Hersilie crinis cum sidere cessit in auras. hanc manibus notis Romanae conditor urbis excipit et priscum pariter cum corpore nomen mutat Horamque vocat, quae nunc dea iuncta Quirino est.252
Ovid asserts that her body, like that of Romulus, was changed, presumably into that of a goddess.253 2.1.20 Hyacinth Pausanias describes the grave, statue, and translation of Hyacinth at Amyclae. The pedestal of the statue is fashioned into the shape of an altar and they say that Hyacinthus is buried in it, and at the Hyacinthia, before the sacrifice to Apollo, they devote offerings to Hyacinthus as to a hero into this altar through a bronze door, which is on the left of the altar. On the altar are wrought in relief, here an image of Biris, there Amphitrite and Poseidon. Zeus and Hermes are conversing; near stand Dionysus and Semele, with Ino by her side. On the altar are also Demeter, the Maid, Pluto, next to them Fates and Seasons, and with them Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis. They are carrying to heaven Hyacinthus and Polyboea, the sister, they say, of Hyacinthus, who died a maid. Now this statue of Hyacinthus represents him as bearded, but Nicias, son of Nicomedes, has painted him in the very prime of youthful beauty, hinting at the love of Apollo for Hyacinthus of which legend tells. &Ó ? Ù I?! 8 Ó I F, !?(! &Ó Ù ’?! 8 Ã2, Ú ’! Ù F ] ! ’!9 Ù I Ù &Ï ! F H ¹ &8 ! I . &Ó 2 I 2 Ó ; M &, &Ó ]( Ú & H Ù &Ó Ú & 8 7 /7 Ú 8 , Ï &Ó Ã ∏:. &Ó Ú I Ú 7 Ú Ú , Ú &Ó Ã) ®) Ú Î , ˆ &8 ( ]( & Ú ]!a Ú ê H &í Ã Ù ’?! Ú I, ’! !Ï 8 & ( ! > !8. Ó “ ’! Ù ; > Ú 4& 8 , T &Ó ¡ T7& &7
252 253
Ov. Met. 14.843–51, trans. of Miller, Ovid, 2.361. Cp. his account of Romulus’s translation in chapt. 3 § 1.2.
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> ÃÙ › ), Ù Ú ’!9 ] > Õ .254
Hyacinth’s translation to heaven in this text is clearly consistent with the burial of his mortal remains. Frazer discusses Athenaeus’s description of the three-day celebration of the festival of Hyacinthia by the Lacedaemonians. On the first day the people mourn for Hyacinth, but on the second day youths chant, sacrifices are offered, and citizens feast.255 Frazer’s claim that this “outburst of gaiety may be supposed to have celebrated the resurrection of Hyacinth” does not fit the evidence.256 Athenaeus mentions no resurrection of Hyacinth. 2.1.21 Melicertes and Ino Odysseus encounters Ino, the mother of Melicertes, during a storm: But the daughter of Cadmus, Ino of the fair ankles, saw him, that is, Leucothea, who formerly was a mortal of human speech, but now in the deeps of the sea has won a share of honor from the gods. Ù &Ó N& ?& ! ? , ( ∏:, !8, ` Ú Ó > I Ù Ã&7 , &í U Ù ? ! 58 F.257
According to Apollodorus, Zeus gave Dionysus through the agency of Hermes to two individuals, Ino and Athamas, to raise as a girl: But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him, and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling-cauldron; then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothoe, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners. 7 &Ó ≠ Ã) 8I , Ú ]!? Ó Ù I )& 8 › > ( ! 8 , ∏S &Ó Ù ® 8 ∞ 8 8I X, ∂ I? Ï &Ù • Ï I!. Ú !8 Ó Ã ), &Ó ¡ ), — ¿!8 ÕÙ H ) 8 Ï I!.258 254
Pausanias 3.19.3–4, trans. of Jones, Pausanias 2.119. Athenaeus 4.139C–F (4.17 Kaibel), Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 4.2, 314–5. See also H. J. Rose and B. C. Dietrich, Hyacinthus 4OCD, 713 and L. and F. Villard, Hyakinthos, LIMC 5/1 (1990) 546–50. 256 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 4.2, 315. 257 Homer Od. 5.333–5, trans. of Murray, Homer, Odyssey, 1.207. Scholia in Homer Od. 5.334 remarks that Ino received the honor of being equal to the gods because she had nourished Dionysus (&Ï &Ó ( ˆ 2 &Ú ∞!8 F > ). 258 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.4.3 (3.28–9 Wagner), trans. of Frazer, Apollodorus 1.321 (cf. his notes for many versions of the tale). Apollodorus also mentions the Isthmian games in honor of Melicertes. 255
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Pausanias, however, gives a different account in which Ino casts herself and her son from the Molurian rock into the sea and a dolphin brings Melicertes’ body to the Corinthian Isthmus.259 At Cromyon there was an altar dedicated to Melicertes where he was reputedly buried by Sisyphus after being brought to the shore by the dolphin; and the Isthmian games were established in his honor.260 In Messenia there is a road on the sea coast: On this road is a place on the coast regarded as sacred to Ino. For they say that she came up from the sea at this point, after her divinity had been accepted and her name changed from Ino to Leucothea. Ï &Ó ¡&Ù Ú Ú ! ?W , √ ∏ " Ù ∂ H IF Ï ! ! ? (Ú Ã ! 4& 8 Ú !8 8 Ú ∏.261
Jan Bremmer notes that “his cult took place in Poseidon’s sanctuary.”262 Ovid’s account is clearer on the translation of Ino and Melicertes into gods. Venus prays to her uncle Neptune to “add them to your [sea] gods” (et dis adde tuis).263 Neptune agrees to her request: Neptune consented to her prayer and, taking from Ino and her son all that was mortal, gave them a being to be revered, changing both name and form; for he called the new god Palaemon, and his goddess mother, Leucothoë. adnuit oranti Neptunus et abstulit illis, quod mortale fuit, maiestatemque verendam inposuit nomenque simul faciemque novavit Leucotheaque deum cum matre Palaemona dixit.264
In Ovid’s version some aspect of their nature, presumably the soul, becomes immortal. William S. Anderson comments that “Human beings supposedly possess a mortal and immortal part, namely, body and soul.”265 2.1.22 Memnon and Elysium Memnon killed Achilles’ friend, Antilochus, according to the Aithiopis. Now Memnon, son of Eos [Dawn], who owns armor made by Hephaistos, comes to the aid of the Trojans. Thetis tells her son about the outcome of events concerning Memnon. When a battle occurs, Antilokhos is killed by Memnon, but then Achilles kills Memnon. At this, Eos asks from Zeus the dispensation of immortality for him [Memnon], and it is granted. 259
Pausanias 1.44.8. Pausanias 2.1.3. 261 Pausanias 4.34.4, trans. of Jones, Pausanias 2.359. 262 J. N. Bremmer, Melicertes, 4OCD, 927. 263 Ov. Met. 4.536. 264 Ov. Met. 4.539–42, trans. of Miller, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.217. 265 W. S. Anderson, ed. and comm., Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Books 1–5, Norman OK 1997, 472. 260
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®8 &Ó ¡ K "Ù > ( ) P Ú I!7 H Ú 8 2 &Ú Ï Ï Ù ®8 8 . Ú I F 8 ] ÕÙ ®8 ), > ] ˆ ®8 H Ú 9 Ó KS Ï Ù ∞8 ! && .266
This account is not inconsistent with a burial of Memnon. Burgess argues that “it should not be assumed … that burial and immortality were mutually exclusive.”267 The gift of immortality implies more than the mere survival of Memnon’s soul in Hades. Quintus Smyrnaeus warrants this assertion.268 In his account, Eos carries his body to the bank of the river Aesopus in Ethiopia. The nymphs build a “long barrow” ( Ù Ö F) for his body.269 Eos threatens to descend to the underworld where her son’s soul () resides.270 The Ethiopian mourners turn into birds (the Memnonides), but Quintus Smyrnaeus is somewhat ambiguous about Memnon’s post-mortem existence: But he in Hades’ chambers or somewhere among the blessed ones in the Elysian plain, laughs. √ &í ∞ ]& & †8 ? í K 8& N ?c …271
The poet sees no inconsistency between a burial for the hero and his possible existence in the Elysian plain. There are depictions of Eos carrying and flying with the body of Memnon.272 Probably Quintus Smyrnaeus thought Mem-
266 Proclus Chrestomathia 185–90 (88 Severyns) = Davies, EGF, 47,14–19, trans. of Nagy, The Epic Cycle. In a discussion of stagecraft, Pollux 4.130 describes a crane as a mechanism used to seize bodies, which Eos used when seizing Memnon’s body ( &Ó
8 ?? : ( (í U E :, Ä 8 KS U ? Ù Ù ®8). 267 Burgess, Death, 36. 268 The account of Memnon’s death, burial, and possible translation are in Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.549–655. 269 Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.586–91, trans. of Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy, LCL, ed. and trans. A. S. Way, Cambridge, MA 1913, 110. 270 Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.612–3. 271 Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.650–2. 272 Carrying: Burgess, Death, 35; cf. Burgess, 37 for an image of Eos flying with the body of Memnon (Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.25). For images of Eos carrying Memnon, cf. C. Weiss, Eos, LIMC 3 (1986) 747–89 § 317–19, 322–33 (in § 317–20, 322–24, 328–33 Eos has wings). Weiss (ibid., 786) notes that the depiction of Eos with wings implies that she is a goddess who has power over human destiny and who can give immortality to the dead. Cp. R. Bloch and N. Minot, Eos/Thesan, LIMC 3 (1986) 789–97 § 36–45 (Eos and Memnon) and A. Kossatz-Deissmann, Memnon, LIMC 6 (1992) 448–61 § 62–82 (Eos hurries or flies with Memnon’s body; in § 63 and 73 she flies).
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non’s soul (and not his translated body) was in Elysium, if it was not in Hades. An epigram of Julia Balbilla, dated to 130 C.E., which was inscribed on one of the Colossi of Memnon, refers to the “immortal soul” of Memnon ( &í !?). She attributes these words to Hadrian: But I do not think that your statue will be destroyed / and I have already saved your immortal soul in my mind. í >
à &Û Ô! ı&í ƒ !í i ; , ˜ &í !Ì Û > ı9.273
Balbilla envisions the survival of Memnon’s soul, but is apparently unaware of the reference to his translated body in the Aithiopis. Middle Platonist philosophers such as Celsus had strong views on the inhabitants of Elysium. Celsus restricts Elysium to souls and quotes Plato in support of his perspective.274 Pindar reserves the isle of the blessed for who those who have lived three blameless lives: But those with the courage to have lived three times in either realm, while keeping their souls free from all unjust deeds, travel the road of Zeus to the tower of Kronos, where ocean breezes blow round the Isle of the Blessed … ≈ &í / /8 ! Ù ? & > / ?, > Ù ¡&Ù Ï / H >! ? / a ‹ & / “ 8·275
Plato’s Socrates asserts, in a text that he calls a ı (account) and not a myth (!),276 that the souls of those who have lived good lives go to the isles of the Blessed while those who have lived evil lives go to Tartarus: … every man who has passed a just and holy life departs after his decease to the Isles of the Blest, and dwells in all happiness apart from ill; but whoever has lived unjustly and impiously goes to the dungeon of requital and penance which, you know, they call Tartarus. ! : Ù Ó & Ù I & ! Ú ¡ , &Ï 7W, ∞ ? 7 ∞ ) ?W Ã&c Ù , Ù &Ó & Ú !8 ∞ Ù F : Ú & & 7 , √ & P? , ∞8.277
273
Colosse de Memnon 29. Origen Cels. 7.28, Plato Phaed. 109AB, describing the region where souls live. In 108C Plato mentions the destiny in store for the soul that has lived purely and moderately ( &Ó ! Ú Ù I & 5 !). 275 Pindar Ol. 2.68–71, trans. by Race, Pindar, 1.71. Race notes that “either realm” includes earth and Hades and could be translated “in both realms,” which would result in six [lives]. 276 Plato Gorg. 523A. 277 Plato Gorg. 523AB, trans. of Lamb, Plato, 3.519. 274
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The judges of the dead observe the soul of each individual right after his or her death ( ! 5( ! /?).278 Socrates concludes that death is merely the severing of soul from body (&? , F F Ú :).279 Celsus clearly understood the Elysian plain to be the destiny of some souls (and not translated bodies). 2.1.23 Menelaus Celsus wrote that “in ancient times it was asserted by divine men” that there is a happy life awaiting happy souls (π ! & ? ) Ã& I ) Ã&).280 He locates the place in either the Isles of the Blessed or the Elysian plain and quotes Proteus in Homer, who describes the destiny of Menelaus: But for yourself, Menelaus, fostered of Zeus, it is not ordained that you should die and meet your fate in horse-pasturing Argos, but to the Elysian plain and the ends of the earth will the immortals convey you, where dwells fair-haired Rhadamanthus, and where life is easiest for men. Ú &í Ã !8( , & (Ó ‚ ® 8 , ê "I 9 !8 Ú ), ? í K & Ú !? 8, ≈! 5!Ù ç&?!, ó E X^ I 8 ! :·281
Homer’s text implies a translation and not merely the survival of Menelaus’s soul. In Euripides’ Helen, the Dioscuri appear to the king of Egypt and tell him that “It is fated that the wanderer Menelaus dwell in the Isles of the Blessed” (Ú 7 ® 8 ! ? / ? ) F ).282 The Ps. Aristotelean Peplos also places him there: O happy Menelaus, you are immortal and unaging in the Isles of the Blessed, son in law of mighty Zeus. ƒ I ‚ ® 8 , í !? Ú 7 ? 7, I Ó Ù ? .283
278
Plato Gorg. 523E. Plato Gorg. 524B. 280 Origen Cels. 7.28. 281 Homer Od. 4.561–5, trans. of Murray, Homer, Odyssey 1.159–61. Celsus only quotes 4.563–564a. Homer is apparently the first to mention the name of the isles. Cf. E. Kearns, Elysium 4OCD, 501. On Menelaus’s translation, cf. Rohde, Psyche, 1.68–9, 76–7, 80. 282 Euripides Hel. 1676–7. 283 [Aristotle] Peplos 8.50.640.3 (397 Rose). According to Porphyry (8.50, test. [394 Rose]) = Eustathius in Hom. Il. 2.557 (439 van der Valk), the Peplos (Mantle) of Aristotle comprised the genealogies of the rulers, the number of their temples, and the epigrams about them (&Ó ¡ ÃÙ ( Ú ≈ ] 8
? , 279
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Isocrates makes Helen responsible for Menelaus’s translation, due to all the troubles he suffered because of her: … not only did she free him from these misfortunes but, having made him god instead of mortal, she established him as partner of her house and sharer of her throne forever. … Ã ÃÙ ( 7 5 Ï Ú ! Ù Ú ! 7 ÕE Ú ? & ∞ b Ù ∞ 7.284
There was a Menelaion (shrine to Menelaus and Helen) in Therapne.285 Of the various authors who mention the shrine, only Pausanias actually says they were buried there. 2.1.24 Nebuchadnezzar and Belus According to Abydenus, Nebuchadnezzar II and Belus both disappeared after certain critical events. Nebuchadnezzar prophesied the fall of Babylon: “After making the prophecy he immediately disappeared” (¡ Ó ! F †(?).286 Belus disappeared, after building a wall for Babylon: It is said that all was originally water, and called a sea. But Belus put a stop to this, and assigned a district to each, and surrounded Babylon with a wall; and at the appointed time he disappeared. 8 &Ó ? Ó 5 F —& ∂, !? 8. MF &8 ( , : /?9 , Ú MI I ), 2 9 &Ó 2 " 89 (!F.287
≈ 7! 8 , 58! Ú /? !Ù Ú ? ∞ Ã). 284 Isocrates Hel. enc. (Or. 10) 62, trans. of Norlin, Isocrates 3.95. in ibid. 63, Isocrates goes on to say that in Therapne, the Laconians make holy and ancestral sacrifices to them not as heroes but as gods (! Ã) U Ú Ã › • í › ! ) (8 “). 285 H. Catling, Menelaion, 4OCD, 931. Cf. Herodotus 6.61, Polybius 5.18.3, 11, 5.21.1, 5.22.3, 8 and Pausanias 3.19.9 ® ? &8 ÃE , Ú ® 8 Ú 8 ! (F 8 (there is a temple of Menelaus in Therapne, and they said that Menelaus and Helen are buried there). Rohde, Psyche, 1.80 notes that no ancient author mentions Helen’s death and discounts Pausanias’s evidence as “etiological legend.” Ptolemy Chennus apud Photius Bibl. Codex 190, 149a (Photius III, 60 Henry) reports that according to some Helen and Menelaus were sacrificed to Artemis by Iphigeneia in Taurus of Scythia (( !F ÕÙ ∏( E ] 8& ˆ ® ?9). Another report (ibid.) is that she hanged herself on an oak tree in Rhodes (/ F 5 8). See the forthcoming chapter of R. Parker, The Cult of Helen and Menelaos in the Spartan Menelaion in: H. W. Catling and R. W. V. Catling, ed., Sparta. Menelaion II. The Historical Periods. 286 Abydenus apud Eus. P.E. 9.41.4 = FGrH 685 F 6. 287 Abydenus apud Eus. P.E. 9.41.5 = FGrH 685 F 1, trans. of Gifford, Eusebius, 3.1.485.
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Abydenus apparently did not claim that either individual had been immortalized, although that may perhaps be assumed. Such a conclusion is warranted since a fragment of Castor, preserved in Eusebius’s Armenian Chronicle, has: “Belus, about whom we spoke earlier, died and was regarded as a god” (astowac √s karceœaw astowac ews karcecʿaw ).288 2.1.25 Nymphs as the Agents of Translations An inscription from Rome describes the destiny of a five-year-old girl named Tineia Hygeia. The verse inscription first attributes the translation to Pluto and then to the Nymphs: Not rightfully, lord Plouton, did you seize under [the earth] a five-year old girl, who was glorified in all things … She had grace, she had it on her sweetly complexioned face, so that she dwells in the immortal chambers of the aether; Believe then the old myths (stories): for the Naiads, not Death, seized a good child for their joy. Ã ¡Û • 5 ÕÙ [!ı], / Û , Ô ˜( a / Ô … ∂ Ï Ì , ∂ (í &/ ı ˘, ∞!Ô · Ô !/Ì &ı. ) Ì “ ˜! ˜/ )& Ï ! / • › T/& , Ã Ì.289
The parents, Alexandra and Philtatos, are told in the text not included to give no more drink offerings to the longed-for girl that they mourn for with their tears. The Naiads take the girl to the better “world of the aether, the abode of souls.”290 Matylda Obryk compares the inscription to the point of view in the Greek inscription that commemorates individuals who died in Potideia in 432 B.C.E.: “The Aether received the souls, but the earth received the bodies of these men” (∞!Ó Ó (Ï Õ &Ô, ı[ &Ó !Ù] / & …).291 The Carmen Aureum, attributed to Pythagoras, describes the soul leaving the body for the aether: when you leave the body and come to the free aether, you will be immortal, an immortal god, no longer mortal (¢ &í
288 Castor apud Eus. Chron. (GCS Eusebius Werke V, 26 Karst) = Castor FGrH 250 F 1, trans. of Robert Bedrosian (http://rbedrosian.com/euseb3.htm; accessed 19 July 2015). The Armenian text may be found in: Eusebii Pamphili Chronicon bipartitum nunc primum ex armenico textu in latinum conversum ... Part I, ed. J. B. Aucher, Venice 1818, 82 (“god” is abbreviated). 289 IGUR III, 1344 = IG XIV, 2040 = GVI 1595, trans. done with ref. to M. Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube in den griechische Versinschriften, Berlin 2012, 49. Cf. the comments in Rohde, Psyche, 2.374. 290 Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube, 50. and cp. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 7. 291 Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube, 50 and cp. 14–5. IG I3, 1179 = CEG I, 10. Cf. chapt. 3 § 3.3 (IG I3, 1179).
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∞!8 í ! > !, / > !? ! Ù ;I , Ã8 ! ).292 A similar inscription from Rome commemorates the death of a girl who was two years old when she drowned: To the soul of the dead: Spring nymphs seized me from life, and perhaps for the sake of honor I suffered this, an infant who had not yet finished a course of two years,293 Philesia was my name, Ausonius my gens. D(is) M(anibus). T˜( )Û Iı, Ú Ì F μ í >!, Û Ã&Ó &) Ô Ô 5˜, j Û F, ÊÃÚ Ôς.294
The perspective in these translations is that the soul was taken, and not the body. An epigram of Callimachus seems to imply bodily translation, however: Astakides of Crete, goatherd, was snatched by a nymph From the mountain; he is sacred now, Astakides. No more under Dicte’s oaks, no more of Daphnis Our shepherds’ song, but ever of Astakides. ]& Ù F Ù ∞ • T( 5 ƒ , Ú " Ù ]&. Ã8 W ÕÙ & , Ã8 ?( 8 , ]& &í ∞Ó !.295
Philippe Bourgeaud notes that “the missing person enters a new mode of existence, becomes hieros.”296 This example of a translation apparently implies that his body was taken by the nymphs. Theocritus describes the drowning of Hylas:
292 Pythagoras Carmen aureum 70–1 (BiTeu Theognis, Young). Cp. Iamblichus Protrepticus 3 (BiTeu 15 Pistelli). The version of Chalcidius Comm in Plat. Timaeum 2.136 (Plato latinus. Timaeus a Calcidio translatus, vol. 4, ed. J. H. Waszink, London 1962, 176) is: Pythagoras etiam in suis Aureis uersibus: Corpore deposito cum liber ad aethera perges, / Euades hominem factus deus aetheris almi (Pythagoras then in his Golden Verses: when the body is left and you, free, proceed to the aether, you escape the human, made into a god in the life giving aether). Cf. P. C. van der Horst, Les Vers d’Or Pythagoriciens, Leiden 1932, 73 (Chalcidius apparently had ! in his text). Cic. Tusc. 1.51 speaks of the soul living in the “free heaven”: “in which way the soul is in the body as if in a stranger’s home [is more difficult] than the other question, in which way when it leaves and comes to the open heaven as to its own home (… qualis animus in corpore sit tamquam alienae domi, quam qualis, cum exierit et in liberum caelum quasi domum suam venerit). 293 Three years by inclusive reckoning. 294 IGUR III, 1350 = IG XIV, 2067 = GVI 952. 295 Callimachus Ep. 22, trans. of P. Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece, Chicago 1979, 106. 296 Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan, 109. Cp. Rohde, Psyche, 2.374.
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He plummeted headlong into the dark water, just as a shooting star plummets headlong from the heavens to the sea, and a sailor says to the crew, “Make the tackle ready, lads: there’s a wind for sailing.” The nymphs tried to console the weeping boy, holding him in their laps … … 7 &í 8 —& ! , › ≈ Ù í Ã 4 7 ! 9, &8 ∂ / ë( í, ‚ )& , )!í ≈ H Ù “ í. T( Ó ( 8 Ú > & í ) í 8 ·297
When Heracles called out to him, Hylas answered three times weakly, the voice coming from the water, as if from a distance.298 Hylas becomes immortal: “That is how the handsome Hylas came to be numbered among the blessed ones” (— Ó ? Ÿ ? ! )).299 One author cited by the scholiast to Theocritus offers an alternative reading of the story: He [Theocritus] says that they all immediately felt desire for him. Apollonius of Rhodes agreed with the seizure as does Nicander. But Onasus in the Amazonians says that he fell into the stream and died. ?, (, ¡ Ù ÃÙ ! ∂ Ã!. ( ) &Ó E U E Ú ] : ¡ ç & Ú T& . ¡ 8 È ]) ( ÃÙ ∞ 7 ) Ú ! ).300
Bourgeaud remarks that “the underlying idea remains abduction, not death: Hylas, Astakides, and the vanished children (whose beauty is not irrelevant) have been carried off, ravished by nymphs.”301 The body of Hylas, Heracles’ companion, also disappears when he was taken by the nymphs, in the account of Antoninus Liberalis (II C.E.?).302 And seeing him, the nymphs, daughters of this river (the Ascanius), desired him passionately; and when he was drawing water they cast him into the spring, and Hylas became invisible … 297 Theocritus Id. 13.49–54, trans. of Hopkinson, Theocritus, 189. In Apollonius Rhod. 1.1238–9 the nymph Cypris is responsible for Hylas’s disappearance “… with her right hand she drew down his elbow, and plunged him into the midst of the eddy (& 5 E &Ó / í > H 8W &í Ú ?II &W), trans. of Seaton, Apollonius Rhodius, 87. 298 Theocritus Id. 13.58–60. 299 Theocritus Id. 13.72, trans. of Hopkinson, Theocritus, 191. 300 Schol. in Theocr. 13.48. Bourgeaud, Cult of Pan, 105 writes that a rationalist reader of Theocritus thought that a drunk Hylas had merely “fallen into the spring.” Cf. Nicandrea, Theriaca et Alexipharmaca, ed. O. Schneider, Leipzig 1856, frag. 48 (p. 57). 301 Bourgeaud, The Cult of Pan, 106. 302 G. Wentzel, Antoninus Liberalis 17, PRE I (1894) 2572–3, on the basis of language used in late Greek prose, argues that he can only “with difficulty” be dated before II C.E. On Hylas, cf. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and Others. Myth Ritual, Ethnicity, Lund 2005.
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Ú ÃÙ ∞& (, ? : & .307
Bormus presumably was translated to an immortal life with the nymphs.308 2.1.26 Oedipus Although the gods did not immortalize Oedipus, Sophocles describes the disappearance of his body, in the words of the messenger: … after a short time we turned around, and could see that the man was no longer there, and the king was holding his hand before his face to shade his eyes, as though some terrifying sight, which he could not bear to look on, had been presented. But then after a moment, with no word spoken, we saw him salute the earth and the sky, home of the gods, at the same moment. But by what death that man perished none among mortals could tell but Theseus. For no fiery thunderbolt of the god made away with him, nor any whirlwind rising up from the sea at that time, but either some escort come from the gods or the unlighted foundation of the earth that belongs to those below, opening in kindness. For the man
303 Antoninus Liberalis 26.3–4, who attributes the tradition to the second book of Nicander’s Transformations ( ). On the translation, cf. J. Larson, Greek Nymphs. Myth, Cult, Lore, Oxford 2001, 66–70. 304 Antoninus Liberalis 26.4–5. 305 Hesychius Lexicon Β § 1394. 306 W. W. Tarn, G. T. Griffith, and K. S. Sacks, Nymphis, 4OCD, 1027. 307 Nymphis FGrH 432 F5 = Athenaeus 14.619 (14.11 Kaibel). Aeschylus Pers. 937 refers to the mourning chant for Bormus, “the ill-omened voice of a Mariandynian dirge” (8 ∞Ï / ® & ! F ). Cp. Schol. in Aeschylus Pers. 938, where Bormus is described as one of three youths who died while hunting (M , Ú ® &Ù, √ 8!). 308 See Larson, Greek Nymphs, 68.
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was taken away with no lamentations, and by no painful disease, but, if any among mortals, by a miracle. 9 I ) (8 , 5 & Ù ;& Ù Ó Ã& í >, ; &í ÃÙ ¿? (1650) ) í 8 , › & ( I (8 Ã&í I 8 . > 8 IÙ Ã&Ó ˆ 9 ¡ ÃÙ F !í b Ú Ù ! È Ã2 9. (1655) 9 &í ¡9 ) ‡ í Ã&í i ∑ ! ( ? Ù 8 ? . Ã ? ÃÙ – ( ! Ù 58 5 – ! ! ) 2 í 9, (1660) í 4 ! , ¢ Ù 8 – &Ï F ? I?! . U Ï Ã Ù Ã&Ó ˆ Ù 5 8 í, í N I ! Ö309
The possibilities listed by the messenger correspond to various forms of translation, although the primary verb used to describe the fate of Oedipus, 58 5 , means “make an end of” or “do in” in the context.310 Jan C. Kamerbeek comments that “neither Oedipus’ last words to Theseus, nor the exact spot and manner of his disappearance are revealed; rather the sense of mystery is enhanced by the way in which it is suggested.”311 Although Sophocles does not ascribe any tomb to Oedipus, Theseus implies that there is one, and that he is its guardian, when Antigone asks him to reveal it: Girls, that man instructed me never to go near to those regions and not to tell any among mortals of the sacred tomb that holds him. ‚ )& , ) Ú ) (1760) 7 ? & 7í ( ) &8 ! !7 " ?, ` ) > .312
Lowell Edmunds remarks that no character in the tragedy gives the reason for the concealment of the grave, and that Theseus will transmit the knowledge of
309
Sophocles Oed. col. 1648–65, trans. of Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles, 2.585–6. Cf. LSJ s.v. and for another less likely possibility, see DGE s.v. § 3, which lists the usage “transform, change into” for Aeschylus Ag. 1275 ? ?5 8 ([Cassandra] he changed me into a seer). 311 J. C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles. Commentaries. Part VII. The Oedipus Coloneus, Leiden 1984, 223. 312 Sophocles Oed. col. 1760–63, trans. of Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles, 2.597. 310
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its location “to his successor.”313 Pausanias mentions a heroion (shrine to a hero) of Oedipus, Theseus, Perithous, and Adrastus located in “Colonus (hill) of the horses” ( Ù μ).314 Thebes and Eteonos, which was near Thebes, are other traditional locations for his burial site.315 2.1.27 Rhesus The Thracian king Rhesus, in the play attributed to Euripides, achieved a kind of immortal life under the earth. Hector tells the Muse, the mother of Rhesus: “And now I am ready to bury him and make a vast and luxurious burnt offering of garments” (Ú A & Ú 5 ?( / Ú 5 8 &7).316 She responds: He will not go down into the black earth. I will make this request of the maid below, the daughter of fruitful Demeter, that she send up his soul. She is under obligation to me to show that she honors the kinsmen of Orpheus. For me, he will be henceforth as one who has died and looks no more on the light: we shall never meet and he will never see his mother. But he shall lie hidden in the caves of the silver-rich land as a man-god, looking on the light, a spokesman of Bacchus, who came to dwell in the cliff of Pangaeon as a god revered by those who have understanding. Ã ∂ ? 8&H & ( > !í ∞7, F )& 7 ! a, ) &íH ¿( 8 &8 (965) ˆ Δ (8 ( ! ( . Ú Ó › !: Ã (? > Ù H Ã Ï Ã >í ∂ Ã&Ó Ù ƒ &8H Ù &í ; F Õ !Ù (970) 313 L. Edmunds, Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, London 1996, 97. Cf. Sophocles Oed. col. 1530–2 for Oedipus’s statement to Theseus about the transmission of the secret. In Pausanias 1.28.7 (F °∞&& a monument/tomb of Oedipus) Oedipus’s bones are said to have been moved from Thebes to the Areopagus in Athens in the “sacred space of the Eumenides.” Cf. Pausanias 1.28.6 and G. Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, Cambridge, MA 2013, 508 who thinks this implies that Oedipus was worshipped there as a cult hero. Cp. Val. Max. 5.3.ext.3 314 Pausanias 1.30.4 2 &Ó ! Ú 8 °∞&& Ú ]& ?. Cf. Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero, 508. Androtion (V–IV B.C.E.) in Schol. in Homer Od. 11.271 = FGrH 324 F62 reputedly asserts that Oedipus died in Colonus of old age and beseeched Theseus not to reveal his tomb (P &Ó ¡ °∞& &Ï F ? Ù 8, & Ú I & )5 Ù ?(). Cf. L. Edmunds, The Cults and Legend of Oedipus, HSCP 85 (1981) 221–38, 222 (the heroion). 315 Cf. F. M. Dunn, Tragedy’s End. Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama, Oxford 1996, 211–2 for the evidence. Thebes: Homer Il. 23.679–80, Od. 11.275 (with scholion) etc.; Eteonos: schol. ad Sophocles Oed. col. 91 = Lysimachus FGrH 382 F2 (tomb in the temple of Demeter, after he had been buried in Demeter’s temple in Keos in Boiotia; the temple was subsequently named after Oedipus, an Oedipodeion PÙ &Ó " Ù °∞& & !F). 316 Euripides Rhes. 959–60, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 6.449.
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! & I 8 (?, M? (7, ≈
8 ‡ , Ù ) ∞& ! .317
There is a textual problem in line 972, because most MSS have “· ” (as), although one late MS has ≈ (who).318 If one reads ≈ , (or ≈ ) then Rhesus is Bacchus’s prophet, “who (Bacchus) made his dwelling on Pangaeum’s rock, a god revered by those who understand.” If one reads · , (“as Bacchus’s prophet) then the text above compares Rhesus the “god-man” to a prophet of Bacchus, and the anonymous prophet is revered as a god.319 Herodotus, however, describes Bacchus’s shrine “on” Pangaeus in Thrace.320 Consequently, both alternative readings (≈ and ≈ ) are reasonable and would result in: “[Rhesus] a prophet of Bacchus, who [Bacchus] dwelled on the rock of Pangaeus, a god revered to those who knew.” Yulia Ustinova argues that anthrōpodaimōn implies “a status ‘in between’ a man and a deity.”321 Rhesus’s continued existence, however, is consistent with a tomb for his bones. A later tradition held that his bones were brought to Amphipolis from Troy.322 2.1.28 Sarpedon Zeus wanted to translate his son alive from the battle to Lycia, but was prevented by Hera.323 Homer has a rich description of Sarpedon’s removal to Lycia, after Patroclus killed him324:
317
Euripides Rhes. 962–73, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 6.451. J. Diggle (Euripidis fabulae, vol. 3, SCBO, ed. J. Diggle, Oxford 1994 ad loc.) proposes ≈ (who), adopted above. V. Liapis, A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides, Oxford 2012, 326 regards · as “linguistically untenable” with ref. to J. Diggle, The Prophet of Bacchus: Rhesus 970–3, in: idem, Euripidea. Collected Essays, Oxford 1994, 320–6 (conclusive arguments against · ). 319 W. H. Porter (Euripides, Rhesus, ed. with intro. and comm. W. H. Porter, Cambridge 1916, xxiv [retains · ]) notes that Rhesus was “son of a Muse and cousin of Orpheus.” Cf. Rhesus 944, 966, 969. Liapis, Commentary, 326 compares the “Man-god” to “divinized humans” such as “Orpheus, Trophonius, Zalmoxis, Aristeaus, etc.” 320 Herodotus 7.111 (Ù &Ó 7 Ú Ó Ú ¿ 8 Õ ? “the seat of the oracle is on their highest mountains”), 7.112. 321 Y. Ustinova, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind. Descending Underground in the Search for the Ultimate Truth, Oxford 2009, 105. 322 Polyaenus Strat. 6.53, and cf. A. L. Brown, Rhesus, 4OCD 1275. 323 Homer Il. 16.435–43. In Homer Sarpedon is the son of Laodameia (Il. 6.198–9), and in other traditions he is the son of Zeus and Europa. Cf. Apollodorus Bibl. 3.1.2 (3.6 Wagner) and Herodotus 1.173. Aristonicus De signis Il. 6.199 denies that Homer’s Sarpedon is the son of Europa. Schol. in Homer. Il. 6.198–9a1 (Erbse) attempts to reconcile the two traditions, either by identifying Europa and Laodameia or by asserting that he lived six generations. 324 Homer Il. 16.501–5. Cf. Strecker, Entrückung, 462 (transport from one earthly place to another). 318
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And then to Apollo spoke Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: “Come now, dear Phoebus, go cleanse from Sarpedon the dark blood, when you have taken him forth from out the range of missiles, and then carry him far away, and bathe him in the streams of the river and anoint him with ambrosia, and clothe him about with immortal raiment, and give him to swift conveyers, to the twin brothers, Sleep and Death, to bring with them; and they will set him down speedily in the rich land of wide Lycia. There shall his brethren and his kinsfolk give him burial with mound and pillar; for this is the due of the dead.” So he spoke, nor was Apollo disobedient to his father’s bidding, but went down from the hills of Ida into the dread din of battle. Immediately then he lifted up noble Sarpedon out of the range of the missiles, and when he had borne him far away, bathed him in the streams of the river, and anointed him with ambrosia, and clothed him with immortal raiment, and gave him to swift conveyers to bring with them, to the twin brothers, Sleep and Death, and they set him down speedily in the rich land of wide Lycia. Ú í ] 8( ( 8 ¸ H ∞ &í ; ( j)I , (Ó ∑ ?! !S I 8 & , > Ù Ù Ù (8 ) XE ) í I W, Ú &í ;I μ AH (670) 8 &8 ) b ) (8 ! —9 Ú !?9 &&?, μ X? ‚ !7í Ã &79, >!? / > I9 7 W H Ù Ï 8 Ú ! . (675) Á >(í, Ã&í ; Ù ] . IF &Ó í ∏& ¿ 8 ( ∞7, Ã &í I 8 & &) Ù Ù Ù (8 ) XE )8 í I W, Ú &í ;I μ A H (680) 8 &8 ) b ) (8 !, —9 Ú !?9 &&?, μ X? ‚ ?! Ã &79.325
Anointing with ambrosia is ambiguous in this account. Bruno Currie describes the “notable inconsistency between the text’s ‘surface’ insistence that Sarpedon is not immortalized (16.457 = 675) and the simultaneous suggestions of the text at a ‘deep’ level of his immortalization, suggestions that are effected by individual motifs (the translation of the body by Hypnos and Thanatos, the anointing with ambrosia, the clothing in immortal clothes) and by the sequence as a whole.”326 Rohde argues that the translation of Sarpedon 325 Homer Il. 16.666–83, trans. of Wyatt, Homer, Iliad 2.211–3. P. M. Fullmer, Resurrection in Mark’s Literary-Historical Perspective, LNTS 360, London 2007, 120 erroneously argues that the episode in Il. 5.696–8 is an example of resurrection, but Bremmer, Early Greek Concept, 15–6 accurately describes Sarpedon’s “swoon,” because his psychē (temporarily) left his body (“when a person dies, the psychē leaves forever and departs to Hades”). In 16.453, his psychē and aiōn do leave him, and he dies (ibid., 16). 326 B. Currie, Homer’s Allusive Art, Oxford 2016, 90 (he also mentions the similarity with Memnon’s translation in the Aethiopis).
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was the model for that of Memnon in the Aithiopis.327 The scholiast asserts that there was a Heroon (hero shrine) dedicated to Sarpedon in Lycia and that some maintain that Glaucos went there to bury him ( 2 ( & c. Ó &Ó º ! !? Ã ).328 Appian locates it (Ù & , “Sarpedon’s shrine”) in Xanthos.329 A red-figured cup attributed to Euphronios depicts Sarpedon carried away by Death (Thanatos) and Sleep (Hypnos).330 Oracles of Sarpedon were located in Cilicia and perhaps in the Troad.331 Individuals there thought he was a god, according to Basil of Seleucia. After mentioning Sarpedon’s death in Cilicia, he writes: Accordingly this person received the name of a daimōn, and fame as a soothsayer and prophet, and therefore he seemed to senseless people to be a god. P I Ú & ƒ, Ú 9& Ú ? (7, Ú &Ï & 5 Ï ) 7 ∂ ! Ö332
Individuals slept in the temple, desiring healing ( ?! & Ó Ï ¡ ” 2 Z).333 In the Roman era an individual in Xanthos made a “thank offering to the heroes Sarpedon and Glaucus” for a victory in battle ( &ı Ú º ˜ • ).334 327 Rohde, Psyche, 1.86. See § 2.1.22 above. Cp. Burgess, Death, 77–8 for a summary of neoanalyst interpretation of the relationship in text and iconography. 328 Schol. in Homer Il. 16.673b (Erbse). 329 Appian Bellum 4.78–9. Cp. Zosimus 1.57.2 c E Ï ] " Ù μ& 8 &, Ú 9 7 (In Seleucia in Cilicia a temple of Apollo Sardonios was dedicated, and in this was an oracle). 330 Rome, Villa Giulia (ex-New York, MMA 1972.10.11), discussed by A. Tsingarida, The Death of Sarpedon. Workshops and Pictorial Experiments, in: Hermeneutik der Bilder. Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Interpretation griechischer Vasenmalerei, ed. J. Oakley and S. Schmidt, Munich 2009, 135–42, esp. 135–50. 331 Rohde, Psyche, 1.187 with ref. to Diod. Sic. 32.10.2 (Apollo Sarpedonios in Seleucia in Cilicia), Tert. An. 46.11 ([in a discussion of dream oracles] Sarpedonis in Troade). The oracle in Seleucia is discussed extensively by Basil of Seleucia Vita S. Theclae 1.27, 2.1, 2.11. Cf. L. Deubner, De incubatione capita quattuor, Leipzig 1900, 101. Rohde, Psyche, 1.187 notes that some traditions identified the two (with ref. to Apollodorus Bibl. 3.1.1–2 [3.6 Wagner] who asserts that the son of Europa lived three generations). Strabo 14.5.19 identifies the temple as that of Sarpedonian Artemis: &Ó E c Ú Ú Ù F & ] 8& " Ù Ú ), ˆ &Ó ˆ >! ! (In Cilicia is also the temple and oracle of the Sarpedonian Artemis; and the oracles are delivered by persons who are divinely inspired, trans. of Jones, Strabo, 6.357). See also P. Frei, Die Götterkulte Lykiens in der Kaiserzeit, ANRW II.18.3 (1990) 1729– 1864, esp. 1825–6 for the evidence (including inscriptions) from the Roman era on the worship of Sarpedon in Lycia. 332 Basil of Seleucia Vita S. Theclae 2.1. 333 Basil of Seleucia Vita S. Theclae 2.17. Cp. 2.33. 334 TAM II, 265 (I C.E.) = OGIS 552. An “honorary inscription for a pankratiast” (SEG 28, 1248) mentions Sarpedoneia (games in honor Sarpedon, &ı ) in Telmesos.
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2.1.29 Semiramis The story of Semiramis’s purported translation indicates the importance of absent bodies in many accounts of apotheosis. Diodorus has this account: Some time later her son Ninyas conspired against her through the agency of a certain eunuch; and remembering the prophecy given her by Ammon, she did not punish the conspirator, but, on the contrary, after turning the kingdom over to him and commanding the governors to obey him, she at once disappeared, as if she were going to be translated to the gods as the oracle had predicted. Some, making a myth of it, say that she turned into a dove and flew off in the company of many birds which alighted on her dwelling, and this, they say, is the reason why the Assyrians worship the dove as a god, thus deifying Semiramis. ® Ï &8 ÕÙ T " &í Ã Ù I ! ), Ú Ù í ê 8, Ù I Ù Ã&Ó ∞ ?, Ã &Ó I Ã2 & Ú ) Õ? ?5, 8 †(? /7, › ∞ ! ˆ Ï Ù Ù 8. > &Ó ! 8 ( Ã 8! ?, Ú ¿ 8 ∞ ∞ !8 í !FH &Ù Ú ˆ ] Ï a › ! , ! .335
Whatever the explanation of her disappearance, Semiramis was translated to the gods – presumably in a bodily manner. 2.1.30 The Telegonia: Telegonus, Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus The Epic Cycle includes a curious tradition about the ultimate fate of Odysseus and his family. The Telegonia dates to the sixth century B.C.E. and is attributed to Eugammon of Cyrene by Proclus and to Cinaethon by Eusebius.336 After his first return to Ithaca, Odysseus goes to Thesprotis and marries their queen. He returns to Ithaca for a second time after having married Calli-
Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 61 is incorrect in his assertion that Anthologiae Graecae appendix, Epigr. sepulcr. 666 (Cougny, Epigrammatum anthologia Palatina 3.202 = Merkelbach/Stauber 16/32/03 Kotiaion) refers to Sarpedon. It is dedicated to a fifty-year-old deceased man named Domnus ( ) who was the beloved son of Eustochius (@Ã ( ∑) whom the immortals loved (Ù !? ( 8 ). For that reason they washed him in immortal springs (– Ú [ )] [] !?) and placed him in the Isles of the Immortal Blessed ones (Ú ? 7[] I? [ ] !? ). 335 Diodorus 2.20.1–2, trans. of Oldfather, Diodorus, 1.417. 336 Cf. West, Epic Cycle, 38–9 (the ascription to Cinaethon “seems to be an error”). Cp. A. Debiasi, L’epica perduta. Eumeli, il Ciclo, l’occidente, Hesperìa 20, Roma 2004, 249–50 with ref. to Eusebius Chron. 87b (GCS Eusebius Werke XVII, Helm): Cinaethon Lacedaemonius poeta qui Telegoniam scriptis agnoscitur, dated to 764/3. Eusebius also attributes it to Eugamon (Chron. 102b [Helm]): Eugamon Cyrenaeus, qui Telegoniam fecit, agnoscitur, dated to 567/6. See Proclus Chrestomathia 307 (96 Severyns) = Davies, EGF, 72.
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dice, the queen of the Thesprotians, and having a son with her named Polypoetes. In the meantime, Telegonus, while travelling in search of his father, lands on Ithaca and ravages the island: Odysseus comes out to defend his country, but is killed by his son unwittingly. Telegonus, on learning his mistake, transports his father’s body with Penelope and Telemachus to his mother’s island, where Circe makes them immortal, and Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus Circe. 9 P 8 Ú 7 Ù 8 IÏ ∞ ∏!? 8 FH I!7 &í Δ& ˆ ÕÙ &Ù ) í ; . P 8 &í ˆ U Ù Ú Ù P 8 Ú Ù 8 !H &Ó Ãˆ !? ), Ú ) E Ó W P 8 , W &Ó P 8.337
There is no mention of any marriage for Odysseus,338 and it is unclear if Circe made him immortal too, although it seems to be implied in the story. Eustathius includes several traditions that are relevant. The author of the Telegony, a Cyrenaeus, relates that Odysseus had by Calypso a son Telegonus or Teledamus, and by Penelope Telemachus and Acusilaus … The Colophonian author of the Returns says that Telemachus afterwards married Circe, while Telegonus the son of Circe correspondingly married Penelope. ä &Ó ? ) Ó P 8 "Ù Δ& ) ?( ¢ P 8&H &Ó P 8 Ú ] H Ö ¡ &Ó ˆ 7 (: P 8 8 ( — F, P 8 &Ó Ù F .339
His attribution of the tradition to the Nostoi (Returns) is erroneous.340 A scholion to Lycophron (who wrote that Odysseus would be buried in Tyrrhenian Perge) asserts that Circe raised Odysseus from the dead: … a myth is recorded that after Telegonus killed him, Circe raised him with drugs, and she gave [her daughter] Cassiphone in marriage to Telemachus and Penelope to Telegonus in the Isles of the Blessed.
337 Proclus Chrestomathia 324–30 (97 Severyns) = Davies, EGF, 72, trans. of EvelynWhite, Hesiod, 531. 338 Rohde, Psyche, 1.88 poses this question: “What becomes of Odysseus?” 339 Eustathius in Od. () 16.118 (G. Stallbaum, ed., Eustathii archiepiscopi Thessalonicensis commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam, 2 vols., Leipzig 1825–6, 2.117), trans. of Evelyn-White, Hesiod, 529, 533. In Apollodorus Epit. 7.37, he marries Penelope, and Circe sends both to the Isles of the Blest ( &Ó /8 È ∞ ®? 7 8 ). In Hyginus (Fab. 127.2–3) Odysseus is buried in Circe’s island, Circe and Telemachus become the parents of Latinus, and Penelope and Telegonus become the parents of Italus. Cf. Strecker, Entrückung, 467. 340 Debiasi, L’epica perduta, 264.
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… ! (8 ≈ Ï Ù ) ÃÙ Ù P 8 ( ? 8 Ú 7 P ?9 Ú P 9 ®? 7.341
Unfortunately the scholion does not then explain what happened to Odysseus. 342 The resurrection does imply, however, an immortal existence for the epic hero. 2.1.31 Trophonius The legend of Trophonius the underground oracle, according to Pausanias, includes the detail that he was swallowed up by the earth.343 He writes that “Trophonius is said to have been a son of Apollo, not of Erginus” ( 8 &Ó ¡ P (: ] ∂ Ú Ã C ). After he and his brother built a treasury for King Hyrieus, they left a stone loose so that they could rob it. His brother was snared by the king’s trap: Agamedes entered and was kept fast in the trap, but Trophonius cut off his head, lest when day came his brother should be tortured, and he himself be informed of as being concerned in the crime. The earth opened and swallowed up Trophonius at the point in the grove at Lebadeia where is what is called the pit of Agamedes, with a slab beside it. ! &Ó ] 7& Ù Ó ¡ & Ù ) , P (: &Ó 8 Ã ( 7, ≈ 8 ) 8 ∞ Ú ÃÙ ! 8 7. Ú P (: Ó ! &85 F &a, >! Ú 2 ; 2 I& c I ! ] 7& Ú Ù Ã2 7 ·344
Pausanias’s narrative is similar to that of Rhampsinitus and the two thieving brothers recorded by Herodotus.345 The account in the scholiast to Aristophanes (a tradition from Charax of Pergamum)346 offers a variation of Pausanias’s: Trophonius the son of Erigonus fled to Lebadeia of Boiotia, where he made a cavern and making his home there he died. After dying he appeared to them to be an accurate oracle, and they sacrifice to him as to a god.
341 Schol. in Lyc. 805 (2.253–4 Scheer). See also the comments of Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection, 186. 342 Cp. Rohde, Psyche, 1.88. 343 On Trophonius, cf. P. Bonnechere, Trophonios de Lébadée. Cultes et mythes d’une cité béotienne au miroir de la mentalité antique, RGRW 150, Leiden 2003 and idem, Les oracles de Béotie, Kernos 3 (1990) 53–65. 344 Pausanias 9.37.5–7, trans. of Jones, Pausanias, 4.339. 345 Herodotus 2.121–2. Cf. Ustinova, Caves, 95. 346 Suffect consul in 147 C.E. See G. W. Bowersock, 1989. Herodotus, Alexander, and Rome. American Scholar 58 (1989) 407–14, esp. 414 (Fasti Ostienses [51 Vidman]). Cp. AE 1961, 320 = SEG 18, 557 (Pergamon), a cursus honorum.
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¡ &Ó P (: C ∞ I?& F M ( H ” ? ∞7 & 8 . 7 &Ó Ã ) Ó (? Ã) Ú ! Ã2 › ! 2.347
The scholiast includes a tradition (not from Charax) in which “the god in an oracular response tells the Boiotians who were suffering from famine to honor Trophonius” (— &Ó M ) : > ¡ ! Ù P (: a).348 What is missing in the accounts of Trophonius is any statement that he went down into the underground cavern to “make people believe that he had become a god.”349 2.2 Historical Figures The individuals below for the most part are clearly historical, although some like Croesus are immersed in legend. Some of the translations in this section are not bodily – that is, the soul only is taken to heaven. 2.2.1 Alexander the Great Arrian records an unidentified writer’s belief that Alexander wanted to throw himself into the Euphrates so that he would appear to posterity to have been immortalized. The historian mentions various traditions that held that Alexander had drunk poisoned wine: One writer has not even shrunk from the statement that Alexander, perceiving that he could not survive, went to throw himself into the Euphrates, so that he might disappear from the world and leave behind the tradition more credible to posterity that his birth was of the gods and that to the gods he passed; but Roxane his wife saw that he was going out, and when she prevented him he cried aloud that she then grudged him everlasting fame as having been truly born a god. This must suffice of stories; rather that I may show that I know of them than because they are narratives worthy of belief. 4& &8 Ã ! ? ≈ ∞! Ã I: ƒ ÕÙ ] 85& Ù @Ã( ? Ù I , › ( 5 ! :
8 & 5 Ï ) > ≈ ! Ã2 8 58I Ú Ï ! ˆ : . ç 5? &Ó
) Ã ! ) 5 , Ï ∞ Ï Ù ÃF :5 ∞ ) ≈ (! ; Ã2 & 5 F b, › ! 2 & 89. Ú
347
Schol. in Aristophanes Nub. 508a = Charax FGrH 103 F 5. Schol. in Aristophanes Nub. 508a. 349 Contra Ustinova, Caves, 95 who refers to Schol. in Aristophanes Nub. 508, Greg. Naz. In sancta lumina (PG 36.340: Ú P ( Ï F Ú [the tricks (or “games”) and oracles of Trophonius under the earth]) and Schol. in Lucian Dial. Mort. 10 (255 Rabe: P (: Ú ]( • ƒ . 8 &8, ≈ " , ∑ ?(, 8 [Trophonius and Amphilochus, who were heroes, gave oracles. People say that in the places where they were buried they remained giving oracles]). None of these texts assert that Trophonius hid himself in order to be considered a god. 348
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Ú › ) & 5 a ≈ ? ¢ › Ï (7 ?(! .350
Arrian apparently views the account as historically worthless, but it does indicate that the disappearance of a body in the ancient world could be taken as a sign of translation to the gods. A nearly identical account appears in one of Gregory of Nazianzus’s invectives against Julian.351 2.2.2 Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus records variant traditions of the philosopher’s death. One is that he died in Ephesus.352 Two traditions place his death in Lindus or Crete. Others again say that he died in Lindos after passing into the sanctuary of Athena and vanishing inside. Another version is that he died in Crete even more miraculously than is related at Lindos. Apollonius was staying in Crete, admired even more than before, when he visited the sanctuary of Dictynna at dead of night. 30.2. " &í &9 F ÃÙ ! Ù " Ù F ]!a Ú > (!8, " &í 7W (Ú !: ¢ " &9H & I Ó Ï E 7W Ù ] : a ¢ Ù ! , (8! &í Ù " Ù F …353
The fierce dogs who guarded the temple came upon Apollonius wagging their tails ( ÃÙ ). The officials of the sanctuary put him in chains as a sorcerer and a robber, claiming that he had thrown something to the dogs to pacify them. But at about midnight he set himself free, and after calling his jailers so that they would notice, he ran to the doors of the sanctuary, which flew open. As he entered there emerged the sound of girls singing, and their song went, “Proceed from earth! Proceed to heaven! Proceed!” In other words, “Ascend from earth.” 30.3 " Ó & " '? 5 I ÃÙ › Ú W &F ) Ú I I F! Õí Ã (? , ¡ &í (Ú 8 /Ù , 8 &Ó ˆ &7, › ?!, & ) Ú Ï " ! , " &í ?!, ! &Ó > Ï Ó ! 5 ! ), · 8 , I &Ó & !8 ). Ù &Ó DH ì ) a, ) Ã , ) .î ∑H N! F F ; .354
Philostratus, however, does not attribute any kind of bodily immortality to Apollonius as the subsequent narrative makes clear. Although his body disap350 Arrian Anab. 7.27.3, trans. of Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. E. I. Robson, Cambridge, MA 1929–33, 2.295–7. 351 See § 2.2.8 below. 352 Cf. Holland, Himmelfahrt, 207–8. 353 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.30.2, trans. of Jones, Philostratus, 2.419. 354 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.30, trans. of Jones, Philostratus, 2.421. Eusebius is intensely skeptical of this tradition. Cf. Hier. 44.3 (SC 333, 200 Forrat/des Places): I ÃÙ Ã Ù Ã2 : F (he pretends that he went to heaven with his own body). See Colpe, et al., Jenseitsfahrt I, 421.
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peared, it was his soul that was immortal. Philostratus remarks that “even after his death he continued to preach that the soul is immortal,” ( Ú F &8, › !? N, ( ( >), but he discouraged people from being too inquisitive about such great subjects: A young man arrived in Tyana who was eager for disputes, and did not accept the true doctrine. Apollonius had then departed from humanity, but his transfiguration caused amazement and nobody ventured to deny that he was immortal. Most of their discussions concerned the soul, since there was a group of young men devoted to wisdom. The young man, who in no way accepted the immortality of the soul, said, “I, my friends, have continually prayed to Apollonius for nine months now to reveal the doctrine of the soul. But he is so truly dead that he has not even appeared as I asked, or persuaded me of his immortality. 31.1. ( Ó Ï Ï P ? ! ˆ Ú Ï > & Ú 5!8 ! ) 9, &Ó ] 5 ! : Ó 4& ƒ, !8 &í Ú E I E Ú &í 85 ! & , › Ã !? N, Ó " ÕÓ F , Ú Ï D Ã ! ( , Ù &Ó ? Ã& E F F !c 5!8 ì :, >( ì‚ , Ú F &8 ] 9 & Ã (F Ù ÕÓ F , ¡ &í — 8! , › &í (! & 89, &í, › !? N, ! .”355
The youth is a sort of doubting Thomas, passionately desiring a vision of Apollonius. Five days later Apollonius revealed himself to the youth: That was what the young man said then, but four days later he was discussing the same subject when he fell asleep on the spot where he had been talking ... But he, as if he were mad, jumped up out of a deep sleep sweating profusely, and shouted, “I believe you.” When those present asked what had happened, he said, “Don’t you see the wise Apollonius? He is with us listening to our conversation, and rhapsodizing marvelously about the soul.” “Where is he?” they asked; “We cannot see him anywhere, though we would prefer that to all the riches in the world.” The youth said, “It seems that he has come to talk to me alone about the things I failed to believe, so let me tell you how he immortalizes the doctrine: Immortal is the soul, and is not yours / But Providence’s. When the body wastes, / The soul starts like a racehorse from the gate, / And nimbly leaping mingles with light air, / Hating its fearful, heavy servitude … 31.2. Ó Ù ? , 8W &Ó í 8 c Ú Ã &? 8& ! Ó ” & 8 Ö Ù &í, · 8, &F ‹ "& 2 ) Ú I ì ! .î 8 &í ÃÙ , ≈ 8! , ìà ¡ a î >( ìÕ ) ] : Ù ( , › ? ) : Ú Ú F X9& ) !?;î ì &í ”;î >( ì› ) Ã& ( I 8 i a ¢ Ï ? ! : !Ï > .î 3. Ú Ù ? ì> Ú 9 & 5 • ÕÓ „ H í “, ∑ 2 9 ! ? H 355 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.31.1, trans. of Jones, Philostratus, 2.421. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. F. C. Conybeare, Cambridge, MA 1912, 2.403.
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!? Ã F , Ï , ` Ï !8, bí & !Ù μ, X& ! ? †8 (9 & Ú 8 5 ·”356
Apollonius clearly asserts that it is the soul that is immortal and not the body. He ends his message by discouraging the youth from continuing to explore the topic while he is among the living ( Ï 9) S Ú & ;).357 The narrator concludes that he has never found a tomb or cenotaph of Apollonius anywhere on earth (?(9 Ó “ ¢ &(9 & Ù Ã& S ∂& F F).358 Philostratus’s narrative shows that the disappearance of Apollonius’s body was thoroughly compatible with the view that it was only the immortal soul which survived. The dream vision was of Apollonius’s soul and not his translated body. Apollonius’s verse refers to the soul’s state after “the body has wasted away” ( Ï !8). Apparently the narrator envisions Apollonius’s immortal state to comprise some kind of form that the youth could recognize. The opposition of body and soul the text indicates that translation itself does not necessarily imply any kind of immortal embodied existence. 2.2.3 Croesus Bacchylides (V B.C.E.) describes Apollo’s translation of Croesus (ca 560– 546 B.C.E.), the king of the Lydians, to Hyperborea. In the poet’s account, he voluntarily mounts his own funeral pyre with his wife and daughters: But when the glowing power of the horrible fire rushed through Zeus raised a black, hiding cloud and extinguished the fair flame. Nothing is unbelieving if it is accomplished by the concerns of gods. Then Apollo, born on Delos bore the old man off to the Hyperboreans and gave him a new home together with his daughters with their slender feet, because of his piety, since he had sent the richest gifts of all men to holy Pytho. ἀ í Ú & [ ] Ù Ù &?'[ 8], ¸ ˆ ? [ ]!Ó 8( (55) I8 5!Ï[ ( .] ê Ã&Ó ≈ ![ 8] H [ ] ] (8 ’ I 8[ ]8 356
Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.31.2–3, trans. of Jones, Philostratus, 2.421–3. Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.31. 358 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 8.31. 357
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ˆ ( [8] (60) &í Ã8I , ≈ 8[ ] ! !8 8 [!]:.359
The land of the Hyperboreans is a “version of heaven.” Apollo presides there, and Alcaeus pictures him spending a winter and spring there before the Delphians summoned him back in the middle of the summer (D Ó “ !8 Ú !8 Ù 8 Ã , ≈ 5 ’ I 8 ] ) ; Ù ] ).360 Pindar depicts it as a land not marred by diseases or old age or toils or battles ( &í – F Ö &Ó Ú a ; ).361 In Herodotus’s version of the tale, Cyrus has Croesus placed on the pyre and waits to see if any god would save him. When Cyrus’s servants could not stop the fire, Croesus calls on Apollo who sent a rainstorm to quench the pyre.362 2.2.4 GVI 1486 = St. Pont. III 86(3): Translation of Domnina to Elysium A Greek inscription (II–III C.E.) from Neoclaudiopolis expresses the lament of a husband for his wife, who was a physician: You hurry to the immortals, Domnina, and neglect your husband, because you have purified yourself in [“of your”] body among the heavenly stars. Νο one among humans will say that you have died, but that the immortals have seized you, who healed your ancestral land from illnesses. Hail and rejoice in Elysium; but you have left your companions everlasting sorrows and lamentations. [] / ![Ì]/ &ı[ )í], / & Ù &í Ô/ Ì / Ã Û / ! Ô/ – ) / ı ≈ & / !Ì , í ≈ Ì X/Ô ˜ b !Ì ) Ú K Û / Ô , ) &í ; í /Û /
359 Bacchylides Ep. 3.53–62, trans. of I. L. Pfeiffer, Pindar and Bacchylides, in: Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, vol. 1, ed. J. F. De Jong, et al. Leiden 2004, 213–32, esp. 217. 360 A. P. Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides, Cambridge, MA 1985, 180 (on the Hyperborean land). See Alcaeus frag. 307C Lobel/Page = Himerius Or. 48.10–11, Alkaoios, Lieder. Griechisch und Deutsch, trans. M. Treu, Munich 31980, 23–5. Himerius Or. 48.10 explains: (Û Ö ? Ù ! Ù 5 ’ I 8 ! ) (the Delphians called the god to return from the Hyperboreans). See R. J. Penella, trans., annot., and intro., Man and the Word. The Orations of Himerius, Berkeley 2007, 262–3. Cf. Herodotus 4.32 (a ref. to the Epigoni Frag. 2 [EGF 27, Davies]), Pindar Ol. 3.16, Pyth. 10.29–36, and M. Meyer, Hyperboreer, in: Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie [ALGRM], 6 vols., ed. W. H. Roscher, Leipzig 1884–1937, 1, 2805–41. 361 Pindar Pyth. 10.40–1. 362 Herodotus 1.86–7. Cp. Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F68. On the tradition, cf. W. Burkert, Das Ende des Kroisos: Vorstufen einer herodoteischen Geschichtserzählung, in: Catalepton. Festschrift für Bernhard Wyss zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. C. Schäublin, Basle, 1985, 4– 15.
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˜ Ú ! Ì '&.363
Obryk remarks that before Domnina can “experience blessedness in Elysium she is taken to the stars for purification.”364 The aorist middle construction ( ! Ô) may well indicate an accusative of respect (“in/of body”).365 Domnina’s husband was apparently able to conceive of her translation to Elysium and the burial of her mortal remains. Perhaps he believed that the fire had separated the mortal and immortal parts of her body.366 A similar perspective is present in a Latin inscription by a master for a dead slave boy, or a school master for his student/lover, found in an epitaph in Philippi: We are tormented, overcome by a wound, and you, identically restored, live in Elysium. Such is the will of the gods: one is to live in an eternal form (or beauty) who has well merited it before the Power above … [cr]uciamur volnere victi et reparatus367 item vivis in Elysiis368 sic placitum est divis a(e)terna vivere for[ma] 363 GVI 1486 = Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube B8, p. 52–3 = Merkelbach/Stauber SGO 11/03/02. 364 Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube, 53 (with ref. to Rohde, Pysche 2.100–2 who discusses the body as a source of impurity and Plato Phaed. 67C–D who envisions correct philosophy as the “constant purification of the soul from the influence of the body”). Obryk notes that the circumstances of the purification are “unique and the meaning contested.” 365 A. Wypustek’s trans., “your body was purified,” is incorrect due to the disagreement in gender ( ! Ô). Cf. idem, Images of Eternal Beauty in Funerary Verse Inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Periods, Mn.S 352, Leiden 2013, 61. Obryk, Unsterblichkeitsglaube, 52 translates the expression as “you have purified your body,” but this omits the force of the aorist middle. Plato Phaed. 114C has a similar aorist middle: &Ó Ã " ( (c " ! ? (and of these individuals who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy). Herodotus 4.73 has " ! ! 9 2& (Scythians purify themselves in this manner). Hippocrates Mul. 1.37 has ! 2 ! 8 Ï (she who was purified herself in her ailing parts by hot water). Aeschylus frag. 45 (Radt) is ! F (I am purified/I have purified myself of old age). Cp. the similar ! : in Philostratus Heroik. 7.3 (chapt. 3 § 2.1). 366 See § 2.1.10 above. Cp. Lucian Hermot. 7 and Galen apud Alberuni in § 2.1.17 above. 367 In CIL 14, 914 = CLE 1318 = E. Courtney, Musa Lapidaria. A Selection of Latin Verse Inscriptions, Atlanta 1995, § 171 (his trans.) the inscription refers to the Phoenix’s ability to “restore” an individual: ad Ma/nes foenix me serbat in ara qui me/cum properat se reparare sibi (“in the afterlife I am preserved by the phoenix on the altar, which hastens to renew itself along with me”). Anthologia latina 385 [IX C.E.] (BiTeu 299,31 ShackletonBailey) has: docet phoenix ustis reparata favillis (the phoenix appears to be restored from the burned ashes). Ov. Met. 15.392 mentions the phoenix quae reparet se (which restores itself) and Lact. De aue Phoenice 61 has: Ut reparet lapsum … aeuum (so that it might restore its lost life …). 368 Cp. CIL 10, 6785 = CLE 1189 eminet in luctus prima omnium Iulia coniunx / per quem si fas est vivis in Elysium (Julia, his wife, is pre-eminent among all in mourning, through which [or “whom” = quam], if it is ordained, you live in Elysium).
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There is no denial that the boy’s remains are in the ground. 2.2.5 Empedocles and the Woman in a Trance Diogenes Laertius has several versions of the death of Empedocles: As to his death different accounts are given. Thus Heraclides, after telling the story of the woman in a trance,370 how that Empedocles became famous because he had sent away the dead woman alive, goes on to say that he was offering a sacrifice close to the field of Peisianax. Some of his friends had been invited to the sacrifice, including Pausanias. Then, after the feast, the remainder of the company dispersed and retired to rest, some under the trees in the adjoining field, others wherever they chose, while Empedocles himself remained on the spot where he had reclined at table. At daybreak all got up, and he was the only one missing. A search was made, and they questioned the servants, who said they did not know where he was. Thereupon someone said that in the middle of the night he heard an exceedingly loud voice calling Empedocles. Then he got up and beheld a light in the heavens and a glitter of lamps, but nothing else. His hearers were amazed at what had occurred, and Pausanias came down and sent people to search for him. But later he bade them take no further trouble, for things beyond expectation had happened to him, and it was their duty to sacrifice to him since he was now a god. Ú &Ó !? &?( à .  & Ó Ï Ï Ú F ; & ? , › &5?! C & F Ï ;! , (Ú ≈ ! 8 Ù 2 ? 2. 8 &Ó ( 8, ∑ Ú . ∂ Ï Ã " Ó ; !8 , " Ó ÕÙ ) &8& › 8, " &í ≈W I , › &í ÃÙ &í > Ú (í ” 8 . › &í 8 ! 58, Ã Õ 8! . 8 &Ó Ú ∞ 8 Ú ( ∞&8, ∑ >( 8 ( F Õ 8! 8 C & 8, ∂í 5Ï / 8 ( à ? Ú ?& (8
, ; &Ó &8H &í Ú 2 89 8 , IÏ ¡ > 8 7. — &Ó : ), (? ÃF ;5 I I8 Ú ! Ã2 & ) ! Ú ! 2.371
In another version Empedocles offers a sacrifice after curing a woman whom the physicians could not. Hippobotus, again, asserts that, when he got up, he set out on his way to Etna; then, when he had reached it, he plunged into the fiery craters and disappeared, his intention being to confirm the report that he had become a god. Afterwards the truth was known, because
369 CIL 3, 686 = CLE 1233 = Courtney, Musa Lapidaria § 184, with commentary on 385. Cf. L. Renaut, Ptolémée Philopator et le stigmate de Dionysos, Mètis N.S. 4 (2006) 211–38, esp. 234–5 (I consulted his trans. and that of Courtney). Renaut considers the possibility that the dedicator is a schoolmaster. The epitaph is in elegiacs. 370 Heraclides Ponticus, frag. 83 ( Ú F ;) Wehrli. 371 Diog. Laert. 8.67–8, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes 2.383.
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one of his slippers was thrown up in the flames; it had been his custom to wear slippers of bronze. To this story Pausanias is made (by Heraclides) to take exception. π I &8 ( 5? ÃÙ ›& 8 › Ú ÊN, ∂ Ú ˆ F Ù 8! Ú (!F, I Ú Õ (7 I I ≈ ! , — &Ó
!F, ! Ã a & H a Ï N! Õ& )!. Ù !í ¡ 8 .372
Timaeus, the well-known Sicilian historian, claims that after leaving Sicily he went to the Peloponnese where he died. He adds, “It is not at all surprising that his tomb is not found; the same is true of many other men” (“ “ 79. Ã&Ó &Ó ?&5 ?( Ã ( !H &Ó Ï ; .”).373 Empedocles apparently promised Pausanias, to whom he had dedicated his poem On Nature ( Ú ( ), that he could raise the dead: “you will bring back from Hades the strength (or “life”) of a dead man” (;5 &í 5 ]^& (!8 8 & ).374 Jonathan Barnes poses this interesting query: “Is that a metaphorical way of saying that Pausanias will be able to show people their immortality, or just the implausible promise that Pausanias will raise the dead?”375 According to Heraclides Ponticus, Empedocles kept a woman in a trance state (; “breathless,” “lifeless”) for thirty days376: At all events Heraclides testifies that the case of the woman in a trance was such that for thirty days he kept her body without pulsation though she never breathed; ; ¡ Â & (Ú ∂, › ? 8 ) ; Ú ;( Ù ·377
372 Diog. Laert. 8.69, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes 2.383–5. Hicks notes that in 8.67 Diogenes refers to Heraclides’ treatise Ú F ; and argues that the imperfect, 8 , implies that Diogenes is “drawing on the dialogue” here. “By Heraclides” is not in the Greek text. The argument is fairly unconvincing in my view. 373 Diog. Laert. 8.72, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes 2.385. 374 Empedocles frag. 31 B 111 Diels/Kranz = Diog. Laert. 8.59. 375 J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers. The Arguments of the Philosophers, New York 1982, 641. Bolton, Aristeas, 165 refers to the promise “Empedocles makes” to “Pausanias that after studying his teachings he will be able to bring the dead back to life.” 376 See LSJ s.v. In Plin. Nat. 7.175 the period is seven days. Cf. chapt. 2 § 2.7. On this narrative, cf. P. van der Eijk, The Woman not Breathing, in: Heraclides of Pontus. Discussion, ed. W. W. Fortenbaugh and E. Pender, New Brunswick, NJ 2009, 237–50. In Iamblichus’s Babyloniaca 6 (= Photius Bibl. 94, 75A [CBy Photius II, 37 Henry]), at a funeral procession, “An old Chaldean (astrologer) who was standing nearby prevents the burial, saying that the maiden is still alive (breathing); and it was proved to be the case” (# &) 8 Ï (7, > ∂ > 8
H Ú & ! — ). 377 Diog. Laert. 8.61, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes 2.374–6. See Heraclides Ponticus frag. 77 Wehrli.
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Origen mentions Plato’s account of Er’s revival and Heraclides Ponticus’s narrative of the woman in a trance to support the resurrection of Christ as an argument against those who mock it. Since unbelievers mock the resurrection of Jesus Christ … and as our remarks are directed toward unbelievers, what has been written by Heraclides concerning the lifeless woman (or “woman in a trance”) is not at all useless at this point. C Ú &Ó Ù Ú F ? ∏ # ? " ; Ö › Ù &Ó Ú Ï Ú F Ï 2 Â &W ; Ã ?W > ∞ Ù ; .378
Just how useful the narrative of the woman in trance would be for a defense of Jesus’ resurrection is debatable. 2.2.6 Hamilcar In his account of the war occasioned by the second Persian invasion of Greece (480 B.C.E.), Herodotus recounts the story of Amilcas (Hamilcar), who disappeared and was later worshipped: (7.166) They [the Sicilians] add this tale too, – that Gelon and Theron won a victory over Amilcas the Carchedonian [i.e, “Carthaginian”] in Sicily on the selfsame day whereon the Greeks vanquished the Persian at Salamis. This Amilcas was, on his father’s side, a Carchedonian, and a Syracusan on his mother’s, and had been made king of Carchedon for his manly worth. When the armies met and he was worsted in the battle, it is said that he vanished out of sight; for Gelon sought for him in every place, yet nowhere on earth could he be found, dead or alive. (167) The story told by the Carchedonians themselves has a show of truth. They say, that the foreigners fought with the Greeks in Sicily from dawn till late evening (so long, it is said, the mellay was drawn out), during all which time Amilcas stayed in his camp offering sacrifice and striving to win favourable omens by burning whole bodies on a great pyre; and when he saw his army routed, he cast himself into the fire where he was pouring libations on the sacrifice; whereby he was consumed and no more seen. Whether it were thus that he vanished, as the Phoenicians say, or in some other way, [as say the Carchedonians and Syracusans,] sacrifice is offered to him, and monuments have been set up in all the colonists’ cities, the greatest of all which is in Carchedon itself. Ù &Ó Ú ?& 8 , › 8I F ÃF 8 > E W º8 Ú 7 a ] Ù & Ú ) ˆ Æ Ù 8 . PÙ &Ó ] , & Ù , ! &Ó , I ? í & ! & , › I 7 Ú › / E ?W, (!F !?H – Ï : – ! (F Ã& FH Ù a Ï 5 ! ) &7 º8 . (167) û &Ó Õí Ã & ≈& , ∞ 8 , › " Ó I? I ) Æ E W ? 5 † 5? 8 & ¿ ( Ú Ï 8 378 Origen C. Cels. 2.16 = Heraclides Ponticus frag. 78 Wehrli. See also the accounts in Galen De locis affectis 6.5 (8, 414–5 Kühn) = Heraclides Ponticus frag. 79 Wehrli and Suda Α § 3242.
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/ ), ¡ &Ó ] 9 2 9 8 2 8&9 ! Ú 8 Ú F ? : ≈ H ∞&S &Ó / 8, › > 8& ) " ), ‚ / Ù Ù H — & !8 (!F. ](!8 &Ó ] c 9 N 9 › j 8 N /8 9 [› & Ú ], 8 " !, &Ó 7 W E & , ÃE 8 & . PÏ Ó Ù .379
Udo Schnelle, editor of the Neuer Wettstein, compares this narrative to the disappearance of Jesus’ body in Mark 16:6.380 Perhaps more to the point is the comparison of Pease between Hamilcar’s self-immolation and the ascent of Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire.381 Heracles, Hamilcar and others became divine after self-immolation.382 2.2.7 Heraclides Ponticus Heraclides Ponticus, the philosopher of Plato’s academy, died uneventfully according to Diogenes Laertius. He includes a tradition from Hermippus who wrote that during a famine Heraclides bribed some envoys to Delphi to tell the people of Heraclea that he should receive a golden crown and be honored as a hero after his death (!S &Ó › • 2). They returned with the false oracle, and the results were horrific: “For directly Heraclides was crowned in the theatre he was seized with apoplexy (¡ Â & 8 ), whereupon the envoys to the oracle were stoned to death.”383 The Pythian priestess then died from a snake bite. The Suda, however, has variant versions of his death: And this man kept a snake, tamed it and lived and slept with it. When it was found alone on the couch, although Heraclides had reclined in good health, he was no longer found. Some thought that he had been made immortal, but others thought that he had thrown himself into a well, so that he would appear to people to have been made immortal.
379 Herodotus 7.166–7, trans. of Godley, Herodotus, 3.479–81. According to Diod. Sic. 11.22.1, Greek cavalry riders, pretending to be allies of Carthage, killed Hamilcar while he was sacrificing. According to Polyaenus Stratag. 1.27.2, Gelon, by a ruse, has his archers kill Hamilcar while he was sacrificing at an altar. Cf. A. R. Burn’s discussion (Persia and the Greeks. The Defense of the West, C. 46–478 B.C., Stanford, CA 1984, 481). 380 U. Schnelle et al., ed., Neuer Wettstein. Texte zum Neuen Testaments aus Griechentum und Hellenismus. Band I/1.1. Texte zum Markusevangelium, Berlin 2008, 769. 381 Pease, Invisibility, 10, 19 with ref. to 2 Kgs 2:11–2. 382 Currie, Pindar, 379 (he also mentions Croesus, Empedocles, Zarmaros/Zarmanochegas [Cassius Dio 54.9.10], and Peregrinus). Cp. ibid., 385 (on Zarmaros, who after initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis immolated himself, although Cassius Dio does not mention any divinization). 383 Diog. Laert. 5.91 = Die Schule, vol. 7, frag. 14a Wehrli, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes Laertius, 1.545–7.
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” Ú & ? >! Ú 8 Ú ∂ &: Ã2 Ú ! &H √ Ú Ú F Õ 8!, Â & !8 Ó Õ , Ã Õ !8 &8. Ú ; Ó ÃÙ ! ! , ; &Ó ( 8 ÕÙ I I 8, › i & 5W ) ! : ! !.384
The implication of “be made immortal” is the apotheosis of Heraclides. Demetrius of Magnesia has a tradition close to that of the Suda: As a boy and when he grew up, he kept a pet snake, and, being at the point of death he ordered a trusted attendant to conceal the corpse but to place the snake on his bier, that he might seem to have departed to the gods. ! 8 ÃÙ & ? 8 Ú Ã5!8, & a > , Õ Ù , Ù &Ó & ? Ú F ! ), μ & 5 ∞ ! ˆ I I8.385
The snake emerged from the bier, the trick was revealed and “Heraclides was seen, not as he seemed, but as he really was” ( 5 (! ? Ú ‡(! Â & Ã ∑ & , í ∑ D).386 2.2.8 Julian the Apostate Julian wanted to be perceived as having been made immortal, according to Gregory of Nazianzus. One action of this person deserves not to be passed over in silence, as it contains, in addition to many others, the strongest demonstration of his fanaticism. He was lying upon the bank of the river [the Tigris], and in a very bad way from his wound, when, remembering that many of those before his time who had aimed at glory, in order that they might be thought something higher than mortals, had (through some contrivances of their own) disappeared from among people, and thereby got themselves accounted gods; so he, being filled with a craving for similar glory, and at the same time ashamed of the manner of his end (by reason of the disgrace arising from his temerity), what does he contrive and what does he do, for not even with life does wickedness become extinct? He endeavours to throw his body into the river, and for this purpose he was using the assistance of some of his faithful accomplices and initiates in his mysteries. And had not one of the imperial eunuchs perceived what was going on, and telling it to the rest out of disgust at the fraud, prevented his purpose from being effected – why, another new god born out of a catastrophe, would have manifested himself to the stupid! And he, having thus reigned, and thus commanded his army, closed his life in this way. ê5 &Ó &Ó & ) & Ù, F & Ú ) > & 5. û Ó Ú E ƒ!W , Ú ∂ H ˆ &Ó ∞&S Ù Ã & 5 †5 8 , › i ÕÓ ;! ! ) , 8 Ú 5 ! : (!8, Ú &Ï ! ˆ !8 > F ÃF 384 385
Suda § 461 = Die Schule, vol. 7, frag. 17 Wehrli. Diog. Laert. 5.89 = Die Schule, vol. 7, frag. 16 Wehrli, trans. of Hicks, Diogenes,
1.545. 386
Diog. Laert. 5.90 = Die Schule, vol. 7, frag. 16 Wehrli.
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& 5 / S, Ú b 2 9 F F &Ï Ù F I ;&5 ∞ , a, Ú ), Ã&Ó Ï 2 I9 ; X Ï a Ù Ú Ù F / ) Ú ÒX7 . Ú ∞ I Ã , Ù a ∞! , Ú ) ; , 7 ¡ & : , i (? ; ) 7 ! Ù 8 5 7. ] í ) — Ó I , — &Ó 7, — Ú Ù I.387
Julian’s stratagem, or alleged stratagem, reflects the assumption that a disappeared body implies a translated body and subsequent apotheosis. 2.2.9 Peregrinus Proteus Lucian’s account of Peregrinus’s self-immolation in Olympia in 165 C.E. includes a reference to his funeral pyre and alleged subsequent appearance to an elderly man.388 The narrator claims that he would tell the facts to intelligent individuals ( a person of “taste”), but made up the following account for others: … but for the benefit of the dullards, agog to listen, I would thicken the plot a bit on my own account, saying that when the pyre was kindled and Proteus flung himself bodily in, a great earthquake first took place, accompanied by a bellowing of the ground, and then a vulture, flying up out of the midst of the flames, went off to Heaven, saying, in human speech, with a loud voice, “I am through with the earth; to Olympus I fare.” Ù &Ó ˆ I a Ú Ù Z& í , › & 7(! Ó ?, 8I &Ó (8 /Ù ¡ , ? 8 ˆ !2 F F, ˆ ? 8 F ( Ù N Ù Ã Ù ! Ú ? W E ( E 8
ì> a, I &í È .”389
The vulture resembles the eagle occasionally seen at imperial funerals, and Lucian perhaps mocks that custom.390 Peregrinus’s body was presumably turned to ashes. An old man claims to have seen him, dressed in white: On my return to the festival, I came upon a greyhaired man whose face, I assure you, inspired confidence in addition to his beard and his general air of consequence, telling all about Proteus, and how, since his cremation, he had beheld him in white raiment a little while ago, and had just now left him walking about cheerfully in the Portico of the Seven Voices,391 wearing a garland of wild olive. Then on top of it all he put the vulture, swear-
387 Greg. Naz. Or. (Contra Iul.) 5.14 (SC 309, 318–20 Bernardi = PG 35.681), trans. (slightly revised with ref. to that of Bernardi) of Julian the Emperor. Containing Gregory Nazianzen’s Two Invectives …, trans. C. W. King, London 1888, 97. 388 Cf. Holland, Himmelfahrt, 209–14. 389 Lucian Peregr. 39, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 5.45. 390 Cf. chapt. 5 § 1.6, 1.7, 1.9, 2.2, etc. 391 Cf. Pausanias 5.21.17 and Plin. Nat. 36.100 (the heptaphonon in Olympia). Harmon, Lucian, 5.45 notes that it “had a seven-fold echo.”
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ing that he himself had seen it flying up out of the pyre, when I myself had just previously let it fly to ridicule fools and dullards. ] !S &Ó 7 8 Ú 2 & Ú Ú Ù í 59 Ù Ú 2 :
Ú E E , ? ; & 89 Ú 8 Ú › Ï Ù !F ! ? ÃÙ E !F Ù > ! , Ú (& Ù E /(:9 ¹ 9 8. ∂í Ú a 8! Ù , & D ÃÙ / 8 ? F a, √ S Ù > ! (F 8 ! 7 Ú I Ù .392
Lucian predicts that many statues will be set up to Peregrinus by the Greeks and Eleans.393 Eleni Bozia writes that Lucian seems “concerned that the followers of Peregrinus may create a cult and worship Peregrinus based on the series of unexplained natural phenomena that transpired after his death and that Lucian states he witnessed.”394 It is unclear to me that Lucian witnessed any “unexplained phenomena” however at Peregrinus’s death, since he claims himself to have made up the account of the vulture. The schema which comprises death, resurrection, appearance to disciples, and establishment of a cult in the New Testament somewhat resembles that of Lucian’s Peregrinus.395 What is missing is a clear statement of Peregrinus’s resurrection. Lucian’s narrative does not include an account of the translation of Peregrinus’s body. 2.2.10 CIL VI 21521 (I C.E.?): Marcus Lucceius Nepos A late inscription in elegiac couplets, found outside the Porta Portuensis in Rome, records the appearance of a dead boy to a relative by marriage396: Sextus Onussianus Com…, son of Sextus, to the memory of Marcus Lucceius Nepos, son of Marcus. When I was lamenting my loss of Nepos through premature death, complaining of the easily-snapped threads of the Fates, and was bemoaning his manhood condemned by a cruel destiny and pain not previously experienced was torturing my whole heart; when I was bewailing my bereft, abandoned, deprived state, moving the rocks with my floods of tears; almost at the end of night, when the dewy Dawn-Star was spreading his rays and riding his swift horse, I saw a shape, glowing with stellar light, glide down from the sky. That was no dream, but the man had his actual complexion and voice, though his stature was
392
Lucian Peregr. 40, trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 5.45–7. Lucian Peregr. 41. 394 E. Bozia, Lucian and his Roman Voices. Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts in the Late Roman Empire, New York 2015, 108. On the possible cult of Peregrinus, cf. C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian, Cambridge, MA 1986, 120, 126–30. 395 Betz, Lukian von Samosata, 125–6 draws attention to the parallel. See also Bremmer, Peregrinus’ Christian Career, 77–9 (noting in particular that Peregrinus does not appear near the place of his death). 396 E. Courtney notes that adfinis in l. 15 signifies this kind of kinship (Musa Lapidaria, 382). 393
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greater than the familiar shape of his body. Showing the blazing orbs of his eyes and shining shoulders he spoke from his rosy lips. “My noble kinsman, why do you complain that I have been snatched away to the stars of the sky? Cease to bewail a god, lest your affection, unaware that I have been welcomed in the celestial abode, may mourn and by its sorrow distress a supernatural being. I shall not gloomily make my way to the underworld streams and shall not as a ghost be ferried across the waters of Acheron; I shall not with my oar drive forward the dark boat nor shall I fear Charon with his terrifying countenance, nor will ancient Minos pass judgment on me; I shall not wander in those dark places nor be pinned in by the rivers. Rise, tell my mother not to lament me night and day, as the mourning Attic mother does Itys [Attis]. For holy Venus has forbidden me to know the abodes of the silent and has carried me to the bright halls of heaven.” I jumped up and trembling had pervaded my cold limbs; the place was fragrant, redolent with a sweet smell. Sanctified Nepos, the whole heavenly chorus will welcome you, whether, escorted by a crowd of amorini, you happily mingle with the amusements of Adonis, or you rejoice in the crowd of the Muses or in the artistic skill of Athena. If you should want to fasten heavy clusters of ivy-berries to the thrysus and veil your hair with vine-shoots, you will be Bacchus; if you should want to grow your hair and garland it with bay and take up bow and quiver, you will be Apollo. Put on fine sleeves and Phrygian (cap), more than one love will quicken in Cybele’s breast. Should you desire to shake the mouth of a foaming horse with the bridle, then Cyllarus will carry the body of a handsome rider. But whatever god, whatever demigod you shall be called, may your sister, mother and young son be safe and sound. These gifts, which gnawing time and … do not take away, are better than perfume and garlands. Memoriae M(arci) Luccei M(arci) f(ilii) Nepotis Sex(tus) Onussanius Sex(ti) f(ilius) Com[] / Quum praematura raptum mihi morte Nepotem flerem Parcarum putria fila querens et gemerem tristi damnatam sorte iuventam versaretque novus viscera tota dolor me desolatum me desertum ac spoliatum 5 clamarem largis saxa movens lacrimis exacta prope nocte suos quum Lucifer ignes spargeret et volucri roscidus iret equo vidi sidereo radiantem lumine formam aethere delabi non fuit illa quies 10 sed verus iuveni color et sonus at status ipse maior erat nota corporis effigie ardentis oculorum orbes umerosq(ue) nitentis ostendes roseo reddidit ore sonos adfinis memorande quid o me ad sidera caeli 15 ablatum quereris desine flere deum ne pietas ignara superna sede receptum lugeat et laedat numina tristitia non ego Tartareas penetrabo tristis ad undas non Acheronteis transvehar umbra vadis 20 non ego caeruleam remo pulsabo carinam nec te terribilem fronte timebo Charon nec Minos mihi iura dabit grandaevus et atris non errabo locis nec cohibebor aquis
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surge refer matri ne me noctesque diesque 25 defleat ut maerens Attica mater Ityn nam me sancta Venus sedes non nosse silentum iussit et in caeli lucida templa tulit erigor et gelidos horror perfuderat artus spirabat suavi tinctus odore locus 30 die Nepos seu tu turba stipatus Amorum laetus Adoneis lusibus insereris seu grege Pieridum gaudes seu Palladis [arte] omnis caelicolum te chor[u]s exc[ipiet] si libeat thyrsum gravidis aptare co[rymbis] 35 et velare comam palmite Liber [eris] pascere si crinem et lauro redimire [placebit] arcum cum pharetra sumere Ph[oebus eris] indueris teretis manicas Phrygium [decus Attis(?)] non unus Cybeles pectore vivet a[mor] 40 si spumantis equi libeat quatere ora [lupatis] Cyllare formosi membra vehes e[quitis] sed quicumque deus quicumque vocaber[is heros] sit soror et mater sit puer incolu[mis] haec dona unguentis et sunt potiora c[orollis] 45 quae non tempus edax non rapi[t ipse rogus(?)]397
In an inscription found in Tarragona a woman mourns her dead husband and asks him to appear in her dreams, “if tears are of any help” (lacrimae si prosunt visis te ostende videri).398 Lucretius gives a materialistic explanation for visions of the dead.399 Jay Reed compares Nepos’s statement that he is now a god and divinity (16: deum, 18 numina) with another grave inscription in which an individual whose “body, passed away is now, as a living soul, a god” (corpore consumpt[o] viva anima deus sum).400 His statement that he has been “snatched away to the stars” resembles a Roman Greek verse inscription (II CE) from Nikopolis (near Alexandria) which begins: “The good Heraclides lies here, like Osiris or Paphian Adonis” (Â Û& ¡ Ù )í !Ì& , / › È ¢ (Û ¡ ê& ). His relative affirms that he is: “a heavenly star rising above the stars” ( Ã Ì ¡ Ú Ô Ô / Ì!).401 In an inscription from Amorgos, the 397 CIL VI, 21521, trans. of Courtney, Musa Lapidaria, 171–3. See the comments of Berger and Colpe, Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch, 95. Reed, At Play with Adonis, 219 dates the inscription to the “post-Flavian” period. 398 CIL II, 4427 = CLE 542. These references are from Courtney, Musa Lapidaria, 381. 399 Lucr. 4.26–50. 400 CIL VI, 30157 = CLE 975. Reed, At Play with Adonis, 222. 401 Bernand, Inscr. Métr. 75 = GVI 2028a. Cf. Reed, At Play, 222 for many such references to “catasterisms” including Octavian (Verg. G. 1.32–5, Ovid. Met 15.839 cognataque sidera tanget [he will touch his kindred stars], which include “his catasterized forebears, Aeneas, Romulus, Julius Caesar). F. Cumont, Afterlife in Roman Paganism, New Haven 1922, 95 (cp. 104–5) refers to Aristophanes Pax 832–3, a question (concerning the Pythagorian Ion
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departed soul of a young man tells his mother: “Weep not; for of what use is weeping? Rather venerate me, for I am now a divine star which shows itself at sunset” ( &Ì Û Ì - Ï IÌ / Ï
ı ! ) Ô ).402 Cicero asks if “Nearly the whole of heaven is not filled with humankind?” (totum prope caelum … nonne humano genere completum est?).403 Ovid also describes Caesar’s transformation into a star.404 The inscription about the dead child bears witness to his sidereal transformation and immortality. One should not overlook the fact that the inscription refers to the appearance of a phantom of a dead son speaking to his mother.405 2.2.11 Pompeius Magnus While alive Pompey occasionally received divine honors. On Delos there was a cult for Pompey, and the officials were called Pompeiastai.406 Samos called him the “savior of the city” ( F [lacuna] F ı ),407 and the demos (assembly) of Mytilene honored him as “savior and founder” (¿ &a / Ù ˜ ˘ Ú Û).408 Plutarch claims that Pompey saw a graffito in Athens that read: “the more you know you’re a man, the more you become a god” (C(í ≈ Ë ;! ∂&, Ú ∂ ! ).409 After Pompey’s death in Egypt, Lucan depicts his apotheosis. The poet would like to move Pompey’s body to Rome: “Who will fear to trouble the tomb, and dread to remove the dead so worthy of worship?” (quis busta timebit? / quis sacris dignam movisse verebitur umbram?).410 Vasily Ruditch argues that in this text “there is an implicit proposal to create a sort of official cult of that man in the future …”411 Individuals visiting Egypt will be called by Pompey’s ashes: of Chios) whether it is not true that when someone dies he becomes a star in the air (Ã D ; í Ã&í Å 8 , Ï Ù ∞!8 / › 8 !í, ≈ !?W;) 402 IG XII/7, 123 = GVI 1097, trans. of Cumont, After Life, 105, and cp. Reed, At Play, 222. 403 Cic. Tusc. 1.28, trans. modified of Cumont, After Life, 105. 404 See chapt. 5 § 2.1. 405 T. Marlier, Histoire de fantômes dans l’Antiquité, BAGB 1 (2006) 204–24, esp. 208. 406 Cf. M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols., Cambridge 1998, 1.147. ID 1641 (after 65 B.C.E.) = SIG3 749A: [ ˜&] / '[ ]. Cp. ID 1797 [" ; ˜]& • (the other associations of Pompeiastai.) 407 IG XII,6 1:352 = SIG3 749B. 408 IG XII,2 202 = SIG3 751. IG XII Suppl. 40 and IG XII,2 141–9, 202 are similar. Cf. Beard, Religions, 1.147. 409 Plutarch Pomp. 27.3, trans. of Beard, Religions, 1.147. 410 Luc. 8.840–1, trans. of Lucan, The Civil War, LCL, ed. and trans. J. D. Duff, Cambridge, MA 1928, 499. 411 V. Ruditch, Dissidence and Literature Under Nero. The Price of Rhetoricization, London 1997, 167.
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… that gravestone, and those ashes, perhaps disturbed and lying on the surface of the sand, will call him aside to worship, and bid him appease the spirit of Magnus, and give it the preference over Casian Jupiter. [quis] … quem non tumuli venerabile saxum et cinis in summis forsan turbatus harenis avertet manesque tuos placare iubebit et Casio praeferre Jovi?412
Lucan writes that Pompey’s grave in Egypt will disappear: For a short space of time will scatter the little heap of dust; the grave will fall in; and all proof of Pompey’s death will be lost. pulveris exigui sparget non longa vetustas congeriem, bustumque cadet, mortisque peribunt argumenta tuae.413
The poet, however, gives no indication that a bodily translation has occurred. A scholiast affirms that his bones will disappear: “[will be lost] that is, you will not be able to prove that he was buried in Egypt, later when they do not see a grave, for that reason they will judge that you are among the gods” (peribunt: id est probari non poteris in Aegypto esse sepultus, posteri cum tuum tumulum non videbunt et idcirco inter deos te esse iudicabunt).414 The scholiast believes that the absence of a body is proof of apotheosis. Lucan describes Pompey’s translation to the ether415: But the spirit of Pompey did not linger down in Egypt among the embers, nor did that handful of ashes prison his mighty ghost. Soaring up from the burning-place, it left the charred limbs and unworthy pyre behind, and sought the dome of the Thunderer. At non in Pharia manes iacuere favilla nec cinis exiguus tantam compescuit umbram; prosiluit busto semustaque membra relinquens degeneremque rogum sequitur convexa Tonantis.416
412
Luc. 8.855–8, trans. of Duff, Lucan, 501. Luc. 8.867–9, trans. of Duff, Lucan, 501. 414 Schol. in Luc. 8.868 (Adnotationes super Lucanum, BiTeu, ed. J. Endt, Stuttgart 1969, 338). Another scholion, however, asserts that his bones had been moved to Rome. Cf. Schol. bern. in Luc. 8.863 (Scholia in Lucani Bellum civile. Pars prior commenta bernensia, ed. H. Usener, Leipzig 1869, 286) where his mausoleum is worshiped more than the Capitoline deities (mausoleum, quod plus colatur a diis Capitolinis). 415 Cf. R. Sklenář, A Taste for Nothingness. A Study of Virtus and Related Themes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile, Ann Arbor 2003, 127 (who compares Pompey’s apotheosis to Sen. Dial. 6.25, Dial. 11[olim 12]9.8–9). In the dialogues Seneca consoles Marcia and Polybius with the doctrine that souls freed from the body, wander throughout eternity in heaven (Dial. 6.25.3 in summo locatorum [in the highest places]). 416 Luc. 9.1–4, trans. of Duff, Lucan, 505. 413
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Lucan believes Pompey’s soul (animam) spirit (along with the other semidei manes) became a hero.417 Some Stoics thought that after death wise souls went to the lunar sphere.418 It is clear that Lucan did not envisage a bodily translation, although the ultimate disappearance of Pompey’s ashes implies his divinity for one of the scholiasts. Pliny asserts that Pompey was buried at Mount Casius in Egypt (a mound, tumulus Magni Pompei).419 Plutarch claimed that Cornelia brought Pompey’s ashes (Ï &Ó ) to be buried in his Alban villa.420 Plutarch and Pliny may be consistent if John Leach is correct in his contention that “a mound raised over the ashes of the pyre could well claim to be a tomb.”421 2.3 Vibia and Vincentius: Tomb in the Catacomb of Praetextatus A tomb on the Via Antica Appia in “one of the galleries”422 of the mostly Christian catacomb of Praetextatus contains a set of intriguing images which indicates that a woman named Vibia expected to enter the Elysian fields in her afterlife. The tomb dates from the first half of the fourth century or perhaps from the second half of the third.423 The drawing of the entire arcosolium published by Rafaelle Garrucci is important because it establishes the narrative flow (see image 18).424 The artist painted (image 19) on the left panel of 417
Luc. 9.7, 9. Tert. An. 54 = SVF 2.814 (Chrysippus) Itaque apud illum in aetherem sublimantur animae sapientes, apud Arium in aerem, apud Stoicos sub lunam (According to him [Plato] wise souls are sent to the aether, according to Arius to the air, and according to the Stoics they are sent beneath the moon). Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. 9.73 = SVF 2.812 (Chrysippus) > [ ] Ù ÕÙ 7 ∞ (… disembodied then they dwell in a place beneath the moon). Cp. Schol. bern. in Luc. 9.6 (290 Usener) = SVF 2.817 (Chrysippus). 419 Plin. Nat. 5.68. 420 Plutarch Pomp. 80.6. Strabo 16.2.33 (near the temple of Casian Zeus); SHA Hadrian 14.4 (Aelius Spartianus) (claims Hadrian rebuilt Pompey’s tomb); Ammianus Marcellinus 22.16.3. Cassius Dio notes that Hadrian restored Pompey’s tomb (or cenotaph?) in Egypt. Cp. Appian Bellum 2.86 (Pompey’s headless body was buried on the shore). 421 J. Leach, Pompey the Great, New York 1978, 247. 422 R. Casagrande-Kim, The Journey to the Underworld: Topography, Landscape, and Divine Inhabitants of the Roman Hades, PhD. Diss., Columbia University 2012, 165. 423 C. Cecchelli Monumenti cristiano-eretici di Roma, Roma 1944, 171–80 dates it to the third century (second half). 424 Cf. R. Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della chiesa … Volume sesto. Sculture non cimiteriali dalla Tavola CDV alla Tavola D, Prato 1880, 171–2, Tavol. 493. Cf. the study of A. Ferrua, La catacomba di Vibia, RivAC 47 (1971) 7–62, Tav. 1 (map of the hypogeum). On the banquet scenes, cf. E. Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes de banquet dans les peintures et sculptures chrétiennes des IIIe et IVe siècles, RechAug 14 (1979) 1–90, esp. 38–40 (fig. 12–3), 66–7. See the summary of G. Sfameni Gasparro, Après Lux perpetua de Franz Cumont: quelle eschatologie dans les ‹‹cultes oritentaux›› à mystères?, in: Bricault and Bonnet, Panthée, 145–67, esp. 165–7. 418
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the underarch the “abreptio Vibie(a)s” (the seizure of Vibia) and “et discensio” (and the descent).425 Hades carries her soul in a quadriga, and Mercury as psychopomp with caduceus and shield leads the horses.426 Roberta Casagrande-Kim points out that the “group is about to enter Orcus through a dark cavern, painted at far right.”427 In a scene of judgement in the central image of the underarch (image 20),428 the veiled Vibia stands between Mercury the messenger (Mercurius nuntius) carrying caduceus in his left hand, a rod in his right hand, and standing in front of a veiled Alcestis. Sitting on their thrones are Dispater (father Dis, god of the underworld) and a veiled Aeracura. Aeracura is the goddess of the underworld who also appears in a curse tablet apparently from the middle of the second century C.E. – a piece of erotic magic in which the reigning divinities of the netherworld are conjured: Pluton sive{m} Iov/em infernum dici opor{no}/tet (A)eracura Iuno / inferna acciete … (it is necessary that Pluto or Jupiter of the netherworld is called on, (and) Aeracura, Juno of the netherworld, bring …).429 To the left of the two gods of the underworld (image 20) are the three veiled Fata divina (divine Fates). Dispater gestures to them with his right arm and Aeracura apparently holds Dispater’s left arm with her right hand. On the right panel of the underarch (image 18) is a depiction of seven priests of Sabazius at a banquet – probably funerary.430 The legend reads: septe(m) pii sacerdotes (seven pious priests). Over one of the priests wearing a Phrygian cap the legend is “Vincentius,” which presumably identifies Vibia’s husband.431 There are plates of 425 Garrucci, Storia, Tavola 494. abreptio is fairly rare. Cf. F. Vollmer, abreptio, ThLL I.132.13–5: CIL 6, 142 and Isid. Quaest. test. 1 8 tit. de abreptione Saulis a spiritu nequam (Saul taken by an evil spirit), and G. Goetz, Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, vol. 2, Leipzig 1888, 252,32 ( (snatching away) abreptio. 426 IG XIV, 1823 ( )) (!Û). / ? Ø (for the chthonic gods (departed spirit) / release? farewell), if genuine, depicts Pluto carrying off a girl in a quadriga between the top line and the bottom line. 427 Casagrande-Kim, The Journey, 166. Cp. the depiction of the mouth of Hades in image 9, from which Alcestis has just emerged, led by Hades, in the hypogeum of via Dino Compagni (chapt. 2 § 4). 428 Garrucci, Storia, Tavola 494, and cp. E. Maass, Orpheus. Untersuchungen zur griechischen römischen altchristlichen Jenseitsdichtung und Religion, München 1895, 220. 429 See A. Kropp, Defixiones. Ein aktuelles Corpus lateinischer Fluchtafeln, Speyer 2008, 6 1/1 (middle of II C.E., Favianae [in Noricum]) = AEA 1985/1992, 150 and 156, and cp. R. Egger, Liebeszauber, JÖAI 37 (1948), 114–20. The name Aeracura appears in two lead curse tablets found in Hungary: AAnt-Hung 2017, 45 (Aquincum) and ACD 2015, 101 (Aquincum). Cf. H. Diehl, Aeracura, ThLL I.1052.72–1053.6 (other inscriptions, but not the Hungarian tablets), and M. Le Glay, Aeracura, LIMC 1.1 (1980) 243–4, § 1 (Vibia hypogeum), 2, 3a–f (statuettes, of which only 3a and 3b are clearly Aeracura). See Maass, Orpheus 220 for Juno Inferna. 430 Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes, 66. She also remarks that the priests with covered heads wear tunics with sleeves and a pallium or other kind of mantle (ibid., 40). 431 Garrucci, Storia, tav. 494.
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rabbit, fish, and cake, and there are loaves of bread in front of the stibadium (semi-circular couch) where they recline. Three of the priests hold small cups for wine. In the scene in the lunette or the arcosolium, Vibia enters the gates of Elysium in the drawing (image 21) and the painting (image 22).432 The Angelus bonus (good angel), a youth wearing a tunic with clavi (stripes)433 and a crown, leads Vibia – veiled, wearing a tunic and pallium434 – and above the gateway is the word inductio (leading in).435 J. B. Hofmann notes that inductio refers to the leading of “souls” into the underworld in this case.436 Six people are at a banquet, one of whom is labelled Vibia. The forensic legend above their heads is Bonorum Iudicio Iudicati (those judged by the judgement of the good).437 To the right is an amphora for wine on a stand. In front of the banqueters there are loaves of bread, a plate of fish, a plate with a cake, and a servant bringing a plate of rabbit. They “express their joy to be together at table by the lively gestures of their hands,” according to Elisabeth Jastrzebowsl432 Garrucci, Storia, tavola 494 (drawing). J. Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, Freiburg 1903, 392–3, Tafel 132 (painting). 433 On clavi for senators and knights, cf. L. B. Jørgensen, Clavi and non-clavi: Definitions of Various Bands on Roman Textiles, in: Textiles y tintes en la ciudad antigua …, Purpureae Vestes 3, ed. C. Alfaro et al., València 2011, 75–81. She notes (ibid., 76): in a dinner party from Pompey “clavate tunics were worn by dinner guest and waiter alike, i.e. both Roman citizens as well as slaves.” 434 Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes, 38; better: chiton and himation (mantle). Cp. the very similar image (i.e., the clothing) in the article of L. R. Brody, Portrait of a Lady: A New Statue at the Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2008) 143–7. I thank Felicity Harley for this reference. 435 angelus is mainly used in Christian sources. Cf. A. Klotz, angelus, ThLL II.45.24–71. It does appear in the Hermetic literature. Ps. Apuleius Asclepius 25 (BiTeu, De philosophia libri, 67 Moreschini): … soli nocentes angeli remanent (only harmful angels remain); and ibid., 37 (81 Moreschini): evocantes animas daemonum vel angelorum (evoking the souls of demons or angels). The last passage is quoted by Aug. Civ. 8.24. The ThLL, however, notes that the term is used in inscriptions as an epithet of Jupiter (H. Diehl, Angelus, ThLL II.45.7– 8. CIL 14, 24 (Ostia Portus, 176–180 C.E.): I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo) / Angelo / Heliop(olitano) (to Jupiter, Best, Greatest, Angel, Heliopolitan). Cp. an inscription from Stratonicea (M. Dubois and H.-B. Amédéé, Inscriptions de Carie, BCH 5 (1881) 179–94, esp. 183, § 3: ' ÕÛ9 Ú ! Û9
Ô 9 … See E. Aust, Angelos (ê
), PRE 2 (1894) 2189 (the angelus bonus of Vibia is a “serving goddess”). Cf. also F. Sokolowski, Sur le culte d’angelos dans le paganisme grec et romain, HTR 53 (1960) 225–9 (angelos used as an epithet of Zeus, Hecate, and Hermes), and the extensive treatment by R. Cline, Ancient Angels. Conceptualizing Angeloi in the Roman Empire, RGRW 172, Leiden 2011, 72–3: angels as intermediaries between gods and humans in Syrian cults; CIL 14, 24 and an Emesene prayer for the angeloi in Portes du désert 91, 9 June 316 C.E. (ÕÓ ÃF Ô C Ú Ô!); 94–5 (the angelus as Vibia’s psychopomp). For inductio (“the action of bringing in; [esp., of performers on to a stage, etc.]), cf. OLD s.v. § 1. 436 J. B. Hofmann, inductio, ThLL VII.1.1244.22–1245.24, esp. 1244.28–9. 437 On the primary (and “more or less forensic”) use of iudicatum, cf. F. M. H. Oomes, iudico, ThLL VII.2.617.31–623.67, esp. 623.10–53.
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ta.438 Two youths are apparently playing with dice439 in front of the banqueters, and in the painting the youth to the right appears to hold (or have dropped) a fritillus (dice container). The entire scene signifies the arrival of Vibia in paradise in Jastrzebowslta’s interpretation.440 “Paradise” is a Jewish and Christian concept, so it seems incorrect, given the following inscription, to use that category. “Sabazius-heaven” may be a better category.441 Above the entire scene, as shown by the drawing published by Garrucci, is the inscription of Vibia’s husband442: O Vincentius, this is the entrance?443 for those in repose, which you see. Many have gone before me, and I wait for all. Eat, drink, play, and come to me; when you live, act well, you will bring this with you. Vincentius, priest of the god Sabazius is the one who observed the sacred holy rites of the gods with a pious mind.444 [Vi]ncenti hoc o[stium(?)] qu(i)ets quo vides. plures me antecesserunt omnes expecto // Manduca ibe lude e(t) eni a me cum vies bene fac hoc tecum feres / Numinis antistes Sabazis Vincentius hic e[st q]ui sacra sancta / deum mente pia co[lui]t
The “Elysian fields” is more appropriate for the envisioned joy into which Vibia and her husband will enter. Zanker and Ewald believe that there is some kind of relationship between the banquet scene of the seven priests and the banquet of Vibia and the other figures in the lunette (“a feast of the blessed”) – perhaps a feast of remembrance for the dead woman or a feast “of the college of priests of Sabazios.”445 Whatever the significance of the banquet of the priests, it is clear that 438
Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes, 39. See Nilsson, Geschichte, 2.662. A larger fritillus is in the scene of the soldiers’ casting lots for Jesus’s garments in the via Dino Compagni. Cf. Ferrua, Unknown Catacomb, fig. 119 and Bisconti, Il restuaro, 15. Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes, 39 believes the servant is pouring a liquid from a small jug. 440 Jastrzebowslta, Les scènes, 66–7. 441 E. N. Lane, Conclusions, Corpus Cultus Iovis Sabazii (CCIS), III, Brill 1989, 45, 13 (Vibia judged “worthy of a materialistically happy afterlife”). 442 R. Garrucci, Tre sepolcri con pitture et iscrizioni appartenenti alle superstizioni pagane del Bacco Sabazio, e el Persidico Mitra scoperti in un braccio del cimitero di Pretestato in Roma. Dissertazione due, Napoli 1852, tavola 3. See also image 18. 443 Cf. OLD s.v. § “1 A door (include. the frame) especially the front door of a building. b (applied to the entrance of the Underworld).” This is a cj. of Garrucci, Tre sepolcri, 35–6. 444 CIL 6, 142 (Rome) = CCIS 65 (E. N. Lane, The Other Monuments and Literary Evidence, Corpus Cultus Iovis Sabazii [CCIS], II, Leiden, 1985, 31–2). Lane restores the questionable line as [Vi]ncenti hoc o[pus re]quetes. An alternative trans. of the inscription may be found in A. Claridge, with contributions by J. Toms and T. Cubberley, Rome. An Oxford Archaeological Guide, Oxford 22010, 425 (“here you see the peaceful harbour of Vincentius”). 445 Zanker and Ewald, Living with Myths, 172. They refer to Lucian’s banquet on the Isle of the Blessed (Ver. hist. 2.6, 2.14–5). Cp. 2.11 ∞ † ! Ú ∞ Ù 439
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Vibia is expected to enjoy the blessings of an Elysian banquet after her death, translation, and judgement before Pluto and Aeracura.
3 Conclusion The post-mortem disappearance of translated individuals resembles the disappearance of Jesus’s body from the tomb.446 One key difference, however, is that in Mark, for example, Jesus is to appear in Galilee first before any presumed ascension/translation to heaven.447 In most translation narratives, there is no such immediate post-mortem appearance. Many of the individuals who were translated disappeared before they died. In that case, their disappearances resemble more closely the translation of living people envisioned by Paul in 1 Thess 4:15–7. Unlike people who are resurrected, those who are translated do not return to life. The texts do, however, describe some form of existence in heaven, the Isles of the Blessed, or Leuke for certain figures such as Achilles, Memnon, and Helen. In general, translated individuals do not appear subsequently to mortals, although Aristeas, Romulus, and Peregrinus are clear exceptions.448 In such cases, the distinction between translation and resurrection becomes more fluid, although there are some differences. The distinction is much clearer in the case of a figure such as Pelops where Pindar describes his translation by Poseidon and Apollodorus describes his return to life (˘ ) after being killed and boiled.449 Fundamental to many of the accounts is the concept of an immortal and incorruptible body of some sort, and that concept is clearly analogous to that of the resurrected bodies of Judaism and Christianity. Endsjø believes that the Greek notion of immortal flesh was important in the development of Christianity: There is no single reason that can explain why the Hellenistic communities left Zeus and the numerous other deities for the Christian God. The notion of immortal flesh must nevertheless be considered an important factor in this process. In the form it finally succeeded, Christianity put the resurrection of the flesh at the very centre of its belief system. And this really reflected, as we have seen, both Greek beliefs and desires. Not only was the be-
®? (we were led to the city and to the symposium of the blessed). The individuals (2.12) on the isle have a naked soul that moves about as if it was wearing the likeness of a body (≈ > 7 Ã ) : ¡ 8). 446 Cp. Pease, Invisibility, 29–34 for a discussion from the perspective of classical philology. 447 Cf. chapt. 7 § 2. 448 For Aristeas and Romulus, cf. chapt. 3 § 1.1 and 1.2, and for Peregrinus, cf. § 2.2.9 above. 449 Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.10.
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lief that a number of people had been physically immortalized, with or without a previous resurrection, widespread in the Hellenistic realm, but there was a pronounced attraction of the flesh witnessed both in the ideas on the afterlife and in the hopes and prayers for divine intervention in this realm.450
The immortality of flesh in Greek narratives occurs in a number of the translation accounts surveyed in this chapter.
450
Endsjø, Greek Resurrection, 211.
Chapter Five
Apotheoses of Emperors Translations of heroes to heaven correspond to the later practice of the imperium of ascribing apotheosis to certain emperors such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Titus, and others. Justin had already drawn the attention of his readers to the similarity between the New Testament’s depiction of Jesus’s ascension and the deification of the emperors.1
1 Consecratio and Funeral Romans did not deify their emperors until after their deaths, and there were notable exceptions such as Nero who probably suffered an informal damnatio memoriae after his suicide.2 Imperial funerals were elaborate affairs. 1.1 Consecratio The senate and duly appointed magistrates with imperium were responsible for the decision to consecrate an emperor. Servius has an illustrative passage that makes a distinction between deus and divus. For the most part, the poet uses divum and deorum without distinction, although there is a difference since we call perpetual divinities dei and those who have become gods after a human existence divi, in that they have ended their days. Therefore, we even call imperators divi. But Varro and Ateius hold the opposite view calling perpetual divinities divi and 1
Cf. Justin Apol. 1.21.3 in chapt. 1 § 1.3 and see § 1.9 below. Cf. J. G. Cook, Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians. From Claudius to Hadrian, WUNT 261, Tübingen 2010, 97 for references to differing views on this topic – including W. Eck, Die Vernichtung der memoria Neros: Inschriften der neronischen Zeit aus Rom, Latomus 268 (2002) 285–295 (who argues that the context of each inscription – public or not – must be examined). Nero’s name was not erased from all inscriptions. E. R. Varner (Mutilation and Transformation. Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, Monumenta Graeca et Romana, Leiden 2004, 78–9) notes that his name “has been erased in the majority of his inscriptions.” It was allowed to remain in certain other contexts (ibid., 79–81), and the esteem of the plebs for Nero did not diminish (ibid., 81). E. Champlin, Nero, Cambridge, MA 2003, 29 severely criticizes the use of the term (damnatio memoriae) by art historians (it is not an ancient term), but there are good reasons for its use, considering the erasure of his name from many of the inscriptions. 2
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those who are honored because of their being consecrated dei as are the di manes [spirits of the dead]. He touches this in book twelve saying; “deity (diva) [speaking to] deity (dea), she who watches over lakes and sounding rivers.” “divum” et “deorum” indifferenter plerumque ponit poeta, quamquam sit discretio, ut deos perpetuos dicamus, divos ex hominibus factos, quasi qui diem obierint: unde divos etiam imperatores vocamus. sed Varro et Ateius contra sentiunt, dicentes divos perpetuos, deos, qui propter sui consecrationem timentur, ut sunt dii manes: quod tangit in duodecimo dicens diva deam stagnis quae fluminibusque sonoris praesidet.3
Divus and deus, however, are synonyms (i.e., divus does not mean “divine” in that context).4 Consecratio originally meant the “lawful and permanent transfer of an object or person from the sphere of the human law (ius humanum) to that of divine/religious law (ius divinum) – the consequence is the object’s classification in the category of the sacrum.”5 The appropriate authorities were responsible for the consecratio of objects.6 A text of Gaius illustrates the nature of divine law: Subjects of divine right [or “law”] are things sacred and things religious. Sacred things are those consecrated to the gods above; religious, those devoted to the gods below. Sacred things can only become so with the authority of the people of Rome, by consecration in pursuance of a law or a decree of the senate. A religious thing becomes so by private will, when an individual buries a dead body in his own ground, provided the burial is his proper business. 1.3 Diuini iuris sunt ueluti res sacrae et religiosae. 4. Sacrae sunt, quae diis superis consecratae sunt; religiosae, quae diis Manibus relictae sunt. 5. Sed sacrum quidem hoc solum existimatur, quod ex auctoritate populi Romani consecratum est, ueluti lege de ea re
3 Serv. A. 5.45, trans. modified of D. Wardle, Deus or Divus: The Genesis of Roman Terminology for Deified Emperors and a Philosopher’s Contribution, in: Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World. Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin, ed. G. Clark and T. Rajak, Oxford 2002, 181–91, esp. 183. 4 M. Clauss, Kaiser und Gott, Herrscherkult im römischen Welt, Berlin 2001, 356 (he translates the first as “state god” such as Apollo, Juno, etc. and the second term as the more generic “god”), with ref. to W. Schwering, Deus und divus. Eine semasiologische Studie als Ergänzung zum Artikel divus im Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, IGF 34 (1914/15) 1–43. Cp. S. Weinstock, Divus Julius, Oxford 1971, 391–2 (Caesar created the distinction between the two words: “‘Divus’ was from now on a god who had previously been a man”). Schwering, Deus, 20 argues that divus was never used for the “living Caesar.” 5 G. Wissowa, consecratio, PRE IV (1900) 896–902, esp. 896. See also E. Lommatzsch, consecratio, ThLL IV.378.27–379.43 § 2 “apotheosis” (379.14–38), the careful investigation of W. Kierdorf, “Funus” und “consecratio”. Zu Terminologie und Ablauf der römischen Kaiserapotheose, Chiron 16 (1986) 43–69, esp. 46–9, and Clauss, Kaiser und Gott, 357–60. On ius divinum, cf. A. A. Schiller, Roman Law. Mechanisms of Development, The Hague 1978, 549 (refs. only) and the discussion and refs. in Cook, Roman Attitudes, 236–8. 6 Wissowa, consecratio, 896.
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lata aut senatus consulto facto. 6. Religiosum uero nostra uoluntate facimus mortuum inferentes in locum nostrum, si modo eius mortui funus ad nos pertineat.7
Jörg Rüpke analyzes Gaius so: “Ius divinum, divine law, at Rome is, as we have seen, the term for the gods’ rights in their own property (Gaius, Inst. 2.1–9).”8 Festus provides an example of the principle of consecratio: Aelius Gallus says that those things are sacred which are consecrated according to the custom and law of the city, whether a building or altar or statue or site or money or anything else which is dedicated and consecrated to the gods; whatever private individuals dedicate to a god out of religious scruple, that the Roman pontifices do not consider sacred. But any private rite that must be performed on a particular day or at a particular site in accordance with pontifical law is nevertheless called sacred like an offering; the site, where those private rites must be performed, scarcely seems to be sacred. Gallus Aelius ait sacrum esse, quocumque modo atque instituto civitatis consecratum sit, sive aedis, sive ara, sive signum, sive locus, sive pecunia, sive quid aliud, quod dis dedicatum atque consecratum sit: quod autem privati[s] suae religionis causa aliquid earum rerum deo dedicent, id pontifices Romanos non existimare sacrum. At si qua sacra privata succepta sunt, quae ex instituto pontificum stato die aut certo loco facienda sint, ea sacra appellari, tamquam sacrificium; ille locus, ubi ea sacra privata facienda sunt, vix videtur sacer esse.9
Wilhelm Kierdorf notes that the consecratio, which had been authorized by the senate, had to be carried out by a magistrate with imperium.10 A pontifex maximus, with regard to the dedication of a temple, insisted that “by custom of the elders none but a consul or commanding general might dedicate a temple” (cum more maiorum negaret nisi consulem aut imperatorem posse templum dedicare).11 The senate would order the consecratio, and the magistrate
7 Gaius Inst. 2.3–5, trans. of Gai institutiones … trans. and comm. E. Poste, rev. E. A. Whittuck, Oxford 41904, 122. 8 J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, Cambridge, UK 2007, 8, 130. 9 Fest. 424 Lindsay, trans. of C. Ando, The Matter of Gods. Religion and the Roman Empire, Berkeley 2008, 107. Cp. Gaius Inst. 2.5 (Sed sacrum quidem hoc solum existimatur, quod ex auctoritate populi Romani consecratum est, ueluti lege de ea re lata aut senatus consulto facto [“That alone is thought to be sacred, which is consecrated on the authority of the Roman people, either by law or by decree of the Senate” trans. of Ando, ibid., 117]) and Marcianus 3 Inst. apud Dig. 1.8.6.3 (Sacrae autem res sunt hae, quae publice consecratae sunt, non private [“Things sacred are then those which have been consecrated by an act of the whole people, not by anyone in his private capacity” trans. of A. Watson, ed., The Digest of Justinian, 4 vols., Philadelphia 1985, 1.25]). 10 Kierdorf, “Funus,” 46. Schiller, Roman Law, 179 refers to Ulpian 2 De officio quaest. apud Dig. 2.1.3 who remarks that simple imperium comprises the “power of the sword for the purpose of punishing evildoers” (Merum est imperium habere gladii potestatem). Practically it became identified “by the command of military force” “as well as leadership of the state in time of peace” (ibid., 179). 11 Liv. 9.46.6, trans. of Foster, Livy, 4.351.
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or emperor would carry out the cultic act.12 When Iulia Drusilla (Caligula’s sister) was deified, for example, the senate was responsible for the decision (… (!, Ú μí !!E).13 Tertullian is precise in his description of the relationship between the decision and the cultic act (the consecratio itself): “There was an ancient decree, that no god should be consecrated by an imperator without the approval of the Senate” (… uetus erat decretum, ne qui deus ab imperatore consecraretur, nisi a senatu probatus).14 The senatorial decision, in other words, preceded the ritual of consecration. Velleius Paterculus refers to Tiberius’s deification of his father: “Caesar deified his father, not by exercise of his imperial authority but by his attitude of reverence; he did not call him a god, but made him one” (sacrauit parentem suum Caesar non imperio sed religione, non appellauit eum sed fecit deum).15 Nero gave Claudius a sumptuous funeral: “Then beginning with a display of filial piety, he gave Claudius a magnificent funeral, spoke his eulogy and deified [consecrated] him” (Orsus hinc a pietatis ostentatione Claudium apparatissimo funere elatum laudauit consecrauit).16 After Titus’s death Domitian judged him to be worthy of no other honor but consecratio (defunctumque nullo praeterquam consecrationis honore dignatus).17 Caligula’s sister, Iulia Drusilla, died on 10 June, 38.18 Probably on the 23 Sept. 38,19 Caligula consecrated Drusilla. The reconstructed acts of the Arval brethren record, for that day, a sacrifice for the consecration of Drusilla: [the same day, because of the consecration of Drusilla] in the new temple of the divine Augustus, the college of the brothers [Arval – – –] to succeed [] of/to Drusilla [ _ _ ] of/to the divine Drusilla [ _ _ _ to the deified Augustus one victim] [eodem die ob consecrationem Drusilla]ẹ in templo diui Augusti nouo / [ _ _ _ _ _ _ c]ollegium fratrum / [arvalium _ _ _ _ _ _ ]i subsequi / [ _ _ _ _ _ _ ]rusillae / [ _ _ _ _ _ _ diu]ae Drusillae / [ _ _ _ _ _divo Augusto una]m]20
12
Kierdorf, “Funus,” 46–7, Clauss, Kaiser und Gott, 357–8. Cassius Dio 59.11.2. 14 Tert. Apol. 5.1, trans. of Glover, Tertullian, 21. Cp. Kierdorf, “Funus,” 47. 15 Vell. 2.126.1, trans. of Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Res gestae divi Augusti, LCL, ed. and trans. F. W. Shipley, Cambridge, MA 1924, 317. 16 Suet. Nero 9, trans. of Suetonius, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. J. C. Rolfe, Cambridge, MA 1913 (rev. 1997–8), 2.95. 17 Suet. Dom. 2.3. 18 D. Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, Darmstadt 41996, 87 (noting the date of her consecratio with a question mark). Kienast suggests her consecration was annulled after 24 Jan. 41 (death of Caligula). 19 This was the birthday of Augustus. 20 CIL 6, 6028 = CFA 12, P. Gros, Rites funéraires et rites d’immortalité dans la liturgie de l’apothéose impériale, AEPHE.HP (1965–66) 477–90, esp. 485, trans. based on that of J. Scheid, Recherches archéologiques à la Magliana. Commentarii fratrum arvalium …, Roma Antica 4, Rome 1998, 34. J. Gascou, Claude et Drusilla d’après une inscription d’Avignon 13
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John Scheid defends the emendation, because the text apparently refers to a “decision relative to the consecration of Drusilla.”21 A senator witnessed her flight to heaven.22 Pierre Gros hypothesizes that they chose to offer the sacrifice on the same day that the senate decreed the consecratio. As it was Augustus’s birthday, perhaps that is correct.23 Reconstructing the precise order of events in a consecratio is probably not possible given the state of the evidence.24 1.2 Funerals Questions such as whether there was always a funus imaginarium (honorary funeral with a wax image of the imperator that was burned) and whether the senate’s decision for deification preceded or followed the funerals are not essential here, although they are quite interesting from an anthropological perspective. Perhaps there was often a wax image of the emperor.25 There was ancient precedent for such images at funerals, according to Polybius. He describes ancient funeral customs that were practiced in the Republic and clearly lasted into the empire.26 6.53 Whenever any illustrious man dies, he is carried at his funeral into the forum to the so-called rostra, sometimes conspicuous in an upright posture and more rarely reclined. 2 Here with all the people standing round, a grown-up son, if he has left one who happens (CIL, XII, 1026 = ILS 195), ZPE 121 (1998) 291–96, esp. 292 is reserved about the date of consecration: “Sa consécration date probablement du 23 septembre de la même année (38)”. 21 Scheid, Commentarii, 35. 22 Cf. § 2.3 below. 23 For a survey of priests and priestesses of Livia Drusilla’s cult, cf. R. M. Muich, The Worship of Roman Divae. The Julio-Claudians to the Antonines, MA thesis, U. of Florida, 2004, 33–4. IFF 49 (Brescia) Prima sacer[d(os) divae Dr]usillae apparently refers to “first priestess of the deified Drusilla,” and should be dated in January of 41 C.E., since Gaius is co(n)s(ulis) desig(nati) V. I thank Professor Eck (communication of 11 Feb. 2016) for comments on the dating. M. Buonocuore and E. Mattiocco, Riscoperte e inediti epigrafici dai territori dei Peligni e dei Vestini, Miscellanea greca e romana 17 (1992) 159–96, esp. 178 (Pinna, Regio IV) discuss an unedited inscription that mentions a sacerdoti divạ[e] / Drusillae (priestess of the deified Drusilla). 24 Cp. the different approaches of E. Bickerman, Die römische Kaiserapotheose, in: Römischer Kaiserkult, ed. A. Wlosok, WdF 372, Darmstadt 1978, 82–121, esp. 97–102 (rep. of ARW 27 [1929] 1–31), F. Vittinghoff, Der Staatsfeind in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Untersuchungen zur damnatio memoriae, Berlin 1936, 77–90, 106–12, Gros, Rites, 477–90, H. Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen” römischer Kaiser, Hist. 29 (1980) 71–85, and Kierdorf, “Funus,” 56–69. 25 Wax images of ancestors were presumably an ancient and enduring part of Roman funerals. Cf. H. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture, Oxford 1996, 16–59 (on imagines, the wax masks of ancestors), 91–127 (“Ancestors at the Funeral: The Pompa Funebris”), Polybius 6.53–4, Plin. Nat. 35.6 (cera vultus wax faces), and Flower, ibid., T54, T61. 26 Chantraine, “Doppelbestatungen,” 80.
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to be present, or if not some other relative mounts the rostra and discourses on the virtues and successful achievements of the dead. … 4 Next after the interment and the performance of the usual ceremonies, they place the image of the departed in the most conspicuous position in the house, enclosed in a wooden shrine. 6.53.1 À Ï ?5W í Ã) ( & , 8 F ( a Ï Ù ˆ 8 I ∞ Ï Ó Ó /S 7, &Ó 8. 2. 8 5 &Ó Ù &7 ?, IÏ Ú ˆ I , i Ó "Ù c Ú W :, ”, ∞ &Ó 7, ; N Ù 8 Õ? , 8 Ú Ï Ï Ú Ï 8 2 F ?5 . Ö 4. Ï &Ó !? Ú 7 Ï !8 ∞ ?5 ∞ Ù (8 F ∞, 5 ^& !8 .27
Polybius, however, does not mention the practice of burning the wax image of the deceased. An early example of a funus imaginarium may be the case of M. Claudius Marcellus who died in 208 in battle against Hannibal.28 Plutarch affirms that he was buried by Hannibal.29 Hannibal cremated him and returned the ashes to his son, according to Plutarch, but during the return there was a fight with Numidians and the ashes were scattered. He appeals to Cornelius Nepos and Valerius Maximus for that account, but notes that “Livy and Augustus Caesar state that the urn was brought to his son and buried with splendid rites” (I &Ó Ú ) ¡ IÙ !F Õ& Ù Ù "Ù ∞ 7 Ú (F ).30 None of the sources, however, mention wax images. At Julius Caesar’s funeral, there was a wax image of him that portrayed his twenty-three wounds.31 At Augustus’s funeral according to Cassius Dio there was a wax image of the imperator.32
27 Polybius 6.53.1–2, 4, trans. of Polybius, Histories, 6 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. W. R. Paton, Cambridge, MA 1922–27, 3.389. On funerals in the republic, cf. J. Bodel, Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals, in: The Art of Ancient Spectacle, ed. B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon, Studies in the History of Art 34, New Haven 1999, 259–81. 28 Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 81. For reference to the funeral oration, cf. H. Malcovati, Oratorum romanorum fragmenta. I – Textus, Roma 31953, § 5 (p. 9) = Liv. 27.27.12– 3 and the comment in W. Kierdorf, Laudatio Funebris. Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede, BKP 106, Meisenheim am Glan 1980, 108. 29 Plutarch Comp. Pel. Marc. 3.6 and Marc. 30.1–3. 30 Plutarch Marc. 30.1–6, quotation from 30.6, trans. of Babbitt, Plutarch, Lives, 5.521. 31 Appian Bellum 2.147/612 (& Ã 8 Ö ( Ú ) Ú N ‡(!). Cf. Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 81 and Bodel, Death, 272. 32 See § 2.2 below.
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1.3 The Missing Funeral of Germanicus Tacitus wrote that there should have been a funus imaginarium for Germanicus who had died in Antioch on 10 Oct. 19.33 In the historian’s view, Tiberius failed to honor Germanicus at every point. There were those who missed the pageantry of a state-funeral and compared the elaborate tributes rendered by Augustus to Germanicus’ father, Drusus … But to Germanicus had fallen not even the honours due to every and any noble! Granted that the length of the journey was a reason for cremating his body, no matter how, on foreign soil, it would only have been justice that he should have been accorded all the more distinctions later, because chance had denied them at the outset … Where were those usages of the ancients – the image placed at the head of the couch, the set poems to the memory of departed virtue, the panegyrics, the tears, the imitations (if no more) of sorrow? 5.1.1 Fuere qui publici funeris pompam requirerent compararentque quae in Drusum, patrem Germanici, honora et magnifica Augustus fecisset … at Germanico ne solitos quidem et cuicumque nobili debitos honores contigisse. 2 sane corpus ob longinquitatem itinerum externis terris quoquo modo crematum: sed tanto plura decora mox tribui par fuisse, quanto prima fors negavisset … ubi illa veterum instituta, propositam toro effigiem, meditata ad memoriam virtutis carmina et laudationes et lacrimas vel doloris imitamenta?34
Presumably Tacitus means that there was no wax image of Germanicus that would have been an integral part of the imaginary funeral and which would have been burned. The proposita effigies (image placed) is a vetus institutum (ancient usage).35 1.4 Poppaea Sabina’s Funeral After Nero killed his pregnant wife Poppaea Sabina with a kick, Tacitus describes her unusual funeral: The body was not cremated in the Roman style, but, in conformity with the practice of foreign courts, was embalmed by stuffing with spices, then laid to rest in the mausoleum of the Julian race. Still, a public funeral was held; and the emperor at the Rostra eulogized her beauty, the fact that she had been the mother of an infant daughter now divine, and other favours of fortune which did duty for virtues. corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos, sed regum externorum consuetudine differtum odoribus conditur tumuloque Iuliorum infertur. ductae tamen publicae exsequiae, laudavitque ipse apud rostra formam eius et quod divinae infantis parens fuisset aliaque fortunae munera pro virtutibus.36
33
Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, 80. Tac. Ann. 3.5.1–2, trans. of Tacitus, 5 vols., LCL, trans. M. Hutton, J. Jackson, et al., Cambridge, MA 1914–37 (rev.1970), 3.527–9. 35 Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 81. 36 Tac. Ann. 16.6.2, trans. of Jackson, Tacitus, 5.345. 34
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Chantraine and Kierdorf argue that the procedure for Poppaea included a funus imaginarium.37 That is because first the body was buried, after which the publicae exequiae (public funeral) took place. Hermann Schiller refers to Pliny’s remark that an extraordinary amount of incense was burned for her funeral, which he believes implies that the funeral mentioned by Tacitus included a wax image of Poppaea.38 Good authorities declare that Arabia does not produce so large a quantity of perfume in a year’s output as was burned by the Emperor Nero in a day at the obsequies of his consort Poppaea. periti rerum adseverant non ferre tantum annuo fetu, quantum Nero princeps novissimo Poppaeae suae die concremaverit.39
After her funeral Poppaea was divinized.40 1.5 Funerals for Slaves and Permitted Second Funerals The association (collegium) of Diana and Antinous, which provided funeral services for its members, included a provision for slaves whose masters did not provide them with a funeral: It was also voted that if a slave member of this society dies, and his master or mistress unreasonably refuses to relinquish his body for burial, and he has not left written instructions, a token [or “imaginary”] funeral will be held. item placuit q[ui]squis ex hoc collegio servus defunctus fuerit et corpus eius a domino dominav[e] / iniquitat{a}e sepulturae datum non fuerit neque tabellas fecerit ei funus imag[ina]/rium fiet41
37
Kierdorf, “Funus,” 51, Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 84. H. Schiller, Geschichte des römischen Kaiserzeit unter der Regierung des Nero, Berlin 1872, 201 (“die zur Consecration nothwendige Verbrennung [a ref. to L. Preller and H. Jordan, Römische Mythologie, 2 vols., Berlin 31883, 444/787 who mention Tac. Ann 3.5] zwar stattfand, aber nicht mit dem wirklichen Leichnam, sondern nur mit einem Wachsbild der Verstorbenen”), followed by Kierdorf, “Funus,” 51 and Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 84. 39 Plin. Nat. 12.83, trans. of Rackham, Pliny, 4.61. 40 The Arvals, for example, sacrificed a cow to the deified Poppaea Augusta in April/May 66 C.E. (CFA 30 col. II cef = CIL 6, 32355) divae Poppaeae Augustae v[acc(am)]. For a list of coins, cf. C. Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome, Cambridge 2007, 133 (in RIC I2, p. 153 § 44, 56 she appears with Nero who is radiate and togate and holding a patera, as does Poppaea [64–65 C.E., Rome]). An inscription (CIL 6, 40419 = 6, 3752 [65–100 C.E.]) from Rome is restored as [Divae] Poppae[ae] / [A]ugustae. Another one (the base only survives) from Pinna Vestina (Spigolature 3, 5 = AE 2009, 284) dedicates a statue to Diva Poppaea (Di]vae Poppaeae [Augustae] …). CIL 11, 1331 (66 C.E., from Lunia Mare) begins with a dedication to Divae Poppaeae Augustae. 41 CIL 14, 2112 (Lanuvium 9 June 136), trans. of M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols., Cambridge 1998, 2.293. 38
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For this funeral a wax image would have been necessary.42 Presumably the wax image of the deceased slave was burned. The anthropological significance of the burned wax image of the slave is unclear, although John Bodel’s remark on imperial funerals may be relevant: “a corporeal presence at the social ritual was essential.”43 For individuals who died in war or in foreign territory an imaginary funeral was permitted, according to the Twelve Tables: When a man is dead one must not gather his bones in order to make a second funeral. An exception [in the case of] death in war or in a foreign land … Homini, inquit, mortuo ne ossa legito, quo post funus faciat. Excipit bellicam peregrinamque mortem.44
This probably means that after cremation, a second funeral should not be held, except in the cases mentioned.45 A text of Servius (Auctus) specifies that the bones were generally gathered on the third day after an individual’s death, when the body had been cremated: mos enim erat tertia die ossa crematorum legi.46 1.6 Pertinax’s Funeral The funeral of Pertinax included an eagle that helped mark the emperor’s deification. After the Senate sentenced Julian to death and declared Severus emperor, they assigned “heroic honors” to Pertinax (Ú ∏ !? (? ! Ú Ù F Ã ? ‹? , 2 Ï Ï &: ).47 Pertinax was murdered on 28 March 193 in Rome, and his remains were buried. Months later (after 9 June 193 when Severus came to Rome), Pertinax’s funus imaginarium (honorary/fictitious funeral) took place in Rome.48 His body was 42 Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 81. J. Marquardt and A. Mau, Das Privatleben der Römer, vol. 1, Leipzig 21886, notes, with regard to the text (and Plin. Ep. 8.16.1), the de facto right of the slave to make a will. State slaves (servi publici) according to Ps. Ulpian Liber singularis regularum frag. 20.16 could make wills for one half of their possessions (Servus publicus populi Romani partis dimidiae testamenti faciendi habet ius). 43 Bodel, Death, 23. 44 Lex XII Tabularum X.5 = Cic. Leg. 2.60 (who has quoi pos), trans. of N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization. Selected Readings. Volume I. The Republic and the Augustan Age, New York 31990, 114. 45 Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 81 in agreement with H. Blümner, Römischen Privataltertümer, München 1911, 502 n. 3. 46 Serv. A. 11.210. On the ritual of ossilegium, see the references in Lygdamus Corpus Tibullianum III.1–6 (Lygdami elegiarum liber, ed. and comm. F. N. Antolín, Leiden 1996, 170). 47 Cassius Dio 73.17.4. 48 Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, 152, Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 83.
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represented by a wax image ( N& 7 ).49 A young man swatted flies away from the image, as if “he were really sleeping” (› &F! ! &).50 Cassius Dio, who was a witness, wrote that “finally, when the bier was about to be moved, we all lamented and wept together” (Ú 8 , F !7 !, ? b ‹ ( ? ! Ú ? & ).51 Bickerman argues that that image was treated as a real human body.52 There [on the Campus Martius] a pyre had been built in the form of a tower having three stories and adorned with ivory and gold as well as a number of statues, while on its very summit was placed a gilded chariot that Pertinax had been wont to drive. Inside this pyre the funeral offerings were cast and the bier was placed in it, and then Severus and the relatives of Pertinax kissed the effigy. The emperor then ascended a tribunal, while we, the senate, except the magistrates, took our places on wooden stands in order to view the ceremonies both safely and conveniently. The magistrates and the equestrian order, arrayed in a manner befitting their station, and likewise the cavalry and the infantry, passed in and out around the pyre performing intricate evolutions, both those of peace and those of war. Then at last the consuls applied fire to the structure, and when this had been done, an eagle flew aloft from it. Thus was Pertinax made immortal &Ó Ã2 Ï & I , 8( Ú 2 Ï & ? 8, Ú í ÃF F ; b , ≈ ¡ 5 4 . “ Ï ?( I 7! Ú 8!, Ú Ï Ù N& ≈ F Ú "
) ( . Ú ¡ Ó Ú IF 8I, ) &Ó I Ú ∞ , ≈ ( b Ú & Ï ! 7 . " &Ó ; Ú "Ï Ù 8 ( ( 8, μ " ) " Ú " Ú Ú Ï ? b Ú Ï & 5 & & & 5F !H ∂!í — " — Ã 8I . 8 &Ó 5 ÃF 8. Ú ¡ Ó 5 — †!!.53
The Historia Augusta also describes it: His remains, including his head, which was recovered, were laid in the tomb of his wife’s grandfather. And Julianus, his successor, buried his body with all honour, after he had found it in the Palace. At no time, however, did he make any public mention of Pertinax either before the people or, in the presence of the senate, but when he, too, was deserted by the soldiers Pertinax was raised to the rank of the gods by the senate and the people. In the reign of Severus, moreover, after Pertinax had received the full official approval of the senate, an honorary funeral, of the kind that would be accorded to a censor [i.e., “public”], was held for him, and Severus himself honoured him with a funeral eulogy. reliquiae eius recuperato capite in sepulchro avi uxoris locatae sunt. et Iulianus, successor illius, corpus eius quanto potuit honore funeratus est, cum id in Palatio repperisset. 49
Cassius Dio 74.4.3. Cassius Dio 74.4.3. 51 Cassius Dio 74.5.2, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 9.171. 52 Bickerman, Kaiserapotheose, 28. 53 Cassius Dio 75.5.3–5, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio 9.171. 50
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qui numquam eius ullam mentionem vel apud populum vel apud senatum publice fecit, sed cum ipse quoque a militibus desertus iam esset, per senatum et populum Pertinax in deos relatus est. sub Severo autem imperatore cum senatus ingens testimonium habuisset Pertinax, funus imaginarium ei et censorium ductum est, et ab ipso Severo funebri laudatione ornatus est.54
The account from the Historia Augusta cannot be taken at face value, given its questionable source, but the consecration is probably reliable. 1.7 The Funeral of Septimius Severus Herodian describes the funeral of Septimius Severus. He remarks that an eagle carried the emperor’s soul to heaven, and Simon Price thinks this became part of official Roman practice in the second century.55 The explanation for the “double funeral” of Septimius Severus lies, in part, in the fact that he died on 4 Feb. 211 in Eburacum (Britain), far from Rome.56 It is the Roman custom to elevate to deity those emperors who at their death leave sons or designated successors; they call this honor apotheosis … After a costly funeral, the body of the emperor is interred in the customary fashion. But then a wax image is fashioned in the exact likeness of the corpse and placed on a large, high couch of ivory … They bring the couch to this structure [a tiered pyre with five levels] and carry it up to the second story … From the topmost and smallest story, as if from a battlement, an eagle flies forth, soaring with the flames into the sky; the Romans believe that this eagle carries the soul of the emperor from the earth up to heaven. Thereafter the emperor is worshiped with the rest of the gods. >! ? ç ! ? I 8 ˆ Ú Ú [¢] && 7H 7 !8 Ö Ù Ó Ï 7 ) & c !? ! : 9H &Ó ? ∞ ? ¡ 2 Ú ( , — ! , !8 Ö & Ù N Ù & !8 Ö &Ó Ú I ? ?, · ? 5 , Ù ( ˆ 2 Ú Ù ∞!8 , √ (8 Ù F Ã Ù I 8 ÕÙ ç H Ú 5 Ï ! ! .57
Herodian indicates a double cremation in the case of Septimius Severus: the first was of the body of the emperor, and the second was of his wax effigy.58 54
SHA Pertinax (Iulius Capitolinus) 14.8–15.1, trans. of Magie, Scriptores, 1.345–7. S. Price, From Noble Funeral to Divine Cult: The Consecration of Roman Emperors, in: Rituals of Royalty. Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine, and S. Price, Cambridge 1987, 56–105, esp. 94–5. On p. 56 he includes the text of Herodian below. 56 Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, 157 and Chantraine, “Doppelbestattungen,” 78. 57 Herodian 4.2.1–2, 8, 11, trans. modified of E. C. Echols, Herodian of Antioch's History of the Roman Empire, Berkeley 1961, 110–12. 58 Bickerman, Kaiserapotheose, 88–9. 55
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Such a tiered funeral pyre is depicted on a sestertius commemorating the funeral of Pertinax (the legend is consecratio).59 A bronze coin in the British Museum depicts a “pyre in four storeys, ornamented with statues, garlands, etc.: on top, Marcus Aurelius in quadriga facing” on the reverse. The legend is: consecratio S C (senatus consultum).60 1.8 The Significance of the Wax Images Bickerman believed that the wax images of the imperators were a form of Bildzauber (image magic), since the emperor’s life was transferred through ritual actions into the image.61 The wax images were burned up entirely and took the place of the eye witnesses of the emperor’s apotheosis.62 He insisted that “what is important for our study of Roman apotheosis is the fact that contemporary opinion, both pagan and Christian, agreed that the deification of a mortal, be it Romulus, a Caesar, or Jesus presupposed that the body somehow was taken up into heaven and changed into a divine being.”63 When the Romans burned the wax effigy, the ritual “put immortality on him [the emperor].”64 Ittai Gradel responds that “this interpretation presupposes a concern with theological aspects which smacks far more of Christianity than of Roman paganism … Also there is no evidence to support Bickerman’s decisive point, that the ascension should preferably or necessarily be in the flesh nor anything to suggest embarrassment in connection with the gathering of the late emperor’s ashes.”65 He notes that Germanicus added several lines to Aratus’s Phaenomena that portrayed Capricorn taking Augustus to heaven:
59 G. Boissier, Apotheosis DAGR 1 (1877) 323–7, esp. 325 fig. 388 and RIC1 4, § 660c p. 181 (Septimius Severus) = BMC Imp. 5, § 480 p. 120 (Wars of Succession): DIVVS PERT PIVS PATER. 60 RIC1 3, § 662 p. 441. RIC1 3 § 435 p. 247 depicts a similar scene (DIVVS ANTONINVS on the obverse and Consecratio on the reverse): a pyre with four storeys, on top of which is a quadriga. Manfred Clauss informs me (communication of 11 June 2015) that one should distinguish the information in the legend (i.e., consecratio SC), since all bronze coins were marked by SC (which simply implies that the senate is the institution responsible for the coins). 61 Bickerman, Kaiserapotheose, 89. He refers to other similar practices (of image magic). 62 Bickerman, Kaiserapotheose, 88–93 and idem, Consecratio, in: Le culte des souverains dans l’empire romain, EnAC 19, Vandoeuvres-Genève 1972, 3–25 (26–37 discussion), esp. 19, 23. In Consecratio, 14 Bickerman also insists on the necessity of bodily translation for “canonization” in “Roman state religion” and mentions Asclepius, Dionysus, Hercules, and Justin’s (1 Apol. 21) reference to “the cremated Caesar, who rises to heaven from the funeral pyre.” 63 Bickerman, Consecratio, 15. 64 Bickerman, Consecratio, 23. 65 I. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, Oxford 2004, 283–4.
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He was it, Augustus, who leaving behind your engendered body, carried your divinity to heaven and, amidst the awe-struck peoples and our trembling nation, returned it to the mother stars. Hic, Auguste, tuum genitali corpore numen Attonitas inter gentis patriamque pauentem In caelum tulit et maternis reddidit astris.66
In other words, the corpse of Augustus was not a difficulty for Germanicus’s belief in the apotheosis of his grandfather, for whom he was a flamen.67 Gradel’s explanation is less theological than Bickerman’s. Wax images, as in the case of Elizabeth I and other Renaissance funerals, were necessary due to the putrefaction of her corpse.68 There was likely more to the Roman ceremony than a mere concern with putrefaction, however, just as was the case with Renaissance funerals. Meals were served to the effigy of Francis I (d. 1547), for example, for eleven days after he died. The image apparently portrayed the French king’s “sovereignty.” After the death of Charles I (1574), “the effigy alone was displayed for the full four weeks of the lying-in-state ritual, thereby enacting the perpetuity of Majesty more emphatically than ever.”69 Ralph E. Giesey argues that the funeral effigy “was the personification of the kingly Dignity.”70 The effigy of Francis I represented his “immortal dignity.”71 In sixteenth century France, the parallel with the funeral effigies used in Roman consecratio was “a strong consideration.”72 Perhaps some anthropological theorists’ adoption of the distinction between the individual body of the king and his social body has some relevance. The regicide practiced by the Shilluk in Africa and the early Renaissance funerals in England and France illustrate the principle that the king’s “‘body politic’ was inviolable.” Among the Shilluk the disappearance 66
Germ. Arat. 558–60, trans. of Gradel, Emperor Worship, 284–5. Gradel, Emperor Worship, 284–5. 68 Gradel, Emperor Worship, 285. 69 J. Woodward, The Theatre of Death. The Ritual Management of Royal Funerals in Renaissance England 1570–1625, Woodbridge, Suffolk 1997, 64. 70 R. E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France, Genève 1960, 189 (the effigy as an interregnal puppet” that still exercised “suzerainty”), 191. 71 Giesey, Royal Funeral, 19. F. A. Yates, in his review of Giesey, Royal Funeral, EHR 76 (1961) 705–7, esp. 706 apparently agrees that “the royal Dignity was in a manner magically stored in the effigy.” Cp. Giesey, Royal Funeral, 152 (“the effigy evolved from a simple representation of the deceased lying on top of the coffin into a magical other-than-mortal body, kept separate from the corpse”). 72 Giesey, Royal Funeral, 79–80 (cp. 145, his discussion of Roman consecratio in the following pages [148–53] is due to Bickerman’s Kaiserapotheose) with ref. to an earlier study of J. Schosser, Geschichte der Porträtbildnerei in Wachs, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 29 (1910), 171–258 esp. 185. See also R. Huntingdon and P. Metcalf, Celebrations of Death, Cambridge 21991, 162–88 for a discussion of these customs among the Shilluk and Dinka, and in France and England. 67
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of the body reinforced “the enduring power of the body politic.”73 The tribe practiced regicide when the king became old or sick.74 E. E. Evans-Pritchard believed that “during the interregnum the effigy is believed the contain the spirit of Nyikang, to be Nyikang in fact.”75 The burning of the wax image of the emperors and the release of the eagles was in any case a powerful evocation of the journey (bodily or not) of the emperors to the gods. Bodel argues that the image indicates that “a corporeal presence at the social ritual was essential.”76 1.9 Eagles and Witnesses of Apotheoses An eagle was frequently used in depictions of the journey to heaven of kings and wealthy people, according to Artemidorus, who interprets flying on eagles in this manner: To ride an eagle portends death for kings, rich men, and noblemen. For it is an ancient custom to represent these men, when they are dead, in paintings and statues as being seated upon eagles and to honor them through these works of art. ¿ )! &Ó 2 I Ó Ú & ? Ú a ƒ ! . >! ? Ù ˆ !
?( Ú ? í ¿8 Ú &Ï & ? a.77
According to Justin, there were regularly individuals who witnessed the emperor’s ascent:
73 J. Hockey, Body, Two Bodies Theory, in: Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, ed. G. Howard and O. Leaman, New York 2001, 57–8 with ref. to Huntington and Metcalf, Celebrations of Death. J.-P. Mohen, Rites de l’au-delà, Paris 1995, 266 also compares the Renaissance funerals and the practices of the Shilluk to support the thesis that the “dignity (dignitas) that emanates from the French and English kings, as from the Sudanese sovereigns of the Shilluk and Dinka, represents the characteristics of personal morals and the idea of durable power.” 74 Cf. S. Simonse, Kings of Disaster. Dualism, Centralism, and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan, Studies in Human Society 5, Leiden 1992, 424. On ibid., 423 he notes that the legendary Shilluk “requested to be suffocated” when he became aware that his people wanted to put him to death. 75 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk of the Nilotic Sudan. The Frazer Lecture, 1948, Cambridge, 26–7 (rep. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1 [2011] 407–22). Evans-Pritchard notes that Nyikang is a legendary leader of the Shilluk (ibid., 9) and “Nyikang is thus a mythological personification of the timeless kingship which itself symbolized the national structure, a changeless moral order.” 76 Bodel, Death, 23. 77 Artemidorus Onir. 2.20, trans. of White, Artemidorus, 110. Cf. the discussion by F. Cumont, L’aigle funéraire d’Hiérapolis et l’apothéose des empereurs, in idem, Études syriennes, Paris 1971, 35–118, esp. 77 (an expansion of an article originally published in RHR 62 [1910] 119–64).
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And what can we say of Ariadne and those like her, who are said to be placed among the stars, and what about the emperors who die among you, whom you always think worthy to be deified and for whom you (always) lead forth a witness to swear that he saw the burning Caesar rise from the funeral pyre and ascend to heaven? Ï 8 ] ?& Ú ˆ ¡ ÃE ! 8; Ú Ï ˆ !7 í Õ) Ã ? , Ú ! ! 5 Ú ¿ Ï ? / 8 F a ∞ Ù Ã Ù Ù 8 ;78
The “always” is a rhetorical exaggeration according to Friedrich Vittinghoff, although in a number of cases (discussed below) there were individuals who claimed to have seen such ascensions.79 Justin is clearly skeptical of such witnesses. Tertullian also comments on the custom, relegating the witnesses to the depths of hell: Where shall I rejoice, where shall I exult, watching so many kings, who are reported to have been received in heaven, along with Jupiter himself and the witnesses themselves who groan together in the depths of hell [or “darkness”]. vbi gaudeam, ubi exultem, spectans tot ac tantos reges, qui in caelum recepti nuntiabantur, cum ipso Ioue et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebris congemescentes?80
Tatian ridicules the apotheosis of Antinous and the witnesses of imperial deification: And how was the dead Antinous, the beautiful youth, placed in the moon? Who brought him up there: unless – just as someone gained credence when, deriding the gods, for payment and under perjury, claimed that the emperors had ascended into heaven – in like manner speaking about gods was awarded with honours and gifts? &Ó ¡ ! S ] ? › ) E 7W !& ; ¡ II? Ã , ∞ 7 ãõ81 Ú (› ˆ I 8 ! &í ˆ ! ˆ82 ∞ Ù Ã Ù !8 (7 ) Ï83 Ù ≈ ! 7 F Ú & a †5 ;84
78
Justin Apol. 1.21.3, trans. modified of Falls, Justin Martyr, 56–7. Cp. chapt. 1 § 1.3 Vittinghoff, Staatsfeind, 109–11. 80 Tert. Spect. 30. For his views on Proculus and Romulus, cf. Apol. 21.23 and Marc. 4.7.3 in chapt. 3 § 1.2. 81 The MSS read ∞ 7, and I adopt the emendation of Marcovich (Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos, PTS 43, ed. M. Marcovich, Berlin 1995, 24). The Maurists in their 1742 ed. originally made the conjecture (ãõ). The trans. in ANF 2.69 is based on this emendation. Jerker Blomqvist remarks, in a personal communication (25 Jan. 2018), “that we need a here, and the that the MSS have after cannot, because of its position, belong with ! 7.” Trelenberg ignores this problem in his edition (Tatianos, Oratio ad Graecos. Rede an die Griechen, BHTh 165, ed. and trans. J. Trelenberg, Tübingen 2012, 112), and does not note the important emendation of the Maurists. 82 The MSS read ˆ ! ˜, and ! , which Marcovich accepts, is an unnecessary emendation by Wilamowitz. Trelenberg rejects the emendation in his ed. (Tatianos, Ora79
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The apologists at least were aware of Roman customs.
2 Apotheoses of Emperors There are intriguing analogies between the accounts of the apotheoses of the imperators and the ascension of Jesus in the New Testament, although there are several key differences. In the NT, for example, it is Jesus’s risen body that ascends to heaven, while in the Roman accounts of imperial apotheoses it is the soul of the emperors that ascends to the gods. The emperors’ souls ascend to heaven immediately after their funerals, but Jesus did not ascend to heaven according to Luke until after a number of resurrection appearances. 2.1 Julius Caesar Some Romans believed that a comet seen in 44 B.C.E. was Caesar’s “deified soul.”85 Suetonius describes the apotheosis: He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was numbered among the gods, not only by a formal decree, but also in the conviction of the common people. For at the first of the games which his heir Augustus gave in honour of his apotheosis, a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour and was believed to be the soul of Caesar, who had been taken to heaven; and this is why a star is set upon the crown of his head in his statue. Periit sexto et quinquagensimo aetatis anno atque in deorum numerum relatus est, non ore modo decernentium, sed et persuasione uolgi. siquidem ludis, quos primo consecrato[s] ei heres Augustus edebat, stella crinita per septem continuos dies fulsit exoriens circa undecimam horam, creditumque est animam esse Caesaris in caelum recepti; et hac de causa simulacro eius in uertice additur stella.86
The deification, two years after his death in 44,87 was by a decree of the senate. It is mentioned in a dedication in Aesernia:
tio, 112). Jerker Blomqvist notes: “The deification of humans means the pagan gods are derided; it is not only an insult against the Christian god, as the singular ! implies.” 83 MS V has Ì (a reading Marcovich accepts), and two (M P) have a, interpreted by the editors as (Ú ∂). J. Blomqvist notes that Ï Ù ≈ occurs in 12.4 and 24.1 of the Oratio. 84 Tatian Or. 10.3, trans. of J. Blomqvist, who notes the importance of this text: Hadrian claimed to have seen a star which was that of Antinoos (Cassius Dio 69.11.4: 8 8 Ï Ã ¡ a › Ú ] ƒ > ), a star which came into existence out of his soul (> F F ] ƒ Ù 8 F!). 85 C. E. Newlands, Playing with Time. Ovid and the Fasti, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 55, Ithaca 1995, 41. 86 Suet. Jul. 88.1, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius,1.147. 87 Cassius Dio 47.18.3 (1 Jan. 42).
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To the genius of the deified Julius, parent of the country, whom the senate and the Roman people assigned among the number of the gods. Genio deivi Iuli / parentis patriae / quem senatus / populusque / Romanus in / deorum numerum / rettulit.88
Stefan Weinstock notes that a genius is the protective deity of a living person, but believes genius in this inscription refers to the dead emperor.89 Manfred Clauss translates it as Schutzgott (tutelary divinity), however, and objects that the oldest inscription in which genius means the tutelary deity of a dead person is from 22 C.E.90 Consequently, he dates the inscription from Aesernia to the lifetime of Caesar and argues that it was based on a senatorial decree. A text of Cicero, apparently the only clearly datable contemporary evidence, indicates that the deification process may have begun before Caesar’s death. He reviles Antony: And you [Antony] so sedulous about Caesar’s memory, are you really devoted to the man now he is dead? What greater honour did he ever get than that he should have the sacred couch, the statue, the gable on his house, the special flamen [priest]? So you see, just as there is a flamen for Jupiter, for Mars, and for Quirinus, so there is now a flamen for the divus Julius – Mark Antony himself. Et tu in Caesaris memoria diligens, tu illum amas mortuum? quem is honorem maiorem consecutus erat quam ut haberet puluinar, simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem? est ergo flamen, ut Ioui, ut Marti, ut Quirino, sic diuo Iulio M. Antonius?91
Duncan Fishwick, among others, has argued that this is sufficient evidence that Caesar had been “officially deified in his lifetime.”92 The issue is highly controversial, and a decisive solution is elusive, given the paucity of reliable evidence. Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price write, in a reasonable evaluation of the material, that the “honours granted to Julius Caesar immediately before his assassination suggest that he had been accorded the status of a god – or something very like it.”93 88
CIL 9, 2628, Cf. Vittinghoff, Staatsfeind, 77 and OLD s.v. refero § 9. Weinstock, Divus Julius, 214, with ref. to CIL 6, 9005 Genio / Coeti Herodian(i) (to the genius of Coetus Herodianus). Koortbojian, Divinization, 29 notes the difficulty of dating the inscription. 90 Clauss, Kaiser und Gott, 50–1 (CIL 6, 9005). He appeals to texts such as Suet. Iul. 76 to illustrate his position. Cf. L. Chioffi, Genius e Iuno a Roma. Dediche onorarie e sepolcrali, Miscellenea greca e romana 15 (1990) 165–234, esp. 176–8 (on CIL 6, 6005). 91 Cic. Phil. 1.110, trans. of North et al., Religions, 2.222. 92 D. Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West. Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, 3 vols., RGRW 147, Leiden 1987–2004, 1.1, 64 (cp. the entire review in 56–72). 93 Beard, et al., Religions 1.140–1. Wissowa, Religion, 342 includes a number of texts he believes point towards Caesar’s deification in his lifetime. See, e.g., Cassius Dio 43.14.6, 43.45.2–4 (including a certain statue of him in the temple of Quirinus dedicated to the unconquerable god: ∞ Ù Ù 2 79), 44.6.2–4, Suet. Iul. 89
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Augustus in his autobiography describes the comet: On the very days of my Games [Mother Venus] a comet was visible for seven days in the northern part of the sky.94 It was rising about an hour before sunset, and was a bright star, visible from all lands. The common people believed that this star signified the soul of Caesar received among the spirits of the immortal gods, and on this account the emblem of a star was added to the bust of Caesar that we shortly afterwards dedicated in the forum. Ipsis ludorum meorum diebus sidus crinitum per septem dies in regione caeli sub septemtrionibus est conspectum. id oriebatur circa undecimam horam diei clarumque et omnibus e terris conspicuum fuit. eo sidere significari vulgus credidit Caesaris animam inter deorum inmortalium numina receptam, quo nomine id insigne simulacro capitis eius, quod mox in foro consecravimus, adiectum est.95
Pliny notes that Augustus was pleased with the appearance of the comet: This was his public utterance, but privately he rejoiced because he interpreted the comet as having been born for his own sake and as containing his own birth within it; and, to confess the truth, it did have a healthgiving influence over the world. haec ille in publicum; interiore gaudio sibi illum natum seque in eo nasci interpretatus est. Et, si verum fatemur, salutare id terris fuit.96
Servius (and Servius Auctus) appeals to a similar tradition in his interpretation of a verse in Vergil’s Eclogues. Behold the star of Dionean Caesar came forth: When Augustus Caesar was holding funeral games in honor of his father, a star appeared at midday. He asserted positively that it was the star of his own father Caesar: hence these verses were composed. “Dionean”
76, Appian Bell. 2.106 S ( ˆ Ã2 8! !? ! 2 (they voted many temples for him as to a god). Weinstock, Divus Iulius, 270, 318, 364–8, 385–91, 386, 401 argues that the divinization of Caesar had already begun his own during his lifetime. Koortbojian, Divinization, 257 believes that “Caesar was not deified in his lifetime.” Nevertheless, he concedes the point made by Beard, et al., above. See J. A. North, Praesens Divus, JRS 65 (1975) 171–7 (a review of Weinstock, which emphasizes the ambiguities of the problem; Cicero is the “only hard, contemporary evidence we have of the cult in Caesar’s lifetime”; North writes that Cicero “knew the legislation by which Caesar was deified”). Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 1.1, 67, 72 (the “majority view” is that “Caesar had decided to become a divine monarch in his lifetime with his own priest”). H. J. Klauck (Religious Context of Early Christianity. A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions, London 2000, 290) mentions an inscription from Ephesus (IEph 251 = PHI Ephesos 948; 58/49 B.C.E.) in which Caesar is called “the descendant of Ares and Aphrodite, the visible god and common savior of human life” (Ù Ù ê Ú ]( & [Û]/ ! Ù (F Ú Ù / ! Û IÛ F ). That does not imply a senatorial decree, however. 94 J. T. Ramsey and A. L. Licht, The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar’s Funeral Games, Atlanta 1997, 159 note that the septiontriones “are the seven bright stars in Ursa Major,” but that the reference may also be merely to the “northern part of the sky” – which they believe is correct. Cf. OLD s.v. 95 Plin. Nat. 2.94, trans. of Rackham, Pliny 1.237. See Colpe, et al., Jenseitsfahrt I, 427. 96 Plin. Nat. 2.94, trans. of Rackham, Pliny 1.237
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makes remote allusion to Dione, the mother of Venus. The poet plainly uses a Greek word astrum for star in place of stella. Baebius Macer97 says that a very large star rose at about the eighth hour, one that was surrounded with rays, like streamers on a garland. Some persons thought that it (the star) had to do with furthering the glory of the young Caesar (Octavian), but he himself wanted it to be the soul of his father and dedicated to him on the Capitoline a statue which had a golden star above its head. On the base was the inscription “to the demigod Caesar.” But the haruspex Vulcanius stated in a public meeting that it was a comet which indicated the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth age. He also stated that he would die on the spot, because he was announcing, against the will of the gods, matters that lay hidden. And he collapsed without finishing his speech, in the very assembly. Augustus too included this information in book two of his Memoirs. ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum: cum Augustus Caesar ludos funebres patri celebraret, die medio stella apparuit. ille eam esse confirmavit parentis [sui] unde sunt versus isti compositi. “Dionaei” autem longe repetitum est, a matre Veneris Diona. sane “astrum” graece dixit: nam stellam debuit dicere. [[Baebius Macer circa horam octavam stellam amplissimam, quasi lemniscis, radiis coronatam, ortam dicit. quam quidam ad inlustrandam gloriam Caesaris iuvenis pertinere existimabant, ipse animam patris sui esse voluit eique in Capitolio statuam, super caput auream stellam habentem, posuit: inscriptum in basi fuit “Caesari emitheo.” sed Vulcanius aruspex in contione dixit cometen esse, qui significaret exitum noni saeculi et ingressum decimi; sed quod invitis diis secreta rerum pronuntiaret, statim se esse moriturum: et nondum finita oratione, in ipsa contione concidit. hoc etiam Augustus in libro secundo de memoria vitae suae complexus est]].98
Ovid describes Caesar’s transformation: Caesar in his own city is a god. An outstanding figure in war and peace, he turned into a new star, a comet, as much by his descendant (i.e., Augustus), as by the wars that he brought to a conclusion with his triumphs, by his civil accomplishments and by his mortal glory that was quickly won. Caesar in urbe sua deus est; quem Marte togaque praecipuum non bella magis finita triumphis resque domi gestae properataque gloria rerum in sidus vertere novum stellamque comantem, quam sua progenies.99
The process is necessary so that Augustus can be born the son of a god, according to the poet: Ne foret hic igitur mortali semine cretus, / ille deus faciendus erat (therefore so that this one might not be born of mortal seed, he had be made into a god).100 Jupiter explains to Venus that he cannot break the fates’ decree that Caesar must die: ut deus accedat caelo templisque colatur, 97
Ramsey and Licht, The Comet, 163 think that he was a “contemporary observer.” Serv. Ecl. 9.47, trans. of Ramsey and Licht, Comet, 163–5. The text in double brackets is Servius Auctus. 99 Ov. Met. 15.745–9, trans. of Ramsey and Licht, Comet, 175. Cp. V. Max. 3.2.19 (nunc etiam siderum clarum decus, diuum Iulium “the deified Caesar … even now foremost of the stars”), 6.9.15 (C. … Caesar ... clarissimum mundi sidus “Gaius Caesar … the brightest star of the universe”), trans. of Ramsey and Licht, Comet, 175. 100 Ov. Met. 15.760–1. 98
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tu facies natusque suus (you and his child will ensure that as a god may he come to heaven and be worshipped in the temples).101 Jupiter commands Caesar’s catasterism, Take his soul from his murdered body and make it into a heavenly light so that he, deified Julius, may ever from his high temple look over the Capitol and our forum. hanc animam interea caeso de corpore raptam fac iubar ut semper Capitolia nostra forumque divus ab excelsa prospectet Iulius aede.102
Venus in the poet’s vision carries out the apotheosis: Scarce had he spoken when fostering Venus took her place within the senate-house, unseen of all, caught up the passing soul of her Caesar from his body, and not suffering it to vanish into air, she bore it towards the stars of heaven. And as she bore it she felt it glow and burn, and released it from her bosom. Higher than the moon it mounted up and, leaving behind it a fiery train, gleamed as a star. Vix ea fatus erat, media cum sede senatus constitit alma Venus nulli cernenda suique Caesaris eripuit membris nec in aera solvi passa recentem animam caelestibus intulit astris, dumque tulit, lumen capere atque ignescere sensit emisitque sinu: luna volat altius illa flammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem stella micat ...103
In the Fasti for March 15, Ovid has Vesta take Caesar’s body into the heavens: I myself snatched the man away and left a naked image, what fell by iron was the semblance of Caesar. ipsa virum rapui simulacraque nuda reliqui: quae cecidit ferro, Caesaris umbra fuit.104
Carole E. Newlands notes a word play between the two meanings of rapere (“snatch or rape”).105 Apparently in this text, Caesar’s body is transported, not just his soul. Transported to the sky he saw the halls of Jupiter, and in the great Forum he owns a temple dedicated to him. ille quidem caelo positus Iovis atria vidit, et tenet in magno templa dicata foro;106
101
Ov. Met. 15.818–9. Ov. Met. 15.840–3. 103 Ov. Met. 15.844–51, trans. of Miller, Ovid, 2.425. 104 Ov. Fast. 3.701–2, trans. of line 701 is by Newlands, Playing with Time, 44. 105 Newlands, Playing with Time, 43. 106 Ov. Fast. 3.703–4, trans. of Frazer, Ovid, 173. 102
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Vergil has Apollo tell Aeneas’s son Iulus: A blessing, child, on thy young valour! So man scales the stars, O son of gods and sire of gods to be. macte nova virtute, puer: sic itur ad astra, dis genite et geniture deos.107
The Belvedere altar (12–2 B.C.E.) may depict Caesar’s apotheosis (or another member of the imperial family).108 A headless figure stands on a quadriga (led by fiery horses) which ascends toward a Caelus on the right side (see image 23).109 In the sky, on the left side, is a quadriga that may be Sol. A togate Augustus (?) stands on the left, and on the right is a woman clothed in a tunic and mantle (Venus?) who “raises her right arm in a gesture of acclamation.”110 On either side of her are “two smaller togate figures.” On the ledge that projects beneath the chariot, on either end, are a palm tree (left) and a laurel (right). “Between this quadriaga and Caelus, and like the trees in extremely low relief, is an eagle, wings outspread, facing right.”111 It is Caesar’s soul and not his body that ascends to heaven.112 2.2 Augustus After his death on 19 Aug. 14 C.E.,113 the senate decreed heavenly honors to the deified Augustus on 17 Sept. (honores caelestes divo Augusto / [a se]nato decreti sunt).114 Tacitus merely says that “his funeral ran the ordinary course; 107
Verg. A. 9.641–2, trans. of Fairclough, Vergil, 2.157. Cf. the image in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 1.187. J. DeRose Evans thinks it is Caesar (with “the majority of scholars”). Cf. eadem, The Art of Persuasion. Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus, Michigan 1992, 47–8 (with bibl. including E. A. Strong, Apotheosis and the After Life. Three Lectures on Certain Phases of Art and Religion in the Roman Empire, London 1915, 67 and J. Gagé, Un thème d l’art impérial romain. La victoire d’Auguste, MEFRA 49 [1932] 61–92, esp. 67–8). Cf. P. Zanker, Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, München 42003, 222–4 (fig. 177). B. A. Buxton, A New Reading of the Belvedere Altar, AJA 118 (2014) 91–111, esp. 100–4 argues that the figure on the chariot is Nero Claudius Drusus, who died in 9 B.C.E., and so the scene is not a true apotheosis. Instead “it depicts the fate of a hero, not a divus,” and Drusus’s destination is Elysium. Doubtless there will be other interpretations. The most probable interpretation, however, is that the scene is one of an apotheosis. The eagle and the quadriga mounting to heaven cannot be dismissed. 109 Cf. L. Vogel, The Column of Antoninus Pius, Cambridge, MA 1973, 46. 110 Vogel, Column, 46. 111 Vogel, Column, 46, 50–1. 112 Cp. Price, From Noble Funeral, 75. 113 Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, 65. 114 CIL 6, 34293 (the Fasti Oppiani maiores) = InscrIt 13/2, 27 and cp. CIL 9, 4192 = InscrIt 13/2, 25 (the Fasti Amiterni), where the complete phrase is: XV n(efas) p(iaculum) lud(i) in circ(o) fer(iae) ex s(enatus) c(onsulto) q(uod) eo die honores caelestes divo Augusto / [a se]nato decreti sunt “on Sept. 17 (15 calends October), sacrosanct, games, in the circus, a holy day, by decision of the senate, because on that day heavenly honors were decreed for the 108
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and a decree followed, endowing him with a temple and divine rites” (ceterum sepultura more perfecta templum et caelestes religiones decernuntur).115 Kierdorf argues that this statement implies that the funeral preceded the senatorial decree.116 This in turn, for Kierdorf, implies that Cassius Dio’s account of the funeral is problematic, since the senate appointed Augustan priests (sodales Augustales), the priesthood (flaminica [priestess]) of Livia, and a temple after the funeral, but Tiberius’s funeral speech begins with a recognition of his deification.117 Consequently, in Dio’s report of the burial he presupposes the deification of the emperor.118 At the end of his account (and after the funeral), Dio summarizes: At the time they declared Augustus immortal, assigned to him priests and sacred rites, and made Livia, who was already called Julia and Augusta, his priestess. … &Ó ! Ã , Ú !: " Ú " Ï "8 ? ∏ Ú Ê– 4& 8 8& 5.119
Kierdorf concludes that if Dio is correct, then the decision for a consecratio would have preceded the funeral, which contradicts Tacitus and early accounts of the foundation for cults of deified emperors.120 In addition, the general tenor of Dio’s account (temple, priests, etc. for Augustus) is that the divine honors were awarded after the funeral. If Kierdorf’s argument is sound, then Dio’s report of an eagle at the funeral is an anachronism.121 Reasons will be given below, however, for the belief that the report of an eagle may be correct. At his birth, Augustus was already a “son of Apollo,” according to one account:
deified Augustus.” On NP days, (with piaculum as an “expiatory sacrifice”), cf. J. Rüpke, The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine. Time, History, and the Fasti, Oxford 2011, 50– 2. On the date of Augustus’s consecratio, cf. G. W. Clarke, The Date of the Consecratio of Vespasian, Hist. 15 (1966) 318–327, esp. 318. 115 Tac. Ann. 1.10.8, trans. of Jackson, Tacitus, 3.265. Velleius Paterculus (2.123.2) remarks that in “his seventy sixth year he surrendered his divine soul to heaven” (septuagesimo et sexto anno animam caelestem caelo reddidit). 116 Kierdorf, “Funus,” 55–7. 117 Cassius Dio 56.46.1, 3 (the honors), 56.42.1–4 (the funeral) and cp. 56.34.1–4 (the preparations for the funeral including the details about the wax image of Augustus on a couch above his coffin). 118 Tiberius’s funeral oration begins in 56.35.1 ( Ú 2 ! 9 9 ÊÃ 9 !F >& ) with a reference to the “deified Augustus” and ends in 56.41.9 (Ú Ù ) Ú • & 5 Ú !? (7 [and finally you made him a demigod and declared him to be immortal,” trans. of Cary, Dio, 7.97]). 119 Cassius Dio 56.46.1, trans. of Cary, Dio 7.105. 120 Kierdorf, “Funus,” 57 121 See the text below.
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I have read the following story in the books of Asclepias of Mendes entitled Theologumena. When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the [radiance of the] sun rose from Atia’s womb. In Asclepiadis Mendetis Theologumenon libris lego, Atiam, cum ad sollemne Apollinis sacrum media nocte uenisset, posita in templo lectica, dum ceterae matronae dormirent, obdormisse; draconem repente irrepsisse ad eam pauloque post egressum; illam expergefactam quasi a concubitu mariti purificasse se; et statim in corpore eius extitisse maculam uelut picti draconis nec potuisse umquam exigi, adeo ut mox publicis balineis perpetuo abstinuerit; Augustum natum mense decimo et ob hoc Apollinis filium existimatum. eadem Atia, prius quam pareret, somniauit intestina sua ferri ad sidera explicarique per omnem terrarum et caeli ambitum. somniauit et pater Octauius utero Atiae iubar solis exortum.122
This miraculous birth corresponds with an event that occurred after his cremation. There was even an ex-praetor who took oath that he had seen the form of the Emperor, after he had been reduced to ashes on its way to heaven. nec defuit uir praetorius, qui se effigiem cremati euntem in caelum uidisse iuraret.123
Suetonius mentions a sign of his deification before his death that perhaps implies an eagle carried him to heaven: His death, too, of which I shall speak next, and his deification after death, were known in advance by unmistakable signs. As he was bringing the lustrum124 to an end in the Campus Martius before a great throng of people, an eagle flew several times about him and then going across to the temple hard by, perched above the first letter of Agrippa’s name. Mors quoque eius, de qua dehinc dicam, diuinitasque post mortem euidentissimis ostentis praecognita est. cum lustrum in campo Martio magna populi frequentia conderet, aquila eum saepius circumuolauit transgressaque in uicinam aedem super nomen Agrippae ad primam litteram sedit;125
The temple in question was the Pantheon, according to Augusto Fraschetti, which was oriented south at that time.126 He argues that, as in the Belvedere
122
Suet. Aug. 94.4, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 1.287–89. Suet. Aug. 100.4, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 1.305. 124 A purificatory sacrifice, which occurred after the census of 14 C.E. Cf. Aug. Anc. 8.4. 125 Suet. Aug. 97.1, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 1.275. 126 A. Fraschetti, Morte dei “principe” e “eroi” degli famiglia di Augusto, Annali di Archeologia e Storica Antica 6 (1984) 151–89, esp. 181. He identifies the figure in the apotheo123
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altar, the eagle also presages death and apotheosis. Cassius Dio describes his apotheosis. During his funeral an eagle was seen: Next the centurions took torches, conformably to a decree of the senate, and lighted the pyre from beneath. So it was consumed, and an eagle released from it flew aloft, appearing to bear his spirit to heaven. When these ceremonies had been performed, all the other people departed; &¹& / , · E I E & , I Õ(F Ã7H Ú Ó , Ù &8 5 ÃF ( ! Ú › Ú & Ã Ù Ã Ù (8 .127
Stefan Weinstock thinks that this is not an anachronism, since the Grand Camée of France depicts the “ascension of ‘Germanicus’” on a winged horse, presumably Pegasus.128 Whether the identification is correct or not, on the cameo a figure on horseback flies to heaven to the right of the central figure, Augustus. Ittai Gradel defends Dio’s account of the eagle’s flight at Augustus’s funeral by rejecting Bickerman’s view that consecratio was a sort of “canonization” in which the senate recognized … the actual ascension to heaven of the late emperor, like the Roman Catholic Church when canonizing a saint, rather than having “appointed” Augustus as state god solely on its own authority. In this view the eagle rite would not seem to make sense, since it would presuppose the ascension before it could possibly take place (i.e. at the funeral).129
In other words, it is not the case, as Bickerman and other thought that first a witness of an “actual ascension, beyond and apart from the will of the senate, was decisive to such state deification.” Bickerman thought that later the burning of a wax figure of the emperor took the place of an actual witness to the ascension. 130 The Fasti of the Roman cities do not support Bickerman’s thesis sis scene of the Belvedere altar as Marcus Agrippa (La mort d’Agrippa et l’autel de Belvédère: Un certain type d’hommage, MEFRA 92 [1980] 957–76). 127 Cassius Dio 56.42.3, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 7.99. 128 Weinstock, Divus Julius, 359. C. Bechthold (Gott und Gestirn als präsenzformen des toten Kaisers. Apotheose und Katasterismos in der politischen Kommunikation der römischen Kaiserzeit und ihre Anknüpfungspunkte im Hellenismus, Göttingen 2011, 487) agrees with the identification of the figure on horseback as Germanicus. Weinstock (ibid.) also refers to Suet. Aug. 97.1. Vittinghoff, Staatsfeind, 77, 106–7 believes that Dio’s reference to an eagle is “impossible,” since during the early principate the senate had to first decree the emperor’s deification (and so it was only after the cremation that deification was possible). Kierdorf, “Funus,” 53–5 (who takes mox to be an adjectival use of the adverb) appeals to Tac. Ann. 13.2.3 (decreti et a senatu duo lictores, flamonium Claudiale, simul Claudio censorium funus et mox consecratio [see § 2.3 below]). Kierdorf (ibid., 57), as noted, thinks Dio’s reference to the eagle is an anachronism, but remarks that scholars such as K. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, München 1967, 309 accept the account. 129 I. Gradel, Roman Apotheosis, in: Thesaurus cultus et rituum antiquorum (ThesCRA), vol. 2, Los Angeles 2004, 186–99, esp. 196. 130 Cf. Bickerman, Die römische Kaiserapotheose, 97–102.
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about an actual ascension, according to Gradel. The decision for a consecratio belonged solely to the senate.131 Gradel argues that “the measures [i.e., of deification] were ritually ‘illustrated’ at his funeral just before the meeting of the senate, at which these measures were voted, if we are to believe Cass. Dio’s description.”132 Naomi Norman also defends the accuracy of Dio’s account and refers to the cameo which depicts Claudius’s journey to heaven on an eagle.133 The answer may be that the senate (or Tiberius) simply decided to introduce the eagle at Augustus’s funeral, even though the formal decree of consecratio came afterward. The eagle had presaged his death and divinization, according to Suetonius. Presumably Numerius Atticus also claimed to have witnessed the ascension before the formal decree: Now these rumours began to be current at a later date. At the time they declared Augustus immortal, assigned to him priests and sacred rites, and made Livia, who was already called Julia and Augusta, his priestess; they also permitted her to employ a lictor when she exercised her sacred office. On her part, she bestowed a million sesterces upon a certain Numerius Atticus, a senator and ex-praetor, because he swore that he had seen Augustus ascending to heaven after the manner of which tradition tells concerning Proculus and Romulus. Ó & “ — &! ) 4 5, &Ó ! Ã , Ú !: " Ú " Ï "8 ? ∏ Ú Ê– 4& 8 8& 5. Ú " Ó Ú XI&9 F! ) " ÃE 8 H &Ó & T 9 Ú ]2, I E , 8 Ú N ?& , ≈ Ù Ê– Ù Ã , Ï Ï Ú Ú ç , / 8 ‡ .134
Numerius Atticus was clearly one of a very small group of individuals in Roman antiquity that saw emperors ascending into the heavens.
131 Gradel, Roman Apotheosis, 196. He refers to Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis in which Claudius is not admitted to heaven, but is nevertheless called a divus by the gods: “state deification did not in the least depend on the what happened in absolute terms, i.e. whether the deceased imperial was admitted by the gods.” 132 Gradel, Roman Apotheosis, 196 (who further argues that the eagle release was invented for Augustus’s funeral). 133 N. J. Norman, Imperial Triumph and Apotheosis: The Arch of Titus in Rome, in: Koine. Mediterranean Studies in Honor of R. Ross Holloway, Oxford 2009, 41–54, esp. 49 (with ref. to W.-R. Megow, Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus, Berlin 1987, 199–200, Pl. 27.1 [the cameo of Claudius’s apotheosis]). She also refers to Fraschetti’s close reading of Suet. Aug. 97 (Morte, 181–4). Fraschetti’s interpretation of the eagle in that passage and on the Belvedere altar are important for the thesis that Dio is correct. 134 Cassius Dio 56.46.1–2, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 7.105. Cf. Colpe, et al., Jenseitsfahrt I, 429.
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The Grand Cameo of France depicts the apotheosis of the deified Augustus, resting on a figure in Asian clothing.135 He wears a veil, on his head is a “radiate crown,” and in his left hand he carries a sceptre.136 2.3 Claudius Suetonius describes the deification of Claudius: He died on the third day before the Ides of October (13 Oct. 54) in the consulship of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola in the sixty-fourth year of his age and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried with regal pomp and enrolled among the gods, an honour neglected and finally annulled by Nero, but later restored to him by Vespasian. excessit III. Id. Octob. Asinio Marcello Acilio Auiola coss. sexagesimo quarto aetatis, imperii quarto decimo anno, funeratusque est sollemni principum pompa et in numerum deorum relatus; quem honorem a Nerone destitutum abolitumque recepit mox per Vespasianum.137
Tacitus has a similar text: Divine honours were voted to Claudius, and his funeral solemnities were celebrated precisely as those of the deified Augustus, Agrippina emulating the magnificence of her great-grandmother Livia. caelestesque honores Claudio decernuntur et funeris sollemne perinde ac divo Augusto celebratur, aemulante Agrippina proaviae Liviae magnificentiam.138
He also notes that the senate deified Claudius: The senate, too, accorded her [Agrippina] a pair of lictors and the office of priestess to Claudius, to whom was voted, in the same session, a public funeral, followed presently by deification [consecratio]. decreti et a senatu duo lictores, flamonium Claudiale, simul Claudio censorium funus et mox consecratio.139
Cassius Dio recounts a particular telling joke about Claudius’s death by Nero:
135
R. M. Schneider, The Making of Oriental Rome: Shaping the Trojan Legend, in: Universal Empire. A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History, Cambridge 2012, 76–129, esp. 110–11 (fig. 4.25). Koortbojian, Divinization, 151–2. For the figure’s identification, cf. chapt. 1, § 6. Cp. Vogel, Column, 44, 49–51 on the two apotheoses (Augustus and the figure on horseback) and H. N. A. Jucker, Der Grosse Pariser Kameo. Eine Huldigung an Agrippina, Claudius und Nero, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 91 (1976) 211–50 (a comprehensive survey of views since Bernouilli). 136 Varner, Mutilation, 75. 137 Suet. Cl. 45, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 2.79. Sen. Apoc. 1.1 and 2.1 also mentions this date. 138 Tac. Ann. 12.69.3, trans. of Jackson, Tacitus, 4.417. 139 Tac. Ann. 13.2.3, trans. of Jackson, Tacitus, 5.5.
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The emperor received the state burial and all the other honours that had been accorded to Augustus. Agrippina and Nero pretended to grieve for the man whom they had killed, and elevated to heaven him whom they had carried out on a litter from the banquet. On this point Lucius Junius Gallius, the brother of Seneca, was the author of a very witty remark. Seneca himself had composed a work that he called Pumpkinification140 – a word formed on the analogy of “deification”; and his brother is credited with saying a great deal in one short sentence. Inasmuch as the public executioners were accustomed to drag the bodies of those executed in the prison to the Forum with large hooks, and from there hauled them to the river, he remarked that Claudius had been raised to heaven with a hook. Nero, too, has left us a remark not unworthy of record. He declared mushrooms to be the food of the gods,141 since Claudius by means of the mushroom had become a god. > &Ó Ú F (F Ú ; ≈ ¡ Ê– . ] ) &Ó Ú ¡ T8 ! ) √ , > Ù Ã Ù 7 √ ( ?& 5 . ≈! ∏ º ¡ 8 & (Ù (!8 5. 8! Ó
Ï Ú ¡ 8
, ÃÙ · Ï !? ¿?H ) &Ó I ?9 Ï ∞S . & Ï ˆ 2 & 9 !8 Ú ? " &7 > Ï ) ! Ù Ù > , >( Ù & 9 Ù Ã Ù !F. Ú ¡ T8 &Ó Ã ?5 7 > 8 H ˆ Ï ! I > ∂, ≈ Ú ) &Ï ! Ù .142
Pumpkinification ( ) is undoubtedly a play on the word apotheosis (!Ô ).143 In Seneca’s text, Claudius expresses a desire to be made a god, but Augustus argues against him, and Claudius ends up punished in the underworld. The narrator refers to a witness who claims to have seen both Drusilla’s144 and Claudius’s ascents to heaven: 140 P. T. Eden (Seneca, Apocolocyntosis, ed. P. T. Eden, Cambridge 1984, 1) writes that this is the “sole occurrence of the word in antiquity.” Eden, ibid., 2 accepts Seneca’s authorship of the work as transmitted. The word refers to a transformation into a gourd (DGE s.v. “transformación en calabaza”), or !. Eden, ibid., 3–4 refers to two passages that refer to the empty headedness of people described as gourds (cucurbitae) in Apul. Met. 1.15.2 and Petron. 39.12. 141 Suet. Ner. 33.1 (trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius 1.135) translates the Greek proverb as deorum cibum and includes another joke of Nero: “for it was a favorite joke of his that Claudius had ceased to ‘play the fool’ among mortals, lengthening the first syllable of the word morari” (nam et morari eum desisse inter homines producta prima syllaba iocabatur), a play on morāri “to keep waiting, delay” (OCD s.v. § 1). Using the Greek word (fool), Nero created a verb that mean “play the fool” (mōrari). Cf. F. Biville, The Graeco-Romans and Graeco-Latin: A Terminological Framework for Cases of Bilingualism, in: Bilingualism in Ancient Society. Language Contact and the Written Word, ed. J. N. Adams et al., Oxford 2002, 77–102, esp. 101. 142 Cassius Dio 60.35.2–5, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 8.33. 143 Eden, Seneca, 2 144 Iulia Drusilla, sister and lover of Caligula (Suet. Cal. 24.1).
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Still, if I must produce my authority, apply to the man who saw Drusilla going heavenward; he will say he saw Claudius limping along in the same direction. Willy-nilly, he has to see everything that happens in heaven; for he is the superintendent of the Appian road, by which you know both the divine Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to join the gods. tamen si necesse fuerit auctorem producere, quaerito ab eo qui Drusillam euntem in caelum vidit: idem Claudium vidisse se dicet iter facientem “non passibus aequis.” velit nolit, necesse est Illi omnia videre quae in caelo aguntur: Appiae viae curator est, qua scis et divum Augustum et Tiberium Caesarem ad deos isse.145
According to Cassius Dio a senator witnessed Drusilla’s heavenly journey, and perhaps Seneca refers to the same individual in his satire: Indeed, a certain Livius Geminius, a senator, declared on oath, invoking destruction upon himself and his children if he spoke falsely, that he had seen her ascending to heaven and holding converse with the gods; and he called all the other gods and Panthea [the deified Drusilla] herself to witness. … 8 º I > Ù Ã Ù Ã I Ú ) ! )
8 / 8 ‡ , 5: Ú /2 Ú ) , ∞ &, ? E ; ! c Ú E ÃF ·146
A speaker in the heavenly senate argues that Claudius cannot be an Epicurean or Stoic god since Epicurus’s gods do not disturb themselves or others (C ! Ù non potest esse: – ÃÙ a > – ; 8 ) and Stoic gods are spherical without head or foreskin147 (rotundus esse ut ait Varro, sine capite, sine praeputio).148 The speaker also argues, He wants to become a god. Isn’t he satisfied that he has a temple in Britain;149 that the barbarians worship him and beseech him as a god that they may find him a merciful madman? deus fieri vult: parum est quod templum in Britannia habet, quod hunc barbari colunt et ut deum orant à ? )?150
Janus argues against making anyone else a god: “Once,” said he, “it was a great thing to become a god; now you have made it a ‘Bean’ farce. Therefore, that you may not think I am speaking against one person instead of the
145 Sen. Apoc. 1.2, trans. of A. P. Ball, The Satire of Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius Commonly Called the Ê °°°±TP³G, New York 1902, 132. 146 Cassius Dio 59.11.4, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio 7.295. Cf. P. Herz, Diva Drusilla, Historia 30 (1980) 324–36. Cp. Sen. Dial. 11.17.4–5 (where Caligula punished some for not mourning enough). She was consecrated on 23 Sept. 38. See the discussion in § 1.1 above. 147 With a reference to Varro. 148 Sen. Apoc. 8.1, Ball, Satire, 189 refers to a similar account of Epicurean gods in Diog. Laert. 10.139. 149 Tac. Ann. 14.31.4. 150 Sen. Apoc. 8.3, trans. of Ball, Satire, 142.
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general custom, I propose that from this day forward the godhead be given to none of those who eat the fruits of the earth, or whom mother earth doth nourish. Whosoever is made, said, or portrayed to be god, so as to contravene this decree of The Senate, I vote he be delivered over to the bogies, and at the next public show be flogged with a rod among the new gladiators.” olim inquit magna res erat deum fieri: iam Fabam mimum fecisti. itaque ne videar in personam, non in rem dicere sententiam, censeo ne quis post hunc diem deus fiat ex his qui Ù >&151 aut ex his quos alit & ; . qui contra hoc senatus consultum deus factus dictus pictusve erit, eum dedi larvis et proximo munere inter novos auctoratos ferulis vapulare placet.152
The old Italian god Diespiter153 moves that Claudius be deified: Whereas the divine Claudius is by blood related to the divine Augustus and no less also to the divine Augusta, his grandmother, who was made a goddess by his own orders, and whereas he far surpasses all mortals in wisdom, and it is for the public interest that there be some one who can join Romulus in “eating of boiling hot-turnips,” I move that from this day the divine Claudius be a god, with title equally as good as that of any one who has been made so before him, and that this event be added to the Metamorphoses of Ovid. cum divus Claudius et divum Augustum sanguine contingat nec minus divam Augustam aviam suam, quam ipse deam esse iussit, longeque omnes mortales sapientia antecellat sitque e re publica esse aliquem qui cum Romulo possit “ferventia rapa vorare”,154 censeo uti divus Claudius ex hac die deus sit ita uti ante eum qui[s] optimo iure factus sit, eamque rem ad Metamorphosis Ovidi adiciendam.155
Augustus then stands in the senate and calls them (the conscript fathers) to witness that he has not spoken to them “since I was made a god” (ex quo deus factus sum).156 He then lists a large number of people Claudius put to death, many without trials. Now do you want to make this man a god? Look at his body, born when the gods were angry. And finally, if he can say three consecutive words together, he can have me as his
151
Homer Il. 6.142. Sen. Apoc. 9.3, trans. Seneca, Apocolocyntosis, LCL, ed. and trans. W. H. D. Rouse, rev. E. H. Warmington, Cambridge, MA 1969, 461. On larva, cf. Eden, Seneca, 109–11 (“bogies” is Eden’s word). Paul. Fest. 106 Lindsay has Larvati furiosi et mente moti, quasi larvis exterriti (Larvati: demented/possessed and mentally disturbed, like those terrified by demons/bogies). On the farce, cf. Cic. Att. 1.16.13 (videsne consulatum illum nostrum, quem Curio antea !8 vocabat, si hic factus erit, fabam mimum futurum? [“That consular office of mine, which Curio once used to call an apotheosis, will be worth no more than a rat’s tail (“Bean farce”) if this fellow (Afranius) is elected”], trans. of Shackleton Bailey, Cicero, Letters, 1.91) and P. T. Eden, Faba mimus, Hermes 92 (1964) 251–55, esp. 255 (one conclusion: “beans were obviously the staple diet of a bogey”). 153 Cf. Eden, Seneca, 111–14. 154 Eden, Seneca, 114 notes that this phrase probably referred to Romulus “in its immediate context.” Cf. Mart. Epigr. 13.16 on Romulus’s preference for turnips in heaven. 155 Sen. Apoc. 9.5, trans. of Ball, Satire, 144. 156 Sen. Apoc. 10.1. 152
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slave. Who will worship this god? Who will believe in him? As long as you make such gods as he, nobody will believe that you are gods yourselves. hunc nunc deum facere vultis? videte corpus eius dis iratis natum. ad summam, tria verba cito dicat et servum me ducat. hunc deum quis colet quis credet? dum tales deos facitis, nemo vos deos esse credet.157
Augustus resolves that Claudius be removed from Olympus. Cyllenius then drags him to the netherworld with a noose around his neck (Cyllenius illum collo obtorto trahit ad inferos).158 The judge of the underworld, Aeacus, condemns him to gamble forever with a perforated dice-box (tum Aeacus iubet illum alea ludere pertuso fritillo).159 Claudius, however, finally is forced to become the slave of Caligula: Suddenly C. Caesar appeared and began to claim him as a slave. He produced witnesses who had seen Claudius getting thrashed by him with whips, with rods, and with his fists. The man was adjudged to C. Caesar; Caesar presented him to Aeacus; the latter delivered him to Menander his freedman, to be his law-clerk. apparuit subito C. Caesar et petere illum in servitutem coepit, producere testes, qui illum viderant ab illo flagris, ferulis, colaphis vapulantem. adiudicatur C. Caesari. Caesar illum Aeaco donat. is Menandro liberto suo tradidit, ut a cognitionibus esset.160
A cameo in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris probably represents the apotheosis of Claudius who sits on the back on an eagle ascending to heaven (see image 24).161 It is made of sardonyx and is 13 cm high and 13.5 cm in width. Claudius holds a double cornucopia in his left and and an augur’s staff (lituus) in his right hand. He has an aegis on his torso on which is depicted a Medusa. A lotus flower and two pomegranates are depicted on the cornucopiae. He watches a winged Victory hovering in front of him who holds a crown made of laurels. The Victory wears a peplos. The eagle holds a palm in its left claw.162 The cameo may date ca 48 to 50 C.E. A statue, which was found near Bovillae on the Appian way, portrayed the deified Claudius (image 25).163 157
Sen. Apoc. 11.3, trans. of Ball, Satire, 143–44. Sen. Apoc. 11.6. 159 Sen. Apoc. 14.4. 160 Sen. Apoc. 15.2, trans. of Ball, Satire, 153. 161 Vogel, Column, 123 considers the possibility that it is Germanicus. Eric Varner identifies the figure as Claudius. Cf. idem, Incarnating the Aurea Aetas: Theomorphic Rhetoric and Portraits of Nero, in: Gods, Objects and Ritual Practice, ed. S. Blakeley, Atlanta 2017, 82 (with bibliography). He dates it to the Neronian period. See, in particular, M.-L. Vollenweider with M. Avisseau-Broustet, Camées et intailles. Catalogue raisonné, vol. 2, Paris 2003, 109–10, § 120 (Claudius). 162 Cp. the description at http://medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/c33gbf97b (accessed 10 April 2018). 163 P. S. Bartoli, Admiranda romanarum antiquitatum ac veteris sculpturae vestigia … Io. Petri Bellorii illustrata, Roma 1693, Pl. 80. Cf. the articles in S. F. Schröder, ed., La apoteosis de Claudio. Un monumento funerario de la época de Augusto y su fortuna, Madrid 2002 and 158
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The emperor wears an aegis, which depicts an image of a Medusa, and on his head is a radiate crown. The base only (i.e., the eagle) is now found in the Prado and is a separate archaeological find, which was later combined with the bust. The eagle has been – probably in error – identified as the grave monument of another figure, M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus, by some scholars.164 The ostensible evidence for the identification of the villa has apparently been misinterpreted.165 The eagle supporting Claudius’s bust holds a thunderbolt in his left claw and an orb in his right. Some scholars have doubted the identification with Claudius, however Eric R. Varner notes that “P.S. Bartoli’s illustration of the piece reveals a portrait consistent with both Claudius’s established iconography as well as stylistically compatible with a late Claudian or Neronian date.”166 Even though two ancient images were combined for the pastiche, it is clear that the combination of an eagle and a bust with radiate crown was familiar to some individuals of the first century. An altar to Sol sanctissimus/Malakbel, probably from the second half of the century, depicts E. Varner, Beyond Damnatio Memoria: Memory Sanctions, Caligula’s Portraits and the Richmond Togatus (forthcoming with Brill). Varner notes that the base (i.e., the eagle) has recently “been dated to the Hadrianic period or later.” See E. Polito, Fulgentibus Armis. Introduzione allo studio dei fregi d’armi antichi, Xenia Antiqua. Monografie 4, Rome 1996, 207–9. 164 S. Schröder, The so-called Apotheosis of Claudius. Funerary monument of the Augustan general M. Valerius Messalla Corvina, in: Schröder, La apoteosis de Claudio, 87–90 (and the bibliography there). 165 The archaeological find was in a villa at Tor Messer Paolo, itself erroneously identified by two lead pipes, CIL 14, 2345a = CIL 15, 7849 (Valeri Messalae) and 14,2345b = CIL 15, 7850 (C[ai] Valeri Paulini). The pipes, however, were actually found 1.5 km northwest of the Tor Messer Paolo structures, in the so-called “Wall of the French” district (and so the attribution to Valerius Messala Corvinus cannot be sustained). The pipes’ location was at 168 m. above sea level, and the Tor Messer Paoli complex is 200 m. above sea level. Cf. A. Pancotti, ‘Torre Messer Paoli’, presso Marino: scoperte, scavi e studi ottocenteschi in: Colli Albani. Protagonisti e luoghi della ricerca archeologica nell’Ottocento, ed. M. Valenti, Frascati 2011, 169–73, esp. 170 who argues that the villa may have belonged to Mamurra, praefectus fabrum of Caesar. Cf. also D. Cavallo, Marino, Torre ser Paoli, villa romana e fortilizio medioevale, in: T. Ashby and S. Le Pera Buranelli, Sulla via Appia da Roma a Brindisi. Le fotografie di Thomas Ashby. 1891–1925, Roma 2003, 100. CIL 14, 2431 (found near the Tor Messer Paolo complex) is a dedication to his dead wife by an imperial slave who was steward (Tryphonianus / disp(ensator) vill(ae) / Mamurranae). See also T. Ashby, The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna. – III. (The Via Latina), PBSR 5 (1910) 213–432, esp. 283, 285. On the significance of radiate crowns (especially on coinage depicting the deified Claudius and Augustus), cf. M. T. Griffin, Nero. The End of a Dynasty, New York 1984, 297 and M. Bergmann, Die Strahlen der Herrscher. Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Mainz 1998, 130–2 (on Claudius). 166 Varner, Beyond Damnatio Memoriae, forthcoming. For doubts about the identification, cf. Schröder, Apotheosis, 87 (who is apparently unaware of the error discussed above with regard to the identification of the villa).
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such an image (i.e., a radiate head) and is accompanied by an inscription in Latin and Palmyrene.167 Radiate crowns were sometimes used to portray deified emperors. Lucan writes, for example, Civil war shall make dead Caesars the peers of gods above; and Rome shall deck out dead men with thunderbolts and haloes and constellations, and in the temples of the gods shall swear by ghosts. bella pares superis facient civilia divos, fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris inque deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras.168
An Aureus of 55 C.E. depicts, on the reverse, a radiate divus Claudius and a radiate divus Augustus seated on chairs on a quadriga drawn by elephants (see image 26). Claudius holds an “eagle-tipped sceptre” and Divus Augustus holds a patera in right hand and a sceptre in his left. The legend is: AGRIPPINA AVG DIVI CLAVD NERONIS CAES MATER (Agrippina Augusta, [wife] of the deified Claudius, mother of Nero Caesar). EX S C (by senatorial decree) is in the field.169 167 CIL 6, 710. Cf. the discussion in J. N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language, Cambridge 2003, 249–51 (with a translation of the Palmyrene text) and Cumont, L’aigle funéraire, 79–80. T. T. Terpstra, Trading Communities in the Roman World. A MicroEconomic and Institutional Perspective, Leiden 2013, 158 notes that it has been dated from the Flavian to the Hadrianic eras. G. W. Huston, The Altar from Rome with Inscriptions to Sol and Malakbel, Syria 67 (1990) 189–93 (who dates it to I or II C.E.) believes Calbienses de coh(orte) III in the inscription refers to the third courtyard in the complex associated with the horrea Galbae, which only received that name after the accession of the emperor (although owned by the Sulpicii Galbae in I B.C.E.). The living quarters are, consequently, what is depicted on the Marble Plan. Cp. Richardson, Horrea Galbae, New Topographical Dictionary, 193 (who argues that Marble Plan depicts the warehouses of Galba). Varner (personal communication of 30 Sept. 2015) dates it to the Neronian era in a forthcoming monograph (he also mentions CIL 6, 3719, an altar dedicated to Sol that depicts a radiate Nero). 168 Luc. 7.457–9, trans. of Duff, Lucan, 403. RIC2 1, p. 212 § 115 (an aureus) shows Augustus (divus on the obverse) with radiate crown. Cp. ibid., § 116 (a dupondius). See Pl. 24. These coins date to 68–69 C.E. BMC Imp. 1, p. 145 § 177 is a coin of Tiberius (an As) that has, on the reverse, a radiate Augustus with the legend divus Augustus pater patriae. RIC2 1, p. 160 § 112, 113 (dupondii) depict a radiate Nero on the obverse. Cp. other dupondii (with radiate Nero on the obverse) in ibid., p. 163 § 202–4 (Pl. 20). Griffin, Nero, 218 argues that the radiate crowns “serve to some extent the mundane purpose of differentiating issues of coins … Nero’s own annexation of the ornament and its omission on representations of Divus Claudius seem to have temporarily deprived the crown of its recent numismatic association with imperial deification.” He may have been emulating “Sol the charioteer and Apollo the musician.” She notes that “Vespasian and Titus have radiate crowns on dupondii.” Cf. BMC Imp. 2, xix). Many coins of Nero with radiate crown may be found in BMC Imp. 1, p. 208 § 52, 56 (both are aurei with radiate Nero on the reverse), p. 266 § 335 (a dupondius with radiate Nero on the obverse), etc. These coins date after 64 C.E. 169 RIC2 1, p. 150 § 6 (Pl. 17) = BMC Imp. 1, p. 201 § 7 (Pl. 38.4). On this coin (and a defense of the identification of Augustus), see O. Hekster, Emperors and Ancestors. Roman
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2.4 Nero Edward Champlin writes that “The most astonishing of all posthumous portraits of Nero is a cameo now in the public library at Nancy …”170 Nero faces left, perched on a standing eagle’s back, which takes him to heaven. Champlin further notes that “Around his shoulders is the aegis with the gorgoneion, that is, the emblem of Jupiter with the head of Medusa on it, its end fluttering in the breeze.”171 In his right hand Nero holds a small Victory (or other goddess) who, with both hands, presents a crown, perhaps made of laurel, to the lightly bearded imperator. Wolf-Rüdiger Megow remarks that in the crook of his left arm, Nero holds a cornucopia that is overflowing with fruit. The eagle looks directly at Nero.172 Champlin insists that despite Nero’s “life and crimes” he enjoyed a “posthumous popularity” that would astonish moderns: “To be a hero it is not at all necessary to be a good man. Arthur, Charlemagne, Barbarossa, Elvis, and their peers are not noted for their mild restraint; all were capable of acts of savagery. More germane to Nero is that one can even be judged a bad man by history and still be a hero.”173 2.5 Vespasian Suetonius includes several examples of Vespasian’s jokes including one about his own death (which was on 23 June 79)174:
Rulers and the Constraints of Tradition, Oxford 2015, 51 and A. Casoli, Die Anfänge der römischen Reichsprägung unter Kaiser Nero, Haller Münzblätter 8 (2015) 69–82, esp. 73–4. RIC2 1, p. 150 § 7 is a denarius with the same legend and image on the reverse. C. Foss (Roman Historical Coins, London 1990, 67) believes the figure identified as Augustus above is Fides Praetorianum. A sestertius of Tiberius, however, dated to 34–35 C.E. depicts (on the obverse) a very similar scene: a “Quadriga of elephants l., with riders; figure of Augustus, radiate, in the car, right holding laurel-branch, l. long sceptre.” The legend is DIVO / AVGVSTO / SPQR (to the deified Augustus, by the senate and Roman people). Cf. RIC2 1, p. 98 § 56 (Pl. 12). 170 Champlin, Nero, 32. Depictions may be found in Champlin, ibid., 33, Megow, Kameen, Pl. 35, A99 (who resolutely defends the thesis that the emperor portrayed is Nero; although he thinks it was made during the middle years of Nero’s reign), and Bergmann, Strahlen, 150, 220, Pl. 29.1–2 (Nero). Cp. Varner, Monumenta, 76 (a defense of the identification with Nero, against the thesis that it is Caracalla). 171 Champlin, Nero, 32. Cp. Megow, Kameen, 214. 172 Megow, Kameen, 214. 173 Champlin, Nero, 34. He further draws a compelling analogy with Ivan the Terrible who was a “popular figure.” In late antiquity, a cameo was manufactured which shows Nero on a quadriga, wearing a paludamentum and a radiate crown, holding a mappa (napkin used as a “starting signal in the circus,” [cf. OLD ad voc.]) in his left hand and eagle scepter in his right with the inscription: ΝΕΡUΝ ΑΓΟVΣΤΕ (Nero Augustus). Cf. Megow, Kameen, 216 and Pl 35.6, A 104 (Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 287) and Champlin, Nero, 32. 174 Kienast, Römische Kaistertabelle, 108.
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He did not cease his jokes even when in apprehension of death and in extreme danger; for when among other portents the Mausoleum175 opened on a sudden and a comet appeared in the heavens, he declared that the former applies to Junia Calvina of the family of Augustus, and the latter to the king of the Parthians, who wore his hair long; and as death drew near, he said: “Woe’s me. Methinks I’m turning into a god.” ac ne in metu quidem ac periculo mortis extremo abstinuit iocis. nam cum inter cetera prodigia Mausoleum derepente patuisset et stella crinita in caelo apparuisset, alterum ad Iuniam Caluinam e gente Augusti pertinere dicebat, alterum ad Parthorum regem qui capillatus esset; prima quoque morbi accessione: uae, inquit, puto deus fio.176
Cassius Dio gives a similar version of the tale: To those who said anything to him about the comet he said: “This is an omen, not for me, but for the Parthian king; for he has long hair, whereas I am bald.” When at last he was convinced that he was going to die, he said: "I am already becoming a god.” Ú Ù ˆ Ú 7177 & ìà > î ∂ ì Ï 2 ? ! I ) H ) Ó Ï ¹, S &Ó ( ∞.î &7 ≈ 7 , >( ì! Ù 4& .î178
Fishwick questions whether Vespasian was “jeering at deification.” It was merely a joke, however, and the emperor during his reign supported the state cult.179 Barbara Levick argues that the words “show critics mocking” the official cult.180 The date of Vespasian’s consecratio is only approximate (after 8 Sept. 79 and before 29 May 80).181 Valerius Flaccus, in his Argonautica, predicts that the deified Vespasian will become a constellation in the sky: In thy honour shall he [Domitian] ordain sacred rites and shall raise temples to his house, what time thou, Sire, shinest all over the sky; for if thy star guides then Cynosura shall not be a surer beacon to Tyrian ships, nor Helice, whom Grecian helmsmen must watch, but beneath thy guidance Greece and Sidon and Nile shall send forth their fleets.
175 Rolfe, Suetonius, 2.318 notes that the mausoleum was Augustus’s, and that Calvina is a play on calvus (bald). The king’s long hair is also a play on stella crinita (“long haired star). 176 Suet. Vesp. 23.4, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 2.301. 177 7 can mean “long haired” or “comet.” 178 Cassius Dio 66.17.3, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 8.295. 179 Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 1.1, 295 (cp. 295–300 for the evidence). He notes that “aspirations of divinity would have been quite out of keeping with Vespasian’s character and mentality” (ibid., 295). 180 B. Levick, Vespasian, New York 1999, 74. 181 Kienast, Römische Kaistertabelle, 109. Cf. G. W. Clarke, The date of the Consecratio of Vespasian, Hist. 15 (1966) 318–27 and T. V. Buttrey, Vespasian’s Consecratio and the Numismatic Evidence, Hist. 25 (1976) 449–57. CIL 6, 2059 = CFA 48 (as restored), in the entry for 29 May 80 has [(ante diem quartum) k(alendas) Iun(ias)] … [In collegio adfuerunt Imp(erator) T(itus) Caesar, divi f(ilius)], Vespasianus Aug(ustus), Caesar, divi f(ilius), Domitianus ([on 29 May 80 … were present in the college Emperor Titus Caesar], Vespasian Augustus, [son of the deified,] Caesar Domitian, son of the deified), an entry in which both Titus and Vespasian are identified as sons of the deified Vespasian.
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ille tibi cultusque deum delubraque genti instituet, cum iam, genitor, lucebis ab omni parte poli neque erit Tyriae Cynosura carinae certior aut Grais Helice servanda magistris. seu tu signa dabis seu te duce Graecia mittet et Sidon Nilusque rates …182
A sestertius of Titus (from 80–81) has IMP T CAES DIVI VESP F AUG P M Tr P P P COS VIII SC183 on the obverse and DIVO AUG VESP SPQR184 on the reverse. The image on the reverse shows “Vespasian, holding sceptre and Victory seated r(ight) in a quadriga of elephants.”185 2.6 Titus Suetonius merely notes that Domitian plotted against his brother Titus after the death of their father Vespasian: And from that time on he never ceased to plot against his brother secretly and openly, until Titus was seized with a dangerous illness, when Domitian ordered that he be left for dead, before he had actually drawn his last breath. And after his death he bestowed no honour upon him, save that of deification [consecratio], and he often assailed his memory in ambiguous phrases, both in his speeches and in his edicts. neque cessauit ex eo insidias struere fratri clam palam , quoad correptum graui ualitudine, prius quam plane efflaret animam, pro mortuo deseri iussit; defunctumque nullo praeterquam consecrationis honore dignatus, saepe etiam carpsit obliquis orationibus et edictis.186
According to Cassius Dio, no one would praise Titus in Domitian’s hearing. For Domitian pretended that he himself loved his brother and mourned him, and he delivered the eulogy over him with tears in his eyes and urged that he be enrolled among the demigods [heroes] — pretending just the opposite of what he really desired. Ã Ï Ú ( ) Ù & (Ù Ú ! ) ), Ú ˆ í Ã2 Ï & > 5 Ú ˆ • ÃÙ &E 8 , ? Ï : „ I …187 182
Val. Flacc. Arg. 1.15–20, trans. of Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, LCL, ed. and trans. J. H. Mozley, Cambridge, MA 1928, 5. 183 Imperator Titus Caesar, son of the deified Vespasian, Augustus, Pontifex maximus, Tribune of the people, father of the country, consul for the eighth time, by senatorial decree. 184 To the deified Augustus Vespasian, by decree of the senate and the Roman people. 185 RIC 21 p. 133 § 143, Pl. IV, 61. 186 Suet. Dom. 2.3, trans. of Rolfe, Suetonius, 2.325. 187 Cassius Dio 67.2.6, trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 8.321. See RIC1 2, p. 181 § 216: an aureus with Divus Titus Augustus on the obverse (i.e., the deified Titus Augustus). The coin is dated to 82–83 by M. Griffin, The Flavians, CAH2 11, 1–83, 57 (with ref. to I. Carradice, Coinage and Finances in the Reign of Domitian, A.D. 81–96, Oxford 1983, 20: “The early date [82–83] suggested for this whole series is especially appropriate for the types [c, d, g, i] which celebrate deified members of Domitian’s family”).
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Pliny in his Panegyric of Trajan, suggests a different motive, after mentioning the honors Nerva received from his son: He received the proper honours from you, first the tears which every son should shed, then the temples you raised for him. Others have done the same, but with different intent; Tiberius deified Augustus, but his purpose was to introduce the charge of high treason; Nero had done the same for Claudius in a spirit of mockery; Titus had similarly honoured Vespasian and Domitian Titus, but only for one to be thought the son and the other the brother of a god. Quem tu lacrimis primum, ita ut filium decuit, mox templis honestasti non imitatus illos, qui hoc idem, sed alia mente fecerunt. dicavit caelo Tiberius Augustum, sed ut maiestatis crimen induceret, Claudium Nero, sed ut irrideret, Vespasianum Titus, Domitianus Titum, sed ille, ut dei filius, hic, ut frater videretur.188
The vault of the arch of Titus, which was constructed after his death, includes a depiction of Titus’s apotheosis “in the keystone of its barrel-vaulted passageway.”189 The inscription demonstrates that Titus was dead (and deified): Senatus / populusque Romanus / divo Tito divi Vespasiani f(ilio) / Vespasiano Augusto (the senate and the Roman people to the deified Titus, son of the deified Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus).190 An eagle carries him to heaven (see image 27 and image 28). His full figure (not just a bust) is portrayed (although in the drawing the image is reversed).191 2.7 Trajan A literary papyrus from Heptakomia commemorates the enthronement of Hadrian (25 August 117) and Trajan’s apotheosis. The papyrus is a dialogue between Phoibos Apollo and Demos (the people). Phoibos: Mounted on a wagon drawn by white horses together with Trajan I come, People, Phoibos, the god who is not unknown to you, to proclaim the new ruler Hadrian, whom all things serve due to the virtue and fortune of the father god [Trajan]. Demos: Sacrificing while rejoicing, we also want to light the altars, giving our hearts up to laughter and carousals [i.e., drunkenness] from a fountain and to the anointings with the oil of athletic exercises. The reverence of our strategos for the lord and his munificence have provided a chorus leader for all of this. b ˘ ; P [ / Û • , ‚ &F[ / Ã ; jÛI ! Ù ;/ Ù ç& [Ù]
"[, / „ Ì & 188 Pliny Pan. 11.1, trans. of Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. B. Radice, Cambridge, MA 1975, 2.349. 189 Richardson, Arcus Titi, New Topographical Dictionary, 30. The quotation is from Vogel, Column, 47, 125. See the discussion of Roman imperial power portrayed in the scenes of the arch by J. Elsner, Introduction, in: Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, ed. J. Elsner and M. Meyer, Cambridge 2014, 1–34, esp. 8–11. Cp. Norman, Imperial Triumph, 47. 190 CIL 6, 945. 191 V. Duruy, History of Rome and the Roman People from its Origin to the Establishment of the Christian Empire, vol. 4.2, London 1885, 679.
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[&í] Ò [Ú] / Ù ˜ ! . Ú »¶ / !˜ Ï /Û / Ì , Ô Û Ô/! ) ı Ï Ï / Ô
Û Û/ „ Ì Ù Ù / Ù Ù ˜ Ã IÓ / [[Ú]] ( ıı Ù Ù / [a Ô (?) ...].192
The Historia Augusta, for what it is worth historically, describes Hadrian’s response to Trajan’s death during the Parthian campaign: Despatching to the senate a carefully worded letter, he asked for divine honours for Trajan. This request he obtained by a unanimous vote; indeed, the senate voluntarily voted Trajan many more honours than Hadrian had requested, in this letter to the senate he apologized because he had not left it the right to decide regarding his accession, explaining that the unseemly haste of the troops in acclaiming him emperor was due to the belief that the state could not be without an emperor. Later, when the senate offered him the triumph which was to have been Trajan’s, he refused it for himself, and caused the effigy of the dead Emperor to be carried in a triumphal chariot, in order that the best of emperors might not lose even after death the honour of a triumph. Traiano divinos honores datis ad senatum et quidem accuratissimis litteris postulavit et cunctis volentibus meruit, ita ut senatus multa, quae Hadrianus non postulaverat, in honorem Traiani sponte decerneret. cum ad senatum scriberet, veniam petit, quod de imperio suo iudicium senatui non dedisset, salutatus scilicet praepropere a militibus imperator, quod esse res publica sine imperatore non posset. cum triumphum ei senatus, qui Traiano debitus erat, detulisset, recusavit ipse atque imaginem Traiani curru triumphali vexit, ut optimus imperator ne post mortem quidem triumphi amitteret dignitatem.193
One must consider the source, which is so inherently untrustworthy. Eutropius gives a shorter account of Trajan’s death and apotheosis: However, after he had acquired immense glory in war and at home, he died of diarrhoea at Seleucia in Isauria as he was returning from Persia. He passed away in the sixty-third year, ninth month and fourth day of his life and in the nineteenth year, sixth month and fifteenth day of his reign, and he was enrolled among the gods. He was the only one of all the emperors to be buried within the city. His bones, collected in a golden urn, were placed in the forum which he built, under a pillar whose height is a hundred and forty-four feet. post ingentem igitur gloriam belli domique quaesitam e Perside rediens apud Seleuciam Isauriae profluvio ventris extinctus est. obiit autem aetatis anno sexagesimo tertio, mense nono, die quarto, imperii nono decimo, mense sexto, die quinto decimo. inter Divos relatus est. solus omnium intra urbem sepultus est. ossa conlata in urnam auream in foro, quod aedificavit, sub columna posita sunt, cuius altitudo CXLIV pedes habet.194
192 P. Giss. I, 3 = W. Chr. 491 = P. A. Kuhlmann, Die Giessener literarischen Papyri und die Caracalla-Erlasse. Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar, Giessen 1994, 4.4 p. 98–108, cf. Cook, Roman Attitudes, 257. Ô is Kuhlmann’s conjecture. 193 SHA Hadr. (Aelius Spartianus) 6.1, trans. of Magie, Scriptores, 1.19. On the apotheosis of Trajan, cf. Norman, Imperial Triumph, 50. 194 Eutropius Breuiarium 8.5.2, trans. of Eutropius, Breviarium, trans with intro. and comm. By H. W. Bird, Liverpool 1993, 49–50. Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle, 123 has 7 (?) Aug. 117 for the date of Trajan’s death, spring of 117 for the decision of consecratio and
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The arch of Trajan at Benevento depicts, in the apex of the vault, a scene of the promised apotheosis of Trajan (see image 29). A winged victory holds a crown of laurels over the emperor’s head. The frieze of an Antonine altar in Ephesus (now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna) may depict an apotheosis of Trajan and Plotina (image 30).195 Part of Cornelius C. Vermeuele’s description of two of the scenes is: The cuirassed imperator mounts the quadriga of torch-bearing Helios who, with parazonium-bearing Virtus, leads the procession. Nike helps the imperator to mount. Tellus, accompanied by a child with cloak of fruits reclines beneath; she holds her characteristic cornucopia … The empress [Plotina] as Artemis-Selene, in short hunting garb, steps into a chariot drawn by two stags. She is conducted by Hesperos who flies at her left, in the backgound … In front of the stags, Nyx (cloak billowing around her as symbol of the enveloping vapors) strides to the right, her gaze directed into space.196
The more probable interpretation is that the frieze depicts a profectio (a journey) of Trajan, although Vermeule interprets the second scene as the apotheosis (or profectio) of Plotina as Selene.197 2.8 Hadrian and Sabina After Hadrian died, the senate was reluctant to award him divine honors: Nevertheless, the senate persisted for a long time in its refusal to vote him the usual honours … when the senate demurred to giving divine honours to Hadrian after his death on account of certain murders of eminent men, Antoninus addressed many words to them with tears and lamentations, and finally said: “Well, then, I will not govern you either, if he has become in your eyes base and hostile and a public foe. For in that case you will, of course, soon annul all his acts, of which my adoption was one.” On hearing this the senate, both through respect for the man and through a certain fear of the soldiers, bestowed the honours upon Hadrian à 8 í Ú ˆ 8 , Ï Ï (! !8 Ö I 8 F Ï Ï Ï & 2 ç& 2 7 &? ( ( & , ¡ ] ) ; Ï & Ú ¿& Ã) & 8!, Ú 8 ∂ ìÃ&Ó S ; Õ ; 5 , N ) Ú Ù Ú ! Ù Õ) Ú 8 8 H ? Ï &F ≈ Ï !8 Õí Ã, „ ½ Ú ,
posthumous triumph, and summer 118 as the date of the consecratio: Divus Traianus Parthicus. 195 S. van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus, NovT.S 83 Leiden 1996, 40–1. Strong, Apotheosis, 90–2 (Pl. 11) also assumes that one of the scenes on the frieze depicts the apotheosis of Marcus Aurelius. The drawing is from S. Reinach, Répertoire de reliefs grecs et romans, 3 vols., Paris 1909–12, 1.144. 196 C. C. Vermeule, Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor, Cambridge, MA 1968, 107, 109 (fig. 40), 116, 119 (fig. 49). See also van Tilborg, Reading John, 41. 197 Vogel, The Column, 126–7, Vermeule, Roman Imperial Art, 116 (however, he also includes the title “Apotheosis or Profectio of Diva Plotina”).
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î. &Ó Ú ∞& ! ) Ù ;& , Ù &8 Ú ˆ : (I! ), 8& ¹ ç& 2 Ï ?.198
The Historia Augusta also notes the senate’s opposition to Hadrian’s consecratio: The senate wished to annul his acts, and would have refrained from naming him “the Deified” had not Antoninus requested it. … moreover, though all opposed the measure, he had him placed among the deified. acta eius inrita fieri senatus volebat. nec appellatus est divus, nisi Antoninus rogasset. … etiam repugnantibus cunctis inter divos eum retulit.199
A miracle persuaded the senate according to Aurelius Victor: On the other hand the senators were not even swayed by the entreaties of the emperor to accord him the honour of deification, so deeply did they mourn the loss of so many men of their order. However, after those whose death they were grieving suddenly appeared and each one embraced his relatives and friends, they sanctioned what they had refused. At patres ne principis oratu quidem ad Divi honorem eidem deferendum flectebantur; tantum amissos sui ordinis tot viros maerebant. Sed postquam subito prodiere, quorum exitium dolori erat, quique suos complexi, censent quod abnuerant.200
Eutropius, probably relying on the same source as Aurelius Victor omits the miracle: The senate refused to grant him divine honours, nevertheless, although his successor, Titus Aurelius Antoninus Fulvius, strenuously insisted on it and all the senators openly opposed it, he finally received them. senatus ei tribuere noluit divinos honores, tamen, cum successor ipsius T. Aurelius Antoninus Fulvius hoc vehementer exigeret et universi senatores palam resisterent, tandem obtinuit.201
Hadrian’s apotheosis was depicted on an aureus of Antoninus Pius.202 On the obverse the legend is Divus Hadrianus Aug[ustus] (the deified Hadrian Au198
Cassius Dio 69.23.2; 70.1.2–3 (Xiphilinus), trans. of Cary, Cassius Dio, 8.465, 469. Respectively: SHA Hadrianus (Aelius Spartianus) 27.1 (cp. 24.4 Hadriano magnos honores post mortem detulisset); Antoninus Pius (Iulius Capitolinus) 5.1, trans. of Magie, Scriptores 1.81, 111. Bird (Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, trans. H. W. Bird, Liverpool 1994, 89) argues that SHA Hadr. 27.1 is “probably derived” from Marius Maximus (cf. ibid. 25.4). Eutropius and Aurelius Victor both follow the “Kaisergeschichte,” and Aurelius is consequently less “reliable as a historian” due to the details he adds (“for reasons of artistry and plausibility”). R. W. Burgess, On the Date of the Kaisergeschichte, ClPh 90 (1995) 111–28, dates it to 357 (with the SHA dated to 395–99, Eutropius dated to 369 and Aurelius Victor dated to “mid-361”). 200 Aurelius Victor Caes. 14.13–4, trans. of Bird, Aurelius Victor, 17. 201 Eutropius Breviarium 8.7.3, trans. of Bird, Eutropius, 50. 202 BMC Imp. 4, p. 7 Antoninus Pius § 32, Pl 1.15 = RIC1 2, p. 385 § 389A (the aureus). Cf. BMC Imp. 4, li and Vogel, Column, 45, 124, image 94. Cp. H. Cohen, Description his199
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gustus), and the emperor wears a laurel crown. On the reverse, the legend read Consecratio, and an eagle carries Hadrian to heaven. A silver denarius has Divus Hadrianus Aug. on the obverse, and on the reverse the legend is consecratio accompanied by an image of an eagle on a globe.203 Sabina’s apotheosis appears often on coins.204 On the obverse of a sestertius there is a bust of a veiled Sabina, and the legend is Diva Augusta Sabina. On the reverse the legend is Consecratio S. C. (deification; by decree of the senate). Sabina holds a scepter, and an eagle carries her to heaven on its wings.205 An aureus has Diva Aug[usta] Sabina on obverse with a veiled bust of the empress wearing a diadem. Consecratio is the legend on reverse. Sabina holds a scepter “with scarf open behind her, borne aloft by eagle r[ight] on sceptre.”206 A cameo (see image 31) in the Berlin Staatliche Museen207 probably depicts Hadrian and Sabina each perched on the back of two eagles. In his right arm, the imperator holds a scepter. In his left arm he holds a palladion. He wears a paludamentum (military cloak) which portrays a panther. Sabina holds a laurel crown over the head of the imperator (who already wears one) with her right arm. In her left she holds a scepter. Megow defends the Hadrianic identification of the emperor.208 The most famous depiction of Sabina’s deification is the second century relief in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.209 A winged female figure who holds a torch carries Sabina to heaven while flying in a rightward direction. A burning pyre is below the winged figure. Vogel identifies the figure as Aeternitas. The figure reclining on the ground is probably Campus Martius.210 The seated individual is Hadrian who wears a laurel crown. His gesture may be an acclamation of the apotheosis.211 2.9 Antoninus Pius Eutropius describes the consecratio of Antoninus, although he does not illustrate his heavenly journey: torique des monnaies frappées sous l’empire romain, vol. 2, Paris 21882, p. 127 § 270. See also Foss, Roman Historical Coins, p. 123 § 138 2a. 203 RIC1 2, p. 385 § 389B = Cohen, Description § 271. 204 An inscription (by Hadrian) of 139 C.E. entitles her Diva Sabina [deified Sabina]. CIL 6, 40528, an honorific marble base (for a lost statue) in Rome from 13 Dec. 138 C.E., also entitles her Diva Sabina. She died ca 136/7 (A. R. Birley, Sabina Augusta, 4OCD, 1303). 205 RIC1 2, p. 479 § 1051 a, b. 206 RIC1 2, p. 390 § 418a (418b is nearly identical = Pl 14, 289). § 419 is a similar aureus. Cp. ibid. § 420–21 (denarii). 207 Cf. Megow, Kameen, 230–2 and Pl. 42.11–12 and 43.1. 208 Megow, Kameen, 230–1. 209 Vogel, Column, 48 believes the relief was made early in Antoninus Pius’s reign. 210 Vogel, Column, 47, fig. 47. 211 Vogel, Column, 48.
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He was called Pius because of his clemency. He died at Lorium, his estate, twelve miles from the city, in the seventy-third year of his life, the twenty-third of his reign, and he was enrolled among the gods and deservedly consecrated. Pius propter clementiam dictus est. obiit apud Lorium, villam suam, miliario ab urbe duodecimo, vitae anno septuagesimo tertio, imperii vicesimo tertio, atque inter Divos relatus est et merito consecratus.212
The Historia Augusta bears witness to his consecration by the senate: He was deified by the senate, while all men vied with one another to give him honour, and all extolled his devoutness, his mercy, his intelligence, and his righteousness. All honours were decreed for him which were ever before bestowed on the very best of emperors. a senatu divus est appellatus cunctis certatim adnitentibus, cum omnes eius pietatem, clementiam, ingenium, sanctimoniam laudarent. decreti etiam sunt omnes honores, qui optimis principibus ante delati sunt.213
The pedestal of Antoninus Pius’s column (now in the Vatican) illustrates the emperor’s journey to heaven with the empress Faustina (see images 32 and 33). Both are carried by a winged genius who carries an orb with zodiac and a snake in his left hand. The emperor holds a scepter upon which is mounted an eagle.214 The female figure on the right is Roma, and the male figure on the left is Campus Martius who carries an obelisk in his left hand.215 The pediment of a temple of the Capitoline Triad in Thugga (see image 34) presumably shows Antoninus Pius being carried to heaven on an eagle.216 The inscription below on the architrave dedicates the temple to the Triad: Iovi Optimo Maximo [I]uno[n]i Regin[a]e Minervae Aug(ustae) sacrum / pro salute Imp(eratorum) … (Sacred to Jupiter, best, greatest, Juno the queen and revered Minerva] for the safety of the emperors [Marcus Aurelius and Verus]).217 212
Eutropius Breviarium 8.8.4, trans. of Bird, Eutropius, 51. SHA Antoninus Pius (Iulius Capitolinus) 13.3, trans. of Magie, Scriptores 1.131. 214 See Vogel, The Column, 32–55 and J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph. The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450, Oxford 1998, 36. L. Deubner, Die Apotheose des Antoninus Pius, MDAI.R 27 (1912) 1–20. 215 Vogel, The Column, 32–3. 216 Cf. D. Fishwick, Imperial Cult, 3.3, 356 (“the pediment shows what looks to be the apotheosis of Antoninus Pius …”). E. Smadja, L’empereur et les dieux en Afrique romaine, Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 11 (1985) 541–55, esp. 545 and J. B. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage. From Augustus to Constantine, Oxford 1995, 118–23, F. Barry, The Pediment of the Pantheon, Problems and Possibilities, in: Scritti in onore di Lucos Cozza, Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Roma. Suppl. VII, ed. R Coates-Stephens and L. Cozza, Roma 2014, 89–105, esp. 100–1. 217 CIL 8, 1471 = Dougga 32. The date of construction of the temple was between 166 and 169, perhaps in 168. Cf. M. Christol, Grands travaux à Uchi Maius sous Marc Aurèle, AnCl 73 (2004) 165–190, esp. 187. On the “single cella” temple and similar dedications to the Capitoline triad, cf. J. C. Quinn and A. Wilson, Capitolia, JRS 103 (2013) 117–73, esp. 213
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3 Conclusion The consecratio (deification) of Roman emperors was based on a decision by the Senate. Although witnesses occasionally claimed to have seen the emperors ascend to the gods, such visions were not a necessary condition for the Senate’s decision to deify a dead imperator. Images of the ascension of the emperors were popular in Roman iconography. Consecratio was clearly an element of Roman state religion. The relevance of the ritual to the interpretation of the New Testament is fairly obvious. The witnesses (whom Justin assures his readers were false) that beheld the ascending emperors correspond to the eleven apostles (and the others with them) who watched Jesus be taken to heaven in Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9. The concept of apotheosis closely resembles the concept of ascension, although Luke regarded Jesus as Son of God already before the ascension itself. Luke’s view that Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God only after the ascension does correspond with the apotheosis of the imperators, however.218 The key difference is that only the emperors’ souls ascended to the gods, while Luke affirms that Jesus’s risen body was taken to heaven. Victricius, the fourth century bishop of Rouen, in a discussion of the healing properties of relics, mentions the consecratio of Jesus: John the evangelist heals in Ephesus, and in addition many places: who we believe did not leave the breast of Christ before his consecratio; and his same healing powers exist among us. Curat Ephesi Iohannes Euangelista, praeterea et in locis plurimis: quem a Christi pectore nec ante consecrationem accepimus recessisse, et apud nos ipsa eius est medicina.219
Victricius has transformed the institution of the imperial consecratio into an acceptable term for the ascension of Christ.
150 and R. Caglat and P. Gauckler, Les monuments historiques de la Tunisie, vol. 1, Paris 1898, 1–3. 218 Cf. chapt. 7 § 3.3. 219 Victric. De laude sanctorum 11.1 (CChr.SL 64, Demeulenaere). Cp. Lommatzsch, consecratio, 379.37–8.
Chapter Six
Resurrection in the Hebrew Bible and Later Jewish Texts An immense amount of work has been done on resurrection in ancient Judaism, and the bibliography is outstanding.1 Although I will concentrate on the interpretation of texts below, one can ask larger questions such as that of Claudia Setzer who wonders why resurrection became “so important in Jewish and Christian communities.” Her thesis is that it was of fundamental importance in “constructing” the community in the face of Graeco-Roman culture.2 Guy G. Stroumsa, in his examination of Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity, attributes to the Christian belief in resurrection a crucial role 1 A selection: R. H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity … Jowett Lectures, London 21913, A. T. Nikolainen, Der Auferstehungsglauben in der Bibel und ihrer Umwelt. I. Religionsgeschichtlicher Teil, Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 49, Helsinki 1944, K. Schubert, Die Entwicklung der Auferstehungslehre von der nachexilischen bis zur frührabbinischen Zeit, BZ 6 (1962) 177–214, S. Lieberman, Some Aspects of After Life in Early Rabbinic Literature, in: Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume, 3 vols., Jerusalem 1965, 2.495–532, G. Stemberger, Der Leib der Auferstehung. Studien zur Anthropologie und Eschatologie des palästinensischen Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, AnBib 56, Rome, 1972, H. C. C. Cavallin, Life After Death. Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in I Cor 15. Part I. An Enquiry into the Jewish Background, CB.NT 7.1, Lund 1974, H. Sysling, Teḥiyyat Ha-Metim: The Resurrection of the Dead in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and Parallel Traditions in Classical Rabbinic Literature, TSAJ 57, Tübingen 1996, J. J. Collins, The Afterlife in Apocalyptic Literature, in: Judaism in Late Antiquity. Part Four. Death, Life-After-Death, Resurrection & The World-to-Come in the Judaisms of Antiquity, ed. A. J. Avery-Peck and J. Neusner, Leiden 2000, 119–40, H. Lichtenberger, Auferstehung in den Qumranfunden, in: Auferstehung – Resurrection …, ed. F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger, WUNT 135, Tübingen 2001, 79–94 (and several other articles in this book), C. Setzer, Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. Doctrine, Community, and Self-definition, Leiden 2004, 21–52, Levenson, Resurrection, G. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity, HTS 56, Cambridge, MA, 22006, S. P. Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife, Plymouth 22009, Nicklas, et al., ed., The Human Body (many articles), C. D. Elledge, Resurrection and Immortality in Hellenistic Judaism: Navigating the Conceptual Boundaries, in: Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism. Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, vol. 2, TENTS 10, ed. S. E. Porter and A. W. Pitts, Leiden 2013, 101–34, and Lehtipuu, Debates, 31–9. 2 C. Setzer, Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Christianity, in: Nicklas, Human Body, 1–12, esp. 6.
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in the spread of Christianity in the ancient world.3 The Christian belief in the resurrection of the body resulted in a “major discontinuity in the very concept of a person” between Christianity and Greco-Roman culture.4 From the second century B.C.E. onward clear traces of resurrection can be found in some Jewish texts. Setzer summarizes the ambivalent views concerning the afterlife of ancient Judaism admirably: … Jewish materials from the second century B.C.E. through the first century C.E. exhibit a range of understandings of the afterlife. Fairly explicit claims of bodily resurrection appear in texts like 1 Enoch (51), 2 Maccabees, 4Q521, and Sibylline Oracle 4. A mix of concepts of resurrection of the body and immortality of the soul appear in 1 Enoch (91, 103), 1QH,5 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch and Pseudo-Phocylides. Ambiguity prevails in works that nevertheless imply resurrection, such as ‘the Book of the Watchers’ [1–36] in 1 Enoch, The Testament of Judah,6 Psalms of Solomon, and CD 2:7–12.7
The question of resurrection in the Hebrew Bible is more controversial. The Septuagint illuminates the ambiguity. One could certainly include the NT in this chapter, but I will reserve that investigation for the final chapter of the monograph. Despite the presence of differing approaches to the afterlife, there was a strong tradition of bodily resurrection in Second Temple literature.
1 Hebrew Bible and Septuagint The Septuagint’s vocabulary for resurrection clearly provided early Christianity with adequate resources for the Evangelists and other authors of the New Testament. The Septuagint translation itself, however, was fairly late in the development of the Greek language (III B.C.E.–I B.C.).8 There are texts in the Hebrew Bible that justify the resurrection language in the Greek translation. I will begin the discussion with an analysis of Psalm 87 LXX, which is intensely skeptical about the afterlife. 3 G. G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice. Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity, Chicago 2009, 8–9, 17, 23, 29–30, 112. 4 Stroumsa, End of Sacrifice, 112. 5 Possibly 1QHa col. 14 l. 37, col. 19 l. 15. See J. H. Charlesworth, Challenging the Consensus Communis Regarding Qumran Messianism (1QS, 4QS MSS), in: QumranMessianism. Studies on the Messianic Expectations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al., Tübingen 1998, 120–34, esp. 121. Stemberger, Der Leib, 3 believes that resurrection is probably present in the Hodayoth. 6 Test. Jud. 25:1 Ú Ï 7 ]I Ï Ú ∏Ï Ú ∏SI ∞ 7 (the verb’s use indicates bodily resurrection). 7 Setzer, Resurrection (2004), 18. She admits (ibid., 14) that CD 2:7-13 is thoroughly ambiguous. With the exception 1QH and CD all these texts are discussed below. In my view, the texts from the Hodayoth are too ambiguous to be of any use as an illustration of resurrection. 8 Below, I adopt the dates of composition of the various LXX translations from the Kraus and Karrer, Septuaginta Deutsch, abbreviated below as “LXX.De.”
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1.1 Psalm 87 LXX Ps 87:11 LXX has a dark view of death, but uses the Hebrew qum ( )קוםin conjunction with a disembodied being: Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? (Ps 88:10 NRSV)
‡ Do you do wonders for the dead? Or do physicians rise and praise you? (87:11 LXX) ® ) ) 7 !?; ¢ ∞ Ú 7, Ú 5 7 ;
The Hebrew corresponding to “physicians rise” ( ) is more appropriately translated “do shades rise?” due to the parallelism.9 The psalmist insists that it is impossible for mere shades to physically rise up and praise God. The concept of the netherworld, however, includes the corpses of the dead (87:6 LXX)10: My couch11 is among the dead, with the slain who lie in the grave (Ps 88:6 NABRE)
› › like the wounded, cast
down,12
who sleep in the grave (87:6 LXX.De)
› Ú 8 ! & ?(9 (LXX)
Shades are in the netherworld, but so are corpses.13 Consequently, I think not too much should be made of the concept of “shades not rising,” even though a “physical” verb like (qum) is used. 9
A Ugaritic ritual text, which is an “invocation of predecessors” of the king reads:
qrʾitm.lrpʾi.ʾa[rṣ] (You are summoned, O Rephaim of the un[derworld]). Cf. KTU 1.161 section 1, 2 trans. of M. S. Smith, Death, 298. 10 On this text, cf. the important article of B. Janowski, Die Toten loben YHWH nicht – Psalm 88, in: Avemarie, Auferstehung, 3–45, esp. 16. He dates the psalm to the period after VII B.C.E. (ibid., 37). 11 An alternate translation is “one set free.” Janowski, Die Toten, 12–3 argues for that position. N. J. Tromp offers a good argument (using an Akkadian cognate ḫipšu [Stoff]; cf. Ezek 27:20) for taking the text as “my couch” (Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Netherworld in the Old Testament, BibOr 21, Rome 1969, 159). 12 An addition omitted in A, the Lucianic recension, and Origen’s recension. 13 This is also clearly the case in Ezek 32, esp. 32:27-28 (27. Ú 7! Ï ? Ù ∞ , ≥ 8I ∞ Î& ≈ ) Ú >! Ï Ã ÕÙ Ï ( Ï Ã H Ú 7! " Ã Ú ¿ Ã , ≈ 5 ( I
E F. 28. Ú ˆ 89 7 !7W Ï 8 c [NETS]: “and they lay down with the giants fallen long ago, who descended into Hades by military arms and placed their daggers under their heads, and their lawless acts came to be upon their bones, because they terrified giants in the land of life. And you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who have been wounded by dagger”). See
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1.2 Isaiah Although it does not refer to a resurrection of the dead, Isa 14:9 is instructive in the prophet’s famous oracle against the king of Babylon. The Greek translation was done circa II B.C.E. Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations (Isa 14:9 NRSV).
› Hades beneath was embittered on meeting you; all the mighty ones [or “giants”]14 who have ruled the earth rose up together against you – those who have roused from their thrones all the kings of the nations (LXX NETS). ¡ Î& ? ! ?! 7 , 8 !? ? "
" ; 5 F F " ! Ã ? I ) ! .
The image in the LXX is embodied. In the Hebrew text the corpses of the dead are present in Sheol along with their shades. Isa 14:11 makes this clear, because the corpse of the king is addressed by the prophet: Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps; maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering (Isa 14:11 NRSV).
› But your glory has gone down to Hades – your abundant joy; they will spread decay beneath you [LXX.De adds “as a bed”], and a worm will be your covering (LXX NETS). 8I &Ó ∞ Î& & 5 , 7 Ã( H Õ? : F, Ú Ù ? ? : 5.
Tromp, Primitive Conceptions, 83 who with regard to Ps 73:18 analyzes Perdition ( ) and Destruction ( › ) so: “no doubt these names stem from the grave, because of the devastating process corpses in a tomb are subject to. To stay in Sheol is tantamount to destruction …” With regard to Ezek 32:26, Tromp (ibid., 183) remarks “Here the graves are sunk into the common dwelling of the dead, Sheol. See also Ez 31,18.” “The ideas of the grave and of Sheol cannot be separated … The dead are at the same time in the grave and in Sheol, not in two different places” (ibid., 77 with ref. to J. Pederson, Israel, Its Life and Culture, I–II, London 1964, 462). 14 So the translation of LXX.De.
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Ludwig Wächter’s comment of about Sheol in these passages is: Those who were denied a proper burial must lie down on maggots and be covered with worms (Isa. 14:11). The spirits of the dead who were uncircumcised and slain with the sword (murdered or executed) receive a place commensurate with the inferior place of the corpse (Isa. 14:19, Ezk. 31:17–18; 32:19ff.).”15
John Jarick translates as “shades,”16 but the presence of corpses in Sheol and the use of the word 17 justify the translations above of NETS (“mighty ones”) and LXX.De (“giants”). The meaning and use of the verb 8 ! (rose together) also indicates a physical motion upward. Isaiah 24–27, usually regarded by scholars as post-exilic in origin,18 has an unforgettable image of resurrection. Isa 26:14, a text in which the apocalyptic (or “proto-apocalyptic”) prophet foresees God annihilating the enemy, stands in “contrast with the dead who rely upon God” who “are saved and will rise and stand” in Isa 26:19.19 The dead do no live; shades do not rise –20 because you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory of them (Isa 26:14 NRSV).
: › But the dead will not see life, nor will physicians raise them up; because of this you have brought them and destroyed them and taken away all their males (26:14 LXX NETS). " &Ó Ú Ã N& , Ã&Ó ∞ Ú Ã 7 H &Ï 7 Ú : Ú D a ; Ã .
Isa 26:19 clearly refers to resurrection in some sense – using the image of bodily resurrection.21 Scholarly opinions are divided whether the passage re15 16 17
e
L. Wächter, š ôl, TDOT 14 (2004) 239–48, esp. 242. J. Jarick, Questioning Sheol, in: Porter, Resurrection, 22–32, esp. 23. See, e.g., Gen 6:4, 10:8–9, Deut 1:28, Josh 12:4, Psa 32:16, Job 26:5, Isa 3:2, 13:3, 49:24–25, Ezek 32:12, 21, 27, 39:18, 20 etc. 18 P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic. The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology, Philadelphia 1979, 27 (“late sixth and early fifth centuries”). M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition, BZAW 171, Berlin 1988, 51-4, J. T. Hibbard, Intertextuality in Isaiah 24–27. The Reuse and Evocation of Earlier Texts and Traditions, FAT 2/16, Tübingen 2006, 32–7 (a survey of views). 19 S. L. Cook, Apocalyptic Prophecy, in: The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. J. J. Collins, Oxford 2014, 19-35, esp. 28. 20 NJPS “They are dead, they can never live; / Shades, they can never rise.” 21 Ezek 37:1-14 (late III or II B.C.E.) also employs the metaphor of resurrection, but without using the specific terminology of resurrection. Nevertheless, verbs such as 7 ! (37:6 “you will live”) and S (8 ∞ Õa F (37:5, NETS: I am bringing into you a spirit of life”) clearly express resurrection.
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fers to the future resurrection of the individual or only to the restoration of Israel.22 Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead (Isa 26:19 NRSV)23
› 25 24 : The dead shall rise, and those who are in the tombs will rise, and those who are in the earth shall rejoice; for the dew from you is healing to them, but the land of the impious shall fall (26:19 LXX NETS, mod.). 7 " , Ú !7 " ) , Ú Ã( !7 " E EH Ï & Ï N Ã) , &Ó
F I ).26
Instead of 7 " , Aquila translates with ["] ! Ô (those who have died will live), while Symmachus and Theodotion have " (your dead will live). 27 For !7, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion all have 5!, “wake up,”28 which presumably is a translation of the Hiphil indicative form () and perhaps also . HRCS believe that both Hebrew verbs were translated by !7.29 Daniel P. Bailey has argued that had no Greek equivalent in the LXX, although he concedes that was in the “Vorlage of all the Greek versions.”30 In the LXX is only otherwise translated by a form of Û in Isa 38:9 (8 F Ã).31 In the vast majority of usages of Û, the Hebrew equivalent is . I am hesitant to derive from this fact any conclusions about 22 Hibbard, Intertextuality, 147–8 is a convenient summary of the issue. 23 NJPS has another possible trans. of this phrase: “You make the land of
the shades come to life” (although with a note that the meaning of the Hebrew for “come to life” is “uncertain”). 24 The HB has (my corpse). 25 1QIsaa has (they will awake) here. 26 Cp. the identical text in Odae 5:19. 27 Eusebius Comm. Isa. 26:19, 1.88 and J. Ziegler, ed., Isaias, SVTG 14, Göttingen 31983, 212 app. crit. 28 Cp. Judg 16:14: 5! — (and he [Samson] woke up from his sleep), where it is clear that the verb is used intransitively. See also 3 Kgds 3:15: 5! , Ú ∞&ˆ (Solomon woke up, and behold it was a dream). Cp. LSJ and Muraoka, Lexicon, s.v., both of whom translate the passive forms as intransitives. 29 HRCS s.v. Û . 30 D. P. Bailey, The Intertextual Relationship of Daniel 12:2 and Isaiah 26:19: Evidence from Qumran and the Greek Version, TynBul 51 (2000) 305–8. 31 Cp. the translation of in Isa 26:14 above ( Ã N& ).
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the LXX translation of 26:19, however. Eusebius writes, with regard to the second variation: Ú &Ó !7, 5!7 " Ú 7 › !8 Ã , ÃÚ &Ó ! : (instead of “they will wake/rise,” the others translated as “they will wake,” as if they were sleeping and not dead).32 This indicates that was in their Hebrew text. Theodoret solved the problem with this version: For your dead will rise, and those in the tombs will wake/rise, and those who rest in the earth will wake and rejoice (Isa 26:19) ]7 Ï " , Ú 5 (!7) " ) 7, 5!7 Ú Ã( !7 " ? E E.33
Several MSS also add 5!7 (wake up) to the LXX version.34 Ultimately the argument is not essential to my case, since the Hebrew verbs with the exception of are either active or intransitive, and therefore !7 can simply be translated, “they will wake,” or “rise.”35 I suspect that the LXX, as HRCS originally claimed, simply combined and יקוצוfor the Greek translation !7, since it bears the senses of both “rise” and “wake up.” The Peshitta uses the ettaphal form ( ), “to be roused” or “wake,” for .36 The ettaphal of the same verb is used to translate “stay awake” in Mark 13:33 ( ) ), “I awake” in Ps 3:6 ( ), and “wake” in Hab 2:19 ()הקיצה, where the LXX reads 5 Ô ! (“wake, rouse up”).37 The Hebrew verb in the Hiphil is intransitive, and consequently there is no need to translate !7 as “be awakened, be roused, or be raised” in Isa 26:19. The Targum has: You are he who brings alive the dead, you raise the bones of their bodies. All who were thrown in the dust will live and sing before you! For your dew is a dew of light for those 32 33 34 35
Eusebius Comm. Isa. 26:19, 1.88. Theodoret Comm. Isa. 26:19, 7, lines 623–6 (SC 295, 216 Guinot). Ziegler, Isaias, 212: MSS 62–93, a recensional variant. קיץis only intransitive. All the usages listed by HALOT s.v. קיץmean “wake up,” and not “arouse persons from sleep” as they claim: (from sleep) 1 Sam 26:12, Isa 29:8, Jer 31:26, Ps 3:6, 17:15, 73:20, Prov 6:22, 23:35; (from drunkenness) Joel 1:5, Prov 23:35; (from death) 2 Kgs 4:31, Isa 26:19, Jer 51:39, 57, Job 14:12, Dan 12:2; (God) Ps 35:23, 44:24, 59:6; (wood) Hab 2:19; and Ezek 7:6. GKC § 53b (cp. 78b) calls this usage “inwardly transitive” – “entering into a certain condition and, further, the being in the same and defines the Hiphil of to mean “to become awake.” Clearer is R. J. Williams who simply describes such usage as the “intransitive Hiphil” (“exhibiting a state or quality or … entering into a remaining in a state or condition”). Cf. Williams and Beckman, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, § 150. Arnold and Choi, A Guide, § 3.1.6b, p. 51 describe this usage of the Hiphil as “intransitive causation” – “it designates an entry into a state or condition and the continuation of the state or condition.” 36 Presumably the original form was Í !" . 37 See Payne Smith 2842 s.v.
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who perform your law, and the wicked to whom you have given might, and (yet) they transgressed against your Word (Memra), you will hand over to Gehenna (Tg. Neb. Isa 26:19).38
# The Targum to Isaiah may have existed in an incomplete version between 70 and 135 C.E., but was not finished until the first part of the fourth century according to Bruce Chilton.39 Stephen L. Cook has an interpretation of Isaiah worth quoting in full: Daniel 12:1–4 did not interpret Isaiah 26:19 as mere politics, sensing instead the expansive, potent valence of its poetic language. For Isaiah 26, the rules of the old age are collapsing; the land of shades is catching its first rays of sun. Rising to life, it is giving birth to the dead. The exuberant poetic mood of the text resists dissection, pushes back against distinctions between rebirthing Israel and rebirthing individual bodies.40
There is little reason to try and separate “earth” as the place where the dead are buried and the underworld where the shades dwell.41 Isaiah makes no such distinction. Carol A. Newsom argues that due to the contrast between 26:14 and 26:19, “there is good reason for taking this verse as expressing a hope for an actual resurrection in the context of God’s judgment of the oppressors and deliverance of the people. If so, it is a very close parallel to Dan 12:2.”42
38 Trans. of B. D. Chilton, The Isaiah Targum, ArBib 11, Wilmington, DE 1987, 51–2. This verse is also used in b. Sanh 90b to justify belief in resurrection of the dead. Cf. also C. A. Evans, Did Jesus Predict his Death and Resurrection, in Porter, Resurrection, 82–97, esp. 93. The date of this Targum is highly contested, with some claiming it may belong to the Second Temple period. Cf. L. Smolder and M. Aberbach, Studies in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets, New York 1983, xi-xvii (also bound with this volume is P. Churgin, Targum Jonathan to the Prophets). 39 B. Chilton, Jesus within Judaism, in: The Missing Jesus. Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament, ed. B. Chilton et al., Leiden 2002, 135–56, esp. 145 (with appropriate bibl.; Chilton argues that the text was completed by a “meturgeman, associated with Rabbi Joseph bar Hiyya of Pumbeditha, who died in 333”). 40 Cook, Apocalyptic Prophecy, 28. Sawyer, Hebrew Words, 234 remarks on this passage: “This is a reference to the resurrection of the dead which no-one but a Sadducee, ancient or modern could possibly misconstrue.” See also, K. L. Anderson, “But God Raised Him from the Dead.” The Theology of Jesus’s Resurrection in Luke-Acts, Eugene, OR 2006, 57. 41 Contra P. Johnson, Shades of Sheol, Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament, Downers Grove, IL 2002, 114. 42 C. A. Newsom with B. W. Breed, Daniel. A Commentary, OTL, Louisville, KY 2014, 362.
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1.3 Jeremiah Jeremiah, in an oracle against Babylon, uses sleep as an image of death: When they are inflamed, I will set out their drink and make them drunk, until they become merry and then sleep a perpetual sleep and never rouse up, says the Lord (Jer 51:39, NRSV)
When they are hot I will give them drink and make them drunk in order that they be stupefied and sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake/rise, says the Lord (Jer 28:39, LXX NETS, slightly mod.) E ! c à &: Ã) Ú ! Ã, ≈ ! 43 Ú Õ: — ∞: Ú Ã 5 ! , 8 ·
HALOT classifies this usage of as an example of texts in which a dead person wakes.44 The denial of the possibility of “waking up” from the sleep of death is in stark contrast with the affirmation of Dan 12:2.45 In the same oracle, Jeremiah again uses the image of death and sleep: I will make her officials and her sages drunk, also her governors, her deputies, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake, says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts (Jer 51:57, NRSV)
The Lord repays repayment to her, and he will make drunk with drunkenness her leaders and her sages and her generals, says the King; Lord Almighty is his name (Jer 28:57, LXX NETS) && ÃE &H Ú ! 8!W ˆ ÃF Ú ˆ (ˆ ÃF46 Ú ˆ ˆ ÃF,47 8 ¡ I , ? ƒ Ã2.
43 This can also be translated as “plunged into a deep sleep.” Cf. Muraoka, Lexicon s.v. (“to plunge into a deep sleep”) and LSJ s.v. (“plunge into a deep sleep or torpor, stun, stupefy). 44 HALOT s.v. . 45 Cf. E. Haag, Daniel 12 und die Auferstehung der Toten, in: The Book of Daniel. Composition & Reception, vol. 1, ed. J. J. Collins and P. W. Flint, VTSup 83.1, Leiden 2001, 132–47, esp. 135, and J. J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 1993, 392 (with regard to Dan 12:3: “sleeping and awaking is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible for death and resurrection”), U. Kellermann, Das Danielbuch und die Märtyrertheologie der Auferstehung, in: Die Entstehung der Jüdischen Martyrologie, ed. J. W. van Henten et al., Leiden et al. 1989, 51–75, esp. 52 (a discussion of 2 Macc 7, Dan 12:2, etc.), and Levenson, Resurrection, 186. 46 Aquila and Symmachus have Ú ˆ ; ( × [i.e., all three versions] ; Q) ‹αὐτῆς› “and her rulers.” Cf. J. Ziegler, ed., Ieremias · Baruch · Threni · Epistula Ieremiae, SVTG 15, Göttingen 1957, 302 app. crit.
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Although the LXX does not include the clause in which the Babylonian officials will never wake, the image of death as sleep is a fundamental motivation, in my view, for Paul’s frequent use of the verb Û for resurrection in his letters. Matthew (27:52) also adopts the image of death as sleep, and uses the same verb († Ô !) for the resurrection of the saints in Jerusalem.48 1.4 Daniel Daniel 12:2–3 is a fairly clear expression of hope in the resurrection of the dead. The LXX or Old Greek translation was presumably done toward the end of II B.C.E. 12:2 Many of those who sleep in the dusty earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky/firmament, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (NRSV, modified).
‡ . › : 12:2 And many of those who sleep in the flat of the earth will arise, some to everlasting life but others to shame and others to dispersion [and contempt] everlasting. 12:3 And those who are intelligent will light up like the luminaries of heaven, and those who strengthen my words will be as the stars of heaven forever and ever (LXX NETS). Ú Ú ! & 2 ? F F 7, " Ó ∞ ∞:, " &Ó ∞ ¿ & , " &Ó ∞ & Ï [Ú ∞] 49 ∞:. Ú " 8 ( › ( F Ã Ú " ˆ › Ú Ï ; Ã ∞ Ù ∞ ∞ (LXX or OG). 12.2 (Theod) And many of those who sleep in a mound of earth will awake/rise, these to everlasting life and those to shame and everlasting contempt. 3. And those who are intelligent will shine like the splendor of the firmament, and some of the many righteous, like the stars forever and anon (NETS, slightly mod.).
47 Aquila and Theodotion + # Ú (+ ˆ 86) &ˆ F Ú Õ˘ — ∞˘ Ú Ã 5 ! () Q, 86 (sub × [the LXX]) “and her mighty ones, and they will sleep an everlasting sleep, and they will never awake.” The same variant occurs in two recensions (O and Lʹ). The asterisk indicates material added to the LXX by Origen from the versions that reflect the original Hebrew text. 48 Cp. F. Möbius, Die Häuser von Çatal Hüyük. Zu den Anfängen religiösen Bauens, in: Kunst, Kontext, Geschichte. Festgabe für Hubert Faensen zum 75. Geburtstag, et. T. Bartsch and J. Meiner, Berlin 2003, 14–33, esp. 27 (in the context of an argument that certain buildings in Çatal Hüyük implied the image of death as sleep, because of the location of skeletons in the midst of family life). 49 The brackets indicate a doublet of questionable originality. P 967 (P. Köln Theol. 31v) from ca 200 C.E. has the expression.
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12.2 Ú Ú ! & F : 5 !7,50 ” ∞ ∞: Ú ” ∞ ¿ &Ù Ú ∞ ∞ ∞:. 3. Ú " 8 ? › : Ú Ù & › " 8 ∞ ˆ ∞ Ú > (Theod.).
Daniel is almost certainly referring to the resurrection of the dead.51 Andrew Chester has made the important point that the text is a “vision” and not a “considered formulation of resurrection doctrine.” Consequently, one should not “expect a fully coherent or consistent theological statement at this point.”52 The argument (by Outi Lehtipuu and others) that the prophet is only referring to spirits, since “the land of dust” is Sheol, which itself is the “underworld abode of the bodiless shades of the dead” fails, because as noted above, corpses are also in the land of the dead.53 Nicholas J. Tromp’s comment is worth remembering: The fluid relations between grave and Sheol are manifest in these texts [Job 20:11, 21:26, 17:16, Ps 22:16, etc.]54: it is obvious that “dust” also is a category transposed from the grave to the home of the dead. So, in a late text, the nether world can be described as “the country consisting of dust” [Dan 12:2].55
50 MSS A, V, and group lI (some MSS of the Lucianic recension) have !7. Cf. Susanna · Daniel · Bel et Draco, ed. J. Ziegler, O. Munnich and D. Fraenkel, SVTG 16.2, Göttingen 1999, 391, app. crit. The verb is intransitive or middle because the Hebrew verb clearly is. See O. Hofius, Am dritten Tage auferstanden von den Toten, in: Resurrrection in the New Testament. Festschrift J. Lambrecht, ed. R. Bieringer et al, BETL 165, Leuven 2002, 93–106, esp. 97. 51 A convincing defense of bodily resurrection may be found in A. Chester, Future Hope and Present Reality: Volume I. Eschatology and Transformation in the Hebrew Bible, WUNT 293, Tübingen 2012, 291–5. The Hebrew verb in Dan 12:2 () should be compared with the verb used for Gehazi’s failure to raise the dead boy in 2 Kgs 4:31, who showed no signs of waking/rising ( ), translated in 4 Kgdms 4:31 with the very material à † Ô !. Cp. Levenson, Resurrection, 186 and Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 38: “our writer appears to envision a resurrection of the body.” Schubert, Entwicklung, 191 argues that a “resurrection” of the spirit only would go against the anthropology of the HB. There is no life without body. 52 A. Chester, Resurrection and Transformation, in: Avemarie, Auferstehung, 47–78, esp. 61. He also briefly discusses the similarity of the terms in 12:3 with those used for the Suffering Servant in Isa 52:13–53:12 (ibid., 62). 53 Lehtipuu, Debates, 33 (only spirits arise in Daniel) and contra Collins, Daniel, 392 (“Daniel … does not address the form of the resurrection”). To be fair, Lehtipuu (ibid., 34) does believe that the resurrection involves “a body but a totally transformed one, not the recovery of the earthly body.” The Isaianic passage on which she draws (26:19) says that “the bodies of the dead will rise.” 54 These texts all include “dust” (), and Job 17:16 includes Sheol ( )שׁאלand dust (). Newsom, Daniel, 363 notes that both terms (“land” and “dust”) are used in Gen 3:19 “in the description of death.” 55 Tromp, Primitive Conceptions, 91. He compares Daniel’s expression with the Akkadian bit ipri (house of dust).
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With regard to the relationship between the grave and Sheol, Tromp argues that “the theory about the partial identity between the two” is “preferable to the bilocation that Maag proposes: Ez 32,17 ff. clearly shows that the individual grave is ‘merged into Sheol’ … which is found in the depth.”56 In addition, it is apparent that the Greek translators (LXX and Theodotion) understood bodies to be rising, since verbs associated with bodily motion upward are used (LXX: 7; Theodotion 5 !7). These verbs are never used in resurrection contexts with “spirit” or “soul” in Jewish or pagan texts.57 Jon Levenson notes, in what can be taken as a critique of Lehtipuu’s argument, that Daniel “gives no indication of their [the dead’s] location, and we should be wise to respect its reticence too.” He points out that 1 Enoch is very clear about the location of the dead (in various chambers), “In comparison, Daniel 12 is remarkably restrained, giving no indication that those about to be resurrected, whatever their ultimate destinies, are sleeping in Sheol, Gehinnom, or wherever.”58 In 1 En. 104:2, the righteous will “shine like the lights (or luminaries/stars) 59 of heaven” ( berhānāta samāy). 104:2, however, is preceded by a chapter in which only the spirits in Sheol are revivified, so it is not entirely clear in 104:2 if the author is referring to spirits or to new bodies that shine like the stars.60 The text in Daniel does not explicitly restrict the “waking” to spirits alone, so it is clearly different from the text in Enoch. Syrian Baruch offers a closer parallel, in that the resurrected dead will be “equal 61 to the stars” ( ).62 In the context in 2 Baruch, it is clear that risen bodies are the subject of the comparison.63 G. W. Nickelsburg has argued that Dan 12:2 “corresponds precisely to the double vision in 1 En. 24:2–25:7 and 26:1–27:5” and that “this appears to strengthen the case for interpreting Dan 12:2 to refer to a resurrection to bodily existence in and around the new Jerusalem.”64 That is, 56 Tromp, Primitive Conceptions, 139 (with ref. to V. Maag, Tod and Jenseits nach dem Alten Testament, Schweizerische Theologische Umschau 34 [1964] 17–37, esp. 20 ff.). 57 Cf. intro. § 3.3. 58 Levenson, Resurrection, 186. 59 Cf. C. F. A. Dillmann, Lexicon linguae aethiopicae, Leipzig 1865, s.v. 500. 60 See § 3.3 below on 1 En. 103:3-4. Other texts from the same Epistle of Enoch (91:10 and 92:3) are probably references to resurrection. 61 Cf. Payne Smith 3082 (the verb can mean “be made comparable” or “be made equal”). 62 2 Bar 51:10. T. Mos. 10:9 is too ambiguous to be of help (et altauit te deus et faciet te herere caelo stellarum loco habitationis ‹eius› and God will raise you [Moses] on high and will cause you to remain among the stars of heaven in the place of his habitation). eorum is in the MSS, and eius is the conjecture of J. Tromp, The Assumption of Moses. A Critical Edition and Commentary, SVTP 10, Leiden 1993, 20. 63 See § 4.3 below. 64 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Where is the Place of Eschatological Blessing?, in: Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone, ed. E. G. Chazon et al., JSJ.S Leiden 2004, 53–72, esp. 64–5. Cf. § 3.1 below.
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the eternal life of the blessed and the punishment of those who are cursed in 1 Enoch corresponds with the everlasting life and everlasting contempt in Daniel 12:2.65 Carol A. Newsom astutely remarks that (“abhorrence”) is only otherwise used in the HB in Isa 66:24 “which refers to the exposed corpses of those who rebelled against God as subjected to undying worms and unquenchable fire.” Consequently, she traces Daniel’s concept of resurrection to Isa 26:19 and 66:24, although “the wicked are not raised” in Isaiah.66 This is clearly embodied imagery, and Newsom concludes, “it seems likely that Daniel envisions a bodily resurrection.”67 The decisive confirmation of the bodily nature of resurrection in Daniel is the conclusion of the book where the seer is told that he will himself rise from the dead: 12:13 But you, go your way to the end and rest; you shall rise [“stand”] for your reward at the end of days (NRSV mod.).
# 12:13 And you, go! Be off! For there are yet days and hours until the fulfillment of the consummation. And you will rest and will rise upon your glory at the consummation of days (LXX NETS mod.).68 12:13 Ú ˆ I?& ˘!H > ? ∞ 8 Ú „ ∞ 7 , Ú W Ú 7W Ú & 5 ∞ 8 (LXX or OG). 12:13 And you, come, and rest, and you will rise for your allotment at the consummation of the days (Theod. NETS). 12:13 Ú ˆ & Ú H Ú 7W ∞ Ù F ∞ 8 (Theod.).
“Lot” () “takes on the nuance of destiny” according to Newsom (with ref. to Jer 13:25).69 Both the Hebrew and Greek words for “stand” are embodied categories and do not refer to spirits or souls. Collins notes that “ is the
65 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1– 36; 83–108, Hermeneia, Minneapolis, 2001, 315–6 66 Newsom, Daniel, 364. 67 Newsom, Daniel, 364. 68 NETS puts this last sentence in brackets, but P 967 (P. Köln Theol. 32r), although the leaf is torn, clearly reads (of W) and consequently originally included the statement of resurrection. Munnich, Daniel, ad loc. uses no brackets. LXX.De, properly in my view, does not use any brackets and translates the entire text as part of the original. 69 Newsom, Daniel, 368. She further notes that in 1QS 2:2, 5 the word is used for those “’allotted’ to God or to Belial.” Collins, Daniel, 402 mentions 11Q13 = 11QMelch col. 2:8 (people of the lot of Melchizedek).
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equivalent to קום, ‘arise,’ and the rest is the sleep of death (12:2).”70 Daniel clearly belongs to the group of those who rise to everlasting life in 12:2.71 1.5 Hosea Hos 6:2 LXX (II B.C.E.) makes a metaphorical reference to resurrection: After two days he will revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him (Hos 6:2 NRSV).
# ›› After two days he will make us healthy; and on the third day we will rise up and live before him (LXX NETS) Õ ? a Ï & 8 , E 8 c E W ! Ú ! : Ã. He will give us life in the days of consolations that will come; on the day of the resurrection of the dead he will raise us up and we shall live before him (Tg. Neb. Hos 6:2).72
# With regard to the Hebrew text, Jan Dochhorn argues that the context (6:1) is healing from illness, although there is enough basis in the text for the conjecture that the image of resurrection is present, especially since sickness in ancient Israel belonged clearly to the sphere of death.73 Often commentators compare the theme of a revival on the third day with a presumed death and resurrection of vegetation gods – either to affirm or deny a relationship.74 But
70 71
Collins, Daniel, 402. Both verbs are used in 4Q385 (Pseudo Ezekiel). Cf. § 6 below. Newsom, Daniel, 364 mentions the occurrence of a similar expression (“and perpetual joy through life everlasting”) in 1QS 4:7 (
). Trans. of D. W. Parry and E. Tov with G. I. Clements, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader. Second Edition, Revised and Expanded [DSSR], 2 vols., Leiden 2014, 1.11. 72 Trans. K. J. Cathcart and R. P. Gordon, Targum of the Minor Prophets, ArBib 14, Wilmington 1989, 41. Aramaic text from A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic. III. The Latter Prophets According to Targum Jonathan, Leiden 1962, 395. 73 J. Dochhorn, Auferstehung am dritten Tag? Eine problematische Parallele zu Hos 6,2, ZAH 11 (1998) 200–4, esp. 200–1 (a rough translation). Wolff, Hosea, 117 argues that the context is recovery from illness and not resurrection, but concedes that “the expression (“raise up”) originates from the idea that in death one is separated from Yahweh.” J. Mays, Hosea. A Commentary, OTL, Philadelphia 1969, 95 also maintains that the people are not “portrayed as dead” but as “wounded” and Yahweh “is expected to revive them by restoring their vitality and so saving them from death.” Neither confronts the LXX version, and both admit that the fundamental context is death. 74 Wolff, Hosea, 117–8, Mays, Hosea, 95, Rudolph, Hosea, 136–7. Ringgren, chāyāh, 337: ìIt is generally recognized that lurking behind this statement [6:2] is the resurrection of a dead god Ö the prophet does not approve of these notions.î
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since that conception has largely been abandoned by anthropologists the point is moot.75 W. Edward Glenny notes that for “early readers of the LXX, who were reading Hosea 6:2 in its context, the verse would be understood first of all to refer to the Lord’s restoration of his people, Israel, to himself and the nation’s resurrection back to life after a period, hopefully short (“the third day”), of his chastisement of them.”76 He also admits, however, that the combination of “the third day,” “ we will rise up” (Û), and “we will live” “suggest the resurrection of the dead in Hosea 6:2.”77 This implies that early readers of the LXX could have interpreted 6:2 to refer to resurrection, and this is reflected in later Jewish interpretation of the passage. The translation probably dates to the second century B.C.E.78 Aquila and Symmachus both replace the LXX’s Õ Ì (will make healthy) with ˘ (will make alive again).79 The Quinta column of the Hexapla has Õ Û & Û5 (will make healthy).80 Aquila and Symmachus apparently interpreted the text as a reference to resurrection. Aquila’s translation was early in the second century, since Irenaeus knew it.81 In the Targum’s interpretation of Hosea, the resurrection of the dead is the intention of the text. The date and origin of the Targum to the Minor Prophets is unclear. It may have been a Palestinian composition after 70 C.E., but most likely it was edited in Babylon in amoraic times.82 Tertullian is the earliest extant Christian author who adopted Hos 6:2 as a proof text for the resurrection.83 In a Christian expansion of the Lives of the Prophets, perhaps from the third or fourth century, the author quotes Hos 6:1– 2 and then uses it to explain 1 Cor 15:3–4: C F 7 ¡ 8 ) ! (“On the basis of this passage, 75 76
Cf. chapt. 1 § 1.1. W. E. Glenny, Hosea. A Commentary Based on Hosea in the Codex Vaticanus, Leiden 2013, 111. 77 Glenny, Hosea, 111. 78 Kraus and Karrer, Septuaginta Deutsch, 1166 and Gentry, Hosea, 18–9. 79 Only a few authors use this verb prior to the time of (or contemporaneous with) Aquila. Philo, Somn. 1.147 (God and the word of God revive the soul, which is carried along in the body like a river [ > · 2, 2 :, ( 8 Ö ]). Cf. intro. § 4. 80 Cf. Duodecim prophetae, SVTG 13, ed. J. Ziegler, Göttingen 21967, 159. 81 Iren. Haer. 3.21.1 apud Eus., H.E. 5.8.10. Cf. S. Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study, Oxford 1968, 76–83 (on Aquila, but without a chronological determination). 82 Cathcart and Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets, 12–8 (inconclusive). P. M. Flesher and B. D. Chilton, The Targums. A Critical Introduction, Leiden 2011, 180, 200, 222 (Tg. Neb. Hos 1:1–3, 4:12, 8:6 and 11:2 reflect worries of “Sassanian Babylon,” but 3:5 is “concerned with the cultic abuses of the Tannaitic period”), 227 (completed in the fifth century). None of these arguments are probative. 83 Tert. Marc. 4.43.1, Jud. 13.23. See also Orig. Hom in Ex. 5.2 (GCS Origenes Werke VI, 186 Baehrens), Cypr. Test. 2.25, Lact. Inst. 4.19.9 and Epit. 42.2.
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the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians”).84 After the quotation of Paul, the author concludes: Ã > ! Õ ) (“It is not found anywhere else”). Clearly the individual who wrote this (the so-called Dorotheus) believed that nowhere else in the LXX was there a scriptural foundation for resurrection on the third day. 1.6 2 Maccabees Second Maccabees may have been written before 143/142 B.C.E., and it includes a very clear expectation of the resurrection.85 Barbara Schmitz believes it is one of the earliest expressions of belief in resurrection, along with Daniel 12:2 and Isa 26:19 (which she thinks is a late addition to Isa 24–27).86 The second martyred brother in 2 Maccabees will experience resurrection because of his faithfulness to the law.87 The third and fourth brothers also believe in the resurrection: (7:9) And when he was at his last breath, he said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.” (10) After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands (11) and said nobly, “I got these from heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.” … (13) After he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. (14) When he was near death, he said, “It is desirable that those who die at the hands of human beings should
84 Liv. Pro. 5 (Hosea; T. Schermann, ed., Prophetarum vitae fabulosae, BiTeu, Leipzig 1907, 26 [Dorothei recensio]). Schermann (ibid., xxi) asserts that Dorotheus worked around 290 CE. It may be later, however, and Cosmas Indicopleustes (PG 88.260–73; 260–61 is the text quoting Hosea and 1 Cor 15 used above) is the terminus ad quem (ca. 547–549). The same text is quoted in the Chronicon Paschale, 70th Olympiad, vol. 1, ed. L. Dindorf, CSHB, Bonn 1832, 276. On Dorotheus’s date, see A. M. Schwemer, Studien zu den frühjüdischen Prophetenlegenden Vitae prophetarum. Band I. Die Viten der großen Propheten Jesaja, Jeremia, Ezechiel und Daniel. Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar, TSAJ 49, Tübingen 1995, 15. She makes the equally important point that some MSS of the Vitae (Dorothei recensio) do not have the legend of the discovery of Zechariah’s grave in Eleutheropolis in 415 C.E. (Sozomen, H.E. 9.17.1–6). Cf. Liv. Pro. 15 (Zechariah; Schermann, Prophetarum, 36). 85 For an argument that that year is the terminus ad quem (based on his interpretation of 1:7), see D. R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, Berlin 2008, 17. R. Doran, 2 Maccabees. A critical Commentary, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2012, 14–5 relies rather on 4:11, identifying Eupolemos with the author of the fragments from Eusebius’s P.E., although he is unable to offer a specific date of composition. Elledge, Resurrection, 188–22 gives a succinct and clear interpretation of the theme of resurrection in the text. He notes that the resurrection hope in the text is based on creation theology. 86 B. Schmitz, Auferstehung und Epiphanie. Jenseits- und Körperkonzepte im Zweiten Makkabäerbuch, in: Nicklas, Human Body, 105–42, esp. 105. 87 Composed before 63 B.C.E. Cf. Stemberger, Leib, 16.
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cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!” (LXX NETS)88 (7:9) ?W &Ó E ∂ ˆ 8, ? , a F , ¡ &Ó I ˆ ! a ÕÓ Ã ∞ ∞: I F a 7 . (10) ® Ï &Ó ¡ Ú ∞! Ú 8 8I Ú Ï ) Ã! 8 (11) Ú ∂ C5 Ã 8 Ú &Ï ˆ Ã Õ Ú í Ã ? !H Ö (13) Ú &Ó ?5 Ù 8 › I? ∞ . (14) Ú Ù Ù a — >( Ê" Ù ? Õí ! : Ï ÕÙ ! &a & ? 7 ! Õí ÃH Ú Ó Ï ? ∞ Ã >.
Perhaps the text assumes that the sinner remains in Sheol, but this is not certain.89 Schmitz points out that the second brother in this passage expresses his belief in resurrection here as hope and not “certain knowledge.”90 Nevertheless, his hope is firmly grounded in his faith, and he has no doubts about the future. This is because of his certainty that the king will not rise again.91 Judas Maccabeus’s collection for the dead fighters (who had idolatrous amulets under their tunics) was done in the hope of the resurrection according to 2 Macc 12:43 ÕÓ ? . The resurrection justifies praying for the dead in 2 Macc 12:44: For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead (LXX NETS) ∞ Ï ˆ F & , Ù Ú & ÕÓ – !.
One of the Maccabees, Razis, fell upon his sword. He did not immediately die, however: 14:45 Still alive and aflame with anger, he rose, and though his blood gushed forth and his wounds were severe, he ran through the crowd, and standing upon a steep rock 46 with his blood already completely drained from him, he tore out his entrails, took them in both hands and hurled them at the crowd, calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to give them back to him again. This was the manner of his death (LXX NETS). (14:45) > &Ó > Õ? Ú 8 ) !) 5Ï ( 8 &Ù "? Ú & ? ƒ & 9 ˆ ƒ & !S Ú Ï 8 (46) >5 4& I S Ï > Ú IS /8 88 Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, 88 relates this chapter to the statement in Heb 11:35–36. 7:36 ( ? F ÕÙ &!7 ! “God’s covenant of eternal life” [Schwartz’s translation]) indicates the “continuity of post-mortem life even before resurrection” (ibid., 317). 89 Stemberger, Leib, 18 (with ref. to 2 Macc 6:26). 90 Schmitz, Auferstehung, 108. 91 Doran, 2 Maccabees, 157 compares the text of 7:9 with Dan 12:2.
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) Ú 8 ) ƒ Ú ? Ù & F F Ú Ã2 ? & & Ù 7 5 .
It is apparent that Razis expects his body back again in the resurrection of the dead. For some, at least, in 2 Maccabees there is an intermediary state,92 since Judas sees Jeremiah who “stretched out his right hand and gave him a golden sword” ( &Ó G & 5Ï & 2 G& X( F 2 Macc 15:15, NETS). Jeremiah’s appearance is glorious (2 Macc 15:13, NETS): Then in the same fashion another appeared, distinguished by his gray hair and appearance, and marvelous and most glorious dignity. ∂!í — (F ;& ¹ Ú & 5W &(8 , ! &8 Ú ? ∂ Ú ÃÙ Õ 7.
The author presumably envisions Jeremiah in an intermediate state before the resurrection. 1.7 Job Job denies the resurrection in 14:12: So mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep. (14:12 NRSV)
:- - 93
- but a person, once lying down, shall never rise again until the sky become unstitched [and they will not wake from their sleep].94 (Job 14:12 LXX NETS mod.) ;! &Ó ! Ú Ã E, A i ¡ Ã Ù Ã (EH Ú Ã 5!7 5 — Ã . (Job 14:12 LXX)
Instead of E, a number of MSS have 5 !E.95 For 14:12b (A i Ö (E), Aquila has “until the sky is worn out, (s)he will not rise (or “be raised”) (A i IE Ã ı, Ã 5 ! ). Symmachus, for 14:12b, has “until heaven decays, they will not rise” (A !J Ã ı, Ã 5 !).96 The Targum reads: 92 93
I thank Professor Markus Bockmuehl for referring me to this text. HALOT note that this verb could be derived from (ìgape openî). But this would be the only occurrence of this hypothetical verb in the OT. HALOT, correctly in my view, derive the Hiphil form from . 94 The italicized material is text that Origen added to the LXX from other translations. 95 This reading appears in L, 406, 534´, Sa. See J. Ziegler, ed., Iob, SVTG 11.4, Göttingen 1982, 272. 96 Ziegler, Iob, 272.
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And a son of man lies down and does not rise until the set time that the heavens are no more,97 and the wicked will not arise/awake and will not awake from the house of their sleep. (Tg. Ket. Job 14:12)98
[ ] ׃ 14:12 could not be clearer: there will be no resurrection of the dead; consequently, 19:26 should not be interpreted as an affirmation of the resurrection.99 A text in the Greek translation of Job not found in the Hebrew Bible, Job 42:17a (before I B.C.E.), refers to the resurrection of Job: 8 &Ó ÃÙ ? 7 ! !í „ ¡ (NETS: And it is written that he will rise again with those that the Lord raises up). T. Job 4:9 reflects this tradition also: Ú !7W E ? (and you [Job] will rise in the resurrection).100 The same text portrays the translation to heaven of Job’s ten children, presumably to wait for their own resurrection. Job tells Eliphaz and his wife: “For you will not find my children, since they have been taken up to heaven by their creator, the king” (Ã Ï Õ 7 Ï & , & 7(! ∞ Ã ˆ ÕÙ & Ã I 8 ).101
97 An addition in six MSS not adopted by Stec in his critical edition. His edition (without the addition) may be translated “until the heavens are summoned” (cf. C. Mangan, The Targum of Job, ArBib 15, Collegeville MN 1991, 44). “Summons of the heavens” is also possible. 98 Text from D. M. Stec, The Targum of Job. An Introduction & Critical Edition, AGJU 20, Leiden 1994, 95 (he notes the MSS that include the variant which I have placed between brackets). Mangan, Targum, 44 translates as “resting place.” 99 Cf. M. Pope, Job, AB 15, Garden City, NY 1965, 135. Chrysostom Comm. in Job 19:26 (Johannes Chrysostomos, Kommentar zur Hiob, PTS 35, ed. E. Hagedorn and U. Hagedorn, Berlin 1990, 130) affirms that Job apparently knew of the resurrection of bodies, unless one should affirm that “resurrection” is the deliverance from the horrors that beset him (÷ & Ú ? ; Ú & ) Ú Ú ? ? , ∞ 7 8 ? ∂ ÃÙ & ). But in Ep. Olymp. 8 (SC 13bis, 130 Malingrey), Chrysostom writes, “But [Job] being a righteous person and knowing nothing of the resurrection … (°” &Ó Ú & Ë Ú Ú ? ? Ã&8 …). Cf. M. Cimosa, John Chrysostom and the Septuagint (Job and Psalms), in: XII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Leiden, 2004, ed. M. K. H. Peters, Atlanta 2006, 117–30, esp. 126. In b. B. Bat. 16a (see § 8.2 below), Rab concludes that Job denied the resurrection. 100 G. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, Minneapolis 22005 [first ed. 1981], 321 notes that there is a “virtual consensus among scholars” that T. Job is a Jewish text. 101 T. Job 39:12.
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1.8 Thisworldly Resurrections Various texts in the LXX mention resurrections to this life. Older texts (in the LXX, dated soon after 200 B.C.E.) such as 3 Kgdms 17:21–22 and 4 Kgdms 4:34–35 do not use specific verbs for the resurrections accomplished by Elijah and Elisha, but 4 Kgdms 4:31 does use the familiar NT verb to describe Gehazi’s failed attempt to raise the dead child by touching the boy with Elisha’s staff: °Ã † 8 ! Ù &? (the child did not rise/wake).102 The Antiochene recension of 4 Kgdms 4:31 has °Ã 5 Ù &Ì (the child has not risen).103 Sir 48:5 (between 132–117 B.C.E.) has ¡ 104 Ù !? (who raised a dead person [or “corpse”] from death) for Elijah’s resurrection of the dead boy. Such traditions may have influenced Artapanus, the Hellenistic Jewish author. In one of his narratives, when Moses whispered the name of God into Pharaoh’s scoffing ear, the Pharaoh fell down dead, but “supported by Moses he came to life again” (& !8 &Ó ÕÙ ® ? I ).105
2 Inscriptions A funerary inscription for a Jewish woman named Regina from the Monteverde catacombs apparently dates to the second or third century C.E.: She will live again, return to the light again. For she can hope that she will rise to the life promised as a real assurance to the worthy and the pious in that she has deserved to possess an abode in the hallowed land. rursum victura reditura ad lumina rursum / nam sperare potest ideo quod surgat in aevm / promissum quae vera fides dignisque piisque / quae meruit sedem venerandi ruris habere106
Joseph S. Park writes that surgat “seems to evoke an image of the deceased literally rising from the grave.”107 102 The HB has: (ìthe child did not awakeî). The Greek translation indicates that ìawakeî also has a physical connotation (that is, ìgetting upî). 103 Marcos and Saiz, El texto antioqueno, 91. MS 82 has 5 . 104 The Hebrew (ca 190–175 B.C.E.) in MS CUL Or. 1102, 17v is
. 105 Artapanus apud Eus. P.E. 9.27.25. There is a nearly identical version in Clem. of Alex. Strom. 1.23.154.3 (the verb is I ). 106 CIL 6, 39086 = JIWE 2, 103 (Rome), trans. of P. W. van der Horst, Jewish Metrical Epitaphs, in: Early Christian Poetry. A Collection of Essays, ed. J. den Boeft and A. Hilhorst, Leiden 1993, 1–14, esp. 12. Cp. Park, Conceptions, 167. P. W. van der Horst, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides. With Introduction and Commentary, Leiden 1978, 186 suggests a parallel to Ps.-Phoc. 103–4 (cf. § 4.10). For a short but effective argument on the Jewish origin of the verse inscription, cf. Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike. Fünfter Band. Restauration und Erneurung 284–374 n. Chr., ed. R. Herzog, Munich 1989 (II to III C.E.), esp. 234.
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An inscription in red paint from Beth Sheʿarim threatens tomb violators: Anyone who removes this woman, He who promised to revive the dead will himself judge him À Ï !E ˜ Ì / F ˆ ˆ / ÃÙ ()).108
Moshe Schwabe and Baruch Lifschitz date the inscriptions to the third or fourth century.109 Jeanne and Louis Robert compare this inscription to a Christian inscription from Phrygia that is dated to 246 C.E.110 The owner of the tomb threatens anyone who places another body within: (S)he will have to reckon with God both now and for all time, and will not obtain the promise of God. >[] / []Ã2 Ù Ù ! /Ù Ú Ú 2 /[]Ú ∞ , Ú ˜/[] F ! [ ]/ Û111
William M. Ramsay translates a similar phrase as “he shall have to account to [the living] God, both now and in the judgement day” (> Ã2 Ù / Ù ! Ù / Ú Ú E /Û9 Ô c).112 A graffito from “the wall of the corridor of the eastern entrance” of catacomb 20 in Beth Sheʿarim affirms the resurrection: “good luck with your resurrection” ( à / J / Ì ).113 Schwabe and Lifschitz note that à (good luck) often occurs in Christian inscriptions.114 More importantly, they argue that Ì corresponds to the Hebrew (standing, resurrection), which occurs in a Hebrew inscription from the same catacomb in room 5. The inscription is incised on a sarcophagus and probably should be dated to the third century C.E.
107 108
Park, Conceptions, 167. BS II 162 (J. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth Sheʿarim. Volume II: The Greek Inscriptions, New Brunswick, NJ 1974, 139 [catacomb 13]), trans. of P. W. van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs: An Introductory Survey of a Millennium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE–700 CE), Kampen 1991, 119–20 (“above the arch of arcosolium 1 in room II”). in the inscription is corrected. 109 Schwabe and Lifschitz, Beth Sheʿarim, 121 [catacomb 12], 133 [catacomb 13]. 110 J. Robert and L. Robert, Bulletin épigraphique, REG 69/324–5 (1956) 104-91, esp. 181–2 (§ 340). 111 SEG 15, 811 = MAMA 11, 36 (Eumeneia in Phrygia). I take the translation of the first phrase from J. G. C. Anderson, Paganism and Christianism in the Upper Tembris Valley, in: Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire, ed. W. M. Ramsay, Aberdeen University Studies 20, Aberdeen 1906, 183–227, esp. 203. 112 Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1.2, 514 § 353 (Eumeneia). He omits “the living.” The phrase appears often in Christian inscriptions from the area. 113 BS II 194 (Schwabe and Lifschitz, Beth Sheʿarim, 179–80), trans. of van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 120. 114 Cf., e.g., IGLSyr 3.1, 708, IGLSyr 3.2, 1206b, IGLSyr 4, 1269.
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Here they lie, Atio, the daughter of Rabbi Gamaliel, son of Nehemiah, who died a virgin at the age of twenty-two years, and Ation, the daughter of Rabbi Judah, the son of Gamaliel, who died at the age of nine years and six months. May their resurrection [be with the righteous].115
% $
The restoration of the last line is based on similar texts from an epitaph in Tiflis in the Caucasus and a text in the Cairo Geniza (XII–XIII C.E.). The epitaph reads: This is the grave of dear father Judah known as Gurk. May his resting place be with the righteous, his resurrection with the worthy.116
%$ %$ %$ . Nahman Avigad describes a document from the Cairo Geniza as “a prayer for the dead”: “May their resurrection be soon, may He extend peace upon them” () ם.117 The name ]Ì (Anastasios) and ]Ì (Anastasia) in Rome only occur in Jewish and Christian contexts according to David Noy.118 That result can be generalized to the entire empire. There is one example from catacomb 4 of Beth Sheʿarim: “Samuel, son of Isaac the poor, son of Anastasios” (Ó ∏Ì / ][Û]/).119 There are occurrences of the names in western Europe.120 Schwabe and Lifschitz remark that 115
BS III, 15 (N. Avigad, Beth Sheʿarim. Report on the Excavations during 1953–1958. Volume III. Catacombs 12–23, New Brunswick, NJ 1976, 2.241 [text and trans.]). 116 Avigad, Beth Sheʿarim, 3.242 (text and trans.). 117 Avigad, Beth Sheʿarim, 3.242 (text and trans.). 118 D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe (JIWE), 2 vols., Cambridge 1993–95, 2.138 (with the remark that the names Anastasius/ia occur 79 times in Rome “always in a Christian or Jewish context”). 119 BS II, 99 (text and trans.). 120 Noy, JIWE, 1, 52 = CIJ 576 (]Ì/) from Venosa (V C.E.), 1, 65 = CIJ 598 ( Ì ][Û]?) from Venosa (V–VI C.E.), JIWE 2 [all from Rome], 39 = CIJ 364 (Û / ]/Ì), JIWE 2, 173 = CIJ 298 (]Û), 2, 521 (]Ì / Ì / "Ù ][]/Û [Anastasius, archigerusiarch, son of Anastasius, trans. Noy] III-IV C.E.), 2, 589 = CIJ 516 (Anastasi, pie, zeses), 2, 596 = CIJ 732
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this is the only example of the name from Palestine and speculate that it was avoided by Jews there because it was “popular among the Christians” who used it because of the meaning (“he who rises from the dead”).121 van der Horst notes many occurrences of the names (Anastasius/ia), which only appear in Jewish or Christian inscriptions.122 A Latin inscription from Rome (from the second half of IV C.E.) refers to the meaning of the name: I, Anastasia, believe according to (my) name in a fu[ture… (life)]” (Anastasia secundum nomen credo fu[turam ---]).123 There are some Aramaic inscriptions from Zoar that are dated from 351 C.E. to 577 C.E., which contain language that almost certainly indicates a belief in resurrection. The souls of the individuals are said to rest in peace, but they are to be awakened by the voice of one who announces peace (cf. Isa 52:7).124 One tombstone of 415 C.E. expresses this hope: May rest the soul of Jacob / the son of Shemo who died … May he wake up /to the voice of the an/nouncer of / peace.125
Ö Ö
Yael Wilfand comments that “on the tombstone, there is a link between the deliverance of Israel, the resurrection of the dead, and the figure of ‘the announcer of peace’.”126 Wilfand argues that the announcer of peace is the Messiah.127 The same ending formula appears on tombstone 22 for a Rabbi
(]Û). CIJ 675 ( ªÊ Ì) from Alberti Irsa in Pannonia. JIWE 2, 245 = CIJ 211 ([]tasio filio could be “for the son Anastasius or Eustasius (cf. Noy ad loc.). JIWE 2 [Rome], 199 (p. 161 Noy) = CIJ 481 is ambiguous (veritas / amor / anestase / titulos [“Veritas Amor set up the inscriptions” or “Truth and love are the epitaph of Anastasius/a” [see Noy for the translations]). 121 Schwabe and Lifschitz, Beth Sheʿarim, 2.80. 122 van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 117 (CIJ 211, 298x, 364x, 516, 576x, 598x?, 732, 787, 1123). 123 ICUR II, 6130. 124 See Y. Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar and Jewish Conceptions of the Afterlife, JSJ 40 (2009) 510–39. 125 Tombstone 20, text and trans. of Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 516. 126 Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 517. 127 Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 520 with ref. to Lev. Rab. 9:9 (M. Margulies, Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah. A Critical Edition Based on Manuscripts and Genizah Fragments with Variants and Notes, Jerusalem 1972, 195).
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Simon Birabi who died in 454 C.E.128 A variation appears in a tombstone of a priest (459 C.E.): May r[es]t the soul of Yehuda the priest / the son of Ab[…]ma who died … May he hold the altar and wake up / to the voice of the announcer of peace / peace / peace / peace129
%$ ..& %$
/ / On the basis of a passage in the tosefta, Wilfand notes that “burial in the land of Israel atones for one’s sins.” The text in the tosefta is: “And whoever is buried in the Land of Israel is as if he is buried under the altar [of the Temple in Jerusalem.”130
3 Ethiopic Enoch One of the most ancient of all existent apocalypses is the text known as Ethiopic Enoch or 1 Enoch.131 It contains many intriguing images of resurrection and also an important text in which bodies do not rise, but in which spirits are revivified. 3.1 The Book of Watchers In the Book of Watchers (1–36), there is a vision in which Enoch is transported to the mountain of the dead (22). The material may be dated to the late third century B.C.E.132 An intriguing text is sometimes translated as a reference to resurrection, but probably has been misinterpreted.133 Enoch views a section of the mountain where the spirits of those who are sinners are contained. The Greek tradition has:
128 129 130
Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 521. Tombstone 23, text and trans. of Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 527. Wilfand, Aramaic Tombstones, 527. t. ʿAbod. Zar. 4:3 (Zuckermandel): . 131 The Ethiopic text is a translation of a Greek Vorlage, which itself was a translation of an Aramaic/Hebrew original. The Parables are probably a translation from an Aramaic text (G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37–82, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2012, 4, 30–4). 132 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 1, 293. 133 S. Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, JSHRZ 5/6, Gütersloh 1984, 558 for example, translates with “they will not rise from here.”
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(22:13) And this was created for the spirits of people, who will not be holy but sinners, and who will be accomplices of the lawless. And their spirits, because those who are afflicted here are punished less,134 will not be punished in the day of judgment, nor will they be transported from here. Ú — 135 ! ) ! : , ≈ Ã > ≈ Ï U , Ú Ï > 8. Ï &Ó , ≈ " !?& ! I8 > ? Ã , Ã !7 8 c F , Ã&Ó ! ! .136
An Aramaic fragment of the text exists among the Dead Sea Scrolls. J. T. Milik, with revisions by E. Cook, translate so: [....Therefo]re they will not be afflicted in the day of judgement, away from [there, nor will they be transferred permanent]ly from there.137
[ ] [ [ The Ethiopic of the relevant phrase in 22:13 is138: … but their spirits will not be killed on the day of judgement, and they will not be raised/moved from there. √ Å ÷ μ √ Δ (wanafsomusa ʾitetqattal baʿelata kwennanē waʾi-yetnaššeʾu ʾemzeyya)
The verb Û is extremely rare, and it is unlikely that the translator intended it to refer to resurrection.139 Presumably spirits can be transported to 134 R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, Oxford 1912, 59 and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 301 believe this phrase (i.e., ≈ " !?& ! I8 > ? Ã ) is a gloss – which is reasonable, since it is not present in the Ethiopic. J. T. Milik, ed., with the collaboration of M. Black, The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4, Oxford 1976, 218, however, argues that the text is “drastically abridged in E.” Dogmatism is pointless. 135 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 301 reads — (thus) as ” (this). 136 Text from M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochis Graece, SVTP 4, Leiden 1970, 34. 137 4Q205 (4QEnd ar) 1 xi line 1 (I have omitted the supralinear dots, which indicate probable and possible letters). Milik, Books of Enoch, 218, trans. from Parry and Tov, DSSR, 1.933. 138 I have taken the Ethiopic text from R. H. Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch. Edited from Twenty-Three MSS together with the Fragmentary Greek and Latin Versions, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series 11, Oxford 1906, supplemented by that of M. A. Knibb, in consultation with E. Ullendorff, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch. A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments, 2 vols., Oxford 1978 (Rylands Ethiopic MS 23). A new critical edition is being prepared by Loren Stuckenbruck at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich. 139 It does not mean resurrection in Nicephorus Basilaces [XII C.E.] Progymnasmata 56 = Ethopoeia 27.3 (Pignani): Ú &í ¡ & F > Ú 7! Ï , í F ÃF ≈ Ù &: (since the [rough] sea of the city was calm, and the waves had been calmed, the entire wave rises after/moves after my very own calm ...). J. Beneker and C. A. Gibson, ed. and trans., The Rhe-
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other places, but they do not “rise bodily.” Milik’s comment is important: In any case, ! ! in C [Cairo codex, second scribe] (‘they will not rise from there’ E[thiopic]) does not refer in any way to the doctrine of bodily resurrection, as is generally acknowledged. The Ethpaʿal of means ‘to remain permanent, to retain (life, etc.) lastingly’, like the foliage of certain trees which remains on them during the entire, Ena I ii 5 [= 4Q201].140
Consequently, the Ethiopic of the last phrase (waʾiyetnaššeʾu ʾemzeyya) should not be interpreted to mean resurrection, given the Greek tradition and the presumed Aramaic original verb.141 This corresponds to one of August Dillmann’s definitions of this passive form (Gt) of the verb: “tolli, auferri [be raised, removed].142 This form of the verb, for example, was used to translate !E (“be taken”) in Matt 9:15 in the Ethiopic New Testament. The Greek verb does not mean “rise from the dead” in the other two extant usages known to me. Lampe’s definition is pure guesswork.143 Equally important is the larger context of the passage. The four compartments in the mountain where the spirits are located (that [not dark] of the righteous, that of sinners awaiting judgement who were not judged in this life, that of those who were murdered, and the compartment of 22:13) do not admit of transfer from one to the other, and this supports Milik’s view. The Greek prefix ( ) in verbs torical Exercises of Nikephoros Basilakes. Progymasmata from Twelfth-Century Byzantium, Cambridge, MA 2016, 327 translate “the full storm rose against my very home,” which misses the pronoun’s antecedent ( ) and the verb’s connotation of motion toward her. LPGL s.v. can only list 1 Enoch as an example of resurrection from the dead. The other meaning, “? rise in pursuit,” apparently occurs in Apoll. Met. Ps 87:14 (BiTeu 182, Ludwich = PG 33.1441D) where ı is a variant reading (in 2 MSS, adopted by most editors) for ı (pursue, in prayer, the MS reading Ludwich chooses): K ! &Ó E ı Ô (in the morning I call you, pursuing [you] with prayers). In this text, I would interpret ı as a reference to “moving after/rising after.” 140 Milik, Books of Enoch, 219. M. Black, in consultation with J. VanderKam, The Book of Enoch or I Enoch. A New English Edition with Commentary and Textual Notes, SVTP 7, Leiden 1985, 168) denies this, because it is difficult to move from “remain permanent” to “be transferred,” and so hypothesizes as the original (“to be awakened”). This position seems untenable on several grounds. The Greek verb implies, almost certainly, that the original verb has nothing to do with “awaken,” and this calls into question Black’s reconstruction of the Aramaic. 141 Therefore, Charles, Book of Enoch, 50 who makes a reference to “this declaration of General Resurrection” goes astray. O. Lehtipuu (Biblical Body Language: The Spiritual and Bodily Resurrection, in: Anthropology in the New Testament and its Ancient Context. Papers from the EABS-Meeting in Piliscsaba/Budapest, ed. M. Labahn and O. Lehtipuu, Leuven 2010, 151–68, esp. 158–9) similarly asserts, “resurrection is mentioned only once,” – failing to see that the text merely denies motion of the spirits. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 308 makes no reference to “resurrection.” 142 Dillmann, Lexicon, 638 s.v. § d. 143 PGL s.v. 1. pass., rise again from the dead, 2. ? rise in pursuit.
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such as Ì, ˜ , Û! often implies motion from.144 Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that an ancient construct such as Û could mean “rise/move away from,” or something similar. The statement in 1 En. 22:13 is negative, and cannot be taken to affirm a resurrection of the spirits. It clearly states that the spirits will not be raised or better “be moved” from their current location. Enoch in the Book of Watchers sees seven mountains (1 En. 24:2–25:7; cp. 18:6–9), upon one of which is the throne of God. On that seventh mountain (24:3) are a number of “fragrant trees” ( ʿeḍawa maʿāzā) in “God’s paradise.”145 Instead of “fragrant,” the Greek version has à &F (beautiful). Among the trees is one that is extremely beautiful, and Enoch describes it at length – the tree of life, although he does not use that particular expression. August Dillmann argues that the fruit bestows eternal life on those who eat it.146 Michael (25:5) explains to Enoch how the tree will be transplanted to the “holy place,” which Nickelsburg indicates is Jerusalem.147 The tree cannot be consumed until after the judgement (1 En. 25:4): And (concerning) this fragrant tree, no one (“no flesh”) has authority to touch it until the great judgement, in which there is vengeance on all and an everlasting consummation. Then it will be given to the righteous and holy ones. (5) Its fruit is for the elect for life in the north148 and it will be transplanted to the holy place next to the house of God the king forever. 25:4 Ú Ù &8& à &, Ú Ã& Ï 5 5 > b! à 8 F ? , Þ & ? Ú 8 ∞ & Ú ¡ &!7 (5) ¡ Ù Ã ) ) ∞ ∞ I a, Ú ( !7 9 U 9 Ï Ù ∂ ! I 8 ∞ .149
In verse 5, after a textual emendation, Charles reads “Its fruit shall be food to the elect,” noting that “the writer had before him Ezek 47:12.”150 He argues that the Ethiopic translator “confounded ∞ I Ì = ΔŒ [laʾekl for 144
Cp. 1 En 25:5 ( !7 (transplanted; “planted away from”), quoted be-
low. 145 146
An expression of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 313. A. Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch. Uebersetzt und erklärt, Leipzig, 1853, 129–30 (with reference to 1 En. 5:7–9, 10:17–9, 2 Esd 8:52, Rev. 2:7, 22:2, 14, etc.). Uhlig, Enochbuch, 561 has many more references. 147 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 313. Cp. Charles, Book of Enoch, 53. 148 Codex Panopolitanus has I Ì (food) here. Cf. Black, Apocalypsis, 35. 149 My trans. Cf. those of Charles, Book of Enoch, 53 and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 312. 150 Charles, Book of Enoch, 53: instead of (for life) he reads (will be), adopted by Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 313. Charles adopts I Ì in his edition of the Greek text (Ethiopic Version, 63). Uhlig, Enochbuch, 561 remarks that many Ethiopic MSS have, “to the elect is life given” and a few MSS have “and to the humble will some of its fruit be given, to the elect, life.” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 312 has “and its fruit will be as food for the chosen.”
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food]), with ∞ I a = ∂" # [mangala masʿ to the north].”151 They will live long lives: 25:6 Then they will be merry and will rejoice and will enter into the holy place. Its [the tree’s] fragrances are in their bones, and they will live longer lives on the earth than your fathers, and in their days no tortures, or calamities or scourges will touch them. Ã( !7 Ã( Ú 7 Ú ∞ Ù b ∞ H " ¿Ú à ) ¿8 à , Ú 7 Ú F ` > " 8 , Ú ) 8 Ã Ú I? Ú Ú Ú ? à b à .
The seer’s embodied imagery of life in paradise includes consuming the fruit from the tree that had been forbidden humans since the expulsion from paradise in Genesis. Charles believes that “the writer of 1–36 has not risen to the conception of an eternal life of blessedness for the righteous, and so has not advanced a single step beyond the conceptions found in Is. 65 66.”152 “In their bones” (Å¡$%& baʾaʿṣemtihomu [ ) ¿8 Ã ]) constitutes an interpretive crux. Charles notes that a Hebrew cognate expression ( ) can mean “into themselves.”153 Consequently, the “analogy of breath may be more appropriate,” according to Nickelsburg. If the term means “bones” and not “self,” then Nickelsburg notes that “it is possible the author is thinking of the resurrection of the body.”154 The vision “constitutes a scenario for the eschaton tht appears to be presumed and alluded to in Dan 12:2 and its references to ‘eternal life’ and ‘eternal contempt.’”155 Martha Himmelfarb argues that since the “righteous will eat” the fruit of the tree of life, the vision “clearly requires bodies; thus, unless the righteous in question are only those righteous alive at the time of the eschaton, the picture requires a belief in the resurrection of the dead.”156 Her argument seems sound, although individuals in late antiquity such as Vibia could imagine souls (including her own and presumably that of her husband) enjoying meals in the Elysian fields.157 Enoch avoids such language, however.
151 152 153
Charles, Ethiopic Version, 63. Charles, Book of Enoch, 53. Charles, Book of Enoch, 54 and cp. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 315 who calls attention to Jastrow’s entries for (§ 3 “body, self”) and (§ 2 “substance, essence, self”), both of which can mean “self.” 154 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 315. 155 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 315 (he also mentions the vision’s dependence on Isa 65). 156 M. Himmelfarb, Afterlife and Resurrection, in: The Jewish Annotated New Testament. New Revised Standard Version, ed. A.-J. Levine and M. Z. Brettler, Oxford 22017, 691–5, esp. 692. 157 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.3.
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3.2 The Similitudes of Enoch The dating of the elements of the book is complex, and the most difficult question is the date of the so-called Similitudes or Parables (37–71). Fragments of all sections of Enoch have been found among the Dead Sea scrolls with the exception of the Parables, and no Greek fragments of them survive either. They have been dated from the first half of I B.C.E. to as late as 270.158 A consensus appears to have been reached among many scholars, however, that the Parables were composed before the destruction of the Second Temple. The best date is probably toward the end of Herod the Great’s reign and the early decades of the first century C.E.159 The silence at Qumran could be explained by resistance to the thinking in the Parables or simply by a “bifurcation” in the Enochic tradition before the beginnings of the Qumran community.160 It is also possible that the texts were lost.161 In the second parable (45–57), Enoch has a vision of the Head of Days and the Son of Man in which, among other things, he states that the kings who did not praise God will have no hope of rising from their couches of death. First 158 M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism. Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols., Philadelphia 1974, 117 (1st half of I B.C.E.) and Milik, Books of Enoch, 95–7 (260–270 C.E., primarily because of the reference to the Parthians in En. 56:5–7). However, as Black and VanderKam note (Book of Enoch, 221), the Parthians invaded Palestine in 40 B.C.E. in Antigonus’s attempt to oust Hyrcanus II and Herod “from their positions under Rome as rulers of the country” (with ref. to Josephus A.J. 14.324–481 and B.J. I.248–273). M. A. Knibb, The Date of the Parables of Enoch: A Critical Review, NTS 25 (1979) 345–59, esp. 358–9 argues that it is a Jewish apocalypse but written soon after the destruction of the temple, primarily relying on the argument that the most decisive parallels are the tradition in the Similitudes in which the Messiah judges the wicked before his return (one ref. is 2 Bar. 40:1–2, 72:2–6 and IV Ezra 12:32–3). This argument is vitiated by the considerations advanced by Nickelsburg (cf. the note below). 159 G. Boccaccini, The Enoch Seminar at Camaldoli: Re-entering the Parables of Enoch in the Study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins, in: Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man. Revisiting the Book of Parables, Grand Rapids, 2007, 1-16, esp. 15. The most elaborate and useful argument is that of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 58–64, and cp. 66–84 on the relationship (and reception) of the Parables in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity (including the Synoptics). 67:8–13 (ibid., 61, 290 a “Noachic interpolation,” part of 65:1– 69:1) reflects, probably, Herod’s attempt to find “relief from a terminal illness in the hot springs of Kallirrhoë” (Jos. Bell. 1.656–8 and A.J. 17.168–72 with Bell. 7.178–89 [hot springs of Baaras]). Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 494, 574–5 (pre-Christian, some parts finished in the early decades of the first century C.E.). D. L. Bock, Dating the Parables of Enoch: A Forschungsbericht, in: Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift, ed. D. L. Bock and J. H. Charlesworth, London et al. 2013, 58–113 is a useful overview of the problem. 160 For the latter option, cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 60 (who also notes that like the Parables, Judith, the Testament of Moses, and the Psalms of Solomon “were composed in a setting apart from Qumran”). 161 J. H. Charlesworth, Preface. The Books of Enoch: Status Quaestionis, in: Bock and Charlesworth, Parables of Enoch, xiii–xviii, esp. xv.
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the Son of Man judges them (46:4): “And this Son of Man ( ∂' ) Δ wazentu walda sabʾ)162 whom you have seen – he will raise/lift up (* + yānaššʾomu)163 the kings and the mighty from their couches,164 and the strong from their thrones. He will loosen the reins of the strong and he will crush the teeth of the sinners.”165 Their corpses will remain in the netherworld (1 En. 46:6): “The face of the strong he will turn aside, and he will fill them with shame. Darkness will be their dwelling, and worms be their couch. And they will have no hope to rise from their couches ( √ ,-. … Δ#Ã/%& waʾiyessēffawu kama yetnaššeʾu ʾemsakābātihomu), because they do not exalt the name of the Lord of Spirits.”166
The form of the verb used here for “rising”167 often refers to resurrection in Enoch’s apocalypse (but not always). Charles compares the text to Isa 14:11.168 Chapters 49 through 51 of the apocalypse describe the nature of the resurrected bodies of the righteous and the wicked. The righteous dead will rise from the earth and Sheol, in a text from the second parable (45–57). 51:1 In those days, the earth will give back what has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will give back what it has received, and destruction will give back what it owes. 5a For in those days, my Chosen One will arise (2.) and choose the righteous and holy from among them, for the day on which they will be saved has drawn near. 3. And the Chosen One, in those days, will sit upon my throne, and all the secrets of wisdom will go forth from the counsel of his mouth, for the Lord of Spirits has given (them) to him and glorified him. 4. In those days the mountains will leap like rams, and the hills will skip like lambs satisfied with milk; and the faces of all the angels in heaven will be radiant with joy, (5b) and the earth will rejoice, and the righteous will dwell on it, and the chosen will walk upon it.169
The Chosen One is the agent of judgment, and the resurrection is associated with his presence. The text is important in the history of Second Temple Judaism, because as Hogeterp notes, “If 4Q521 attests to a setting of messianic 162 Literally, “child of human/humankind.” Dillmann, Lexicon, 359 defines sabʾ as “homo, homines, genus humanum” (human, people, human race). 163 This is not a reference to the resurrection, and is from the CG (causative) stem of the verb that Dillmann (Lexicon, s.v. 636) defines as “tollere, extollere, attollere, sublevare” (lift up, raise, raise to a higher position, assist to rise). A form of the causative translates ) in Matth 12:11. 164 In 46:5, he removes the kings from their thrones also. 165 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 153. 166 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 153. The phrase can be translated: “they will have no hope that they will rise.” 167 That is, the “Gt” form in Dillmann, Lexicon, 637–8. Cf. 638 d: surgere i. e. prodire, exsistere (auftreten), [arise, i.e., go forth, exist (appear)].” 168 Charles, Book of Enoch, 89, cf. § 1.2 above. 169 1 Enoch 51:1–5, trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 180. Cp. Charles, Book of Enoch, 100–1 and Nikolainen, Auferstehungslehre, 166.
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expectation to the divine activity of resurrecting the dead, its evidence adds to the late evidence of a messianic setting to resurrection, include 1 En. 51:1–5, 4 Ezra 7:26–44, and 2 Bar. 30:1–2.”170 In the Parables, the Son of Man, the Righteous and Chosen One, and the Anointed One are combined into “one supreme being among the heavenly entourage.”171 The image of the Chosen One is based, according to Nickelsburg, on the Servant of Second Isaiah (42:1–4, 49:1–7, 1 En. 49:3–4 and 48:1–6) and the Righteous One is based on Isa 53:11 (1 En. 38:2).172 Resurrection is expressed by the concept of the ground or earth (0≥ medrni) giving up or returning (2"Δ tāgabbeʾ) “that which has been entrusted to it.”173 Nickelsburg remarks that The subjects of the three lines [in 51:1] may refer to one and the same place, or they may complement one another. Earth is where the body is buried. Sheol is the place to which the spirit or soul descends (see 1 Enoch 102:5) … The author anticipates a bodily resurrection, either with the shade taking on a bodily form, or with the earth rendering the body and Sheol producing the soul or spirit, which are rejoined.174
This is certainly a physical image of resurrection.175 That is made clear by the image of the righteous dwelling or lodging (304 yaḫadderu)176 on the earth and walking on it. The upward motion of the Chosen One, indicated by the Ethiopic ∂¡ (tanšeʾa), does not refer to resurrection here, although the verb is used for that, too, in apocalyptic texts and in the NT. 177 If 5ΔŒ (malāʾekta “angels” [accusative]) is read in verse four, then Nickelsburg notes that it should be translated “and all of them will become angels in heaven; their faces will be radiant with joy.”178 The “old MSS” have
170 A. L. A. Hogeterp, Belief in Resurrection and its Religious Settings in Qumran and the New Testament, in: Echoes from the Caves. Qumran and the New Testament, ed. F. García Martinez, StTDJ 85, Leiden 2009, 299–320, esp. 313. 171 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 44. 172 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 44–5, and cp. the excursus on all three figures (113–23). 173 On 6 ∂2 (māḫḍantā), see Charles, Book of Enoch, 99, Dillmann, Lexicon, s.v. 138, and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 184. 174 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 184. 175 Cavallin, Life, 44–5 agrees that it refers to the resurrection of the body. 176 Cf. Dillmann, Lexicon, s.v. 613. 177 Cf. the extensive entry on this form of the verb in Dillmann, Lexicon, 637–8 s.v. (where it is clear that the verb has many other meanings besides references to resurrection). Dillmann (§ f) lists, for “resurgere, resuscitari de mortuis” (rise/be raised from the dead): Ascen. Jes. 11:21, Dan 12:2, Matt 20:19, 22:28, 28:6, Rom 1:4, 1 Cor 15:32 seq., and 1 Pet 1:3 as examples of the verb used for resurrection. 178 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 181 (with MSS m and I [for explanation cf. ibid, 4–5]), and cf. Charles, The Ethiopic Version, 94. Nickelsburg and Charles note that this reading is problematic because of the ambiguity of the antecedent of “all” – if it refers to the righteous, then they are not dwelling on earth.
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5ΔŒ (malāʾekt “angels”), and Charles writes that this form is the subject or a nominativus pendens.179 It justifies the translation given above. The image of resurrection includes all those who have died, not just the righteous, although Charles denies this, because “the whole history of Jewish thought points in the opposite direction.”180 Two exceptions he mentions are 4 Ezra 7:32, 37 and T. Benj. 10:6–8. A text describing resurrection in the third Parable (58–69) is based on the image of “long cords” or “measurements”: 61:4 And the chosen will begin to dwell with the chosen; and these are the measurements that will be given to faith, and they will strengthen righteousness. (5) And these measurements will reveal all the secrets of the depths of the earth, and those who were destroyed by the desert, and those who were devoured by beasts, and those who were devoured by the fish of the sea; so that they may return and rely on the day of the Chosen One; for no one will be destroyed in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and no one is able to be destroyed.181
The “measurements” (¡7 ʾamṭānāt) are mentioned in the earlier verses of chapter 61 as devices to “measure the garden of the righteous and the chosen.”182 Charles refers to 1 En. 70:3 (“the angels took cords to measure for me the place of the chosen and the righteous”) and notes that the “cords which the angels take with them are for measuring Paradise.” 183 These cords (¡6/5 ʾaḫbālāta)184 are certainly reminiscent of the measuring cords of Ezek 40:3, 6 and Zech 2:1–5 ( ).185 In 61:5 Matthew Black and James VanderKam note that the “depths of the earth” ( 186 0 ʿemaqa medr) “would seem to refer to the underworld of Sheol.”187 In this text, only the righteous are raised from the dead. The problem of the “food chain” came up frequently in later Christian literature and in pagan objections to the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. An anonymous pagan philosopher (whose arguments are probably Porphyry’s) hypothesized a body that was eaten successively by fish, then fishermen, and then by dogs who ate the fish-
179
Cf. Charles, Ethiopic Enoch, 94, Book of Enoch, 100–1, and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2,
181. 180 Charles, Book of Enoch, 98. 181 1 En. 61:5, trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 243. Tert. Res. 32.1 quotes part of 61:5. 182 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 243. 183 Charles, Book of Enoch, 119, trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 320. 184 This is a variant reading, found in most MSS of Charles’ I family. Cf. idem, The Ethi-
opic Version, 128. 185 Charles, Book of Enoch, 119 and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 243. 186 In 90:26, the same word is an image of the abyss of fire (Valley of Hinnom, hell). Cp. 18:11 (0 medr ʿemuqa “chasm of the earth” [some MSS omit “of the earth”] where the Greek has Ì). On 18:11, cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 276–7, 286 (a “place of punishment”). Cf. the usages listed in Dillmann, Lexicon, s.v. (and cognates) 956–7. 187 Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 232.
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ermen. The problem for the philosopher was: to whom will the body belong in the resurrection?188 In Chapter 62, a vision of the judgement, the Lord seats the Chosen One (and Son of Man) on his throne (62:2). 62:7 depicts the Son of Man, or “son of the offspring of the mother of the living” ( ) Δ8 Δ 9*: walda ʾegwāla ʾemmaḥeyāw) being revealed to the chosen ones. The righteous have a banquet with the Son of Man in 62:14–16: (14) And the Lord of Spirits will dwell over them, and with that Son of Man (; ) Δ8 Δ 9*: zekku walda ʾegwāla ʾemmaḥeyāw)189 they will eat, and lie down and rise up forever and ever ( Œ∂ 64*∂ Δ0 watanšeʾu ṣādeqān waḫaruyān ʾemmedr), and have ceased to cast down their faces, and have put on the garment of glory190 ( ? #@ walabsu lebsa sebḥat). (16) And this will be your garment (#Œ lebsekemu),191 the garment of life ( 9 lebsa ḥeywat) from the Lord of Spirits; and your garments will not wear out, and your glory ( #@%Œ wasebḥatikemu) will not fade in the presence of the Lord of Spirits.192
Charles argues that 62:15 “does not refer to the resurrection but signifies that all the humiliations of the righteous are at an end.”193 Nickelsburg refers to Isa 52:1–2 as a possible support for this interpretation.194 In that text Jerusalem is told to “(52:1) Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ... (52:2) Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem (NRSV).” The Hebrew for “awake” in 52:1 is , which was translated by 5 (“awake/rise”) in the LXX. The Ethiopic translators (working from the LXX) used a verb that signified “rise” (and not “awake”) (∂√ tanšeʾi). For “put on your gar188 Cf. the pagan philosopher in Macarius Monogenes 4.24a.4 (2.316 Goulet). For other references see Cook, Interpretation of the New Testament, 243-4. Origen, apparently, also knew the objection: a character named “Proclus” takes the Origenist’s position in Methodius Res. 1.20.4 (GCS Methodius 243 Bonwetsch) = Epiphanius Pan. 64.12.6-8 (GCS Epiphanius 2, 413 Holl). 189 “That son of the offspring of the mother of the living.” 190 The reading of the I-inaʹ MSS (cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 256) is 9 (ḥeywat “life”). Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 615 notes that this is a “future perfect” use of the verb (will have arisen). 191 q and the I group of MSS omit this word. “Your” is plural. Cf. Charles, Ethiopic Version, 114 and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 256. 192 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 254–5. 193 Charles, Book of Enoch, 125. 194 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 267 (who notes that the alternative interpretation, appealing to Isa 52:1–2, Bar 5:1–2, Pss. Sol. 11:7 [û&, G , Ï "? F & 5 “put on your garments of glory, Jerusalem”] is that the text only refers to “the deliverance of the righteous” from oppression). Cp. Esther 4:17k where Esther puts aside her "? F & 5 (garments of glory).
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ments of beauty” in the HB ( ›), the LXX has >& & 5 (clothe yourself with/put on your glory), which the Ethiopic translators rendered as ÅA AÀ (lebasi tersitaki). The Ethiopic word is presumably the equivalent of the Greek (& 5 “glory”), although it has a different semantic range.195 The emphasis on garments of glory, however, makes it apparent that resurrection bodies are the focus of the text.196 Charles argued that the “garments of glory” were the “spiritual bodies that await the righteous” and proceeded to refer to 2 Cor 5:2–5 and other apocalyptic texts that describe the “garments of the blessed.”197 The Ethiopic word translated as “glory” (#@ sebḥat) in 62:15 is defined by Dillmann as gloria, magnificentia, splendor (glory, magnificence, splendor) in one usage (cp. 1 En. 98:3, 103:6, unrighteous individuals who die “in splendor”) and as splendor, lux, claritas (splendor, light, brilliance) in another (Rev 18:2, 2 Cor 3:7–11, 1 En. 60:19).198 In 103:6, the reference is to sinners who die wealthy and who “died in glory” ( Å#@ B' wabasebḥat motu), which corresponds to & 5 !? (they died gloriously) in the Greek text. They did not experience judgement in this life. Likewise, in 98:3, the unrighteous and their possessions (∂C*%& newāyātihomu) will be destroyed along with their glory and splendor (#@D ŒE sebḥatomu wakebromu), which corresponds to Ï ? [ ] Õ Õ [Ú F] ? & 5 Ú F F [Õ ] (with all your possessions and glory and your honor) in the Greek translation. The word also signifies the glory of God (cf. 39:12 #@%… sebḥatika “your glory”).199 The usages of “glory” in 1 Enoch do not necessarily indicate that a “garment of glory” is a spiritual body. It could simply be a glorious garment that does not wear out. Heavenly beings often are depicted in such garments (Dan 7:9, 10:5, 12:7, 2 Macc 11:8, T. Ab. 20:10 [his soul taken to heaven in a garment],200 Ascen. Isa. 9:6–18 [a Christian
195 Cf. Dillmann, Lexicon s.v. 283 § 4 “quidquid pompae, magnificientiae, ornatui, decori est, &ı5” (something characterized by pomp, magnificence, embellishment, glory) and W. Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic). Geʿez-English / English-Geʿez with an Index of the Semitic Roots, Wiesbaden 2006, 45 s.v. tersit (“apparel, ornament, adornment, attire, equipment, glory, pomp, preparation, constitution, occupation”). 196 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 268. 197 Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 237, and Charles, Book of Enoch, 125 (e.g., Rev 3:4, 5, 18, 4:4, 6:11, 7:9, 13, 14, 4 Ezra 2:39, 45 and 1 En. 108:12). Not all these texts refer to the resurrection, however. 198 Dillmann, Lexicon s.v. § 4, 5, 357–8. 199 See the following uses: 1 En. 40:3 (Lord of glory); 45:3, 55:4, and 61:8 (the “throne of glory” of the Chosen One); 47:3 and 60:2 (the “throne of glory” of the Head of Days); 49:2 (the glory of the “Lord of spirits”); 50:1 (glory for the holy ones). 200 T. Ab. 20:10 (long recension; F. Schmidt, Le Testament grec d’Abraham. Introduction, édition critique des deux recensions grecques, traduction, Tübingen 1986, 166) Ú
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text, in which Enoch and those with him put off their garments of flesh], and 4 Ezra 2:39 [a Christian text]).201 Ascen. Isa. 9:9, although it appears in the Christian portion of the text,202 probably reflects Jewish tradition: And there [in the seventh heaven] I saw Enoch and all who (were) with him, stripped of (their) robes of flesh (Δ F emlebsata203 šegā); and I saw them in their robes of above (ÅD G5H balebsetomu zalāʿlu204 “celestial garments”),205 and they were like the angels who stand there in great glory (Å#I JK basebbehāt ʿabiy).206
It is apparent that 62:14–16 probably depicts a vision of resurrection. 3.3 The Epistle of Enoch Chapter 91 is an introduction to the Epistle of Enoch (92–105).207 It includes a vision of the resurrection, which occurs in Enoch’s speech to his son Methuselah. In 1 En. 91:10, “the righteous will arise from his sleep” ( LΔ =0M Δ∂C wa-yetnaššāʾ ṣādeq ʾemnewāmu) and wisdom will arise and be given to them.”208 Possibly the words are not in the original text.209 However 4QEng ar (= 4Q212 frag. 1 col. ii l. 13) apparently has the text (re-
J Ã ) Ú Ã & ! g(2 (and they took up his honored soul in their hands in divinely woven linen). 201 These references are from A. Toepel, Adamic Traditions in Early Christian and Rabbinic Literature, in: New Perspectives on 2 Enoch. No Longer Slavonic Only, ed. A. A. Orlov et al., Studia Judaeoslavica 4, Leiden 2012, 305–24, esp. 313. 202 E. Norelli, Ascensio Isaiae. Commentarius, CChr.SA 8, Turnhout 1995, 447. 203 Dillmann, Lexicon, 41 s.v. notes that this word translates in Isa 63:1 (he also lists a usage of the word in Ascen. Isa. 3:25). M. A. Knibb (OTP 2.157 [commenting on 1:5 “the robes of the saints”] notes that “The heavenly robes which the saints put on after death are a symbol of their transformed state; they are mentioned frequently in the Christian portion of AscenIs; cf. 3:25; 4:16f; 7:22; 8:14, 26; 9:2, 9–11, 17f., 24–6; 11:40.” 204 Dillmann, Lexicon, 56 s.v. defines this usage in Ascen. Isa. 9:9 as “vestes quae supra i.e., superae (coelestes)” (garments that are above, that is, heavenly [celestial]). 205 Charles’ L2 (Antonio de Fantis, Venice 1522) tradition has “Exutos stolis carnalibus et existentis in stolis excelsis, et erant in gloria magna stantes” (stripped of their fleshly robes in existing in heavenly robes, and they stood in great glory). Cf. R. H. Charles, ed., The Ascension of Isaiah ... London 1900, 119–20 = Ascensio Isaiae (CChr.SA 7, 225). Ethiopic text above from E. Norelli et al., ed., Ascensio Isaiae. Textus, CChr.SA 7, Turnhout 1995, 101. 206 Trans. of OTP 2.170. 207 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8. 208 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 409. 209 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 409 puts the words in brackets, which signify “Words are possibly not original” (ibid., xxxviii). L. T. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91–108, Berlin 2007, 173, in his discussion of the Ethiopic and Aramaic traditions of 91:10, does not omit the verse. He (ibid., 181) is open to the possibility (along with 92:3) that the verse is a reference to the resurrection.
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constructed from one letter).210 Max Black and James VanderKam note that the event occurs “in the resurrection” and that “the righteous is a collective singular” as at 92:3. Consequently, they translate “And the righteous shall arise from their sleep.”211 Presumably 91:10 is dependent on 92:3, from the Epistle of Enoch, a text that may date to II B.C.E.212 92:3 is probably a reference to resurrection, although it is not fully clear: “The righteous one will arise from sleep213 ( LΔ =0M Δ∂C); he will arise and walk in the paths of righteousness ( LΔ 3 Å C $0M yetnaššāʾ wayaḫallef bafenāwāta ṣedq), and all his path and his journey (will be) in piety and eternal mercy.”214 Since the plural for “the righteous” is usually employed in the Epistle (cp. 95:7, 96:1, 97:1), Nickelsburg believes that the meaning is singular here.215 The reference according to him may only be to “an awakening to wisdom and the righteous life that flows from it,” given the verse’s emphasis on the behavior of the righteous one, although it could also be a reference to resurrection.216 Black and Uhlig argue that the reference is to “the resurrection of the righteous” and mention 91:10 and 100:5 along with Dan 12:2.217 There seems to be no fundamental reason for rejecting the conclusion that the text refers to the resurrection of the righteous and their subsequent behavior.218 The image of walking apparently envisions a “physical resurrection from the dead.”219 The emphasis on physically rising from sleep, and not just waking from sleep, also supports the contention that the reference is to resurrection and not a metaphor for what Stuckenbruck idetifies as the “emergence of the righteous community from a period of spir210
Cf. Parry and Tov, DSSR, 1.1014 and Milik, Book of Enoch, 260 who identifies the text as “En. 19:10 (?),” and who writes that lines 13–17 “seem to correspond to En. 91:10, drastically abridged” in the Ethiopic text. Cp. Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 291, 294–5. 211 Black and VanderKam, The Book of Enoch, 84, 282. 212 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8, 432. 213 Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 710 translates this as “will rise from the sleep (of death).” 214 1 En. 92:3, trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 430. Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 84 translate, “And the righteous shall awake from sleep.” 215 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 432. Charles, Book of Enoch, 224 translates “the righteous one.” 216 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 432. Charles, Book of Enoch, 224 makes no reference to resurrection in his interpretation of the verse. 217 Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 284. Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 710, argues that the text is a clear reference to resurrection with ref. to Dan 12:2 (“otherwise” in 102:2b, 3b). He also refers to its similarities with 51:1. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 228–9 thinks that “a specific allusion to resurrection … cannot be excluded.” 218 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 431 describes 92:2–5 so, “The community of the righteous will appear and receive authority to participate in the coming judgment.” That concession in itself justifies viewing the text as a reference to resurrection. 219 Cp. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 228 (who recognizes the ambiguity).
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itual lethargy.”220 He refers to 4Q245 (4QpsDanc ar) frg. 2.3-4, which has blindness () in 2.3 and “will arise” ( ) in 2.4. The text is too fragmentary to establish an equivalence between recovery from blindness and emergence from lethargy. It is important that the apocalypticist uses a word for “rise” and not “awaken” (hence the appeal to the Hebrew for blind [] and awaken []) is of no help. Ironically, the sinners taunt the righteous with the concept of the resurrection of the body in 1 En. 102:8. The Greek text has: “Henceforth let them arise and be saved, and they shall forever see us eat and drink” (Ù ãõ7 Ú !7 , Ú ƒ ∞ Ù ∞ a ( ) Ú )).221 The Ethiopic text corresponding to most of this text (not a ( ) Ú ))222 is, “Henceforth we are equal,223 and how224 will they arise225 and what will they see forever?” (Δ ΔN JO ∂ ∂ PΔQ ʾemyeʾzē taʿarayna wamenta yetnaššeʾu226 wamenta yerēʾʾeyu laʿālam). It continues, “But, behold, even they have died, and henceforth (and) forever they will not see the light” (Δ# Δ∂'R C B' Δ ΔN √ PΔQ ʾesma 227 ʾemuntuhi nawā motu waʾemyeʾzē laʿālam ʾiyerēʾʾeyu berhāna).228 Clearly the unrighteous mock the reality of the resurrection, affirming the everlasting victory of death. There is an alternative vision of life after death in the sixth vision (102:4– 104:8) of Enoch’s Epistle. The Greek (and Ethiopic version) in 103:2–4 depicts a revivification of the spirits of the righteous. 220 221
Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 228. Cf. the trans. (modified) and comment in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511, 520. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 509: “the lemma opens with a verbal reference to the resurrection state.” 222 102:9 continues with “Therefore it is good for us to eat and drink” (as reconstructed using a Greek text [itself amended] by Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511, 513) – perhaps indicating that the Greek text is a truncated version of the Ethiopic. The transmitted Ethiopic text of 102:9 (beginning) is: “I say to you, sinners, you are content to eat and drink and steal ...” The Greek text of the Chester Beatty MS corresponding to this is: U ? (therefore steal). Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.239 emends this to: ã Õa ( ) Ú ) Úõ U ? (therefore, ‹it is good for us to eat and drink and› steal), because of the phrase’s occurrence in 102:8. 223 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 513 notes that taʿarayna is probably based on ˘! , “a misplaced corruption of !7 .” Black and VanderKam, Book of Enoch, 312 earlier made the same point. These two words (ʾemyeʾzē taʿarayna) are from 102:7 (end). 224 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 513 argues that wamenta is “probably corrupt.” 225 The MSS of the I tradition, and MSS m and t have (yenaššeʾu they will receive). For the identification of these sigla, cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 16–7. 226 Following the reading in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 513 and the MSS in the tradition except for m, t. 227 A variant from the I tradition. 228 Trans. slightly modified from Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511.
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I know this mystery. I have read the tablets of heaven and I have seen the writing [of] necessity. I know what is written in them and what is carved on them – that good things and joy and honor have been prepared and are inscribed for the souls of the pious dead. And they will rejoice, and their spirits will not perish, nor their memory, from the presence of the mighty one for all generations of the ages. Ù 7 H [8 ] Ï Ï ? Ã Ú ∂& ( ãõ229 H > Ï [ 8] Ã) Ú 8[ Ú] Õ , (3) ≈ !Ï Ú Ï Ú [] Ú
8 ) [)] ! Ã I H (4) Ú 7 Ú Ã Ï Ã Ã&Ó Ù Ù : ? ∞ ? Ï Ï ∞: .
The Ethiopic corresponding to “souls” ()) in 103:3 ( ∂-S%& lamanfasātihomu “for their spirits”) is cognate to the Hebrew › (nephesh), which is not used in the Hebrew Bible for immortal souls, as is well known. The Ethiopic text for the beginning of 103:4 diverges from the Greek tradition: “And the souls/spirits those of you who have died in righteousness will come to life” ( @ . ∂-#Œ Δ BŒ Å$0M wayaḥayyewu manfaskemu laʾella motkemu baṣedq).230 It continues: “and they will rejoice and be glad ( TU @VQ wayetfēššeḥu wayetḥaššayu); and their spirits will not perish ( √ @WH ∂-S%& waʾiyetḥagwalu manfasātihomu), nor their memory from the presence of the Great One, for all the generations of eternity. Therefore do not fear their reproaches.”231
Nickelsburg calls the new life of the spirits “revivification,” while Charles writes, “There is apparently only a resurrection of the spirit” – which is a needless confusion.232 There are no verbs implying a physical movement upward (i.e., resurrection) in the text. 3.4 108: The Final Enochic Book This book is “a summation of the corpus” according to Nickelsburg.233 It may reflect the Maccabean persecution. Sinners are punished, and the spirits of those who kept the law are glorified. One such text reads: 229 230
M. Black has this conjecture in his critical apparatus. Cf. Black, Apocalypsis, 42. Because “their spirits” ( ∂-S%& manfasātihomu) appears in the latter part of the verse, Nickelsburg amends the text to “and the souls of the pious who have died will come to life” (1 Enoch 1, 511, 514) – which does not seem necessary. 231 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511. 232 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 523, Charles, Book of Enoch, 256. Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 736 describes it as “the participation of the righteous in eschatological salvation.” Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 524 describes the state as “resuscitation” and remarks that “the author does not anticipate a resurrection of the body.” Lehtipuu, Debates, 35 erroneously asserts that “‘coming to life’ must somehow involve a ‘quite literal’ raising up from Hades ...” “Raising up” does not appear in the text. 233 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 552.
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108:11 And now I will summon the spirits of the good ( #%& •X∂ manāfestihomu laḫērān) (who are) from the generation of light; and I will transform ( ΔYZ waʾewēllēṭ) those who were ‹have descended into›234 in darkness, who in their bodies were not recompensed with the honor appropriate to their faithfulness. 12 Indeed, I will bring forth in shining light (Å4\ ∂ baberuh berhān) those who loved my holy name, and I will seat each one on the throne of his honor, and they will shine for times without number.235
The passive form of walaṭa (change, transform) is used for (˘! in Matth 17:2 and for ! in 1 Cor 15:51–2.236
4 Other Pseudepigrapha 4.1 Psalms of Solomon The Psalms of Solomon were probably written in I B.C.E.237 In the second Psalm, which denounces Pompey for his conquest of Jerusalem (63 B.C.E.), the psalmist probably depicts God’s resurrection of the righteous: He raises me up to glory and puts the arrogant to sleep for agelong destruction in dishonor, because they did not know him (Pss. Sol. 2:31). ¡ Ó ∞ & 5 Ú Õ (? ∞ : ∞ c, ≈ Ã > Ã .
Verse 2:31affirms resurrection, which the author contrasts with the destruction of the arrogant. Sinners, according to the third Psalm, will not take part in the resurrection: (Pss. Sol. 3:10) He (the sinner) adds sin upon sin in his life; he falls – his fall is serious – and he will not get up (11) The destruction of the sinner is forever, and he will not be remembered when (God) looks after the righteous. (12) This is the share of sinners forever, but those who fear the Lord shall rise up to eternal life, and their life shall be in the Lord’s light, and it shall never end. (3:10) 8! U (í U E E ÃH > , ≈ Ù Ù Ã, Ú Ã 7 . (11) : U ∞ Ù ∞ , Ú Ã !7 , ≈ 8 &. (12) — Ú U ∞ Ù ∞ H " &Ó (I Ù 7 ∞ ∞:, Ú Ã ( Ú Ú Ã >.238
234 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 552 emends the Ethiopic’s “those who were born darkness.” 235 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 551 slightly modified. 236 Cf. Dillmann, Lexicon, 889–90 s.v. 237 R. B. Wright, OTP 2.640–1. 238 Trans. of OTP 2.655. Wright’s remark (ad locum) that it is unclear whether this is the
resurrection of the body or that of the soul is unnecessary, since the verb presumes a physical body being raised. Stemberger, Leib, 56–61 denies that Ps. Sol. 3:11–12 refers to resurrection. For arguments to the contrary see Schubert, Entwicklung, 206, P. M. Sprinkle, Law and
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Since there is no mention of “souls rising” in the Psalms, there is no need to posit a “resurrection of the spirit” in either text. Nickelsburg argues that resurrection here is “a consequence of God’s judgment.”239 Günter Stemberger’s argument that 7 in 3:12 may only refer to the righteous person’s ability to stand “from the fall of his own sins” fails, because there is no reference whatsoever to the sins of the righteous in the text.240 Charles does seem to have made his case that the psalms do not make many “references to the future.”241 4.2 Jubilees Jubilees was probably written between 161 and 140 B.C.E.242 John J. Collins classifies the view of afterlife in Jub. 23:26–31 as ‘resurrection, or exaltation, of the spirit’ to heaven.243 James VanderKam translates the relevant passage so: 23:29 And they shall complete and live all their days in peace and happiness. And there is neither any Satan nor anyone evil that shall destroy. For all their days shall be days of blessing and healing. 23:30 Then the Lord will heal his servants. They will rise and see great peace. He will expel his enemies. The righteous will see (this), offer praise, and be very happy forever and ever. They will see all their punishments and curses on their enemies. 23:31 Their bones will rest in the earth and their spirits will be very happy. They will know that the Lord is one who executed judgment but shows kindness to hundreds and thousands and to all who love him.244
23:29 ÷]∂ C^& Å5 Å I T$ @ . ¡_ R 7 ¡_ R Δ; G* #∂ Life: The Interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 in Early Judaism and Paul, WUNT 2.241, Tübingen 2008, 89–90 and J. Holleman, Resurrection and Parousia. A Traditio-Historical Study of Paul’s Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15, NT.S 84, Leiden 1996, 126. The verb’s Greek usage (7) in 3:12 is enough to show that it refers to physical resurrection (and not “resurrection” of the spirit or a mere contrast with the fall due to sin). 239 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 164 (he shows the similarities between the imagery of light in 12:4 and Isa 60:19–20). He also notes that Pss. Sol. 13:11 mentions the everlasting life of the righteous ( Ï & ∞ Ù ∞ ) and the destruction of the sinners (U Ú &Ó !7 ∞ : ), which he argues presupposes resurrection. That is possible, but indemonstrable, since immortality of the soul is another option. Stemberger’s approach to these texts (Leib, 56–9) is unsatisfactory, since he is unable to decide between resurrection (which he questions, although does not completely reject) and since he includes no references to a possible belief in the immortality of the soul. 240 Stemberger, Leib, 57. Cavallin, Life, 58 argues that the text refers to the resurrection of the dead, especially given the use of the expression “eternal life.” 241 Charles, Critical History, 270. 242 O. S. Wintermute, OTP 2.43–4. J. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., CSCO.Ae 510/87–511/88, Leeuven 1989, 2.vi dates it between 170 and 150 B.C.E. 243 Collins, Afterlife, 124. 244 VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 1.132 (text) 2.149 (trans.).
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Δ# ÷]∂ C^& C ÅO… -:# …: 23:30 ¡` T:# Δab¡c ¡a%d PΔQ 5 JK 00 e5ΔD PΔQ =0>∂ *¡÷' TU Δ#… Å If PΔQ Å E ÷] ÷ μ& ÷] "Bf 23:31 *J ¡h%& :# 0 ∂- *Å6 9 *¡4 … i] Δab¡c "/P ÷ μ " L\ ¡ƒ ¡Δ5 ÷] Δ *-Mjf The healing implied here is metaphorical. Maria Chrysovergi argues that “healing should be understood as redemption from the dramatic consequences that shall follow the period of decline for Israel.”245 She describes 23:29–30 as “renewed future age,” without any reference to resurrection. It is clear that no healing from death is mentioned in the text. R. H. Charles comments: … for the words ‘will rise up’ have apparently no reference to the resurrection, and mean merely that when God heals His servants (cf. Rev. xxii. 2) they become strong. The clauses in ver. 29 ‘all their days will be days of blessing and healing’ and in i. 29 [1:29] ‘for healing … for all the elect of Israel’ render this view the most probable.246
The assertion that the Lord’s servants “will rise ( yetnaššeʾu)247 and see great peace” is a reference to the “prosperity of the living not the resurrection of the dead,” according to Todd R. Hanneken.248 Consequently, there is a clear distinction in the text between the “servants” (¡a%d ʾagbertihu) of the Lord and the “righteous” (=0>∂ ṣādeqān).249 He further notes that 245 M. Chrysovergi, Attitudes towards the Use of Medicine in Jewish Culture from the Third and Second Centuries BCE, Ph.D. Diss. Durham University, 2011, 246 (with ref. to Hos 6:1, 14:5; Isa 19:22, 30:26, 57:18–19; Jer 8:15, 14:19). Available at Durham E-Theses Online (http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3568/). 246 R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis. Translated from the Editor’s Ethiopic Text, London 1902, 150. 247 Cf. Dillmann, Lexicon, 637 s.v. (where it is clear that the verb has many other meanings besides references to resurrection). 248 Trans. of T. R. Hanneken, The Subversion of the Apocalypses in the Book of Jubilees, Atlanta 2012, 160 (his comment). Hanneken notes that the dead are “aware of the restoration” but do not participate in it in 23:31. Cp. P. Volz, Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter nach den Quellen der rabbinischen, apokalyptischen und apokryphen Literatur dargestellt, Tübingen 1934, 29 and H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic. A Study of Jewish and Christian Apocalypses from Daniel to Revelation, London 21952, 61, “No hint of resurrection is found in the book.” See also Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 48: “‘his servants’ may be those who are left alive. Verse 30a–c then describes how they ‘rise’ from their humility and their subjugation to their enemies or how they are taken up to join the spirits of the righteous, who are already in heaven.” Heaven, however, is not mentioned in the text. See also Lehtipuu, Debates, 35. 249 On this point, see also Cavallin, Life, 38 (“the ‘righteous’ seem to be spectators in relation to the ‘servants’ of the Lord …”; “nothing is said here of resurrection”).
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the spirits who will “be very happy” do not enjoy “much of an afterlife,” and that such an afterlife is similar to “rest in peace” or a “good death.”250 Chrysovergi also insists that 23:31 is “the promise that the spirits of the deceased righteous will rest in peace.”251 “Exaltation of the spirit” is acceptable in certain cases,252 but “resurrection of the spirit” is a category mistake,253 not appropriate for Jewish or pagan texts, as a close analysis of the verbs for resurrection (such as Û and Û ) indicates. Spirits do not rise from the dead in ancient Judaism, people do.254 4.3 Syrian Baruch Syrian Baruch may have been written toward the end of I C.E.255 2 Bar 30:1 describes the fate of those who hope in the Messiah256: And it shall come to pass after these things, when the time of the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled, that He shall return in glory. Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of Him shall rise again.
.% $ # "! . &- ,+ * ) ( ' & The author then describes the appearance of the souls of the righteous and the wicked (2 Bar 30:3–5). The Lord announces the resurrection to Baruch (2 Bar 42:8)257: And the dust shall be called, and there shall be said to it: “Give back that which is not yours, and raise up all that you have kept until its time.”
. 7 ,6* 2') 5- . 4) 3 2' & . , ./,10 /,- The prophet queries the Almighty (2 Bar 49:2)258: In what shape will those live who live in Your day? Or how will the splendor259 of those who (are) after that time continue? 250 Hanneken, Subversion, 49, 160. 251 Chrysovergi, Healing, 241. 252 E.g. 1 En. 103:3–4, Collins, Afterlife, 124. 253 A concept introduced by G. Ryle, The Concept
of Mind, New York 1949, 16 (rep. University of Chicago 2000). 254 Cf. Cook, Resurrection in Paganism, 61. 255 Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 283 (noting that the terminus post quem is the fall of the Jerusalem temple). The Syriac is a translation from the Greek, which Nickelsburg notes may be a translation of a “Semitic original.” 256 Trans. from APOT 2.498, text from Online Critical Pseudepigrapha Project based on that of S. Dedering, ed., Apocalypse of Baruch, OTSy 4.3, Leiden 1973 (http://ocp.tyndale .ca/). 257 Trans. of APOT 2.502. 258 2 Bar 49:2, trans. of APOT 2.508. 259 The CAL defines this usage of the word as “splendorous appearance, beauty.”
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. ' & ( 9 & .4 % ) ( % 8 /' & He wonders if their form will be changed (2 Bar 49:3)260: Will they then resume this form of the present, and put on these members that chains clothe, which are now involved in evils, and in which evils are consummated, or will you perchance change these things which have been in the world as also the world?
!* $ ( & . *!& / ' & .( 9 .
This is undoubtedly resurrection of the body. Harrington remarks that the apocalypticist thus answers “the perennially fascinating question about the shape of the resurrection body.”262 The shape of the wicked will then become more evil, and the shape of the righteous will “become progressively more glorious” (2 Bar 51:2–5).263 51:1 mentions both groups264: And it shall come to pass, when that appointed day has gone by, that then shall the aspect of those who are condemned be afterwards changed, and the glory of those who are justified.
) ( 1)% ' & .5&- & ,&0 . -7 ) (% $ ? . % The transformation in 51:3 is explicit:
260 2 Bar 49:3, trans. of APOT 2.508 261 2 Bar 50:2-3, trans. of APOT 2.508. 262 D. Harrington, Afterlife Expectations
in Pseudo-Philo, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch and their Implications for the New Testament, in: Bieringer, Resurrection, 21-34, esp. 30. On this passage see also Nikolainen, Der Auferstehungsglauben, 164–5 who believes that the author’s anthropology shares a great deal with that of the Hebrew Bible. 263 Harrington, Afterlife, 31. 264 Trans. of APOT 2.508.
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Also, as for the glory of the ones who are declared righteous by my law, these who possessed intelligence in their life, and these who planted the root of wisdom in their heart – their splendor will then be glorified by transformations, and the shape of their face will be changed into the light of their beauty so that they may be able to acquire and receive the undying world which is then promised to them.265
; ( .8; - $ ) (% $ ? .1)% ! ( E! ' & . % &,9&0 () C .( 3 )0 ( )9 ( + ( ! ( / ( 4 .( 4) ' . & They will be like angels and equal to the stars and can even change shape (51:10).266 For in the heights of that world shall they dwell, and they shall be made like unto the angels, and be made equal to the stars, and they shall be changed into every form they desire, from beauty into loveliness and from light into the splendor of glory.267
& . . .(,> )0 & ,A F .% $ 7 / . /, $ :& G 1)%
The text is similar to Jesus’s description of the resurrection state in Mark 12:25 par. ( í ∞Ú › ;
) Ã ) [but they are like angels in heaven]). 4.4 4 Ezra 4 Ezra is an important text in any discussion of resurrection in Jewish tradition. It was presumably written during the reign of Domitian (81–96 C.E.) and originally composed in Hebrew.268 In chapter 7:28–9 the Messiah appears for 400 years and subsequently dies, along with all humans. 7:28 For my son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. 29 After those years my son (or “servant”) the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath (NRSV). Revelabitur enim [Filius meus Iesus]269 cum his qui cum eo, et iucundabit qui relicti sunt annis quadringentis. Et erit post annos hos, et morietur Filius270 meus Christus et omnes qui spiramentum habent hominis.(Vulgate)
265 266 267 268
2 Bar 51:3, trans. of OTP 2.638 slightly modified. Harrington, Afterlife, 31. 2 Bar 51:10, trans. of APOT 2.509. M. E. Stone, Fourth Ezra. A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 1990, 1, 9–10. His arguments include 1:1 (30 years after the destruction of “our city”), the probability that it was written after the destruction of the temple, and the three heads mentioned in the Eagle Vision (11–12), which he identifies with Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. 269 The Vulgate’s “my son Jesus” should be replaced by a reading close to the versions. The Ethiopic has “my Messiah” and the Armenian has only “Messiah.” The Syriac has “my
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After seven days, the dead will rise. (7:32) The earth shall give up those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who rest there in silence; and the chambers shall give up the souls that have been committed to them. (33) The Most High shall be revealed on the seat of judgment, and compassion shall pass away, and patience shall be withdrawn. Only judgment shall remain, (34) truth shall stand, and faithfulness shall grow strong. (35) Recompense shall follow, and the reward shall be manifested; righteous deeds shall awake, and unrighteous deeds shall not sleep. (36) The pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of hell shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight. (37) Then the Most High will say to the nations that have been raised, look now, and understand whom you have denied, whom you have not served, whose commandments you have despised (NRSV, modified). (7:32) Et terra reddet qui in eam dormiunt, et pulvis qui in eo silentio habitant, et promptuaria reddent quae eis commendatae sunt animae. (33) Et revelabitur Altissimus super sedem iudicii, et pertransibunt misericordiae, et longanimitas congregabitur,271 iudicium autem solum remanebit. (34) Et veritas stabit et fides convalescet, (35) et opus subsequetur et merces ostendetur, et iustitiae vigilabunt et iniustitiae non dormibunt. (36) Et apparebit lacus272 tormenti et contra illum erit locus requietionis, et clibanus gehennae ostendetur et contra eam iucunditatis paradisus. (37) Et dicet tunc Altissimus ad excitatas273 gentes: Videte et intellegite quem negastis vel cui non servistis vel cuius diligentias sprevistis.
The earth gives up the bodies and the souls of the dead, which have been kept in an intermediary state (7:75–98).274 It is also immediately apparent that all the dead will rise and not merely those who are the righteous. Michael Stone remarks that the NRSV’s translation of 7:37 (“raised from the dead”) is exegetical, but it is apparent that the nations have risen from the earth to be judged. The Syriac has a form of (ʿwr) that means to “be awakened” or
son the Messiah.” One Arabic tradition has “my son the Messiah” and another has “Messiah.” Cf. Stone, Fourth Ezra, 202 (who notes that “son” or “servant” “occurred in one Greek tradition … but not in that behind the other versions”) and for details, see 2 Esd 7:28 (GCS Die Esra-Apokalypse [IV. Esra] 140–1, Violet). 270 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 202. The Ethiopic has “my servant, my messiah,” and the Syriac has “my son the Messiah.” One Arabic text and an Armenian tradition has “messiah” only. For details see 2 Esd 7:29 (140–1, Violet). 271 The Ethiopic version justifies this translation. Cf. 2 Esd 7:33 (144 Violet). 272 For text critical details (with “pit”) see 2 Esd 7:36 (146–7 Violet). 273 Cf. Blaise, Dictionnaire s.v. § 7 “ressusciter (les morts)” with ref. to Hilar. Mat. 17.8 (potestas ... uerum etiam mortuorum excitandorum esset indulta), Trin. 9.10, Aug. Serm. 279.2, Ps. Aug. = Ambrosiaster Qu. Test. 114.16 (uidimus enim mortuos excitatos). In this text, however, it may not refer to resurrection. Cf. Stone, Fourth Ezra, 222. 274 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 219–20. See Stemberger, Leib, 75–8 on the “chambers.” Schubert, Entwicklung, 207 compares the chambers for souls with the treasuries in 2 Bar 21:23 and 30:2. Cavallin, Life, 80 writes, “the resurrection of the dead most likely implies the raising of the bodies.”
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“aroused.”275 The 400-year presence of the Messiah occurs before the general resurrection and judgement in the author’s vision. The Messiah, however, has no role in the general resurrection. This contrasts with the vision of the Jew of Celsus who relates the Messiah and resurrection in this fashion: Doubtless we hope to rise in our body and have everlasting life and that the one who is sent to us will be the model and initiator of that, showing it is not impossible for God to raise someone with the body. &7 7 ! : Ú I A5 ∞:, Ú ?& Ú 8 Ù ) > !, & ≈ Ã & 2 ! 2 ˆ 2 : .276
Although the Messiah is not the agent of resurrection, he is the model.277 4.5 Sibylline Oracles The fourth Sibylline Oracle affirms that resurrection bodies will have the same form as they did in life. John J. Collins analyzes the composition of the book as “a hellenistic oracle updated by a Jew in the late first century A.D.”278 God himself will again give shape to the bones and ashes of people, and will raise mortals again, as they were before. ¿8 Ú & ÃÙ ! Ù > & (: , 7 &Ó I ˆ ? , › ? D.279
Resurrection begins with the bones, and Elledge justly compares the text to Pseudo-Ezekiel from the Dead Sea Scrolls.280 The insistence that mortals will appear as they were before is similar to that of 2 Bar 50:2–3.281 The oracle also apparently includes the spirit of each individual in the vision of the resurrection: All who are pious will live again on the earth, when God gives spirit/breath together with life and grace to them, the pious. And then all will look upon themselves, seeing the sweet and delightful light of the sun. O most blessed individual who will exist until that time.282 ≈ &í Ã I8, ? 7í Ú ) ! & 7 !í b Ú ? Ã) Ã I8H ? &Ó í ∞ / 7& † Ù (? ∞ .
275
,0 0 Cf. Payne Smith 2842. An imperative form translates 5 Ô !
(be awakened, rouse up) in Hos 2:19. See Stone, Fourth Ezra, 203. 276 Origen C. Cels. 2.77. 277 On this passage, cf. Baumgarten, On the Empty Grave, 43. 278 J. J. Collins, OTP 1.381–2 (who notes that 4.116 refers to the temple’s destruction). 279 Sib. Or. 4.181-2. 280 Elledge, Resurrection, 128. 281 Cf. § 4.3. 282 Sib. Or. 4.188-92.
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‚ , ) √ > 7 .
Simcha Raphael notes that in this oracle, although all rise, the wicked will be condemned to “the repulsive recesses of Gehenna” (Ú
8)283 – which is not a very appealing form of resurrection. The resurrected pious live on earth, as in 1 En. 51:5.284 4.6 Lives of the Prophets The Lives of the Prophets was probably written in I C.E.285 Jeremiah prophesies about the future of the ark of the covenant: And in the resurrection the ark will be the first to be resurrected and will come out of the rock and be placed on Mount Sinai, and all the saints will be gathered to it there as they await the Lord and flee from the enemy who wishes to destroy them. Ú E ? : I Ù 7 Ú 5 F 8 Ú !7 ƒ a Ú ? " b Ù ÃÙ !7 ) & Ú Ù ! Ù ( ) È !8 .286
It seems unlikely that this is a Christian interpolation, although there are some in the chapter of the Lives that comprises the words of Jeremiah.287 The resurrection of the ark seems an unlikely theme for a Christian interpolator in what is for the most part a Jewish text. 4.7 Testament of Abraham The Testament of Abraham, presumably written in the late first century C.E.,288 depicts the archangel Michael announcing the future to Isaac: Abraham will be taken to heaven, but his body will remain on earth until seven thousand years are completed. At that time all flesh will rise. ]I Ï I8 ∞ ˆ Ã ˆ, Ù &Ó Ã 8 Ú F F A ! / >H Ä !7 a ? 5.289
283 Raphael, Jewish Views, 111, with ref. to Sib. Or. 4.186. 284 Cf. § 3.2. 285 D. R. A. Hare, OTP 2.380–1. 286 Liv. Pro. 2.15 (BiTeu 73 Schermann), trans. of OTP 2.388. 287 Liv. Pro. 2.8–10. Cf. Hare, OTP 2.387. 288 E. P. Sanders, OTP 1.874–5 dates recension A to 100 C.E.
He does not date recension B (the shorter version). Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 327 writes that “in its present form the Testament of Abraham is a Christian text” and that the Greek of the long recension has “been influenced by the New Testament.” Nevertheless, he argues that the text has a nonChristian origin (i.e., the composition is not Christian). Text from Schmidt, Le Testament grec d’Abraham. 289 T. Ab. 7.16–7 (short recension, family E ACDHI, 62 Schmidt).
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The text assumes an intermediary state for Abraham’s soul, which will then be rejoined to his body in the future resurrection that apparently includes both the righteous and the unrighteous. In the last chapter of the long recension, Michael takes Abraham’s soul to heaven.290 The shorter recension ends with a narrative in which seven of Abraham’s servants die of fright when they behold Death: On that day seven servants of Abraham died because of the fear of Death. Abraham prayed to the Lord, and he raised them. W E 8 c /Ï )& çI Ï &Ï Ù ( I !?H –5 çI Ï Ù , Ú 8 Ã.291
This incident is clearly a resurrection to this life. 4.8 Life of Adam and Eve The Life of Adam and Eve (known as the Apocalypse of Moses in its Greek version) is another text that may have been written toward the end of the first century C.E.292 It contains a number of references to the resurrection of the dead. The dying Adam sends his son Seth to obtain oil from a tree in paradise to relieve his suffering. On the way Seth is attacked by a wild animal, and Eve says: Woe is me, woe is me, because if I should come to the day of resurrection, all who have sinned will curse me saying that it is because Eve did not keep the commandment of God. °N N, ≈ Ï > ! ∞ 8 F ? , ? " U 7 ? 8 ≈ Ã ( 5 @– ! .293
A few manuscripts add a reference to resurrection in the section of the apocalypse in which Michael tells Seth that he cannot have the oil from the tree of paradise: It shall not be yours now, but in the last days. Then all flesh shall be raised from Adam until that great day, whosoever will be among the holy people.
290 T. Ab. 20.10, 12 (long recension; 166 Schmidt). In 20.12 the angels escort him to heaven (7 & Ã ‹ ;
7 ∞ Ù Ã Ù “the angels escorting in procession his honored soul, ascended to heaven). ‹ is an example of late Greek. 291 T. Ab. 14.5–6 (short recension, family E ACDHI, 80 Schmidt), trans. mod. of Sanders, OTP 1.902. 292 M. D. Johnson, OTP 2.252. 293 Apoc. Mos. 10.2 (76 Bertrand; 250 Dochhorn). Text from D. Bertrand, ed., La Vie grecque d’Adam et d’Eve, Paris 1987. I consulted that of J. Dochhorn, Die Apokalypse des Mose. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar, TSAJ 106, Tübingen 2005, but its presentation (the ed. is based on a massive amount of textual evidence), spread over several hundred pages, is somewhat impractical.
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Ã Ï Û , ª ª Ì . Pı a Ì 5 Ù ]&Ï A F Ô Û F Ì , ≈ > Ù b · 294
In Eve’s narrative of the Fall, God refuses Adam’s request to eat from the tree of life before he is cast out of paradise and tells him: But when you have left paradise, if you should keep yourself from all evil, as if you wished to die, when the resurrection in turn occurs, I will raise you up, and you will be permitted [to partake] of the tree of life, and you will be immortal forever. ] í 5 8 & , Ï ( ?5W /Ù295 Ù Ù › I ! ), ? ? 8, 7 Ú &!7 5 F F Ú !? > ∞ Ù ∞ .296
There are two paradises in the LAE, one on earth which is the garden of Eden and one in heaven.297 Adam’s spirit left his body (13.6, 31.4, 32.4 [the angel tells Eve: “see his spirit is being taken up to the one who created it to meet him “∞&Ó Ù Ã ( ∞ Ù 7 ÃÙ F Ã2]), and he was taken up into the heavenly paradise (Apoc. Mos. 37.3: “one of the six-winged seraphim came and snatched Adam away to the Acherousian sea” D ! ½ (Ú /5
Ú • Ù ]&Ï ∞ ] ). Jan Dochhorn argues that the imagery of being washed in the Acherousian sea and then being taken in God’s hand (37.4) fits better with his body ( ) than his spirit ( ).298 The entire unit (33.2–37.6), which describes Adam’s burial in 294
Apoc. Mos. 13.3 (78, apparatus criticus Bertrand [ ª Ö b an interpolation]; 252, 257 [appar. crit.] Dochhorn). 295 Cf. Dochhorn, Die Apokalypse des Mose, 419 app. crit. ı (which Bertrand follows) is the reading of a few corrected MSS. 296 Apoc. Mos. 28.4 (90 Bertrand; 417 Dochhorn). 297 Cf. LAE 25.1–3 ([Adam is ejected from the earthly paradise] (eiectus sum de paradiso) and Adam is caught up into the righteous paradise (raptus sum in paradiso iusticie). Latin text from J. H. Mozley, The ‘Vita Adae,’ JTS 30 (1928–9) 121–49. On this point, cf. H. Hahne, The Corruption and Redemption of Creation. Nature in Romans 8.19–22 and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, London 2006, 150. 298 Dochhorn, Die Apokalypse des Mose, 129, 490–4 (on the lake). Cf. the useful remarks on the Acherusian lake by K. B. Copeland, Sinners and Post-Mortem ‘Baptism’ in the Acherusian Lake in: The Apocalypse of Peter, ed. J. N. Bremmer and I. Czachesz, Leuven 2003, 91–107, esp. 92, 97 (who suspects Apoc. Mos. may be Christian; cf. in particular Plato Phaed. 113D). See Apoc. Paul. 22 for the statement that the souls of the repentant are given to Michael and placed in the Acherusian lake before they enter the city of God (≈ &Ó W Ú !E IÛ, &Û& 2 ® , Ú IÌ ÃÙ ∞ Ô Û). For the early second century Apoc. Pet. 14, the Ethiopic text mentions a baptism in the field of ¡ŒE#* ʾAkrosyā [Acherousia], that one calls ʾAnēslaslyā ¡μ##* [Elysium]). P. Vindob.G 39756, f. 1 recto-verso (GCS Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse, 126 Kraus/Nicklas) has: Ú &˘ Ã) Ù IÌ Ûc ] Û Û ` 2
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the paradise of the third heaven is probably a doublet of 38.1–42.3 where Adam is buried near the earthly paradise.299 The first unit has a number of references to Adam’s body.300 Then God tells Michael to take him to paradise to the third heaven and leave him there until the day of judgement ($ ÃÙ ∞ Ù ?& A Û Ã Ú ;( ÃÙ ) A F 8 F ? ).301 In the other section (38.1–42.3) his body, however, is buried near the earthly paradise (“And God commanded, after Adam and Abel were prepared, that they be taken to the region of paradise, to the place where God took dirt and formed Adam” Ú 85 ¡ ! Ù Ï Ù & Ù ]&Ï Ú Ù êI ÷ È ∞ Ï 8 & , ∞ Ù ≈ D ¡ ! Ù Ú > Ù ]&?).302 After Adam’s death and burial near the earthly paradise, God calls Adam’s name, and his body answers “here I am, Lord” (∏&ˆ :, ). And God said to him, I told you that you are earth and you will return to the earth. In turn I promise the resurrection to you. I will raise you in the resurrection with every race of people from your seed. Ú Ô Ã2 ¡ ! Ù ≈ ∂ ≈ F ∂ Ú ∞ F W. ? ?
8 H 7 E ? Ï Ù
8 ! : ” 8 .303
Eve dies, and three angels bury her body. And after these things transpired, Michael spoke to Seth saying, “Thus you should bury every person who has died until the day of resurrection.” Ú Ï ? ¡ ® 2 ! 8
H «°— 7& ? ;! !Y > F 8 F ? .»304
What is problematic about these texts is that they may be a Christian composition, even though the earliest forms of the text “contain no explicitly ChrisK Û9 &Û9. Cf. S. Grébaut, Littérature éthiopienne pseudo-Clémentine, ROC N.S. 15 (1910) 198–14, 307–23, esp. 208 (Ethiopic) 214 ([trans.], 425–39. Or. Sib. 2.337–8 mentions the lake and Elysium. 299 Dochhorn, Apokalypse des Mose, 128–30. 300 Apoc. Mos. 33.3 God’s throne carriage is near the place where Adam’s body lay (Ù ı ≈ > ¡ Õ ]&Ì), 33.5 Adam is the creation of God’s hands (Û ), 34.1 Eve tells Seth to rise from Adam’s body (Ì ! ˘), 35.2 Eve sees Adam’s body lying on its face ( ) Ù ı Ú ı ). Cf. Dochhorn, Apokalypse des Mose, 128–9. 301 Apoc. Mos. 37.5 (100 Bertrand; 458, 464 Dochhorn [A Û Ã is omitted in some MSS]). 302 Apoc. Mos. 40.6 (42 Bertrand, who reads ” ; 538–9 Dochhorn). 303 Apoc. Mos. 41.2–3 (104 Bertrand; 542–3 Dochhorn [following his ed.]). The burial is in 40.6–7. Cf. Raphael, Jewish Views, 84 (who neglects 41.2–3). 304 Apoc. Mos. 43.2 (106 Bertrand; 560 Dochhorn).
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tian elements.”305 The question is not settled, however, and the lack of explicitly Christian statements in the text makes it reasonably good evidence for Jewish tradition. 4.9 Pseudo Philo, The Biblical Antiquities The Biblical Antiquities of Ps. Philo, probably to be dated to I C.E., also envisions a future resurrection of all: But when the years of the world will be complete, then the light will cease and the darkness will be extinguished, and I will bring the dead to life and raise up from the earth those who are sleeping. The underworld will pay back its debt, and the place of perdition will return its deposit so that I will render to each according to his works and according to the fruits of his own deeds, until I judge between soul and flesh. 3.10 Cum autem completi fuerint anni seculi, tunc quiescet lumen et extinguentur tenebre, et vivificabo mortuos et erigam dormientes de terra. Et reddet infernus debitum suum, et perditio restituet paratecem suam, ut reddam unicuique secundum opera sua et secundum fructus adinventionum suarum, quousque iudicem inter animam et carnem.306
Howard Jacobson notes that all humans suffer death, and the “resurrection of all the dead takes place at some distant time, as an intermediate stage in which all are judged.” After that a “new world is created in which the righteous apparently live the same kind of physical existence as in the original world, except that it is perfect and everlasting.”307 Daniel Harrington draws parallels between the view of resurrection in the Biblical Antiquities and 4 Ezra 7:32 and 2 Bar 30:1 and 42:8.308 He identifies all three texts as Hebrew compositions of the late first century C.E.309 The mention of God in first person as the agent of resurrection is highly unusual according to Stemberger, who can only find a parallel in LAB 28:4 and 41:2–3.310 Shortly before Moses’ death, God tells him: And I will raise up you and your fathers from the land of Egypt in which you sleep and you will come together and dwell in the immortal dwelling place that is not subject to time. Et excitabo te et patres tuos de terra Egipti in qua dormietis, et venietis simul et habitabitis inhabitationem immortalem que non tenetur in tempore.311
305 Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 331. Cf., in much greater detail, Dochhorn, Apokalypse des Mose, 2–12. 306 LAB 3.10, trans. of H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. With Latin Text and English Translation, vol. 1, AGJU 31, Leiden 1996, 93. 307 Jacobson, Commentary, 247. 308 Harrington, Afterlife, 30. On the anthropology, cf. Stemberger, Leib, 99–104. 309 Harrington, Afterlife, 21. 310 Stemberger, Leib, 106. 311 LAB 19.12, trans. of D. H. Harrington, OTP 2.328.
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H. C. C. Cavallin comments on “the description of death and the intermediate state as sleep” in LAB and other similar texts.312 Joshua’s successor Kenaz, in a speech to the sinners who are about to be burned to death, tells them: And who knows that if you tell the truth to us even if you die now, nevertheless God will have mercy on you when he will resurrect the dead? Et quis scit quoniam si dixeritis veritatem nobis, etsi modo moriamini, miserebitur tamen vobis Deus cum vivificabit mortuos?313
After giving the infant Samuel to Eli the priest, Hannah sings and gives this explanation for the Lord’s gift of children to the sterile: Because the Lord kills in judgement, and brings to life in mercy. For them who are wicked in this world he kills, and he brings the just to life when he wishes. Now the wicked he will shut up in darkness, but he will save his light for the just. And when the just go to sleep, then they will be freed. ... quia Dominus mortificat in iudicio, et vivificat in misericordia. Quoniam iniqui sunt in hoc seculo, et vivificat iustos cum vult. Iniquos autem concludet in tenebris, nam iustis conservat lumen suum. Et cum mortui fuerint iniqui tunc peribunt, et cum dormierint iusti tunc liberabuntur.314
The medium of Endor brings up Samuel from the netherworld, and Samuel says to Saul: Why have you disturbed me to raise me up? I thought that the time of the payment for my deeds had arrived. And so do not boast, King, nor you, woman. It is not you who have brought me, but rather that order that God spoke to me while I was still alive, that I should come and tell you that you have scornfully sinned now a second time against God. Therefore, after rendering up my soul, my bones were disturbed so that I should speak to you and though dead be heard as one living. Ut quid me inquietasti, ut elevares me? Putavi quod appropinquasset tempus reddendi merces operum meorum. Et ideo noli gloriari rex, neque tu mulier. Vos enim non deduxistis me, sed ea traditio in qua dixit mihi Deus cum viverem, ut veniens nunciarem tibi, quod peccaveras iam secundo neglegenter Deo. Propterea post redditionem anime mee conturbata sunt ossa mea, ut dicerem tibi mortuusque audirem vivens.315
This passage indicates that Samuel remains in the intermediate state before the resurrection. 4.10 The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, apparently written between I B.C.E. and I C.E.,316 seem to affirm the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of 312 Cavallin, Life, 77. 313 LAB 25.7, trans. of D. H. Harrington, OTP 2.335. 314 LAB 51.7, trans. of D. H. Harrington, OTP 2.366 315 LAB 64.7, trans. of Jacobson, A Commentary, 193. 316 van der Horst, The Sentences, 82 dates it between 50
B.C.E. and 100 C.E.
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the body. After a statement against the dissection of corpses (Ps.-Phoc. 100– 102), the poet affirms: For in fact we hope that the remains of the departed will soon come to the light again out of the earth. And afterward they become gods. For the souls remain unharmed in the deceased. For the spirit is a loan of God to mortals, and his image. For we have a body out of earth, and when afterward we are resolved again into earth we are but dust; but the air has received our spirit. When you are rich, do not be sparing; remember that you are mortal. It is impossible to take riches and money with you into Hades. All alike are corpses, but God rules over the souls. Hades is our common eternal home and fatherland, a common place for all, poor and kings. We humans live not a long time but for a season. But our soul is immortal and lives ageless forever. Ú ? &í (? ! ) í 8 H ¿ &Ó ! Ú 8!. Ú Ï 7 (!8. (105) ? ! F !) Ú ∞:H Ï > ; Ù “ F 8H &í Ï &8& . ( &H 8í ≈ !Ù Õ? H Ã > ∞ & ƒ I Ú 7í ; !. (110) ? N 8 , &Ó ! Ù I . Ï 8 ! & ∞: Ú Ú &, 5Ù b, 8 Ú I . Ã ˆ ;! , í H &í !? Ú 7 F &Ï . (115) 317
The funerary inscription for Regina, discussed above, may reflect lines 103– 104.318 P. W. van der Horst notes that here “a very literalistic doctrine of the resurrection was taught, which was (apart from the Sadducees) typically Jewish, and very un-Greek.” He also effectively demonstrates that the Û is an emphatic particle meaning “in fact” here, often “used before intensive and quantitative adverbs and adjectives.”319 The statement that “after they become gods” (¿ &Ó ! Ú 8!) indicates that the “righteous will be elevated to heaven where they will shine like stars.”320 It also shows that 317 318
Ps.-Phoc. 103–15, trans. of van der Horst, The Sentences, 95. Cf. CIL 6, 39086 = JIWE 2, 103 (Rome) in § 2 above and van der Horst, The Sentences, 186. 319 van der Horst, The Sentences, 185. Cp. idem, Pseudo-Phocylides on the Afterlife: A Rejoinder to John J. Collins, JSJ 35 (2004) 70–75 (with ref. to J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, Oxford 21954, 317). The &Ô functions as a Ì above (Denniston, ibid., 199). See the numerous occurrences of ¡ &Ó Ú ? (e.g., Aristonicus De signis Odyssea 18.234). Collins seems unaware of this point (Life Afer Death in Pseudo-Phocylides, in: Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome. Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A. Hilhorst, ed. F. García Martinez and G. T. Luttikhuizen, Leiden 2003, 76–86, esp. 78–9). Cavallin, Life, 152 also notes the “very literalistic doctrine of the resurrection,” which coexists with “the belief in the immortality of the soul.” 320 van der Horst, Pseudo-Phocylides on the Afterlife, 73 and idem, The Sentences, 187.
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? should be interpreted as “soon” and not “perhaps.”321 Jerker Blomqvist writes, “‘Perhaps’ gives no meaning in this context; the speaker is certain that he speaks the truth and would not qualify his utterance by a ‘perhaps.’ Also, the ¿ that follows denotes time and seems to be a continuation of ?: soon the dead will come forth again and later on they will become gods.”322 The plural is often used to refer to the “remains of the dead.”323 An inscription from the imperial era in Galatia identifies the contents of a tomb using the word: This earth hides the body of a famous man. This silver white tomb contains the remains of the person.
) Ó •& / &Ô ˜! / Û / / β Ù &í ˜( /, Û ( /Ù > .324
A Palestinian inscription has similar thoughts: This tomb contains the dwindling remains of Karteria, preserving forever the illustrious memory of a noble woman. Û ı& F Û (Ô (!Ù / ;(! †Ó Ï 2 Û Û325
The text’s clear argument is that the resurrection is “of the deceased body from the earth.”326 C. D. Elledge writes that the belief in apotheosis is a feature of Greek and Roman culture, and does not belong to Jewish resurrection hope.327 The presence in the same text of a belief in bodily resurrection and the immortality of souls is typical of language about the afterlife according to P. W. van der Horst.328
321 van der Horst, The Sentences, 185, contra Collins, Life after Death, 79 who translates ? as “perhaps” and believes the tone is “speculative rather than certain.” Collins fails to take account of the ¿ (after) in 104b, which assumes the truth of 103–104a. Cp. Cavallin, Life, 154 n. 9 (in agreement with the position of van der Horst). 322 personal communication of 28 Sept. 2016. 323 Cf. LSJ s.v. and van der Horst, The Sentences, 185. In Sophocles El. 1113–14, for example, Orestes brings the few remains of the presumably dead Orestes in a small container ((8 Ã Ï í I ) / ! ). Cp. Plato Phaed. 46C Ï &Ó : /? ˆ 8 (the remains of each body will last a long time), Diod. Sic. 13.75.5, 16.60.3, Dion. Halicarn. 8.59.4, etc. 324 Ε. Bosch, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Ankara im Altertum, Ankara 1967, 408, 361. The term appears in other funerary inscriptions (e.g., IG XII,6 2.838, RECM II 234, 392, IG XIV, 251). 325 SEG 16, 829, trans. from van der Horst, Jewish Metrical Epitaphs, 10–11. 326 Elledge, Resurrection, 123. 327 Elledge, Resurrection, 124. 328 van der Horst, The Sentences, 189 (who further notes that [soul] and [spirit] are identical in Ps. Phocylides).
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4.11 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs poses a nearly intractable problem, due to the belief of a number of scholars that it is a Christian composition. The dating and provenance of the Testaments is highly contested, and the text is probably a Christian composition that uses Jewish sources. Proposed dates of composition range from the Maccabean period to the second century C.E. Nickelsburg argues that it is a text of Christian provenance, but that the author has “dipped deeply into biblical and postbiblical Jewish tradition in a way that we can now only partly reconstruct.”329 An example of the difficulties is a resurrection tradition in the Testament of Benjamin. As Benjamin speaks to his children, he asserts that all will rise: 10:6 And then you will see Enoch and Seth and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob being raised up at the right hand in great joy. (7) Then shall we also be raised, each of us over our tribe, and we shall prostrate ourselves before the heavenly king (worshiping the king of heaven who appeared on earth in the form a person of humility. And whoever believed in him on earth, will rejoice in him). (8) Then all shall be raised, some destined for glory, others for dishonor, for the Lord first judges Israel for the wrong she committed, (because they did not believe the liberating God who came in the flesh) (9) and then he shall judge all the nations (which did not believe him when he appeared on earth). ƒ ! :, T Ú Ú ]I Ï Ú ∏Ï Ú ∏SI 8 & 5 ? . (7) Ú ) ! A Ú F , ( Ù I 8 à ٠Ú
F (8 (E ! : : H Ú ≈ Ã2 Ú
F, 7 Ã2). (8) Ú ? 7, " Ó ∞ & 5, " &Ó ∞ . Ú ) : Ù ∏ Ú F ∞ ÃÙ &, (≈ ? ! Ù Ú ! Ã ).
329 Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 231 [1st ed.], 302–15 [second ed.]. He notes that a Hebrew Testament of Naphtali has been found in the DSS (cf. 4Q215). 4Q538 is a Testament of Benjamin (or Judah), but has no clear relationship to the T. 12 Patr. Fragments of a Levi text in Aramaic were found in the Cairo Geniza and among the DSS. Cf. J. C. Greenfield, M. E. Stone, and E. Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document. Edition, Translation, Commentary, SVTP 19, Leiden 2004, 27 and passim and the discussion in H. W. Hollander and M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. A Commentary, Leiden 1985, 17–25. R. Kugler, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Sheffield 2001, 32–8 accepts the arguments of Marinus de Jonge and H. W. Hollander that the T. 12 Patr. are a Christian composition. Cf. M. de Jonge, The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. A Study of their Text, Composition, and Origin, Assen 21975 and Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments, 1–85. Cp. M. E. Stone, Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha. With Special Reference to the Armenian Tradition, SVTP 9, Leiden 1991, 262 (the “prevalent view” is that the Greek text is a “Christian composition”). H. C. Kee, OTP 1.777–8 believes it is a Jewish text with Christian interpolations (and dates it to the Maccabean period or during the reign of John Hyrcanus [T. Levi 18.2?]). Cp. T. Wardle, The Jerusalem Temple and Early Christian Identity, WUNT 2/291, Tübingen 2010, 82.
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(9) Ú ) ? Ï >! (≈ Ã Ã2 Ú F (8H330
In the English text above I have put in parentheses what could be later Christian interpolations, if one is willing to accept the evidence from the Armenian tradition (at least that which is in Charles’ edition), although in its present form the chapter is certainly Christian.331 The attempts to use text, form, and genre criticism to reconstruct the development of the existent text are contradictory and ultimately unconvincing. Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge conclude that “the search for the historical circumstances reflected in the text, and for the group(s) responsible for the Testaments is apparently doomed to failure for lack of really clear convincing evidence.”332 Marinus de Jonge has argued, rather persuasively, based on his work and that of other scholars, that “where we have to do with redacted Christian passages the shorter, less ‘Christian’, Armenian text is not closer to the original.”333 In a 330 T. Benj. 10:6-8. Text from M. de Jonge, ed., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, PVTG 1.2. Leiden 1978, 177. Cp. R. H. Charles, ed., The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Oxford 1908, 228–9 (the Armenian tradition does not have the references to Christ), M. E. Stone, An Editio Minor of the Armenian Version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Hebrew University Armenian Studies 11, Leuven et al. 2012, 203 (Armenian), 400 (trans.), trans. of H. C. Kee, OTP 1.828, substantially modified. If one (somewhat questionably) accepts the Armenian tradition, then this text “existed at a pre-Christian stage of development” (cf. C. D. Elledge, The Resurrection Passages in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Hope for Israel in Early Judaism and Christianity, in: Resurrection. The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine, ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al., London 2006, 79–103, esp. 101). J. C. O’Neill argues that the Testament of Benjamin is “an expanded version of a shorter Testament, represented in the Armenian” (The Lamb of God in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in: New Testament Backgrounds. A Sheffield Reader, ed. C. A. Evans and S. E. Porter, Sheffield 1997, 46-66, esp. 51). However, “many of the variants noted by Charles have been identified as innerArmenian variants” (D. C. Harlow, The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch [3 Baruch] in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity, Leiden 1996, 82 with references). 331 For modern defenses that probably fail, cf. J. Becker, Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen, Leiden 1970 and A. Hultgård, L’eschatologie des Testaments des Douze Patriarches, 2 vols., Uppsala 1982. The growing consensus in scholarship is that one cannot, with text criticism, use the Armenian tradition to reconstruct a pre-Christian text (i.e., one superior to the Greek MSS). In general, the Armenian text does not help in reconstructing the best reading. Cf. M. de Jonge, The Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Armenian Version, in: Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Texts and Interpretation, SVTP 3, ed. M. de Jonge, Leiden 1975, 120– 39, esp. 134 (and passim) and Stone, Editio Minor, 7. On the resurrection of the patriarchs in T 12 Patr. and the Christian character of the chapter, cf. M. de Jonge, Jewish Eschatology, Early Christian Christology, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Leiden 1991, 266– 7. 332 Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments, 7. 333 M. De Jonge, The Transmission of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs by Christians, VC 47 (1993) 1–28, esp. 11.
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study written before he completed his edition, Michael E. Stone wrote “that Armenian seems to start off the translation of certain Testaments following the Greek closely, but then, part of the way through, a process of abbreviation, particularly in parenetic sections, commences.”334 Consequently, although the Christian author undoubtedly used Jewish traditions about resurrection, one cannot claim that the Testaments are a Jewish text, and the possibility of reconstructing a Jewish source is extremely small.335
5 Josephus Josephus’s views of the afterlife closely resemble reincarnation and less clearly resurrection. In a speech against suicide during the siege of Jotapata, he expresses his views: Know you not that they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste bodies a new habitation? ÷ í Ã N ≈ Ó 5 I Ï Ù F ( Ú Ù (!Ó Ï ! 8 , ≈ ¡ &ˆ ! !8 W, 8 Ó ∞:, ∂ &Ó Ú Ú I8I, ! Ú &Ó Ú 7 8 " , Ã ? Ù U :, >! F ∞: U ) ? :·336
Henry St. John Thackeray’s brief remark is that passage expresses “the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul.”337 Steve Mason argues that U ) should be translated “holy” or “sacred” in accordance with the term’s use in other texts of Josephus.338 Josephus’s concept of a revolution of the ages appears in his treatise Against Apion, in which he observes that those who observe the law receive a blessed afterlife: 334
M. E. Stone, New Evidence for the Armenian Version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, RB 84 (1977) 94–107, esp. 104, rep. in idem, Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha & Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Armenian Tradition, Leiden 1991, 131– 44, esp. 141. 335 Other resurrection traditions include, among many, T. Sim. 6:7, T. Jud. 25:1, T. Zeb. 10:2. Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments, 439 also mention T. Lev. 18:14 as one of the “resurrection passages,” but it does not use a very specific to resurrection (? " b & Ã( ). 336 Josephus B.J. 3.374, trans. of Thackeray, Josephus, 2.681. 337 Thackeray, Josephus, 2.386 note a. This is denied by Feldman in his note to A.J. 18.14 (Josephus, 9.13 note c). 338 S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees. A Composition-Critical Study, Leiden 1991, 167: A. J. 4.180, 12.38, 15.418, 18.85.
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… each individual, relying on the witness of his own conscience and the lawgiver’s prophecy, confirmed by the sure testimony of God, is firmly persuaded that to those who observe the laws and, if they must needs die for them, willingly meet death, God has granted a renewed existence and in the revolution of the ages the gift of a better life. Ö ÃÙ A Õ2 Ù &Ù > , Ó !8 ( , &Ó ! ∞ Ï , ≈ ) ˆ &( ?5 i ∞ &8 !7 ÕÓ Ã ! ! ) >& ¡ ! Ù 8! ? Ú I I ) F.339
A Hellenistic reader could easily mistake the sense of these passages as a promise of reincarnation.340 Mason concedes this point: “Clearly, Josephus’s chosen terms to describe the afterlife – terms like IÛ ∞ A , Ô! Ì and I – would have evoked among his Greco-Roman readers some sort of philosophy of reincarnation.”341 The Pharisees share similar beliefs according to Josephus: Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment. 7 a Ó ;(! , I &Ó ∞ A ! , Ï &Ó ( &9 c ? !.342
A Platonist reader would understand this as a version of reincarnation. Josephus does not openly affirm an end to the cycle. Jonathan Klawans claims that this clearly represents an “immortal body,” but that is something Josephus is thoroughly unwilling to posit.343 Josephus may believe it, but does not say it. In a text from the Antiquities, he similarly describes the Pharisees’ outlook: They believe that souls have power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice: eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a new life. !? ∞ˆ ) ) Ã) ∂ Ú ÕÙ !Ù &: Ú Ï ∑ F ¢ 7& 2 I9 8 , Ú ) Ó " Ù & ! !, ) &Ó Xc: I.344
The reference to Hades and the highly ambiguous use of “return to life” ( I) would easily pass for a reference to the Elysian fields to a Hellen339 340
Josephus C.Ap. 2.218, trans. of Thackeray, Josephus, 1.381. Mason usefully reviews Greek beliefs in metempsychosis in Flavius Josephus, 162–5. Porter, Resurrection, 55–6 emphasizes the ambiguous beliefs of the Pharisees in Josephus, which could imply metempsychosis or resurrection. 341 Mason, Flavius Josephus, 165. 342 Josephus B.J. 2.163, trans. of Thackeray, Josephus, 2.385–7. 343 J. Klawans, Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism, Oxford 2012, 108. 344 Josephus A.J. 18.14, trans. of Feldman, Josephus, 9.13. A. I. Baumgarten, Josephus and the Jewish Sects, in: A Companion to Josephus, ed. H. H. Chapman and Z. Rodgers, Oxford 2016, 267 describes the views in B.J. 2.163 and A.J. 18.14 as “reincarnation.”
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istic reader. Josephus himself can use that verb for the return to life of the son of the widow of Zarephath: Ï a & I .345 Mason makes the important point that Josephus does not suggest an endless reception of new “pure bodies” and that may refer to a single event.346 For him “Josephus added to the list [of views of the afterlife] a Jewish theory of resurrection by appropriating for it the language of reincarnation.”347 This is somewhat problematic in my view. At no point in any of these texts does Josephus adopt the clear verbs for resurrection (Û and Û ) used by the Hellenistic translators of Dan 12:2. His language resembles reincarnation far closer than the texts of resurrection surveyed in this chapter. Josephus leaves the question open whether the souls in their “holy bodies” would reenter the cycle of existence – perhaps in an attempt to make the doctrine palatable to his readers. Rather than opting for a clear alternative between reincarnation and resurrection, it is perhaps more appropriate to adopt Daniel Boyarin’s category of the “hybrid” – in this case an eschatology that fits neatly into neither category, but is a third and fairly ambiguous way.348
6 Qumran The clearest text that affirms the resurrection of the dead that was found among the Dead Sea scrolls is 4Q521. Albert L. A. Hogeterp notes that the text has been dated to the “second half of the second century B.C.E.” and “palaeographically dated to the first quarter of the first century B.C.E.”349 The text, however, does not have “sectarian community terminology” nor does it include “elaborations on imagery that could be demonstrated beyond dispute to be specifically Qumran sectarian group designations.”350 The first text relevant to resurrection begins with a mention of the Messiah.351 345 346
Josephus A.J. 8.327 (against all expectation he returned to life). Cp. 2 Macc 7:9 above. Mason, Flavius Josephus, 167–8, and A.J. 14.487: F F 8 Ú ) ∏& ( a (“a recurrence of the misfortune which came upon the Jews in the time of Pompey”; trans. of Thackeray, Josephus, 7.701). 347 Mason, Flavius Josephus, 169. L. Novakovic, Resurrection. A Guide for the Perplexed, London 2016, 31 concludes that “Since most of his readers would have found the idea of bodily resurrection repulsive, he used the concepts of the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis to express his belief that at the end of the ages the righteous will be restored to a new life.” 348 D. Boyarin, Border Lines. The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, Philadelphia 2004, 13–22. Himmelfarb, Afterlife, 691: “Josephus’s allusion ... to the idea of metempsychosis is presumably an attempt to present resurrection in a form more familiar to his audience.” 349 Hogeterp, Belief, 313. 350 A. L. A. Hogeterp, A Comparative Traditio-Historical Study of Eschatological, Apocalyptic and Messianic Ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, STDJ 83, Lei-
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1 [for the heav]ens and the earth will listen to his anointed one, 2 [and all th]at is in them will not turn away from the precepts of the holy ones. 3 Strengthen yourselves, you who are seeking the Lord, in his service! Blank 4 Will you not in this encounter the Lord, all those who hope in their heart? 5 For the Lord will consider the pious, and call the righteous by name, 6 and his spirit will hover upon the poor, and he will renew the faithful with his strength. 7 For he will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom, 8 freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twis[ted]. 9 And for[e]ver shall I cling [to those who h]ope, and in his mercy he will[] 10 and the fru[it of] a good [dee]d for humankind will not be delayed. 11 And the Lord will perform marvellous acts such as have not existed, just as he sa[id,] 12 [for] he will heal the badly wounded and will make the dead live, and he will proclaim good news to the poor.
[ ]
[ ] vacat []
[] [ ] [] [ ] [] Another text in the same scroll apparently envisions resurrection: 4 Blank [just as (is the case)] for[ you] who do the good before the Lor[d] 5 [you praise God and no]t like these the accursed. And [they] shall b[e] for death [As] 6 he who gives life [rais]es the dead of his people. Blank 7 And we shall [gi]ve thanks and announce to you the acts of justice of the Lord who [ ] 8 tho[se who are appointed to dea]th and opens [the tombs of ]352
[] [ ][] [ ] [] [ ] vacat [] [ ] [] den 2009, 277 (with bibliography). A. W. Chester, Messiah and Exaltation. Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions in New Testament Christology, WUNT 207, Tübingen 2007, 155, however, lists a number of scholars who do not agree, and argues that the question should be left open. 4Q521 frag. 2 col. iii, line 2 “for it is certain: fathers are coming upon (or going for) their sons” ( ), trans. of Parry and Tov, DSSR, 2.875 mod., although it does perhaps resemble Mal 3:24, does not preclude the messianic interpretation below. 351 4Q521 frag. 2 col. ii + 4, lines 1–12 (text from Parry and Tov, DSSR, 2.872–3; I have not included the supralinear dots and circles that indicate probable and possible letters respectively). Trans. of Hogeterp, Belief, 310. 352 4Q521 frgs 7 1–8 + 5 Col. ii 7–16 (without supralinear dots and circles), lines 4–8, text from Parry and Tov, DSSR, 2.874, trans. of Hogeterp, Belief, 310.
515
6 Qumran
[
- ] [ ] Messiah.353
It does not, howevThe resurrection of the dead accompanies the er, specifically affirm that the Messiah is responsible for the resurrections. 4Q521 is a fairly certain witness to belief in resurrection of the dead.354 Less certain are the fragments of Pseudo-Ezekiel. Part of that text, which recreates the imagery of Ezek 37, is: 5 [And He said:] “Son of man, prophesy over the bones and speak and let them be j[oi]ned bone to its bone and joint 6 [to its joint.” And it was] so. And He said a second time: “Prophesy and let arteries come upon them and let skin cover them 7 [from above.” And it was so.] And He said: “Prophesy once again over the four winds of heaven and let them blow breath 8 [into the slain.” And it was so,] and a large crowd of people came [to li]fe and blessed the Lord Sebaoth wh[o] 9 [had given them life. vacat and] I said: “O Lord! When shall these things come to be?” 10 [ after da]ys a tree shall bend and shall stand erect[ ].355
o [ ] [ ]
[ ] [] [ ] [ ] [ vacat ] ] [ ] The next fragment elaborates on the theme: 2 [ ] Lord. And all the people rose up and st[oo]d on[ their feet to thank ] 3 [and to prai]se the Lord Sebaoth and I, too, s[po]ke with them[ ] 4 [ va]cat And the Lord said to me: ‘Son[ of Man, tel]l them[ ] 5 [ in the place of their bur]ial they will lie until[ ] 6 [ from] your [grav]es and from the earth [ ]356
] [ ] [ ] ] [] [ ] ] [ ] vacat ] ] [ ] 353
Elledge, Resurrection and Immortality, 117, (“one of the great eschatological signs that will inaugurate the messianic age, when the fortune of the suffering righteous will turn from injustice to glory”). Cf. also Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 155. Hogeterp, Belief, 311–3 also argues for a messianic setting to the resurrection envisioned in the fragments. 354 Cf. also Charlesworth, Challenging the Consensus, 121–2 and Lichtenberger, Auferstehung, 85 (who questions whether the text is sectarian). Lichtenberger argues that the text is the only clear reference to resurrection that would attest to belief in resurrection among the Qumran-Essenes (if it is sectarian). J. Strugnell and D. Dimant, 4Q Second Ezekiel, RevQ 13 (1988) 45–58, esp. 45 refer to the text as “Second Ezekiel” and write that their earlier title, “Pseudo-Ezekiel” was “hypercritical.” 355 4Q385 frg. 2 (par 4Q386 1 col. i, lines 1–10 and 4Q388 7, lines 2–7), ed. of Parry and Tov, DSSR, 1.828 (trans. ibid., 829, by D. Dimant). 356 4Q385 frg. 3, ed. of Parry and Tov, DSSR, 1.830 (trans. ibid., 831, by D. Dimant).
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] [
]
The fragments envision the resurrection of the righteous, according to Devorah Dimant. The text dates palaeographically at the latest to the second half of the first century B.C.E., and the text itself was probably composed in the “mid second century B.C.E.”357 She argues that “while 4Q521 makes only two short references to resurrection as a well-known concept, Pseudo-Ezekiel attaches a complex exegesis to it. Pseudo-Ezekiel is thus unique in being the earliest witness for understanding Ezek 37:1–14 as a reference to individual eschatological resurrection.”358 Hermann Lichtenberger does not deny that the text refers to resurrection, but thinks it is apparent that it is not sectarian.359 Several centuries later, in Dura Europos, the scene in Ezek 37 was depicted as the resurrection of the dead (see § 9 below).360
7 The Eighteen Benedictions The eighteen benedictions are “the central prayer which is said three times a day by all observant Jews.”361 David Instone-Brewer notes that in general scholarship has concluded that their origin is in the Second Temple period.362 The second benediction mentions resurrection of the dead, and the version given here is from one of the Cairo Geniza fragments (T-S K 27.33b), which bears witness to a form that Instone-Brewer believes originated before 70 C.E.363 357 D. Dimant, Qumran Cave 4 · XXI. Parabiblical Texts, Part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts, DJD 30, Oxford 2001, 10, 16 (she links 4Q386 frg. 1 ii to Antiochus Epiphanes), 30–7 (her defense of the thesis that the text is about the resurrection of the dead). Cp. Hogeterp, Belief, 304–8. Cp. Newsom, Daniel, 362 “the vision is interpreted as the actual resurrection of the righteous.” 358 D. Dimant, History, Ideology, and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Collected Studies, FAT 90, Tübingen 2014, 251. Cp. L. Novakovic, Raised from the Dead According to Scripture. The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection, London 2012, 95. 359 Lichtenberger, Auferstehung, 84. Elledge, Resurrection, 117–8 also argues that Pseudo-Ezekiel is a reference to resurrection. 360 H. Riesenfeld, The Resurrection in Ezekiel xxxvii and in the Dura Europos Paintings, UUA 11, Uppsala 1948. In 4 Macc 18:17, the mother of the seven sons states that her husband confirmed Ezekiel, who asked if these bones would live (Ù G Ù 8 @∞ 7 Ï ¿a Ï 5 Ï ;). Of course, in that work immortality of the soul is affirmed (4 Macc 9:22, 16:25). 361 D. Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim before 70 CE, JTS 54 (2003) 25-44, esp. 25. 362 Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions, 27. 363 Cf. Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions, 33–6 for the arguments about the date. S. C. Reif, The Early Liturgy of the Synagogue, CHJ 3 (1999) 326–57, esp. 350–1
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You are powerful, Humbling the proud, Strong and judging the violent; Alive forever, raising the dead; Making wind blow and dew fall; Sustaining the living, Reviving the dead. Like the fluttering of an eye, Make our salvation sprout. Blessed are you Lord, Reviving the dead.364
The formula for “giving life to the dead” ( ) is identical with that found in 4Q521 above.365 Instone-Brewer acutely notes that “like the fluttering of an eye” ( ) in the benediction is quite close to Paul’s “in the twinkling of an eye” ( XE ¿(! ) in 1 Cor 15:52, and that it is even possible that Jesus referred to the benediction (called “the Powers”) in his debate with the Sadduccees in Mark 12:24 par.366 The second thesis is possible, but probably indemonstrable. The statement in the benediction that the Lord “brings the dead to life” (or “gives life to the dead” ) is strikingly similar to Paul’s statement in Rom 4:17 that God “brings to life the dead” (! 9 ˆ ˆ).367
doubts that any specific formulation of the 18 Benedictions can be dated before 70. Cp. Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 157 (who notes that many of the elements were already in use in I C.E.). Reif does not consider the evidence from the Taylor Schechter collection. Benediction 14 is clearly pre-70 in T-S K 27.33b, since it assumes the existence of the Temple, while the Babylonian version implores God to rebuild Jerusalem (Instone-Brewer, ibid., 34). 364 Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions, 29 (his trans.). 365 See § 6. Cp. Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 155. 366 Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions, 34. Cf. m. Roš. Haš. 4:5 (“the Powers”). 367 J. Frey, The Jewishness of Paul, in: Paul. Life, Setting, Work, Letters, ed. O. Wischmeyer, London 2012, 57–96, esp. 76.
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8 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature Below I will only cite some representative material from the wealth of targumic and rabbinic material on the resurrection of the dead. The Targums add many references to resurrection in texts from the Hebrew Bible. 8.1 Targums The Targums, whose redaction presumably dates from the second to the eighth centuries C.E., certainly include earlier traditions.368 Martin McNamara argues that the “conceptual world of the Targums depends on rabbinic views (and are therefore late).”369 Jewish belief in resurrection had its origins in the Second Temple period (and perhaps earlier), and the Targums inherited this faith. In the fragmentary Targum, Esau denies the resurrection of the dead, in an addition to Gen 25:34.370 And Jacob gave Esau food and a lentil stew; and he ate and drank and rose and went, and Esau spurned the birthright, and he desecrated his portion in the world to come, and he denied the resurrection of the dead.371
368 Cf., for a summary, P. S. Alexander, Jewish Aramaic Translations of Hebrew Scriptures, in: Mikra. Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, CRINT 2.1, Assen 1988, 217–53, and A. D. York, The Dating of Targumic Literature, JSJ 5 (1974) 49–62. P. Wernberg-Møller, An Inquiry into the Validity of the Text-Critical Argument for an Early Dating of the Recently Discovered Palestinian Targum, VT 12 (1962) 49–62 shows that Tg. Neof. cannot be dated early using text critical arguments. Alexander (ibid., 249) thinks a “recension of the Old Palestinian Targum (both to the Pentateuch and to the Prophets) was taken to Babylonia” before Bar Kokhba’s revolt and “that none of our extant Palestinian Targumim, as to their basic linguistic form, can be earlier than second century C.E.” Tg. Ps.-J.’s redaction was not before late seventh century C.E. (ibid., 219). The “Old Palestinian targumim in Standard Literary Aramaic were recast in the younger dialect of Galilean Aramaic” probably after the Bar Kokhba revolt (ibid., 248). Sysling, Resurection, 33–6 is in basic agreement with Alexander. 369 M. McNamara, Variegated Judaism: Some Targum Themes, in: idem, Targum and New Testament. Collected Essays, WUNT 279, Tübingen 2011, 234–89, esp. 236–7. He remarks that some date the “basic redaction” of Tg. Neb. and Tg. Onq. to 100 C.E. and date the Palestinian Targum to late second or third century C.E. P. V. M. Flesher and B. Chilton argue that the “early stages of the prophetic Targums and Targum Onkelos were composed” at the end of I C.E. and at the beginning of II C.E., and many of “the Palestinian Targums’ early interpretations” belong to the same period (The Targums. A Critical Introduction, Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture 11, Leiden 2011, 386). 370 Cf. P. V. M. Flesher, The Resurrection of the Dead and the Sources of the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch, in: Avery-Peck and Neusner, Judaism, 311–332, esp. 318. 371 Frg. Tg. (P) Gen 25:34, trans. of M. L. Klein, The Fragment Targums of the Pentateuch According to their Extant Sources, 2 vols., AnBib 76, Rome 1980, 2.18. P is Codex Paris Heb. 110. See Flesher, Resurrection, 323.
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Rabbi Johanan372 concludes from Esau’s statement in 25:32 that “he denied the resurrection of the dead because he said, behold, I am on the way to die.”373 Targum Neofiti Gen 25:34 has a similar text with the following variation: … and he spurned his birthright and []374 the resurrection of the dead375 and denied376 his life in the world to come.
# Tg. Neof. Gen 3:19 adds a reference to Adam’s resurrection and judgement to the narrative of the fall: You will eat bread from the sweat before your face until you return to the earth, because from it you were created; because you are dust and to dust you are to return. But from the dust you are to arise again and give an account and reckoning for all you have done.377
# Tg. Ps-J. Gen 3:19 has the variation ( ) “and from dust you are to rise to give an account …” A tradition in Genesis Rabbah likewise interprets 3:19 as a reference to the resurrection of the dead.378 For you are dust and to dust … And Rabbi Shimʿon ben Yoḥai said: Here (in Gen 3:19) we have an allusion to the resurrection of the dead, from the Torah. It does not say, “For you are dust and to dust you shall go,” but “you shall return.”379
' ' #
372 R. Johanan ben Eleazar was a first generation amoraic teacher in Palestine (H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, Philadelphia 1992, 83). 373 b. B. Bat. 16b (trans. modified of I. Epstein, ed. Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, London 1935–48 [abbreviated below as “Soncino trans.”]): . 374 A verb is missing here in the MS (MS Vat. Neofiti 1, 49v, available online). See http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Neofiti.1/0009 (accessed 8 May 2016). 375 In the margin there is a scribal note: (' ' ) “and he denied the resurrection of the dead. 376 In the margin there is a variation (' ' ') “and he removed his life in the world …” 377 Trans. of M. McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1, ArBib 1A, Wilmingon 1992, Genesis, 62. Cf. Flesher, The Resurrection, 312. 378 Gen. Rab. 20:10. 379 Gen. Rab. 20:10 (Bereschit Rabba, ed. J. Theodor and C. Albeck, 3 vols., Berlin 1912–36, 1.194), trans. modified of Sysling, Resurrection, 81.
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Harry Sysling remarks that in Shimʿon’s exegesis, “return” ( ) signifies “return again.”380 This view of the text is characteristic of the Palestinian Targums. A midrashic expansion in Targum Neofiti (Tg. Neof. Gen 30:22) refers to four keys in the hands of the Lord, which he does not give to any other heavenly being: Four keys there are which are given into the hand of the Lord, the master of all worlds, and he does not hand them over either to angel or to Seraph: the key of rain and the key of provision and the key of the sepulchres and the key of barrenness … The key of the sepulchres, for thus does the Scripture explain and say: “Behold, I will open your graves and will lead you from your graves, my people” … (Ezek 37:12).381
ＶＷ [Ö] ＶＷ
Ö Ｖ Ｗ ' The Targumic interpretation of Ezekiel is clearly literal. There are many parallels to this midrash in amoraic literature.382 In the tractate Sanhedrin, Elijah prayed (lit. “asked for mercy”) to be given the key of the resurrection of the dead,383 because of the illness of the widow’s son in Zarephath. The other two keys that God does normally not give to an agent ( ), presumably an angel, much less to a disciple ( ) such as Elijah, are those of birth and rain.384 The targumic translations of Num 11:26 are highly creative. Targum Pseudo Jonathan focuses on Magog in the prophecy of Eldad and Modad: But the two prophesied as one and said: “Behold a king shall arise from the land of Magog at the end of days. He shall gather kings crowned with crowns, and prefects attired in silken clothing, and all the nations shall obey him. They shall prepare for war in the land
380 Sysling, Resurrection, 81 (see 67–90 on the interpretive trajectory of the verse). Shimʿon was a third generation (130–160 C.E.) tannaitic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 76). 381 Tg. Neof. Gen 30:22, trans. of McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1, 148–9. The square brackets represent a lacuna. Cf. Flesher, The Resurrection, 318. An amusing discussion between a living (R. Nahman) and dead rabbi (R. Ahai b. Yoshiyyah), who was conscious while in his grave, in b. Šabb. 152b, includes the quotation of Ezek 37:13 by Ahai to establish the resurrection of the dead. For a more extended discussion, see Sysling, Resurrection, 143–63 (on Tg. Ps-J. Deut 28:12 and parallels). 382 Sysling, Resurrection, 143–63 has the most extensive survey. Cf., e.g., b. Taʿan 2a/b (three keys, including the key of the resurrection of the dead [ ]) and Gen. Rab. 73:4 (848 Theodor/Albeck; the key of the burial [ ]). 383 b. Sanh. 113a: . Rab Judah is speaking in the name of Rab. Rab was a first generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 85), and Yehuda was second generation, ìa student of Rab Ö a distinguished teacher of Pumbedithaî (ibid., 88). 384 b. Sanh. 113a:
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of Israel against the sons of the exile. However, the Lord is near them at the hour of distress, and all of them will be killed by a burning breath in a consuming fire that comes from beneath the throne of Glory; and their corpses will fall on the mountains of the land of Israel. Then all the wild animals and birds of heaven shall come and consume their bodies. And after this all the dead of Israel shall live [again] and shall delight themselves with the good which was hidden for them from the beginning. Then they shall receive the reward of their labors …385
Paul Flesher writes that the resurrection only applies to the people of Israel: “the resurrection happens in the world we know, but at the end of time.”386 Targum Neofiti uses the concept of resurrection to interpret Deut 32:39: See now that I, I in my Memra [Word], am he, and there is no other god beside me. I am he who causes the living to die in this world, and who brings the dead to life in the world to come. I am he who smites and I am he who heals, and there is no one who can rescue from my hands.387
# The Fragmentary Targum varies the phrase about resurrection slightly388:
385 Tg. Ps-J. Num 11:26, trans. of E. G. Clarke and M. McNamara, Targum Neofiti: Numbers; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Numbers, ArBib 4, Edinburgh, 220–1 (Clarke here). See the discussion of the targumic versions by S. Bøe, Gog and Magog. Ezekiel 38–39 as Pre-text for Revelation 19,17–21 and 20,7–10, WUNT 2.135, Tübingen 2001, 193–6 (with the point that the dating is controversial). There are some resemblances between the Targum and b. Sanh. 17a. The most extensive discussion is by A. Rodriguez Carmona, Targum y resurrection. Estudio de los textos del Targum Patestinense [sic] sobre la resurreccion, Granada 1978, 17–53. 386 Flesher, Palestinian Targums, 320–1. 387 Tg. Neof. Deut 32:39, trans. of M. McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1. Deuteronomy, ArBib 5, Wilmington 1997, 159. Cf. Flesher, The Resurrection, 322. On Deut 32:29 in rabbinic literature, see Sysling, Resurrection, 242–6, Y. Monnickendam, “I bring death and give life, I wound and heal” (Deut. 32:39). Two Versions of the Polemic on the Resurrection of the Dead, Henoch 35 (2013) 90–118, and J. T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, The Use of Deuteronomy 32:39 in Monotheistic Controversies in Rabbinic Literature, in: Studies in Deuteronomy in Honour of C. J. Labuschagne on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. F. García Martínez et al., VTSup 53, Leiden 1994, 223–41. 388 Frg. Tg. (V) Deut 32:39. V is the Vatican MS.
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I am he who causes the living to die in this world, and who brings the dead to life in the world to come.
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A similar interpretation of the verse may be found in Sifre Deut.389 A text about Reuben also provides a foundation for belief in the resurrection according to the Fragmentary Targum of Deut 33:6: May Reuben live in this world and may he may not die in the second death, in which death the evil die in the world to come, and may his young men be strong men in number.390
Martin McNamara remarks that all Targumic texts include the expression “second death” here.391 The Targum to Hosea 14:8 has a tradition of resurrection that is paired with a reference to the messiah, who is not the agent of resurrection: They shall be gathered from among their exiles, they shall dwell in the shade of their anointed One. The dead shall be resurrected and goodness shall increase in the land. The mention of their goodness shall go in and not cease, like the memorial of the blast of the trumpets made over the matured wine when it was poured out in the sanctuary.392
In the Targum to Zechariah 3:7, God says to Joshua the priest: Thus says the Lord of hosts, “If you walk in the paths which are good before me, and if you keep the charge of my Memra, then you shall judge those who serve in my Sanctuary and you shall have charge of my courts, and at the resurrection of the dead I will raise you to life and will give you feet to walk among these seraphim.393
389 390 391
See § 8.6 below. Frg. Tg. (P) Deut 33:6. McNamara, Targum and New Testament, 514. For an extended discussion, focusing on the second death, see Sysling, Resurrection, 210–28 and the briefer remarks by J. Kugel, The Ladder of Jacob. Ancient Interpretations of the Biblical Story of Jacob and his Children, Princeton 2006, 102–3. 392 Tg. Neb. Hos 14:8, trans. of Cathcart and Gordon, Targum of the Minor Prophets, 612 (who note that the phrase “matured wine” appears in Tg. Onq. Lev 23:24 and Tg. Ps.-J. Lev. 23:24). Text from Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic, 3.408. 393 Tg. Neb. Zech 3:7, trans. of Cathcart and Gordon, Targum of the Minor Prophets, 192. Text from Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic, 3.481.
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The Targum to Zechariah 14:4 (in the longer form of Codex Reuchlinianus) includes a vision of resurrection At that time the Lord will take in his hand the great trumpet and will blow ten blasts upon it to revive the dead.394 And at that time he shall reveal himself in his might upon the mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall be split in two to the east and to the west by a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall be torn away to the north and half of it to the south.395
These targumic traditions are difficult to date, but the origins of some of them probably date back to the development of early Christianity and tannaitic teaching. 8.2 Mishnah and Tosefta Sanhedrin Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1–3 lists a number of different categories and historical groups of people who have no share of life in the world to come. Included among them are those who deny the resurrection. All Israel have a portion in the world to come, as it is said, “Your people also shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, wherein I glory” (Isa 60:21). And these are they who have no share in the world to come – the one who says there is no resurrection of the dead laid down in the law (Torah), and the one who says the law is not from heaven, and a heretic (epikoros).396
, .
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The statement that all Israel will have a share in the world to come is qualified by many exceptions in the material that follows in the Mishnah. Jon Levenson notes that the statement is “inclusive, but it must not be taken as an indication that the rabbis affirmed no standards for admission thereto or failed to link
394 This sentence is from Codex Reuchlinianus (Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic, 3.497, app. crit.). It is also found in the Tosephta Targum. See K. Rimon, Toseftot Targum laNeviʾim, Jerusalem 1996, 225. 395 Tg. Neb. Zech 14:4, trans. of Cathcart and Gordon, Targum of the Minor Prophets, 223. Text from Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic, 3.497 (modified). 396 m. Sanh. 10:1, trans. slightly modified of P. Blackman, Mishnayoth, 6 vols., London 1954, 4.285. In b. B. Bat. 16a, Rab quotes Job 7:9, and Raba concludes, “This shows that Job denied the resurrection of the dead” ( ). In b. ʿAbod. Zar. 18a, those have no share in the world to come ( ), who deny that the resurrection of the dead is taught in the Torah ( ).
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behavior with salvation.”397 The epikoros is apparently a person “who denies the fundaments of rabbinic belief, most centrally the belief in divine providence and justice.”398 Alan Avery-Peck comments that “the character of the resurrection, the circumstances that will give rise to the world-to-come, and the temporal relationship between these events is left unclear.”399 The Tosefta adds an interesting perspective to the discussion by noting that people who are neither wholly righteous nor wholly wicked will have a share in the world to come: The school of Shammai say: There are three classes: one for everlasting life, another for shame and everlasting contempt – who are accounted wholly wicked, and a third class who go down to Gehenna, where they scream and again come up and receive healing, as it is written: “And I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; and they shall call on my name and I will be their God” (Zech 13:9). And of these last Hannah said: The Lord kills and the Lord makes alive: he brings down to Sheol and brings up.” (1 Sam 2:6).400
.
0 .
Being brought up from Sheol is apparently identical with resurrection from the dead in this interpretation. Ishay Rosen-Zvi identifies the individuals who are in the middle as “average.” He also notes that the rabbis use “Gehennom” when translating the biblical “Sheol.”401 The Tosefta next refers to the school of Hillel. The School of Hillel say: “He is great in mercy” (Exod 34:6), that is, he leans in the direction of mercy; and of them David said: “I am well pleased that the Lord has heard the voice of my prayer” (Ps 116:1) etc.; and of them the whole psalm is written.402
0
The parallel tradition about Hillel in b. Roš Haššanah has: Beth Hillel, however, say: He that abounds in grace inclines [the scales] towards grace, and of them David said, “I love that the Lord should hear my voice and supplication” (Ps 397 398 399
Levenson, Resurrection, 25. Levenson, Resurrection, 25. A. J. Avery-Peck, Death and Afterlife in the Early Rabbinic Sources: The Mishnah, Tosefta, and Early Midrash Compilations, in: Avery-Peck and Neusner, Judaism, 243–66, esp. 248. 400 t. Sanh. 13:3 (Zuckermandel), trans. of H. Danby, Tractate Sanhedrin. Mishnah and Tosefta, London, 1919, 123. 401 I. Rosen-Zvi, Refuting the Yetzer: The Evil Inclination and the Limits of Rabbinic Discourse, JJTP 17 (2009) 117–41, esp. 128. 402 t. Sanh. 13:3 (Zuckermandel), trans. of Danby, Tractate Sanhedrin, 123.
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116:1) and on their behalf David composed the whole of the passage, “I was brought low and he saved me” (Ps 116:6).403
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The Tosefta also affirms that Israelite and pagan sinners will go to Gehenna but be completely destroyed after one year. There are exceptions, however, and those individuals will be in Gehenna forever: But the heretics and the renegades and traitors and Epicureans, and those who denied the Law, or separated themselves from the ways of the congregation, or denied the resurrection of the dead … Gehenna is shut up after them, and they are condemned in it for ever.404
... Denying the reality of the resurrection brings harsh consequences, and clearly the rabbis excluded the Sadduccees from life in the world to come. Besides this text in the Mishnah, there is a discussion in a non-canonical tractate of the Talmud about two groups who denied resurrection. 8.3 Abot de Rabbi Nathan: The Origin of the Sadducees There is a tradition in the Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan that illustrates the Sadducees’ rejection of the resurrection of the dead: Antigonus of Soko took over from Simeon the righteous. He used to say: be not like slaves that serve their master for the sake of compensation [“bread”]; be rather like slaves who serve their master with no thought of compensation. And let the fear of heaven be upon you, so that your reward may be doubled in the age to come. Antigonus of Soko had two disciples who used to study his words. They taught them to their disciples, and their disciples to their disciples. These proceeded to examine the words closely and demanded; “Why did our ancestors see fit to say this thing? Is it possible that a laborer should do his work all day and not take his reward in the evening? If our ancestors, forsooth, had known that there is another world and that there will be a resurrection of the dead, they would not have spoken in this manner. So they arose and withdrew from the Torah and split into two sects, the Sadducees and the Boethusians405: Sadducees named after Zadok, Boethusians after Boethus. And they used silver vessels and gold vessels all their lives – not because
403 404
b. Roš Haš. 17a (Soncino trans.). t. Sanh. 13:5 (Zuckermandel), trans. of Danby, Tractate Sanhedrin, 123–4. A nearly identical statement may be found in b. Roš Haš. 17a. 405 On the obscure Boethusians, cf. A. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society. A Sociological Approach, Grand Rapids, MI 2001, 226–8.
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they were ostentatious; but the Sadducees said, “It is a tradition among the Pharisees to afflict themselves in this world; yet in the world to come they will have nothing.”406
.
. . . . . # The composition of the book presumably dates to the third century C.E., although it may be much later.407 All the teachers that appear in the tractate, however, are tannaitic, so the traditions may be old. The older recension is also of interest. Antigonus of Sokho took over from Simeon the Righteous. He was accustomed to say, “Don’t be like slaves who serve their masters for the sake of a reward, but be like slaves who do not serve their masters for the sake of a reward. And the fear of heaven be upon you. And you will receive a reward as if you had done it, in this and in the coming world.” He had two students, Zadok and Boethus. And when they heard this word, they taught it to their pupils. And their pupils spoke the word from their master’s mouth, but they did not tell his explanation. They said to them, “If they [you] had known, that the resurrection of the dead would be given to the righteous as a reward in the coming world, would they [you] have spoken in this way?” They left and separated themselves. And there came two groups from them, Sadducees and Boethusians – the Sadducees from the name of Zadok, and the Boethusians from the name of Boethus.408
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406 ʾAbot R. Nat. A 5 (S. Schechter, Aboth de Rabbi Nathan. Edited from Manuscripts with an Introduction, Notes and Appendices, Vienna 1887, 13a–b [Hebrew]), trans. of J. Goldin, The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan, New Haven 1955, 39 [version A]. 407 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 227 (who argue that version A is later than version B). 408 ʾAbot R. Nat. B 10 (13a–b Schechter), trans. of G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Minneapolis 1995, 64–5 (who believes “And you will receive …world” is an addition in B and that the phrase translated as “so that your reward may be doubled in the age to come” in A is an addition). Both are possible misunderstandings “of Antigonus’s maxim” that the following narrative indicates.
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# The story, however, is of little historical value.409 What is valuable, however, is the affirmation that the Sadducees denied the resurrection, which is in accord with the evidence from the Gospels (Mark 12:18 par.) and Acts (23:8).410 8.4 Elijah and the Resurrection of the Dead In the Mishnah there is a statement by Rabbi Phineas ben Jair that the resurrection comes through Elijah: R. Phineas ben Jair says, Zeal leads to cleanliness, and cleanliness leads to purity and purity leads to self-restraint, and self-restraint leads to sanctity, and sanctity leads to humility, and humility leads to the fear of sin, and the fear of sin leads to piety, and piety leads to divine intuition, and divine intuition leads to the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead shall come through Elijah of blessed memory. Amen.411
A nearly identical tradition is found in the Jerusalem Talmud. On this basis, R. Phineas b. Yair says, “Zeal leads to cleanliness, cleanliness leads to cultic purity, cultic purity leads to holiness, holiness leads to humility, humility leads to the fear of sin, the fear of sin leads to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit leads to the piety, the piety leads to the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead leads to Elijah, blessed be his memory … Piety leads to the resurrection of the dead as it is written: ‘I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live’ (Ezek 37:5). The resurrection of the dead leads to Elijah, of blessed memory as it is written: ‘Behold I will send you Elijah the
409 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 63. Antigonus dates to the second century B.C.E. E. J. Bickerman, The Maxim of Antigonus of Soccho, HTR 44 (1951) 153–65, esp. 161–2 comments briefly on the tradition (and believes that the Sadducees’ interpretation is ancient). Cf. S. J. D. Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh and other Essays in Jewish Hellenism, TSAJ 136, Tübingen 2010, 57, 539 (ARN is probably “post-talmudic”). 410 Clem. Recogn. 1.54.2 is often mentioned in comparison with the text above: hique ut ceteris iustiores segregare se coepere a populi coetu et mortuorum resurrectionem negare idque argumento infidelitatis adserere, dicentes non esse dignum ut quasi sub mercede proposita colatur deus (And these, as if they were more righteous than the others began to separate themselves from the congregation of the people and denied the resurrection of the dead, and to assert, using this faithless argument, that it is not proper that God be worshipped as if for a promised reward). 411 m. Soṭah 9:15, trans. of H. W. Danby, Mishnayoth. Order Nashim, vol. 3, London 1953, 383. Phineas was a fourth generation tannaitic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 79–80). There is a parallel in b. ʿAbod. Zar. 20b.
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prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.”412
. Ö ' 0 The reference to Elijah and the resurrection does, to a certain extent, illuminate Mark 9:11–13.413 8.5 Tosefta Berakhot and b. Ketubbot: The Blessing of the Dead The Tosefta includes an early version of a blessing for those who pass by graves: One who passes among graves in the course of his travel says: Blessed be the One who knows your number. He in the future will judge. He in the future will raise you in the judgement. Blessed be the One who is true to his word, Who resurrects the dead.414
Yehuda Septimus comments that there are three elements in the blessing: intimacy, judgment, and resurrection.415 The blessing shares some motifs with one found in the Babylonian Talmud: [Reish Laqish] said to [Yehudah bar Naḥmani]416: Rise and say something with regard to the praise of the holy one, blessed be he. He spoke and said: God, who is great in the abundance of his greatness, mighty and strong in the multitude of awe-inspiring deeds,
412
y. Šab. 1:3 (3c Venice ed.), trans. modified of J. Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism. The Theological System, Leiden 2002, 236–7. 413 Cf. the discussion in T. Eskoala, A Narrative Theology of the New Testament. Exploring the Metanarrative of Exile and Restoration, WUNT 350, Tübingen 2015, 77–80. Cp., on Matt 17:10–13, B. C. Dennert, John the Baptist and the Jewish Setting of Matthew, WUNT 2/403, Tübingen 2015, 131. Both refer to m. Soṭah 9:15. See also D. C. Allison, Constructing Jesus. Memory, Imagination, History, Grand Rapids, MI 2010, 268, who refers to y. Šeqal. 3:3 (47c Venice ed.), which is virtually identical with y. Šab. 1:3. 414 t. Ber. 6:6 (S. Lieberman, Tosefta, 4 vols. New York 1965–88, 1.34), trans. of Y. Septimus, On the Boundaries of Talmudic Prayer, TSAJ 161, Tübingen 2015, 176. 415 Septimus, Boundaries, 176–7. 416 Resh Laqish was a second generation amoraic teacher as was Yehudah who was Resh Laqish’s interpreter (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 32, 86)
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who revives the dead with his word, who performs great deeds without number. Blessed be the one who revives the dead.417
0 The primary affirmation is that God’s sovereignty over death implies the reality of resurrection. 8.6 Sife Deuteronomy Günter Stemberger dates the final redaction of Sifre to the end of the third century.418 Sifre Deuteronomy uses 32:39 as a proof text for resurrection: [a] “See now that I , am He” (Deut. 32:39): This is an answer to those who say: “There is no authority in heaven.” One who says “There is in heaven,” they answer him and say to him: “And there is no God beside me” (Deut. 32:39). Or maybe He has no power to bring death or give life, to harm or to benefit, [therefore] the verse states: “See now that I, even I, am He… I bring death and give life” (Deut. 32:39), and it is also written, “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last” (Isa. 44:6, 41:4). [b] I bring death and give life: This is one [of the four assurances] given to them which hint at the resurrection of the dead: “I bring death and give life” (Deut 32:39); “Let me die the death of the righteous” (Num. 23:10); “Let Reuben live and not die” (Deut 33:6); “After two days He will revive us” (Hos. 6:2). I might think that death here refers and life therefore the verse states: “I wounded and I heal” (Deut. 32:39) – wounding and healing refer so death and life refer .419
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417 b. Ketub. 8b, Munich MS, trans. of Septimus, Boundaries, 185. Cf. Munich MS 95, 183r, available online (‹http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00003409/images/index. html›), accessed 26 May 2016. 418 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 273. 419 Sifre Deuteronomy 329, trans. of Monnickendam, Polemic, 98, in which she modified that of R. Hammer, Sifre. A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, YJS 24, New Haven 1986, 340. Text from Monnickendam, ibid., 98, based on M. I. Kahana, Pages of the Deuteronomy Mekhilta on Ha’azinu and Wezot Ha-Berakha, Tarbiz 57 (1988) 165–202 (Hebrew), esp. 191–3 and L. Finkelstein, Siphre ad Deuteronomium, New York 1969, 379. This passage has many similarities with one in b. Pesaḥ. 68a and b. Sanh. 91b.
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Yifat Monnickendam emphasizes the claim in Sifre that the same person dies and rises, which is an argument against the hypothesis that a different person might rise from the one who died. The same person wounded is healed, and the analogy is the basis for the argument about the resurrection.420 The first paragraph (a) provides a foundation for the belief in God’s power to raise the dead. In another tradition in Sifre, all scripture refers to resurrection according to Rabbi Simai: Rabbi Simai used to say: “There is no scriptural passage in which there is no reference to the resurrection of the dead but the strength is not in us [needed] to interpret it, as it is said, “he calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people” (Ps 50:4, NRSV); “he calls to the heavens above,” this is to the soul, and “to the earth to the judgement of his people,” this is to the body to the judgement with him. And whence is it proved that it is speaking of nothing but the resurrection of the dead? As it is said “Come from the four winds, Spirit, and blow on these slain (Ezek 37:9, NAB).421
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,
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Simai’s claim is difficult to believe for modern interpreters, but it bears witness to the strength of the rabbinic conviction that resurrection was fully consistent with the ancient scriptures of Judaism. 8.7 Sifra In Sifra, presumably to be dated to the second half of the third century,422 there are several references to resurrection. The sacrifice for the atonement of priests during their ordination will be valid until the end: The Lord has commanded you to do (this) to make atonement for you. He said to them, this is the atonement which will atone for you until the dead shall live.423
. . ' Avery-Peck reasonably argues that the concept of resurrection here is used as a “metaphor for permanence.”424 Another example from Sifra is an affirmation that the priestly blessing is valid until the resurrection: 420 421 422 423
Monnickendam, Polemic, 99–100. Sifre Deut. 306 (Finkelstein). Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 263. Sifra 98 Tzav, Mekhilta DeMilluim (43a–b [Sifra de-Be Rav, ed. I. H. Weiss, Wien 1862]; on Lev 8:34). 424 Avery-Peck, Death, 261.
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And Aaron lifted up his hands to the people and blessed them. At that hour he obtained the privilege of the priestly gifts and obtained the privilege of the lifting up of hands for himself and for all his (future) generations until the dead shall live.425
. . Sacrifice and blessing are in force until the resurrection – a position that the rabbis held despite the destruction of the temple. Rabbi Ishmael interprets Lev 18:5 with reference to those who obey the commandments of God and those who reject the Torah. All will become clear in the last judgment: This day I shall be exalted in the sight of the nations of the world, who deny the Torah. This day I shall exact vengeance for them from those who hate them. This day I shall resurrect the dead among them. I am the Lord (Lev 18:5): I am judge to exact punishment and faithful to pay a reward.426
. . . ' Avery-Peck remarks that the resurrection “corrects the injustices of this world; the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished.”427 8.8 Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin The tractate Sanhedrin in the Babylonian Talmud includes a section which contains “a sequence of amoraic sayings discussing contradictions in verses on the world to come and the resurrection of the dead.”428 The entire sequence comprises a set of Biblical proofs of the resurrection of the dead.429 One discussion is similar to that of Sifre Deut. 329 mentioned above. Raba opposed [two verses]: It is written, “I kill, and I make alive; whilst it is also written “I wound, and I heal” (Deut 32:39). The Holy One, blessed be he, said, What I slay, I resurrect, as what I wound, I heal. Our Rabbis taught: I kill, and I make alive. I might interpret, I kill one person and give life to another, as the world goes on: therefore, the text states,430 “I wound, and I heal.” Just as the wounding and healing refer to the same per-
425 Sifra 99 Shemini, Mekhilta DeMilluim (44d Weiss; on Lev 9:22), and see AveryPeck, Death, 261. 426 Sifra 194 Ahare Mot, Pereq 13 (86b Weiss; on Lev 18:5), trans. of Avery-Peck, Death, 262. Ishmael was a second generation tannaitic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 71–2). 427 Avery-Peck, Death, 262. 428 Monnickendam, Polemic, 92. 429 b. Sanh. 90a–92b, cf. Rosen-Zvi, The Evil Inclination, 128. 430 Abbreviated with (" ): “the (Scriptural) text says” ()תלמוד לומר.
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son, so putting to death and bringing to life refer to the same person. This refutes those who maintain that resurrection is not intimated in the Torah.431
" , " .
" . . The baraita432 follows Raba’s teaching above and a parallel version in b. Pesaḥ. 68a, according to Monnickendam, and “may explain the relationship between the two versions” of Raba’s saying.433 The version in b. Pesaḥ. 68a is: Raba challenged: it is written: “I bring death and give life,” and it is written “I wounded and heal.” If he gives life, why is healing needed? But so said the Holy one blessed is he: to what I bring death I give life, and afterwards what I wound I heal.434
.
Raba435 interprets the text in Deuteronomy as a reference to the resurrection, in accord with some of the Targums and with Sifre. In this version (b. Pesaḥ. 68a) of the saying, Raba insists that God heals after the resurrection, but the first version (b. Sanh. 91b) is a claim that the dead and resurrected person, like the wounded and healed person, are identical – and so is an argument from analogy.436 In b. Sanhedrin, after a lengthy discussion which includes many verses that discuss the next world and resurrection, Raba, Rabina, and Ashi437 appeal to texts from Genesis and Daniel: Raba said: Whence is resurrection derived from the Torah? From the verse, “Let Reuben live” (Deut 33:6), meaning, let Reuben live, in this world, and not die, in the next. Rabina said, [it is derived] from this verse, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan
431 b. Sanh. 91b (Soncino trans. modified). van Ruiten, The Use of Deuteronomy, 237 notes a parallel also to b. Pesaḥ. 68a. Monnickendam, Polemic, 94 gives part of the text of b. Sanh. 91b quoted above with this important variation. For in the printed texts of Raba’s saying, she has . Her version is based on a synoptic edition of b. Sanh. by M. Sabato, and I have incorporated it above. 432 An unattributed Tannaitic teaching, marked by (ìour rabbis taughtî) above. 433 Monnickendam, Polemic, 97. 434 Text and trans. of b. Pesaḥ. 68a according to Monnickendam, Polemic, 94. 435 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 95 note that Raba died in 352, one of the fourth generation of amoraic teachers. 436 Monnickendam, Polemic, 96–7. 437 Presumably the Rabina who was Raba’s student, and a member of the sixth generation of Amoraim in Babylonia. Ashi was also a sixth generation Amoraic teacher. Cf. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 97.
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12:2). R. Ashi said: From this verse, “But go your way till the end; for you shall rest and stand in your lot at the end of the days” (Dan 12:13).438
[] . The same text from Deuteronomy on Reuben was used in the passage quoted from Sifre above to justify belief in the resurrection.439 Harry Sysling affirms that many Targums associate the text with resurrection.440 Epiphanius seems to know some of these traditions and appeals to them in a text in which he is defending the belief in resurrection using texts from the LXX against the Samaritans’ reputed denial441: Moreover, in blessing Reuben Moses says, “Let Reuben live, and let him not die,” though he ‹means› someone who has died long ago. This is to show that there is life after death, but a sentence of second death for damnation. So he gives him two blessings by saying. “Let him live,” at the resurrection, and “Let him not die,” at the judgment – not meaning death by departing the body, but death by damnation. Ï Ú ® F Ã ˆ Ú çI 8 «7 çI Ú !8 », Ù Ù ? 7 *, μ & 5W ∂ Ï !?, &Ó & 8 !? ∞ &. &Ù & Ã Ã2 !, Ù «7 » 8
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, Ï Ù &Ï &.442
There may have been a common source for the arguments in Epiphanius and those of the rabbis. As part of a larger argument about the Scriptural justification for belief in resurrection, Rabbi Meir answers a query from “queen Cleopatra ( ),” which may be a corruption for the “patriarch of the Cutheans ( ).” Queen Cleopatra asked R. Meir, “I know that the dead will revive, for it is written, and ‘they shall blossom forth out of the city like the grass of the earth’ (Ps 72:16). But when they arise, shall they arise nude or in their garments?” – He replied, “You may deduce from an a minori ad maius (qal wa-ḥomer)443 argument from a wheat grain: if a grain of 438 439 440 441
b. Sanh. 92a (Soncino trans.). Sifre Deut. 329. Cf. § 8.6 above. Sysling, Resurrection, 210. An example is included in § 8.1 above. R. Plummer (Early Christian Authors on Samaritans and Samaritans. Texts, Translations, and Commentary, TSAJ 92, Tübingen 2002, 47) notes that the rabbis also claimed that the Samaritans denied resurrection. See b. Sanh. 90b below. 442 Epiphanius Pan. 9.3.5 (GCS Epiphanius Werke I, 200 Holl), trans. of F. Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. Book I (Sects 1–46), Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 63, Leiden 22009, 34. Holl, at the asterisk, recommends inserting Û . 443 On this form of argumentation, cf. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 18 (who note its use in this tradition, in a parallel in b. Ketuv. 111b).
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wheat, which is buried naked, is brought forth in many robes, how much more so the righteous, who are buried in their raiment!”444
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. Wilhelm Bacher’s reasonable emendation to “patriarch of the Cutheans” is based on the clear anachronism. In addition there are similar traditions in rabbinic literature, in which Rabbi Meir’s antagonist is a Cuthean (a Samaritan).445 The wheat imagery has similarities with Paul’s language in 1 Cor 15 (15:37 in particular).446 In a very late midrash, there is a long discussion of resurrection that reflects the earlier discussions of the rabbis.447 After a reference to several of the resurrection narratives in the HB (1 Kgs 17:17–24, 2 Kgs 4:18–37, 13:21), Rabbi Eliezer said: All the dead will arise at the resurrection of the dead, coming up in their garments. From what do you know this? From the seed of the earth. By [an argument from] the lesser to the greater (a minori ad maius qal wa-ḥomer) from wheat. As wheat, which is buried naked, arises in so many garments, how much more shall the righteous who are buried in their garments. 448
' ' The analogous exegetical reasoning reflects standard rabbinic practice.
444 445
b. Sanh. 90b, Soncino trans. W. Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, 2 vols., Strassburg 1890, 2.68 (vol. 1, in a 2nd ed., was published in 1903). Qoh. Rab. 5.12 (on 5:10; a parallel to b. Sanh. 90b in which a Cuthean, not Cleopatra, poses the query to R. Meir [ ' ]). Cf. Sifre Num. 112, Num 15:31 (Simeon b. Eleazar, a fourth generation Tannaitic teacher, on the “forged books” [ ] of the Cutheans: “the Cutheans who say that the dead do not live” [ ' ]). Simeon was a student of Meir who disputed with the Samaritans (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 80). At some point they did adopt a belief in resurrection (Plummer, ibid., 49–50). 446 On some of the similarities, cf. R. P. Martin, The Spirit of the Congregation. Studies in 1 Corinthians 12–15, Eugene, OR 1984, 133 and Finney, Resurrection, 97. 447 On Pirqe de Rabbi Eleazar (and a date of composition between 800 and 900), see Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 328–30. 448 Pirq. R. El. 33 (Higger; numbered as 33 in the Warsau ed.), trans. of G. Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, London 1916, 245. Pirke de-Rabbi Elieser. Nach der Edition Venedig 1544 unter Berücksichtigung der Edition Warschau 1852, ed. and trans. D. Börner-Klein, Berlin 2004, 395 prints a different text with excessively few MS variants.
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8.9 The Self Evidence of Resurrection in b. Berakot Some rabbis believed the teaching of resurrection was self-evidently true: R. Tabi further said in the name of R. Josiah: What is meant by the text. There are three things which are never satisfied. … the grave and the barren womb (Prov 30:15–16?) How comes the grave next to the womb? It is to teach you that just as the womb takes in and gives again, so the grave takes in and will give forth again. And have we not here a conclusion a minori ad maius: if the womb which takes in silently gives forth with a loud noise, does it not stand to reason that the grave which takes in with a loud noise will give forth with loud noise? Here is a refutation of those who deny that resurrection is taught in the Torah.449
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. A midrashic tradition contains a similar argument against a Samaritan. Qohelet Rabbah has been dated from the sixth to the eighth century C.E.450 A Cuthean asked Rabbi Meir: “Do the dead live again?” He answered: “Yes.” He then asked: “[Do they come back to life] secretly or in public” He answered: “In public.” “How can you prove it to me?” he asked, to which Rabbi Meir replied: “Not from scripture nor from the Mishnah but from everyday life I will answer you. There was a trustworthy man in our city with whom everyone deposited [money] secretly and he restored it to the owners in public. Somebody came and deposited it with him in public; so how should he restore it to him, in secret or publicly? Will he not do it publicly?” “Certainly,” was the reply. Then said Rabbi Meir to him, “Let your ears hear what your lips speak. Men deposit a white drop [in secret] with their wives, and the holy one, blessed be he, restores that drop publicly in the form of a beautiful and perfect creature. How much more will a dead person who departs [from the world] publicly return publicly? As he departs with loud cries so will he return with loud cries.”451
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449 b. Ber. 15b (Soncino trans.). There is a parallel tradition in b. Sanh. 92a. R. Josiah is probably the third generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 91). He is mentioned along with Tabi with reference to a teaching of R. Kahana in y. Roš. Haš. 1:1 (56d Venice ed.). 450 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 318. 451 Qoh. Rab. 5.12 (Vilna), trans. A. Cohen, Ecclesiastes, in: Midrash Rabbah … ed. H. Freedman and M. Simon, London 1951, 145–6. Cp. A. Lehnardt, Massekhet Kutim and the Resurrection of the Dead, in: Samaritans – Past and Present. Current Studies, ed. M. Mor and F. V. Reiterer, Berlin 2010, 175–92, esp. 183–4.
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. The discussion proceeds with a question by the Cuthean whether the dead rise clothed or unclothed, to which Rabbi Meir answers using the analogy of beans that are sown in the ground naked and come up clothed. Although the dialogue is probably fictitious, Rabbi Meir is associated with discussions about the resurrection in rabbinic literature.452 Andreas Lehnardt remarks that the argument from everyday life cannot have been very convincing for someone who denies there is any proof of resurrection in the Pentateuch and who does not accept the writings of the prophets, the neviim. The proof from “everyday life” transmitted in the name of Rabbi Meir therefore reflects how great the difficulties must have been even in Amoraic times to convince Samaritans, whose rejection of this belief was clearly known …453
Rabbi Meir was a third generation tannaitic teacher, so it is possible that these discussions were held in earlier times. Whether the attributions in the Babylonian Talmud are accurate or not is an unsolved problem of scholarship, however. Attributions in late midrashic literature are equally problematic.454 8.10 Genesis Rabbah on Resurrection and Healing Genesis Rabbah, whose redaction probably dates to the first half of the fifth century, reflects on the nature of resurrected bodies.455 “And he sent Judah before him” (Gen 46:28). This is what Scripture says, “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together” (Isa 65:25). Come and see that all whom the holy one, blessed be he, has smitten in this world, he will heal in the world to come. The blind will be healed, as it says, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened” (Isa 35:5); the lame will be healed as it says, “Then shall the lame leap as a hart” (Isa 35:6), the dumb shall be healed as it says, “And the tongue of the dumb shall sing” (Isa 35:6); save that as a person leaves (this life) so shall (s)he return. If (s)he departs blind, (s)he will return blind; if (s)he departs dead, (s)he will return deaf, if (s)he departs dumb, (s)he will return dumb; if (s)he departs lame, (s)he will return lame, as (s)he departs clothed, so will (s)he return clothed, as it says, “It is changed as clay under the seal; and they stand as [in] a garment” (Job 38:14). Now from whom do you learn this? From Samuel the Ramathite. When Saul brought him up, he said “who is he?” to the woman; “What form is he of?” And she said, “An old man; and he is covered with a robe” (1 Sam 38:14). For even so was he clothed [in life], as it says, “Moreover his mother made him a little robe” (1 Sam 2:19). Why does a person return as (s)he went? So that the wicked of the world should not say: After they died God healed them and then brought them back! Apparently [“there is a rumor”] these 452 Cp. b. Sanh. 90b and the discussion above in § 8.8. Lehnardt, Massekhet Kutim, 184 argues that the discussion is fictitious. 453 Lehnardt, Massekhet Kutim, 184. 454 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 56–9 (the problem of attribution), 76 (Meir). 455 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 279.
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are not the same but others. “If so,” says God to them, “let them arise in the same state in which they went, and then I will heal them.” Why so? “That you may know that … before me was no God formed …” (Isa 48:10). After that the animals too will be healed, as it says, “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together (Isa 65:25)”; all are healed456
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Wild animals serve humans in the messianic kingdom according to Syrian Baruch.457 The perspective on disability is also intriguing, since the midrash attributes blindness and so forth to the decision of God and not to an accident of nature.458 The “ultimate healing of the disabled, healing only after resurrection in the state in which they left life, and the ultimate healing of all creatures” are all envisioned in the text.459 8.11 Talmudic Texts on Resurrection in Jerusalem The dead will only rise in Israel, according to Rabbi Eleazar, 460 in b. Ketuvvot: R. Eleazar stated: The dead outside the land will not live; for it is said in Scripture: “And I will set glory in the land of the living” (Ezek 36:20) [implying] of the land in which I
456 Gen. Rab. 95:1, trans. modified of H. Freedman and M. Simon, Midrash Rabbah. Genesis, 2 vols., London 1939, 2.879 (1185–6 Theodor/Albeck). Cp. Midr. Ps. 146:5 (535–6 Buber). Gen. Rab. 100:2 affirms that resurrected individuals will wear the shrouds they were buried in. 457 2 Bar. 73:6. Cp. Sib. Or. 3.788–95 with Tg. Neb. Isa. 11:6 (“the days of the messiah” [ ]) and see P. J. Becken, The Word is Near You. A Study in Deuteronomy 30:12–14 in Paul’s Letter to the Romans in a Jewish Context, BZNW 144, Berlin 2007, 132. 458 Cf. T. C. Marx, Disability in Jewish Law, London 2002, 67 (he notes many parallels including b. Sanh. 91b). There Resh Lakish opposes two texts, Jer 31:8 and Isa 35:6 and concludes “they rise with their defects and then are healed (Soncino trans.)” ( ). 459 Marx. Disability, 67. 460 Eleazar was a third generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 82).
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have my desire, its dead will live, but [of the land] in which I have no desire, its dead will not live.461
0
Pesiqta Rabbati apparently preserves a similar tradition of R. Eleazar in which he appeals to Ps 116:9 to support his views. The context is the explanation of Jacob’s request to Joseph to bring his bones from Egypt to Israel (Gen 47:29). Resh Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Eleazar Ha-Qappar: Because its dead [i.e., of the land] will live in the days of the messiah as David said: “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps 116:9). … And when David said “in the land of the living” it is that its dead will live in the days of the Messiah.462
Ö ' In the same tractate, the interpretation is that the righteous will rise in Jerusalem: R. Hiyya b. Joseph said: A time will come when the just break through and rise up in Jerusalem, for as it is said in Scripture [Ps 72:16], “they will blossom out of the city like grass of the earth,” by “city” only Jerusalem can be meant for it is said in Scripture [Isa 37:35], “For I will defend this city.” R. Hiyya b. Joseph further stated: The just in the time to come will rise in their own clothes. [This is deduced] a minori ad maius from a grain of wheat. If a grain of wheat that is naked sprouts up with many coverings how much more so the just who are buried in their shrouds.463
. . , The thesis that all the righteous dead will rise in Jerusalem poses little difficulty, according to a tradition from the Jerusalem Talmud: R. Simai464 said, The Holy One, blessed be he, goes before them to the land, and their bodies will roll like wine barrels, and when they arrive at the land of Israel their souls are with them.465 461 462
b. Ketuv. 111a, Soncino trans. modified. Pesiq. Rab. 1:9–10 (2b Friedmann; R. Ulmer, Pesiqta rabbati: A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbata Based upon all Extant Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps, 2 vols., Atlanta 1997–99, 1.4–5). Numbered as 1:4 by W. G. Braude, Pesikta Rabbati. Discourses for Feasts, Fasts and Special Sabbaths, YJS 18, 2 vols., New Haven 1968, 1.42. 463 b. Ketuv. 111b, Soncino trans. R. Hiyya was a second generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 87). 464 Simai, a teacher in Palestine, belongs to the period of transition between the tannaim and amoraim. Cf. S. Frieman, Who’s Who in the Talmud, Northvale, NJ and Jerusalem 1995,
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' .
C. G. Montefiore and H. M. J. Loewe write, with reference to this passage, “We may wonder whether they made these amazing assertions seriously. And yet why should they have made them in jest? One never seems to get to the bottom of the oddity of the Rabbis.”466 Alan Segal’s comment is that although “the strangeness of the idea” “impresses modern sensibilities … it does answer the question of the pious buried in the Diaspora: how can even the dead participate in God’s plan for the ingathering of the exiles?”467 The text has a logic of its own. Christian patristic writers were driven to similar logical extremes when attempting to defend the resurrection against the “food chain” argument. 8.12 Rabbi Jacob: Rewards in the Torah and Resurrection Rabbi Jacob, a fourth generation tannaitic teacher, was married to the daughter of the infamous Elisha ben Abuya (an apostate).468 For it was taught: R. Jacob said: You have not a single precept written in the Torah whose reward is at its side to which the resurrection of the dead does not [also] hang. [Thus:] in connection with honoring parents it is written (Deut 5:16), “that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you.”469
307. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 420 identify him as a fifth generation tannaitic teacher. 465 y. Ketuv. 12:3, 35b, line 13–5, trans. modified of H. W. Guggenheimer, the Jerusalem Talmud. Third Order: Našim Tractate Ketubot. Sixth Order: Taharot. Tractate Niddah, SJ 34, Berlin 2006, 544. Cp. C. G. Montefiore and H. M. J. Loewe, ed., A Rabbinic Anthology, Cambridge 1938, 600 (who translate the Vilna ed.). The editors refer to a similar thesis in b. Ketuv. 111a (R. Abbaye, who affirms that “cavities will be made for them in the ground” [ ] so that the rolling is not painful [Soncino trans. mod.]). 466 Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 600. 467 A. Segal, Life After Death. A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion, New York et al. 2010, 628. 468 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 79 (with ref. to b. Qidd. 39b). 469 b. Qidd. 39b, Soncino trans. modified. There is a close parallel in b. Ḥul.142a. On the larger context of this passage and the example of a child who obeys the command in Deut 22:6–7 not to take a mother bird and its child, and falls from the loft and dies with no reward in this world, cf. D. Hartman, Suffering, in: 20TH Century Jewish Religious Thought. Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs, ed. A. A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr, Philadelphia 2009, 939-46, esp. 942.
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Friedrich Avemarie remarks that in this version, R. Jacob is only referring to two commandments (Deut 5:16 and 22:6–7).470 A text in the Tosefta has a variation of the same tradition: No one should take the mother away from the children (Deut 22:6); even when (one should do it) for the sake of the purification of a leper, because a transgression would be committed. R. Jacob said: You have no commandment in the Torah which would not have a reward at its side and in which the resurrection of the dead would not be written: for it means, “You should let the mother go etc.” (Deut 22:7). If someone goes up a tree and falls and dies, or goes up to the top of a building and falls and dies, where is his “wellbeing” and “length of days”? Say then: “that it may go well with you” – in the “good world,” and “you make your days long” in the “extended world.”471
' ' # Both “good world” and “extended world” refer to the “next world” according to Candice Levy, who also notes that the two expressions appear only here in rabbinic literature.472 Unlike the Talmudic parallels, in the Tosefta Jacob affirms that all the commandments in the Torah have a reward, and that the basis for the reward is resurrection, in the “extended world.” 8.13 Resurrection for the Righteous A Talmudic discussion in b. Taʿanit asserts that the resurrection is only for the righteous, but does not restrict it to righteous Israelites only. The reference in the text is to the second Benediction discussed above (§ 7). R. Abbahu473 said: The day when rain falls is greater than [the day of] the revival of the dead, for the revival of the dead is for the righteous only whereas rain is both for the righteous and for the wicked. And he differs from the opinion of R. Joseph who said: Because [rain] is equal to the revival of the dead the mention of it has therefore been inserted in the section of the revival of the dead.474
470 F. Avemarie, Tora und Leben. Untersuchungen zur Heilsbedeutung der Tora in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur, TSAJ 55, Tübingen 1996, 386. 471 t. Ḥul. 10:16 (Zuckermandel), trans. done with ref. to that of Avemarie, Torah, 386. 472 C. L. Levy, Arbiters of the Afterlife: Olam Haba, Torah and Rabbinic Authority, Ph.D. Diss. UCLA 2013, 53. The Bar Ilan Responsa database has two occurrences of “extended world” from the Zohar and others from later literature, and the “good world” likewise appears in later literature. 473 A third generation amoraic teacher who may have died in 309 (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 89). Joseph was also a third generation amoraic rabbi (ibid., 93). 474 b. Taʿan 7a (Soncino trans. slightly modified).
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' The statement has some similarities with Jesus’s affirmation about rain falling on the just and unjust in Matt 5:45.475 In Luke 14:14 (cp. 20:35), Jesus affirms a reward in “the resurrection of the just” (&!7 ? E ? & ). Nevertheless, his remarks about the resurrection in Luke 11:31–2 presume that all will rise in the judgement. Genesis Rabbah interprets the second Benediction similarly, although there Rabbi Hiyya b. Abba476 says: It [rain] is greater than resurrection, for whereas resurrection is for the human alone, this is for human and beast; again, resurrection is for Israel, whereas this [rain] is for Israel and the peoples.477
. . It is apparent that Hiyya restricts the resurrection to Israel. 8.14 Hosea 6:2 and the Resurrection of the Dead Rabbinical exegesis appealed to Hosea 6:2 frequently in debates as a proof text for resurrection.478 Hos 6:2 also served to illustrate the principle that God does not leave Israel in tribulation for more than three days. The theme of deliverance in the second usage, however, encourages one to assume that even in those cases resurrection is the topic. A third approach to the text was to include it in collections of scriptures based on a common motif (“third day” or resurrection). It will become apparent that the third usage was interwoven in meaning with the first two.
475 Cf. the brief discussion by R. S. Notley and J P. Garcia, The Hebrew Scriptures in the Third Gospel, in: Searching the Scriptures. Studies in Context and Intertextuality, ed. C. A. Evans and J. J. Johnson, London 2015, 128–47, esp. 140 (Abbahu’s statement is ancient). 476 Presumably the fifth generation tannaitic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 82). 477 Gen. Rab. 13:6 (116 Theodor), trans. of Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah. Genesis, 1.101. 478 K. Lehmann, Auferweckt am dritten Tag nach der Schrift, QD 38, Freiburg 1968 refers often to Hos 6:2, but does not use rabbinic evidence. H. K. McArthur, On the Third Day, NTS 18 (1971) 81–6 gathered an excellent collection of material, which I build on below. R. E. Watts, Mark, in: Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Grand Rapids, MI 2007, 111–250, esp. 181 summarizes McArthur’s results, for the most part. I am indebted below to the Bar Ilan Responsa Database (www.re sponsa.co.il).
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8.14.1 Hezekiah’s Recovery and the Resurrection In an argument about a prophet who prophesies something that would go against the Torah, the rabbis disagree about the punishment (stoning, strangling) and the cases in which such a prophet might be exempt from the death penalty. Rebbi Isaac and Rebbi Hoshaia479: One said, each one has to provide a sign or a miracle. The other said, not each one has to provide a sign or miracle. The one who said he did, objected to the one who said he did not, Is it not written, “Hezekiah said to Isaiah, what is the sign?” (2 Kgs 20:8). He told him, that is different since he was occupied in reviving the dead. “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we shall live before him” (Hos. 6:2).480
Heinrich W. Guggenheimer remarks that Hezekiah “was declared ready to die (2 K. 20:1) and was well enough to go to the Temple on the third day [2 Kgs 20:5]; this shows that his recovery was indeed a resurrection.”481 The rabbis agree that Hezekiah’s experience is comparable (or identical with) the resurrection of the dead, and they assume that Hos 6:2 is a resurrection text. 8.14.2 Resurrection in the Second Benediction In a text from the Jerusalem Talmud that discusses some of the eighteen Benedictions, Rabbi Hiyya derives the resurrection from Hos 6:2–3: [Mishnah 5:2] One mentions the power of rains in “resurrection of the dead”;482 one prays for rain in the benediction “of years”483 and Havdalah484 in “He who by his grace grants knowledge”; Rebbi Aqiba said: it is recited as separate fourth benediction; Rebbi Eliezer says, in “thanksgiving.”485 [Halakhah 2] Just as the resurrection of the dead brings life to the world, so rains bring life to the world. Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba understood it from here: “He will resurrect us after two days, and on the third day He will raise us up 479
Isaac and Hoshaiah were third generation amoraic teachers (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 89, 91). 480 y. Sanh. 11:8 (30c Venice), trans. modified of H. W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud. Fourth Order. Nezikin. Tractates Sanhedrin, Makkot and Horaiot, Berlin 2010, 413. 481 Guggenheimer, Sanhedrin, Makkot and Horaiot, Berlin 2010, 414. 482 The second benediction 483 The ninth benediction. 484 Guggenheimer notes that this is “the required declaration of a ‘difference’ between Sabbath (or holiday) and weekday, after the end of the Sabbath or holiday.” Knowledge is the fourth benediction and thanksgiving the seventeenth. Cf. idem, The Jerusalem Talmud. First Order: Zeraïm. Tractate Berakhot, Berlin 2000, 423. 485 Aqiba was a second generation tannaitic teacher, as was Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 69–70, 72).
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and we shall live before him. We shall know, we shall pursue to know the Lord, like morning his appearance is well based.”486
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For Hiyya, a fifth generation tannaitic teacher,487 it was self-evident that Hos 6:2 referred to the resurrection of the dead, just as it was to the translator of the Targum and many other rabbinic interpreters.488 8.14.3 The Key of Resurrection God holds three keys according to an important midrash. In Deuteronomy Rabbah (on 28:12): “The Lord will open unto you his good treasure, the heavens” (Deut 28:12). What is the force of “will open”? God holds three keys in his hands over which no creature, not even angel of Seraph, has any control. They are as follows: the key of resurrection, the key of the barren woman, and the key of rain. Whence the key of resurrection? For it is said, “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when have opened your graves (Ezek 37:12). Whence the key of the barren woman? For it is said, “And he opened her womb” (Gen 29:31). And the key of rain, as it is said, “The Lord will open unto you his good treasure.” Another explanation. “The Lord will open.” The Rabbis say: Great is the rainfall, for it is counted as equivalent to the revival of the dead. Whence this? For it says, “And he shall come unto us as the rain, and in the latter rain that waters the earth” (Hos 6:3). What does Scripture say immediately before this? “After two days he will revive us” (6:2). Therefore the Rabbis have inserted [the prayer for rain in the benediction of] the revival of the dead, because it is equal in importance to it.489
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' ' ' 486 y. Ber. 5:2, 9a (Venice), trans. of Guggenheimer, Tractate Berakhot, 423, slightly modified. Cp. y. Taʿan 1:1, 63c (Venice) where there is a nearly identical statement. For the earliest form of the benediction of the resurrection, see Instone-Brewer, The Eighteen Benedictions, 29 above in § 7. 487 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 82. 488 Tg. Neb. Hos. 6:2, quoted above in § 1.5. 489 Deut. Rab. (Ki tavo) 7:6 (Midrash Debarim Rabbah. Edited for the First Time from the Oxford Ms. No. 147, ed. S. Liebermann, Jerusalem 21964, 110), trans. modified of J. Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah. Deuteronomy, London 1939, 137. See also Gen. Rab. 73:4 (the same three keys), Pesiq. Rab. 42:20 (the three keys [2.945 Ulmer; Braude: 42:7 (p. 2.748)]), Midr. Tehillim 78:5 (the three keys), and b. Taʿan. 2a (the three keys).
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Tg. Neof. Gen 30:22 mentions the three keys of the midrash and adds a fourth: the key of sustenance. In the Targum, however, it is the key of sepulchres ( ) which the Lord holds.490 Elijah is given the key of resurrection of the dead in b. Sanh. 113a ( ).491 8.14.4 Hos 6:2 in Chronological Discussions A number of rabbinic texts include Hos 6:2 in debates about chronology. In a midrash entitled Seder Eliyahu Rabba, which may be identical with the text the Talmud calls Tanna de-be Eliyahu, there is an intriguing use of the verse. The midrash may date to the third century C.E.492 And even the execution which the holy one, blessed be he, visits on Israel because of their sins in this world will be a healing for them in the world-to-come, as it is said, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he has torn us, and he will heal us … In two days he will revive us (Hos 6:1–2). The first (of the days) of this (verse) is this world and the days of the Messiah. And on the third day he will raise us up. This (day) is the world-tocome.493
0 ' ' . This midrash makes it clear that the first two days refer to the death of the children of this world in this world. The author of 3 Enoch, a treatise from the merkabah tradition devoted to the angel Metatron, used Hos 6:2 in one of Rabbi Ishmael’s descriptions of the four heavenly watchers.494 The text poses the question: Why are their names called Watchers and holy ones? Because they sanctify the body and the soul with lashes of fire495 on the third day of judgment, as it is written, “After two 490 491
See § 8.1. Cf. R. Kern-Ulmer, Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature as Reflected in the Terms “Rain” and “Dew,” JSJ 26 (1995) 55–75, esp. 68–71. 492 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 340–1. 493 S. Eli. Rab. 6 (M. Friedmann, Seder Eliahu Rabba and Seder Eliahu zuta [Tanna d’be Eliahu], Vienna 1901, 29 [Hebrew]). Trans. modified of W. G. Braude and I. J. Kapstein, Tanna debe Eliyyahu. The Lord of the School of Elijah, New York 1981, 67 (they translate the beginning of the first line as “even the almost fatal wounds which the Holy One visited upon Israel …”), which does not seem to be justified given the use of and , both of which mean “killing” or “kill,” according to M. Jastrow’s lexicon (A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, 2 vols., New York 21903, s.v.). 494 It may date to V to VI C.E. (P. Alexander, OTP 1.229). 495 Jastrow, Dictionary s.v. defines this as “heated disks or rings strung on a lash,” which is used occasionally in the phrase (lashes of fire). Cf. b. B. Meṣ. 85b.
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days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us and we shall live in his presence.”496
. The mention of the day of judgement implies that the resurrection of the dead is the focus of the text. Rikk E. Watts argues that the author “cites Hos. 6:2 to describe the purgatorial punishments undergone in the first three days of death to fit one for God’s presence.”497 In Apoc. Zeph. 4:7 there are angels with “fiery scourges” (ϩⲉⲛⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲓⲟⲛ ⲛ ⲣⲱϩⲧ) who “spend three days going around with them [the souls of the ungodly] in the air before they bring them and cast them into their eternal punishment.”498 Several rabbinic texts assume that the soul hovers around the body for three days after its death. In Genesis Rabbah, Bar Qappara taught concerning the height of mourning not being until the third day: until three days [after death] the soul keeps on returning to the grave, thinking that it will go back [into the body]; but when it sees that the facial features have become disfigured, it departs and abandons it [the body].499
Bar Qappara was a fifth generation tannaitic teacher.500 The Jerusalem Talmud attributes similar views to other rabbis: Rebbi Abba in the name of Rav Pappai, Rebbi Joshua from Suknin in the name of Rebbi Levi501: During the first three days, the soul hovers over the body because she thinks that she will return to it. Once she sees that the splendor of his face changes after three days, she abandons him and goes away.502
496 3 Enoch 28:10, trans. of OTP 1.283–4. Text from H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch, London et al. 1928, 47 (Hebrew). 497 Watts, Mark, 181. 498 Apoc. Zeph. 4:7, trans. of OTP 1.511. Achmimic text: G. Steindorff, Die Apokalypse des Elias. Eine unbekannte Apokalypse und Bruchstücke des Sophonias-Apokalypse, TU 17.3a, Leipzig 1899, 42. 499 Gen. Rab. 100:7 (3.1290 Theodor/Albeck), trans. modified of Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah. Genesis, 2.995. Genesis Rabbah dates to ca 400. See Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 279. Lev. Rab. 18:1 is a parallel tradition to Gen. Rab. 100:7. 500 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 83. 501 Levi was a third generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 89). Yehoshua of Sikhnin was a fourth generation amoraic teacher (U. Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee, TSAJ 127, Tübingen 2009, 174). 502 y. Yebam. 16:3 15c (Venice), trans. of H. W. Guggenheimer, ed., The Jerusalem Talmud. Third Order: Našim. Tractate Yebamot, Studia Judaica 29, Berlin 2004, 639 (with the textual variants he includes). Abba was the son of Pappai. Cf. y. ʿErub. 5:7 23a (Venice). He was a fifth generation amoraic teacher (H. W. Guggenheimer, The First Order: Zeraïm. Trac-
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The minor tractate Ebel Rabbati (Semaḥot) may presupposes a similar perspective, although in this case the specific focus is the question of a person who only appears to be dead: One may go out to the cemetery for three days to inspect the dead for a sign of life, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice. For it happened that a man was inspected after three days, and he went on to live twenty-five years; still another went on to have five children and died later.503
.
. The inclusion of “three days” in this passage probably indicates that the soul has not abandoned the body in the rabbis’ conception. Rabbi Abbaye,504 in tractate Sanhedrin, interpreted the days of Hosea as periods of one thousand years: R. Kattina505 said: Six thousand years shall the world exist and one [thousand, the seventh] be desolate, as it is written, “And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (Isa 2:11). Abaye said: it will be desolate two [thousand], as it is said, “After two days will he revive us: in the third day, he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight” (Hos 6:2).506
' Rashi’s comment is important: Two: For two thousand years it is desolate; that is, seven thousand and eight thousand years [after the earth’s creation]. A day of the holy one, blessed be he, is a thousand years,
tates Maʿaser Šeni, Ḥallah, ʿOrlah, and Bikkurim, SJ 23, Berlin 2003, 593). Cf. the discussion of this view of the afterlife in Raphael, Jewish Views, 140. 503 b. Sem. 8:1 (D. Zlotnick, The Tractate ‘Mourning’, New Haven 1966, 57, with the variant reading “three” instead of “thirty”). Cf. Y. Y. Schur, The Care for the Dead in Medieval Ashkenaz 1000–1500, PhD Diss. NYU 2008, 30. Pickup, “On the Third day,” 525–6 argues that b. Sem. 8:1 has nothing to do with the “hovering of the soul” for three days. 504 A contemporary of Raba who was a fourth generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 36). 505 Kattina was a second generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 88). 506 b. Sanh. 97a (Soncino trans.]). The same tradition is in b. Roš. Haš. 31a. Yalq. Hos 6:2, § 522 (850 Warsau) quotes Deut 32:39 and the tradition included above.
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because “a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday when it is past” (NRSV Ps 90:4).507
. The interpretation Rashi offers explores the contradiction between the positions of Kattina and Abaye. The crucial point is that he does not reject Abaye’s interpretation of Hosea and clearly views Hosea’s “two days” as the equivalent of two thousand years, and he justifies the equivalence using Ps 90:4. If he rejected Hosea as a reference to the resurrection, then Rashi would have had no grounds for accepting Abaye’s thesis that the earth will be desolate for two thousand years, and his use of Ps 90:4 to prove that a day is equivalent to a thousand years shows that he needed Hosea’s “two days” for his own apocalyptic calculations. The rabbis’ chronological calculation was clearly different from that of Paul in 1 Cor 15:4. Jerome was aware of such rabbinical arguments. In his comments on the passage he argues: …and in vain do the Jews promise themselves dreams of a thousand years, since the salvation of all has been promised on the third day, when the lord rose from the dead. The Hebrews interpret the second day to be the coming of their Christ, and the third day as the judgment, in which they will be saved. … frustraque Iudaei mille annorum sibi somnia pollicentur cum salus uniuersorum die tertia repromissa sit, qua dominus ab inferis resurrexit. Hebraei diem secundum in aduentu Christi sui interpretantur, et diem tertium in iudicio, quando saluandi sunt.508
Another chronology, using the same text of Hosea, appears in a much later midrash509: And the Israelites will live for two thousand years and consume Leviathan and at the end of 2000 years the holy one, blessed be he, will sit on the throne of judgement in the valley of Jehosaphat. Immediately the heaven and earth will be changed and the sun and moon will be ashamed, as it says, “then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed” (Isa 24:23, NRSV). And where is it proved that on the third day the judgement will take place? Because it says, “He will revive us after two days and on the third day he will raise us and we will live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). That means the judgement.510
507 Rashi on b. Sanh. 97a. In his comments on b. Sanh. 90a, with reference to one who denies that the resurrection of the dead may be derived from the Torah ( ), Rashi defends the view of the Talmud that such a person is an Epicurean (even if (s)he believes in the resurrection). See m. Sanh. 10:1. 508 Hieronymus, Os. 2.6 (on 6:2; CChr.SL 76, 64,42–6 Adriaen). 509 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 337 note that in Midrash Wa-yosha, “much of its material derives verbatim from Tanḥuma.” They argue that it was written in XI C.E. 510 Midr. Wa-yosha Exod 15:17 (J. D. Eisenstein, Ozar Midrashim, 2 vols., New York 1915, 1.156). Trans. done with ref. to that of A. Wünsche, Aus Israels Lehrhallen. Kleine Midraschim zur späteren legendarischen Literatur des Alten Testaments, 5 vols., Leipzig 1907–10, 1.120.
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In Pirqe de Rab Eliezer, Rabbi Gamaliel describes the coming age using texts such as Isa 34:4 and 51:6, which he interprets apocalyptically. He then uses Hos 6:2 in a text that implies the two days are the time of “tasting death”: All its inhabitants shall taste the taste of death for two days, when there will be no soul of man or beast upon the earth, as it is said, “And they that dwell therein shall die in like manner” (Isa 51:6). On the third day he will renew them all and revive them, and he will raise them before him, as it is said, “On the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him” (Hos. 6:2).511
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If one accepts the attribution, then Gamaliel (II) is presumably the famous second generation tannaitic teacher.512 The text itself, however, was composed in the eighth or ninth century C.E.513 Another late midrash (Midrash of the Ten Kings)514 interprets each day as a thousand years: And the holy one, blessed be he, sent Elijah who will make the hearts of Israel rejoice, as it is said, “Behold I am sending you Elijah the prophet” (Mal 3:23), and he will proclaim good tidings of peace to you, as it is said, “How pleasant on the mountains are the feet of those who proclaim good news …” (Isa 52:7) until the kingdom of the house of David returns. The ninth king515 is the Messiah son of David who will reign from one end of the world to the other, as it is said, “May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the Riv-
511 Pirq. R. El. 51 (Börner-Klein, Pirke de-Rabbi Elieser, 710). Trans. of G. Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, London 1916, 411, modified. 512 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 69. 513 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 329. 514 Some good comments on this motif in the midrash may be found in the old article: A. Neubauer, Jewish Controversy and the Pugio Fidei, The Expositor 7 (1888) 179–97, esp. 180. 515 The tenth king is God (see the summary in Eisenstein, Otzar, 2.461 [God, Nimrod, Joseph, Solomon, Ahab, Nebuchadnezar, Cyrus, Alexander of Macedon, the Messiah ben David, God]). Cp. Tg. Kev. Esther 2, 1:1 for the midrash of the ten kings (the messiah son of David is the ninth and God the tenth, with some variations otherwise). Pirq. R. El. 11 comprises a list identical with that of the midrash. Cf. B. Ego, Targumization as Theologization: Aggadic Additions in the Targum Sheni of Esther, in: The Aramaic Bible. Targums in Their Historical Context, ed. D. R. G. Beattie and M. J. McNamara, Sheffield 1994, 354–61, esp. 357 (Midr. Numbers Rabbah 21:18). A much shorter version of the Midrash of the Ten Kings was published by C. M. Horowitz, Sammlung kleiner Midraschim. Erster Teil, Berlin 1881, 54–5 (with a variant list of kings; Horowitz’s version has been miscited and mistakenly summarized in multiple scholarly sources).
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er to the ends of the earth” (Ps 72:8, NRSV). And Israel will live in security for two thousand years and they will eat Behemoth and Leviathan and Ziz Saday.516 And at the end of two thousand years they will be gathered for judgement, as it is said, “he will revive us after two days, and on the third day he will raise us and they will live before him (Hos 6:2). This is the day of judgement. Blessed is the one who will be found righteous in it.517
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There is an illustration of the Messianic banquet with the three mythological creatures in an ancient Hebrew manuscript.518 The advent of the Messiah ben David is preceded by that of the Messiah ben Joseph in upper Galilee, who is subsequently killed by the army of Gog after rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and reinstituting the sacrificial cult. The midrashist quotes Ps 2:2 and Zech 12:10 during the narrative to illustrate the Messiah ben Joseph’s destiny.519 Another apocalyptic midrash that was written during the Crusades, The Prayer (or “Mysteries” [Nistarot]) of Simeon ben Yoḥay,520 describes a similar meal (with the same creatures) with a variant tradition: At the end of two thousand years, the holy one blessed be he, will sit on the throne of judgement in the valley of Jehosaphat, and immediately the heavens and the earth will grow old, depart, and cease. “And the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed,” (Isa 24:23 NRSV) and the mountains will be moved and the hills be shaken when Israel shall no longer be reminded of its sins; and the gates of Gehenna will be opened in the wady of Joshua521 and the gates of the garden of Eden in the east on the third day, as it is said, “after two days he will revive us”; these [two] are the days of the Messiah which are a
516
In Ps 50:11, this expression is translated as “moving things of the field,” but in b. B. Bat. 73b and other rabbinic texts it is a mythological bird. Cp. Tg. Ket. Ps 50:11 where the expression is interpreted to be a wild cock ( ) whose ankles are on the ground and whose head reaches to the sky as it praises God. 517 Midr. ʿAseret Melakim (2.466 Eisenstein). 518 N. Slifkin, Sacred Monsters. Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash, Brooklyn, NY 2007, 254 (illustration), 260 (discussion of texts). 519 Midr. ʿAseret Melakim (2.466 Eisenstein): . 520 Cf. M. Buttenwieser, Apocalypses: Neo-Hebraic Apocalyptic Literature, JE (1901) 1.675–85, esp. 684. 521 R. Patai, The Messiah Texts. Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years, Detroit 1979, 217 translates this expression as “valley of Yehoshaphat,” but does not defend the emendation to .
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thousand years long. And on the third day, this is the day of judgement – woe to the one who dies on that day …522
0 .
In Eusebius’s time, some individuals located Gehenna in the valley of Jehosaphat near Jerusalem: Ravine of Ennom. “Land of Ennom” in Hebrew. Therefore, some say that it is Gehenna. It is next to Jerusalem, and is now still called the “Ravine of Jehosaphat.” j? 5 C (Jos 15:8?). ºF CÙ I ' . &Ù 8 ( ∂
8 . ? &Ó E π 7, 8 &Ó ∞ > (? 5 ∏ (?.523
God proceeds to judge the polytheistic nations in the apocalypse. 8.14.5 Israel’s Three-Day Tribulations God will not allow Israel to be in tribulation for more than three days according to a midrash on Esth 5:1: Now it came to pass on the third day; Israel are never left in dire distress more than three days. For so of Abraham it is written, “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Gen 22:4). Of Jacob’s sons we read, “And he put them all together into prison three days” (Gen 42:17. Of Jonah it says, “And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jon 2:1). The dead also will come to life only after three days, as it says, “On the third day he will raise us up, that we may live in his presence” (Hos 6:2).524
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The assertion of the principle (a three-day tribulation) is certainly not inconsistent with the view that Hos 6:2 is about the resurrection of the dead, since the midrashist mentions resurrection in his interpretation. 522 Midr. Simeon ben Yoḥay (2.556 Eisenstein). A partial translation was published by B. Lewis, An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History, BSOAS 13 (1950) 308–38. Cp. the more complete trans. by J. C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic. A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, Atlanta 2005, 87. 523 Eusebius, Onomasticon (GCS Eusebius Werke 3.1, 170 Klostermann). 524 Esther Rab. 9:2, trans. of M. Simon, Esther. Midrash Rabbah, London 1939, 9.112. Its origins may date to the eleventh century, although it contains earlier traditions. See Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 319. Cp. Gen. Rab. 56:1 below.
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Yalqut, in its interpretation of Josh 2:16, includes many texts used by the author of Genesis Rabbah 56:1 (§ 8.14.6): “And you shall hide yourselves there for three days” (Josh 2:16). The holy one, blessed be he, does not leave the righteous in tribulation more than three days. This is written: “and he will revive us after two days and on the third day he will raise us, and we will live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). On the third day of the tribes where it is said, “and Joseph said to them on the third day” (Gen 42:18). On the third day of Jona, “and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and on the third day” (Jon 2:1). And on the third day of the return of the exiles, where it is said, “we camped there for three days” (Ezra 8:15). On the third day of the resurrection of the dead, where it is said, “He will revive as after two days” (Hos 6:2). On the third day of Esther, “And on the third day Esther put on her royal robes” (Esth 5:1). For what reason? Our rabbis say for the sake of the third day in which the Torah was given, “and on the third day when it was morning” (Exod 19:16). And Rabbi Levi said, on account of the third day of Abraham in that it is said, “on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes” (Gen 22:4).525
0 0
. . The midrashist leaves the nature of the two days before the resurrection unclear in this passage. 8.14.6 Collections of Scriptures that Include Hos 6:2 The interpretation of Gen 22:4 in Genesis Rabbah lists a number of texts that mention a “third day,” which are presumably an attempt to explain the timing in the Abraham narrative: “On the third day,” etc. [Gen 22:4] “After two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). e.g., on the third day of the tribal ancestors: “And Joseph said unto them on the third day” (Gen 42:18)526; on the third day when the Torah was given: “And it came to pass on the third day when it was morning” (Exod 19:6); on the third day of the spies: “And hide yourselves there three days” (Josh 2:16); on the third day of Jonah: “And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 2:1); on the third day of those returning from the exile: “And we abode there three days” (Ezra 8:15); on the third day of resurrection: “After two 525 Yalq. Josh 2:12 (on 2:16), § 347 (Yalqut Shimoni, Warsau 1876, 693). Most of these verses are used in a parallel passage in Yalq. Gen 22:4, § 99 (58 Warsau). Yalqut is compilation from XII or XIII C.E. of fifty earlier works. See Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 351–2. Yalq. Deut 32:39, § 946 (678 Warsau) uses Hos 6:2 to interpret Deut 32:39 (God’s power to raise the dead). 526 Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Gen. 42:18 explains the verse by quoting Hos. 6:2.
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days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up” (Hos 6:2); on the third day of Esther: “Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel of her ancestor” (Esth 5:1). For whose sake? The Rabbis say: For the sake of the third day, when Revelation took place R. Levi maintained: In the merit of what Abraham did on the third day, as it says, On the third day, etc. “And saw the place afar off”. What did he see? He saw a cloud enveloping the mountain, and said: “It appears that this is the place where the holy one, blessed be he, told me to sacrifice my son.”527
'
' ' ' 0
The texts are a sort of concordance based comment on Gen 22:4.528 The midrashist’s inclusion of the comment “the third day of resurrection” indicates that his interpretation of Hos 6:2 conforms to that of most of the other rabbinical texts. In a discussion of Deut 32:39, a compilation that has been entitled Midrash Tannaim to Deuteronomy,529 a number of texts are mentioned which allude to the resurrection: See now that I, I am he (Deut 32:39). This is one of the ten utterances in which there is an allusion to the resurrection of the dead. “See now that I, I am he who kills and makes alive” (32:39). “For you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). “The one who sheds the blood of a person, by a person shall their blood be shed” (Gen 9:6). And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold you will sleep with your ancestors and he rose” … (Deut 31:16).530 “May Reuben live and not die” (Deut 33:6). “He will revive us after two days. On the third day he will raise us and we will live before him” (Hos 6:2). “Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord, behold I am opening their graves and you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and when I put my spirit in you and you will live” (Ezek 37:12–14).531
527
Gen. Rab. 56:1 (595 Theodor/Albeck), trans. of Freedman/Simon, Genesis Rabbah,
1.491. 528 529
Cf. Novakovic, Raised from the Dead, 127. Cf. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 273–5 who note that half of D. Hoffmann’s edition may not derive from the halakhic midrash. They write that one cannot “specify the origin and date” of the midrash given the “textual condition.” 530 The midrash does not quote the entire verse (in which the people of Israel rose), and presumably refers to Moses’ future resurrection. 531 Midrash Tannaim Deut 32:39 (D. Hoffmann, ed., Midrash Tannaim zum Deuteronomium, 2 vols., Berlin 1908–9, 1.202).
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' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' These texts are mainstays in many of the rabbinic arguments about the resurrection. Probably Hos 6:2 was Paul’s mainstay for his tradition in 1 Cor 15:4. 8.15 Resurrection and the Pangs of the Messiah An unattributed tradition in b. Pesaḥim grounds belief in resurrection in the Psalms. Now since there is the great Hallel,532 why do we recite this one [Ps 113–8]? Because it includes [a mention of] the following five things: The exodus from Egypt, the dividing of the Red Sea, the giving of the Torah [Revelation], the resurrection of the dead, and the pangs of Messiah. The exodus from Egypt, as it is written, “when Israel came forth out of Egypt” (Ps 114:1); as the dividing of the Red Sea; “the sea saw it, and fled” (Ps 114:3); the giving of the Torah: “the mountains skipped like rams” (Ps 114:4); resurrection of the dead: “I shall walk before the Lord [in the land of the living]” (Ps 116:9); the pangs of Messiah: “not unto us, O Lord, not unto us” (Ps 115:1).533
?
' ' Psalm 116:9 is taken as the proof text for resurrection, which was apparently obvious to the rabbinic exegetes. Brant Pitre refers to this text with regard to the Passover psalms (113–118), presumably sung as Jesus’s own Passover meal.534 8.16 The Dew of Resurrection in the Seventh Heaven In the tractate b. Ḥagiga, which is characterized by Merkabah (the chariot) mysticism, the souls of the righteous are in the seventh heaven.
532 Ps 136 or 23. Cf. H. Guggenheimer. The Scholar’s Haggadah. Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Oriental Versions, London 1995, 369 (with ref. to this passage). 533 b. Pesaḥ. 118a (Soncino trans.). 534 B. Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper, Grand Rapids 2015, 504. Cp. D. Cohn-Sherbok, Rabbinic Pespectives on the New Testament, Lewiston, NY 1990, 46 and H. P. Nasuti, The Interpretive Significance of Sequence and Selection in the Book of Psalms, in: The Book of Psalms. Composition & Reception, ed. P. W. Flint et al., Leiden 2005, 311–39, esp. 331.
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ʿAraboth is that in which there are Right and Judgment and Righteousness, the treasures of life and the treasures of peace and the treasures of blessing, the souls of the righteous and the spirits and the souls which are yet to be born, and dew wherewith the holy one, blessed be he will hereafter revive the dead … And the dew wherewith the holy one, blessed be he, will hereafter revive the dead, for it is written: “A bounteous rain did you pour down, o God, when your inheritance was weary, you did confirm it” (Ps 68:10).535
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The dew that God will use to revive the dead recalls the dew of Isa 26:19.536 In the Pirke de Rab Eleazar, Rabbi Yehuda mentions the fall of the temple, the pollution of the land of Israel and the earth, but sees a more positive future: In the future life the holy one, blessed be he, will cause the resurrection dew to ascend, and he will revive the dead, as it is said, “Your dead shall live, and my corpses will rise” (Isa 26:19). “Your dead”: they are the Israelites, who died trusting in his name. “My dead bodies will arise”: they are the nations, who are like the carcass of the beast; they shall arise before the judgment, but they shall not live. “Awake and sing, you that dwell in the dust”: they are the righteous for they dwell in the dust of the earth. “For your dew is as the dew of light”: only the righteous have the dew of light and it gives healing to the earth, as it is said, “and the earth will cast forth the shades.537
' 0
' Here the resurrection to life is restricted to the Israelites, while the nations only rise to be judged. The same verse in Isaiah (26:19) occurs in a discussion of Elijah’s resurrection of the widow of Zarephath’s son in the Jerusalem Talmud. R. Judah bar Pazzi comments: So the holy one, praise to him, said to Elijah, “Go and lift the vow of dew,538 because they are resurrected only through dew, and then I shall resurrect the son of Zarephath.” And from where that the dead will live only by dew? For it is said, “Your dead will live, the corpses will rise. Wake up and rejoice, those who dwell in dust. For a dew of light is your dew and the land will cast out the rephaim.” What is the meaning of, “The land will 535 536 537
b. Ḥag 12b (Soncino trans.). Cf. the discussion by Schubert, Entwicklung, 210. Cf. § 1.2 above. Pirq. R. El. 33 (Higger [number 34 in the Warsau ed.]), trans. of Friedlander, Pirke, 259–60 modified. 538 This is a reference to 1 Kgs 17:1 and 18:1 which are quoted earlier in the discussion about the validity of Elijah’s vow that neither should there be rain or dew “except by my word.”
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cast out the rephaim”? Said R. Tanhum from Edrei said, “the earth will give up what is deposited in it.”539
. . 0 In this text, Elijah’s resurrection of the son of the widow is accomplished through dew, which will play a role in the apocalyptic resurrection. 8.17 The Days of the Messiah: Pesiqta Rabbati Pesiqta is a late midrash that nevertheless includes discussions by amoraic teachers from a much earlier period. After a discussion of the length of the days of the Messiah, there is an assertion of the resurrection of the dead in the land of Israel: Rabbi540 says, “You cannot count it [a day for God]: “For the day of vengeance that was in my heart and my year of redemption have come” (Isa 63:4). How long are the days of the messiah? Three hundred and sixty-five thousand years will be the length of the days of the messiah. Then the dead of the land of Israel who are Israelites will live and derive benefit from them, and all the righteous who are overseas will come through tunnels. And when they reach the Land, the holy one, blessed be he, will restore their breath (“spirits”), and they will rise541 and derive benefit from the days of the messiah along with them [already in the Land]. For it is said “He who spread forth the earth and its offspring gives breath to the people on it” (Isa 42:5).542
'
539 y. Taʿan 1:1 (63c–d Venice), trans. of H. W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud. Second Order: Moʿed. Tractates Taʿaniot, Megillah, Ḥagigah and Moʿed Qaṭan (Mašqin), SJ 85, Berlin 2015, 6–7. Guggenheimer leaves the ambiguous phrase ( ) untranslated in both instances. He (ibid., 8) notes: “R. Tanhum from Edrei explains the difficult phrase, “it will fell Netherworlds, by reading in the sense of Mishnaic Hebrew ‘having a miscarriage’: The Netherworld will expel what is in its belly. (Read totally differently in the Babli, Ketubot 111a, 111b).” In b. Ketub. 111a, Isa 26:14 is used to show that the illiterate will not rise and that the “dew of light” of Isa 26:19 refers to the light of the Torah, which will revive the one who makes use of the light. It is doubtful to me that can be translated correctly as “netherworlds,” given the emphasis on the “dead” in Isa 26:19. Yehudah was a fourth generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 91) and Tanhum ben Ḥanilai was a second generation amoraic rabbi (ibid., 84, 87). 540 Rabbi was a fourth generation tannaitic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 81). 541 Ulmer, Pesiqta rabbati, 1.11 has here, while M. Friedmann (Pesikta Rabbati …, Vienna 1880, 4b) puts the word in brackets and has “will say” in parentheses ( ). 542 Pesiq. Rab. 1:19 (4b Friedmann, 1.11 Ulmer), trans. of J. Neusner, Death and Afterlife in Later Rabbinic Sources: The Two Talmuds and Associated Midrash-Compilations, in: Avery-Peck and Neusner, Judaism, 267–91, esp. 286. Numbered as 1:7 by Braude (1.49).
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0
The messiah, however, has no apparent role in the resurrection of the dead in this text. God is responsible for the resurrection.543 Neusner’s translation “derive benefit from the days of the messiah” is clearly a paraphrase and may be in error. “Eating them” ( ) in my view is more probably a reference to the messianic banquet – with “them” presumably referring to the offspring of the earth. In Pesiqta, Rabbi Tanḥuma refers to Prov 30:4 and gives this interpretation: “Who has established (‘raised’) all the ends of the earth?” This is the holy one, blessed be he, who brings the dead to life as it is written, “your dead will live, your corpses will rise” (Isa 26:19).544
This interpretation of Isa 26:19 is fully in accord with that of the Targum to Isaiah.545 8.18 Midrash Aleph Bet: The Seven Trumpet Blasts and the Resurrection A very late midrash, that is a production of merkabah mysticism,546 gives the sequence of events for the resurrection of the dead. The midrash on the letter tet ( )טיטincludes an apocalyptic vision preceded by a discussion of texts such as Eccl 3:20. The midrashist remarks that Qohelet does not say all returns to mud ( )טיטbut to dust ()עפר. This leads to a description of events in the age to come. How does the holy one, blessed be he, raise the dead in the age to come? It is taught that the holy one, blessed be he, takes a great trumpet (shofar), which is a thousand cubits in length, according to a cubit of the holy one, blessed be he. And he blows on it, and its sound goes from one end of the world to the other. At [the sound of] the first trumpet the entire world is shaken. At the second trumpet the dust is separated. At the third trumpet their bones are gathered. At the fourth trumpet their members are warmed. At the fifth trumpet they are covered with their skins. At the sixth trumpet their spirits and souls are reunited with their bodies. At the seventh trumpet they live and stand on their feet in their garments, as it is said: “The Lord of hosts will defend them, and they shall devour and 543 544
Cf. Neusner, Death, 286. Pesiq. Rab. 5:6 (16a Friedmann, 1.54 Ulmer). Braude numbers it as 5:3 (1.96). Tanḥuma was a fifth generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 96). 545 See § 1.2. 546 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 349 (they date it between VII and IX C.E.). M. Meerson and P. Schäfer et al., ed., Toledot Yeshu. The Life Story of Jesus. Two Volumes and a Database, Tübingen 2014, 1.5 date it to VII or VIII C.E. Babylonia.
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subdue with slingstones; they shall drink and will make a noise as through wine, and shall be filled like bowls, as at the corners of the altar. And the Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up [as an ensign] on the land” (Zech 9:15–6, KJV slightly modified).547
0 ? 0 . 0
' . '
The midrash resembles Ezek 37 in some respects and perhaps transforms Ezekiel’s vision into an apocalyptic text. Ezekiel’s words for “bones” (37:1, 3–5, etc. [ ]) and “skin” (37:6 [ )]עורare identical with the midrashist’s. The importance of the trumpet blasts for the moment of resurrection recall Paul’s usage of the same imagery (1 Cor 15:52, 1 Thess 4:16).548 8.19 A Midrash of XI C.E.: The Sufferings of the Messiah and Resurrection Raymond Martini quotes a late midrash (Bereshit Rabbati), in the name of Rabbi Moshe ha-Darshan (XI C.E.), in which the messiah is asked if he will accept all suffering.549 He said before him, the lord of the universe, “In this I rejoice and take upon myself these sufferings provided that you raise the dead [who were deceased] in my days as well as those who died from the time of the first Adam until now. And not only should you save those, but even those whom the wolves and lions devoured and those who drowned in the waters of the sea550 and in rivers in my days you should save; but you should save in my days even the abortions and not only the abortions but even those whom you planned to create but did not create.” The holy one, blessed be he, said to him: “The messiah imme-
547
Otiyyot of R. Aqiba (Alphabet [ ] of R. Aqiba) (Eisenstein, Ozar, 2.416). Cf. the paraphrase by F. Weber, Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften, Leipzig 21897, 369 and cp. G. H. Box, The Ezra-Apocalypse. Being Chapters 3–14 of the Book Commonly Known as 4 Ezra (or II Esdras), London 1912, 75–6 (who compares the text to the seven trumpets of Rev 8:2–11:15). 548 Cp. the use of trumpet imagery to signal the judgment and impending resurrection in Qurʾan 39:67–8, 69:13–6. Cf. J. I. Smith and Y. Y. Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, Oxford 2002, 71. Thomas Aquinas has an elaborate discussion on the relationship of the two (In IV Sententiarum Dist. 43, quaestio 1, art. 3). 549 Pugio Fidei Raymundi Martini ordinis praedicatorum adversus Mauros et Iudaeos …, Paris 1651, 333. 550 Martini has here, but his translation (in aquis maris) shows that the reading should be . See Lieberman’s remark (After Life, 529).
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diately receives all sufferings from love, as it is said, ‘Oppressed, he was afflicted’” (Isa 53:7).551
0 ' 0 Saul Lieberman comments that “the Messiah asks for the resurrection of the biothanati [those who died violent deaths], insepulti (devoured by wolves and lions, drowned in water) and ahori (abortions). Moreover, the Messiah adds a new class: Those whom the Lord had in mind to create but He did not do so.”552 This problem also exercised the minds of ancient Christian writers.553 An inscription from Rome (V–VI C.E.) threatens tomb violators with lack of burial and denial of resurrection: If anyone violates this tomb, may he die badly, may he be cast out unburied, may he not rise, and may he share the lot of Judas. Male pereat insepul/tus iaceat non re/surgat cum Iuda / partem habeat / si quis sepulcrum / hunc violaverit.554
Those who violate tombs do not rise from the dead, if the curse is effective. Nothing is said about the fate of the violated body.555 Gregory of Tours engaged in a dialogue with a priest of his diocese who he said adhered to the errors of the Sadducees, presumably between 589 and 591 C.E.556
551 Martini, Pugeo Fidei, 333, trans. done with ref. to that of Lieberman, After Life, 529. Lieberman defends the authenticity of the text as do many other “modern Jewish scholars” according to Boyarin, Jewish Gospels, 190. 552 Lieberman, After Life, 529. 553 Cf. E. Le Blant, Les martyrs chrétiens et les supplices destructeurs du corps, Mémoires de l’institut national de France. Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 28 (1875) 79–95. 554 ICUR 8, 21396 = ILCV 3845, discussed by Le Blant, Les martyrs, 86–7. From the cemetery of S. Agnese. Cf. C. Carletti, Iscrizione cristiane di Roma. Testimonianze de vita cristiana (secoli III-VII), Florence 1986, 127 and Rebillard, Care of the Dead, 75. Cp. ILCV 3850 = CIL 11, 322 (priest of the basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, whose curse is similar: si quis hunc sepulc{h}rum violaverit / partem abea cum Iuda traditorem / et in die iudicii non resurgat partem suam / cum infidelibus ponam [if anyone violates this tomb, may he die with the lot of the traitor Judas, and may he not rise in the day of judgement, and may I place his lot with the unfaithful]). For similar curses, cf. J. Janssens, Vita e morte del cristiano negli epitaffi di Roma anteriori al sec. vii, AnGr 223, Roma 1981, 252–3. 555 Rebillard, Care, 75. 556 These are the dates for book X. Cf. M. Henzelmann, Gregory of Tours. History and Society in the Sixth Century, Cambridge 2001, 81.
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And the presbyter said, “Can bones that have been reduced to ashes again be revived and form a living person?” And I answered, “We believe that even if a person is reduced to dust and dispersed by seas and by the force of violent wind on the land, that it is not difficult for God to raise it to life.” The presbyter answered, “Here I think you are especially in error, that you should try and assert with light words a bitter sophism, in that you claim that what has been ravaged by beasts, immersed in oceans, devoured in the throats of fish, reduced to dung, excreted through the recess of digestion, or dispersed by the currents of water or destroyed by putrefaction in the ground will come to the resurrection. Et presbiter ait: “Numquid possunt ossa in favilla redacta iterum animari et hominem viventem proferre?” Et ego respondi: “Nos credimus, quia, quamlibet in pulvere redigatur homo et aquis ac terrae venti violenti inpetu dispergatur, non sit difficile Deo haec ad vitam resuscitari.” Presbiter respondit: “Hic maxime vos errare puto, ut adserere verbis lenibus temptetis acerrimam seductionem, ut dicatis a bestiis raptum, aquis inmersum, piscium faucibus devoratum, in stercore redactum et per secretum degestionis eiectum aut aquis labentibus deiectum aut terra conputriscente abolitum ad resurrectione venturum.”557
This is the “food chain” argument that was a topos in debates about the resurrection in antiquity.558 Pagans and Christians used the argument, and the midrash quoted by Martini is evidence that Jews in the middle ages were reflecting on the issue. Already 1 En. 61:5 asserted that those who had been consumed by wild animals or by the fish of the sea would rise from the dead too.
9 Resurrection and the Frescoes of Dura Europos Between 244/5 and 256 C.E. the Jews of Dura Europos painted a series of impressive frescoes on the walls of their synagogue.559 There is a depiction (see image 35) of Elijah’s resurrection of the widow of Zarephath’s son on the west wall, register C (WC 1).560 The Torah shrine was in the middle of the west wall, and the entire synagogue with frescoes has been reconstructed in the National Museum of Damascus. In the fresco Elijah reclines on the bed holding the living boy, and the hand of God reaches down from heaven. On the bed, there is an Aramaic dipinto with Elijah’s name ( ).561 God’s hand
557 558 559
Greg.-T. Hist. 10.13 (MGH.SRM 1.1, 497 Krusch/Levison). Cf. § 3.2 above. C. H. Kraeling, with contributions by C. C. Torrey et al., The Excavations at DuraEuropos. Final Report. VIII. Part I. The Synagogue, New Haven 1956, 6, 337–9. 560 Kraeling, Synagogue, 143–6, Pl. LXIII. The A register is at the top. 561 Kraeling, Synagogue, 144, 271 § 7 (C. C. Torrey is the ed. of the Aramaic inscriptions). There is a Middle Iranian inscription below Elijah’s foot that B. Geiger (ibid., 309 § 49) translates so: “[first line illegible] / When Hormazd the scribe came / and by him this [picture] was looked at: ‘Living the child (?() that had been dead’.”
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holds the key of resurrection in Tg. Neof. Gen 30:22.562 Harald Riesenfeld refers to Gen. Rab. 13:6, which is a discussion of the second Benediction563: R. Abba son of R. Hiyya, said: The sages too inserted it [the prayer for rain] in the blessing of the resurrection of the dead, for “hand” and “opening” are used in connection with both; “hand” in connection with the one [resurrection]: “The hand of the Lord was upon me” [Ezek 37:1] and “hand” in connection with the other [rain]: “You open your hand and satisfy every living thing with favor” [Ps 145:16]. “Opening” in connection with the one [rain]: “The Lord will open unto you his good treasure the heaven to give the rain of your land” [Deut 28:12]; “opening” in connection with the other [resurrection]: “Behold I will open your graves” [Ezek 37:12].564
' ' ' ' The fresco illustrates the narrative flow of the story. On the left the partially nude widow who wears a dark robe of mourning holds her dead child. The resurrection scene is portrayed in the middle, and on the right the widow, now fully clothed in chiton and himation, holds her resurrected child. On the North wall (NC 1) the large fresco (images 36 and 37) depicts the scene in Ezek 37. Although the interpretation of the details is contested, it is probable that the image envisions the eschatological resurrection of the dead and not simply “the restoration of national life” for which Carl H. Kraeling argued.565 Kraeling made almost no use of rabbinic literature in his interpretation of the scene.566 In my view Riesenfeld’s approach (i.e., resurrection) is far more successful.567 There is an ancient association between Dura and the resurrection in rabbinic literature, for example, which Kraeling dismissed. Both Riesenfeld and Robert P. Gordon have emphasized this motif.568 In the tractate Sanhedrin there is a discussion of the resurrection in Ezekiel 37:
562 Cf. § 8.1 above. Cp. b. Taʿan. 2a (the key of resurrection in God’s hand) and the other references above in § 8.14.3. 563 Riesenfeld, The Resurrection, 34. 564 Gen. Rab. 13:6 (116 Theodor/Albeck), trans. of Freedman/Simon, Genesis Rabbah, 102. The Scripture citations are highly compressed in the Hebrew. 565 The latter option is Kraeling’s approach (Synagogue, 178–202). Cf. R. WischnitzerBernstein, The Conception of Resurrection in Ezekiel Panel at the Dura Synagogue, JBL 60 (1941) 43–55, E. Garte, The Theme of Resurrection in the Dura-Europos Synagogue Paintings, JQR 64 (1973) 1–15, Chester, Messiah, 124, R. P. Gordon, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Versions. Selected Essays of Robert P. Gordon, London 2006, 308 (resurrection). 566 Kraeling, Synagogue, 180 n. 692 (consigning them to a footnote) mentions a few rabbinic texts on resurrection, but rejects their usefulness for interpreting the paintings. 567 Riesenfeld, The Resurrection in Ezekiel, 27–38. 568 Riesenfeld, The Resurrection in Ezekiel, 30, Gordon, Hebrew Bible, 308: Tg. Ps.-J. Exod 13:17.
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561
“Rabbi Johana said: They were the dead of the plain of Dura.”569 Tg. Ps.-J. Exod 13:17 has570: These were the dry bones which the Memra of the Lord brought to life through the mediation of Ezekiel the prophet in the valley of Dura.
A nearly identical tradition may be found in the fragmentary Palestinian Targum to the same verse.571 A Geniza fragment of the Palestinian Targum (MS X) has a variation that includes Nebuchadnezar in the context.572 The Tg. Ket. Cant 7:10 describes the speech of Daniel and his fellow Hebrews (Dan 1:19)573: And we shall walk in the paths that are right before Him, as Elijah and Elisha went, the prophets by whose merit the dead, who resemble a man asleep, arose, and like Ezekiel the son of Buzi, the priest, by the prophecy of whose mouth the dead in the Plain of Dura awakened.
The Pirqe R. El. also locates Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection in the plain of Dura, after a narrative in which Nebuchadnezzar puts to death the Israelites who had bowed down to his statue574: Rabbi Phineas said: After twenty years, when all of them had been slain in Babylon, the Holy Spirit rested upon Ezekiel, and brought him forth into the plain of Dura, and showed him many very dry bones
' ' These texts explain the probable association of both Dura and Ezekiel with the frescoes of resurrection in the synagogue.575 Presumably Ezekiel is the 569 570
b. Sanh. 92b (Soncino trans.): . Trans. of R. Hayward and M. Maher, The Aramaic Bible. Targum Neofiti 1: Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Exodus, ArBib 2, Collegeville, MN 1994, 197 (Maher). 571 FTP (Paris MS 110) Exod 13:17: . 572 Tg. Geniza MS X Exod 13:17: ' ;. 573 Trans. mod. of P. S. Alexander, The Targum of Canticles, ArBib 17A, Collegeville, MN 2003, 184. 574 Pirqe R. El. 33, trans. modified of Friedlander, Pirke, 249. 575 Kraeling’s (Synagogue, 180) statement, “the fact that the dead were by some said to have been raised ‘in the plain of Dura’ should not give rise to idle speculation on our part, since the Dura in question was certainly not Dura-Europos” is off the mark. Gordon, Hebrew Bible, 308 notes that the Aramaic word for valley of Dura in Dan 3:1 ( ) is the cognate for the Hebrew word for “valley” in Ezek 37:1 ( ). The Dura of Dan 3:1 was in Babylonia. That is enough for the association with the paintings.
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individual dressed in himation and chiton (images 36 and 37), although there have been other suggestions (David, the Messiah, Michael).576 The four individuals in Persian clothes (image 36) are probably the dead who have been raised by the hand of God through the agency of Ezekiel, although the person on the right is clad in a pink tunic while the three on the left wear reddishbrown tunics.577 The three flying winged figures dressed in white (image 37) are probably psyches according to Kraeling.578 The winged figure on the ground, another psyche, is the “breath” mentioned in Ezekiel’s text (e.g., 37:5).579 This would well reflect rabbinic traditions in which at the resurrection soul is reunited with body.580 The ten figures in white robes (image 37) may represent the ten tribes according to Gordon.581 In any case they are resurrected individuals. Whether the scene should be read from left to right or from the outer scenes to the center (where Ezekiel points to the three psyches) is not of fundamental importance for my approach to the paintings.582 The split mountain (image 36) reflects a resurrection tradition associated with Zech 14:4.583 The Targum to Canticles 8:5, for example, has584: Solomon the prophet said: When the dead revive, the Mount of Anointing will split apart and all the dead of Israel will issue from beneath it, and even the righteous who have died 576 Kraeling, Synagogue, 187. Wischnitzer-Bernstein, The Conception, 46–50 (Ezekiel in Greek clothing; she believes the three on the left are the elders of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi while the man in the pink tunic is the Davidic Messiah), Riesenfeld, Resurrection in Ezekiel, 32 (Ezekiel). Garte, Theme of Resurrection, 4 argues that the paintings represent the transport of Ezekiel to the valley of dry bones and “his resurrection of the dead.” 577 J. B. Curtis, An Investigation of the Mount of Olives in the Judaeo-Christian Traditions, HUCA 28 (1957) 137–80, esp. 170, Riesenfeld, Resurrection in Ezekiel, 32. 578 Kraeling, Synagogue, 183. 579 Kraeling, Synagogue, 187. 580 Cf. § 4.3, 4.4, 4.7, 4.10, 8.6, 8.11, 8.16, and 8.18 above (pseudepigrapha and rabbinic literature). 581 Gordon, Hebrew Bible, 308, previously argued by Wischnitzer-Bernstein, The Conception, 46–7 (who notes they are “marching from the rear”). 582 Kraeling, Synagogue, 180, 194 believes Ezekiel is the center figure (and that the entire scene, including the execution on the right) should be read from the outer scenes to the inner. Wischnitzer-Bernstein, Conception, 43 notes that generally the paintings are read from left to right. 583 D. Allison discusses this text, its interpretation with regard to resurrection in rabbinic tradition and the Targums, and its relationship to the paintings at Dura Europos (The End of the Ages has Come. An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, Eugene OR 1985, 43), with ref. to Curtis, An Investigation, 170–2. Curtis (ibid., 180) includes a similar depiction of Ezekiel’s vision in MS Paris Bib. Nat. Gr. 510, 438v (IX C.E.) in which Ezekiel is portrayed twice, once with the dry bones with the hand of God reaching out to him and once beholding the risen dead as the angel Michael points to them. Cp. the image and discussion in W. Neuss, Das Buch Ezechiel in Theologie und Kunst, BGAM 1-2, Münster i. W. 1912, 185– 188 (image of the miniature on 187). 584 Tg. Ket. Cant 8:5, trans. of Alexander, Targum of Canticles, 194.
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in exile will come by way of tunnels585 below the ground and issue from beneath the Mount of Anointing.
The Targum to Zech 14:4 (quoted above)586 also locates the resurrection at the place where the Mt. of Olives is split in two. Pesiqta Rabbati has a similar tradition describing the destiny of Israelites who are buried outside of Israel587: And the holy one, blessed be he, makes for them many tunnels underneath, and they come in them until they arrive underneath the Mount of Olives that is in Jerusalem and the holy one, blessed be he, will stand on it, and it will be divided and they will come up from it.
0 0 There are other similar traditions in post rabbinic literature.588
10 The Toledot Yeshu The polemical Toledot Yeshu was composed around the seventh or eighth centuries in Babylonia, although it contains traditions that are much older.589 An Aramaic version of the text, from the Taylor Schechter collection, has this depiction of Jesus’s death and the fate of his body: And they lifted him up and crucified (or “suspended”) him on the stalk of a cabbage. And before they put him on the cross he knew what is written in Scripture, “his body shall not remain all night upon the cross” (Tg. Onq. Deut 21:23). At that hour he sent and called the [peop]le whom he had deceived, and said to them, “[If you come] tomorrow and do not find me, nor my [corp]se on the cross, I have ascended [to the firmament of] heaven, and you shall not see me.” And they crucified him on the cross alive and stoned him with
585
An alternative reading of some MSS is (in quiet = “gently”) instead of: אורח
כוכיא. 586 587
Cf. § 8.1. Pesiq. Rab. 31 (147a Friedman). b. Ket. 111a has a fairly lengthy discussion of bodies rolling in cavities to Israel. 588 Midrash Gan Eden, Gehinnom (91 Eisenstein): . Yal. Shimoni Isaiah 49 § 469 (799a col. 1, Warsau ed.): . Cp. Midrash Bereshit Rabbati 2:9 (23 Albeck): . In all three texts God stands on the Mount, and it splits in two beneath him after the dead arrive underneath the Mt. of Olives and come up. 589 Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.5. Cf. ibid. 1.5–9 for early patristic traditions that are similar to those in the Toledot.
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stones, and he died on the cross. And they did not want to take him down from the cross.590
[' ] [] [ ] [ ] ] [] [ ] '
[ Although Michael Meerson and Peter Schäfer translate the relevant words above as “gallows,” there is enough evidence of the use of the noun and verb in rabbinic literature to justify the translation given above.591 A cross does not necessarily have a horizontal member, of course. Technically it is not a crucifixion since they stoned him to death, but it is certainly not a “gallows,” since there is no question of a noose. The narrative of the burial follows: Rabbi Yehoshua said to them, “Because of Yeshu the wicked shall we change the commandment of Scripture, since it is written, “his body shall not remain all night upon the cross, etc. (Deut 21:23)?” They took him down from the cross and buried him in the water channel in the garden of Rabbi Yehudah the gardener. When those people whom he had deceived came and did not find him on the cross, they swarmed around and caught some of the Jews and said to them, “Our Lord Yeshu told us the truth that the Jews deal in lies. If upon the cross you crucified him, where is his body? He has in fact gone to heaven!” Immediately Pilate called Yehudah the gardener and said to him, “The body of Yeshu, what have you done with it?” Rabbi Yehudah replied and said to him, “My Lord, Yeshu the wicked knew what is written in Scripture, “his body shall not remain,” etc. and he misled them, those men, and said to them, ‘If you come tomorrow and do not find me on the cross, you shall know that I have ascended to heaven.’ Now, if my Lord wishes, I shall bring him and present his body [to those men, that they] may know that it is Yeshu the wicked.” And Rabbi Yehudah the gardener went and took him away from his grave and tied a rope to his legs and dragged him through all the market[s of Tiberias], and they proclaimed concerning him: “this is the punishment of Yeshu bar Pandera, the wicked, who reb[elled] against [the great G]od.” […] and he brought him before Pilate. And he called all his disciples whom he had misled, those who believed him and those who did not believe. Pilate the governor replied and said to Yehudah the gardener, “[…] whom you buried in the watered garden. Now, go and bury [him] in the place where they bury the dead. Yehudah the gardener went and buried him in the water channel.592 590 Toledot Yeshu, MS Cambridge Univ. Lib. T.-S. 35.87 fol. 2r.6–11, trans. modified of Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.133 (text 2.55). The MS dates to IX or X C.E. (ibid., 2.5). 591 Cf. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 311–2, 326–55 (). Note that they are aware of the problem and correctly (in my view) write in a summary of Jesus’s execution that “In the manuscripts of Group I, the body of Yeshu is taken down from the cross …” (Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.101). T.-S 35.87 and JTS 6312 are both from their “Group I” (ibid., 28–9). For a close analysis of Hebrew and Aramaic terms for suspension punishments, cf. D. W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, WUNT 2/244, Tübingen 2008, 14–26 (on ). 592 Toledot Yeshu, MS Cambridge Univ. Lib. T.-S. 35.87 fol. 2r.12–28, trans. modified of Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.133–4 (text 2.55).
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' ' ' ' ' '
' ' ' ' ' ]
[] ' [ [ ] [ ] ] [ ] [ ] [] [Ö ] [ ] [ [ ] [ ] א The disciples of Jesus are expecting an ascension of their lord to heaven and not a resurrection, according to the tradition of the Toledot. “He has gone to heaven” in the text omits any mention of the resurrection traditions in early Christianity, although the apparent missing body somewhat resembles the narrative of the Gospels. A later MS of the Toledot includes this account of Jesus’s burial.593 Rabbi Yehoshua said to them, “Because of this wicked one, shall we transgress his laws and commandments? For it is written in Scripture, “His corpse shall not remain on the tree.” Therefore, they took him down from the tree and buried him in a water trough. And the rain fell overnight, and the waters dragged out the corpse of Yeshu and carried it to the place of Yehudah the gardener, the owner of squashes; and there was the corpse of Yeshu the wicked in the garden of Yehudah. When there came in the morning the foolish people who erred after him, they looked for him and did not find him. Immediately they came up to the king and said to him, “He already commanded us, ‘If you will not find my body in the morning, know that I ascended to heaven.’ And we did not find his body in his grave; where has he gone?” Immediately Caesar commanded that they come back to him with the corpse of Yeshu. Thus, they decreed a fast, and Yehudah the gardener went outside, and he was eating in the market some squashes of those which he was selling in the market, and he did not know that happened because he was hard of hearing. And (the people of) Israel said to him, “Why are you eating? Israel is in trouble while you enjoy yourself?” He said to them, “And what happened?” They said to him, “So and so is the matter.” He said to them, “He is already in my garden. Rainwater dragged him.” And he brought and showed them Yeshu the wicked. Immediately they tied a rope to his foot and dragged him on his face, and they brought him to the king and the king saw him and believed in God and in the words of the sages.594
593 594
Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.153. Toledot Yeshu, MS New York JTS 6312, fol. 68v.74–69r.45, trans. of Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.153 (text 2.70). The MS dates to 1653 (ibid., 2.1, 26).
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' ' '
' ' '
' The empty grave narrative explains the empty tomb tradition of the Christians. Meerson and Schäfer note that a similar narrative appears in Amulo’s Treatise against the Jews for Charles the King.595 Amulo was the bishop who succeeded Agobard (ca 769–840 C.E.), who in turn was the first Christian writer to mention a tradition from the Toledot Yeshu.596 Agobard transmits this tradition, which he claims is from the elders of the Jews: “In the end, accused because of his many lies, [he was] thrust into jail by the judgement of Tiberius because his daughter, to whom [Jesus] promised a birth without a man’s semen, bore a rock. After that [he was] suspended on a fork,597 as if a detested magician, where [he was] also struck in the head with a rock. And [he] died in this manner, buried in a certain nearby aqueduct, and entrusted to a certain Jew for guarding. At night [he] suffered the sudden flood of the aqueduct. By order of Pilate [he was] sought for twelve months, and never found. Then Pilate promulgated a law to [the people] of this kind, saying: “It is clear that he has risen, just as he foretold, who was both slain by you because of envy and who is not found in either a sepulchre or in any other place. And because of this I order that you adore him. But if anyone does not wish to, let him know he has a future place in Hell.” Therefore, all these things both their elders fabricate and they read with foolish stubbornness, so that with such falsehoods the whole truth of Christ’s power and passion is cancelled out … Ad extremum uero propter plura mendatia accusatum, Tyberii iudicio in carcerem retrusum, eo quod filia ipsius, cui sine uiro masculi partum promiserat, lapidis conceptum intulerit; inde etiam ueluti magum detestabilem furca suspensum, ubi et petra in capite percussum; atque hoc modo occisum, iuxta quendam aqueductum sepultum, et Iude cuidam ad custodiam commendatum; noctu uero subita aqueductus inundatione sublatum, Pilati iussu per duodecim lunas quesitum nec usque inuentum. Tunc Pilatum huiusmodi ad 595 Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.153. Amulo Liber contra Judaeos ad Carolum regem 25, 40 [PL 116.158a, 168b–169b]). 596 Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.3 (Agobard De Judaicis superstitionibus 10 [PL 104.87–8 = CChr.CM 52, 206 Van Acker]). 597 The furca was the Byzantine replacement for execution by crucifixion. Cf. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 520 s.v. and Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 92 (a discussion that needs to be revised given the ancient evidence).
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eos promulgasse legem: Manifestum est, inquit, resurrexisse illum, sicut promiserat, qui et a uobis per inuidiam peremptus est, et neque in tumulo neque in ullo alio inuenitur loco. Et ob hanc causam praecipio, ut adoretis eum; quod qui facere noluerit, partem suam in inferno futuram esse cognoscat. Haec autem omnia ideo et seniores eorum confinxerunt, et ipsi stulta obstinatione lectitant, ut talibus commentis tota et uirtutis et passionis Christi ueritas euacuetur …598
Agobard’s version includes Pilate’s affirmation of the resurrection of Jesus – a detail that is missing in the traditions of the Toledot quoted above. It also includes an explanation of the Christian belief in the empty tomb Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho, is apparently aware of Jewish polemic against the Gospel tradition. … you chose certain men by vote and sent them throughout the whole civilized world, proclaiming that a godless and lawless sect has been started by a deceiver, one Jesus of Galilee, whom we nailed to the cross, but whose body, after it was taken from the cross, was stolen at night from the tomb by his disciples, who now try to deceive men by affirming that he has arisen from the dead and has ascended into heaven. … ;& 7 ˆ ∞ a ∞8 8 , ≈ μ ;! Ú ; 7 Ù ∏ º ? √ ? , " !Ú Ã 8 ÃÙ Ù 7 , ¡ ! 8! ( ! Ú Ù , ˆ ! : 8 8 ! ÃÙ Ú ∞ Ã Ù !8 …599
Tertullian (ca 200 C.E.) also may have seen (or heard) this variety of polemic: This is he, I shall say, that carpenter’s or prostitute’s son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and demon-possessed! This is he, whom you bought from Judas! This is he, who was struck with reed and fist, who was defiled with spittle, who was given gall and vinegar to drink! This is he, whom his disciples secretly stole away that it might be said he had risen, unless it was the gardener who removed him, lest his lettuces be damaged by the crowd of sightseers! Hic est ille, dicam, fabri aut quaestuariae filius, sabbati destructor, Samarites et daemonium habens; hic est quem a Iuda redemistis, hic est ille harundine et colaphis diuerberatus, sputamentis dedecoratus, felle et aceto potatus; hic est, quem clam discentes subripuerunt, ut surrexisse dicatur, hortulanus detraxit, ne lactucae suae frequentia commeantium adlaederentur.600
598 Agobard De Judaicis superstitionibus 10 (CChr.CM 52, 206–7 Van Acker), trans. slightly modified of A. B. Langenwalter, Agobard of Lyon. An Exploration of Carolingian Jewish-Christian Relations, PhD Diss., University of Toronto 2009, 150–1. 599 Justin Dial. 108.2 (PTS 47, 255 Marcovich), trans. of Falls, Justin, Dialogue, 162. Cyril. H. Catech. 14.20 refers to the tradition in Math 28:13 (Ú [Jonah 2:8] Ú ∏& ! ˆ : ! Ú , N ≈ > Ã Ö [And foreseeing the Jews who would persuade the soldiers to lie and who said, ‘say that they stole him’ …”]), which possibly implies that the charge was still used in his Jerusalem. 600 Tert. Spect. 30, trans. of Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.7.
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The detail about the lettuce is not found in the NT, unless Tertullian simply invented it using John 20:15. Commodian, presumably around 250 C.E., wrote these lines against the Jews in his Carmen apologeticum: One sin is not enough, who refuse to believe, but they even more defame (him): we put him in that well. Therefore, the angry Lord rails at them: “Because of you my name is blasphemed (or “profaned”) among the nations” (Rom 2:24), he says. Non est culpa satis una, qui credere nolunt, sed magis infamant: in puteum misimus illum. Quapropter et dominus indignatus iurgiat illos: propter uos nomen meum blasphematur in gentibus, inquit.601
Meerson and Schäfer point out that in the Toledot, “Yeshu is buried in a water trench, pipe or reservoir.” Commodian’s well offers the only parallel to this tradition.602 Willy Schetter mentions the similarity to the statement by Joseph’s brothers in Genesis: venite, occidamus eum et mittamus in cisternam veterem (“come, let us kill him and put him in an old cistern” 37:20).603 If one can accept the reliability of Justin, Tertullian, and Commodian, then some ancient Jews transmitted an alternative explanation of the empty tomb traditions found in the Gospels. Matt 28:13–15 offers some support for the thesis that an alternative narrative already existed in the second century and even earlier. A good second century source, Celsus, warrants Tertullian’s assertion that some Jews believed Jesus was a prostitute’s son and Commodian’s claim that some Jews believed Jesus was a magician.604 Celsus’s Jew accused Jesus of being the son of a soldier and an adulteress and charged him with being a magician.605 This encourages one not to discount Matthew’s evidence either.
11 Conclusion Although there were competing views of the afterlife in ancient Judaism – including the immortality of the soul and revivification of spirits – there was a very strong tradition of bodily resurrection. There are compelling images of resurrection in the Hebrew Bible and in the Septuagint, although the clearest text is in Daniel. Evidence for belief in resurrection exists in the pseudepigrapha of Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, inscriptions, the Tar601 Comm. Apol. 439–442 (CChr.SL 128, 89 Martin). Cf. the discussion in Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.7–8. 602 Meerson/Schäfer, Toledot Yeshu, 1.8. 603 W. Schetter, rev. of CChr.SL 128 in: idem, Kaiserzeit und Spätantike. Kleine Schriften 1957–1992, Stuttgart 1994, 225–30, esp. 227. 604 Comm. Apol. 388 et magum infamant. 605 Origen C. Cels. 1.28, 32. Cf. Cook, New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism, 28– 32.
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gumim, rabbinic texts, later midrashim, and the frescoes of Dura Europos. It is not difficult to see a trajectory between the resurrection traditions in the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint and those of much later rabbinic literature. There are threads, that is, varying images of bodily resurrection, that begin in the Hebrew Bible and continue into the Jewish apocalyptic literature of the middle ages. The rabbinic concept of the resurrection of the body did not spring up ex nihilo, and the current fashion among some scholars of asserting that there were various concepts of “resurrection” in Second Temple Judaism seems fundamentally wrong. Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic texts, and so forth did not explicitly speak of souls or spirits “rising” or “standing up.” Spirits or souls do not rise from the dead in ancient Judaism, people do.606 The Targumic and rabbinic interpretations of Hos 6:2 as a reference to the general resurrection correspond to those found in some patristic authors, although the patristic writers identified the reference with the resurrection of Jesus. It is most probable that Paul the Pharisee understood Hos 6:2 similarly in 1 Cor 15:4. Traditions in the Toledot Yeshu are clearly a reaction to the claim in the Gospels that Jesus’s tomb was empty.
606
Cp. § 4.2 above.
Chapter Seven
Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Translation in the NT The primary focus below will be the use of the material from the Jewish and pagan world, including the linguistic results, to illuminate several texts in the NT, which affirm the empty tomb and resurrection of Jesus. Comparative texts are also of some value for illuminating the translation of believers (1 Thess 4:17) and the translation or ascension of Jesus.
1 Resurrection in 1 Cor 15 and the Problem of an Empty Tomb Dag Endsjø, with others, has argued that there is a fundamental difference between Paul’s conception of Jesus’s risen body (i.e., “the fleshless resurrection body of Paul”) and that of the Gospels.1 He bases his conception of the resurrection body on Paul’s statement in 1 Cor 15:50 that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” In order to gain a clearer understanding of Paul’s view of the transformation of resurrection bodies, Paul’s earlier statements in 1 Thessalonians are relevant. 1.1 1 Thess 4:17: Bodies not Abandoned on the Ground Paul affirms in 4:17: “then we who are left alive will be snatched up in the clouds with them to meet the Lord in the air” (> ) " " b ˆ Ã) U ! (8 ∞ ? ∞ 8 ). Paul’s verb for translation (U Ì ) would be familiar to educated pagan readers.2 Endsjø is unwilling to accept the 1
Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 141–58 (Paul), 159–80 (the Gospels). Artemis seizes ( 5 ?) Iphigeneia and makes her immortal in Proclus Chrestomathia 141–3 (83 Severyns) = Davies, EGF 32,61–3 (the Cypria); Apollo seizes Helen at Zeus’s command (• í Ù ) in Euripides Orest. 1631–7; Thetis seizes Achilles’ body ( 8 ? Ù )&) from the pyre in Proclus Chrestomathia 196–203 (88 Severyns) = Davies, EGF 47,24–30 (the Aethiopis), etc. In a discussion of stagecraft, Pollux 4.130 describes a crane as a mechanism used to seize bodies, which Eos used when seizing Memnon’s body ( &Ó 8 ?? : ( (í U E :, Ä 8 KS U ? Ù Ù ®8). ] (and several other forms) was also quite common. Cf. G. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans, 192–6. The Etymologicum Genuinum Α § 876 has ] (± 234)H &Ó Ù Ù F 2
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clear implication of the verb’s use in ancient literature when he asserts of the text in Thessalonians: Although Paul, as we have seen, considered this event to mean that human nature no longer would include the flesh, he probably unwittingly contributed to the Greeks misunderstanding him by using the term harpazein (to snatch) to describe how exactly this translation took place. Harpazein was, as we have seen, the standard term employed to describing being taken away by the gods and made physically immortal, flesh and bones included.3
This reflects, in my view, a mistake in the exegesis of the Pauline text, because it attempts to avoid the clear implication of Paul’s language of translation. Paul did not “unwittingly” use that language.4 U ! indicates bodily translation based on its usage and based on the predominant concept of translation in pagan and Jewish texts. Presumably Paul believed that translated bodies were changed into immortal bodies. Confirmation that Paul envisions a bodily ascent may be found in the objections of Macarius’s anonymous philosopher who was appalled by the image of people flying, which he thought was monstrous and contradicted the course of nature ( & Ú F ! Ú ).5 A recent investigation of rabbinic Jewish notions in the verse implies that certain Jewish readers would also find the imagery in 1 Thess familiar.6 In Jub 4:23 Enoch is taken up ( ∂¡ watanšeʾa) to the garden of Eden.7 As noted earlier, this Ethiopic verb was used to translate !E U ? (They snatched up [in Homer Il. 20.234 the gods snatch Ganymede]: it signifies to snatch from the earth). W. Foerster, U Ì , TDNT 1 (1964) 472–4, esp. 472 lists a few occurrences of the verb in Jewish apocalyptic for “the rapture of visions” (“Apc. Mos. 37, Apc. Esr.5:7, Gr. Bar. passim” [this is an error, since the verb does not appear in J. C. Picard’s edition. Cf. idem, ed., Apocalypsis Baruchi Graece, PVTG 2, Leiden 1967]; other verbs are used for translation). In Apoc. Mos. 37.3 a seraph seizes Adam (a bodily image) and carries him to the Acherusian lake where he is washed (D ! ½ (Ú /5
Ú • Ù ]&Ï ∞ ] ). Cf. chapt. 6 § 4.8. In Apoc. Esr. 5:7 (C. Tischendorf, ed., Apocalypses apocryphae …, Leipzig 1866, 29), which is probably a Christian text (with some Jewish sources), a cloud came, snatched up, and carried Esdras again to heaven (D ! (8 Ú • 8 Ú 7 8 ? ∞ ˆ Ã ). Cf. ibid., “In the NT it occurs at 2 C. 12:2, 4 (vision); 1 Th. 4:17; Rev. 12:5 (‘to catch up or away’); Ac 8:39 – always expressing the mighty operation of God.” 3 Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 151–2. 4 Translation in Hellenistic and Jewish texts is usually bodily, and U Ì in translation texts implies bodily translation. There were translations that were not bodily in pagan texts, but those are clearly indicated by the context. Cf. chapt. 4. 5 Macarius Monogenes 4.1–5 (3.240–2 Goulet and see his comments on 405–7). 6 C. R. Moss and J. S. Baden, 1 Thessalonians 4.13–18 in Rabbinic Perspective, NTS 58 (2012) 199–212. 7 Cp. Wis 4:11 where the righteous person is “taken up” ( ? ), which may be an Enochic reference. See the discussion in Zwiep, Ascension, 43–4 (he concludes the ref. is the righteous individual in general). Zwiep also notes that Ô! was used for the translation of Enoch in Sir 44:16 and 49:14 (v.l.). The verb used in the Ethiopic NT (Platt ed.) in 1 Thess 4:17 for U ! is: ∂ VZ netmaššaṭ (“we will be snatched up”). In 1 En. 52:1
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(“be taken”) in Matt 9:15.8 There is no vision in Paul of the material bodies of those who are left alive until the parousia lying dead on the ground, while their souls or spirits are snatched up to meet Christ in the air.9 The use of U Ì in Greek texts describing translations is key in the argument above, although the context of Paul’s statements and the use of Û (1 Thess 4:16) in texts that describe resurrections in Judaism and paganism both indicate that his imagery is bodily.10 Consequently, one does not only need to appeal to how “educated pagan readers” would have understood 4:17. Paul’s emphasis in 4:17 on the bodies of the faithful being translated is reflected in his affirmations in 1 Cor 15. 1.2 1 Corinthians 15 It is not my intention to survey the entire chapter. I am content to adopt Dieter Zeller’s proposed structure,11 which is virtually the same used in NA28: 15:1–11: The Remembered Tradition of Christ’s Resurrection 15:12–34: Refutation of the Thesis in 12b 12–19: Negative Consequences of the Rejection of the Resurrection 20–28: The General Resurrection as the Implication of Christ’s Resurrection 29–34: Further Counterarguments from Experience and Warnings 15:35–58: How the Resurrection will be Accomplished the prophet affirms that “I was snatched up” ( VZ; tamašaṭku) in a whirlwind. It is also used for the same Greek verb in Wis 4:11 ( Ì ). 8 Cf. chapt. 6 § 3.1. 9 G. Luedemann, The Hope of the Early Paul: From the Foundation-Preaching at Thessalonika to 1 Cor. 15:51–57, PRSt 7 (1980) 195–201, esp. 198 argues that 1 Cor 15:51–52 is an allusion to 1 Thess 4:13–17, although he calls it a “reworking” (i.e., there is a transformation from the “psychic body” to the “pneumatic body”). Cp. the same view in D. Zeller, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, KEK 5, Göttingen 2010, 521. Scholars (older and more recent) assume that those left until the parousia will be translated. Cf., e.g., M. Dibelius, An die Thessalonicher I · II. An die Philipper, HNT 11, Tübingen 31937, 28, J. E. Frame, Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, ICC, Edinburgh 1977, 175–7, A. J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, AncB 32B, New York 2000, 275–8, S. Schneider, Vollendung des Auferstehens. Eine exegetische Untersuchung von 1 Kor 15,51–52 und 1 Thess, 4,13–18, FzB 97, Würzburg 2000, 91– 2, 96, 177, 222–5, 262, and D. Luckensmeyer, The Eschatology of First Thessalonians, StUNT 71, Göttingen 2009, 251–67. Strecker, Entrückung, 473 assumes that Paul includes a transformation of the body (with ref. to 1 Cor 15:51f) in 1 Thess 4:17. 10 On the use of Û for bodily resurrection, cf. intro. § 3.2 and Cook, The Use of Û. 11 Zeller, Der erste Brief, 455. For a more complete structure, an analysis of the argumentative and rhetorical markers would be necessary. M. M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation. An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians, HUTh 28, Tübingen 1991, 286 (rep. Louisville 1993) has a similar structure with a few variations.
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35–49: Embodied – but in a Spiritual Manner 50–58: The Necessity of Transformation with Paraenetic Consequences My primary focus is to show that the interpretation of Paul’s text along with the philological analysis of his words for resurrection and the examples of resurrection from paganism and Judaism support the conclusion that he simply could not have conceived of a resurrection of Christ without an empty tomb. 1.2.1 1 Cor 15:3–5 The thesis about Greek usage in resurrection contexts is important for the interpretation of Paul’s affirmations in 1 Cor 15:3–5. Once it becomes clear that no texts from Second Temple Judaism or paganism use Û or Ì in a context of resurrection to affirm that “a soul rose” or to refer to the “resurrection of a soul (or spirit),” the falsehood of the statement that in Paul “Christ’s soul had been glorified”12 becomes immediately apparent. Consequently, 7 E 8 c E W Ï Ï (? (he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures) in 1 Cor 15:4 implies that Christ rose bodily on the third day. That is not incompatible with a transformation of his earthly body – which is one of the primary topics of the chapter (1 Cor 15:35–58). The semantic usage alone of Û in texts that refer to resurrection in Judaism and paganism indicates this result. Although the bibliography of scholarly research on the chapter is enormous, close philological examinations of the Greek texts of resurrection that use Û (I rise/wake) and Ì (resurrection)13 have been largely left behind.14 Whatever Paul experienced (‡(! [he appeared to me]), he chose to express his belief in Christ’s resurrection using the language both of a Jew from the Second Temple and the language of a person fluent in Hellenistic Greek. At the outset a famous argument about the empty tomb can be dismissed. In a comment on 1 Cor 15:3–5, Wilhelm Bousset, a founding member of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, wrote: “Here it is now extraordinarily important that the Apostle says nothing either concerning the empty tomb or concerning the witness of the women about the empty tomb. What he does not say, one cannot wish to read between the lines.”15 Rudolf Bultmann produced a variation 12
Finney, Resurrection, 183. Paul’s terms in 1 Cor 15. 14 Fascher, Anastasis, passim, although one of the best sources, included only a highly limited set of data. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs surveyed many intriguing texts, but was not focused on linguistic analysis. The context determines if resurrection is the intention, of course, and not specific words alone such as egeiro and anastasis. Cf. intro. § 3. 15 W. Bousset, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, in: Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments neu übersetzt und für die Gegenwart erklärt. Zweiter Band. Die Briefe. Die johanneischen Schriften, ed. J. Weiss, Göttingen 1908, 72–161, esp. 146. See Cook, Resurrection in Paganism, 56. 13
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of Bousset’s thesis. In his seminal essay “Jesus Christ and Mythology,” Bultmann mentioned the resurrection narratives that comprise “both the legend of the empty tomb and the appearances,” and which “insist on the physical reality of the body of the risen Lord” (with reference to Luke 24:39–43). He argued that they are “certainly later embellishments of the primitive tradition. St Paul knows nothing about them.”16 The statement about Paul’s lack of knowledge of the empty tomb is one of the most famous argumenta ex silentio in New Testament studies, and the bibliography is enormous.17 The claims of both Bousset and Bultmann are fallacies (“arguments from silence”) and as such are logically invalid. In my view it can be demonstrated that Paul almost certainly assumed the existence of an empty tomb of Jesus. The meaning of Û and Ì in texts referring to resurrection in Jewish and pagan texts was stable until the reaction of the Gnostic interpreters in the second century and later.18 Those words were used to describe bodily resurrection by Jews and by pagans, and both groups continued to use them to describe bodily resurrection into late antiquity. Apollodorus (II BCE), for example, reputedly used Û for Asclepius’s resurrections of the dead ( [he raised some of the dead]) – the same verb Paul chose for Christ’s resurrection.19 Ps. Eratosthenes (II CE) also used the same verb for Asclepius’s resurrections (ˆ 4& ! ).20 4 Kgdms 4:31 refers to Gehazi’s failed attempt to raise the dead child by touching the boy with Elisha’s staff with °Ã † 8 ! Ù &? (the child did not rise). Dan 12:2 Theodotion is equally clear in its bodily imagery of resurrection: Ú ! & F : 5 !7 (many who sleep in the mound of the earth will rise [NETS]).21 T. Job 4:9 uses the word similarly: Ú !7W E ? (and you [Job] will rise in the resurrection).22 Bodily resurrection also appears in the affirmation of T. Ab.: “At that time all flesh shall rise” ( Ä !7 a ? 5).23 16 R. Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology,” in: Kerygma and Myth …, ed. H. W. Bartsch, New York 1961, 39. 17 There is little reason to produce a page-long footnote here. The statement of Hans Conzelmann (1 Corinthians: A Commentary, Hermeneia, Philadelphia1975, 256), a student of Bultmann’s with whom I had the privilege to study, may be taken as programmatic: “the date [third day] is older than the tomb legends.” See Ware, The Resurrection of Jesus, 477–9 for a survey of similar views. 18 Cf. intro. § 3 and Cook, The use of Û. 19 Apollodorus Ú ! in FGrH 244 F 138. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 20 Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.6D (BiTeu Mythographi Graeci 3.1, 7,6-13 Olivieri). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9 (see also Apollodorus Bibl. 3.10.3 there). Cyranides tells the tale of a mother bird whose offspring are raised from the dead by “some natural means” ( (2 9). Cf. Cyranides 3.39 Ú X( in chapt. 2 § 1.26. 21 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.4. 22 Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.7. 23 T. Ab. 7.17 (the short recension; 62 Schmidt). Cf. chapt. 6 § 4.7.
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Paul’s frequent references to the resurrection of the Û (dead) in 1 Cor 15 (e.g., 15:20: # Ù 7 [Christ has risen from the dead]) corresponds closely with Apollodorus’s turn of phrase ( [some of the dead]). The image of the Û in the chapter includes a patently physical aspect, since the Ì (resurrection of the dead, 15:42) is a reversal ( Û (! Ûc [it is raised in incorruptibility]) of the decay that their bodies undergo ( Û (! ¹ [it is sown in corruption]).24 Paul’s formulation is even closer to Sirach’s (48:5) ¡ Ù !? (who raised a corpse from death). The image of resurrection in Isa 26:19 (7 " , Ú !7 " ) [the dead will rise and those in tombs will rise]) is also extremely close linguistically to that of Paul, since in 1 Cor 15:4 ?( (he was buried) is paired with 7 (he was raised), just as in Isaiah " ) (those who are in tombs) is paired with !7 (will rise).25 The imagery is bodily in all these texts due to the verb’s usage.26 Only with Gnostic texts does one begin hearing of expressions such as a “resurrection of the soul.”27 Until then, as I remarked above, the meaning of Û and Ì in texts referring to resurrection in Jewish and pagan texts was stable (and it remained stable in usage by both those groups). To my knowledge, none of the major commentators on 1 Corinthians 15 in the last century have mentioned these facts.28 Since Paul did not explicitly affirm the resurrection of Christ’s soul or spirit, one should conclude that according to 24 Cf. Frederick S. Tappenden’s use of conceptual blending to visualize the transformation (Resurrection in Paul. Cognition, Metaphor, and Transformation, ECL 19, Atlanta 2016, 106– 14). 25 See chapt. 2 § 1.9 above for Apollodorus, and chapt. 6 § 1.2, 1.8 for Isaiah and Sirach. 26 That is, all the pagan and Jewish texts mentioned above. 27 Cf. intro. § 3.3 and Cook, The use of ἀνίστημι, 269–74. 28 I checked many articles, commentaries, and monographs on 1 Cor 15. I can well imagine that one of the philologists of the nineteenth century in Germany or elsewhere was aware of this linguistic and historical development in the concept of resurrection, however, but I have not found the reference yet. Although Zeller (Der erste Brief, 465), for example, draws an interesting parallel between the third day of 1 Cor 15:4 and Osiris (Plutarch Is. Os. 13, 356C and 39, 366F, the discovery of his body, chapt. 1 § 4), Adonis (chapt. 1 § 5), and Attis (the Hilaria, a late celebration that has been misinterpreted, cf. chapt. 1 § 6.3) and considers several Jewish resurrection traditions (526–528), one of his fundamental conclusions about 15:4 is made without appeal to the usage of Û in Jewish and pagan resurrection texts: “The transmitted formula envisages the resurrection after the burial probably like the Gospels – namely that the tomb was empty” (464). So also G. Sellin (Der Streit um die Auferstehung der Toten. Eine religionsgeschichtliche und exegetische Untersuchung von 1 Korinther 15, FRLANT 138, Göttingen 1986, 238): … “‘resurrected’ obviously presupposes an empty tomb – but not yet a developed narrative about the discovery of the empty tomb.” Schrage (Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 4.35) concludes – without any historical linguistic analysis of Û : “But also as a matter of fact one must observe that for most Jews, and so presumably for Paul, a resurrection of the dead without the presupposition of an empty tomb is unthinkable.”
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the established usage in Judaism and paganism of Û and Ì in resurrection contexts that he envisioned the resurrection of Christ’s body in a transformed state. This is precisely what he indicates in 1 Cor 15:35–58 (and in Phil 3:21). 1.2.2 1 Cor 15:12 The social background and beliefs of the Corinthians are relevant for understanding Paul’s argument about resurrection bodies in that letter. The vexed question of the identity of the individuals in Corinth who rejected the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12) is of some importance, because it brings up many interesting questions in the history of religions. Scholars’ inability to find agreement on the theology of those who were somehow able to believe in Christ’s resurrection but not that of the dead is not encouraging. This may well be because Paul simply does not give enough information, and one is forced to accept some ambiguity. Paul J. Brown has recently attempted to solve the problem by arguing that a group of Corinthians accepted the resurrection of Christ, but in general had a pessimistic view of the afterlife, although some heroes (from Greek mythology) did experience a form of translation to heaven.29 He argues that the baptism for the dead in 15:29 is vicarious and that the rite bears some similarities with Roman proxy funerals.30 Based on a survey of beliefs about heroes, he makes the somewhat apodictic statement: “I have demonstrated that for people whose afterlife expectations were informed by GrecoRoman mythology, it is feasible to think that the deniers of the resurrection could have engaged in an anomalous rite that memorialized and heroized the dead.”31 He objects to scholars who argue that 15:12 refers to individuals who had an overrealized eschatology (i.e., “the denial of a future resurrection”) because 1 Cor 4:8 is “not clearly connected to 1 Cor 15.” There is, however, no specific evidence in 1 Corinthians that the individuals in 15:12 believed in the
29
P. J. Brown, Bodily Resurrection and Ethics in 1 Cor 15. Connecting Faith and Morality in the Context of Greco-Roman Mythology, WUNT 2/360, Tübingen 2014, 89–94, 97–107. They also may have believed that the apostles rose as heroes (ibid., 154, 178–9). Holleman’s survey (Resurrection, 35–40) is useful – he opts for the thesis that the deniers had a dualistic anthropology – but his attempt (146–9) to show that 2 Macc 7 and 12 imply an immediate “heavenly resurrection” of the martyrs is unconvincing. See chapt. 6 § 1.6. 30 Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 158–61. On some examples of such funerals, cf. chapt. 5 § 1.2. 15:29 is often used as an objection against those who argue that the deniers believed only in the immortality of the soul. That argument fails, however, because Platonists such as Celsus believed that evil souls were punished in the afterlife (Origen Cels. 3.16, 8.49) and that some souls were rewarded. Therefore, the baptizers might have been performing a ritual similar to the Catholic faithful who perform actions to lessen the punishment of souls in purgatory. 31 Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 160.
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afterlife of heroes.32 Brown approvingly quotes Anthony C. Thiselton who concedes that “there is no evidence for the view that the resurrection had fully and finally taken place.”33 Brown finds no indication of a realized eschatology in Jewish or pagan antiquity and asserts that resurrection in Judaism and paganism was always of the dead. The non-existence of any realized eschatology is problematic, given 2 Tim 2:17–18.34 In addition, the inscriptional and literary evidence which he includes in his monograph is quite important, but nearly without exception it is all the production of the cultured elite. The funerary epitaphs, I will concede, may reflect more popular views than the literature produced by elite writers. The Latin inscriptions he surveys, however, may not be appropriate for the Corinthian context. A survey of Corinthian funerary epitaphs would be necessary.35 In addition, the deniers’ practice of vicarious baptism is inconsistent with a generally pessimistic view of the afterlife, since they could “heroize” any departed believer they chose. 32 Oepke, Auferstehung II, 932 speculates that they could be reacting to Paul’s “materialism” (15:35–54). 33 Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 68–9, with ref. to A. C. Thiselton, Realized Eschatology at Corinth, NTS 24 (1978) 510–26, esp. 523. Thiselton (ibid., 524) nevertheless argues the Corinthians had an over realized eschatology and did not place sufficient emphasis on the future resurrection. 34 For Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 71–2, 2 Tim 2:18 means “the final material resurrection is over and they had missed it.” The individuals in 2 Timothy may simply have misinterpreted the images of the baptismal resurrection in the Deutero-Paulines (Eph 2:6 and Col 2:12, 3:1). 35 The material in Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 28–65 (a very fine summary) is not archaeologically situated in Corinth. At the least one should examine the inscriptions of Corinth 8.1– 3. Corinth 8.3, 300, for example, mentions a beloved daughter who, her father hopes, if there is any honor for good women under the earth, has obtained first honors with fair breasted Persephone ( ∞ &í !) Ì [] ÕÙ [!]ı, b& »Ô / ˘ Ãı Ú Ï [ ] (ı). Corinth 8.1, 130 (may be earlier than II C.E.) expresses a similar hope for a Numisia Antigon[a], a freedwoman (name in Latin): [] A í Ã IÔ !í " Ù ; / a ∞ Û! Ú í !Ú ( ˜ (because of my pious deeds lead me to the holy land, Hermes. May moderation be praised in the underworld). For a very brief survey, cf. B. W. Millis, The Social and Ethnic Origins of the Colonists in Early Roman Corinth, in: Corinth in Context. Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, ed. S. J. Friesen et al., NT.S 134, Leiden 2010, 13–36, esp. 24–5. For the Asclepius sanctuary, cf. B. L. Wickkiser, Asclepios in Greek and Roman Corinth, ibid., 37–66. There is a depiction on a coin of the hero Melicertes on the dolphin (M. E. Hoskins Walbank, Image and Cult: The Coinage of Roman Corinth, in: ibid., 151–98, esp. 183; for a coin depicting Heracles see 188–9, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.17). J. L. Rife reviews cults in Corinth’s port (including those of Isis, Asclepius, and Dionysus) in Religion and Society at Roman Kenchreai, in: Friesen, ibid., 391–433. On Melicertes, see also E. R. Gebhard, Rites for Melikertes-Palaimon in Early Roman Corinth, in: Urban Religion in Corinth. Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. D. N. Schowalter and S. J. Friesen, Cambridge, MA 2005, 165–203. J. Økland reviews the Corinthian sanctuaries for Demeter and Persephone, Isis and Sarapis, the imperial cult, and Asclepius in: Women in Their Place. Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space, JSNTSup 269, London 2004, 80–92, 247–52.
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Perhaps a better objection to the thesis that the Corinthians had an overrealized eschatology, with its attendant spiritualizing resurrection, is that Paul in 15:12 would have then misunderstood the deniers’ views.36 Another fairly popular option, which holds that they believed in some form of “spiritualism,” which comprised the immortality of the soul, is problematic because Paul does not engage such a view. Zeller argues that instead Paul characterizes the deniers as “materialists” (15:32) – although he is obliged to admit that the verse is polemical and does not show that the deniers were libertines.37 He concludes that the Corinthian deniers (with a Durchschnittsmentalität!) understood resurrection not as a new creation but as a return to earthly life, as the Greeks and Romans did – with a few mythological exceptions and ghost stories. They simply rejected a general resurrection of the dead and probably viewed Christ’s own resurrection as a sort of apotheosis. He mentions Apollo’s negation of the possibility of resurrection that has been quoted above.38 15:29 is not problematic because it does not necessarily refer to the same group.39 One objection to this position is that there were divinities in the Mediterranean world that in some sense returned to life – which he apparently concedes by his reference to mythological figures.40 Osiris and Dionysus are two undeniable examples. There was an Isis and Sarapis cult in Corinth, and an Osiris Hydreios jar has been found on East Theatre Street.41 Whether the Corinthian deniers knew of Osiris’s 36 Cf. Zeller, Der erste Brief, 457. He also notes that Paul does not emphasize the futurity of resurrection or the necessity of death before resurrection. Schrage, Der erste Brief, 4.113–9 (on 15:12) combines a rejection of future and somatic resurrection with “spiritualism” (so that the deniers are close to Hymenaeus and Philetus in 2 Tim 2:18). The problem with his position is also that Paul would then fundamentally misunderstand the deniers. 37 Zeller, Der erste Brief, 458–9: Paul in the verse only wants to show the deniers what the implications of their position were. 15:35, he argues, is not an objection to bodily resurrection, instead their query is based on the decay of the body. Cp., for similar positions, D. Martin, The Corinthian Body, New Haven 1995, 104–36 (e.g., 106: “It is much simpler to assume, as Paul’s arguments against them indicate, that what they found objectionable about Paul’s teaching was not the future aspect of the resurrection but that it was to be a bodily resurrection” [his italics]) and Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 153–8 (Jesus’s resurrection was acceptable because there was physical continuity, but that of other Christians was not because their bodies would be burned or would decay). 38 Aeschylus Eum. 647–8, chapt. 2 § 1.1. He also refers to IGUR III, 1406 (chapt. 2 § 1.1). 39 Contra Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 152–61 who claims that the practice must be known to the deniers for Paul’s argument to be effective. Zeller, Der erste Brief, 499 (against most exegetes) argues that 15:33–34a seeks to establish a “wedge” between the general community and the deniers and that the practice may be that of the general community. 40 See chapt. 1. 41 C. K. Williams and O. H. Zervos, Corinth, 1984: East of the Theater, Hesp. 54 (1985) 55–96, 80 § 49 and Pl. 17 (Osiris Hydreios). D. E. Smith, The Egyptian Cults at Corinth HTR 70, 1977, 201–31, esp. 210–12 (noting that Pausanias 2.4.6 mentions two temenoi for Serapis; Smith believes they were at the foot of the Acrocorinth), 213–5 (a chapel to Serapis in a shop); he mentions an inscription on the base of a tripod to Sarapis and Isis (217, L. Vidman, Sylloge
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resurrection is impossible to say. But it is likely that some individuals living in nearly any city in the eastern Mediterranean did know that Osiris, after his death, returned to some form of life to reign in the underworld.42 If one can speculate about the Corinthians’ knowledge of heroes, however, one can also speculate that they knew something about the vicissitudes of the gods like Osiris and Dionysus. The fairly rich evidence for an Isis and Serapis cult in the Peloponnese probably indicates that at least some individuals in Corinth would have known about Osiris’s return to life as ruler of the netherworld. Consequently, the deniers might have understood Christ’s resurrection in analogy with the fate of gods such as Dionysus and Osiris or even Asclepius’s bodily apotheosis. The virtue of Zeller’s position is that he takes Paul’s words in 15:12 at face value: ? Ã > (there is no resurrection of the dead). Hymenaeus and Philetus claimed that the resurrection had already happened (? 4& 8), which is a very different thesis. Whatever the nature is of the deniers’ religious historical background, the virtue of the discussion is that scholars are forced to examine the existent archaeological and literary evidence for the variety of beliefs about the afterlife in cities such as Corinth. 1.2.3 1 Cor 15:35–37, 42–44: No Resurrected Souls in Paul plays no role in 1 Cor 15. Rather, for example, than saying Û
(a good Platonic expression)43 in 15:37, he uses a physical image of a bare seed of wheat or something similar ( Ù ∞ 4 ).44 Certainly he does not use a Philonic image such as a “naked mind” approaching God: inscriptionum religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae, Berlin 1969, § 34a, II B.C.E., [j Ú / j Û& / Ì, / º]). He also quotes (218, Corinth 8.3, 57) a Latin inscription to Isis and Serapis (I C.E.): Isi et Serapi / v(ovit) / C(aius) Iulius [S]yr[us]. One could add IG 4, 855 = Vidman, Sylloge, § 40 (from Methana, ca 162–146 B.C.E.?) an inscription dedicated to both deities ( Ì, º). Vidman, Sylloge, § 34–47 are all inscriptions from the Peloponnese dedicated to Isis, Sarapis, or both. 42 This from a personal communication of Professor Steven J. Friesen (16 Dec. 2016). 43 Plato, Crat. 403B : (the soul, naked without body), Gorg. 523E Ú Ù & ) Ù ∂, ! , ÃE E E Ã ! 5( ! /? (the judge must also be naked, dead, with the soul itself beholding the soul itself of each, immediately after his/her death). Cp. Lucian, Ver. hist. 2.12 Ú ≈ > 7 Ã ) : ¡ 8 ([describing the bodiless individuals on the isle of the blessed] it appears that their naked souls wander about wearing the semblance of a body). 44 Clement’s (1 Cl 24:5) seeds (Ô ) that fall on the ground dry and naked and that decay are also material (b ∞ F 5 Ï Ú Ï & ). The naked seeds of wheat or other varieties which are cast into the ground and which decay below in AcPlCor 2:26 are likewise a material image: – Ï , ;& Û!, N& Ù Ú ı ¢ ; Ì ≈ Ï IÌ ∞ Ú
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One sort of men only does it [the divine spirit] aid with its presence, even those who, having disrobed themselves of all created things and of the innermost veil and wrapping of mere opinion, with mind unhampered and naked will come to God. … 9 &Ó ! : N& /Ú , √ ? (? Ï
8 Ú Ù ? 8 Ú ? F & 5 8W Ú
E E &c Ù ! Ù (5 .45
The physicality of the image of a Ù (naked seed) is confirmed, since it is sown in corruption (15:43 Û (! ¹), dishonor (15:44 c), and weakness ( ! c) – in other words, it is the natural body (15:44 ı), which is sown and which decays in the ground, not a naked soul.46 Paul’s affirmation in 15:45, C 8 ¡ ;! ]&Ï ∞ , that the first Adam became a living being (or “soul”)47 no more implies the immortality of Adam than that of the “creeping things among living creatures” (/ Ï ) that God made in the ocean (Gen 1:20; NETS trans.) and the living creatures for the earth (Gen 1:24: Ï 8, ?& Ú / Ï Ú ! ).48 With regard to fish, Philo (!Ì Ì … Hans Lietzmann’s (An Die Korinther I · II, HNT 9, ergänzt von W.G. Kümmel, Tübingen 51969, 84) argument that Paul here refers to a “‘naked’ soul that leaves its old garment in the earth,” consequently, fails. Lietzmann’s view is rightly rejected by Conzelmann (1 Corinthians, 281): “Paul does not, as Lietzmann thinks, regard the heavenly body as clothing the ‘naked’ soul; for he has no concept of the soul at all …” Paul may believe in an immortal soul, but avoids that language. 45 Philo Gig. 53, trans. of Colson, Philo, 2.479. Cp. Cher. 31 I? F ( X( ì Ú ? ,î & ) Ú ( 85 Ù !Ù (í / , μ E E &c ? Ù ! Ù E (… [Abraham] takes a copy of the flaming sword – “fire and knife” it says (Gen 22:6) – desiring to sever and consume the mortal element away from himself and thus to fly upward to God with his understanding stripped of its trammels” (trans. Colson, Philo, 2.27). In Cher. 17, only God can see the naked soul (2 9 ∞& ) &89). See also Mut. 199: Ï Ú , ≈ 9 (, (? Ú Ã (í ÕF Ã ? (They [the vindicators] will strip off all this complication of wraps and bandages which the perverted art of talkers has put together, and beholding the soul naked in her very self …; trans. Colson, Philo, 5.245) and Praem. 166: & 8 9 &Ó E >! ¡ , ≈ ) ( 8 ? ) ; Ú & Ù Ù ; ! ([On intercessors for Israel] The second is the holiness of the founders of the race because with souls released from their bodies they show forth in that naked simplicity their devotion to their Ruler …; trans. Colson, Philo, 8.419). 46 Cp. 1 Cor 15:36 ˆ √ Ö !?W – which implies that what one sows dies. Tappenden (Resurrection, 106–14) explores this imagery effectively with conceptual blending theory. 47 To which he adds “first Adam” to Gen 2:7. I will explore the Philonian parallels in another publication. 48 Cp. Gen 2:19 where the expression is used for the living creatures Adam names ( ).
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states, for example, that they take part in both bodily and to a lesser degree in soul-like substance or principle of life (&Ù : 8 ∞! 8 8 F ¢ F Ã).49 Paul’s use of the opposition between “natural body” (or “physical”) and “spiritual body” in 15:43 ( Ö ) seems to be his own creation. That is, no pre-Christian Greek author I am aware of contrasts “natural” ( ) with “spiritual” ( ). Paul apparently is the first author to formulate the expression , although other authors used it with different connotations in later texts.50 These authors are philosophers from the schools of Aristotle, Plato, Chrysippus, and writers in the alchemical tradition.51 Straton, a Peripatetic philosopher, and Democritus asserted that the power of sperm is corporeal, because it is pneumatic ( ? Ú Ú & H ? ).52 Their theory explains the motion of the seminal fluid. Origen attributes this view to the Stoics: “since God is a body, he is subject to decay, and that the body is pneumatic and ethereal” (≈ Ú (! ‡, &Ó Ù Ú ∞! & ).53 Since no other Stoic text uses the expression ( ), it is probably Origen’s construction. A clearer Stoic formulation is that transmitted by Alexander of Aphrodisias: “For if God is on their view body – an intelligent
49 Philo Opif. 66. Cp. Abr. 219 Ï Ï Ú Ì. Ptolemy Apot. 3.14.1 also uses both terms, although not in opposition ( ? [bodily symptoms] and &Ó 7 [qualities of the soul]. There are many other such combinations (Diog. 2.89 Ï &Ï Ú & Ú ) &) Ú & ! [mental pains and pleasures not all based on bodily pleasures and pains], Plutarch Suav. viv. 1092D, in a discussion of the pleasure of the flesh in Epicureanism: Ã&Ó Ï ; Ã&Ó ?, Ï Ï &Ï Ö F F [ … someone would not call them mental (of the soul) or joys, but rather bodily pleasures of the soul], etc.). 50 I intend to pursue this at length in another publication. 51 M. R. Licona (Paul on the Resurrection Body, in: Buried Hope or Risen Savior? The Search for the Jesus Tomb, ed. C. L. Quarles, Nashville, TN 2008, 177–98, esp. 185) referred to several of the texts discussed below and emphasized the bodily nature of the expression, “with the possible exception of Chrysippus.” 52 [Plutarch] Placita 5.4, 905B (CUFr 169 Lachenaud) = Straton frag. 94 Wehrli = Democritus T 140 Diels/Kranz. For Aristotle’s view of the relationship between semen and pneuma (itself contained in the semen), which is similar to the element in the stars (aether), see Gen. an. 2.3, 736B: 2 (, ? “ 2 ; 9. Cf. the remarks on ˜( (“connate spirit”) in Aristotle, Generation of Animals, LCL, ed. and trans. A. L. Peck, Cambridge, MA 1943, 589–93. 53 SVF 2.1054 (Chrysippus?) = Chrysippe, Oeuvre philosophique, 2 vols., ed., trans., and comm. R. Dufour, Paris 2004, 2.1066 (p. 529) = Origen In Ioh. 13.21.126, 128 (on John 4:24 Ï ¡ ! ).
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and eternal pneuma …” ( ∞ Ï ! Ù í È , Ë Ú ^& Ö).54 The alchemical text (Dialogue of Comarius), to which BDAG refer in their entry on , is highly problematic both from a philological and religious historical perspective, since it was probably influenced by the NT and dates from late antiquity.55 This passage probably describes the distillation of sulphuric acid: “Now, take the earth that is above the waters, Cleopatra, and make a pneumatic/volatile body from it, the spirit of alum” ( ÌI “
F, ‚ ? , “ ? Õ&? , Ú Ù, Ù ).56 Another alchemical text from the same era, attributed to Zosimus, refers to an operation on copper in a crucible, in which the may be oxygen: “After taking the soul of the copper, which is above the water of mercury, make a pneumatic (or “volatile”) body” (IS “ ? —& F Õ& , ).57 A chemist remarks that “if this red substance [the soul of copper] is red oxide of mercury, the aeriform body [ ı] must have been oxygen.”58 Damascius (ca 462–538),59 commenting on the souls released from Tartarus in the Phaedo, describes souls who have lived holy lives: “the ones who lived without philosophy inhabit the outermost regions of the earth with extremely delicate pneumatic bodies” (" Ó ; ( ( Ú ; 54
For the text (and context), see SVF 2.310 (Chrysippus?) = Alexander of Aphrodisias De mixtione 11 (CAG 2.2, 224,32–225,9 Bruns), trans. of R. B. Todd, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics. A Study of the De Mixtione. Preliminary Essays, Text, Translation and Commentary, PhAnt 27, Leiden 1976, 138–9 (text and trans.), 220–21 (commentary). 55 BDAG s.v. ı § 2aI refers to the text somewhat uncritically. A. J. Festugière dated the text to the same era as Zosimus, and believed that there is no Christian influence in the text, except for an addition at the end. See his Alchymica, in idem, Hermétisme et mystique païenne, Paris 1967, 205-29, esp. 210 (on 213 he has “IV-V C.E.?”). Vincenzo Carlotta is preparing a critical edition of the Dialogue of Cleopatra, and argues that parts of the text can be explained on the basis provided by the New Testament. Berthelot’s edition (M. Berthelot and C. É. Ruelle, ed., Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs [CAlG], 4 vols., Paris 1887–8) conflated two texts: Û ( ı( &Ì 5 Ù Ì (The Dialogue of Comarius the Philosopher and Cleopatra) and &Ì ( ı( Ú Ì (The Dialogue of the Philosophers and Cleopatra [Dial. Cleop.]). See R. Reitzenstein, Zur Geschichte der Alchemie und des Mystizismus, NGWG.PH (1919) 1–37. 56 Comarius Dial. 4 (24,23–5 Reitzenstein = 3.290 Berthelot), trans. of Arcana Mundi. Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. A Collection of Ancient Texts, trans., annot. and intro. G. Luck, Baltimore 22006, 449. Sulphuric acid (H2SO4) is distilled from potassium alum (KAl(SO4)2 . 12H2O). 57 Zosimus (III-IV C.E.) ( 1 (CAlG 2.146 Berthelot). 58 H. C. Bolton, Notes on the Early Literature of Chemistry, American Chemist 4 (1874) 170–1, esp. 171 (cf. F. Hoefer, Histoire de la chimie, vol. 1, Paris 1872, 270–1, with an image of the apparatus). 59 Athanassiadi, Damascius, 19.
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∞ F F Ï ? ? ).60 These individuals, according to Plato, dwell on earth ( Ú F ∞ ) and are contrasted with those who, having purified themselves by philosophy, live without their bodies (; ? ).61 This implies that the “delicate pneumatic bodies” of Damascius comprise some form of embodied existence. This brief survey of the use of and closely related expressions in authors from diverse intellectual traditions indicates that it can refer to various material entities. It is also profitable to compare Paul’s view of the spiritual resurrection body with his assertion that the Hebrews ate spiritual food, manna, in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:3: Ú ? Ù ÃÙ Ù I >( ). Philo, in QG 4.102, likely used the same expression ( Ù I ) for the manna (զհոգեւորական կերակուրն zhogeworakan kerakowrn).62 The manna to which Paul refers was clearly material, but also spiritual, although the precise significance of that term ( ı) is debated.63 Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s assertion that “this ‘clay’ body made out of earth” “will be transformed” into “what is self-identically the very same body” rings true. But his proviso that the resurrected body is “made up of pneuma” and that this “earthly body of flesh and blood is transformed into a celestial
60
Damascius In Plat. Phaed. (versio 1) [114B6–C6] 551 (Westerink), trans. of Richard Goulet. There are a number of other usages of this term (and closely related expressions) in Damascius and in the Aristotelean commentators (e.g., Philophonus In Arist. De an. proem. [CAG 15, 12,19 Hayduck]: Ù Ù , which is inseparable from the irrational soul [; ], it is not immortal). For Philoponus, although the pneumatic body comprises the four elements, air dominates its makeup [Ù Ù , √ Ú Ã Ó ? , 8 &Ó ? 8 ]. Cf. Philoponus, ibid. [17,21–2]. 61 Plato Phaed. 114B-C. 62 For the evidence, cf. J. G. Cook, Philo, Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 4.102 and 1 Cor 10:3: the Ù I , NovT 59 (2017) 384–89. On manna in Philo, see S. Hylen, Allusion and Meaning in John 6, BZNW 137, Berlin 2005, 105–7 and P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven. An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo, NT.S 10, Leiden 1965. 63 Wedderburn, Baptism, 241–2 considers these three: the manna and water were “given by the spirit”; “they mediated the spirit to their recipients”; and “they pointed to higher, spiritual things.” He also mentions a fourth option, “the manna and water were of spiritual substance, i.e., made of spirit,” – an option that neither J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, KEK 5, Göttingen 91910, 251 nor Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 166–7 accepts (although Wedderburn mentions them in his note as supporters of the thesis). Schrage (Der erste Brief, 2.392–393) argues that the manna mediates the spirit by identifying the spirit “in a certain manner” with Christ (with ref. to 1 Cor 10:4b, 15:45, and 2 Cor 3:17).
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substance of pneuma” probably is not the intention of Paul’s language.64 15:45 clearly does not mean that Adam has a body “made up of psychē.”65 One cannot show that for Paul the pneumatic body comprises pneuma – he simply does not say precisely what such a body is. Although in 15:48 he calls Christ “heavenly” ( Ì) because he came from heaven (15:47), it does not follow that the “heavenly one” comprises a body made up of celestial substance (15:40– 41). Paul does not speculate on the matter which constitutes the sun, moon, and stars. The same sort of argument should be used against those who deny that in 1 Cor 15 means “body.” Paul’s own usage of in 1 Corinthians confirms BDAG’s lemma: “the living body.”66 The : ? Ú : in 15:40 likewise comprise an aspect of Paul’s physics. Consequently, Mark T. Finney’s argument that in context means not “body” but “new life,” a “new creation,” a “new entity” or “the organic principle which makes a man a self-identical individual” cannot be sustained given Paul’s own usage of the word in the letter.67 Zeller notes that the martyrs in 2 Macc 7 and 14 did not rely on an indestructible (or immortal) spirit, so that consequently the body is the basis of their hoped for identity in the resurrection.68 The identity of the subject, he argues, is presupposed for the spiritual body, a paradoxical expression grounded in Christology, and for which transformation is stressed.69 Lehtipuu argues that the resurrected body is not a resuscitated corpse: “On the contrary, resurrection means a metamorphosis, a transformation into a ‘spiritual’ body (sōma pneumatikon) that has very little to do with the ‘soulish’ body (sōma psuchikon).” She adds, “Even though the plain seed does not resemble the sprouting plant, there is a physical continuity between the two … At the resurrection, it is still ‘us’ but in a radically transformed shape.”70 One should not use Paul’s statement in 15:50 to deny this continuity.
64 T. Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul. The Material Spirit, Oxford 2010, 32 (his italics) and 221 n. 85, with ref. to J. Asher, Polarity and Change in 1 Corinthians 15. A Study of Metaphysics, Rhetoric, and Resurrection, HUT 42, Tübingen 2000. Asher (176–204) produces an intriguing review of the concept of “change” in Greek philosophy, which he believes Paul used. 65 Cf. Tappenden, Resurrection, 116–7. 66 Cf. 1 Cor 12:16, 18, 19, 20, 22 the body and its parts; 6:13 “the body is not for Û”; 13:3 “if I hand over my body,” etc. 67 Finney, Resurrection, 112 (with ref. to various scholars). The ref. to Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 281 is inaccurate. R. H. Gundry, Sōma in Biblical Theology with Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology, SNTSMS 29, Cambridge, 162–72 and L. Scornaienchi, Sarx und Soma bei Paulus. Der Mensch zwischen Destruktivität und Konstruktivität, NTOA 67, Göttingen, 2008, 239–54 are useful correctives of Finney’s position. 68 Zeller, Der erste Brief, 526. 69 Zeller, Der erste Brief, 528. 70 Lehtipuu, Debates, 54–55.
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1.2.4 1 Cor 15:50 The &8 (and this) at the beginning of the verse (P &8 (, & (, ≈ Ï 5 Ú ∑ I ! F Ã &, Ã&Ó (! Ï (! )) probably establishes a new logical section, as it does in 1 Cor 7:29 and 1 Thess 4:15.71 Based on his reading of 1 Cor 15:50, Endsjö concludes that Jesus’s body is “fleshless.” It is surprising that he does not examine the expression “flesh and blood” ( ) – in particular its use as a rabbinic expression which simply refers to human nature in its fragility and not simply to “physical flesh.”72 An early rabbinic example is from the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael73 where Exod 12:12 “I am the Lord” ( אני )ייis explained as “What flesh and blood cannot say.”74 Another occurrence is a discussion of Exod 15:1 “I will sing unto the Lord for he is really exalted,” which is explained by an example that begins “when a king of flesh and blood enters a province …”75 The insincere honor offered to the king is contrasted with the genuine honor given to God. The expression can mean physical flesh and blood in Hellenistic Greek. Plutarch, for example, argues that Stoics reject the pastries of the symposia (8 ) and might in turn feel disgust at eating flesh and blood (∑ Ú ? & ) – but they do not.76 The occurrences in Paul and Matthew (16:17) clearly refer to human beings as opposed to God. More appropriate to the NT examples is a text of 1 Enoch, which describes the behavior of the sinful watchers: 71 “What I am saying, brothers, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable,” NRSV mod. Cf. Zeller, Der erste Brief, 519 and Brown, Bodily Resurrection, 220. 72 Zeller, Der erste Brief, 519 refers to Sir 14:18 Ï Ù Ú μ ( ) and 17:31 Ï 5 Ú ∑ as the earliest occurrences (along with Matt 16:17 and Gal 1:16). Str-B 1.730–1 gives many rabbinic examples and interpret the expression to mean “Mensch” (human being). Cp. T. Ab. 13.7 (short recension; 78 Schmidt) where Abraham tells Death: ˆ
Ï Õ Ù ∂; S &Ó Ï 5 ∞ Ú ∑ (you are an exalted spirit, but I am flesh and blood). For the history of the text, cf. chapt. 6 § 4.7. Cp. Eph 6:12. 73 This is one of the older, if not oldest, of the tannaitic midrashim. Cf. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 251–6. 74 Mek. Pesach 1:7: ן. Trans. of J. Z. Lauterbach, Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael, 3 vols., Philadelphia 1933–5, 1.38. 75 Mek. Shirata 3:1: . Trans of Lauterbach, Mekhilta, 1.173–4. There are numerous similar occurrences in Mekhilta. 76 Plutarch De esu 2.6 999A = SVF 3.374. Straton frag. 98 (Wehrli), with regard to the formation of the embryo mentions a “node of flesh and blood” ( Ú μ ). On that text cf. [Iamblichus], The Theologica of Arithmetic. On the Mystical, Mathematical and Cosmological Symbolism of the First Ten Numbers, trans. R. Wakefield Grand Rapid, MI 1988, 92. Posidonius, frag. 252b Theiler = Sextus Adv. math. 7.19 argues that that divisions of philosophy resemble a living being, whose blood and flesh are like physics, etc. (:9 a ∞? †5 ( (, μ Ó Ú 5Ú Ù ( ν …).
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And you were holy ones and everlasting spirits. With the blood of women you have defiled yourselves and with the blood of flesh you have begotten; And with the blood of men you have lusted, and you have brought forth, as they do, flesh and blood, who die and perish. Ú Õ ) D b Ú ∞: 2 μ ?! , Ú μ Ù 7 Ú μ ! : !7 , !S Ú ÃÚ ? Ú ∑ (F k ) šegā wadama), μ !7 Ú ι.77
The emphasis in the Jewish texts is on flesh and blood as human nature – including its mortal nature.78 Consequently, the argument that Paul refers to a “fleshless resurrection body” in 1 Cor 15:50 fails. Zeller’s argument that the phrase refers to the transitory existence of a human being is well grounded.79 The phase had a later history in patristic exegesis. Justin uses the concept several times.80 Celsus argues that Moses promised the Jews that they would rise in their same flesh and blood (7 ÃE Ú Ú μ).81 77 1 En. 15:4, trans. modified of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 267 (“with the blood of men you have lusted, and you have done as they do – flesh and blood, who die and perish”) who (with the Ethiopic) amends ∞˘ to ∞˘. He also adds (with the Ethiopic) Ú after !7 . I have adopted Uhlig’s (Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 542) translation (“you have brought forth flesh and blood”), which is based on the Greek Codex Panopolitanus. Nickelsburg’s trans. fails to properly construe the Greek (? Ú ∑) and Ethiopic accusatives, in my view. Above I include the text of Black, Apocalypsis Henochi, 29 (Chester Beatty 185). However one construes the text, the expression refers to mortal nature. Nickelsburg, ibid., 272 refers to R. Meyer, Ì 5 TDNT 7 (1971) 110–19, esp. 116 for this implication of the terms (his words): “humans are flesh and blood (i.e., mortal).” Meyer writes: “the idea of mortality and creatureliness seems to be especially bound up with the phrase.” 78 The comment of E. Schweizer on Matt 16:17 needs revision (Ì 5 , TDNT 7 [1971] 119–51, esp. 124): “flesh and blood … denotes man in his limitation vis-à-vis God. The reference is not to his mortality but to his inability to know God … Flesh and blood are not parts of man. They include his intellectual, religious and mystical capacities. The opposite is God.” The expression refers to mortal nature, along with a human being’s other capacities, in the Jewish texts. Cp. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Vol. 2. Commentary on Matthew VIII–XVIII, ICC, London 1991, 623 (who quote Schweizer approvingly without examining the usage in Jewish texts). 79 Zeller, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 519. A. Lindemann, Der Erste Korintherbrief, HNT 9/1, Tübingen 2000, 365 concludes that it denotes the “transitoriness and mortality of the existent human.” Schrage is in basic agreement and emphasizes the “qualitative difference between creature and creature” and argues that the expression has “no pejorative moral connotation” (Der erste Brief, 368). 80 Justin 1 Apol. 62.2 ! Ú ∏ # Ù ¡ Ú ? Ú ∑ ÕÓ > (Jesus Christ our savior, being made flesh, had flesh and blood for our salvation). In Dial. 135.6, with regard to Isaac and Esau, he contrasts the one born of flesh and blood with the one born of faith and the Spirit (& 8 ∏& Ú &
8, › & N ∏:I, Ù Ó 5 μ Ú , Ù &Ó Ú 8). 81 Origen Cels. 6.29.
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1.2.5 1 Cor 15:51 The syntactical force of the first part of Paul’s affirmation is surely not “we, none of us, will fall asleep, but we all will be changed” (? à ! !, ? &Ó !). Sebastian Schneider’s thesis that a negative never stands after what is negated in “Hellenistic” Greek fails.82 There are several examples of the phenomenon in other texts from Paul’s era.83 Paul’s reference to the transformation that all will experience ( !) resembles that mentioned in the vision of resurrection bodies in the apocalypse of Baruch.84 The apocalypticist uses the same verb for transformation ( ḥlp), which the Peshitta translators adopted for Paul’s term in 1 Cor 15:51–2. Zeller mentions a text in 1 En. 108:11, in which God transforms the spirits of the good who have been in darkness.85 The passive form of walaṭa (change, transform) used in 1 Enoch is also used for (˘! in Matth 17:2 and for ! in 1 Cor 15:51–2 in the 82 Schneider, Vollendung, 99–128. BDF § 433.2 mention Herm. Sim. 8.6.2 and Xen. An. 2.5.35 as examples of a negative standing after what is negated. 83 Herm. Sim. 8.6.1–2 (or Pastor 71.6): I 8 , (, Ú :!; M 8 , (, . Ω ∞&E, (, , ≈ ? Ú >&5 Ú >& ) 5 “ . À “, (, , ? à ; (Do you see, said he, how many have repented and been saved? Yes, Sir, said I, I see it. See then, said he, the mercifulness of the Lord, that it is great and glorious, and he has given his spirit to those who are worthy of repentance. Why then, Sir, said I, did not all repent? [trans. of The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. K. Lake, Cambridge, MA 1912–3, 2.202–4]). Schneider, Vollendung, 125–6 wrongly, in my view, objects to this example and makes this improbable translation: “That, also, I say, Lord, all did not repent?” – a trans. which depends on a wooden understanding of Greek grammar and a mistake about ≈, which is an adverb here. Jerker Blomqvist kindly called my attention (15 Dec. 2016) to Dio Chrysostom 40.13. … › &8 ÃÙ Ú F 8 Ú I ) ˆ • ¢ˆ &8 ¿? ¢ !? ! Ú & Ú & , ? ¢ &Ï ? à D ! where the negative clearly follows what is negated (… as if it were incumbent upon him [Trajan] to meet at the gate and there embrace all arrivals, or to speak the names of those who had not yet arrived, or to inquire about this one and that one, wanting to know how they were or why they had not all come, trans. of Dio Chrysostom, Discourses, 5 vols., LCL, trans. J. W. Cohoon and H. L. Crosby, Cambridge, MA 1932-51, 4.121). Cf. N. Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Vol. 3. Syntax, Edinburgh 1963, 286: “As a rule the negative precedes what is negatived …” (i.e., not always). 84 2 Bar 51:1, 3, 10 and for the active form 2 Bar 49:3. See chapt. 6 § 4.3. Cf. Payne Smith s.v. 1286. Zeller, Der Erste Brief, 520 makes this reference, which is appropriate. Others are less so: LAB 28.9 has nothing to do with resurrection (Et erit cum peccaverit mihi, et completum fuerit tempus, extinguetur scintilla et pausabit vena, et sic mutabuntur [But when he will sin against me and the time will be fulfilled, the spark will be extinguished and the spring will stop, and so they will pass away; trans. Jacobson, A Commentary, 1.144]). T. Benj. 10.8 (A) is a Christian text (see chapt. 6 § 4.11). 85 Cf. chapt. 6 § 3.4 and Zeller, Der Erste Brief, 520.
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Ethiopic NT.86 The difference, of course, is that Paul makes no mention of spirits. A comment of Jan Bremmer is appropriate here: “in the apostle Paul we rarely find psychȇ and never in respect to the afterlife.”87 Paul describes transformed bodies, not the transformed spirits of the Enochic text. His description of resurrection existence in 1 Cor 15 would resonate with individuals who were aware of the use of the predicates “immortality” and “imperishability” to describe the nature of the gods.88 Paul’s words, (! Û, ;(! , and !Û (imperishability, imperishable, immortality), in 1 Cor 15:50–54 are precisely those which Greek authors often used to describe the gods’ nature.89 1.3 Phil 3:21 The image in 1 Cor 15:51 closely resembles that of Phil 3:21 (√ Ù F : ( 2 : F & 5 Ã Ï 8 &! ÃÙ Ú Õ?5 Õ2 Ï ?).90 Still important is J. B. Lightfoot’s discussion of ( (form, shape) and F (form, shape) in Philippians. He argues that in Paul F has temporary, “accidental and outward” connotation, while ( implies a complete and entire change, into what is “intrinsic and essential.”91 Û in 2 Cor 11:13–5 means a fictitious transformation. (Û , however, expresses a complete and significant change (cf. 2 Cor 3:18). Although the verb ( ) can have negative senses in Paul (2 Cor 11:13–5), the use in Philippians is quite positive. Consequently, Lightfoot interprets 3:21 as “will change the fashion of the body of our humiliation and fix it in the form of the body of his glory.” Classical Greek, however, does not in general support his conclusions, so it is important to note the difference between classical and Pauline usage.92 86
Cf. Dillmann, Lexicon, 889–90 s.v. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 3. 88 Cf. chapt. 4 § 1. Cp. Endsjø, Resurrection, 40, 66, 151 for the use of ;(! to describe immortal flesh. 89 Celsus objected to the perishability of Jesus’s flesh (Origen Cels. 3.42; cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.17). 90 NRSV: “He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” The Ethiopic verb, however, for is not walaṭa ( l; see § 1.2.5 below) but ḥaddasa (@)), which means “renew, restore, renovate …” (Leslau, Comparative Dictionary, 225 s.v. and Dillmann, Lexicon, 128 s.v.). 91 J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, London 81888, 127–33. 92 The words can be near synonyms. Cf. Aristotle Cat. 10A P8 &Ó 8 F? Ú Ú A Õ? (7 (A fourth kind of quality is shape and the external form of each thing [J. L. Ackrille, Aristotle, Categories and De Interpretatione, Oxford 2002, 24]); Metaph. 7.1029A &Ó 8 — 8 , ; &Ó (7, &Ó Ù ( 8
&Ó Ó — ∑ Ù , &Ó ( Ù F F ∞&8, Ù &í Ù & ? Ù 87
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Phil 3:21 confirms that neither does the “late Paul” envision the abandonment of the earthly bodies of resurrected individuals: √ Ù F : ( 2 : F & 5 Ã … The crucial verb in context93 implies that the earthly bodies of humiliation themselves are transformed. This corresponds to both Jewish and pagan usage and Paul’s own (2 Cor 11:13–15). For example, in 2 Cor 11:14 Paul surely does not imagine Satan and a separate Satanic angel of light. The angel of light is Satan transformed.94 Markus Bockmuehl comments, “resurrection will not be a transition to a disembodied state but a ‘change,’ a transfiguring of the whole person.”95 The image in Philippians indicates a transformation of the physical body (i.e., something transitory) into a glorified body. This explains, for Lightfoot, Paul’s adoption of here instead of (˘ – although he could have used that verb.96 This usage of the verb may be compared with one found in Epicurus:
) (Now in one sense we call the matter the substrate; in another, the shape; and in a third, the combination of the two. By matter I mean, for instance, bronze; by shape, the arrangement of the form; and by the combination of the two, the concrete thing: the statue [Aristotle, Metaphysics, vol. 2, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Tredennick, Cambridge, MA 1933, 317]). Ptolemaeus De diff. vocabul. Μ 98 distinguishes them so: ( Ú F &(8 . ( Ó 8 Ú , F &Ó Ú . Ú F 8 Ù ƒ ? , ( &Ó Z ≈ ? (morphē and schēma are different. morphē is used for animate beings, schēma for inanimate. schēma is the end of ever inanimate object, morphē the end of ever animate being). [Archytas] logos 4 (H. Thesleff, The Pythagorean texts of the Hellenistic period, Abo 1965, 7) mentions the distinction used by Ptolemaeus, but adds this alternative: " &Ó ∂ a Ó Ù &Ï I?!, (Ï &Ó 5 F (? (some said that schēma is that which enters into depth, but morphē is the appearance of the surface). Cp. Josephus Ant. 6.333 (the vision of the witch of Endor) Ö I 8 ∂ ! 2 ! 2 ( ≈. &Ó ∞ ( ? [ ∞ ] Ú Ù F ! !8 Ú [ ] (… she said that someone was coming up in form like unto God. After commanding her to describe the likeness and appearance and age of the one she had seen … ). 93 Cf. J. Schneider, F, Û , TDNT 7 (1971) 954–958, esp. 957. 94 This text illuminates the usage in 3:21, pace Reumann, Philippians, 578 who claims the other NT uses do not help at 3:21a. 95 M. N. A. Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians, BNT, London 1998, 236. He further notes the close relationship between 1 Cor 15:49, 52 and Phil 3:21 (“it is only here [3:21] that the heavenly body of Christ is explicitly in view and seen as definitive of resurrection”). Dibelius, An die Philipper, 93 briefly comments on the relationship with 1 Cor 15:51. U. B. Müller, Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper, ThHK, Leipzig 1993, 183 argues that Phil 3:21 shows that the goal of 1 Cor 15:51 is transformation into the body of “his glory.” Lehtipuu, Debates, 48: “earthly bodies would be transformed.” J. Gnilka, Der Philipperbrief, HTK 10.3, Freiburg et al. 1980, 208 argues that the “transformation knows nothing substantial [of the body of humiliation] that remains” – interesting theological speculation, but not explicit in the text. 96 Lightfoot, Philippians, 131.
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For in the case of changes of configuration within our experience the figure is supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from the body. Ú Ï ) í ) 8 Ï Ù F ? I? , " &Ó Ã ? 2 I? , · ) , í 5 ≈ : .97
The one usage in the LXX is more metaphorical and implies no bodily transformation: “but as though transformed in the fire into immortality, he nobly endured the torments” ( í · Ú ∞ (! Õ8 Ã Ï 8I ) – in contrast with Paul’s affirmation.98 Jürgen Becker, commenting on 3:21, notes that the text implies the transformation (Verwandlung) of the body of humiliation is only reserved for the future yet to come.99 Transformation – not “replacement” or “duplication” in another form. If Paul had wished to say that earthly bodies were abandoned and “replaced” instead of “transformed,” !Û and !Ì were both available to him.100
97 Diog. Laert. 10.55 = Epicurus Ep. ad Herodot. 55 (trans. of Hicks, Diogenes Laertius, 2.585). The verb is also used (Callimachus Frag. gramm. 407 [OCT Pfeiffer]) for the transformation of the friends of Diomedes into herons, “one of the inhabitants said that the friends of Diomedes had been transformed into the form of birds” ( 8 ! &8 ÕÙ , › 7& / ∞ ¿ 8 ( !8 ). On the legend, see Ovid, Fastorum libri sex. 5 vols., ed., trans., comm. J. G. Frazer, London 1929, 3.186. See Philo Legat. 80 where Gaius transformed and recast the substance of one body into many kinds of forms (/Ù : Ã Ú ? ∞ (?) – e.g., Heracles, the Dioscuri, and Dionysus (Legat. 79), and cp. Cassius Dio 59.26.7 ([Gaius] Heracles, Dionysus, Poseidon, Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite). Philo Aet. 79 Ï &Ó F ¡ Ù ¢ , μ &Ó / &F ?W (F (We find annihilation of the prevailing quality in wax when moulded into a new form or when smoothed out without taking any other different shape, trans. Colson, Philo, 9.241). 98 4 Macc 9:22. 1 Kgdms 28:8 Symm has Ú Ì /ı. 99 J. Becker, Erwägungen zu Phil. 3,20-21, in: idem, Annäherungen zur urchristlichen Theologiegeschichte und zum Umgang mit ihren Quellen …, BZNW 76, Berlin 1995, 75–78, esp. 71. 100 !Û: Josh 5:7, Polyb. 21.32.11 (if any of the hostages died, another was to replace him; ; !? ). !Ì : in IG II2 1099.24 (121 CE) !Ì ∞ Ù / ı – a letter of Plotina Augusta, former director of the school, to the Epicureans, explaining that a rescript of Hadrian permitted any future director of the school in Athens to be replaced by a qualified Roman or peregrinus. For the meaning “replace” for both verbs, with examples, cf. DGE s.v.
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1.4 Summary of the Argument 1. The clear implication of the research on Û, Û and related terms (e.g., Ì) in this monograph is that in Judaism and paganism, in texts which describe resurrections, neither verb nor other related terms are used to describe the resurrection of a soul () or spirit ( ). This usage did not alter until the onset of so called “Gnostic” texts.101 In other words, the usage of the verbs and nouns implies the resurrection of a body and not the resurrection of a soul or spirit. 2. The Jewish resurrection traditions reviewed in chapter six envisage bodily resurrections – not the resurrection of a spirit. Claims that Jub. 23:26–31 envisions a resurrection of spirits are simply a misintepretation of the text.102 3. The pagan resurrection traditions reviewed in chapters one and two including Zoroastrianism also envisage bodily resurrections. 4. The text of 1 Cor 15 emphasizes the transformation of earthly bodies into pneumatic bodies, and not the “abandonment” of the earthly bodies while a new spiritual body is created for the risen dead. 5. 1 Thess 4:17 and Phil 3:21 also emphasize a transformation of earthly bodies into transported (1 Thess 4:17)103 or risen (Phil 3:21) bodies, although with different language. 6. The conclusion is unavoidable: Paul could not have conceived of a risen Jesus whose body was rotting away in the tomb.104 1.5 Possible Objections 1. One could assert that the semantic analysis of Û, Û and related nouns is wrong – that is, the words in resurrection contexts do not imply physical motion upward. In this case, the burden is on the scholar in question to show that in the context of resurrection, either Û or Û is used to refer only and clearly to spirits, souls, or astral bodies in a pagan or Jewish text. This is not to deny that there was a metaphorical usage of resurrection words in the NT and early Christianity (Col 2:12, 3:1, Eph 2:5–6). The metaphorical
101
See Cook, The use of Û, 269–74 and intro. § 3.3. See chapt. 6 § 4.2. 103 See chapt. 4, passim on translations of bodies. 104 Cf. also Cook, Resurrection in Paganism. Lüdemann (Resurrection, 46) is obliged by the force of the argumentation to accept Weiss’s position (Der erste Korintherbrief, 349): “Christ will have left the tomb with an already transfigured body,” due to 1 Cor 15:52 (similarity of the resurrection of believers and Christ). Lüdemann’s gratuitous statement (ibid.), “Paul knew no witnesses to the empty tomb” is a logically fallacious argumentum ex silentio. His statement that “the burial is connected with the death” ignores the explicit syntactical connection with Ú ≈ 7 . The burial is connected with death and resurrection. 102
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uses in the deutero-Paulines, however, are based on the image of the resurrection of Christ. In addition the metaphorical language implies that a transformation of the Christians’ bodies has already begun.105 2. One can respond that some ancient Jews in the Second Temple period believed in a resurrection of the spirit. Again the burden is on such scholars to prove that verbs (e.g., the Hebrew as in Sir 48:5 = ¡ Û LXX; tanšeʾa in Ethiopic; etc.) or nouns for resurrection (“standing up, waking/rising”) are combined syntactically (or semantically) with terms such as “spirit” or ‘soul.” Such evidence is absent. The assertion of some that there is a “resurrection of the soul” in ancient Judaism in a “category mistake.”106 Spirits do not “rise” in ancient Judaism, people do. 3. One could argue that pagan attitudes toward resurrection are irrelevant for the understanding of the NT – in particular, of Paul’s views in 1 Cor 15. However, Paul’s readers from pagan backgrounds would have viewed resurrection (as opposed to the immortality of the soul) as bodily. In that respect, there is a certain continuity between ancient Judaism and paganism, which is of fundamental importance for understanding the NT in its ancient context. 4. One could reject the interpretation above of 1 Thess 4:17 and Phil 3:21, but again that would entail abandoning the plain meaning of Paul’s words. In Thess 4:17 he emphasizes the translation (and presumed transformation) of earthly bodies, and in Phil 3:21 he clearly indicates the transformation of earthly bodies into resurrected bodies. 5. One could object to the exegesis of 1 Cor 15 above, but in that case the scholar is denying the plain meaning of Paul’s words, which emphasizes the transformation of earthly bodies into resurrected bodies (15:52–4). The only recourse left to the interpreter who asserts that Paul believed Christ’s body rotted in the tomb is to claim that Christ’s resurrection is fundamentally different from the general resurrection – that is, Christ received a new body while those in the general resurrection will receive transformed bodies. But this utterly desparate contention flies in the face of Paul’s argumentation in 15:12–28, 35–49. 6. One could accept the truth of the five premises above and still deny the conclusion for which I have argued. After all, the argument is not deductive, but inductive. In our guild as historians one can only appeal to probability, however, and if the premises are true, then the conclusion seems unavoidable: Paul could not have conceived of a resurrection of Christ without believing that
105 Tappenden, Resurrection, 235 argues persuasively for an “already and not yet” concept of resurrection in Paul – a “participatory event that is in the process of happening” (cf. 137–46 on Rom 6:1–11, and cp. 175–227 on “participating in resurrection” in the undisputed letters of Paul). 106 On these errors, cf. chapt. 6 § 4.2.
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his tomb was empty.107 One should not forget that by Paul’s own self description he was a miracle worker (Rom 15:19, 2 Cor 12:12, 1 Thess 1:5).108 Consequently, Paul would have had no trouble believing in a miraculously empty tomb.
2 Empty Tomb and Resurrection in Mark The narrative of the empty tomb in Mark’s Gospel illustrates his bodily conception of the resurrection of Jesus.109 The argument about 1 Corinthians above includes results that are relevant for the study of Mark’s tomb tradition: the use of the verb † Ô ! in resurrection narratives and concept of the resurrection of the body in paganism and Judaism imply that Paul, Mark, and other early Christians also could not have conceived of a resurrection of Jesus without an empty tomb. Consequently, Wilhelm Brückner’s thesis that Mark himself created the story is historically improbable – unless one wants to claim that Mark created the resurrection tradition too.110 The use of Û, Û and so 107
The first three objections are from my Resurrection in Paganism, 75. Betz, Gottmensch II, 291–2, although he discusses Paul’s theology, does not examine Paul’s own identity as a theios anēr of a sort. In this regard, some of Morton Smith’s remarks are useful. Cf. idem, Perils of the Paulines, review of W. Meeks, The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul, New Haven 1983, Washington Post, 10 April 1983, Final Edition, Book World, 15, “In sum, Meeks’ exegesis is that of a conscientious, commonsense, modern man, who has blundered into this world of ancient magic ...” If one substituted “miracles” for “ancient magic,” then Smith’s argument reveals the utter strangeness to modern readers of Paul’s experiences with his churches. 109 Contra Finney, Resurrection, 125 (with ref. to Mark 12:25–7), who writes with regard to Mark: “Mark’s framework of resurrection belief could well parallel that of Paul in that what is raised to be with God is the soul alone.” Mark 12:25–7 does not say that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are already raised from the dead, but only that God is the God of the living (˘ ). 110 W. Brückner, Die Berichte über die Auferstehung Jesu Christi, PrM 3 (1899) 41–47; 96–110; 153–160, esp. 105 (Mark “introduced into the world” 16:4 and 6). Cp. A. Yarbro Collins, Mark. A Commentary. Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2007, 781. D. Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium, HNT 3, Tübingen 1987, 266 argues that the end of the passion story (that is, the Gospel itself) was already in existence before Mark by referring to John 19:38–42, 20:1–18 (burial by Joseph of Arimathea and the discovery of the tomb by Mary Magdalene). W. L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, NICC, Grand Rapids 1974, 586 mentions the thesis of N. Q. Hamilton, Resurrection Tradition and the Composition of Mark, JBL 84 (1965) 415–21, esp. 420 that Mark composed the tomb narrative and that the story illustrates the removal of a hero [that is, a translation] and not a resurrection. Hamilton argues that it is actually an “anti-resurrection” tradition (ibid., 420). He fails to even mention 16:6, which contradicts his thesis. R. C. Miller, Mark’s Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical Antiquity, JBL (2010) 759–76 likewise mentions 16:6 (ibid. 772) only in ref. to the “mimetic signal” of a “missing body,” and does not discuss the problem of † Ô ! (he is risen). On ibid., 774, he does argue that Mark “does not fully innovate with his invocation of the ‘translation fable’ tradition” and notes that 108
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forth along with the Jewish and pagan concepts of resurrection indicate that the resurrection and empty tomb of Jesus stand or fall together for NT authors – as the early critics of the NT such as Celsus (resurrection is “absolutely the hope of worms”)111 clearly saw. The use of the verbs did not change until the onset of the “Gnostic” revisions of the concept of resurrection.112 François Bovon remarks that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre “was probably built over what was once the venerated tomb of Jesus.”113 That has been confirmed by the research of Joan E. Taylor who writes that “the traditional tomb of Jesus may very well be authentic.”114 Bovon’s statement, however, that Jesus “was buried in the pit reserved for those condemned to death” is not probable, because no such graves have been found in Judaea.115 Because of the arguments of David Hume, one cannot demonstrate that the tomb was empty miraculously.116 Hume’s arguments do not demonstrate that the tomb was not empty, however, and one of Robin Lane Fox’s comments about the account in John is intriguing, given that Lane Fox is a Roman historian and a self-avowedly non-theistic scholar: “the fourth gospel rests on an excellent primary source: a disciple who was very close to Jesus, who reclined beside him at the Last Supper, who saw into the empty tomb.”117 Lane Fox admits the limitations of the historical method in regard to the truth of the resurrection: “On the available evidence, historians cannot decide the matter: in my view, there is a primary source, the ‘beloved disciple’, who later claimed to have seen burial clothes in the empty tomb, but was his claim correct and did
1 Cor 15 “suggests prior community developments along these lines, mimetically following the Romulean eyewitness tradition.” He does not analyze † Ô ! in 1 Cor 15 either. 111 Origen Cels. 5.14 ( 7 ), cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29, specifically Cels. 2.55. Celsus knows of the tomb tradition and mocks it (Cels. 3.43). 112 Cf. Cook, “The use of Û,” 269–74 and intro. § 3. 113 F. Bovon, Luke 3. A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 19:28–24:53, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2012, 347. 114 J. E. Taylor, Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Burial, NTS 44 (1998) 180–203, esp. 182. She further argues (ibid., 195): “If Jerusalem Christians could remember the site of the crucifixion as being in the middle of a colonnaded street, they could probably pass on the memory of the site of the tomb.” See Melito Pass. 94, 704–6: “and now in the middle of a wide street and the city, in the middle in the day, as all watched, there was an unjust murder of a just person” &Ó Ú 8 Ú , / Ô Ô ? ¡ : / 8 & ;& ( (Melito of Sardis, On Pascha and Fragments, OECT, texts and trans. ed. S. G. Hall, Oxford 1979, 52). On the colonnaded Decumanus, cf. Taylor, ibid., 189. This article is a revision of her position in Christians and Holy Places. The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins, Oxford 1993, 135–42. 115 Bovon, Luke 3, 348. See J. G. Cook, Crucifixion and Burial, NTS 57 (2011) 193–213, esp. 206 (no known mass graves in Judaea at this time). 116 Hume, Of Miracles, 83–99. Cf. intro. § 1 proem. 117 R. Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version. Truth and Fiction in the Bible, New York 1993, 205, cp. 340 (“Jesus’ career and the reports of his empty tomb created their faith”).
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he draw the right conclusions?”118 Already in early Christianity there were alternative explanations for the empty tomb (Matt 28:13–5, John 20:15).119 The denial of the empty tomb in the history of reception deserves some attention. Jewish polemic against the resurrection of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu, including its explanation for the empty grave, has been reviewed above.120 Certainly the Platonist readers of the NT such as Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, and Macarius’s anonymous philosopher denied the resurrection of Jesus and consequently the empty tomb with it. Julian and Porphyry noted the inconsistencies in the tomb narratives of the different Gospels.121 At this time I have found no evidence of a Gnostic text that overtly rejects the empty tomb account, although one may exist somewhere. In the modern era, Pierre Viret, who apparently coined the term “Deistes” (Deists), wrote that they believe in some God, but “quant à Iesus Christ, & à tout ce que la doctrine des Euangelistes & des Apostres en tesmoignent, ils tiennent tout cela pour fables & resueries.”122 I suspect one of the early deniers of resurrection was Étienne Dolet, burned at the stake for, among other things, three words in his translation of a phrase in the Axiochus: ˆ Ï Ã >W (‘tu ne seras plus rien du tout’ [you will be nothing more at all]).123 A poem of Dolet to his son indicates his doubts concerning miracles.124 Paul Hoffmann has reviewed the criticism of the Easter
118
Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version, 360. Cp. Justin Dial. 108.2 and other similar texts in chapt. 6 § 10. ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 1025), Critique of Christian Origins, ed. and trans. G. S. Reynolds and S. K. Samir, Provo, UT 2010, 52 (2.219–21) denies the resurrection of Christ, since all do not recognize it to be true. This is natural since he also denied that Jesus was crucified (ibid., 75–8 [2.437–463]), because of his interpretation of Qurʾan 4:157 (see Reynolds and Samir, Critique, xxii–iii and 243 s.v. crucifixion). 120 Cf. chapt. 6 § 10. 121 Cf. Cook, New Testament, 54–61 (Celsus), 153–154 (Porphyry), 198–200 (Macarius’s anonymous Hellene), 300–301 (Julian). Cf. idem, Julian and Porphyry on the Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels, IJPT 10 (2016) 193–207 (a review of various Syriac traditions that preserve the objections of both philosophers). 122 P. Viret, Exposition de la doctrine de la foy chrestienne …, Geneve 1564, v (letter to the church in Montpellier): “concerning Jesus Christ and all that the teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles witness concerning him, they believe that all that is fables and dreams.” Cf. H. Busson, Le rationalisme dans la littérature française de la renaissance (1533–1601), Paris 1957, 517-18. I thank Carl Holladay for encouraging me to examine Deism’s approach to the tomb. 123 [Plato] Ax. 369c. Cf. R. Copley-Christie, Étienne Dolet: The Martyr of the Renaissance 1508–1546, London 1889, 461 and anon., Le Second Enfer d’Étienne Dolet suivi de la traduction des deux dialogues platoniciens l’Axiochus et l’Hipparchus, Paris 1868, 67 [Dolet’s trans. of the Axiochus published in 1544]. 124 Busson, Le rationalisme, 116. Busson reviews Dolet’s commentary on Cicero’s De Divinatione 2 (which expressed Cicero’s own doubts about miracles). 119
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tradition (including the tomb narrative) beginning with Hermann Samuel Reimarus and concluding with David Friedrich Strauß.125 Mark presumably is the earliest account in which the women find the empty tomb. In the treatment below, I will assume that the original ending of Mark was 16:8.126 The early church was uncomfortable with this ending as the variations, especially 16:9–20, show. Erich Klostermann refers in particular to the answer that the scribe of Codex Bobbiensis, the oldest Vetus Latina MS (k), supplied to the women’s question in 16:3127: But suddenly at the third hour the shadows of the day came across the whole globe, and the angels descended from the heavens, and they will arise in the glory of the living God; at the same time they ascended with him, and straightaway it was light. subito autem ad horam tertiam tenebrae diei factae sunt per totum orbem terrae, et descenderunt de caelis angeli, et surgent in claritate uiui dei; simul ascenderunt cum eo, et continuo lux facta est.128
This seems to be an attempt to describe the very moment of resurrection.129 Since the codex appears to be based on a text that is earlier than Cyprian, the tradition appears to go back at least to the first half of the third century and possibly even the late second century.130 The young man, almost certainly an angel in Mark’s perspective,131 informs the women of the resurrection: (16:6) But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. (16:7) But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” (NRSV mod.) (16:6) ¡ &Ó 8 Ã), ® !I )! H ∏ ) Ù T Ù Ù 8H † 8 !, Ã > „& H N& ¡ ≈ >! Ã . (7) Ï
125 P. Hoffmann, Tradition und Situation. Studien zur Jesusüberlieferung in der Logienquelle und den synoptischen Evangelien, 340–72. Cf. intro. § 1 proem. 126 One review of the evidence is J. G. Cook, Julian’s Contra Galilaeos and Cyril’s Contra Iulianum: Two Witnesses to the Short Ending of Mark, TC: A Journal of Biblical Text Criticism 20 (2015) (http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v20/index.html). 127 E. Klostermann, Das Markusevangelium, HNT 3, Tübingen 41950 (= 51950), 171. 128 Codex Bobbiensis (k), trans. of H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament. A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts, Oxford 2016, 161. 129 Cp. Gos. Pet. 36–42 (Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse, GCS Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I, ed. T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, Berlin 2004, 40–2). 130 Houghton, Latin New Testament, 10 (“its text appears to antedate Cyprian”). I thank Professor Houghton for his tentative remarks about the date of the tradition (communication of 18 May 2017). 131 See Yarbro Collins, Mark, 795 (“the motif of white shining clothes typically characterizes angels and other heavenly beings”). In 2 Macc 3:26 Û (youths) are angels as is the youth of Josephus A.J. 5.277 (;
! c 2 7 ? 9 [an angel of God resembling a handsome and large youth]). Angels’ garments are described in 2 Macc 11:8, Luke 24:4, Acts 1:10, and 10:30.
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Õ? N ) !) Ã Ú 2 8 9 ≈ ? Õa ∞ º H ) ÃÙ ƒ ! , !S ∂ Õ).
It is intriguing that MS k has surrexit (he rose) for † 8 !. To my knowledge the Old Latin MSS do not use a passive form such as resuscitatum est.132 Jerome’s comment on the parallel in Matthew is apt and shows the intimate relationship between empty tomb, resurrection, and faith: “come and see where he was placed, so that if you do not believe my words, you may believe the empty tomb” (uenite et uidete ubi positus erat, ut si meis uerbis non creditis uacuo credatis sepulchro).133 The perfect participle, 8, indicates that Jesus remains the crucified one.134 In my view, one of the most intriguing explorations of the theme of the empty tomb in the NT and elsewhere is the seminal essay by Elias Bickerman. His thesis that Mark’s account of the empty tomb is a translation narrative cannot be sustained.135 The narrative is not an apotheosis, as Daniel A. Smith astutely remarks. Jesus was already divine according to the text of the Gospel.136 In addition there is no use of verbs normally associated with translation such as U Ì or adjectives such as (. The use of the NT’s fundamental word for resurrection by Mark, † 8 !, is distinctive.137 Jesus is to appear in Galilee before any presumed ascension to
132
Cf. intro. § 5. Hier. Matth. (28.7) 4.1945-46 (CChr.SL 77, 280 Hurst/Adriaen), quoted by Klostermann, Das Markusevangelium, 171. 134 See M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Marc, Paris 1947, with ref. to Paul’s use of the same participle in 1 Cor 1:23, 2:2 and Gal 3:1 (“as if he were always [crucified] to intercede for us”); the aorist (2 Cor 13:4) is employed for the act of crucifixion. Cf. further Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 438–9. 135 Bickerman, Das leere Grab, passim. See chapt. 4 § 2.proem for his argument that epiphanies are inconsistent with the concept of translation (Entrückung). 136 D. A. Smith, The Post-Mortem Vindication of Jesus in the Sayings Gospel of Q, London 2007, 166 (with ref. to 1:11, 24, 5:7, 9:7, 13:32, 15:39). He also mentions Chariton Callirhoe 3.3 where Chaereas sees the empty tomb and wonders if a god has taken Callirhoe or if she was already a goddess (see chapt. 3 § 1.4). Smith’s argument that the story is not an “assumption” (normally an escape from death), because Jesus had already died misses the mark, because many translations are of individuals who had died. See chapt. 4 passim. D. A. Smith, Revisiting the Empty Tomb. The Early History of Easter, Minneapolis 2010, 77–8 seems unaware that Mark 16:6 renders any speculation that “an empty tomb story need not presuppose resurrection” useless. Since such speculation is unverifiable, there is no need to engage in it. Mark’s story presupposes resurrection and not translation. 137 In the 1924 article, Bickerman (Das leere Grab, 74) admitted that the verb does not belong in the “sequence” (Reihe) of translation narratives, because the enraptured individual becomes a god immediately after death, and there is no intermediary period. A resurrection requires an intermediary period between death and the appearance of the one who has returned to life. In his collected papers (ibid., 81), he included an addendum in which he tried to show that the verb itself in 16:6 refers to translation and not resurrection, since Mark uses the additional phrase “from the dead” (6:16, 12:26) when the verb refers to resurrection. Ì 133
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heaven, and this is fundamentally different from most translation narratives.138 No account of a Greco Roman translation I am aware of or any apotheosis of an emperor uses a verb for resurrection. The crux of Bickerman’s argument is that an account of resurrection is characterized by the following markers: 1. one either witnesses the event itself (as in the Gos. Pet. 35–44)139 or establishes the reality of the event; 2. resurrection is never proved by the disappearance of the body, but exclusively through the appearance of the one who has returned to life; 3. and the risen one is seen not in heaven or at a distance from the tomb, but walking on the earth near the tomb.140 The markers are useful but not always correct. Such a description of the genre is “realist,” and there are clear exceptions. Matthew, Luke, and John all include the empty tomb as part of their “demonstration” of the resurrection, and if the argument above is correct, Paul assumed its truth. In Luke (24:13–35) Jesus does not first appear “near the tomb” but on the road to Emmaus – and this is a clear divergence from marker three. Bickerman actually shows the weakness of his own description when he argues that the early tradition in 1 Cor 15 (i.e., 15:3–5) arises from “Hellenistic circles” that knew the dying and rising figures in the mysteries.141 Those “mysteries” surely included Osiris who rose again, but was confined to the netherworld (and who did not appear near his tomb) – a demonstration of the relative uselessness of overly realist definitions of literary genres.142 The theme of empty tombs was a familiar one in the ancient world. Aristeas disappeared from his temporary place of entombment (the fuller’s shop) and later appeared as a raven and as a phantom in Herodotus’s version. He received the honor due the gods and sacrifices in other accounts. Cleomedes, presumably still alive, disappeared from the chest he had hidden in and was honored as a hero with sacrifices. Many years after his death, Numa’s body had disappeared, although there is no evidence he underwent an apotheosis.143 Alcmene’s body disappeared from her bier.144 Zamolxis, by the artifice of living underground, appeared three years after people thought he had died. He promised his followers some kind of immortal life resembling either resurrection or metemsoma-
and Ì refer to resurrection (8:31, 9:9, 10:34, 12:18). This argument fails (see 5:41 > and intro. § 3). The meaning of the verbs depends on the context, not on the verb alone. 138 On this point, cf. Betz, Hero Worship, 46 and chapt. 4, passim. 139 Gos. Pet. 35–44 (42–4 Kraus and Nicklas). 140 Bickerman, Das leere Grab, 70 (he claims that the resurrection is witnessed in Matthew, contrary to the text), 74, 78. 141 Bickerman, Das leere Grab, 79. 142 On Osiris, cf. chapt. 1 § 4. 143 Chapt. 3 § 3.1. 144 Chapt. 3 § 3.3.
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tosis. In Antonius Diogenes’ novel Zamolxis appears to one of the protagonists.145 Although Romulus was not buried (in most traditions) his body disappeared, and he was honored as the god Quirinus after appearing to Julius Proculus.146 Callirhoe apparently died (a Scheintod), and her lover Chaereas discovered her empty tomb with the stones moved away from the entrance. Inside he found no corpse. He assumed that she had been translated to the gods.147 Callirhoe herself recovered from the strike to her diaphragm and “received another regeneration” (; ?I
). Eventually she regained consciousness: “and opening her eyes, she recovered the sense perception of one waking/rising from sleep” (& &Ó ˆ ¿(! ˆ N! ?I 8 5 —).148 The narrator describes Callirhoe’s summary of her experience: “Callirhoe was first to begin her narrative, how she returned to life in her tomb” ( : Ó 4 5 & )!, 8 2 ?(9).149 Philinnion disappeared from her tomb, walked the earth as a revenant, and her corpse was later found in her lover’s bedroom.150 Lucian’s Antigonus (in his Lover of Lies) asserts: “For I know someone who rose twenty days after he was buried” ( S Ï ∂&? Ï ∞ 8 ß ?( ?).151 Proclus included three stories of Naumachius of Epirus who described three individuals that returned to life after various periods in their tombs (nine months, fifteen days, and three days). They appeared either lying on their tombs or standing up (Ú I Ú ‡(! ≥ Ó !7 ) 7, ≥ &Ó Ú ( ).152 Polyidus raised Minos’s son Glaucus from the dead after being placed in the son’s tomb ( 2 I9).153 The Ptolemaic-Roman temple in Dendera vividly depicts the bodily resurrection of Osiris in his tomb (images 1 and 2).154 There are numerous translation accounts of heroes in which their bodies disappear when they were either alive or dead, including: Achilles (in the Aethiopis), Aeneas, Amphiaraus (under the earth), Apollonius of Tyana, Basileia, Belus, Branchus, Bormus, Ganymede, Hamilcar, and Semiramis.155 145
See chapt. 3 § 1.3. See chapt. 3 § 1.2. 147Fullmer, Resurrection, 73-93 investigates the date of the novel and its thematic similarities with the Markan tomb narrative including what he describes as Callirhoe’s “resurrection.” 148 Chariton Callirhoe 1.8.1. Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.4. 149 Chariton Callirhoe 8.1.14. Callirhoe (3.8.9) tells Aphrodite: “I have died, I have returned to life” (8!, 8). 150 Chapt. 3 § 1.7. 151 Lucian Philops. 26, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.21. 152 Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.28. 153 Palaephetus De incredibilibus 26. Hyg. Fab. 136 also mentions the resurrection in the tomb. See chapt. 2 § 1.4 and 2.8. 154 Cf. chapt. 1 § 4. 155 These translations are reviewed in chapt. 4 § 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.2.2, 2.1.7, 2.1.24, 2.1.8, 2.1.25, 2.1.14, 2.2.6, 2.1.29 respectively. 146
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The epiphanies of such individuals occasionally include verbs of sight similar to the one in the young man’s announcement of Christ’s future appearance to the disciples in the Galilee (16:7): “you will see him there ( ) ÃÙ ƒ ! ). Apollonius asserts that after Aristeas’s death in the fuller’s shop, he was seen by many (ÕÙ ! !F).156 Aeneas of Gaza remarks that he was seen 240 years after his death in Italy (& — > Ú ? ∏ c ® ¿(!F).157 Julius Proculus swore that Romulus “appeared handsome and mighty” ( Ù Ó ¿(!F Ú 8 ).158 Philinnion’s nurse saw her sitting next to her lover Machates (!8 ∂& ;! Ï 2 ®?W).159 Her tomb was empty at that point. Heroes such as the Dioscuri are “seen by those who are in danger on the sea” (¡ 8 ÕÙ E ! ?W & ).160 Leonynius used to say that he had seen Achilles on Leuke (∞& ) Ó >( ] 8).161 Maximus of Tyre had not seen Achilles or Hector, but I have seen the Dioscuri, in the form of bright stars, righting a ship in a storm. I have seen Asclepius, and that not in a dream. I have seen Heracles, in waking reality. ∂& &Ó Ú Ú :, 8 , ∞! 8H ∂& Ú Ù ] , í ÃÚ ƒ H ∂& Ú Ù Â 8, í — .162
Apollonius of Tyana told Damis that after his death, he would appear to him: “As I myself think, living,” he said, “but as you think, one returned to life” (ì› Ó S ∂, ,î ∂ ì› &Ó ˆ N , I I ”).163 Apollonius’s body disappeared, however, and only his soul was made immortal according to Philostratus.164 An old man claimed that he had recently seen Peregrinus in white clothing after his death ( Ï Ù !F ! ? ÃÙ E !F Ù > ! ).165 I have found no epiphanies of resurrected individuals in ancient Jewish texts – which is thoroughly consistent 156
Apollonius Hist. mir. 2.1. Aeneas of Gaza Theophrastus (63–4 Colonna). 158 Plutarch Rom. 28.1. Cp. Diony. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.63.3: >( 5 ç ∞& ) F (as he was coming in from the country, he saw Romulus departing from the city, trans. Cary) and Liv. 1.16.2: vacuam sedem regiam vidit (he saw that the royal seat was empty, trans. Foster). For these texts, see chapt. 3 § 1.2. 159 Phlegon De mir 1.1. 160 Isocrates Hel. enc. (Or. 10) 61, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.15. 161 Pausanias 3.19.13. 162 Maximus of Tyre Diss. 9.7 (BiTeu 76, Trapp). Celsus also attests the multitude of people who have seen and still see ( ? ∞& ) Ú > ¡ a) Asclepius (cf. Origen C. Cels. 3.24 in chapt. 4 § 2.1.5). 163 Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 7.41, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.23. 164 Cf. chapt. 4 § 2.2.2 for the references. 165 Lucian Peregr. 40. 157
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with the fact that the general resurrection is reserved for the future in Judaism. Jeremiah, for example, appeared in 2 Macc 15:15 in an intermediate state.166 It is well known that translated individuals such as Elijah could appear on earth (cp. Mark 9:4).167 The angel’s promise refers to a christophany of the risen Jesus and not the parousia, as Ernst Lohmeyer argued.168 This is clear for a number of reasons. Many events are to precede the return of Christ according to Mark 13.169 Andrew T. Lincoln notes that although ƒ ! is used in relation to the parousia (13:26, 14:62, and cp. 9:1), it is also used in relation to the resurrection (1 Cor 9:1, Matt 28:17, John 20:18, 25, 29).170 Certainly Matthew (28:7, 10, 16–20) interprets the angel to mean a resurrection appearance. Mark 14:28 relates the appearance temporally to the period after the resurrection event and not to the parousia. 13:26 and 14:62 specifically mention the Son of Man coming on the clouds. There is no similar context in 14:28 and 16:7. The youth’s reference to Peter clearly indicates the reestablishment of the community’s relationship with Jesus – an emphasis that fits the characteristics of a resurrection appearance much better than the parousia.171 ‡(! is not necessary to characterize a resurrection appearance, the context serves that purpose.
3 The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus in Q and Luke Luke’s traditions about Jesus’s resurrection are accompanied by his tradition about Jesus’s ascension (or translation in the language of this monograph). He incorporates, however, material from the Q source that may (or may not) imply a post-mortem exaltation of Jesus.
166
Cf. chapt. 6 § 1.6. Cp. Mark 15:35–6. In y. Ketuv. 12:3 (35a Venice), Elijah appears in the form of the older R. Hiyyah and heals Rebbi of a toothache: . Cf Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud Ö Tractate Ketubot, 539ñ40 (text and trans.). For many examples of such epiphanies, cf. Str-B 4.2.765–79 (“Das Wirken des entrückten Elias in der Gegenwart”). 168 E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelum des Markus, KEK 2, Göttingen 171967, 356 (‡(! [only in the Synoptic Gospels] is used for resurrection appearances – a thesis which begs the question about Markan usage). Cp. W. Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist, Nashville 1969, 75–94 and the counteraguments of A. Winn, The Purpose of Mark’s Gospel. An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda, WUNT 2/245, Tübingen 2008, 21–2 and Yarbro Collins, Mark, 671. 169 Cf. A. T. Lincoln, The Promise and the Failure: Mark 16:7, 8, in: The Interpretation of Mark, ed. W. R. Telford, Edinburgh 21995, 229–252, esp. 231 (first published in JBL 108 [1989] 283–300). 170 Lincoln, Promise, 231. 171 See Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium, 271. 167
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3.1 Q 13:34–35 The hypothetical source of Luke and Matthew, which scholars refer to as Q (from Quelle), does not contain any overt references to Jesus’s resurrection.172 Daniel A. Smith remarks that “While Q may have known about resurrection appearances or traditions … Q does not use ‘resurrection’ as the central theological axiom for vindication and validation as the Synoptics and Paul do.”173 This is self-evidently true if one accepts the current reconstruction of Q and, of course, if Q existed – which seems probable despite the silence of ancient sources and the absence of any find among the papyri in Egypt. Luke 13:34–35 (Q 13:34–35), however, may express a belief in the translation and exaltation of Jesus. 174 Luke 13:35 in particular, refers to the disappearance and subsequent reappearance of Jesus: See, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Ps 118:26; NRSV modified).175 ∞&ˆ ( Õ) ¡ ∂ Õ . 8
[&Ó] Õ), Ã N&8 A [•5 ≈ ] N , @Ã 8 ¡ ¿ .
In the critical edition of Q, Q 13:35 reads176: Look, your house is forsaken! .. I tell you, you will not see me until [[‹‹the time›› comes when]] you say: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ∞&ˆ ( Õ) ¡ ∂ Õ . 8
.. Õ), Ã N&8 A [[•5 ≈ ]] N , Ã 8 ¡ ¿ .
“You will not see me” corresponds to the images of disappearance in the translation narratives according to Dieter Zeller and Daniel A. Smith.177 Zeller uses 172 D. A. Smith, The “Assumption” of the Righteous Dead in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Sayings Gospel Q, SR 29 (2000) 287–299, esp. 289 with ref. to A. Harnack, The Sayings of Jesus. The Second Source of St. Matthew and St. Luke, London 1908, 170–1 (no Passion narrative). 173 Smith, The Post-Mortem Vindication, 30. He also concedes that Q 14:27 (Luke 14:27) implies that Q was aware of Jesus’s crucifixion (ibid., 13). 174 At this point, one should remind the guild that Q remains a hypothesis that is probably not falsifiable in the sense that most scientific hypotheses are falsifiable. Cf. in that regard, F. Watson, Q as Hypothesis: A Study in Methodology, NTS 55 (2009) 397–415. 175 The quotation is from Ps 118:26 and Ps 117:26 LXX. 176 J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. S. Kloppenborg, ed., The Critical Edition of Q …, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2000, 422 text and trans. The double brackets signify a doubtful reading. The double angle brackets indicate “a gist or flow of thought, or the most probable terms, which may well be rather clear, even though the Greek text could not be reconstructed” (ibid., lxxxvii). 177 D. Zeller, Entrückung zur Ankunft als Menschensohn (Lk 13, 34 f.; 11, 29f.), in: À cause de l’Évangile. Études sur les Synoptiques et les Actes offerts au P. Jacques Dupont, O.S.B. à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire, LeDiv 123, Paris 1985, 513–21 and Smith, The
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the imagery of Enoch and Elijah to illustrate the disappearance of Jesus in Q.178 Ã N&8 corresponds to Ú Ã ∂& ÃÙ > (and he no longer saw him) in 2 Kgs 2:12.179 Smith’s monograph is well-argued. Although Enoch and Elijah were translated while alive, Wis 4:7–17 seems to use Enoch’s assumption to refer to the “righteous one.”180 It is possible that Q conceived of Jesus’s vindication as something analogous to the Greek (and Jewish) translation narratives.181 Smith makes the interesting claim, with reference to Mark 16:1–8, that “the normal conclusion to draw from an empty tomb was assumption, not resurrection” and that “it is possible that Q 13:35 was formulated on the basis of rumours or traditions about an empty tomb.”182 This argument, however, is based on Bickerman’s erroneous conclusion that Mark 16:1–8 implies the translation and not the resurrection of Jesus.183 There is an assumption in Smith’s argument in the monograph that needs to be made more explicit. 1. Q 13:34–35 mentions the absence and future appearance of Jesus. 2. Q does not include resurrection traditions. 3. Greco-Roman (i.e., pagan) translation and Jewish translation narratives provide the best religious-historical background to interpret the absence and future appearance of Jesus in Q 13:34–35. 4. Consequently, Q presumes a narrative of post-mortem vindication that thoroughly deemphasizes the resurrection. The assumption is number three above. One could easily be forgiven, however, for simply following the traditional commentators who see Luke 13:34–5 as a forceful statement about the parousia of Christ and who are for the most part uninterested in translation narratives.184 It is quite easy to show that Q has an abiding interest in the day of resurrection (Q 11:31–2 = Luke 11:31–2), and although Q scholars object to the thesis that “Q was undoubtedly aware of the Post-Mortem Vindication, passim, and idem, The Resurrection of Jesus and Christian Origins: Q and Other Flies in the Ointment, FF Forum Third Series 1,2 (2007) 147–69, esp. 154–8 (e.g., Q 14:27 implies an awareness of Jesus’s death). 178 Zeller, Entrückung, 515–17. 179 Cp. J. S. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q. The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel, Minneapolis 2005, 377. 180 Smith, Assumption, 290 and passim, and Post-mortem Vindication, 81–4, 110–1 (along with Wis 5:1–5). In Wis 5:1–5 he “appears after his death as an exalted figure” (ibid., 294) and is “an angelic being” (one of the “sons of God”). Stone, Fourth Ezra, 172 is more skeptical: “the assumption of the righteous individual, described in Wisd 4:10–15, sounds suspiciously like that of Enoch, although a specific reference is not so likely there.” 181 Cp. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 365, and Smith, Post-mortem Vindication, passim. 182 Smith, Resurrection of Jesus, 158. 183 See § 2 above. In Smith’s defense (Resurrection of Jesus, 156) he concedes that † Ô ! (resurrection) is combined with “‘not-finding,’ a motif in assumption narratives.” 184 For one, see Holleman, Resurrection, 75, 100. It would be tedious to list them here. The list, if one naturally excludes the pre-moderns, would start with the enlightenment and number in the hundreds.
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day of Jesus’s resurrection,” I would assert that such an ignorance of Jesus’s resurrection is improbable historically.185 There is no explicit insistence in Q that Jesus was exalted (Õ !F).186 Speculations about Christian origins are often useful, but such speculations are inherently flimsy, and the conclusion of a Roman historian such as Lane Fox, to my mind, which I quoted above is of remarkable value. 3.2 Resurrection in Luke 24 The two men who appear to the women in the empty tomb are angels – Luke’s description (24:4) of their garments that “shine like lightning” is clear (∞&ˆ ;& & 8 Ã) !F W).187 Angels appear in shining garments in Biblical literature, but some Hellenistic readers of Luke might have been familiar with similar descriptions of epiphanies in Greek literature.188 Plato describes a woman dressed in white ( Ï "?) who appears to Socrates in a dream and prophecies his death. In Xenophon’s Memorabilia, a very tall Aretē (Virtue) wears a white garment ( !F &Ó E) in Prodicus’s essay on the choice of Heracles. In a papyrus from the second century C.E., a mother has a vision of a very tall Imouthes/Asclepius in shining garments ( ( )) †( Ô/ ¿!ı), and her son dreams the same thing.189 The angels’ query to the woman, “why do you seek the living among the dead?” (P ) Ù Ï ;), includes a use of the verb Ì (live) that is fairly rare in the NT – to refer to “dead persons who return to life.”190 There are actually two variations of this usage: a person who “returns to life,” or a person who “is alive” that was dead.191 The first sense appears in 3 Kgdms 17:22 (Aquila: Ú Ì( & Û Ù > Ã, Ú > )192 and the second in 3 Kgdms 17:23 (LXX: M 8 , E ¡ " ).193 In Isa 26:19, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion use ([the dead] will return to life) to express the resurrection 185
Cp. Miller, Resurrection, 190. Q also does not use any of the traditional words for translation either. 187 This is apparent from 24:23. 188 See § 2 above for the garments of angels in Biblical literature. 189 Plato Crito 44a-b, P. Oxy 1381, col. vi, 119–120 [II C.E., TM 63689]. Lucian Philops. 25 a young man in a white garment ( Ù "?) leads an individual to Hades; Philostratus Imag. 1.27 the dream god wears a white garment ( !F > ) over a black one; Xenophon Mem. 2.1.22 = Stobaeus Anthol. 3.1.205b. The examples are from the author’s Pagans and Christians, Oxford Handbook of Early Biblical Interpretation, forthcoming. 190 BDAG s.v. See the discussion in intro. § 4. 191 “Return to life”: Matt 9:18, Rom 14:9, Rev 20:4-5. “be alive” (after death): Luke 24:5, 23, Acts 9:41, 20:12, 25:19, 2 Cor 13:4, Rev 1:18. Cf. intro. § 4. 192 “… and the life of the child returned to him, and he revived.” 193 “See, your son is alive.” 186
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hope. Classical texts also express the return to life of various individuals with the verb. There is an analogy to Luke’s usage in Euripides’ Alcestis, in which Heracles brings Alcestis back from the underworld. Admetus asks Heracles, “But do I see my wife, whom I buried?” ( í ` >! ∞ &? í 7;) and “Shall I embrace and greet her as my living wife?” (!
, › &? í 7;).194 Her husband originally thought she was a phantom of the underworld ((? 8 ).195 In Chariton’s novel, the theme of the apparent deaths of Callirhoe and Chaereas includes many occurrences of Ì in statements that refer to the life of both protagonists – despite their belief (or that of others) that they are dead. The bandit leader, Theron, confesses that in her tomb “we found the corpse alive” ( — ?).196 Dionysius, for example, was aware that “already the story is reaching Sicily that Callirhoe is alive” (4& 8 (8 Ù Ù ∞ &7 E ).197 He also did not believe that Chaereas was alive (F Ó “ # 8 Ã ).198 Aelius Aristides refers to Protesilaos’s temporary return to life: “if just as they tell of Protesilaos, who after pleading with the gods of the Underworld again joined the living” ( ∞ !? Ù ( ? ˆ ?
F! Ï : ).199 Diodorus Siculus gives a rationalistic explanation for the belief that Asclepius had made alive many who had died (&Ï ˆ & ) ) ? ).200 The apologist Theophilus describes Heracles’ return to life: “you believe that Heracles who burned himself lives” ( Ó Â 8 /Ù F).201 Lucian uses the verb to describe the resurrection of Adonis: “they first make offerings to Adonis as to the dead, and afterwards, on the next day, they recite the myth that he lives and send him into the air” ( Ó 2 ]&:& ≈ 8, Ï &Ó E /8 W 8 W : 8 ! 8 Ú Ù †8 8).202 The Curetes tell Minos, whose son Glaucus had died, that a diviner with certain gifts “will return to him his child alive” ( Ù )& &: ).203 As noted 194
Euripides Alc. 1129, 1131, trans. of Kovacs, Euripides, 1.277. See chapt. 2 § 1.2. Euripides Alc. 1127. 196 Chariton Callirhoe 3.4.14. See chapt. 3 § 1.4. 197 Chariton Callirhoe 3.2.7. Cf. chapt. 3 §1.4. 198 Chariton Callirhoe 4.5.10. Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.4. 199 Aristides Or. 3.365 (trans. Behr). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.14. 200 Diod. Sic. 4.71.1, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9. 201 Theophilus Autol. 1.13, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.9 (end). 202 Lucian Dea s. 6 (trans. of Lightfoot, mod.). See chapt. 1 § 5. 203 Apollodorus Bibl. 3.3.1 (3.18 Wagner). In the same text Minos insists that Polyidus recover his son alive ( 8 &Ó ® ≈ & ) Ú I ) Ã ). Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.4. 195
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above (§ 2) Apollonius of Tyana tells Damis, with regard to his trial before Domitian, that he will appear to him. Damis will think that he has risen from the dead, but Apollonius believes that he will be alive (› Ó S ∂, , ∂ › &Ó ˆ N , I I ).204 Proclus believed that a trace of life remained in certain individuals who appeared to be dead, but then apparently returned to life: Exactly like in the case of those who lived long ago, Aristeas the Proconnesian and Hermodorus the Clazomenian and Epimenides the Cretan are reported after their deaths to exist among the living. !? & Ú Ú ? " Ú ] 8 ¡ 7 Ú & ¡ 8 Ú C & ¡ 7, Ï !? ) .205
The classical examples provide a context for the use of the occasional verb in the LXX and the NT for resurrection. The angels refer to the resurrection of Christ in both active and passive grammatical voice: (24:6) He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again (NRSV). (24:6) Ã > „& , ª † 8 !. 7! › ? Õ) > Ë E º c, (7) 8
Ù "Ù ! : ≈ & ) &!F ∞ ) ! : U Ú !F Ú E W 8 c F.
The use of both voices probably indicates that there is little need to translate † 8 ! in 24:6 in a passive sense, especially since both the resurrection predictions (9:22 !F; 18:33 ) similarly alternative grammatical voice.206 In Luke 7:16 it is apparent that † 8 ! is used in an intransitive sense: “a great prophet has risen among us” ( (7 8 † 8 ! )).207 The report to Herod the tetrarch in Luke 9:7 about John’s resurrection (∏ ? † 8 ! ) can be translated either way (i.e., “John has risen from the dead” or “John has been raised from the dead”). It is intriguing that MS D has a variation with the intransitive usage: Ô (from the dead he has risen).208 A number of other passive forms of Û in Luke should clearly be translated in the intransitive.209 The weight 204
Philostratus Vita Apoll. 7.41, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.23. Proclus In Platon. rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll), cf. chapt 2 § 1.28. 206 See intro. § 3. 207 Similarly the aorist passive in 7:14 ( 8 !) should be translated “rise.” 208 MSS D, c, and e. The Vetus Latina MSS (c and e) have a mortuis resurrexit (from the dead he rose). 209 Luke 7:14 “young man, I say to you, arise/awake” (T , Ú 8
, 8 !); 11:8 “rising he will give” ( ! Ú &: ); 11:31 “the queen of the south will rise” (I !7 ); 13:25 “once the house owner rises” ((í ” i !E 205
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of the evidence, consequently, is in favor of an intransitive translation of 24:6 (i.e., “he has risen”). Joseph Fitzmyer appeals to the numerous statements in Acts that “God raised Jesus” to argue for a passive translation, which he calls a “theological passive.”210 The passivum divinum is a chimera, however, and Fitzmeyer felt no need to posit a “theological intransitive” for 24:7 (F).211 The argument from Acts also fails, because Luke can use Û to refer to God’s resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2:32 “this Jesus God raised” [ Ù ∏ 8 ¡ ! ]),212 and can use same verb in the intransitive form to refer to Christ’s resurrection (e.g., 10:41 “we ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” [ (? Ú Ã2 Ï Ù F ÃÙ ]).213 Scholars have not found it necessary to define a “divine intransitive” into existence in Luke Acts. What may be of more significance is that Luke used a verb that can mean “wake up” in combination with a physical movement upward. Jesus told (7:52) the mourners, for example, that Jairus’s daughter had not died but was asleep (Ã Ï 8! Ï ! & ). In the company of the three disciples and her parents he commands her (7:54), “child, wake up/rise” (Â ), > ). That element of meaning in the verb is probably present in the affirmation in 24:6.214 The disappearance of Jesus’s body (24:3 “they did not find the body” [Ã ” Ù ]) resembles translation narratives, although the mention of his resurrection distinguishes Luke’s narrative from the many examples of translation in antiquity. The translations to which Luke Timothy Johnson alludes in his comments on the empty tomb have one of the other key differences that Bickerman pointed out – in a translation story there is an immediate apotheosis
¡ ∞& ); and 21:10 “nation will rise against nation” (C !7 >! í >!). 210 J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV, AB 28A, Garden City, NY 1985, 1545. See Acts 3:15 (“the one whom God raised from the dead” [√ ¡ ! Ù 4 ]), 4:10, 5:30, 10:40, 13:30, 37 (in all these examples Û is used). Acts 9:8, however, has an aorist passive form that clearly has an intransitive meaning: “Paul rose up from the earth” († 8 ! &Ó Ù F F). Luke uses no aorist passives for Jesus’s resurrection in Acts. D. L. Bock, with an argument similar to Fitzmyer’s, also appeals to what is likely the imaginary “theological passive” (Luke. Volume 2: 9:51–24:53, BECNT, Grand Rapids 1996, 1891). Bovon, Luke 3, 350–1, ignoring any alleged passivum divinum, simply translates 24:6 as “he is risen” as does J. B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, NICNT, Grand Rapids 1997, 835. 211 Against the passivum divinum, cf. intro. § 3.2. 212 Cp. Acts 2:24, 3:26, 13:33–4, 17:31. 213 Cp. Acts 17:3: “it was necessary that the Christ suffer and rise from the dead” (Ù # Ù >& ! ) Ú F ) 214 Cf. the semantic analysis in intro. § 3.1 and cf. Bremmer, Ghosts, 232–3.
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after the hero’s disappearance.215 Certainly Hellenistic translation stories do not all presuppose the disappearance of a hero’s body either. In Luke Jesus is already divine. Consequently, no apotheosis is necessary.216 The Christophany to the two disciples in the Emmaus narrative is clearly a resurrection appearance, but it also includes a motif that is characteristic of translation narratives in 24:31 (NRSV): “And he vanished from their sight” (Ú ÃÙ ;( 8 í Ã ). Pelops, for example, disappeared (;( > ) after Poseidon fell in love with him.217 The sudden vanishing of a hero is frequent in Greco-Roman literature218: Aeneas (†(!),219 Alexander the Great (( 5 ! : ),220 Amphiaraus (;( 8 ),221 Apollonius of Tyana ((!8),222 Astarte (( ),223 Basileia ((F 8!),224 Belus ((!F),225 Bormus ((!F),226 Echetlaus (D (7),227 Empedocles ((!F),228 Ganymede ((F 8!),229 Hamilcar ((!F),230 Heracles ( 5 ! : †(!),231 Hylas (( 8 ),232 and Julian the Apostate ( 5 ! : (!8).233 There are many other similar disappearances that the authors describe using different verbs for translation.234 215 L. T. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina 3, Collegeville, MN 1991, 389: Ovid Met. 14.805–51 (Romulus and Hersilia); and Diod. Sic. 4.38.3–5 (Heracles). Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.2 and 4 § 2.1.17. See Bickerman above in § 2. 216 Luke 1:35, 2:49, 3:38, 4:3, 9:35, 10:22, 22:70, 24:49, etc. See P. Pokorný, Theologie der lukanischen Schriften, FRLANT 174, Göttingen 1998, 112–5, R. F. O’Toole, Luke’s Presentation of Jesus. A Christology, StudBib 25, Rome 2004, 157–80, and S. J. Gathercole. The Preexistent Son. Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Grand Rapids 2006, 46–78 217 Pindar Ol. 1.46. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.10. 218 For these narratives, cf. chapter 4. 219 Diod. Sic. 7.5.2. 220 Arrian Anab. 7.27.3 (by disappearing in a river – he was foiled). 221 Diod. Sic. 4.65.8. 222 Philostratus Vit. Apol. 8.30. 223 Lucian Dea s. 4. 224 Diod. Sic. 3.57.8. 225 Abydenus apud Eus. P.E. 9.41.5. 226 Nymphis FGrH 432 F5. 227 Pausanias 1.32.5. 228 Diog. Laert. 8.69 (by jumping into a volcano). 229 Herodian 1.11.2. 230 Herodotus 7.166–7. 231 Lysias Epitaph. 11. 232 Antoninus Liberalis 26.4–5. 233 Greg. Naz. Or. (Contra Iul.) 5.14 (by disappearing in a river – his intention failed). 234 Cf. chapt. 4 and Smith, Post-Mortem Vindication, 53–85 (translation fables), Miller, Resurrection, 26–90, 150–200 (“translation fables and the Gospels”).
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The appearance of the risen Jesus to the eleven and those who were with them (24:33) in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36–43) is probably not a polemic against Paul’s understanding of resurrected body as ı. The thesis that Luke was aware of Corinthians seems highly spesculative.235 The disciples’ belief that they were seeing a spirit (24:37) should not be conflated with Paul’s resurrection kerygma. does not usually mean “ghost”236 in the usage of Luke Acts or the “spirit” of a dead person (Heb 12:23), but here “spirit” or “ghost” seems to be the most likely meaning. The concordance indicates that Luke uses the word frequently for impure or evil spirits.237 Jan Bremmer mentions a spell from late antiquity that protects a young girl from “every pneuma and phantasma and every animal.”238 The silver lamella from a child’s grave that seems to be from the late Roman period reads: I adjure you (pl.), by the living God, that every spirit and apparition and every beast, be gone from the soul of this woman ä Û Õa, /Ï ! { } / (), a / Ú (Ì / Ú a ! Û /F [[F]] / F F []/Ù ˜239
Kotansky argues that the amulet and other Greek similar liturgical exorcisms “can trace their ancestry to older texts of probably Hellenistic Jewish origin.”240 Hans Dieter Betz refers to a spell from late antiquity in which the magician calls upon Helios to give him authority over the spirit of a man who died a violent death (& /5 I!? /
235 For this creative view, cf. D. A. Smith, Seeing a Pneuma(tic Body): The Apologetic Interests of Luke 24:36–43, CBQ 72 (2010) 752–72, esp. 765–72. Smith’s thesis that the text is a polemic against 1 Cor 15 fails on multiple fronts – but most especially because as I have demonstrated above, Paul has a bodily conception of resurrection. Given the concept of resurrection in paganism and Judaism and the usage of Û , he would assume the existence of a tomb as a matter of course. See § 1 above. I am indebted to the forthcoming Emory dissertation (Raised From Ignorance to Knowledge: Recognition and the Resurrection Appearances in Luke 24) of Alexander P. Thomson for the point about Luke’s awareness of 1 Corinthians. 236 Smith, Seeing, 756 observes that if the word means “ghost” in Luke 24:37, 39, then it is a “lexical singularity.” Bremmer, Ghosts, 234–5 makes the same observation. BDAG s.v. § 4c, however, has “ghost” and classifies it in the lemma for “good or at least not expressly evil spirits or spirit-beings.” Cf. Heb 1:14, Rev. 1:4, 3:1, etc. 237 Cf. Bremmer, Ghosts, 234–5. Impure spirits (?! ): Luke 4:33, 36, 6:18, 8:29, 9:42, 11:24. Evil spirits: Lk 7:21; 8:2; 11:26, Acts 19:12–3, 15–6. A spirit of divination: Acts 16:16. Luke calls a demon a in 9:39 where the word occurs with no identifying adjective, and in 10:29 again it occurs alone with ref. to demons. 238 Bremmer, Ghosts, 235 citing R. Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets. The Inscribed Gold, silver, Copper, and Bronze Lamellae. Part I. Published Texts of Known Provenance, Papyrologica Coloniensia 22/1, Opladen, 1994, 384-86. 239 Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets, 383. 240 Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets, 386.
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).241 The best interpretation of the term in Luke 24:37 is probably “ghost.”242 In Job 4:15, a benevolent spirit is called a : Ú Ú F ! (“And a spirit came upon my face”).243 Luke can use words in a fairly unique sense such as ;
in Acts 12:15 where it is the Doppelgänger of Peter.244 Ludwig Lavater, in the first modern examination of the terminology for ghosts, classifies Luke’s as a clear example of a ghost.245 The terrified disciples fear they may be seeing some kind of , presumably benevolent but not necessarily. They do not know. Already Erich Klostermann recognized an apologetic intent in the appearance, although he believed it was to deny the disciples’ fear that Jesus was a ghost.246 Michael Wolter mentions Luke’s reference in Acts 23:8 to the existence of spirits.247 François Bovon argues that the disciples think “they are seeing a ‘spirit,’ a ‘ghost.’ To put it bluntly, the biblical tradition forbids necromancy not because the dead do not show themselves but because, on the contrary, they do appear when they are invoked, and then they are all the more dangerous.”248 Consequently, D is wrong text critically since it is the only MS to have (Ì 241 PGM IV, 1949–51. H. D. Betz, Zum Problem der Auferstehung Jesu im Lichte der griechischen magischen Papyri, in idem, Hellenismus und Urchristenum. Gesammelte Aufsätze I, Tübingen 1990, 230–61, esp. 243. He compares the expression to ˜&, ˜&Û (ghost of a dead person), N& ˜ (ghosts of the dead), Ì & &Û (assisting demon), etc. Cp. PGM XV, 16 Ï & (the spirits of those demons). Another use of “spirit” of a dead person is PGM XIX, 49: a 8 Ú Ù : (“every member of this dead body and the spirit of this tent, trans. of H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Chicago 1986, 257). Many occurrences of pneuma in magic texts have been tabulated in the lemmas of the LMPG [Léxico de magia y religión en los papiros mágicos griegos] s.v. Cf.‹http://dge.cchs.csic.es/lmpg›. 242 Betz, Zum Problem, 248 identifies the spirit as a “demon of the dead,” which is overly specific. The disciples might have conceived of the spirit as benign, if terrifying. 243 W. Bieder, , TDNT 6 (1968) 359–375, esp. 360 (“soft breeze”), 370 (“perhaps” “the personified which goes forth from and stands before the Lord” (as in 3 Kgdms 22:21). L. Wood, The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, Eugene, OR 1998, 17 believes the spirit is an angel. F. Bovon, Gespenst, Neues Bibel Lexicon, vol. 1, Zürich 1988, 830 writes that the spirit is a ghost. 244 Bovon, Gespenst, 830. 245 L. Lavater, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, variisque praesagitionibus … [Geneva 1570], 1–2. I thank Antonio Stramaglia for this reference. 246 E. Klostermann, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5, Tübingen 31975, 239. 247 M. Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5, Tübingen 2008, 789. He rejects the contention that the spirit is the spirit of the dead still walking the earth (for which see, W. Eckey, Das Lukasevangelium. Unter Berücksichtigung seiner Parallelen, vol. 2, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2004, 989 [a “ghost”]). 248 Bovon, Luke 3, 390 with ref. to J. Nolland, Luke 18:35–25:43, WBC 35c, Dallas 1993, 1213 who argues that the to “understand the role of ‘spirit’” one has to think of the world of necromancy: 1 Sam 28:3–19, Isa 8:19, 19:3 and 29:4. Noland also mentions 4 Ezra 7:80 (172
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here (phantom), but correct in its interpretation of the passage.249 Eduard Schweizer comments that “In a manner quite different from Hellenism in Lk 24:37, 39, Ac 23:8 f. certainly denotes a shadowy, non-corporeal existence which does not constitute the S Ãı (Lk. 24:39).”250 Ignatius interprets the Lukan tradition (or shares a common source) in his letter to the Smyrnaeans: And when he came to those with Peter he said to them: “Take, handle me and see that I am not a phantom [or “daimōn”] without a body.” Ú ≈ Ù ˆ Ú 8 D ! , >( Ã)H ì?I , (78 Ú N& , ≈ Ã ∞Ú & :.”251
Ignatius’s perspective is also Luke’s who in 24:39 emphasizes the tactile nature of Christ’s resurrected body: Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones252 as you see that I have (NRSV). N& Ï ) ? Ú ˆ & ≈ : ∞ Ã H (78 Ú N& , ≈ ? Ú ¿8 Ã > !S Ó ! ) >.
The attempt to build a sharp conceptual boundary between Paul’s understanding of resurrected bodies and that of the Gospels fails, in my view. François Bovon, although he notes Paul’s statement in 15:50, argues that Violet) where spirits of the dead who scorned the commandments roam the earth (inspirationes in habitationes non igredientur [the spirits will not enter the habitations]). The Syriac has (“souls”) for “spirits.” 249 Bovon, Luke, 3.390. 250 E. Schweizer, , TDNT 6 (1968) 389–455, esp. 415. 251 Ign. Smyrn. 3.2, trans. of Lake, Apostolic Fathers, 1.255. Cp. Jesus’ statement to the disciples in the Gospel of the Hebrews that he is not an “incorporeal demon.” Gos. Heb. apud Hier. Ill. 16 (ecce palpate me et uidete, quia non sum daemonium incorporale) and apud. Hier. Is. 18.praef. (cum enim apostoli eum putarent spiritum, uel iuxta euangelium, quod Hebraeorum lectitant Nazaraei, incorporale daemonium ...). Marcion also probably read phantasma (Tert. Marc. 4.43.6): cum haesitantibus eis, ne phantasma esset, immo phantasma credentibus: quid turbati estis? ...? videte manus meas et pedes, quia ipse ego sum, quoniam spiritus ossa non habet. See D. T. Roth, The Text of Marcion’s Gospel, NTTSD 49, Leiden 2015, 74, 182–3 (with some reservations due to Tert. Carn. Chr. 5.9 [fuit itaque phantasma etiam post resurrectionem cum manus et pedes suos discipulis inspiciendos offert, Aspicite, dicens, quod ego sum, quia spiritus ossa non habet sicut me habentem videtis]), 435 (Marcion’s 24:37: (Ì). The Marcionite Apelles (apud Hippolytus Ref. 7.38.4) combines John 20:25 and Luke 24:39: & 5 ˆ • Ú Ï ! ≈ ÃÙ N Ú Ã (?H Ï > D. Adamantius Dial. (GCS Dialog des Adamantius, 198 Bakhuyzen) precedes his quotation of Luke 24:38 with this comment: > ) !), & ÃÙ ( ∂. 252 This expression is ancient. Cf. Homer Od. 9.293, 11.219, Stesichorus frag. S15, col. 2 (Page)= frag. 19,38 Davies/Finglass, Euripides Hecuba 1071, Aristotle, Caelo 278a, Gen 29:14, and 2 Kgdms 5:1, 19:13.
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… the apostle, who emphasizes the spiritual character of the resurrection, nevertheless believes that for the resurrection to be personal it must be bodily. It is this aspect of Paul’s thought that Luke takes over; hence the famous expression “spiritual body” ( ı, 1 Cor 15:44), which has the twofold advantage that it ensures the continuity of the person ( , “body”) in the discontinuity of the nature ( ı, “spiritual”).253
Jesus’s ability to eat similarly distinguishes him from spirits. 3.3 Luke’s Ascension Narratives It will be readily apparent that Luke’s ascension narratives (Luke 24:51, Acts 1:1–11) correspond fairly closely to the translation narratives of Greco-Roman heroes and Roman emperors.254 Although his chronology of the ascension varies significantly between Gospel and Acts, it is clear that Luke regards the narrative as the completion of the resurrection tradition.255 The commentators naturally are drawn to parallels from Jewish tradition such as Elijah’s translation into heaven.256 Sir 48:9 uses the same verb adopted by Luke: ¡ (! Ú Ù b μ (He who was taken up in a whirlwind of fire in a chariot of fiery horses; NETS). The use of this verb for translation is confined to the LXX, NT, and later Christian sources.257 A similar formulation occurs in 4 Kgdms 2:11 (NETS), which describes the experience of Elisha and Elijah: And it happened, as they walked, that they were walking and talking, and behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and they separated between both, and Eliou was taken up in a whirlwind as into heaven.258 Ú 8 Ã 8 Ú ? , Ú ∞&ˆ b Ù Ú μ Ù Ú &8 Ï 8 (8 , Ú 7(! 2 › ∞ Ù Ã .
253
Bovon, Luke 3, 391. Cf. above on 1 Cor 15:50. Miller, Resurrection, 37 notes that consecratio is a “Roman variation on the larger translation fable pattern.” Cp. Wallace, Benefactor, in: Bryan and Pao, Ascent, 93–5. The usage of (! in Acts 1:2, given 1:11, and 1:22, almost certainly does not refer to the crucifixion. Cf. C. R. Holladay, Acts. A Commentary, NTL, Louisville, KY 2016, 75, 72. 255 John collapses Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Cf. H. Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, HNT 6, Tübingen 2005, 763, F. D. Bruner, The Gospel of John. A Commentary, Grand Rapids 2012, 1158. 256 Cf. Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 57–9, Zwiep, Ascension, 58–63. 257 (!: 4 Kgdms 2:11, 1 Macc 2:58, Sir 48:9, 49:14; (!: 1 En. 12:1. Luke is apparently the first to use ! for a translation. Lucian Imag. 21 uses in an image of winged individuals who do not fly too high, lest the wax of their wings melt ≈ &Ó Ï Ù & 7 ) ) Ú ? 7 ! Ö (But those who pattern after Daedalus in the use of their wings and do not fly too high …; trans. of Harmon, Lucian, 4.293). 258 The corresponding HB here is:
. 254
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The LXX uses the same verb ( 7(!) for Elijah’s translation, which Luke uses for Jesus’s ascension (Acts 1:2).259 Baruch is also taken to heaven before his death (2 Bar 76:2): For you shall surely depart from this earth, nevertheless not unto death, but you shall be preserved until (the consummation of) the times.260
( " .'& " % $# ." ! ."(# The last part of 76:2 actually reads “not for death but for keeping of times.”261 Enoch’s translation is similarly impressive. (1 En. 70:1) And after this, while he was living, his name was lifted up into the presence of that Son of Man262 ( # 9*: Å3md :Δ' ) Δ8 Δ 9*:), and into the presence of the Lord of the spirits, from among those who dwell on the earth. (2) He was lifted up on the chariots of the wind ( ÅVO"5 ∂-#), and his name departed ‹from› among them.263
The Ethiopic verb for “be elevated” (talaʿāla) corresponds to the occasional similar usage of passive forms in Greek translation narratives.264 In 1 En. 12:1 Enoch is similarly elevated to heaven: Before these things Enoch was taken, and no one265 knew where he was taken and where he is and what happened to him. Ù
7(! :, Ú Ã& Ú ! : > 7(! Ú Ú 8 Ã2.
The verb used for Enoch’s elevation corresponds closely to the one used by Luke in Acts 1:2. This corresponds roughly with Gen 5:24: 259 See also 1 Macc 2.58: 2 F 7(! ∞ Ù Ã (Elias, by becoming greatly zealous for the law, was taken up into heaven [NETS]) 260 In APOT 2.519, Charles observes that the Syriac has “unto preservation of times.” He uses the fuller forms found in 2 Bar 13:3 and 25:1 to create a sensible translation. 13:3 has the phrase Charles translates above as: “you will be preserved until the consummation of times”: "(# )& ' . 261 OTP 1.646, for the last clause of 76:2, has “… nevertheless not to death but to be kept unto (the end) of times.” Cf. Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 59–61, Zwiep, Ascension, 74–5. 262 “Son of the offspring of the mother of the living.” 263 Trans. of Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 315. The short reading in some MSS (cf. ibid., 315), “the living name of the Son of Man was exalted,” is probably an attempt to bring the text into conformity with 1 En 71 where Enoch is identical with the Son of Man (ibid., 318). 264 See chapt. 4 § 2.1.14. Cp. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 377 (who himself refers to a list of words for “assumption” gathered by Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt, 41–2). Kloppenberg also mentions the translation of Ezra (4 Ezra 14:9, 50 [Syriac] = 14.47 [430 Violet]). Stone, Fourth Ezra, 172 lists a number of Jewish translation narratives. 265 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 233 emends this to ã" õ ! : , and argues it was omitted by homoteleuton or by “purposeful omission.” The Ethiopic has “from the sons/children of men” (Δ:H) Δ).
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And Enoch walked with God, and was no more because God took him.
- - The LXX version differs somewhat from the HB: And Henoch was well pleasing to God, and he was not found, because God translated him. Ú Ã 8 @ 2 ! 2 Ú Ã Õ , ≈ 8! ÃÙ ¡ ! .
The language of translation, consequently, appears in 1 Enoch ( 7(!), and in both the HB () and LXX ( 8! ) and a number of other Jewish texts. In Wis 4:10–11 the author perhaps refers to Enoch’s translation using two verb forms ( 8!, ? ) that belong to the semantic field of the concept “being taken up”266: (4:10) One who became well-pleasing to God was beloved, and, while living amongst sinners, was taken; (11) he was seized in order that wickedness should not affect his understanding or guile deceive his soul. (4:10) Ã? ! 2 † 7! Ú 5ˆ U 8!H (11) ? , ?5W à ¢ & 7W ÷
Both of these verbs are fairly common in pagan texts of translation.267 Philo also refers to the translation of Enoch in the Armenian tradition of the QG, and in the text describing the translation he includes a reference to Moses: For the translation to another place is nothing else than another position; but he [Enoch] is said (to have moved) from a sensible and visible place to an incorporeal and intelligible form. This gift that the protoprophet (նախամարգարէն naxamargarēn)268 also obtained, for no one knew his burial-place. And still another, Elijah, followed him on high from earth to heaven at the appearance of the divine countenance, or, it would be more proper and correct to say, he ascended.269
Philo also refers to Elijah’s ascension in the same text. This seems to imply a post-mortem translation for Moses, since elsewhere Philo asserts that he had been buried by supernatural powers.270 Philo certainly does not deny the literal
266
Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 318 draws attention to the parallel. Sir 49:14 (NETS) has “No one was created on earth such as Henoch, for he too was taken up from the earth” (°Ã& Ú ! Ú F F ∑ @ H Ú Ï ÃÙ 7(! Ù F F). 268 Cf. G. Avetikʿean, X. Siwrmēlean, and H. M. Awgerean, Nor Baṛgirkʿ Haykazean Lezui [New Dictionary of the Armenian Language], Venice 1836–1837, 391 s.v., who indicate that the word translated the Greek term (. Justin Apol. 1.59.1 describes Moses as : (7 and in 1.32.1 he is ( . Movses Khorenatsi, History of the Armenians, 3.37 (Moïse de Khorène, Histoire d’Arménie. Texte arménien et traduction française …, 2 vols., ed. and trans. P. E. le Vaillant de Florival, Venise 1841, 2.88–9) uses this expression to describe Moses. I thank Seda Stamboltsyan for this reference. 269 Philo QG 1.86 (on Gen 5:24), trans. of Marcus, Philo, Supplement 1.54. 270 Philo Vit. Mos. 2.291. Cf. Smith, Post-Mortem, 76. 267
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interpretation of the text (Gen 5:24) either. In his treatise On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, he writes: And so when Moses was about to die we do not hear of him “leaving” or “being added” like those others. No room in him for adding or taking away. But through the ‘Word’ of the Supreme Cause he is translated (Deut. 34:5) even through that Word by which also the whole universe was formed. a > ”, Ã S ! · " 7 ! 7 ( :, Ï Ñ&Ï X7ì ∞ , &í ” Ú ¡ & )·271
Smith comments on the similarity of the post-mortem translation of Moses to that of certain individuals in paganism.272 Although Josephus does not describe a translation of Moses to heaven, there are certain features common to many translation narratives in his account: And while he bade farewell to Eleazar and Joshua and was yet communing with them, a cloud of a sudden descended upon him and he disappeared in a ravine. But he has written of himself in the sacred books that he died, for fear lest they should venture to say that by reason of his surpassing virtue he had gone back to the Deity. 8 &Ó Ú Ù C ? Ã Ú Ù ∏ Ú >, 8( ∞(& ÕÓ ÃÙ ? ( ? (?
.
8 ( &í ÕÙ ) " ) II ! , & &í Õ I F Ú ÃÙ F Ù Ù ! ) ÃÙ F 7 ∞ ).273
The account bears a good deal of similarities to Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s ascension, although the difference is patent. A post-mortem translation of Job’s dead children occurs in the Testament of Job.274 (39:11) And they want to bury them, but I prevented them saving, “do not labor in vain, (39:12) for you will not find my children, because they have been taken up to heaven by their creator, the king.”
271
Philo Sacr. 8, trans. of Colson, Philo, 2.101. Smith, Post-Mortem Vindication, 53–66 (on 66 he briefly compares the Jewish accounts to those among paganism). His survey of translations in Jewish literature (ibid., 66–85) is superb. 273 Josephus A.J. 4.326, trans. of Thackeray, Josephus, 4.633. In A.J. 3.36 some do believe that Moses had returned to God ( Ù Ù ! ) 8). In 3.97, some thought “that he should be translated by God to himself by reason of his inherent virtue was likely enough (Ù ÕÙ ! Ù ÃÙ F &Ï ∞Ù [trans. Thackeray, ibid., 4.363]). Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 62 erroneously argues that 4.326 is a translation narrative – but Josephus makes it clear that Moses died. Cp. Zwiep, Ascension, 64– 71 (he also attempts to show that Josephus envisions Moses’ “rapture”) and R. D. Aus, The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, and the Death, Burial, and Translation of Moses in Judaic Tradition, Lanham, MD 2008, 208–30. 274 T. Job 39.11-12, cf. Smith, Post-Mortem Vindication, 85. 272
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(39:11) Ú " Ó F ! ∞ Ù ? , S &Ó : 8
® ? ∞E, (12) Ã Ï Õ 7 Ï & , & 7(! ∞ Ã ˆ ÕÙ & Ã I 8 .275
The author’s verb for the children’s translation is that used by Luke (Acts 1:2). In 4 Ezra 14:9 the seer is told that he will be taken up to heaven: For you will be taken up from among humans (“the children of human”).276
"( (# + *
The Syriac of an addition to 4 Ezra 14:47 asserts that Ezra was “taken up” ( ).277 The Jewish and Hellenistic instances of translation are closely analogous to the ascension of Jesus in Luke. A cloud envelops Romulus during his translation according to Livy.278 A cloud took Heracles to heaven.279 A whirlwind snatches Ganymede up.280 The divinity who had sexual intercourse with the mother (Ilia) of Romulus and Remus explained her pregnancy and the destiny of her sons: “and saying these things, he was covered all around by a cloud and being lifted up from the earth, was taken upward through the air” ( &Ó ∞ 8( (!F Ú Ù F !8 (8 ! &í 8 ; ).281 The cloud either takes Jesus up out of the sight of the onlookers, or it enveloped him during the ascension (Acts 1:9): (8 Õ8 I ÃÙ Ù
275
Cf. Smith’s discussion (Post-Mortem Vindication, 85). Tu enim recipieris ab hominibus (406 Violet). 277 For the Syriac text (codex Ambrosianus), cf. A. M. Ceriani, Monumenta sacra et profana ex codicibus praesertim bibliothecae Ambrosianae … Tom. V. Opuscula et fragmenta miscella magnam partem apocrypha, Mediolani 1868–71, 107. B. Metzger (OTP 1.555) notes that the Ethiopic, Arabic 1 [“Arabic Ew.” in Violet], and Armenian versions have similar endings. Cf. 4 Ezra 14:47 (430–1 Violet). Violet (430) also includes the trans. of a Syroarabic fragment that includes the translation of the seer. On Ezra, cf. Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 59–61, Zwiep, Ascension, 72–4. 278 Liv. 1.16.1-4. See chapt. 3 § 1.2. 279 Apollodorus 2.7.7, cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.17. H. Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles. A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Hermeneia, Philadelphia 1987, 7 affirms that the cloud was the vehicle that took him to heaven. J. D. G. Dunn, The Acts of the Apostles, Valley Forge, PA 1996, 13 interprets Luke to mean “transportation by a cloud” as does C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols., ICC, London 2004, 1.82 who argues that “the cloud received him would be an adequate rendering of IÌ , not of the compound verb.” He, consequently, translates Õ IÌ as “to take up by getting under,” a lemma from LSJ s.v. 280 For Hymn. in Ven. (5) 202-8 (whirlwind) and Dosiades BNJ 458 Frag. 5 (storm and cloud), cf. chapt. 4 § 2.1.14. 281 Dionysius Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1.77.2. Cf. Lohfink, Himmelfahrt, 44 and Barrett, Acts, 81–2. 276
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¿(! Ã .282 In the first case, the cloud is the vehicle of ascension, and in the second it merely hides Jesus.283 Although Moses was not translated, according to Josephus, he did disappear in a cloud.284 In 1 En. 39:3 a cloud and whirlwind take Enoch to heaven.285 In the Apocalypse of Esdras a cloud takes the seer to heaven.286 Paul (1 Thess 4:17) affirms that after the return of Christ those left alive will be taken up in the clouds to meet him. The two witnesses in Rev 11:11–2 rise from the dead and ascend to heaven in a cloud. The relationship between the ascension and exaltation in Luke with the apotheoses of the emperors is also significant.287 It is probable that in Acts 2:33 Luke identifies the referential meaning of exaltation (Õ ! Û) with the ascension. Holladay writes, If Ps 110 [Acts 2:34] is read alongside Ps 16 [Acts 2:25–28], it allows readers to envision the resurrected Messiah of Ps 16 moving into a second stage of after-death experience – being exalted to a heavenly position beside the enthroned God. This helps explain why Luke reports Jesus’s ascension as an event separate from the resurrection.288
Zwiep’s arguments that for Luke “exaltation” only refers to resurrection are unconvincing.289 Even if the use of ÔI for ascension in 2:34 is “traditional,” it is apparent that Luke contrasts Jesus’s own ascension with the one David did not experience.290 In addition, it is clear that Jesus received the promise of the spirit (2:33) after the exaltation. The flow of the narrative in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4 implies that in Luke’s view Jesus had not yet received that promise at 282 BDAG s.v. Õ IÌ , appealing to Josephus A.J. 11.238 ) ? Ã Õ IS (taking her up in his arms), translate “a cloud took him up, out of their sight.” 283 E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles. A Commentary, Philadelphia 1971, 149 attempts to differentiate Luke from Jewish and pagan traditions by arguing that “no earthly element (a whirlwind or the cloud itself) bears the exalted one aloft.” R. Pervo, Acts. A Commentary, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2009, 40 avoids the issue by translating, “he was taken up, hidden from their sight by a cloud.” 284 Josephus A.J. 4.326 (quoted above). 285 Cf. Holladay, Acts, 75. 286 Apoc. Esr. 5:7. See § 1.1 above. 287 Cp. Kezbere, Umstrittener Monotheismus, 31–5 with remarks on consecratio but not on the heavenly ascent of the deified imperators. 288 Holladay, Acts, 105. 289 Zwiep, Ascension, 153–7. For the distinction between sense and reference, cf. Baldinger, Semantic Theory, 3–13 and intro. § 2. 290 Zwiep, Ascension, 155–6 argues that the use of the word is “un-Lukan” – a failure to recognize the argumentative force of the text (Ã Ì ) – whatever the ultimate source of ÔI is in 2:34. Luke may use ÔI simply because he chose to refer to David’s (non) ascension with an active verb, consequently the passive forms of the verbs he used for Jesus’s ascension were inappropriate (Luke 24:41 (Ô ; Acts 1:2, 22 (!; Acts 1:9 !; 1:11 (! Û). Perhaps he found ı (1:9, 1:11) too vague (lacking the component “upward”) for the image he wished to convey in 2:34. See Pervo, Acts, 83: “The citation of Ps 109:1 LXX shows that Luke equates ascension with exaltation, that is, empowerment.”
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the resurrection, but only after the ascension/exaltation. The ascension/exaltation of Jesus would be an image familiar to those who were aware of Roman imperial propaganda of the apotheoses of emperors.291 The exaltation to the right hand of God (E & 5¹ “ ! Õ ! Û), which results in Jesus’s reception of the promise and of his reign on the throne of David (Luke 1:32, Acts 2:30), resembles the deification and flight to heaven of the imperators.292 The contexts of the narratives of translation (both Jewish and Hellenistic) are somewhat different from that of Jesus’s ascension, which is the only one that presupposes a resurrection. Nevertheless, Mediterranean people from Jewish or Hellenistic backgrounds would have perhaps found the notion of Jesus’s ascension in Luke Acts congenial. There are many accounts of the translation of pagan heroes, so in a sense it was expected. Although the number of individuals who experienced translations in Judaism was limited, it is apparent that ancient Jews could have viewed Jesus’s ascension in light of the translations of Elijah, Enoch, and other figures in later apocalyptic texts such as Ezra. Luke’s references in Acts to Jesus’s being taken up fit well into this cultural matrix.
4 Conclusion If the argument of this chapter is sound, then there is not a fundamental difference between Paul’s conception of the resurrection body and the images in Mark and Luke of Jesus’s risen body. That argument is based on the conceptions of bodily resurrection in paganism and Judaism, the use of the verb Û and related terms in contexts describing resurrections, and various texts of Paul. Paul almost certainly could not have conceived of the risen Christ’s body rotting away in a tomb. Jewish and pagan instances of resurrection and translation probably rendered the Christian assertions of Jesus’s resurrection (including the disappearance of his body from the tomb) more congenial to ancient Mediterranean people. It is not demonstrable that Q 13:34–5 (Luke 13:34– 5) presupposes an exaltation Christology, although it is possible. The ascension of Jesus closely resembles translation narratives in paganism and in Judaism along with the narratives of imperial apotheosis. Those narratives probably rendered the ascension and exaltation of Jesus more credible to the Mediterranean audience of the Christian missionaries’ proclamation.
291 292
For a review of some of these apotheoses, cf. chapter 5. Of course, for Luke Jesus was already son of God before the ascension. See § 3.2 above.
Conclusion
Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Apotheosis The Greek terminology for resurrection in Jewish and early Christian texts emerged from the surrounding culture of Hellenism.1 Pagan and Jewish usage of Û (wake/raise) and Û (raise) and related words for resurrection does not refer to the resurrection of a soul () or spirit ( ). The verbs are used to express the resurrection of a body in classical and Jewish sources. The emerging Gnostic movement in the second century, however, did include the concept of the resurrection of a soul in certain texts.2 The vast majority of the usages of Ô (make alive) are in Jewish or Christian texts, although a scholiast of Euripides uses the verb for Asclepius’s resurrections, and Euripides used it in an image of giving life to statues.3 Latin Christian authors tended to use surgo and resurgo for resurrection, presumably because of the verbs’ close relation to Û and Û, and not the expressions that classical Latin authors adopted. Resurrectio is a coinage of Christian writers. Classical authors employed other language to express resurrection such as uitam reddidisse (restored life).4 The imagery of an apocalyptic resurrection can be traced ultimately to the Zoroastrians, and Theopompus (fourth century B.C.E.) was aware of their ideas.5 There are good analogies from the history of Mediterranean religion for the concept of resurrection. The vicissitudes of divinities who die and then rise or emerge from a period of time in Hades are useful in comparisons with the New Testament’s image of the resurrection of Jesus. Resurrections of different varieties were attributed to Osiris, Horus, and Dionysus.6 Heracles Melqart probably rose from the dead.7 The returns from the netherworld of Dumuzi,8 Baal,9 and Adonis are less similar to the resurrection of Jesus, but Lucian adopts a word for the return to life of Adonis (: ) that appears occa1
Cf. intro. § 3.2. Cf. intro. § 3.2–3. 3 Cf. intro. § 4. 4 Cf. intro. § 5. 5 Cf. intro. § 6. 6 Cf. chapt. 1 § 4 (Osiris and Horus), § 8 (Dionysus). 7 Cf. chapt. 1 § 7. 8 Cf. chapt. 1 § 2. 9 Cf. chapt. 1 § 3. 2
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sionally in the New Testament for resurrection.10 Later Christian writers frequently described Adonis’s return to life from the netherworld using the language of resurrection.11 Traditions of the resurrection of Attis are late and may indicate a connection with the onset of Christianity.12 Early church apologists such as Justin, Theophilus, Tertullian, and Origen were willing to countenance pagan analogies to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.13 Many classical texts affirm the impossibility of resurrection, but it is clear that they are aware of the concept of some form of bodily resurrection. These texts date from Homer’s era to the epitaphs of late antiquity. The temporary resurrections accomplished by Asclepius, Polyidus, Heracles, and others were popular themes in both Greek and Latin authors in the classical tradition. Imagery of hypothetical resurrections was also fairly frequent in such texts, especially those in Greek. The concept of bodily resurrection was clearly available to the Greek and Latin authors of pagan antiquity. Whether the concept was similarly available to Mediterranean people in general is unknown. But since elite authors were aware of bodily resurrection and since denial of the possibility of resurrection appears occasionally in epitaphs, one can speculate that it was not too difficult for Mediterranean individuals to comprehend the idea. Assuming that the Christians of Lyons and Vienne were accurate in their account of the martyrdoms there, and I do not doubt that they were, then the pagan individuals in those towns were easily able to mock the resurrection hope by scattering the ashes of dead Christians in the Rhone river.14 Luke’s reference to the skepticism about resurrection of the Epicureans and Stoics in Acts 17:32 is clearly consistent with the reactions of the pagans in Gaul to Christian belief in resurrection. Porcius Festus (Acts 25:19) may be the first known pagan to object to the resurrection of Christ. The narrative of the empty tomb of Jesus resembles several traditions in antiquity. Aristeas’s dead body disappeared from a fuller’s shop, and he later appeared on the road to Cyzicus, in Proconnesus, and in the region of Metapontum. Although a fuller’s shop is not a tomb, it is a good analogy. Herodotus calls him, however, a “phantom.”15 Zamolxis disappeared for three years and then reappeared – an occurrence that A. H. Griffiths calls a “faked resurrection.”16 The underground chamber where Zamolxis hid and then emerged from after three years has some similarities with an empty tomb, since he pretended to be dead.17 Celsus’s Jew uses Zamolxis to critique the resurrection of 10
Cf. chapt. 1 § 5.3 (Adonis) and intro. § 4. Cf. chapt. 1 § 5.4. 12 Cf. chapt. 1 § 6. 13 Cf. chapt. 1 § 1.3 and chapt. 2 § 1.3 (Theophilus). 14 Cf. Eusebius H.E. 5.1.63 in chapt. 2 § 1.29. 15 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.1. 16 Griffiths, Zalmoxis, 1586. 17 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.3. 11
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Jesus by implying that it was fraudulent.18 Origen finds it necessary to deny that Jesus could have similarly faked his own death when Celsus’s Jew compares Jesus’s resurrection to Heracles’, Protesilaos’s, and Orpheus’s descent into Hades.19 Cleomedes’ disappearance from a chest is a translation story, since he was found neither “alive or dead.” Some individuals believed he had achieved physical immortality.20 The empty chest does have similarities, nevertheless, with an empty tomb, and Celsus may have used it in an argument against Jesus’s resurrection.21 Romulus’s disappearance is a translation, but the sources are quite interested in the fate of his body. His appearance to Julius Proculus resembles the resurrection appearances in the Gospels.22 The discovery that Callirhoe’s body was not in her tomb resembles the Gospels most closely, and one of the words which Chariton uses for her recovery (Ô ) is from the language of resurrection.23 In Xenophon’s romance, Anthia’s body also disappears from her tomb. Antonius Diogenes mentions people who are put in tombs by day and who come alive at night.24 There are two versions of Philinnion’s absence from her tomb. In Phlegon she is a revenant who leaves the tomb, who appeared to be “alive” to her nurse who saw her ( (8 Ï ∂), and who has sex with her parents’ young guest. In Proclus she experiences a temporary resurrection or return to life (I ) for the sake of many nights of sex with her lover.25 Philostratus’s Protesilaos is a heroized soul who mysteriously returns to life (I ). Later Christian legends include empty tombs for the Apostle John, a Christian dyer who unfortunately goes to hell, and Symeon the Fool.26 Translation narratives closely resemble the ascension of Jesus and the translation of the risen dead along with those left alive in 1 Thess 4:15–7. Most translation accounts are not followed by subsequent appearances, although Aristeas, Romulus, and Peregrinus are important exceptions. There are several key differences between translation narratives and resurrection accounts. Those who are raised always reappear after their deaths – whether the resurrections are to this life or to everlasting life. In addition, those who are raised from the dead experience a return to life (Wiederdasein), while those who are translated are taken in some form (body, immortal part of the body, or soul) to another location. The focus of a translation narrative is on this rapture or transport. The focus of a resurrection account is on the return to life. 18
Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29. Cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29. 20 Plutarch Rom. 28.5-6, in chapt. 3 § 3.2 and Plutarch Rom. 28.7-10 in chapt. 3 § 1.2. 21 Cf. chapt. 3 § 3.2. 22 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.2. 23 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.4. 24 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.5–6. 25 Cf. chapt. 3 § 1.7. 26 Cf. chapt. 3 § 3.4–6. 19
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Translated individuals can disappear before or after their deaths, and there is seldom any reflection in the narratives on the nature of their post-mortem existence. The consecratio (deification) of Roman emperors also resembles the ascension of Jesus. It was a popular theme in Roman imperial iconography. The witnesses who occasionally observed the heavenly transport of the emperors correspond to the apostolic witnesses of Jesus’s ascension. Justin was skeptical of the veracity of the witnesses of imperial consecrationes, and Tertullian consigned them to hell.27 Perhaps the burning of the wax images of the emperors during some funerals signified their bodily ascent to heaven as Bickerman claimed, but in any case the burning of the wax image and the eagle that was subsequently released were a powerful depiction of the imperator’s apotheosis.28 By the fourth century the bishop of Rouen, Victricius, willingly refers to Christ’s ascension as a consecratio.29 Certainly there are differences between the two. According to Luke, Jesus was already son of God before his ascension, while the consecratio of emperors depended on senatorial decree – consequently, they were deified after their deaths. However, in Luke Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God only after his ascension, and this corresponds closely with the emperor’s deification after death.30 It is clear that the emperors’ souls ascended to heaven, but it is unclear if their bodies did in the Roman imagination. Luke asserts that Jesus’s risen body was transported to the right hand of God (Acts 2:33). There were competing views of the afterlife in ancient Judaism. Some believed in the immortality of the soul or the future revival of spirits. However, there was a clear tradition of bodily resurrection. In Greek Jewish texts, Û (wake/raise) and Û (raise) and related words in contexts of resurrection never refer to the resurrection of a soul or spirit. Although the clearest depiction of resurrection in the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint is in Daniel, there are other images of resurrection in texts such as Isaiah and even a denial of resurrection in Job 14:12. Pseudepigrapha including 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and many others include texts of bodily resurrection. At least one text affirming resurrection was found at Qumran, although it is not clear that it is sectarian. Inscriptions including the name Anastasia are witnesses to belief in a future resurrection. Targumic and Rabbinic texts are frequent sources for images of bodily resurrection. The interpretation of Hos 6:2 in those texts refers to the general resurrection, and there is little doubt that Paul was thinking of that text in 1 Cor 15:4. The frescoes in the synagogue at Dura Europos indicate a lively hope in the resurrection in third century Syria. The Jewish cri27
Cf. chapt. 5 § 1.9. Cf. chapt. 5 § 1.8 (with critique by Gradel). 29 See Victric. De laude sanctorum 11.1 in chapt. 5 § 3. 30 Cf. chapt. 7 § 3.3. 28
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tique of the tradition of Jesus’s empty tomb presumably dates at least to the time of the composition of Matthew’s Gospel in the first century (Matt 28:13– 5). Justin and Tertullian are also witnesses to the existence of such polemic, which develops quite richly in the Toledot Yeshu.31 Bodily Resurrection in paganism and Judaism, the use of the verbs Û , Û and related terms in contexts describing resurrections, and various texts of Paul such as Phil 3:21, 1 Thess 4:17, and 1 Cor 15 imply with the highest probability that Paul could not have conceived of the resurrection of Christ without an empty tomb. Consequently, there is no major difference between Paul’s conception of resurrected bodies and that of the Gospels. It is true that in Gnostic texts the concept of the resurrection of a soul or spirit emerges. The traditions of resurrection in both paganism and Judaism probably made the acceptance of the Christian Gospel of a risen Lord more credible to Mediterranean people. Historians of religion such as Jan Assmann (Egypt), Dieter Zeller (Mediterranean world), and Guy Stroumsa (the Roman empire) have made statements in support of such a hypothesis.32 Resurrection also helped create identity for ancient Christians and Jews. Claudia Setzer helpfully notes, “Resurrection functions as a shorthand or condensation symbol for the basic values of both Jews and Christians; but the need to consolidate values into a brief statement is more pressing for a smaller, more diffuse, rapidly growing group like the Christians than for the more ancient, recognizably distinct Jews.”33 The ascension of Jesus corresponds fairly closely with the translation narratives of paganism and Judaism and with the narratives of imperial apotheoses (consecrationes). Presumably those narratives rendered the ascension of Jesus more congenial for Mediterranean people. The hope in resurrection remains congenial for many. Numerous adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – the religions that trace their ancestry to Abraham – still retain belief in an eschatological resurrection. Some Zoroastrians, who first developed the concept of an apocalyptic bodily resurrection, also retain their ancient faith.34 Resurrection is, consequently, a “living op-
31
Cf. chapt. 6 § 10. For Assmann, cf. chapt. 1 § 4 (end). For Zeller, cf. chapt. 1 § 11, and for Stroumsa, cf. chapt. 6.proem. See also the concluding remarks of Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 215– 7 (Christian belief in the physical resurrection answered “the longing nurtured by centuries of Paganism”) and cp. Lehtipuu’s comments (Debates, 63). 33 Setzer, Resurrection (2004), 149–50. Cp. Lehtipuu, Debates, passim and Petrey, Resurrecting Parts, passim. 34 On the Zoroastrians, cf. intro. § 6 and chapt. 2 § 1.5. For the belief in resurrection of modern Zoroastrians, cf. J. Hinnells’s statistical investigations (The Zoroastrian Diaspora. Religion and Migration, Oxford 2005, 142 [worldwide, “of those who believe in life after death,” 12% believe in bodily resurrection], 510 [about half of Canadian respondents believe in resurrection], 553, 758, 766, 769, 774, 776, 778, 780). Modern Zoroastrians actually hold a 32
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tion” in the language of William James.35 The topic continues to fascinate both religious believers and even some skeptics. 36 The most famous logical empiricist of the twentieth century, A. J. Ayer, was drawn to reflection on it after having a near-death experience.37 Philosophical critics of resurrection, ancient and modern, abound.38 For Christians, Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 15:15 continues to stand as a beacon: ∞ &Ó # Ù Ã 7 , Ù ; [Ú] Ù 7 , Ú Õ (so if Christ is not risen, then your proclamation is empty, and your faith is empty). And of course, Paul does not leave the question there (15:20): TÚ &Ó # Ù 7 , 8 (But as a matter of fact, Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep).
multiplicity of beliefs about the afterlife, such as reincarnation, the immortal soul, and so forth. I thank Michael Stausberg for this reference. 35 Cf. W. James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, New York et al. 1897, 2 (“a live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed), 3 (“living option”), 6 (“living option”), and 14 (“living option”). 36 In that regard, it would be intriguing to have an international conference on the topic of resurrection with representatives from all four faith traditions along with some philosophers of religion. 37 A. J. Ayer, What I Saw When I Was Dead, Sunday Telegraph, 28 August 1988, 5, reprinted in National Review, 14 October 1988, 38–40, idem, Postscript to a Postmortem, The Spectator, 15 October 1988, 13–14 (‹http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/15th-october-1988/ 13/postscript-to-a-postmortem›). Cf. Cook, Julian and Porphyry, 204. Ayer’s discussion and rejection of the general resurrection still indicates that it was a “living option” in James’s formulation – one that an individual can meaningfully accept or reject. On near-death experiences, ancient and modern, cf. Bremmer, Rise and Fall, 87–102. 38 For Celsus and for Macarius’s anonymous Neo-Platonist philosopher, cf. chapt. 2 § 1.29. For Hume, cf. intro. § 1. In this regard, scholars such as Lüdemann (cf. intro. § 1) who have attacked the resurrection of Jesus on historical grounds are footnotes to Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, and Hume.
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Images
Image one. Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys. Credit: Mariette, Dendérah, vol. 4. Plate 90. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Image two. The Resurrection of Osiris. Credit: Mariette, Dendérah, vol. 4. Plate 90. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Image three. The Translation of Ganymede. Credit: By permission of the Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l’Area archeologica di Roma.
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Image four. Figure on a Podium. Credit: Berlin Museum VA 569. Vorderasiatisches Museum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Image five. Object under a Winged Sun. Credit: Berlin Museum VA 569. Vorderasiatisches Museum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
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Image six. Pyre or Thymiaterion? Credit: Berlin Museum VA 569. Vorderasiatisches Museum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Image seven. Figure on a Small Podium. Credit: Berlin Museum VA 569. Vorderasiatisches Museum. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
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Image eight. Tylos Healed by Masnes. Credit: © Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. BMC Lydia, p. 268 § 178, Pl. 27, 12.
Image nine. Heracles’ Rescue of Alcestis. Credit: Bridgeman Images.
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Image ten. Tomb of the Nasonii. Heracles Leads Alcestis to Admetus. Credit: F. Bartoli et al., Le pitture antiche, tavola 10. Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.
Image eleven. Heracles and the Serpent of the Hesperides. Credit: Photo Lab. Neg. D-DAI-Rom 75.1690.
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Image twelve. Heracles and a Reclining Enemy. Credit: Photo Lab. Neg. D-DAI-Rom 75.1697.
Image thirteen. Heracles and Athena. Credit: Photo Lab. Neg. D-DAI-Rom 75.1696.
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Image fourteen. The consecratio of Faustina minor. Credit: wildwinds.com, ex-CNG Coins.
Image fifteen. Moses Crossing the Red Sea. Credit: Photo Lab. Neg. D-DAI-Rom 75.1692.
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Image sixteen. The Resurrection of Lazarus. Credit: Bridgeman Images
Image seventeen. Joshua (or Moses) Leading the Children of Israel to the Promised Land. Credit: Photo Lab. Neg. D-DAI-ROM 75.1688.
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Image eighteen. The Tomb of Vibia. Credit: Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana, vol. 6, tav. 493. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Image nineteen. The Seizure of Vibia. Credit: Garrucci, Storia, vol. 6. tavola 494. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Image twenty. The Judgement of Vibia. Credit: Garrucci, Storia, vol. 6. tav. 494. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0
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Image twenty-one. Vibia’s Entrance into Elysium. Credit: Garrucci, Storia, vol. 6. tav. 494. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Image twenty-two. Vibia’s Entrance into Elysium. Credit: Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, Tafel 132. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Image twenty-three. The Belvedere Altar: Apotheosis of Caesar (?). Credit: Rossa. Neg. D-DAI-Rom 75.1289.
Image twenty-four. The Apotheosis of Claudius. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France inv. Camée 265.
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Image twenty-five. The Deified Claudius. Credit: Bartoli, Admiranda romanarum antiquitatum ac veteris sculpturae vestigia, Pl. 80. Bibliotheca Hertziana. Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte. CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.“
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Image twenty-six. Aureus: radiate divus Claudius and radiate divus Augustus. Credit: Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG, Zürich
Image twenty-seven. The consecratio of Titus (Arch of Titus). Credit: Roger B. Ulrich, by permission.
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Image twenty-eight. The consecratio of Titus. Credit: Duruy, History of Rome, 4.2.679.
Image twenty-nine. The promised consecratio of Trajan. Credit: Roger B. Ulrich, by permission.
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Image thirty. Apotheosis or Profectio of Trajan, and Apotheosis or Profectio of Plotina as Selene. Credit: Reinach, Répertoire, 1.144.
Image thirty-one. The consecratio of Hadrian and Sabina. Credit: Inv. 11056, photo: Johannes Laurentius, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
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Image thirty-two. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. Credit: Egisto Sani, by permission.
Image thirty-three. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. Credit: Egisto Sani, by permission.
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Image thirty-four. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius (Thugga). Credit: Roberto Piperno, by permission.
Image thirty-five. Elijah’s resurrection of the son of the widow of Zarephath. Credit: Yale University Art Gallery, Commissioned by the University. Gouache on paper by Herbert J. Gute. 1936.127.4.
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Image thirty-six. The Vision of Ezekiel. Credit: Yale University Art Gallery, Commissioned by the University. Gouaches on paper by Herbert J. Gute. 1936.127.2
Image thirty-seven. The Vision of Ezekiel. Continued. Credit: Yale University Art Gallery, Commissioned by the University. They are gouaches on paper by Herbert J. Gute 1936.127.11
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Bertrand, D., ed., La Vie grecque d’Adam et d’Eve, Paris 1987. Dochhorn, J., Die Apokalypse des Mose. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar, TSAJ 106, Tübingen 2005. Spittler, J., Apollonios, Amazing Stories (1672), FGrH IV E (Brill Online). Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica, LCL, ed. and trans. R. C. Seaton, Cambridge, MA 1912. Apollodorus, The Library, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. J. G. Frazer, Cambridge, MA 1921. The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. K. Lake, Cambridge, MA 1912–3. Appian’s Roman History, 4 vols., ed. and trans. H. White, LCL, Cambridge, MA 1912–13. Apuleius, Apologia Florida De deo Socratis, LCL, ed. and trans. C. P. Jones, Cambridge, MA 2017. Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, ed. V. Rose, Leipzig 1886. Aristotle, Metaphysics, vol. 2, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Tredennick, Cambridge, MA 1933. Arnobius of Sicca, The Case Against the Pagans, vol. 2, ACW 8, trans. and annot. by G. E. McCracken, Westminster, MD 1949. Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. E. I. Robson, Cambridge, MA 1929– 33. Artemidorus, The Interpretation of Dreams. Oneirocritica, trans. and comm. by R. J. White, Torrance, CA 21990. Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, trans. H. W. Bird, Liverpool 1994. Schechter, S., Aboth de Rabbi Nathan. Edited from Manuscripts with an Introduction, Notes and Appendices, Vienna 1887. Bereschit Rabba, ed. J. Theodor and C. Albeck, 3 vols., Berlin 1912–36. Schwabe, J. and B. Lifshitz, Beth Sheʿarim. Volume II: The Greek Inscriptions, New Brunswick, NJ 1974. Avigad, N., Beth Sheʿarim. Report on the Excavations during 1953–1958. Volume III: Catacombs 12–23, New Brunswick, NJ 1976. VanderKam, J., The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., CSCO.Ae 510/87–511/88, Leeuven 1989. Greek Bucolic Poets, LCL, ed. and trans. J. M. Edmonds, Cambridge, MA 1912. Callimachus, Lycophron, Aratus, Hymns and Epigrams, LCL, ed. and trans. A. W. Mair and G. W. Mair, Cambridge, MA 1921. Celsus, De medicina, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. W. G. Spencer, Cambridge, MA 1935–8. Reardon, B. P., ed., Charitonis Aphrodisiensis de Callirhoe narrationes amatoriae, BiTeu, Berlin 2004. Chariton, Callirhoe, LCL, ed. and trans. G. P. Goold, Cambridge, MA 1995. Claudian, 2 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. M. Platnauer, Cambridge, MA 1922. Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA 1914. Cicero, De natura deorum. Academica, LCL, trans. H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA 1933. Cicero, De republica. De legibus, LCL, trans. C. W. Keyes, Cambridge, MA 1928. Cicero, Orations, vol. 14, LCL, ed. and trans. N. H. Watts, Cambridge, MA 1931. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 3 vols., LCL, ed. and trans. D. R. Shacklteon Bailey, Cambridge, MA 1999. [Cicero], Ad C. Herennium, LCL, ed. and trans. H. Caplan, Cambridge, MA 1954. [CFA] Commentarii fratrum arvalium: J. Scheid, ed. and trans., Recherches archéologiques à la Magliana. Commentarii fratrum arvalium qui supersunt. Les copies épigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la confrérie arvale (21 Av.–304 Ap. J.-C.), Roma Antica 4, Rome 1998. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah. Vol. II. Chapters 15–39, trans. R. C. Hill, Brookline, MA 2008.
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Sources (Selected) 1 Greco-Roman Texts Abydenus FGrH 685 F 1 FGrH 685 F 6
377, 608 377
Achilles Tatius Leuk. Clit. 3.17.4 5.11.6 5.19.2 7.6.2 7.9.10
190 190 190 190 190
Acts John 115 metastasis I 115 metastasis
115 metastasis &, B
32.24–5 20.19 26.96 42.6 45.29
177 180 180–1 179 179
Schol. in Ael. Arist. Or. 46 III, 671,28–672,3 D.
176
318 318 318
Aeneas of Gaza Theophrastus (Colonna) 63,13–19 63–4 64,8–10
183 251–2, 600 160
AcPlCor 2:26
579
Aeneas Tacticus 18.17
25–6
Acts Thom. 132 80
36 36
Aeschylus Ag. 892 1360–1
25 146
Acusilaus FGrH 2 F22
345–6
Cho. 495 495–6
25 146
Eum. 140–1 569 647–8 724
15 146 22, 146, 578 326
frag. 192 Radt frag. 273a
325 178
Aelian Varia historia 9.16 frag. 204a D.-F.
174 171
Aelius Aristides Or. (Lenz/Behr/Keil) 2.321 3.365 3.487 3.688 16.29
175 175–6, 205, 605 176 179 179
Sources (Selected)
674 Aetius Plac. 1.7.30
300
Agatharchides De mari Erythraeo §7
154, 205, 340
Agobard De Jud. superstit. 10
566–7
Alcaeus frag. 354 frag. 307C
333 394
Alexander Polyhistor FrGH 273 F 74
111, 118
Ammian. Marcell. 22.9.14–5 22.16.3 23.6.18
95 407 118
[Ammonius] De ad. voc. differ. § 50 § 216 § 354
16 16 17
De impr. § 48
16
Amulo L. c. Jud. ad Car. reg. 25, 40
566
Anth. Pal. 3.proem. 3.13 5.29 7.95 8.231 11.184
317 317 227 289 151 245–6
Antoninus Liberalis 26.3–4 26.4–5 33.3–4
380–1, 608 381, 608 316–7
Antonius Diogenes De incredib. 166, 110A 166, 110A–B 166, 110B
277–8, 286 285–6 286
Aphthonius Progymnasmata 34
177, 211
Apion Frag. de gloss. Hom. 220 Ludwich
45
Apollodorus of Athens (II B.C.E.) Ú ! FGrH 244 F 138 FGrH 244 F 139
21, 163–4, 574–5 165
Apollodorus Bibl. 1.3.2 1.5.1 1.9.15 2.5.12 2.7.4 2.7.7 3.1.2 3.2.2 3.3.1 3.4.3 3.6.2 3.6.8 3.10.3 3.11.2 3.12.2 3.13.6 3.14.3–4 3.15.1–2
205 348 153 156 66 365, 616 384 337 158, 605 372 338 339–40 21, 164, 166, 574 353 357 332, 348 87–8 256
Epit. 2.3 3.30 5.5 7.37
45, 170, 223, 411 219 332 388
Apollonius Paradox. Hist. mirab. 1.2
19, 355
1 Greco-Roman Texts 2.1–2 3.1 Apollinarius Met. Ps 87:14
249, 600 21, 188
480
Apollonius Rhod. 1.59–64 3.854 4.811, 814–5 4.869–72 4.869–79 4.871–2
346 324 335 349 332 325
Schol. in Arg. 1.101–4 4.814–815a
156 335
Apostolius Paroem. 5.48
159
675
Aretaeus Cur. acut. 1.1.28
31
Aristophanes Eccl. 1073
146
Lys. 393 396
94 94
Nub. 78–81
19
Ran. 51 170–77 554–5
19 146 234
Vesp. 100–2
19
Schol. in Av. 1251
171
Appian Bell. civ. 2.86.361 2.147.612 4.78–9
150 418 386
Schol. in Eccl. 1073
146
Celtica 1.3.9
162
Schol. in Lys. 389
93–4
Schol. in Nub. 508a
389–90
Scholia in Ran. 51 177 554a col. 1
20 147 234
Aristotle Cat. 10A
588
Metaph. 1000A12 1029A
325 588–9
Oec. 1345A13
14
Aquinas, Thomas In I Sent. Dist. 43, quaestio 1, art. 3 Dist. 43, quaestio 2, art. 2, argum. 5
557 220
Summa Theol. Ia, quaest. 2, art. 3
3
Schol. in Aratum 75–82
169
Ps. Arcadius De accentibus p. 32 Schmidt
215
Sources (Selected)
676 Poet. 16 1455a
165
frag. 645 Rose
274
[Aristotle] Peplos (Rose) frag. 640.3 frag. 640.4 Arnobius Nat. 4.26 5.7 7.32
376 332
242 47, 111 129
Arrian FGrH 156 F 175b
35
Anab. 7.27.3
390–1, 608
Artapanus apud Eus. P.E. 9.27.25 apud Clem. Strom. 1.23.154.3 Artemidorus Onir. 1.80 2.20 2.62 4.82
474 474
289 426 182 182–3
21.7 22.4 7.34
236 256 304
Ep. 102.2
206
Serm. 316.12
86
Augustus De vita sua frag. 1
270
Aurelius Victor Caes. 14.13–4
451
[Aurelius Victor] De viris illustribus 2.13 2.14 3.1 3.2
268–9 269 269 309–9
Bacchylides Ep. 3.53–62
393–4
Basil of Seleucia Vita S. Theclae 2.1 2.17
386 386
Bion Epitaph. Adon. 1.45–8
15
Athenaeus Deipn. 4.139C–F 6.232 6.251A 9.392DE 14.619 15.697A
372 340 324 124, 129–30 381 274
Callimachus Ep. 22
379
Carmen ad Anton. 88–93
123–4
Atticus frag. 7 des Places
329
Carmen c. paganos 109
116
Carm. ad quen. sen. 227,1–228,17 Peiper
122–3
Augustine Civ. 21.4
236
1 Greco-Roman Texts Carmina convivialia frag. 11
334
Cassius Dio 56.42.3 56.46.1 56.46.1–2 59.11.2 59.11.4 60.35.2–5 66.17.3 67.2.6 69.23.2 70.1.2–3 73.17.4 74.4.3 74.5.2 75.5.3–5 79.18.1, 3
436 434 437 416 440 439 446 447 451 451 421 422 422 422 253
Ct. Andr. in ep. Petr. I, 3:17–8 Cebes Tabula 1.1–3
42
677
5.6.9–10 5.7.8 5.10.1 6.2.6 7.5.5 8.1.14 8.6.8 8.8.5
283–4 283 284 283 284 284, 599 284 283
Chronica urbis Rom. 144 Mommsen
270
Chrysostom H. 4.4 in ep. i ad C. PG 61.36
4
Pan. Bab. 10
278–9
Cicero Att. 7.23.1 (Ep. 147)
209
Fin. 4.61
209
Leg. 2.19 1.3–5 2.56 2.60
163 256–7 304 421
Mil. 38 90
210 210
N.D. 3.58 2.62 3.12 3.11–2
133 163, 256, 268 268 352–3
Parad. 38
209–10
Phil. 1.110
429
Rep. 2.17–8
254–5
242
Celsus 1.proem. 2.6
270 217
Chariton Callirhoe 1.4.12 1.8.1 1.8.3 3.2.7 3.3.1–4 3.4.13–5 3.7.4–5 3.7.7 3.8.9 4.1.3 4.1.6 4.5.10 5.1.1 5.1.4 5.1.5 5.2.5 5.4.3
279 279, 281, 599 281 282, 605 279–80, 597 281–2, 605 282 282 282, 599 282 282–3 283, 605 283 283 283 283 283
Sources (Selected)
678 2.20 3.32 1.25 Tusc. 1.28 [Cicero] Rhet. Her. 4.66
255 255–6 264
Ps. Cyprianus Idol. 4
272
Cyranides 3.39
21, 194, 574
Cyril Alexandrinus In Ion. 2.1
242–3
405
211
Claudian Bellum Geticum 440–1 442–6 445
46, 220 222 47
Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 440) Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 440–1) Is. 18:1–2 (PG 70, 441)
1 Clement 24:5
579
Cyril Jerus. Catech. 14.20
567
Clem. Alex. Protr. 2.15.3
112
Damascius In Plat. Phaed. (vr. 1) [114B6–C6] 551
582–3
Strom. 1.23.154.3 5.14.103.2–5 5.14.103.4 5.14.109.1 5.14.109.3
474 172 35 326 327
Vita Isidori (Athan.) frag. 50 frag. 142B frag. 221
297 141 117–18
Democritus (D./K.) Test. 20 Test. 140 frag. 1 frag. 166
160–1 581 197 327
Dialogue of Comarius 4 (24,23–5 Reitz.)
582
Diodorus Siculus 1.25.6 1.88.6 1.94.2 2.20.1–2 2.20.1 3.57.8 3.59.4 3.59.7 3.62.6, 7 4.58.6
85 84 277 387 320 344, 608 113 110–11 135 315
Ps.-Clem. Recogn. 1.54.2 10.24.2 Commodian Apol. 388 439–442
527 125
568 568
Conon Narr. 45
205
Crates frag. 52 K./A.
181
Cyprianus Test. 2.25
469
104 103–4 90, 99, 105
1 Greco-Roman Texts 4.65.8 4.71.1 4.76.2 4.82.5–6 5.59.4 7.5.2 10.20.1
339 167, 605 39 250 337 335, 608 17
Diogenes Laertius 1.8–9 1.109–10 1.114 5.89 5.90 5.91 8.4–5 8.21 8.41 8.59 8.61 8.67–8 8.69 8.72 9.60 10.55 10.76 10.123
159 355 188, 355 400 400 399 275 204 204 397 397 396 396–7, 608 397 323–4 590 327–8 327
Dionysius Halicarn. Ant. rom. 1.3.4, 1.7.2 1.7.2 1.27.2 1.64.4 1.64.4–5 1.77.2 1.77.3 1.87.2, 3.1.2 2.16.2 2.56.1–6 2.63.3 2.76.5–6 4.62.4 6.60.3
260 260 186 320 335–6 616 329 272 305–6 261–2 262–3 305 306 25
Dosiadas (BNJ) 458 frag. 5
358, 616
Empedocles frag. 31 B 111 D./K.
397
679
Ennius (Skutsch) Ann. 1.54–5 1.100 1.110–11
269 270 269
Epicurus Ep. a Herod. 55 76
590 328
Ep. ad Menoec. 123
327
Epimenides FGrH 457 T1
188
Epiphanius Ancoratus 85.1–3 86.1
155 36
Pan. 9.3.5 40.2.5 42.3.5 64.12.6–8 67.1.5–6
533 36 36 208 36
Erechtheus frag. 370 Kannicht
317
Eudoxus (Lasserre) frag. 284a frag. 284b frag. 341 frag. 372
124, 129–30 130 159 183
Ps. Eratosthenes Catasterismi 1.5 1.6D
Euphorion frag. 14 (Lightfoot) frag. 53 (de Cuenca)
65 21, 164, 166–67, 223, 574
137 135–6
Sources (Selected)
680 Eupolis Demes frag. 99,56–7 frag. 99,64–5 frag. 101,3–4 frag. 104 frag. 115 frag. 328 Euripides Alc. 112–30 122–3 127 853–4 986–8 1127–8 1129, 1131 1139–42 1145–6 Andr. 1253–6 Helen 33–4 1666–9 Heraclid. 9–10 872 910–14
178 178 178 177 178 18
152 38 22 152 145 153, 605 153, 605 153 153
frag. 484 frag. 928a
63 38
Schol. in Eur. Alc. 1 122
165 38
Eusebius Chron. Armen. 26 Karst
378
Chron. graec. 1.118 Schöne
128
Hier. Chron. 87b Helm 102b Helm 198 Helm
387 387 310
Comm. Isa. 26:19, 1.88
460–1
Hier. 2 44.3
254 391
H.E. 5.1.63 5.8.10 6.21.3–4
207, 620 469 291
Onomasticon 170 Klostermann
550
Praep. ev. 1.10.13, 25 1.10.28 1.10.38 2.1.30 3.4.9 3.11.12 3.11.25 3.11.26 5.8.10 5.18.6 5.21.6 5.34.2–6 5.34.7 5.34.7–8
141 124 141 69, 85 129 112 242 168, 186 469 311 311 312 358 312
326
359 359
363 363 364
Herc. fur. 26–34 524 718–9
316 146 22, 146
Orest. 1631–7
359, 570
[Rhesus] 787–92 959–60 962–73
20 383 383–4
Suppl. 533–4
317
frag. 332 Kannicht
145
1 Greco-Roman Texts
681
Gos. Heb. apud Hier. Ill. 16
611
apud. Hier. Is. 18.praef.
611
Gos. Pet. 35–44
598
449 451 453
Gregorius Magnus Dial. 4.56
319
Eustathius ad Il. 2.557
376
Gregory of Naz. Or. (Contra Iul.) 5.14
400–1, 608
ad Od. 11.590 11.592 11.600 16.118
93 201 130 388
Vita 974–5
242
Gregory of Tours Hist. 10.13
559
Hellanicus FGrH 4 F 109
235
Heraclides Ponticus frag. 14a Wehrli frag. 16 frag. 17 frag. 77 frag. 78 frag. 83 frag. 88 frag. 89 frag. 93
399 400 400 397 398 396 370 275 184
Heraclitus frag. B 118 D./K.
267
Ps. Heraclitus Ep. 4.4
175
Herm. Sim. 8.6.1–2
587
8.14.7 9.27.25 9.41.4 9.41.5 11.36.1 15.7.6 Eutropius Breuiarium 8.5.2 8.7.3 8.8.4
Etym. magn s.v. M?
356 13, 474 377 377, 608 173 329
215
Festus 178 Lindsay 184 Lindsay 424 Lindsay
304 271 415
Firmicus Maternus Err. 3 3.1–2 6.2–5 18.1
47 114 138 112
Gaius Inst. 2.3–5 2.5 Galen apud Alberuni India chapt. 73 Germanicus Arat. 558–60
414–5 415
365
425
Sources (Selected)
682 Hermogenes Progym. 9
177, 211
Herodas Mime 1.43–4
147
Herodian 1.11.2
358, 608
Herodotus 1.47.3 1.86–7 1.140 2.44 2.121–2 2.122 3.62.3–4 4.13, 14 4.14–15 4.94 4.95–6 6.69, 117 7.33.1 7.34 7.111 7.166–7 8.84 9.116–20 9.116 9.120
311 394 52 124 389 202 145 247–8 248–9 272–3, 276 274–5 252 291 107 384 398–9, 608 253 291 293 301
Hesiod Op. 121–3 122–4 124–5 170–1
299, 347 299 299 334
frag. 23a,17–24 frag. 25
325 363
Schol. vet. in op. 122a
300
Hesychius Lexicon Α § 1231 A § 1227
92 93
Β § 1394 ® § 110 Φ § 108 Ζ 43
381 361 215 277
Hieronymus Ep. 58.3 21.13.8 21.13.9
95 367 367
Ezech. 3.8 ad 8:14
47, 99, 102–3
Matth. (28.7) 4.1945-46
597
Os. 2.6 (on 6:2)
547
Pelag. 2.15
49
Himerius Decl. 45 Colonna
140
Or. 48.10–11
394
Hippocrates De d. in morbis acut. 11
163
Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.23–24 5.25.1–3 7.38.4
112–13 244 611
Homer Il. 1.520 2.41–2 4.561–5 5.333–5 5.334–42 6.105 6.142 8.362–9 10.32 10.159, 162
325 14 376 372 323 17 441 234 45 14
1 Greco-Roman Texts 11.300–4 11.467 15.232 16.457 16.666–83 20.232–5 21.55–6 21.55–7 24.551 24.756
350 334 17 385 385 356, 571 22 144 22, 45, 145 145
Od. 12.21–2 11.601–4 15.7–8
156–7 362 14
Schol. in Il. (Erbse) 11.302 16.673b 20.234d 21.55–6 21.55–9a 24.551
350 386 358 144–5 144 145
Homeric Hymns Hymn. Cer. 233–62 237 263 269
347–8 325 348 325
Hymn. Merc. 325–6
324
Hymn. in Ven. (5) 202–8
356, 616
Horatius Ep. 2.1.5–6
270
Schol. in Hor. Epod. 16.13–14 16.13
271 217–2
Hyginus Fab. 49 51.3 80.4
46, 220 220 353
683
83 103.2 136 251 251.2 251.3
223 219 47, 221–2, 599 46, 157, 169, 219 341 110
Astr. 2.14
222–3
Hyperides In Philippidem frag. 15b,5
147
Iamblichus Theol. Arithm. 40
45
Vita Pyth. 30.173
273
Ignatius Smyrn. 3.2
611
Irenaeus Haer. 3.21.1
469
Isocrates Archid. (Or. 6) 18
306
Isocrates Hel. enc. (Or. 10) 60 61 62
360 360, 600 377
Josephus A.J. 3.36 3.97 4.proem 4.326 5.277 6.333 8.145–6 8.327 9.28
615 615 306 615, 617 596 589 22, 128 513 306
Sources (Selected)
684 11.238 14.324–481 17.168–72 18.14
617 483 483 511–2
B.J. 1.248–273 1.656–8 2.163 3.374 7.178–89
483 483 512 511 483
C. Ap. 1.118–9 2.218
22, 128 512
Julian Or. 8(5).3 162A 8(5).5 165B 8(5).5 165C 8(5).9 168CD 8(5).9 169CD
115 115 115 115 115–16
Ep. dub. 201, 413A 201, 413B
160 160–1
Julius Africanus Cesti (Wallraff) frag. 10.51–53
291
Justin 1 Apol. 21 21.1–3 21.2 21.3 22.3 22.4 22.5–6 23.1–3 24.1, 2 62.2
63, 424 65–6 169, 342 413, 427 66 66 66, 166 63, 67 67–8 58616:1
Dial. 67.2 69.2–3 70.5 108.2
64–5 63–4, 166, 342, 365 66 567, 595
135.6
586
Lactantius Inst. 1.22.5–6 4.19.9
308 469
Epit. 42.2
469
Lactantius Placidus in Stat. Theb. 6.375 8.198
221 345
Leontius Vita S. Simonis Sali 102 Festug./Rydén
320
Lex XII Tabularum X.5
421
Libanius Decl. 23.1.61 34.23
195 196
Ep. 282.1
195
Or. 13.42 20.8 63.18
195 196 196
Progymn. 7.2 12.7.7
196 195
Livius 1.2.6 1.15.6 1.16.1–4 1.16.5–8 1.19.5 1.21.3 9.46.6 26.41.24–5 40.29.3–8
337 260 258–9, 320, 616 259–60 256 256 415 211 304–5
1 Greco-Roman Texts Lucan 7.457–9 8.840–1 8.855–8 8.867–9 9.1–4 9.7, 9 Schol. in Luc. 8.868
444 405 406 406 406 407
406
Lucian Alex. 4 5 24
235 187 187
Cat. 13
188
Dea s. 4 6 6–8
343, 608 44, 58, 60–1, 90, 605, 619 97–102
Demon. 25
161
Deor. conc. 9
273
Dial. d. 10(4).1 13.1 15(13).1 19.1
357 169 365 96
Dial. mort. 1 28.1 28.2 28.3
189 189, 205 189 190
685
Imag. 21
612
Luct. 9
98
Men. 1
188
Musc. laud. 7
19, 188, 369
Peregr. 39 40 41
401 402, 600 402
Philops. 11 13 14 25 26 27
187 187 187 604 187, 355, 599 288, 295
Salt. 39 45
134 164
Ver. hist. 1.4 1.22 2.12
39 39 579
Vit. auct. 2
188
Scholia in Lucian. 10 (Dial. mort.) 20.8 (Jupp. conf) 44.7 (Dea s.) 79.15.1 (Dial. d.)
390 164 107 164
360
243
Gall. 18
188
[Lucian] Charidemus 6
Hermot. 7 30
365, 395 189
Lycophron Alex. 33–4
Sources (Selected)
686 1204–13 Schol. in Lycοphron. 33 (Tzetzes) 207 805 811 1204
360–1
243 137 388–9 159 361
Lysias Epitaphius 11
306, 608
Macarius Monogenes 2.25.1–3 4.24a.4
208 208
Macrobius 1.21.9–10 Martialis Ep. 1.6 Maximus of Tyre Diss. (Trapp) 9.7 10.1 10.2 38.3
116–17
354, 600 356 198 356
117
Menander Sam. 45–6 736
92 324
Menander of Ephes. FGrH 783 F1
128
Methodius Res. 1.20.4
352 203, 206 169, 342, 353 272
Mnaseas FGrH 149 F23
275
Mythogr. Vatican. 1.80 Kulcsár 2.107 2.155
345 345 353
Narr. Ios. Arimath. 4:1 (467 Tischend.)
319
Nicander frag. 65 (Schneider) frag. 70 (Gow/Scho.)
102 44
Schol. in Nic. alex. 8b
118
Nicephorus Basil. Ethopoeia 27.3
479
Ps. Nonnos Scholia Mythologica Oratio 5, historia 5
106
Nonnus Dion. 25.383–4 25.451–552 25.486 25.530–1 25.539–52 40.327 40.367
185 185 185 185 185–6 125 125
Nymphis FGrH 432 F5
381, 608
Oenomaus frag. 2
311–2
357
Maximus Schol. epp. Dion. Ar. 8.6 (PG 4.556)
Mesomedes frag. 3 Heitsch
Minucius Felix 7.3 11.8 22.7 24.1
324
208, 487
1 Greco-Roman Texts Olympiodorus In Platon Phaed. B × Origen Cels. 1.28 1.32 1.37 1.67 2.16 2.36 2.54 2.55
687
In Ioh. 13.21.126, 128
581
Sel. in Ezech. 8.14
99, 102
Orphica Orph. Argonautica 171–4
346
Orphei hymni 12 46,1 52,3 53
235 137 137 22, 137–8
frag. 59 (i) Bernabé frag. 59 (ii) frag. 326 (iv) frag. 327 frag. 327 (vi) frag. 350 frag. 365
136 136 135 134 134 138 164
Ovidius Fast. 2.119–44, 481–512 3.701–2 3.703–4 4.242 6.657–62 6.743–8 6.747 6.749–56 6.757–62
263 432 432 118 169, 213 211–2 46 212 342
Ib. 507–8
110
Met. 2.643–5 2.644 2.645–48 4.536 4.539–42 9.251–3 10.105 10.725–7 10.728–39 14.600–8
212–3 46 341 373 373 367 110 88 102 336
138
2.55–6 2.56 2.63, 70 2.77 3.3 3.16 3.22 3.24 3.26 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.42 3.43 4.17 4.52 4.61 5.14 5.34 5.37–8 5.52 5.59, 5.61 6.8 6.29 6.42 7.28 7.35 7.53 7.54 8.45 8.49
568 568 65, 69 65 172, 398 324 201 4, 157, 201–2, 321, 594 68–9 206 4 500 251, 314, 321 576 66–7, 343, 366 343, 600 203, 251, 321 370 314, 321 278, 321 366, 588 203, 594 135, 143 324 324 4, 206, 594 69 69 203 37 69 586 69 375–6 278 66 66 343 576
Hom in Ex. 5.2
469
Sources (Selected)
688 14.818–28 14.843–51 15.531–5 15.534 15.745–9, 760–1 15.818–9 15.840–3 15.844–51 Palaephetus De incredibilibus 10 26 40 Paradoxogr. flor. Mirabilia de acquis frag. 6 Pass. Scill. 12 Pausanias 1.15.3 1.30.4 1.32.5 1.34.2 1.41.1 2.26.5 2.27.4 2.32.1 3.19.3–4 3.19.13 4.19.1 4.34.4 4.35.9 6.9.6–8 7.17.12 7.23.7–8 8.2.4 9.16.7 9.30.6 9.37.5–7
263 371 212 46 431 432 432 432
346 157, 599 153
45
48
156 383 354, 608 338–9 316 163 162 163 371–2 332–3, 600 147–8 373 101 313 110 141 339 316 205 389
Philo Abr. 219
581
Aet. 79
590
Cher. 17 31
580 580
Ebr. 147
30
Gig. 53
580
Legat. 79, 80
590
Leg. 2.101
35
Mut. 199
580
Opif. 66
581
Praem. 166
580
Prov. 2.6
356
QG 4.102 1.86
583 614
Sacr. 8
615
Somn. 1.147
469
Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 35a FGrH 3 F 35b
165 164
Virt. 5
24
Persius 1.134
279
Vit. Mos. 2.291
614
1 Greco-Roman Texts Philo of Byblos FGrH 790 F 2.13 FGrH 790 F 2.25 FGrH 790 F 2.27 FGrH 790 F 2.38 Philodemus Piet. P. Herc. 247 Gomp. col. iii, 4–8 (16 G.) P. Herc. 1088 col. xi,14–21 (47 G.) P.Herc. 1609 col. v (52,5–17 G.) frag. 2, 48–50 Obb. frag. 10, 261–5 Obb. Flavus Philostratus Heroikos 2.7–11 3.1 5.2 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.16 9.1 9.5–6 9.5 10.1–4 11.1 11.2 11.7–9 11.9 13.2 13.3 18.1 18.2 20.4 21.1 21.6 25.13 43.3 51.12 53.10 54.6 54.8 56.6–10 57.13–17 58.1–2
141 141 124 141
135–6 136 166 328 328
292 293 293 298 301 298, 302, 395 297 293 291 302 294 293 295 293–4 294 294 294 297 297 297 298 299 299 299, 301 333 334 332 299 333 333 294–5
689
58.2
298
Vita Apoll. 2.7 3.38 3.56 4.44 4.45 6.27 7.32 7.41 8.5.4 8.10 8.30 8.30.2 8.31.1 8.31.2–3
300 300 300 300 190–1 300 95 191–2, 600, 606 192 192 391, 608 391 392 392–3
Vit. soph. 25 [540 Olearius]
161
Phlegon De mirab. 1–2 1.1 1.2 1.7 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.14–6 1.17 1.18 2.1 2.6 2.7 5.1–3
197 287, 600 287 287 287–8 288 288 289 289 200, 253, 289, 302 199 199 199 345
FGrH 257 F 38
355
Photius Bibl. 94, 75A 166, 110A–B 166, 110A 166, 110B 186.33, 136B 186.45, 140A 190, 149A 250.7, 443B
397 286 277 286 345 205 377 154
Sources (Selected)
690 Lexicon Α 1783
181
Pindar Nem. 9.25, 10.8–9 10.55–9 10.83–4 10.85–90
338 351 351 351–2
Ol. 1.25–6 1.40–2.46–9 1.60–3 2.68–71 2.70–1 2.79–80 6.13–4
170 170, 608 326 375 330 330–1 338
Pyth. 10.40–1
394
frag. 94a Maehler frag. 131b Snell
326 267
Schol. in Ol. 1.40 1.40–2, 46–9
170 170
Schol. in Pyth. 3.96 3.100 3.102b 9.137a
164 164 164–5 185
Plato Apol. 30e
26
Charm. 156D
277
Crat. 400D
327
Crito 44AB
604
Gorg. 523AB
375
523E 524B
376 376
Leg. 808A 959A
26 174, 200
Phaedo 81CD 114B-C
297 583
Phaedr. 229B–D 246CD 276B
256 327 92
Resp. 427B–C 614A–D 614D
311 183 172
Symp. 179C 179E 180B 202DE
154 331 331 299
[Plato] Axiochus 367C 369C 371A–372A 371E
16 595 183–4 153, 184
Plato comicus frag. 70 K./A.
171
Plinius Nat. 2.27 2.94 5.68 7.124 7.174 7.175 7.189 10.40 12.83 13.84–5 16.131–3
46, 216 270, 430 407 217 217, 248, 368–9 217 47, 216 214 420 306–7 47, 218
1 Greco-Roman Texts 25.14 25.122 29.3 33.9 35.139
46, 214–5 47 46, 216 309 366
Plinius Ep. Tr. 10.96
43
Pan. 11.1
448
Plutarch Aetia romana et gr. 40 300F–301A
303
Alc. 18.4–5
94
Alex. 28.3
324
Brut. 36.1–37.1
253
Cam. 32.7
306
Comp. Pel. Marc. 3.6
418
De esu 2.6 999A Def. orac. 10 415B 17 419A
585
300–1 300
E Delph. 9 389A
139
Gen. Socr. 5.1 577E 20 559C
316 369
Is. Os. 11 355B 12–19 355D–358E 13 356C 16 357BC
82 101 82, 98, 575 101, 350
691
18 358A 19 358B 25 360D 35 364EF 35 364F–365A 35 365A 39 366F 47 370BC 54 373A 58 374E 65 377B 78 382E
80 84 300 80–1, 84 136–7 84 82, 98, 575 160 83 85 85 84
Luc. 18.1
81
Marc. 30.6 30.1–3
418 418
Nic. 13.11
94
Numa 2.2 2.3 22.2 22.4–5
265 266 307 307–8
Per. 3.7
178
Pomp. 27.3 80.6
405 407
Rom. 8.9 27.4 27.5–9 27.5–28.7 28.1–3 28.1 28.4 28.5–6 28.7–10 28.7
266 264 264–5 250 265–66 600 250 310, 621 256, 267–8, 310, 315, 365, 621 315, 365
Sources (Selected)
692 Quaest. Conv. 654D–E
31
Quaest. rom. [Q. gr. 23] 296F
352
Sera 22 563CD 24
173 564D
Stoic rep. 38, 1051F 38, 1052A
328 329
Suav. viv. 1092D
581
161 162
Vit. aere al. 8, 831D
325
frag. 176 Sandbach
173
[Plutarch] Placita 5.4 905B
581
Polemo De physiognomina 162 Förster
193
Polyaenus Strat. 14.20 Polybius 2.19.1 6.53.1–2, 4 Porphyry Abst. 4.9
111–12 168
Vita Pyth. 14
277
Probus In Verg. G. 3.27 6.31
271 304
Proclus Hymni 7.11–15
134
In Platonis rem publ. 614B (2.113 Kroll)
Virt. prof. 16 85C 16 85CD
Pollux Onomasticon 3.108 4.130
De imagin. 358F Smith 359F Smith
45 570
614B (2.114 K.) 614B (2.115 K.) 614B (2.115–6 K.) 614B (2.116 K.) 614B (2.122–3 K.)
184, 197–8, 200, 322 355, 370, 599 200–1, 606 197, 198–9, 291 200 200, 290 198
Chrestomathia 106–9 307 141–3 185–90 196–203 324–30
352 387 326, 570 373–4 331, 570 388
Procopius Is. 18.2 PG 87.2.2140
105
[Ptolemaeus] De diff. voc. 389 Heylbut
17
Pythagoras Carmen aureum 70–1
378–9
frag. 8 D./K.
45
[Quintilian] Decl. 10.2
296
182
25 417–8
129
1 Greco-Roman Texts 10.6 10.16 10.17
295 296 296
Quintus Smyrnaeus 2.586–91 2.612–3 2.650–2
374 374 374
Salustius De diis 4.10 Sappho frag. 140a
693
Servius A. 1.259 5.45 6.398 7.761 9.115 11.210
337 413–4 220 46, 220 114 421
Ecl. 9.47
430–1
G. 1.34
184
154 154–5 167–8
116
91
Scriptor. Hist. Aug. Hadrian 6.1 27.1
449 451
Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. 7.247 7.253–4.256 7.260–2
Antoninus Pius 5.1 13.3
451 453
Silius Italicus Punica 3.43–44
124
Pertinax 14.8–15.1
422–3
Socrates of Argos FGrH 310 F 2
81
Aurelian 24.8
191–2
Solinus 1.21
309
Sophocles El. 137–9 837–41
145 338
Oed. col. 1648–65 1760–63
381–2 382
frag. 557 Radt
22, 145–6
Stephanus Byz. Ethnica s.v. ]!
101
SVF 2.166 2.310 2.812
7 582 407
Seneca Suas. 1.5
323
Seneca Apoc. 1.2 8.1 8.3 9.3 9.5 10.1 11.3 11.6 14.4 15.2
440 440 440 440–1 441 441 441–2 442 442 442
Med. 471, 475–6
47
Sources (Selected)
694 2.814 2.1049 2.1054 2.1101 3.33 3.62 3.374
407 329 581 299 329 30 585
Strabo 7.3.5 16.3.5 17.1.17
274 274 254
Straton frag. 94 Wehrli
581
Suda Ê § 1806 Ê § 2211 Ê § 3900 @ § 2898 @ § 2471 § 461
171 181 248 128 355–6 399–400
Suetonius Jul. 88.1
428
Aug. 94.4 97.1 100.4
435 435 435
Cl. 45
438
Nero 9
416
Vesp. 5.4 23.4 Dom. 2.3 Symmachus Rel. 3.10
47 446
416, 447
122
Tacitus Ann. 1.10.8 3.5.1–2 12.48.1 12.69.3 13.2.3 14.31.4 16.6.2
434 419 49 438 438 440 419
Hist. 4.81.1–3 4.83.2
180 111
Tatian Or. 10.3 21.1
427 342
Terentius Hec. 458–65
209
Tertullianus An. 44.1–3 54
370 407
Apol. 5.1 15.4–5 21.14 21.23 22.9 23.6 25.5
416 245 68 272, 427 68 169 118
Carn. Chr. 5.2 5.9
48 611
Jud. 13.23
469
Marc. 1.13.4–5 4.7.3 4.43.1 4.43.6 5.14.5
68 272, 427 469 611 48
1 Greco-Roman Texts Nat. 1.10.47
245
Praescr. 30
48
Res. 1.2 3.4
207 207
Spect. 30
427, 567
Theocritus Id. 13.49–54 13.72 15.108 15.129–43 21.20–1 24.79–85 Schol. in Theocr. Id. 3.48d 5.92e 5.92f 13.48 15.133
380 380 325 88–9 15 363
88 102 102 380 89
Theodoret Affect. 8.20 8.26–7
21, 163–4 311
Comm. Isa. 26:19, 7, lines 623–6
461
Theognis El. 2.1344–7 Theophilus Autol. 1.9 1.13
Theophrastus Caus. Plant. 1.12.2
695
Hist. Plant. 6.7.3
92
Theophylact In Ion. 2.1 (PG 126.932)
243
Theopompus FGrH 115 F 64 FGrH 115 F 64b FGrH 115 F 65 FGrH 115 F 67a
159–60 160 160 355
Timocles Caunians frag. 20 K./A.
181
Valerius Flaccus 1.15–20 8.239–242
446–7 118
Valerius Maximus 1.1.12 4.6.1 4.6.3 8.1.(damn.).4
306 231 231 47, 214
Velleius Paterculus 2.126.1
416
Vergil Aeneid 7.767–9 7.769 9.641–2
221 46 433
Victric. De laude sanctorum 11.1
454, 622
Vitae Aesopi Vita G 47
172
Vitruvius 7.5.7
213
Xanthos, FGrH 765 F. 3
214
357
323 143, 169, 342, 605, 620
92
Sources (Selected)
696 Xenocrates frag. 15 Heinze frag. 23 frag. 224 Xenophon Cyn. 1.6
300 300 300
25 25
Mem. 2.1.22
604
Xenophon Ephesiaca 3.7.4–8.1 3.9.1
287 150
Xenophanes frag. 14 frag. 15 frag. 23 D./K.
326 325–6 326
Zenobius Epit. 1.18 1.47 1.49 5.56
167 171 93 124, 130
Ps. Zonaras Lexicon Ε § 606
18
Zosimus
( 1 (CAlG 2.146 B.)
582
163, 341
Eq. 3.6 10.15
Vect. 4.41
5.7.7 5.10.5
25
284–5 285
2 Biblical Literature Gen 1:20 1:24 2:19 5:24 22:4 37:20 Exod 12:12 15:1 19:6 19:16 Deut 5:16 21:23 22:6–7 28:12 31:16 32:39
580 580 580 613–4 551–2 568
585 585 551 551
539–40 564 539–40 543, 560 23, 552 38, 521, 529, 531,
33:6
551–2 529, 532
Judg 16:14
460
Josh 2:16
551
1 Sam 2:6 28:3–19
38 610
1 Kgdms 28:8 Symm
590
1 Kgs 17:22–3 17:17–24 17:22 17:23
11 10, 534 11, 12 11
2 Biblical Literature 18:25-38 3 Kgdms LXX 3:15 17:21 17:22 Aquila, 17:22 17:23
132
460 474 12, 43, 604 12, 474 44, 604
2 Kgs 4:8–37 4:31 5:7 13:21
10, 534 9, 461, 574 37, 39 9-11, 534
4 Kgdms 2:11 4:31 5:7 13:21
612 474 37 43
Job 4:15 14:12 14:12 Aq, Symm. 17:16 19:26 20:11, 26 42:17a LXX
610 461, 472, 622 472 465 473 465 473
Ps 3:6, 17:15, 73:20 2:2 22:16 43:24 73:18 87:6 LXX 87:11 LXX 88:6 88:10 90:4 116:9
8 549 465 17 458 457 457 457 10, 457 547 553
Prov 30:4
556
Eccl. 7:10
226
Isaiah 8:19, 19:3 14:9 14:11 14:19 26:14 26:19
697
26:19 Aq, Sym, Th. 29:4 38:9 42:1–4, 49:1–7 52:1–2 53:11
610 458 458, 459, 484 459 11–2, 459, 462, 555 9, 11, 459–62, 470, 554–5, 575 604 610 460 485 487 485
Jeremiah 13:25 28:39 LXX 28:57 LXX 51:39 HB 51:57 HB
467 463 463 461, 463 461, 463
Ezekiel 31:18 32 32:26 32:17 32:19 32:27-28 37 37:1, 3–5, 6 37:1 37:3, 5, 9–10, 14 37:5 37:12–14 47:12
458 457 458 466 459 457 560 557 561 11 562 552 481
Daniel 3:1 12:1–4 12:2 HB 12:2 LXX 12:2 Theod 12:3 12:3 LXX 12:3 Theod 12:13 12:13 LXX 12:13 Theod
561 462 461–8, 470, 482, 490, 513 9, 23, 25, 464 25, 464, 574 464 464 464–5 467 467 467
Sources (Selected)
698 Hosea 6:2 6:2 Aq, Symm
11, 468–70, 541–53 569, 622 44, 469
Amos 5:2
11
Hab 2:19
9, 461
Zech 12:10 14:14
549 562
1 Esd 2:1 2:7 2:8
31 24 24–5
Jdt 12:5
17
1 Macc 2:58
612–3
2 Macc 7 7:9 7:10 7:11 7:13 7:14 12:43 12:44 14 14:45 15:13 15:15
456 463, 584 13 470–1 470–1 470–1 470–1 471 471 584 471–2 472 472, 601
4 Macc 9:22
590
Sirach 14:18 17:31 31:20 48:5 48:9 49:14
585 585 17 474, 575, 592 612 612
Matthew 5:45 9:15 9:18 14:12 16:17 16:21 17:2 17:9 17:23 19:28 20:19 26:32 27:52 27:53 27:64 28:6–7 28:7, 10, 16–20 28:13 28:13–15 28:17
541 572 43, 191, 604 27 585–6 27 493 27 27 281 27 27 24, 464 30 27 27 601 567 568, 595 601
Mark 5:39–43 6:16 8:31 9:1 9:4 9:9 9:27 9:31 10:34 12:18 12:24 12:25–7 12:25 12:26 13 13:26 13:33 14:28 14:62 15:35–6 16:1 16:3 16:6 16:7 16:8 16:9–20 16:11
20, 24 597 27, 598 601 601 27, 598 16 27 27, 598 598 517 593 498 597 601 601 461 27, 601 601 601 280 596 27–8, 593, 596–7 596–7, 600–1 596 596 100
2 Biblical Literature 16:14 Luke 1:32 7:14 7:52 7:54 9:7 9:22 11:31–2 (Q 11:31–2) 13:25 13:34–35 (Q 13:34– 35) 14:14 15:24 18:33 24 24:1–12 24:3 24:4 24:5 24:6 24:7 24:13–35 24:23 24:31 24:33 24:34 24:36–43 24:37 24:39–43 24:39 24:49 24:51
49
618 606 607 607 606 27, 606 541, 603, 606 606 602–4 541 45 27, 606 604–12 280 607 44, 604 44, 100, 604 27, 606–7 607 598 44, 100, 604 608 609 49 609 609–11 574 611 617 612–8
John 2:22 5:21 6:40 11:11 12:1 20:1–20 20:15 20:18, 25, 29 20:25 21:14
48–9 40 48 281 48 280 595 601 611 48–9
Acts 1:1–11 1:2
612–8 613, 616
1:3 1:4 2:24, 3:26, 13:33–4 2:25–28 2:30 2:32 2:33 2:34 7:60 9:40–1 10:4 10:26 10:41 12:15 17:3 17:31 17:32 23:8 25:19
Rom 4:17 6:4 14:9 15:19 1 Cor 2:12 4:8 6:14 7:29 9:1 10:3 10:4 15 15:3–5 15:3 15:4
699 100 617 607 617 618 607 617, 622 617 281 44 48 16 607 610 607 607 207, 620 610–1 44, 207, 259, 604, 620
28, 40, 517 29, 30 44, 604 593
15:6 15:12–28 15:12–4 15:12 15:14 15:15
30 576 28 585 601 583 583 572–88, 623 573–6, 598 257, 469 12, 29, 30, 49, 469, 553, 569, 575, 622 257 592 49 576–9 29, 30 28–29, 48–9, 624
1 Cor 2:12 4:8
30 576
Sources (Selected)
700 6:14 7:29 9:1 10:3 10:4 15 15:3–5 15:3 15:4
15:54
28 585 601 583 583 572–88, 623 573–6, 598 257, 469 12, 29, 30, 49, 469, 553, 569, 575, 622 257 592 49 576–9 29, 30 28–29, 48–9, 624 49 49 281 29, 49, 281, 575, 624 49, 578 49, 578 573, 576 592 579–84 49 434, 579 584 49, 579–84 575 612 580, 584 584 584–6, 611 49, 281, 493, 587–8 592 351, 493, 517, 557, 587, 591 351
2 Cor 1:9 3:6 3:17 3:18 5:2–5 5:15 11:13–5 12:2, 4 12:12
28, 41 41 583 588 41, 488 28 588–9 571 593
15:6 15:12–28 15:12–4 15:12 15:14 15:15 15:16 15:17 15:18 15:20 15:29 15:32 15:35–58 15:35–49 15:35–7 15:35 15:37 15:40–1 15:42–4 15:42 15:44 15:45 15:47 15:50 15:51 15:52–4 15:52
13:4
44, 597, 604
Gal 1:16
585
Eph 2:5–6 5:14 6:12
577, 591 16 585
Phil 3:21
576, 588–92, 623
Col 2:12, 3:1
577, 591
1 Thess 1:5 1:10 4:14 4:15–7 4:15 4:16 4:17
593 29 29, 30 621 585 30, 557 570–2, 591–2, 617, 623
2 Tim 1:6 2:17–18
141 577–9
Heb 12:23
42, 609
1 Pet 1:3 1:21 1:24 3:18 11:5
40–1 41 41 40–2 320
Rev 1:18 2:8 11:11–2 16:3 18:2 20:4–5 20:12–3 22:2
100, 604 44, 100 617 44 488 43, 604 43 495
3 Second Temple Literature
701
3 Second Temple Literature Pseudepigrapha Apoc. Esr. 5:7
571
Apoc. Mos. 10.2 13.3 (appar. crit.) 28.4 37.3 37.4 37.5 40.6 41.2–3 43.2
502 502–3 503 503, 571 503 504 504 504 504
Apoc. Zeph. 4:7
545
Ascen. Isa. 9:6–18 9:9
488 489
2 Baruch 30:1–2 30:1 30:3–5 40:1–2 42:8 49:2 49:3 50:2–3 51:1 51:2–5 51:3 51:10 72:2–6 73:6 76:2
485 496, 505 496 483 496, 505 496–7 497, 587 497, 500 497 497 497–8, 587 466, 498, 587 483 537 613
4 Baruch 7:18
45
1 Enoch 12:1 15:4 22 22:13
612–3 586 478 479–81
24:2–25:7 24:3 25:4 25:5 25:6 26:1–27:5 38:2 39:3 46:4 46:6 48:1–6, 49:3–4 51 51:1–5 51:1–3 52:1 56:5–7 61:4–5 62:7 62:14–6 67:8–13 70:1 91 91:10 92:3 100:5 102:5 102:8 103 103:2–4 103:3-4 104:2 108:11–2
466, 481 481 481 481 482 466 485 617 484 484 485 456 485 484 571–2 483 486 487 487–9 483 613 456, 489 489–90 490 490 485 491 456 491–2 466 466 492–3, 587
3 Enoch 28:10
544–5
4 Ezra 2:9 7:26–44 7:28–9 7:32–7 7:32 7:37 7:75–98 7:80 12:32–3 14:47
456 489 485 498 499 486, 505 486, 499 499 610 483 616
Sources (Selected)
702 Jubilees 1:29 4:23 23:29–31
495 571 2, 494–6, 591
LAB 3.10 19.12 25.7 51.7 64.7
505 505 506 506 506
LAE 25.1–3
503
Liv. Pro. 2.8–10 2.15 5
501 501 470
Psalms of Solomon 2:31 3:10–2
456 493 493–4
Ps. Phocylides 100–2 103–15
456 507 507–8
Sib. Or. 4 4.181-2 4.188-92
456 500 500–1
T. Ab. 7.16–7 (short rec.) 13.7 (short rec.) 14.5–6 (short rec.) 20.12 (long rec.)
501–2, 574 585 502 502
T. Job 4:9 39:11–2
473, 574 615–6
39:12
473
T. Mos. 10:9
466
T. 12 Patr. T. Benj. 10:6–8 10:6–9
486 509–11
Test. Jud. 25:1
456
T. Zeb 10:2
511
Dead Sea Scrolls 1QHa col. 14 l. 37 col. 19 l. 15
456 456
4Q201 (4QEna ar) I ii 5
480
4Q205 (4QEnd ar) 1 xi line 1
479
4Q212 (4QEng ar) frag. 1 col. ii l. 13
489
4Q385 frag. 2 frag. 3
515–6 515–6
4Q521 frag. 2 col. ii + 4, lines 1–12 frgs. 7 1–8 + 5 col. ii 7–16, lines 4–8
456, 484, 513, 517
CD 2:7-13
456
514 514–5
4 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature Targums Tg. Neof. Gen 3:19
25:34 30:22 519
519 520, 544, 560
4 Targumic and Rabbinic Literature Tg. Ps-J. Gen 3:19
703
8:5
562
18 Benedictions Second Benediction T-S K 27.33b
516–7, 542
519
Frg. Tg. (P) Gen 25:34
518–9
Tg. Ps.-J. Exod 13:17
561
Mishnah m. Sanh. 10:1
523, 547
561
m. Soṭah 9:15
527–8
Tg. Geniza MS X Exod 13:17
561
b. B. Bat. 16b
519
Tg. Ps-J. Num 11:26
520–1
b. Ber. 15b
535
Tg. Onq. Deut 21:23
563
b. Ḥag 12b
554
Tg. Neof. Deut 32:39
521
Frg. Tg. (V) Deut 32:39
b. Ketub. 8b 111a 111b
528–9 537–8 538
522 529, 532 553
FTP (Paris MS 110) Exod 13:17
Talmud
Frg. Tg. (P) Deut 33:6
522
b. Pesaḥ. 68a 118a
Tg. Neb. Isa 26:19
462
b. Qidd. 39b
539
Tg. Neb. Hos 1:1–3 3:5 6:2 14:8
469 469 468, 543 522
b. Roš Haš. 17a 31a
524–5 546
531 462, 533–4 531–2, 537 532–3 561 546 520, 544
546
Tg. Neb. Zech 3:7 14:4
522 523, 563
Tg. Ket. Job 14:12
473
b. Sanh. 90a–92b 90b 91b 92a 92b 97a 113a
Tg. Ket. Cant 7:10
561
b. Sem. 8:1
Sources (Selected)
704 b. Taʿan 7a
540–1
Deut. Rab. 7:6 (Ki tavo)
543–4
y. Ber. (Venice) 5:2, 9a
543
Esther Rab. 9:2
550–1
y. Ketuv. 12:3, 35a 12:3, 35b
601 538–9
Mek. Pesach 1:7 Shirata 3:1
585 585
y. Šab. 1:3, 3c
527–8
Midr. ʿAseret Melak. 2.466 Eisenstein
549
y. Sanh. 11:8, 30c
542
Midr. Bereshit Rabb. 333 (Martini)
557–8
y. Šeqal. 3:3, 47c
528
Midr. Sim. b. Yoḥay 2.556 Eisenstein
549–50
y. Taʿan 1:1, 63c–d
554–5
Midrash Tannaim Deut 32:39
552–3
y. Yebam. 16:3, 15c
545–6
Midr. Wa-yosha Exod 15:17
547–8
Otiyyot of R. Aqiba (2.416 Eisenstein)
556–7
Pesiq. Rab. 1:9–10 1:19 5:6 31
538 555–6 556 563
Pirq. R. El. 33 51
534, 554, 561 548
S. Eli. Rab. 6
544
Sifra 98 Tzav (Lev 8:34) 99 Shemini (9:22) 194 Per. 13 (18:5)
530 531 531
Sifre Deuteronomy 306 329
530 529, 533
Tosefta t. ʿAbod. Zar. 4:3
478
t. Ber. 6:6
528
t. Ḥul. 10:16 10:16
540
t. Sanh. 13:3 13:5
524 525
Other Rabbinics ʾAbot R. Nat. A5 B 10
525–6 526-7
Gen. Rab. 13:6 20:10 56:1 95:1 100:7
541, 560 519 551–2 536–7 545
5 Magica and Other Papyri Qoh. Rab. 5.12 Yalq. Josh 2:12 (on 2:16), § 347 Rashi on b. Sanh. 90a, 97a
535–6
705
Toledoth Yeshu T.-S. 35.87 fol. 2r.6–11 fol. 2r.12–28
563–4 564–5
MS New York JTS 6312 fol. 68v.74–69r.45
565–6
551
547
5 Magica and Other Papyri Magica Brashear Zauberensemble
33
Kotansky Gr.-Egypt. Invoc.
34
Kotansky Greek Magic. Amul. 384-86 Kropp, Defixiones 6 1/1 PGM IV, 347–50 IV, 367–73 IV, 1949–51 IV 2902–3 IV 2904–5 IV 2913–14 V 249–50
609
XIII 271–3 XIII 277–82 LXII 12–16
193 193 90
P. Mich. 757
32
Suppl. Mag. 1, 50,12–4
33
Other Papyri P. Giss. I, 3
448–9
P. Köln Theol. 32r
467
P. Oxy 1381, col. vi, 119–20
604
P. Petrie 3 142
89
408
32 32 609–10 91 91 91 33–4
6 Coins, Inscriptions, and Other Archaeological Resources Coins Babelon, Inventaire § 5274 BMC Imp. 4 Antoninus Pius § 32 (p. 7)
BMC Imp. 5 (Pert.) § 480 p. 120
424
BMC Lydia § 178 (p. 268)
215
RIC1 2 § 143 (p. 133) 2 § 389A (p. 385)
447 451
215
451
Sources (Selected)
706 2 § 389B (p. 385) 2 § 418a (p. 390) 3 § 435 (p. 247) 3 § 662 (p. 441) 3 § 1702 (p. 349) 4/1 § 396 (p. 275) 5/1 § 2 (p. 64)
452 452 424 424 237 237 237
RIC2 1 § 6 (p. 150)
444
Inscriptions Agora de Palmyre 247
95
AE 1946, 90c 1937, 136
235 244
Bernand, Inscr. Métr. 75
404
Beth Sheʿarim II 99 II 162 II 194 III 15
476 475 485 476
Beth Sheʿarim Avigad 3.242
476
Bosch, Quellen Ankara 408,361
508
Clermont-Ganneau, Inscriptions RAO 7 (1906) 175
V, 1712 VI, 142 VI, 308 VI, 710 VI, 945 VI, 6028 VI, 10098 VI, 19007 VI, 21521 VI, 22882 VI, 24613 VI, 29844, 27a VI, 30157 VI, 34293 VI, 39086 VIII, 1471 VIII, 10475,4 IX, 2628 X, 808 X, 809 XII, 2130 XIII, 510 XIV, 371 XIV, 2112
226 410 235 443–4 448 416 112 207 402–4 233 237 96 404 433 474, 507 453 108 429 337 270 226 118 231 420
GVI 952 1097 1367 1486 1595 1765 1829 1957 2028a
379 405 21, 148 394–5 378 151 151 227 404
IC I 17, 19
254
ICUR 2, 6130 6, 15661–15678 8, 21396
477 233 558
IDid 219
345
IG I3 1179, II.6–7 II2 11140
317, 378 349
127
Colosse de Memnon 29
375
CIL I2 p. 260 II, 4427 III, 355 III, 686 IV, 7353 IV, 8568
115, 342 404 112 395–6 269 269
6 Coins, Inscriptions, and Other Archaeological Resources II2 13446 IV2 141 VII 235 IX,1 874 IX,2 640 XII,1, 142 XII,2 202 XII,3 416 XII,6 1:352 XII,7 123 XII Suppl. 165a XIV 600
228 341 339 23 148 349 405 344 405 405 22–3 124
IGLSyr 4, 1260 21,2 29
95 22, 126
IGUR I, 148 III, 1277 III, 1341 III, 1344 III, 1350 III, 1406
254 228 227 378 379 21, 148, 578
IosPE I2 519
149
ISmyrn 539
151
22
RIChrM 5
227–8
Santa Prisca Mithr.
142
SEG 15, 811 16, 829 18, 425 30, 869 43, 88 45, 182,1 45, 182,2
228–9, 475 508 228 333 23 150 150
TAM II, 26
386
Wilfand Aramaic Tombstones 12, 22 20
478 477
Arch. Resources
JIWE 1, 52 2, 39 2, 173 2, 596 2, 199 2, 245
476 476 476 476 477 477
MAMA 1, 226 1, 234 8, 65
228 226 225
Ramsay Cities and Bishoprics 1.2, § 232 1.2, § 353/4
REG 17 (1904) 203,1b
224 227
Arch of Titus
448
Arch of Trajan
450
BM 1885 1213.20 (Vase) BM 1866 1229.1 (Projecta Casket)
133
Cameo of Nancy
445
Col. of Anton. Pius
453
Dendara Temple
75–7
Dura Europos
94, 516, 559–63
Grand Cameo of Fr.
438
Hypog. Via Dino C.
156, 229–46
LIMC 3.2 § 264, 268–70, 272 (winged Attises)
119
245
707
Sources (Selected)
708 Morey, Gold-Glass Pl. V cat. no. 31 Pl. VII cat. No. 44 Pl. XIII cat. no. 77 Pl. XVIII cat. 108
240 240 240 240
Naples Archaeol. M. 8927 (Osiris) 8929 (navigium Is.) 8570 (sarc. of Os.)
83 82 83
Niger Lapis
271
Os. Hydreios jar Cor.
578
Rome, Villa Giulia red figured cup
386
Sarcophagus of Euhodus and Metilia
231–2
Thugga Temple
453
Tomb of the Nasonii
109, 156, 230, 232
Tomb Vibia and Vincentius
207, 230, 244–5, 407–11, 482
7 Near Eastern Texts ANET 140
73–4
Book of the Dead § 15 § 175, 19–20
80 80
Coffin Texts 1,190
78
CIS 4872.4 5980
126 126
Dendara X 428.1–12 429.13–4 429.1'–8' 430.13'–15'
76 76 76 76
EA 84.31–5 EA 129.49–51
107 107
Frag. Westergaard 4.3
p. 69–71
70
(Sladek) line 407
70–1
Ibiza inscription
132
KAI 4.3–4 12 15.16 44 70 93 66
108 108 140 126 126 126 140
KTU 1.5.V 5–17 1.6 III 2, 8, 20 1.17 VI 26–33
73 74 73
Larnax tēs Lapēthou 3
125
Pyramid Texts § 134 (U. 213) § 151 ([U. 216) § 518 (U. 322) § 819 (U. 442) § 882 (U. 466) § 1385 (U. 556)
78 80 109 79 79 79
52
Inanna’s Descent (Kramer) lines 274–7
70
(Wolk./K.) p. 61
70
7 Near Eastern Texts § 2092–4 (U. 690) Pyrgi Inscription, lines 8–9
79
125
Yasht 19 19.11 19.19 19.89
709
50 50–1 50–1 50–1
Images Index Image one. Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys 75, 626 Image two. The Resurrection of Osiris 75, 626 Image three. The Translation of Ganymede 120, 358, 627 Image four. Figure on a Podium. Berlin Museum VA 569 131–2, 628 Image five. Object under a Winged Sun. Berlin Museum VA 569 131–2, 628 Image six. Pyre or Thymiaterion? Berlin Museum VA 569 131–2, 629 Image seven. Figure on a Small Podium. Berlin Museum VA 569 131–2, 629 Image eight. Tylos Healed by Masnes 186, 215–6, 630 Image nine. Heracles’ Rescue of Alcestis 156, 230, 408, 630 Image ten. Tomb of the Nasonii. Heracles Leads Alcestis to Admetus 156, 232, 631 Image eleven. Heracles and the Serpent of the Hesperides 233, 631 Image twelve. Heracles and a Reclining Enemy 233–4, 632 Image thirteen. Heracles and Athena 234, 632 Image fourteen. The consecratio of Faustina minor 237, 633 Image fifteen. Moses Crossing the Red Sea 240, 633 Image sixteen. The Resurrection of Lazarus 240, 634 Image seventeen. Joshua (or Moses) Leading the Children of Israel to the Promised Land 240, 634 Image eighteen. The Tomb of Vibia 407–8, 410, 635 Image nineteen. The Seizure of Vibia 407–8, 635
Image twenty. The Judgement of Vibia 408 636 Image twenty-one. Vibia’s Entrance into Elysium 409, 637 Image twenty-two. Vibia’s Entrance into Elysium 409, 637 Image twenty-three. The Belvedere Altar: Apotheosis of Caesar (?) 433, 638 Image twenty-four. The Apotheosis of Claudius 442, 638 Image twenty-five. The Deified Claudius 442–3, 639 Image twenty-six. Aureus: radiate divus Claudius and radiate divus Augustus 444 640 Image twenty-seven. The consecratio of Titus 448, 640, 640 Image twenty-eight. The consecratio of Titus 448, 641 Image twenty-nine. The promised consecratio of Trajan 450, 641 Image thirty. Apotheosis or Profectio of Trajan 450, 642 Image thirty-one. The consecratio of Hadrian and Sabina 452, 642 Image thirty-two. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina 453, 643 Image thirty-three. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina 453, 643 Image thirty-four. The Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius (Thugga) 453, 644 Image thirty-five. Elijah’s resurrection of the son of the widow of Zarephath 559, 644 Image thirty-six. The Vision of Ezekiel 560, 562, 645 Image thirty-seven. The Vision of Ezekiel. Continued 560, 562, 645
Ancients Achilles 22, 144–5, 179, 296, 298–9, 325, 330–5, 348–9, 354, 367, 373, 411, 570, 599, 600 Adonis 15, 44, 47, 56–61, 78, 87–112, 121–2, 143, 219, 403–4, 575, 605, 619–20 Aeneas 219, 259, 270, 306, 320, 335–7, 362, 404, 433, 599, 608 Aesop 171–2 Agamemnon 88, 145 Alcestis 38, 53, 152–7, 183, 189–90, 196, 219, 220, 230–4, 238, 242, 246, 294, 331, 408, 605 Alcmene 64, 242, 267–8, 315–7, 321, 339, 363, 365, 367, 598 Alexander the Great 161–2, 253, 270, 323–4, 390–1, 548, 608 Althaemenes 337–8 Amphiaraus 279, 338–40, 599, 608 Amphiareos 155 Anthia 150, 284–5, 287, 321, 621 Antinous 420, 427–8 Antoninus Pius 254?, 450–3 Antyllus 173 Apollonius of Tyana 187, 190–2, 254, 281, 300, 330, 340, 391–3, 599, 600, 606, 608 Aristeas 53, 197–8, 203, 217, 247–54, 267–8, 309, 314, 321, 330, 355, 370, 411, 598, 600, 606, 620–1 Asclepius 21–2, 38, 46, 64–67, 152, 158, 162–71, 179–80, 183, 195–6, 211–3, 219– 223, 246, 254, 270, 314, 340–3, 353–4, 365–6, 424, 574, 577, 579, 600, 604–5, 619–20 Asclepius/Eshmun 61, 140–2 Astakides of Crete 379–80 Astarte 128, 343, 608 Attis 47, 56–61, 103, 105, 110–24, 143, 403– 404, 575, 620 Augustus 108, 263, 413, 416–9, 424–5, 428, 430–1, 433–48 Baal 12, 56–61, 73–4, 108–9, 127, 131–2, 140, 143, 619 Basileia 344, 599, 608
Belus 377–8, 599, 608 Bormus 381, 599, 608 Branchus 344–5, 599 Caeneus 345–6 Callirhoe 279–84, 321, 597, 599, 605, 621 Capaneus 164–6 Chaereas 279–84, 597, 599, 605 Claudius 310, 413, 416, 437–44, 448 Cleomedes 250, 267–8, 310–5, 321, 358, 370, 598, 621 Croesus 339, 390, 393–4, 399 Demophoon 101, 325, 332, 347–8 Dionysus 19, 22–3, 56, 60, 63–5, 80, 83–5, 125, 129, 132–40, 143, 146, 153, 180, 184–6, 220, 250, 280, 365–6, 371–2, 424, 577–9, 590, 619 Dioscuri 65, 141, 350–4, 359–60, 365, 376, 590, 600 Domnina 394–5 Iulia Drusilla 416–7 Dumuzi/Tammuz 12, 56–9, 61, 69–73, 87, 143, 619 Dyer, A Christian 319, 321, 621 Echetlaeus 354, 608 Elijah 10–2, 132, 306, 399, 474, 520, 527–8, 544, 548, 554–5, 559, 561, 601, 603, 612– 614, 618 Elisha 9–10, 474, 561, 574, 612 Empedocles 183, 200, 396–9, 608 Enoch 320, 478–93, 509, 571, 603, 613–4, 617–8 Epimenides 19, 187, 197, 217, 354–6, 606 Er 172–3, 183, 197 Euhodus and Metilia Acte 112, 230–2, 240 Eunostus of Tanagra 302–3 Eurynous of Nicopolis 197, 199 Ezra 551, 613, 616, 618 Faustina I 453 Faustina II 237 Ganymede 120–1, 311–2, 356–8, 362, 571, 599, 608, 616 Glaucus 46–7, 154, 157–9, 164–6, 168, 171, 183, 212, 219–23, 386, 599, 605
712
Ancient Individuals
Hadrian 375, 407, 428, 448–52 Hamilcar 398–9, 599, 608 Hector 22, 88, 145, 333–4, 354, 360–2, 383, 600 Helen 292, 333, 352, 359–60, 377, 411, 570 Heracles 19, 22, 53, 64–6, 146, 152–7, 169, 171, 183–5, 189–90, 196, 202, 204–6, 220, 230–5, 238, 241–6, 306, 315–6, 320, 339, 354, 360, 362–7, 380–1, 399, 577, 590, 600, 604–5, 608, 616, 620–1 Heracles/Melqart 22–3, 56, 60–1, 124–32, 139,143, 619 Heraclides Ponticus 184, 198, 217, 370, 396– 400 Hermotimus/Hermodorus the Clazomenian 19, 21, 183, 188, 197–8, 217, 248, 314, 368–70, 606 Hersilia 270, 370–1, 608 Hippolytus 21, 46, 162–8, 183, 195, 211–3, 219–21, 223, 342 Hyacinth 371–2 Tineia Hygeia 378 Hylas 379–81, 608 Hymenaeus 164–6, Hymenaeus and Philetus 578–9 Ino 372–3 Iolaus 124, 129–30, 184–5, 363–4 Iphigeneia 325, 377, 570 Isis 69, 75–7, 80, 82–4, 101, 122, 129, 239, 309, 350, 577–9 Jairus, daughter of 20–1, 607 John the Apostle 318, 321, 621 Julian 95, 115–6, 119, 123, 195, 400–1, 595, 608, 624 Julius Caesar 162, 209, 267, 270, 404–5, 413–4, 418, 424, 428–33 Lazarus 40, 206, 222, 240–1, 244 Lycurgus 164–6 Mariniana 237 Mary Magdalene 202–3, 208, 593 Masnes 186, 215 Maximus of Tyre 353–4, 600 Melicertes 372–3, 577 Memnon 373–5, 385, 411, 570 Menelaus 45, 351, 359, 376–7 Moses 64, 240–1, 306, 466, 474, 505, 533, 552, 586, 614–5, 617 Naumachius of Epirus 197–201, 599 Nebuchadnezzar II 377–8, 548, 561 Marcus Lucceius Nepos 402–5
Nero 245, 413, 416, 419–20, 438–9, 444–5, 448 Numa Pompilius 247, 256–8, 262, 303–10, 321, 598 Numerius Atticus 437 Odysseus 156, 178, 325, 331, 362, 372, 387– 389 Oedipus 361, 381–3 Osiris 34, 55, 56–61, 68–9, 74–87, 97–101, 103, 106–7, 109, 136, 143, 180, 404, 575, 578–9, 598–9, 619 Pelops 45, 89, 155, 170–1, 223, 411, 608 Penelope 387–8 Peregrinus Proteus 4, 330, 399, 401–2, 411, 600, 621 Pertinax 422–4 Philinnion 200–1, 253, 287–91, 302, 321, 335, 599, 600, 621 Pirithous 156–7 Polycritus 198–9, 288, 291 Polyidus 46, 157–9, 168, 219, 221–3, 246, 599, 605, 620 Pompeius Magnus 30, 150, 405–7, 493, 513 Poppaea Sabina 419–20 Proculus 255–60, 263, 265–8, 270–2, 330, 427, 437, 599, 600, 621 Protesilaos 13, 154–5, 174–6, 189, 202–3, 205–6, 219–20, 247, 284, 291–302, 321, 339, 605, 621 Rhesus 383–4 Romulus 66, 68, 247, 250, 254–72, 306, 309–10, 315, 317, 321, 330, 336–7, 370– 71, 404, 411, 424, 427, 437, 441, 599– 600, 608, 616, 621 Rufus of Philippi 199–200 Vibia Sabina 450, 452 Sarpedon 384–7 Semiramis 320, 387, 599 Septimius Severus 142, 423–4 Symeon the Fool 319–21, 621 Telegonus 387–8 Telemachus 14, 387–8 Theseus 21, 156–7, 162, 167, 183, 202, 205, 219, 280, 381–3 Timosthenes the Athenian 183 Titus 413, 416, 444, 446–8, 498 Trophonius 278, 339, 369, 384, 389–90 Tymon the Lydian 183 Tyndareus 46, 164–6, 168, 171, 183, 216, 350–3
Ancient Individuals Tylos 183, 185–6, 215–6 Vibia and Vincentius 207, 230, 244–5, 407– 411, 482
713
Zalmoxis 201, 204–6, 272–9, 285–6, 321, 384, 598–9, 620
Modern Authors Allison, D. 313, 318, 528, 562, 586 Avery-Peck, A. J. 524, 530–1 Bertram, G. 1, 57 Betz, H. D. 5, 32–3, 81, 90, 98–9, 142, 203, 292, 305, 309, 329, 355, 402, 593, 598, 609–10 Bickerman, E. 1–2, 56–7, 289, 322, 330, 417, 422–5, 436, 527, 597–8, 603, 607–8, 622 Blomqvist, J. 19, 146, 427–8, 508, 587 Bonnet, C. 124, 126–7 Bousset, 43, 573–4 Bovon, F. 594, 607, 610–12 Bowersock, G. 278, 284, 286, 302, 389 Boyarin, D. 6, 513, 558 Bremmer, J. N. 1, 4, 35, 50, 53, 56, 63, 91, 97, 100, 111, 119, 121, 156, 160, 164, 183, 187, 191, 193, 197, 215, 228, 248, 268, 272, 277, 279–80, 284–6, 302, 317– 8, 362, 368, 373, 378, 385, 402, 503, 588, 607, 609, 624 Bultmann, R. 5, 37, 40, 42, 573–4 Burkert, W. 57–8, 62–3, 87, 103, 108, 122, 130, 137, 163, 276, 293, 299, 300, 302, 351, 353, 361–2, 394 Charles, R. H. 43, 455, 479–92, 494–5, 510, 613 Charlesworth, J. H. 456, 483, 515 Clermont-Ganneau, C. 127, 129 Coleman, K. M. 50, 245, 284 Collins, J. J. 455, 463, 465, 467–8, 494, 496, 500, 507–8 Cauville, S. 75–7 Dolet, É. 595 Eck, W. 127, 413 Elledge, C. D. 455, 470, 500, 508, 510, 515– 16 Endsjø, D. Ø. 1, 7, 55, 248, 268, 272, 289, 315, 323, 387, 411–2, 570–1, 573, 578, 588, 623 Fascher, E. 1, 7, 26, 144, 573 Finney, M. T. 1, 534, 573, 584, 593 Fowler, R. L. 62–3, 87, 165, 220, 317 Frazer, J. G. 1, 57–8, 61–2, 66, 96, 156, 170,
205, 332, 338, 372 Frey, J. 5, 517 Fullmer, P. M. 385, 599 Griffiths, J. G. 78–85, 101, 129, 137 Hopfner, T. 158, 172–3, 191, 290 Hume, D. 3–4, 6, 594, 624 Kotansky, R. 32, 34, 609 Lancellotti, M. G. 111, 118–9 Lane Fox, R. 6, 594–5, 604 Lehtipuu, O. 2, 36, 207, 455, 465–6, 492, 495, 584, 589, 623 Lipiński, É. 95, 108–9, 126–7, 129, 131 Litwa, M. D. 1, 169, 262 Lüdemann, G. 4–5, 248, 591, 624 Mettinger, T. N. D. 1, 57–8, 60–1, 69–75, 82, 89, 91–3, 95, 98–9, 107–9, 117, 122, 124–9, 131–2, 140, 143 Miller, R. C. 1, 63, 67, 85, 309, 329–30, 604, 608, 612 Mitchell, M. M. 202, 572 Monnickendam, Y. 521, 529–32 Nagy, G. 292, 301, 331–2, 334, 347–9, 363, 374, 383, 570 Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 455, 465–7, 473, 478– 96, 501, 505, 509, 586, 613–4 Novakovic, L. 513, 516, 552 Obryk, M. 151, 378, 395 Oepke, A. 1, 7, 144, 197, 577 Pfister, F. 242, 268, 353 Porter, S. 152, 512 Reitzhammer, L. 91–4 Robert, L. 214–6, 224–9 Rohde, E. 198, 256, 268, 274, 277–8, 331, 338, 345–6, 355–6, 368, 376–9, 385–6, 388–9, 395 Rüpke, J. 309, 415, 434 Sawyer, J. F. A. 8, 462 Schrage, W. 29, 575, 578, 583, 586 Setzer, C. 455–6, 623 Sfameni Gasparro, G. 58, 111–2, 116, 123, 142, 407 Smith, D. A. 597, 602–3, 608–9, 615–6 Smith, J. Z. 1, 50, 56–9, 61–2, 74–6, 83, 99,
Modern Authors 100, 111, 121, 143, 192, 207, 330 Smith, M. J. 75–6, 87 Smith, M. S. 57, 60, 71, 73–4, 99, 457 Stramaglia, A. 198–9, 253, 287–9, 291, 295, 297–9, 302, 610 Strauss, D. F. 4–5 Stroumsa, G. G. 55, 455–6, 623 Stuckenbruck, L. 479, 489–92 Sysling, H. 455, 518–22, 533 Tappenden, F. S. 575, 580, 584, 592 Taylor, J. E. 594 VanderKam, J. 478, 480, 483, 486, 488,
715
490–91, 494 Vermès, G. 6 Wedderburn, A. J. M. 1, 60, 78–9, 120–1, 132–3, 389, 583 Wright, N. T. 31 Wolter, M. 29, 610 Yarbro Collins, A. 1, 248, 263, 309, 593, 596, 601 Zeller, D. 1–2, 55, 143, 147, 152, 156, 169, 172, 189, 275, 287, 289–90, 297, 329, 572, 575, 578–9, 584–7, 602–3, 623
Subjects and Terminology aether 151, 221, 227–8, 317–8, 349, 378–9, 406–7 !Û 85, 169, 188, 312, 350, 352–3, 365, 374, 392, 588 !Ì, !Û 50, 66, 147, 159, 188, 250,273–4, 276–7, 312, 323–7, 334–5, 340, 347–9, 356–7, 360, 362–3, 375–6, 379, 387–8, 392–3, 416, 427, 434, 437, 439, 503, 507, 512, ambrosia 323, 325–6, 336, 347–9, 385 Iı 13, 35, 44, 50, 85, 130, 146–8, 153, 159, 161–2, 164, 171–2, 175, 182–3, 185, 188–92, 197–200, 290, 292–3, 302, 321 474, 512, 621 IÛ 81, 85, 106, 136, 139, 162, 168, 471 ˘ , Ì , ˘ 44–5, 159, 170, 181, 469 I: 135, 165, 180–2, 205, 285–6 ]Ì, ]Ì, Anastasia 476–7 Ì (res.) 22, 35–6, 40, 43, 113, 146, 155, 160, 164, 172, 175, 177, 206, 224, 228, 398, 471, 473, 475, 501–4, 533, 541, 574, 579 F, ἐ !F distinguished 16–7 (! 473, 567, 612–4, 617 Û (for res.) 10, 19, 20, 22, 25, 27, 29, 35–6, 44–5, 48, 64, 66, 85, 102, 113, 130, 144–7,154–9, 162–8, 172, 175– 177, 179–80, 183, 187–8, 195–6, 198, 201–3, 206, 284, 322, 369, 389, 456, 460– 1, 464, 466–8, 471, 472–3, 491, 493–4, 500–4, 509, 575, 586, 597, 599, 606–7 apotheosis 66, 169, 213, 236–8, 250, 259–60, 263, 269–70, 274–7, 305–6, 318, 322, 335, 341–3, 360, 363–6, 387, 400–1, 405–6, 413, 428–54, 508, 578–9, 597–8, 607–8, 617–8, 622–3 (! Û 83, 125, 324, 326–9, 348, 350–1, 359, 361, 508, 512, 575, 585, 588, 590 ascension of Jesus 41, 54, 68, 143, 169, 322, 329, 411, 413, 428, 454, 565, 570, 597,
601, 612–8 ascension of gods/heroes 68, 99, 135, 143, 169, 266, 272, 342, 365 ascension of imperators 66, 424, 427, 436–7, 454 castasterism 65–6, 151, 167, 169, 221–2, 342, 353–4, 359, 403–5, 427–8, 430–3 consecratio 231, 237–8, 269, 413–7, 423–5, 434, 436–8, 446–7, 449–54, 612, 622–3 daimones/corpse-daimones, invocation of 31–4 Û (meanings besides res.) 13–21, 24–6, 31–4 (rousing of daimones), 35, 150–1 Û (for res.) 9, 21–30, 104, 138– 40, 146, 148–9, 163–4, 167, 194, 460–1, 463–466, 472–4, 501, 573–5, 592 > 22, 30, 36, 61, 128–9, 193 Û 22, 126–7 Elysium 317, 322, 334–5, 361–2, 373–6, 394–5, 407, 409–11, 433, 482, 503–4, 512 Empty Tombs 2, 5, 53–4, 111, 203, 206, 247–91, 303–21, 322, 566–8, 570–612 Ì 42–5, 97–8, 100, 153, 158, 167, 175–6, 191, 198, 282–4, 286–7, 289, 355, 396, 459, 468, 600, 604–6, 619 185, 456, 459–60, 464–5, 471, 481–2, 493, 500, 503, 533 Ô 194 Ô 28, 37–42, 475, 517 ı 159 funerals (imperial family) 54, 66, 401, 413– 28, 430, 433–4, 436–8, 622 funus imaginarium 417–23, 576 Gnosticism 30, 36–7, 112–3, 302, 574–5, 591, 594–5, 619, 623 ḥyh (live) 11–3, 460, 462, 468, 497, 514–5, 517, 522, 528–9, 531–3, 542–6, 548–56, 563 hypogeum of the via Dino Compagni 53, 156, 229–46, 408, 410 immortal bodies 85, 267, 323–9, 332, 334, 350, 352–3, 360, 365, 374, 411–2, 512,
Subjects 571, 588, 621 immortality by fire 101, 332, 347–50, 364–5, 367, 590 immortality of the soul/spirit 2, 12, 41–2, 83, 120–1, 188, 195, 231–2, 238, 246, 256, 270, 273–7, 296, 373, 375, 392–3, 456, 492, 494, 506–8, 516, 562, 568, 576, 578, 580, 584, 592, 600, 622, 624 Island of the Blesssed 227, 317, 330, 334, 361, 375–6, 388, 411, 579 Leuke 322, 331–4, 411, 600 Û 478–81 mqm ʾlm 61, 73, 125–7 ʿmd (stand, rise) 10, 467–8, 515, 537–8, 556– 557 ʿmydah (standing, res.) 475–6
45, 81, 85, 139, 175, 188, 279, 281, 599 Potidea Inscription (aether) 317, 378 qûm (rise) 9–11, 457, 459–60, 468, 472–3, 496–7, 515, 517 qyṣ (awake) 8–9, 460–1, 463–4, 472, 533, 554–5, resurrection (def.) 2–3, 322, 598 resurrection (of Jesus) 3–6, 27–30, 40, 43–4, 47, 53–4, 56, 65, 68–9, 100, 143, 157, 166, 172, 201–8, 248, 251, 257–9, 314–5, 321, 366, 398–9, 411, 428, 454, 563–8, 570–
717
624 resurrections (permanent) 50–3, 56–143 passim, 159–60, 162, 458–569 passim, 570–612 passim resurrections (temporary) 9–10, 144–246 passim, 474 resurrection (terminology) 7–13, 21–30, 37– 45, 46–9 “resurrection” of the spirit/soul 35–6 revivification or exaltation of the spirit 302, 466, 478, 491–2, 494–6, 568 rise/stand up (res.) (young Avestan) 50–2 surgo, resurgo 2, 46–9, 218, 619 tanšeʾa (rise) 479–80, 484–5, 487, 489–91, 495,571, 592 tḥyyt mtym (res. of the dead) 519–20, 523, 527–8, 530, 532, 535, 539–41, 543, 547, 553 tomb (traditional) of Jesus 594 tomb of the Nasonii 109, 156, 230, 232–3 tomb of Vibia and Vincentius 207, 230, 244– 5, 407–11, 482 translation (def.) 56–7, 322, 329–30 translations (cf. also apotheosis) 322–412 passim, 612–7 translation terms 170–1, 322, 326, 329–411, 330 (a list), 570–2, 597, 608